Abstract
In this work the following phenomena understudied in historiography are researched: foundation, operation, and decline of allodial monasteries. It is supposed that the spread of such ancestral pilgrimages was considerably wider than it has been thought in the literature before now. They did not grow into significant landowner monasteries, by and large. The research of these phenomena is achievable by using source study methods, including the analysis of toponymy and of the cadaster, deed, and cartography sources. The opportunities of such approach are demonstrated through the example of a short history of the Bulgak Monastery in the Principality of Ryazan. The localization of that monastery within the one-third domain of Prince Fyodor Vasilievich enabled to identify his churchwarden as Matvey Denisievich Bulgak Yuriev whose varieties of fortune explain the reasons for a quick decline of that religious house.