We present to the attention of the general reader a popular science book about the medieval history of Northern Rus' - from Ancient Rus' through the appanage period to Moscow Rus'. Geographically, the study covers Belozersk, Vologda and Ustyug lands. The history of this remote outskirts of Ancient Rus' is analyzed on the basis of various written sources and taking into account the latest archaeological data. The ways of integration of the North with the metropolis, the forms of administrative and territorial structure of the vast region in the 15th–17th centuries are shown. and the legacy of the Horde yoke. The author focuses on the process of “mutual assimilation” of civil and church forms and structures in the economic and socio-political development of space, characteristic of this region. In this work, using the example of the cities of Vologda and Ustyug, issues of historical demography are considered. As an experience of microhistory, essays are offered on the institution of family and marriage among urban and rural residents of the North, on the first and last Vologda appanage prince Andrei Vasilyevich Mensh, on the history of the peasant family of the Rychkovs from the Ust-Vym bishop's estate in the 1650s–1670s. and especially about the richest Vologda guest G. M. Fetiev. The work also reveals the sociocultural aspect of the history of the medieval Russian North: individual and collective practices of mercy, feasts and fraternities, as well as oral and written, urban and rural principles in the daily functioning of book culture and literacy.