Abstract. The article explores the category of milostnik (beneficiary). This issue has been repeatedly raised in the national historical writing. Back in the 19th century historians noticed that the ancient Russian chronicles mentioned prince’s milostniks, and put forward assumptions about their social status and connection with the ruler (prince). However, it was only in the 20th century when special scholarly studies on the ancient Russian prince’s milostniks appeared. These studies were based on Marxist methodology, which gave priority to socio-economic and class relations, without paying sufficient attention to relations specific to ancient and medieval societies, such as ties of patronage, affinity, kinship, personal service, etc. The prince’s milostniks were considered in Soviet historical science as the predecessors of later nobles, junior servants of the prince, ministerials. The present study integrates the accomplishments of national historians (pre-revolutionary, Soviet, modern), as well as foreign ethnologists and anthropologists. Drawing on a number of historical sources, Russian and Lithuanian chronicles, the author analyzes all the available chronicle reports about the milostniks and comes to conclusions that allow us to significantly revise the previously established concepts. According to the author of the article, milostniks are a dependent category of the people of Ancient Rus’, who were cut off from their kin due to various life circumstances, and therefore found themselves in need of protection and patronage of the ruler, the prince. The milostniks could be connected with the prince by bonds of affinity. This did not change their dependent position, but only obliged the prince to take them under his protection. The relationship between the prince and the milostniks can be described as that of a patron and clients. Those were relations of personal service, different from those that were established later, in the 12th century, between the prince and the nobles, i.e. service based on the land tenure. Thus, the research which has been conducted in this paper allows us to conclude that the milostniks were not the predecessors of the nobles, but a social category of their time, rooted in the ancient tribal structure of society.