The Noble Servitor and His World 43
comm unity. Historians have assumed that servitors' allocations were rounded
up similarly, and that a chetvert' was equivalent to 11 /J acres in one field and
about 4 acres in all.^31 It is not certain, though, that servitors, especially the
poorer ones, were abie to make good such a claim in practice. Even those who
did had to be content with actual holdings that were only a portion of their
entitlement, estimated at 25-60 per cent in the sixteenth century and 5-40 per
cent in the seventeenth.^32 The 1649 Jaw code (Ulozheniye) laid down a sliding
scale, whereby those with allotments of 400 quarters were to get 70 'in one
field', and those with 70 quarters 25.^33
Men would try to bring their holdings up to the level of their entitlement.
One way of doing so was to petition for an additional grant (pridacha), on
grounds of merit or need. Thus in 1637 A. Kostev asked for extra land and
cash because of his martial exploits nearly 20 years earlier and because 27 of
his kinsmen had been killed in the tsar's service; he had also been a deputy to
the Land Assembly (zemskiy sobor) 'and had done no harm to Thy, the
Sovereign's, affairs'. He declared his entitlement to be 600 quarters and 65
roubles; an investigation showed that it was only 300 quarters and 30 roubles;
yet 'for his relatives' blood' his norm was raised to 700 quarters and 70 roubles
(presumably with an equivalent increase in the actual holding).^34 In 1648 the
whole service organization of Belgorod, Jed by two vybornye, petitioned for
additional compensation on account of their work in building the defence line,
and were awarded 50 quarters each.^35 Sometimes the authorities took the
initiative themselves: for instance, all those whose serfs had been killed in the
Smolensk War were given an additional 50 quarters plus I rouble for each man
(up to a certain limit).^36 In 1679, to celebrate an armistice with the Turks, the
government granted land entitlements ranging from 500 quarters for a boyar
to 100 for ordinary provincial servitors^37 -largesse on a scale that could not
possibly be implemented and by now must have lost its propagandist effect.
One could also purchase extra land, especially in the frontier zone, where
potentially rich but as yet thinly settled territory was relatively plentiful up to
the mid-seventeenth century; or simply take possession of it by force. Servitors
were under obligation to report their total holdings to the assessor and
Razryad officials when the time came for a new verstan 'ye, as well as to the
census-takers (pistsy). In practice it was usually not too difficult to conceal at
least part of one's holdings, although there was always a danger of denuncia-
tion by jealous fellow-servitors, who under the surety system were required to
pass on precisely information of this kind. Officials were heavily dependent on
·^11 Cf. Ealon, 'Censuses', p. 21. For purposes of the land tax, the unit of a.,,e,smcnt (sokha) for
gentry servitors comprised 800 quarters of good, 1,000 of average, and 1,200 of poor land; church-
men and 'black' peasants were assessed at a higher rate.
32 Hellie, Enserfmenl, pp. 37, 290 n. 106; cf. Stashevsky, 'Sluzh. sosloviye', p. 21.
JJ Ulozheniye, xvi. 40.
J 4 AMC ii. 74; cf. 34, 60; Vazhinsky, Zem/evladeniye, p. 80.
Jl AMC ii. 371. Jo AMC ii. I (1635).
17 DRV xvii. 312-13; cf. A. Vostokov. in Kalachov, Materiuly, iii. 40.