The Russian Empire 1450–1801

(Marvins-Underground-K-12) #1

Not surprisingly, offices to record the state’sfinances, human resources, and
international relations accompanied Muscovy’s rise to regional power in the late
fifteenth century. Thefirst officials to be mentioned were Ivan III’s treasurers from
the Greek Khovrin and Trakhaniotov families. Before then only a few bureaucratic
records survive—grand-princely wills, treaties among the ruling family, a few
administrative charters. By the sixteenth century, the court was keeping essential
military records: land cadasters for the growing service-tenure land system
(pomest’e), rosters of officer assignments in campaigns (razriadnye knigi), and
official genealogical books of the highest clans. References to offices (initially
“desks,”eventually chanceries) begin to be encountered in the early sixteenth
century—Foreign Affairs, Military and Land Offices. Thereafter their number
grew rapidly with state and empire building. Some were multi-functional (judicial,
financial, administrative) over territories (chanceries for Kazan, Siberia, and north-
ern provinces) or social groups (musketeers, gentry, new model troops). Others did
a single function empire-wide (criminal law, revenue collection). Some lasted
through the seventeenth century, others only a few decades.
At mid-sixteenth century, Moscow enhanced centralized control by leaning on
local traditions of collective responsibility. Two important functions were decen-
tralized into locally elected boards, one of local gentry for arresting and prosecuting
bands of recidivist robbers and thieves (gubareform of the 1530s) and one of
peasants for collecting direct land taxes (zemskiireform of the 1550s). Both boards
constituted unpaid service to the tsar and were under central control: overseen by
the central judicial chancery, the criminal law“elder”used grand-princely judicial
procedure and laws (1497 and 1550, 1550s criminal charters); the“land”boards
had no autonomy to spend locally the taxes they collected. But the state was able to
enforce such uncompensated labor because of East Slavic traditions of collective
responsibility (communities were used to working together for local interest) and
because these institutions served local needs. Criminal law posses were patrolling
their home area; putting tax collection in peasant hands allowed collective distri-
bution according to locally perceived needs.
From mid-sixteenth century Muscovy began to establish a bureaucratic frame-
work that endured through the eighteenth century, an empire-wide network of
military men appointed as governors as part of their mandatory military service.
Jacks of all trades, governors worked with scribes who provided specializedfiscal,
administrative, or judicial expertise. Governors had numerous incentives to per-
form: they depended upon the state for land, labor, and cash support; the law
threatened harsh punishment for malfeasance. The state tried to limit corruption or
the emergence of local satrapies by keeping terms short (two years), by mandating
sufficient material support (from the community), and by not assigning governors
to their native regions. Over the seventeenth century, governors folded criminal law
and tax collection boards under their purview, streamlining central control.
Central chanceries in Moscow oversaw this local network and kept it functional.
They kept meticulous records of personnel, from which a fascinating picture
emerges. From 44 in 1626 the number of chanceries grew to 55 in 1698, and
clerical staff increased accordingly: senior secretaries (d’iaki) from 656 in 1626 to


The State Wields its Power 173
Free download pdf