In Moscow the legislative authority was entirely in the hands of the absolute tsar, but the work of the executive (when the tsar was absent, and so on) necessitated the taking of many decisions by the duma independently of the tsar, the boyars being commissioned for such purposes either in perpetuity or for long periods.
In the year 1700 Peter dissolved the duma of boyars, but the institution persisted in fact, for Peter had to make use of a council. It consisted at first of members directly appointed by himself, but owing to his frequent absences the bureaucracy was strengthened, the duma and its departments living on in the senate and in the governmental colleges.
The centralisation and bureaucratisation of the Muscovite state led to the development of a species of feudalism. Owing to the prevalence of a natural economy the Moscow sovereign could more frequently bestow land as a reward than had been possible to the petty princes and the Kievic grand prince. Centralisation was perfected by confiscating the estates of refractory and obnoxious princes and their boyars, the serving boyars and princes being rewarded with gifts of land. Thus side by side with the inherited family estates (votčina), analogous to the western allodia, there grew up the benefices granted in fief by the monarch.[1]
In Russia, enfeoffment had a different signification from what it had in Europe, for the simple reason that the land was here less cultivated than in Germany for instance. In the west the Teutons found cultivated lands, already prepared by tillers of the soil, but the Russians had to undertake the first tasks of cultivation, those which the Romans, the Celts, and the western Slavs had effected before the Franks appeared upon the scene. In Russia the soil was therefore of far less value, and was indeed practically worthless. Subsequently,
too, enfeoffment in Russia remained different from the similar institution in the west. The position was comparatively independent of scutage. The prince's retainer was freer and could transfer his services from one prince to another, for this necessarily followed from the subdivision of sovereignty and of territory, the petty princes occupying mutual
- ↑ Poměstie signifies land, estate, domain, with a connotation of high social position; from this is derived the contemporary term poměščik, landed proprietor which lacks the connotation the word had in Moscow.
