sive Ambassadorial Chancellery - was a locus of state power which controlled far-flung territories. Chancelleries in these categories were the largest, best funded, most powerful and most honourable of all the administrative organs in the central government.
Like the workaday lower-court nobility, the chancellery personnel grew more powerful during the course of the century for the simple reason that the tsar found their services increasingly indispensable. Modern states cannot operate without relatively efficient - or at minimum, effective - bureaucracies. They collect the taxes, recruit personnel, and organise complex affairs generally Throughout early modern Europe, states were travelling a road that made them more and more dependent on the offices of well-trained, skilled administrators. So it was in Muscovy By the close of the century, the status of both administrators and administrative work had risen appreciably More and more of them were elevated to the royal council, and increasingly hereditary military servitors of very high status (the old boyars and 'new men') opted to serve the tsar in the prikazy.50 The once entirely martial ruling class gained a hybrid character, working with near equal frequency in the court, army and
50 Robert O. Crummey, 'The Origins of the Noble Officiaclass="underline" The Boyar Elite, 1613-1689', in D. K. Rowney and W M. Pintner (eds.), Russian Officialdom: The Bureaucratization of
offices. It was a common story, one that has parallels in Prussia, France and all other successful early modern states.51
Other central institutions: the 'boyar council' and 'Assembly of the Land'
The tsar, the court and the prikazy were the central stable elements of Muscovite governance throughout the seventeenth century. This being said, there were two other institutions, quite different in character, that we find in this era: the so-called 'boyar council' (boiarskaia duma) and Assembly of the Land' (zemskii sobor). Both have been the subject of considerable controversy. Early historians, with their eyes to the West, saw in them formal counselling and even representative bodies, the Russian analogues to peer councils and parliaments. Later historians called these views into question, noting that both terms were invented by eighteenth-century Russian historians and that there is very little in law or custom that defined the competence or operation of these bodies. With this in mind, let us look at what is known about these institutions today.
The phrase boiarskaia duma, though a later coinage, has come to stand for the regular high councils held at the courts of Kievan, apanage and particularly Muscovite princes from the ninth to the early eighteenth century.52 It appears in no medieval or early modern Russian source. The terms 'council' (duma), 'privy council' (blizhniaia duma) and 'tsar's senate' (tsarskii sinklit) appear in Muscovite sources and refer to a royal council of some sort. In early Muscovy, dependent service families, not princes or independent lords, staffed the council. Consistent with this fact, the council seems to have evolved into an
Russian Society from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century (Chapel Hilclass="underline" University of North Carolina Press, 1980), pp. 46-75. Also see Bickford O'Brien, 'Muscovite Prikaz Administration of the Seventeenth Century: The Quality of Leadership', FOG 24 (1978):
223-35.
51 On the All-European context, see Marshall T. Poe, 'The Military Revolution, Administrative Development, and Cultural Change in Early Modern Russia', Journal of Early Modern History 2 (1998): 247-73, and his 'The Consequences of the Military Revolution in Muscovy in Comparative Perspective', Comparative Studies in Society and History 38 (1996): 603-18.
52 The literature on the boyar elite (what we have called the duma ranks of the sovereign's court) is immense, while studies of the duma per se are few (largely due to a lack of sources). The standard treatments, all somewhat dated, are: V O. Kliuchevskii, Boiarskaia duma drevnei Rusi. Opytistoriipravitel'stvennogo uchrezhdeniiav sviazi s istoriei ohshchestva, 3rd edn (Moscow: Sinodal'naia tipografiia, 1902); S. F. Platonov, 'Boiarskaia duma - predshestvennitsa senata', in his Stat'ipo russkoi istorii (1883-1912), 2nd edn (St Petersburg: M. A. Aleksandrov 1912), pp. 447-94; V I. Sergeevich, Drevnosti russkogo prava, vol. 11: Vecheikniaz'. Sovetnikikniazia, 3rd edn (St Petersburg, 1908). The best modern treatment is Bogatyrev, The Sovereign and his Counsellors.
instrument of the prince's private administration (his 'patrimony' (votchina)). Officers of the domain ('chiliarchs' (tysiatskie)), 'major-domos' (dvoretskie), 'seal-bearers' (pechatniki), 'treasurers' (kaznacheia)) are identified among his counsellors. Classes appear among the boyars in the council early on: the 'privy boyars' (vvedennye boiare) and 'departmental boyars' (putnye boiare), for example, are distinguished from all others. These men were probably agents of the prince's private administration, but this is not certain. The competence of the council appears to have been extensive but is indistinguishable from that of the prince. No formal definition of powers is found in any source. Similarly, nothing is known of the internal operation of the council in the early period.
The princely council underwent considerable development in connection with the rise of Muscovy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. To the old Muscovite service families were added immigrants from defeated apanages, the Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Tatar khanates. These new arrivals were at first given minor positions in the grand-princely administration and later, after they had been tested, were given high court rank and served as councillors. Records of this era permit the identification of most of those holding these ranks, something impossible in the Kievan and Apanage periods.[25] The evidence suggests that the number of men holding 'conciliar ranks' (dumnye chiny) was small, hovering around fifteen members in the years of Ivan III and Vasilii III, though it increased in size to about fifty under Ivan IV In this period the competence of the duma - or at least of certain members of the council - is suggested in legislation and legal documents for the first time. The Law Code (Sudebnik) of 1497 directs that the 'boyars and okol'nichie are to administer justice' (suditi sud boiaram i okol'nichim), and it is known from surviving cases that they did so.54 In like measure, the duma seems to have had some legislative authority, as can be seen in the often-repeated Muscovite formula 'the sovereign orders and the boyars affirm' (gosudar' ukazal i boiare prigov- orili). Despite these hints, the exact boundaries of the duma's independent competence, if any, remained unregulated.
Towards the end ofthe sixteenth century foreigners provided some sketchy evidence of the operation of the council.55 They report seeing the council arrayed during ambassadorial audiences. However, it is evident that on such occasions the members played highly scripted roles that probably did not reflect the proceeding of 'private' council meetings. According to the English ambassador Giles Fletcher, central and provincial administrators, as well as private suitors, appeared before the duma on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at seven in the morning.[26] The foreigners generally dismissed the duma as an ineffectual body, but this is not entirely accurate.[27] The council was very active during the Time of Troubles and succeeded in imposing an oath on Tsar Vasilii Shuiskii in 1606. According to Kotoshikhin, a similar oath was taken by Michael Romanov in 1613, but this is uncorroborated.58
25
On the membership of the duma (or at least the identity of those holding duma ranks) in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, see: S. B. Veselovskii,
Poe, A
26
Giles Fletcher,