Chapter 1.—Blasphemers and Church Troublemakers. In It Are 9 Articles.

1. If believers in non-Orthodox faiths, of whatever creed, or a Russian, casts abuse on the Lord God and our Savior Jesus Christ, or on the Lady Most Pure Who gave birth to Him, our Mother of God the Chaste Maiden Mary, or on the Holy Cross, or on His Holy Saints: rigorously investigate this by all methods of inquiry. If that is established conclusively: having convicted the blasphemer, execute him by burning him [in a cage].

2. If a disorderly person, coming into God’s church during the holy liturgy, by any action whatsoever does not permit the completion of the divine liturgy: having arrested him and investigated him rigorously [and having established] that he committed such a deed, punish him with death without any mercy.

3. If someone during the holy liturgy [or during] other church services, coming into God’s church, proceeds to address indecent remarks to the patriarch, or a metropolitan, or archbishop and bishop, or archimandrite, or father superior and other member of the clerical order, and thereby in the church creates a disturbance for the divine liturgy, and this becomes known to the sovereign, and that is established conclusively: inflict on that disorderly person a beating [with the knout] in the market places for his offense.

4. If someone, coming into God’s church, proceeds to assault anyone at all, and kills the person: after investigation, punish that killer himself with death.

5. If [the assailant] wounds someone, but does not kill him: inflict on him a beating [with the knout] in the market places without mercy, cast him in prison for a month, and the injured party shall collect from him a double dishonor compensation for the injury.

6. If such a disorderly person assaults anyone at all in God’s church but does not wound [him]: for such an offense beat him with bastinadoes, and the person whom he struck shall collect his dishonor compensation from him.

7. If someone dishonors someone by word, but does not assault [him]: cast him in prison for a month for the offense. The person who was dishonored by him shall exact from him the dishonor compensation so that those looking on will not commit such offenses in God’s church.

8. In church, during the church services, no one shall petition the Sovereign, Tsar, and Grand Prince of all Russia Aleksei Mikhailovich, or the great lord the most holy Iosif, Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia, or the metropolitans, and archbishops, and bishops about any personal affairs, so that, as a consequence, there will be no disruption of the church services in God’s church because God’s church is designed for prayer. It is fitting for Orthodox Christians to stand in God’s church and pray with fear, and not to contemplate earthly matters.

9. If someone, forgetting the fear of God and disdaining the Tsar’s order, proceeds to petition the sovereign, or patriarch, or any other high church officials about his personal affairs in God’s church during the church services: cast that petitioner in prison for as long as the sovereign decrees.

Chapter 2.—The Sovereign’s Honor, and How to Safeguard His Royal Well-Being. In It Are 22 Articles.

1. If someone by any intent proceeds to think up an evil deed against the sovereign’s well-being, and someone denounces his evil intent, and after that denunciation that evil intent of his is established conclusively, that he conceived an evil deed against his tsarist majesty, and he intended to carry it out: after investigation, punish such a person with death.

2. Likewise, if in the realm of his tsarist majesty, someone, desiring to seize possessions of the Muscovite state and to become sovereign, begins to assemble an armed force to effect his evil intention; or, if someone proceeds to make friends with enemies of [his] tsarist majesty, and to establish secret relationships by [exchanging] advisory letters, and to render them aid in various ways so that those enemies of the sovereign, using his secret relationship with the enemy, may take possession of the Muscovite state, or commit any other bad deed; and someone denounces his activity; and after that denunciation his treason is established conclusively: punish such a traitor with death accordingly.

3. If a subject of his tsarist majesty surrenders a town to an enemy in an act of treason; or, a subject of his tsarist majesty receives into the towns foreigners from other states for the purpose of similarly committing treason; and that is established conclusively: punish such traitors with death also.

4. If someone premeditatedly, with treasonous intent, sets fire to a town, or to houses; and at that time, or later, the arsonist is arrested, and that felonious conduct of his is established conclusively: burn him [in a cage] himself without the slightest mercy.

5. Confiscate the service landholdings, and hereditary estates, and movable property of traitors for the sovereign.

6. If the wives and children of such traitors knew about their treason: similarly punish them with death.

7. If a wife did not know about the treason of her husband, or children [did not know] about the treason of their father, and it is established about that conclusively that they did not know about that treason: do not execute them for that, and inflict no punishment on them; [give] them a maintenance allotment from [the executed traitor’s] hereditary estates and service landholdings that the sovereign grants.

8. If children remain after [the execution of] a traitor, and those children of his lived separately from him, and not with him [in the same household or on the same estate] prior to his treason, and those children of his did not know about his treason, and they had their own movable property and their hereditary estates were separate from his: do not confiscate from those children of his their movable property and hereditary estates.

9. If someone commits treason, and after him survive a father, or mother, or natural brothers, or half-brothers, or uncles, or any other member of his clan in the Muscovite state; and he lived together with them and they had common movable property and hereditary estates: conduct a rigorous investigation by all methods of inquiry about that traitor to determine whether his father, and mother, and clan knew about his treason. If it is established conclusively that they knew about the treason of that traitor: punish them with death also, and confiscate their hereditary estates, and service landholdings, and movable property for the sovereign.

10. If it is established conclusively about them that they did not know about the treason of that traitor: do not punish them with death, and do not confiscate the service landholdings, and hereditary estates, and movable property from them.

11. If a traitor, having been in another state, comes to the Muscovite state, and the sovereign bestows favor upon him, orders that he be forgiven his offenses: he shall have to earn service landholdings anew. The sovereign is free [to return or otherwise dispose of] his hereditary estates, but his former service landholdings shall not be returned to him.

12. If someone proceeds to denounce someone for a treasonous offense, but does not present any witnesses in support of his denunciation, and no other evidence is presented to convict [the accused], and there is no basis for initiating an investigation into such a treason case: compile a decree about such a treason case, upon rigorous review, as the sovereign decrees.hellip;

Chapter 6.—Travel Documents into Other States. In It Are 6 Articles.

1. If someone happens to leave the Muscovite state for a commercial enterprise, or for any other personal purpose, for another state, which state is at peace with the Muscovite state: that person in Moscow shall petition the sovereign, and in the provincial towns the governors, for a travel document. Without a travel document he shall not travel. In the provincial towns the governors shall issue them travel documents without any delay.

2. If governors do not proceed to issue people travel documents quickly, and thus cause people delay and losses, and there are petitioners against them for that, and that is established conclusively: the governors shall be in great disgrace with the sovereign for that. Concerning the fact that they cause people losses: exact [the value of the losses] from them two-fold and return it to the petitioners.

3. If someone travels to any [other] state without a travel document, and then, having been in another state, returns to the Muscovite state; and someone else proceeds to denounce him, [alleging] that he traveled on his own volition without a travel document for treasonous purposes, or for any other reprehensible purpose: on the basis of that denunciation, conduct a rigorous investigation by all methods of inquiry of that person who traveled to another state without the sovereign’s travel document. If they say about him in the investigation that he indeed rode into another state without a travel document to commit treason, or for any other reprehensible purpose: after investigation, punish that person with death for treason.

4. If it is revealed during an investigation that he traveled to another state without a travel document on a trading enterprise, but not to commit treason: inflict punishment on him for that, beat him with the knout, so that others looking on will learn not to do that.

5. Concerning the fact that [some of the] sovereign’s court villages, and rural taxpaying districts, and hereditary estates and service landholdings in the possession of people of various ranks of the border towns in the provinces are adjacent to Lithuanian and Swedish border land; and the sovereign’s lands [in the past] have passed to the Lithuanian and Swedish side, and Lithuanian and Swedish land has passed to the sovereign’s side; and the peasants [living in] the sovereign’s court and rural taxpaying districts, and service landholders, and hereditary estate owners, and their slaves and peasants travel across those Lithuanian and Swedish frontier lands from town to town without travel documents, and they meet with Lithuanian and Swedish subjects: do not accuse them of any crime for that because they are living adjacent to Lithuanian and Swedish subjects on the frontier.

6. If service landholders and hereditary estate owners of the frontier towns learn of anything reprehensible, or of treason, among their slaves or peasants: they shall inform the sovereign about that, and in the provincial towns shall submit formal denunciations on the matter to the governors, and bring in their own slaves and peasants for arraignment. The governors shall interrogate those people against whom there is an accusation and shall conduct a rigorous investigation about them, concerning the accusation, by all methods of inquiry and shall write the sovereign about this; imprison those people against whom there is a denunciation until the sovereign [issues] a decree.hellip;

Chapter 10.—The Judicial Process. In It Are 287 Articles.

1. The judicial process of the Sovereign, Tsar, and Grand Prince of all Russia Aleksei Mikhailovich shall be directed by boyars, and okol’nichie, and counselors, and state secretaries, and various chancellery officials, and judges. All justice shall be meted out to all people of the Muscovite state, from the highest to the lowest rank, according to the law. Moreover, arriving foreigners and various people from elsewhere who are in the Muscovite state shall be tried by that same judicial process and rendered justice by the sovereign’s decree according to the law. No one on his own initiative shall out of friendship or out of enmity add anything to or remove anything from judicial records. No one shall favor a friend nor wreak vengeance on an enemy in any matter. No one shall favor anyone in any matter for any reason. All of the sovereign’s cases shall be processed without diffidence to the powerful. Deliver the wronged from the hand of the unjust.

2. Disputed cases which for any reason cannot be resolved in the chancelleries shall be transferred from the chancelleries in a report to the Sovereign, Tsar, and Grand Prince of all Russia Aleksei Mikhailovich and to his royal boyars, and okol’nichie, and counselors. The boyars, and okol’nichie, and counselors shall sit in the Palace [of Facets], and by the sovereign’s decree shall handle the sovereign’s various cases all together.

3. If a judge is an enemy of the plaintiff and a friend, or relative, of the defendant, and the plaintiff proceeds to petition the sovereign about that prior to the trial, [saying] that he is unable to bring a suit before that judge; or if a defendant proceeds to petition prior to a trial that the judge is a friend, or relative, or his plaintiff, and that he is unable to defend himself before that judge: that judge against whom there is such a petition shall not try that plaintiff and defendant. Another judge, whom the sovereign will appoint, shall try them.

4. But if a plaintiff or defendant proceeds to petition against a judge after a trial on grounds that the latter is a relative [of the opposing litigant], or was hostile: do not believe that petition, and do not transfer the case from chancellery to chancellery so that there will be no excessive delay for the plaintiff and defendant in this matter.

5. If a boyar, or okol’nichii, or counselor, or state secretary, or any other judge, in response to bribes of the plaintiff or defendant, or out of friendship or enmity convicts an innocent party and exculpates the guilty party, and that is established conclusively: collect from such judges the plaintiff’s claim three-fold, and give it to the plaintiff. Collect the legal fees, and the judicial transaction fee, and the legal tenth for the sovereign from them as well. For that offense a boyar, and okol’nichii, and counselor shall be deprived of his rank. If a judge not of counselor rank commits such an injustice: inflict on those people a beating with the knout in the market place, and henceforth they shall not try judicial cases [i.e., they shall be deprived of their offices].

6. In the provincial towns, apply that same decree to governors, and state secretaries, and various chancellery officials for such injustices.hellip;

Chapter 11.—The Judicial Process for Peasants. In It Are 34 Articles.

1. Concerning the sovereign’s peasants and landless peasants of court villages and rural taxpaying districts who, having fled from the sovereign’s court villages and from the rural taxpaying districts, are now living under the patriarch, or under the metropolitans, and under the archbishops, and the bishop [sic]; or under monasteries; or under boyars, or under okol’nichie, and under counselors, and under chamberlains, and under stol’niki, and under striapchie, and under Moscow dvoriane, and under state secretaries, and under zhil’tsy, and under provincial dvoriane and deti boiarskie, and under foreigners, and under all hereditary estate owners and service landholders; and in the cadastral books, which books the census takers submitted to the Service Land Chancellery and to other chancelleries after the Moscow fire of the past year 1626, those fugitive peasants or their fathers were registered [as living] under the sovereign: having hunted down those fugitive peasants and landless peasants of the sovereign, cart them [back] to the sovereign’s court villages and to the rural taxpaying districts, to their old allotments as [registered in] the cadastral books, with their wives, and with their children, and with all their movable peasant property, without any statute of limitations.

2. Similarly, if hereditary estate owners and service landholders proceed to petition the sovereign about their fugitive peasants and about landless peasants; and they testify that their peasants and landless peasants, having fled from them, are living in the sovereign’s court villages, and in rural taxpaying districts, or as townsmen in the urban taxpaying districts, or as musketeers, or as cossacks, or as gunners, or as any other type of servicemen in the trans-Moscow or in the frontier towns; or under the patriarch, or under the metropolitans, or under the archbishops and bishops; or under monasteries; or under boyars, and under okol’nichie, and under counselors, and under chamberlains, and under stol’niki, and under striapchie, and under Moscow dvoriane, and under state secretaries, and under zhil’tsy, and under provincial dvoriane and deti boiarskie, and under foreigners, and under any hereditary estate owners and service landholders: return such peasants and landless peasants after trial and investigation on the basis of the cadastral books, which books the census takers submitted to the Service Land Chancellery after the Moscow fire of the past year 1626, if those fugitive peasants of theirs, or the fathers of those peasants of theirs, were recorded [as living] under them in those cadastral books, or [if] after those cadastral books [were compiled] those peasants, or their children, were recorded in new grants [as living] under someone in books allotting lands or in books registering land transfers. Return fugitive peasants and landless peasants from flight on the basis of the cadastral books to people of all ranks, without any statute of limitations.

3. If it becomes necessary to return fugitive peasants and landless peasants to someone after trial and investigation: return those peasants with their wives, and with their children, and with all their movable property, with their standing grain and with their threshed grain. Do not impose a fine for those peasants [on their current lords] for the years prior to this present Law Code.

Concerning peasants who, while fugitives, married off their unmarried daughters, or sisters, or kinswomen to peasants of those estate owners and service landholders under whom they were living, or elsewhere in another village or hamlet: do not fault that person and, on the basis of the status of those unmarried women, do not hand over the husbands to their former estate owners and service landholders because until the present sovereign’s decree there was no rule by the sovereign that no one could receive peasants [to live] under him. [Only] statutes of limitations [on the recovery of] fugitive peasants were decreed and, moreover, in many years after the census takers [did their work], the hereditary estates and service landholdings of many hereditary estate owners and service landholders changed hands.

4. If fugitive peasants and landless peasants are returned to someone: chancellery officials of the sovereign’s court villages and the rural taxpaying districts, and estate owners, and service landholders shall get from those people [to whom the fugitives are returned] inventory receipts, signed by them, for those peasants and landless peasants of theirs and their movable property in case of dispute in the future.

Order the town public square scribes to write the inventory receipts in Moscow and in the provincial towns; in villages and hamlets where there are no public square scribes, order the civil administration or church scribes of other villages to write such inventories. They shall issue such inventory receipts signed by their own hand.

Concerning people who are illiterate: those people shall order their own spiritual fathers, or people of the vicinity whom they trust, to sign those inventory receipts in their stead. No one shall order his own priests, and scribes, and slaves to write such inventories so that henceforth there will be no dispute by anybody or with anybody over such inventories.

5. Concerning the vacant houses of peasants and landless peasants, or [their] house lots, registered in the cadastral books with certain estate owners and service landholders; and in the cadastral books it is written about the peasants and landless peasants of those houses that those peasants and landless peasants fled from them in the years prior to [the compilation of] those cadastral books, but there was no petition from them against anyone about those peasants throughout this time: do not grant a trial for those peasants and landless peasants on the basis of those vacant houses and vacant lots because for many years they did not petition the sovereign against anyone about those peasants of theirs.

6. If fugitive peasants and landless peasants are returned from someone to plaintiffs after trial and investigation, and according to the cadastral books; or if someone returns [fugitives] without trial according to [this] Law Code: on the petition of those people under whom they had lived while fugitives, register those peasants in the Service Land Chancellery [as living] under those people to whom they are returned.

Concerning those people from whom they are taken: do not collect any of the sovereign’s levies [due from the peasants] from such service landholders and hereditary estate owners on the basis of the census books. Collect all of the sovereign’s levies from those estate owners and service landholders under whom they proceed to live as peasants upon their return.

7. If, after trial and investigation, and according to the cadastral books, peasants are taken away from any hereditary estate owners and returned to plaintiffs from their purchased estates; and they purchased those estates from estate owners with those peasants [living on them] after [the compilation of] the cadastres; and those peasants are registered on their lands in the purchase documents: those estate owners, in the stead of those returned peasants, shall take from the sellers similar peasants with all [their] movable property, and with [their] standing grain and with [their] threshed grain, from their other estates.

8. Concerning those estate owners and service landholders who in the past years had a trial about fugitive peasants and landless peasants; and at trial someone’s [claims] to such fugitive peasants were rejected, prior to this decree of the sovereign, on the basis of the statute of limitations on the recovery of fugitive peasants in the prior decree of the great Sovereign, Tsar, and Grand Prince of all Russia Mikhail Fedorovich of blessed memory; and those fugitive peasants and landless peasants were ordered to live under those people under whom they lived out the years [of the] statute of limitations; or certain service landholders and hereditary estate owners arranged an amicable agreement in past years, prior to this decree of the sovereign, about fugitive peasants and landless peasants, and according to the amicable agreement someone ceded his peasants to someone else, and they confirmed it with registered documents, or they submitted reconciliation petitions [to settle court suits]: all those cases shall remain as those cases were resolved prior to this decree of the sovereign. Do not consider those cases anew and do not renegotiate [them].

9. Concerning peasants and landless peasants registered under someone in the census books of the past years 1645/46 and 1646/47; and after [the compilation of] those census books they fled from those people under whom they were registered in the census books, or they proceed to flee in the future: return those fugitive peasants and landless peasants, and their brothers, and children, and kinsmen, and grandchildren with [their] wives and with [their] children and with all [their] movable property, and with [their] standing grain and with threshed grain, from flight to those people from whom they fled, on the basis of the census books, without any statute of limitations. Henceforth no one ever shall receive others’ peasants and shall not retain them under himself.

10. If someone after this royal Law Code proceeds to receive and retain under himself fugitive peasants, and landless peasants, and their children, and brothers, and kinsmen; and hereditary estate owners and service landholders demand those fugitive peasants of theirs from them [in a trial]: after trial and investigation, and according to the census books, return those fugitive peasants and landless peasants of theirs to them with [their] wives and with [their] children, and with all their movable property, and with [their] standing grain, and with [their] threshed grain, and with [their] grain still in the ground, without any statute of limitations.

Concerning the length of the time they live under someone as fugitives after this royal Law Code: collect from those under whom they proceed to live 10 rubles each for any peasant per year for the sovereign’s taxes and the service landholder’s incomes. Give [the money] to the plaintiffs whose peasants and landless peasants they are.

11. If someone proceeds to petition the sovereign against someone about such fugitive peasants and landless peasants; and those peasants and their fathers are not registered in the cadastral books under either the plaintiff or the defendant, but those peasants are registered under the plaintiff or the defendant in the census books of the past years 1645/46 and 1646/47: on the basis of the census books, return those peasants and landless peasants to that person under whom they are registered in the census books.

12. If a peasant’s daughter of marriageable age flees from someone, from an hereditary estate or from a service landholding, after this royal decree; and while a fugitive she marries someone’s limited service contract slave or a peasant; or after this royal decree someone entices a peasant’s daughter of marriageable age, and having enticed [her], marries her to his own limited service contract slave, or peasant, or landless peasant; and that person from whom she fled proceeds to petition the sovereign about her; and it is established about that conclusively at trial and investigation that that unmarried young woman fled, or was enticed away: return her to that person from whom she fled, along with her husband and with her children, which children she bore by that husband. Do not return her husband’s movable property with her.

13. If that fugitive unmarried young women marries someone’s slave or peasant who is a widower; and prior [to his marriage] to her, that husband of hers had children by his first wife: do not return those first children of her husband to the plaintiff. They shall remain with that person in whose possession they were born into slavery or into peasantry.

14. If a plaintiff proceeds to sue for stolen property along with that fugitive unmarried young woman [which she allegedly stole when she fled]: grant him a trial for that. After trial compile the decree that is necessary.

15. If a peasant widow flees from someone; and her husband had been registered in the cadastral or allotment books, and in extracts [from them], or in any other documents among the peasants or the landless peasants [living] under that person from whom she fled; and having fled, that peasant woman marries someone’s limited service contract slave or peasant: return that peasant widow with her [new] husband to that service landholder under whom her first husband had been registered in the cadastral or census books, or in the extracts, and in any other documents.

16. If the first husband of that widow is not registered [as living] under that person from whom she fled in the cadastral and census books and in any other documents: that widow shall live under that person whose slave or peasant she marries.

17. If a peasant or landless peasant flees from someone; and in flight he marries his daughter of marriageable age or a widow to someone’s limited service contract slave, or to a peasant, or to a landless peasant [living under] that person to whom he flees; and later on after trial it becomes necessary to return that fugitive peasant with [his] wife and with [his] children to that person from whom he fled: return that fugitive peasant or landless peasant to his former service landholder, together with his son-in-law to whom he had married his daughter [while] in flight. If that son-in-law of his has children by his first wife: do not hand over those first children of his to the plaintiff.

18. If such a fugitive peasant or landless peasant, while in flight marries his daughter to someone’s limited service contract slave, or hereditary slave, or peasant, or landless peasant [registered under] another service landholder or hereditary estate owner: return that peasant’s daughter who was married while in flight, along with her husband, to the plaintiff.

19. If a service landholder or estate owner proceeds to discharge from his service landholding or from his hereditary estate, or someone’s bailiffs and elders proceed to discharge, peasant daughters of marriageable age or widows to marry someone’s slaves or peasants: they shall give such peasant daughters, women of marriageable age and widows, manumission documents signed by their own hands, or by their spiritual fathers, in case of a future dispute.

Collect the fee for permitting such peasant daughters to marry peasants of another lord by mutual agreement. Concerning that which someone collects for the marriage departure fee: write that explicitly in the manumission documents.

20. If any people come to someone on [his] hereditary estate and service landholding and say about themselves that they are free; and those people desire to live under them as peasants or landless peasants: those people whom they approach shall interrogate them - what kind of free people are they? And where is their birth place? And under whom did they live? And whence did they come? And are they not someone’s fugitive slaves, and peasants, and landless peasants? And do they have manumission documents?

If they say that they do not have manumission documents on their person: service landholders and hereditary estate owners shall find out about such people accurately, whether they really are free people. Having investigated accurately, bring them in the same year for registration to the Service Land Chancellery in Moscow; Kazan’-area residents and residents of Kazan’ by-towns shall bring them to Kazan’; Novgorodians and residents of the Novgorodian by-towns shall bring them to Novgorod; Pskovians and residents of the Pskov by-towns shall bring them to Pskov. [Chancellery officials] in the Service Land Chancellery and governors in the provincial towns shall interrogate such free people on that subject and shall record their testimonies accurately.

If it becomes necessary to give those people who are brought in for registration, on the basis of their testimony under interrogation, as peasants to those people who brought them in for registration: order those people to whom they will be given as peasants to affix their signatures to the testimonies of those people after they have been taken.

21. If an estate owner or a service landholder brings in for registration the person who approached him without having checked accurately, and they proceed to take such people in as peasants: return such people as peasants to plaintiffs after trial and investigation, and according to the census book, along with [their] wives, and with [their] children, and with [their] movable property.

Concerning [what shall be exacted] from those people who take in someone else’s peasant or landless peasant without checking accurately: collect for those years, however many [the peasant] lived under someone, 10 rubles per year for the sovereign’s taxes and for the incomes of the hereditary estate owner and service landholder because [of this rule]: without checking accurately, do not receive someone else’s [peasant].hellip;

33. Concerning slaves and peasants who flee across the frontier from service landholders and from hereditary estate owners of all ranks and from the border towns; and, having been across the frontier and returning from across the frontier, they do not want to live with their own old service landholders and hereditary estate owners, [and] they proceed to request their freedom: having interrogated those fugitive slaves and peasants, return them to their old service landholders and hereditary estate owners from whom they fled. Do not grant them freedom.

34. Concerning slaves and peasants who flee across the frontier to the Swedish and [Polish-] Lithuanian side from any hereditary estate owners and service landholders who have been granted service landholdings in the frontier towns; and across the frontier they marry similarly fugitive older women and young women of marriageable age [who belong to] different service landholders; and having gotten married, they return from across the frontier to their own old service landholders and hereditary estate owners; and, when they return, those old service landholders of theirs proceed to petition the sovereign, one about the young woman of marriageable age or about the older woman, [stating] that his peasant woman married that fugitive peasant; and his defendant proceeds to testify that his peasant married that fugitive young woman or the older woman across the frontier while a fugitive: at trial and investigation, grant them lots on the question of those fugitive slaves and peasants of theirs. Whoever gets the lot, that one [shall get the couple and] shall pay a 5-ruble marriage departure fee for the young woman, or for the older woman, or for the man because they were both fugitives across the frontier.hellip;

Chapter 16.—Service Lands. In It Are 69 Articles.

1. [The following size] service landholdings shall be in Moscow province: For boyars, 260 acres per man.

For okol’nichie and for counselor state secretaries, 195 acres per man.

For stol’niki, and for striapchie, and for Moscow dvoriane, and for state secretaries, and for commanders of Moscow musketeers, and for senior stewards of the Palace Chancellery, and for stewards responsible for managing various parts of the palace economy, 130 acres per man.

For provincial dvoriane who are serving by selection in Moscow, 91 acres per man.

For zhil’tsy, and for mounted grooms, and for centurions of the Moscow musketeers, 65 acres per man.

For palace court officials, and for striapchie, and for provisioned, and for officials working for the tsaritsa, and for deti boiarskie, 13 acres per each 130 acres of their service land compensation entitlements.

2. Concerning service landholders of all ranks who desire to exchange their service landholdings among themselves: they shall petition the sovereign about registering those exchanged service landholdings of theirs. They shall submit signed petitions on that matter to the Service Land Chancellery.

3. Moscow people of all ranks shall exchange service landholdings with [other] Moscow people of all ranks, and with provincial dvoriane and deti boiarskie, [and] with foreigners, acre for acre, and inhabited land for inhabited land, and waste land for waste land, and [also] uninhabited land for waste land. In response to their joint petition and the signed petitions, record those service landholdings of theirs [which] they exchanged among themselves.

Where someone in an exchange received a few extra acres above an equal exchange: in response to their joint petition about that transaction, record those few [extra] acres for them.hellip;

9. If anyone surrenders a service landholding because of superannuation - an uncle to a nephew, or a brother to a brother; and in the document recording the surrender of the land and in the petition about registration he writes that the nephew is to feed the uncle, or the brother his brother, until his death; and subsequently the uncle proceeds to petition against the nephew, or the brother against the brother, [alleging] that he is not feeding him, is driving him off the service landholding, and is ordering the peasants not to obey him: take away such surrendered service landholdings from such nephews and brothers and return them to those to whom they belonged previously. Whatever documents they gave on themselves [surrendering the service landholdings] are void.

10. If widows or unmarried young women proceed to surrender their maintenance service landholdings to anyone so that those people to whom they surrender those service landholdings of theirs will feed them and find them a husband: they shall get signed registration documents from those people to whom they surrender those service landholdings of theirs [promising] that such people will feed them and marry them off.

If a widow or unmarried young woman, having surrendered her service landholding, proceed [sic] to petition the sovereign that those people to whom they surrendered those service landholdings of theirs are not feeding them, and are not marrying them off, and are driving them out from those maintenance service landholdings of theirs: compile a decree on the matter of that petition of theirs. Having taken [back] their widows’ and unmarried young women’s maintenance service landholdings, return them to those widows and unmarried young women for [their] maintenance as previously. Whatever documents they gave are void.

11. Unmarried young women [may] surrender their own maintenance service landholdings when the unmarried young woman is of age, 15 years old.

If someone proceeds to petition the sovereign about an unmarried young woman’s maintenance service landholding and says that an unmarried young woman surrendered her maintenance service landholding to him, but if the unmarried young woman at that time is a minor, less than 15 years of age: do not believe such petitioners, and do not register the unmarried young women’s maintenance service landholdings as theirs.hellip;

16. If women remain childless after [the death] of people of Moscow ranks, and provincial dvoriane and deti boiarskie, and foreigners; and there are no service landholdings and purchased hereditary estates remaining after [the death of] their husbands, and there is nothing from which to give them a maintenance allotment, but their husbands’ estates granted for service and clan estates do remain: after review, grant the wives of such deceased [servicemen] a maintenance allotment from their husbands’ estates granted for service for the duration of their lives.

Those widows shall not sell, and shall not mortgage, and shall not give away [to religious establishments for prayers] for their soul, and shall not register for themselves as a dowry those estates granted for service.

If [a widow with a maintenance allotment] marries, or becomes a nun, or dies: grant those estates to the hereditary estate owners in the [husband’s] clan who are most closely related [to him].hellip;

Chapter 19.—Townsmen. In It Are 40 Articles.

1. Concerning the [tax-exempt] settlements in Moscow belonging to the patriarch, and metropolitans, and other high church officials, and monasteries, and boyars, and okol’nichie, and counselors, and [tsar’s] intimates, and people of all ranks; and in those settlements are living merchants and artisans who pursue various trading enterprises and own shops, but are not paying the sovereign’s taxes and are not rendering service: confiscate all of those settlements, with all the people who are living in those settlements, for the sovereign [and place them] all on the tax rolls [and force them to render] service without any statute of limitations and irrevocably, except for limited service contract slaves.

If it is said in an inquiry that the limited service contract slaves are their perpetual slaves, return them to those people to whom they belong. Order them moved back to their houses. Concerning those limited service contract slaves whose fathers and whose clan ancestors were townsmen, or from the sovereign’s rural districts: take those [people] to live in the urban taxpaying districts.

Henceforth, except for the sovereign’s settlements, no one shall have [tax-exempt] settlements in Moscow or in the provincial towns.

Confiscate the patriarch’s settlements completely, excepting those palace court officials who for a long time lived under former patriarchs in their patriarchal ranks as deti boiarskie, singers, secretaries, scribes, furnace tenders, guards, cooks and bakers, grooms, and as his palace court officials of other ranks who are given an annual salary and grain.hellip;

Chapter 21.—Robbery and Theft Cases. In It Are 104 Articles.

9. If a thief is brought in, and one theft is attributed to him: torture that thief about other thefts and homicide. If he does not confess under torture to other thefts and homicide, but testifies that he stole for the first time, and did not commit a homicide: beat that thief with the knout for the first theft, cut off his left ear, and imprison him for two years, and give out his property in shares to the plaintiffs. Having taken him out of prison, send him in chains to work as a slave on various forced labor projects wherever the sovereign decrees.

When he has sat out the two years in prison, send him to the southern frontier towns, wherever the sovereign decrees. Order him to remain in the southern frontier towns, in the rank befitting him.

Issue him a letter over the signature of a state secretary [stating] that he sat out the sentence in prison for his felony and has been released from prison.

10. If that same thief is apprehended in a second theft: torture him about other thefts accordingly. If he confesses only to two thefts, and [says] that he did not commit a homicide: after the torturing, beat him with the knout and, having cut off his right ear, imprison him for four years. Having taken him out of prison, send him to [work] on the sovereign’s various forced labor projects, accordingly in chains.

When he has sat out the sentence in prison: exile him to the frontier towns, wherever the sovereign decrees.

Issue him a letter [stating] that he sat out the sentence in prison for the second theft and has been released from prison.hellip;

12. If a thief is brought in, and three, or four, or more thefts are attributed to him: having tortured that thief, punish him with death, even though he did not commit a homicide. Distribute his movable property to the plaintiffs in shares.

13. If a thief commits a homicide at the first theft, punish him with death.

14. Punish church thieves also with death without the slightest mercy. Give back their movable property [to compensate for] the church thefts.hellip;

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