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.

2. Concerning people of all ranks, merchants and artisans, who, after inquiries, are removed from those lands which were built up near the Moscow urban taxpaying districts, and distributed among the taxpaying hundreds: those people henceforth shall be subject irrevocably to the sovereign, wherever they are put on the tax rolls.

3. Concerning people in Moscow and in the provincial towns who are living on church lands, the children of priests, or church cantors, or sextons, or any other free people, or someone's slaves; and they are engaging in various kinds of commercial enterprises, but they are not registered on the tax rolls, are not paying the sovereign's taxes, are not rendering services, and are not performing corvée: add all of those people, on the basis of their commercial enterprises, to the tax rolls so that such people will not escape paying taxes anywhere

4. Concerning people of all ranks in Moscow who collect the sovereign's cash and grain compensation and keep shops for themselves, and rent them, and engage in various commercial enterprises, with the exception of musketeers: those people shall remain in their ranks as previously, and shall render the sovereign's service for the sovereign's compensation.

They shall be on the tax rolls because of their various commercial enterprises and shall pay taxes in the hundreds, settlements, and rows of stalls along with the taxpayers, but they shall not render any form of compulsory service.

If someone does not want to be on the tax rolls: those people shall sell their shops to the sovereign's taxpayers.

5. Concerning the settlements around Moscow belonging to the patriarch, and other high ecclesiastical officials, and monasteries, and boyars, and counselors, and people of all ranks: those settlements with all their tradesmen, excepting limited service contract slaves, shall be confiscated accordingly, after investigation, for the sovereign.

If any plow peasants turn out under interrogation to be hereditary peasants from service landholdings and hereditary estates, and they were brought to those lands: order those people from whom those settlements were confiscated to remove them from those settlements to their own hereditary estates and service landholdings.

If those plow peasants have shops, and warehouses, and salt boilers in Moscow and in the provincial towns: they shall sell those shops, and warehouses, and salt boilers to the sovereign's taxpayers. Henceforth no one other than the sovereign's taxpayers shall keep shops, and warehouses, and salt boilers.

6. There shall be pasture land around Moscow on all sides, two verstas out from the earthen wall and the moat. Measure off those pasture lands using the new sazhen', the sazhen' which, by the sovereign's decree, is 3 arshins. A versta shall have 1,000 sazhens.

7. Concerning the settlements belonging to the patriarch, and other high ecclesiastical officials, and monasteries, and boyars, and okol'nichie, and counselors, and people of all ranks that were built in the provincial towns on the sovereign's urban taxpaying lands, or on tax-exempt lots, whether they were purchased or unpurchased, or on cattle pastures without the sovereign's decree: confiscate those settlements with all the people and the lands, after inquiry, [and add them to] the urban taxpaying district without any statute of limitations and irrevocably because [of the rule:] Do not build settlements on the sovereign's land, and do not buy urban taxpaying land.

8. Concerning the estates belonging to the patriarch, and other high ecclesiastical officials, and monasteries, and the hereditary estates and service landholdings belonging to boyars, and okol'nichie, and counselors, and people of all ranks in urban taxpaying districts of the towns and around the urban taxpaying districts; and they own those hereditary estates and service landholdings on the basis of grants and documents; and those hereditary estates and service landholdings are adjacent to the urban taxpaying districts, houses are side by side, or close to the urban an taxpaying districts: confiscate those hereditary estates and service landholdings for the sovereign and arrange for them to pay taxes and render services as the urban taxpaying districts.

In exchange for those confiscated hereditary estates and service landholdings the sovereign has decreed that they shall be granted equal [properties] in another place from his own royal villages.

9. Concerning the estates, villages, and hamlets belonging to the patriarch, and metropolitans, and other high ecclesiastical officials, and monasteries; the hereditary estate and service landholding villages and hamlets belonging to boyars, and okol'nichie, and counselors, and the [tsar's] intimates, and people of all ranks that are adjacent to or around the urban taxpaying districts in the provincial towns: the sovereign has decreed that those hamlets and villages shall be confiscated for himself, the sovereign, and it shall be arranged for them to pay the various taxes and render services as the sovereign's taxpayers in the adjacent urban taxpaying districts.

Concerning plow peasants who are found [living] in those villages and hamlets of theirs: the sovereign has decreed that those peasants shall register themselves according to the law.

Concerning the hereditary estate settlements, and villages, and hamlets belonging to the patriarchs, and metropolitans, and other high ecclesiastical officials, and monasteries, and the hereditary estate and service landholding settlements, villages, and hamlets belonging to boyars, and okol'nichie, and counselors, and the [tsar's] intimates, and people of various ranks that are distant from urban taxpaying districts; and merchants are living in them; and for a long time [the merchants] have been residents of urban taxpaying districts, and they have shops and various commercial enterprises in towns: the sovereign has ordered such merchants and tradesmen removed after an investigation to those same towns, to an urban taxpaying district, to their old tax-paying lots, and [he also has ordered] that at they be settled with the taxpaying townsmen.

If peasants declare that they are engaged in trade in those villages and hamlets, and they have shops and various commercial enterprises in those towns, but heretofore they were not townsmen and did not pay taxes [as townsmen]: the sovereign has decreed that those peasants shall be put on solid bonds [guaranteeing] that henceforth they will not tend shops and [conduct business] in cellars, will not engage in trade, will not buy up [as tax farms] salt boilers and taverns, and they shall sell those shops, cellars, and boilers to [urban] taxpayers.

10. The pasture lands in the provincial towns shall be as they were previously, as the pasture lands were adjacent to any provincial town during the reigns of previous sovereigns.

If someone has taken possession of pasture land: after investigation, confiscate those pasture lands from those people and mark them off for the provincial towns as they were before.

11. Concerning musketeers, cossacks, and dragoons in the provincial towns who are engaging in various commercial enterprises and are tending shops: those musketeers, cossacks, and dragoons shall pay customs duties on their commercial enterprises and the yearly shop tax for their shops, but they shall not pay [other] taxes with the townsmen and they shall not render compulsory services.

12. Concerning servicemen of other ranks in the same provincial towns, gunners, and artillerymen, and gatekeepers, and treasury-employed carpenters and smiths, who are tending shops and engaging in various commercial enterprises: they shall pay the sovereign's customs duties on their commercial enterprises accordingly. Moreover, they shall be on the tax rolls and shall pay the sovereign's various taxes and render services equally with the townsmen.

Those people who do not want to be on the tax rolls: those people shall sell their shops to the sovereign's [urban] taxpayers.

13. Concerning Moscow and provincial urban taxpayers who themselves, or their fathers, in years past lived in Moscow and in the provincial towns, in the urban taxpaying districts and in the settlements on the tax rolls, and paid taxes; and others lived in the same urban taxpaying districts and in settlements at the residences of taxpayers as shopkeepers and as hired laborers, but now they are living as pawn-slaves under the patriarch, and metropolitans, and archbishops, and bishops, and monasteries, and boyars, and okol'nichie, and counselors, and the [tsar's] intimates, and people of all ranks in Moscow and in the provincial towns, at their houses, and on [their] hereditary estates, and on [their] service landholdings, and on church lands: investigate all those [people] and transport [them] to their old urban taxpaying district lots where they lived heretofore, without any statute of limitations and irrevocably.

Henceforth all those people who are confiscated for the sovereign shall not register themselves with anyone as pawn-slaves nor shall they call themselves anyone's peasants or slaves.

It in the future they proceed to sell themselves as pawn-slaves to anyone or to call themselves anyone's peasants or slaves: inflict a severe punishment on them for that, beat them with the knout around the market places and exile them to Siberia to live on the Lena [River].

Those people who in the future proceed to accept them as their dependents as pawn-slaves shall be in great disgrace with the sovereign for that. Confiscate for the sovereign the lands where those pawn-slaves hereafter proceed to live under them.

14. Concerning people who by the sovereign's decree were granted out-of-town houses and gardens in Moscow and in the provincial towns: those people shall keep their own slaves as custodians in those houses and gardens of theirs.

If someone has no slaves: they shall keep in those houses and gardens of theirs their own peasants, or landless peasants, as custodians, one man per house, or per garden.

If someone after the sovereign's present decree proceeds to keep many of his own peasants and landless peasants at those houses and gardens of his: confiscate all of those peasants and landless peasants of theirs for the sovereign [and add them] to the tax rolls accordingly, even though those people are registered under them in the cadastral books.

Henceforth, if some people's peasants come from their hereditary estates and service landholdings to someone's out-of-town houses for temporary artisanal work for hereditary estate owners and service landholders: after investigation, do not add those people to the tax rolls. Do not forbid them to come to Moscow.

15. Concerning slaves and peasants belonging to boyars and [people] of other ranks who have purchased for themselves and taken on mortgage taxable houses, and shops, and warehouses, and stone cellars, and salt boilers, and are trading in various wares in Moscow and in the provincial towns: those slaves and peasants belonging to boyars and [people] of other ranks shall sell those taxable houses, and shops, and cellars, and warehouses, and boilers to taxpaying merchants and townsmen. Henceforth they shall not possess such houses, and shops, and cellars, and warehouses, and boilers.

Henceforth no one's slaves or peasants, [no one other than] the sovereign's merchant townsmen, shall buy taxable houses, and shops, and cellars, and warehouses, and boilers from anyone.

If in the future anyone's slaves and peasants buy taxable houses, or shops, and cellars, and warehouses, and boilers from anyone: confiscate those houses, shops, cellars, warehouses, and boilers from them for the sovereign without compensation. Moreover, they shall be in great disgrace with the sovereign for that and shall be beaten in the market place.

16. If any merchants and townsmen write down their own taxable houses, or shops, and warehouses, and cellars, and boilers for anyone's slaves or peasants in a mortgage for a debt for a term; and the term lapses for those taxable houses, or shops, and warehouses, and cellars, and boilers of theirs: those people, to whom the taxable houses, or shops, and warehouses, and cellars, and salt boilers pass by default after the term shall sell [them] to the sovereign's taxpayers. They themselves shall not live in those taxable houses, and shall not trade in the shops, and warehouses, and cellars, and shall not boil salt in the boilers under any circumstances.

If after the expiration of the term they themselves proceed to live in those taxable houses, or to trade in the shops, and warehouses, and cellars, and to boil salt in the salt boilers: confiscate those houses, and shops, and warehouses, and cellars, and salt boilers from them for the sovereign without compensation accordingly.

17. If someone's peasants proceed to come to Moscow and the provincial towns from the provinces with various wares: they shall sell those wares in the free markets without penalty, at the city market, from their carts and boats. But they shall not buy and shall not rent shops in the rows.

18. If taxpaying townsmen of various hundreds and settlements are removed from [the ranks of] the pawn-slaves [and added] to the tax rolls; and those people from whom they are expropriated proceed to petition the sovereign against them on the basis of loan documents or notes about loan debts or subsidy loans: do not grant a trial on the basis of such documents and notes against those pawn-slaves to those people under whom they lived as pawn-slaves. Take away those documents from them to the [Investigations] Chancellery and do not give [them] back to them.

19. Concerning the townsmen of the Moscow settlements who are now living in the provincial towns; and provincial townsmen who are living in Moscow and in various towns: those taxpaying townsmen henceforth shall live in those places where they have been residing. Do not transport taxpaying townsmen from Moscow to the provincial towns, or from the provincial towns to Moscow, or from one provincial town to another provincial town, just because they lived there long ago.

20. Concerning all those townsmen who are now living in provincial towns in settlements under the patriarch, and other high ecclesiastical officials, and monasteries, and boyars, and okol'nichie, and the [tsar's] intimates, and people of all ranks: all those people shall continue to live in the urban taxpaying district of those towns where they are now living. Concerning those who have been transported from urban taxpaying districts to the provinces, to villages and hamlets: having investigated all those people, transport them [back] to the taxpaying districts of those towns where they were investigated.

21. Concerning townsmen who have given their young daughters in marriage to various free people: do not take those free people into the taxpaying settlements because of their wives.

22. Concerning free people who have married taxpaying town widows; and, having gotten married, they left the tax rolls; but the former husbands of those wives of theirs were registered in the cadastral books on the tax rolls in the urban taxpaying districts: take those people who have married taxpaying wives into the urban taxpaying district because they married taxpaying women and moved into their houses.

23. Concerning townsmen who have taken their own sons-in-law into their houses; and they have given their own daughters to them in marriage so that those sons-in-law of theirs would live in their houses while they live and feed them: all those [people] shall live in the hundreds and in the settlements on the tax rolls. If they [the daughters] marry someone, take them [the resulting couples] into the urban taxpaying district.

24. Concerning taxpaying town artisans who have left their taxable allotments [of property] and are living in Moscow at the palace court, in the Armory, and in various other chancelleries; and they themselves were on the tax tolls and are the children of taxpaying fathers; and if the taxpayers living in the hundreds proceed to petition the sovereign about those taxpaying artisans, that they be put back on the tax rolls as before: write a report about those artisans of the sovereign's specifically by name, as the sovereign decrees about those artisans. Do not return them to the hundreds without [such] a report.

25. Put those taxpayers themselves who are kennel keepers and their children on the tax rolls.

26. Concerning Moscow and provincial town taxpayers who themselves were on the tax rolls, and are the children of taxpaying fathers; and they joined the musketeers voluntarily, and not against their will: remove those people who were on the tax rolls and two of their sons from the musketeers [and add them] to the tax rolls where they are living. Leave the third son, if there is one, in. the musketeers.

27. Concerning the children of Moscow and provincial townsmen who have left the ranks of the taxpayers and have registered in the musketeer service, and the father has only one son, or two: add those [sons] to the tax rolls. If the father has three sons, and the third is registered as a musketeer: do not take the third son; he shall continue to serve in the musketeers.

28. Concerning Moscow and provincial townsmen who were on the town tax rolls, but joined the gunners, and artillerymen, and gatekeepers, and [treasury-employed] smiths, and all other ranks: after investigation, add all those people to the tax rolls.

29. Concerning Moscow and provincial town taxpayers who in years past have joined the cossacks, and serve with the cossacks who have old service landholdings; and they have been officially initiated into service and assigned cash compensation entitlements and assigned monthly rations: do not remove those taxpayers from the cossacks. They shall continue in service as before.

30. Concerning Moscow and provincial town urban taxpayers who registered in the cossacks for the first time after the Smolensk War, but were not at Smolensk: after an investigation, add those urban taxpaying people to the tax rolls as before.

31. Concerning Moscow and provincial town taxpayers who have joined the new formation infantry, but themselves were on the tax rolls, and are children of taxpaying fathers: after investigation, add those people to the tax rolls as before.

32. Concerning Moscow and provincial townsmen who became postal drivers, but they themselves had been on the tax rolls, and are the children of taxpaying fathers: after an investigation, add those [people] to the tax rolls as before.

33. Concerning Moscow and provincial taxpayers who themselves were on the tax rolls, or are the children of taxpaying fathers, and they were in captivity in various places: those people shall live wherever they wish because they have been freed from the tax rolls as a consequence of their captivity.

34. Concerning provincial town merchants who have been registered in the second and third merchant corporations; and they were ordered to live in Moscow, but those provincial town merchants are living in the provincial towns in their own old houses, and are trading in various commercial enterprises in those provincial towns; and they are not paying taxes on those houses of theirs and on their enterprises in the provincial towns with the townsmen; and they keep their taxable houses and enterprises as before: those provincial town merchants, who were ordered to serve in the second and third merchant corporations, shall sell their taxable houses and enterprises to taxpaying townsmen of those same provincial towns. They themselves shall live in Moscow as members of the second and third merchant corporations.

If they do not want to sell those provincial town taxable houses and enterprises of theirs, they shall pay taxes on both those provincial town taxable houses and the enterprises of theirs in the provincial towns with the provincial townsmen, as [they did] previously.

35. Concerning the houses and shops built in Moscow that belong to taxpayers who have come from the provincial towns: those people shall remain in Moscow in the hundreds on the tax rolls. In the provincial towns they shall pay taxes on and render all compulsory services for their commerce and industry in those provincial towns.

36. Concerning all provincial town merchants and taxpayers who come to Moscow but do not have their own houses [in the capital], but they bring their own wares and trade both in rented and in their own shops: henceforth those people shall come with their own goods to the city market and shall trade in the city market. They shall not rent shops in the rows. Those people who have their own shops which they purchased from someone in the rows shall sell them to the sovereign's taxpaying Muscovites.

37. If anyone's hereditary slaves, or limited service contract slaves, or peasants and landless peasants, who are registered under someone in the cadastral books, [and who,] having fled [from their masters], marry townsmen's daughters, unmarried women, or widows in Moscow and in the provincial towns: return such fugitive slaves on the basis of the documents and peasants on the basis of the cadastral books from the urban taxpaying districts with their wives and with [their] children to those people from whom they fled. Do not add them to the tax rolls in the urban taxpaying district on the basis of their wives.

38. If the unmarried daughter of a townsman flees; and while a fugitive marries someone's limited service contract slave, or hereditary slave, or peasant, or landless peasant; or if someone entices the unmarried daughter of a townsman or a widow, and having enticed her, marries her to his own limited service contract slave, or hereditary slave, or peasant, or landless peasant; and the father of that fugitive or enticed young woman or widow proceeds to petition the sovereign about her; and it is established conclusively about that at trial and investigation that that daughter of his, a young woman or a widow, fled, or was enticed: bring that townswoman, young woman or widow, with her husband and the children whom she bore by that husband of hers [back] to the urban taxpaying district and order her husband to live in the urban taxpaying district on the tax rolls.

39. Concerning taxpayers who sell their own taxable houses to tax-exempt [persons]; and they draw up mortgage documents instead of purchase documents; and they let the date for redemption of those houses of theirs lapse; and those people to whom they mortgaged those houses of theirs exercise their default option and remove the property from the tax rolls: taxpayers in the taxpaying hundreds and settlements shall not mortgage and shall not sell taxable houses and taxable lots to non-taxpaying people.

If someone sells or mortgages a taxable house to tax-exempt people: confiscate those houses without compensation and give them to the hundreds. On the basis of the mortgage documents, deny those houses to those to whom they were mortgaged for money.

Concerning the taxpayers who sell or mortgage those houses of theirs: beat those taxpayers for the felony with the knout.

40. Concerning the houses in Moscow in Kitaigorod, Belyi gorod, and in Zemlianoi gorod, [and] in the out-of-town settlements in the possession of Russians of all ranks: Northern Europeans and North European widows shall not buy and shall not take on mortgage those houses and house lots from Russians. If Northern Europeans and their wives and children proceed to buy houses or house lots from Russians; or on the basis of mortgage documents proceed to petition against Russians, and proceed to bring purchase and mortgage documents for registration in the Moscow Administrative Chancellery: do not register those purchase and mortgage documents.

If Russians proceed to sell houses and house lots to North European men or North European women: they shall be in disgrace with the sovereign for that.

Concerning the North European churches which were set up in the yards of Northern Europeans: demolish those churches. In the future there shall be no churches in Northern Europeans' yards in Kitaigorod, Belyi gorod, and Zemlianoi gorod. They shall be out of town, beyond Zemlianoi gorod, in places distant from God's [Orthodox] churches.