CHAPTER 7. - The Service of Various Military Personnel of the Muscovite State. In It Are 32 Articles.

The Sovereign, Tsar, and Grand Prince of all Russia Aleksei Mikhailovich has eternal peace and a treaty with the Polish, and Lithuanian, and Swedish, and other neighboring states.

1. If by some means war breaks out between any [foreign] state and the Muscovite state, or at some time the sovereign resolves to avenge the enmity of his royal foe; and he orders sent against them his own royal boyars and generals, and with them military personnel of various ranks; and for that service the sovereign orders his royal compensation paid to his royal military personnel of the entire Muscovite state: levy cash for that royal compensation to the military personnel from the entire Muscovite state and impose requisitions depending on the nature of the service.

2. Send the sovereign's orders to the governors and chancellery officials in the provincial towns concerning the places where military personnel should report for the sovereign's service and the time that they should arrive for the sovereign's service. Order [them] to dispatch the military personnel to the appointed places for the sovereign's service without any delay.

Military personnel, going to the sovereign's service, on the road, and in camps shall not cause any people any injury or loss. They shall not seize food for themselves or fodder for their horses from anyone without paying for it.

3. If some of those military personnel happen to buy food for themselves or fodder for their horses, they shall buy those provisions from various people at the fair market price.

They shall not trample grain in the fields or hay to be mown in enclosed meadows so that no one individually will suffer any injury anywhere at the hands of military personnel.

4. Concerning times when the meadows of various service landholders and hereditary estate owners are not enclosed: at that time military personnel going to the sovereign's service shall camp on the meadows belonging to anybody without penalty. But at the times when the meadows are enclosed: they shall camp on enclosed meadows on one side of the road for a distance of 11 meters without penalty. They shall not camp farther than 11 meters from the road in those enclosed meadows. They shall not mow the grass nor trample it with their horses. All people shall close the meadows after Trinity Day.

5. When servicemen, going to the sovereign's service, proceed to buy food and fodder from anyone, those people shall sell military personnel food and fodder at a fair market price. They shall not charge military personnel higher prices for any reason.

6. If certain military personnel, going to the sovereign's service, proceed to inflict injury on anyone, and that is established conclusively at trial: inflict on those people a punishment depending on the offense. Exact the financial losses [from the culprits] and give them [the financial losses] to those people who were thereby injured.

7. If certain people proceed to sell military personnel food and fodder at a dear price: after trial and investigation, similarly inflict punishment on those people. Return the excess money charged [to the military personnel].

8. Concerning those royal military personnel of all ranks who are in the sovereign's service in the regiments and are capable of rendering the sovereign's service as determined by a military review; but they, not waiting for a discharge, flee from the sovereign's service: compile a decree for them for the flight—he who flees for the first time shall be beaten with the knout. If that same person flees a second time, beat him again with the knout and reduce his service land compensation entitlement by 67 acres, and his cash salary by 1 ruble per 133 acres of service land compensation entitlement. If he flees a third time: beat him again with the knout, confiscate his [entire] service landholding from him, and distribute it in the allotment [of lands to other servicemen].

9. If a foreigner, or any other mercenary, or a musketeer, or a cossack, or a [peasant or slave] recruit flees from service: having conducted an investigation of those people and having inflicted on them a severe punishment, a beating with the knout, send them back to the regiments for the sovereign's service, to the generals, escorted by bailiffs. Recover the salary advances made to the mercenaries, and musketeers, and cossacks in proportion to the service time during which they were absent. If the fugitive recruits are not present during the investigation, exact 20 rubles for each man for those fugitive recruits from those people to whom those men who fled from service belong.

10. Boyars and generals shall not discharge military personnel from the sovereign's service without a royal order. They shall not take bribes and gifts.

11. If boyars and generals, without a royal order, proceed to discharge military personnel from the sovereign's service, and take bribes and gifts, and that is established conclusively: punish the boyars and generals severely for that, whatever the sovereign decrees.

12. If someone falsely proceeds to petition the sovereign against boyars and generals for taking bribes, does this deliberately, and that is established conclusively: inflict a severe punishment on them, as the sovereign decrees, for dishonoring the boyars and generals and for the false petition.

13. If military personnel in the sovereign's service proceed to petition the boyars and generals for a discharge from the sovereign's service on the grounds that their own houses have been destroyed, or their slaves have fled, or for any other most urgent reasons: the boyars and generals shall conduct an investigation about those military personnel [by interrogating] the dvoriane and deti boiarskie, and servicemen of all ranks in the regiments. They shall obtain testimony about them from the servicemen over their signatures. After investigation, temporarily discharge military personnel from the sovereign's service for the most urgent matters.

14. If at any time there is intelligence about [enemy] troops, and on the basis of that intelligence the approach of [enemy] forces is anticipated: at that time do not discharge military personnel from the sovereign's service for any reason whatsoever.

15. Concerning those servicemen in the sovereign's service registered under someone in a unit of one hundred: centurions shall not discharge those servicemen to go anywhere for their own benefit without the sovereign's order and without a general's knowledge.

16. If a centurion discharges someone from his unit of one hundred to go somewhere without the sovereign's order and without a general's knowledge: inflict punishment for that on the centurions. After denouncing their guilt [openly] before many military personnel, inflict punishment: beat [them] with bastinadoes and cast [them] in prison so that other centurions looking on will learn not to do that.

17. If any servicemen proceed to petition the sovereign that, because of superannuation, or wounds, or disease, they are unable to go to the sovereign's service, and would the sovereign order their children, and brothers, and nephews, and grandsons who have no service landholding, who have come of age for the sovereign's service, but are not serving in the sovereign's service, and are not registered in any ranks, [to serve] in their stead in his royal service: examine those petitioners in Moscow and in the provincial towns.

If according to the examination those servicemen are indeed incapable of being in the sovereign's service because of superannuation, or wounds, or illness: order those servicemen to send to the sovereign's service in their stead their own children, and brothers, and nephews, and grandsons who have no service landholdings who have come of age for the sovereign's service, are eighteen years of age, but are not rendering any service to the sovereign, and are not registered in any ranks, with all their military gear and supplies. They shall not send anyone for service in their stead who is less than eighteen years of age.

If they have no such children, and brothers, and nephews, and grandchildren but themselves are in no way capable of being in the sovereign's service because of disease or superannuation: collect from them for the sovereign's service either recruits or cash, depending upon [the size and condition of] their service landholdings, and hereditary estates, and maintenance allotments.

18. If any servicemen proceed to petition the sovereign that they be excused from the sovereign's service, and testify that they are superannuated, and wounded, or sick; but upon examination they are [deemed] able to be in the sovereign's service: send such people themselves to the sovereign's service.

19. If any serviceman, being in the sovereign's service, flees from battle to his own home, and the generals report on him about this to the sovereign: reduce by half the service land compensation entitlements and the cash compensation entitlements of such men for that flight. Moreover, confiscate from them for the sovereign one-half of their [actual] service landholdings. Finally, inflict a punishment on them, beat them mercilessly with the knout for that.

20. If someone, being in the sovereign's service in the regiments, as an act of treason proceeds to abandon the regiments for the enemy regiments; and in the enemy regiments talks about intelligence and about the sovereign's military personnel; and someone informs about this against him; and that is established conclusively: punish such a deserter with death, hang him in view of the enemy regiments, and confiscate his service landholdings, and hereditary estates, and movable property for the sovereign.

21. If someone of the military personnel in the sovereign's service runs out of supplies and fodder; and at the time in the market grain supplies and fodder are selling for a dear price; and, because of his poverty, he is unable to purchase food and fodder at that price; and if, by order of his tsarist majesty and after review by the local commanding general, there is at that time a statutory price for food and fodder for military personnel that is lower than the market price; and that serviceman who has run out of grain supplies and fodder in the sovereign's service proceeds to petition the sovereign that he be permitted to buy supplies and fodder from someone at the statutory price because of his poverty: the generals shall send out bailiffs with such a petitioner to those people whom he saw in possession of grain supplies and fodder, and order them to take the grain supplies and fodder from those people at the statutory price.

Order the grain supplies and fodder taken at the statutory price from those people who have grain supplies and fodder in surplus, beyond their domestic needs. If someone does not have grain supplies or fodder above his domestic needs, in surplus: do not take from such people grain supplies and fodder at the statutory price.

Without the knowledge of a general and without the presence of bailiffs, military personnel shall not go to anyone for grain supplies and fodder. No one shall take by force grain supplies and fodder at the statutory price from anyone.

They shall not destroy the houses where they are billeted. They shall not set fire to, or lay waste, fences surrounding yards and gardens. They shall not deliberately trample any grain in the field.

22. If any servicemen, being in the sovereign's service, proceed to take grain supplies and fodder from anyone by force, or proceed to rob someone, or proceed to lay waste the houses and gardens where they are billeted, or to cause anyone any other financial losses; and if there are petitioners against them for that; and that is established conclusively: exact those financial losses two-fold from those people who caused anyone any financial losses.

23. Servicemen are free to ride out into service landholding and hereditary estate forests to gather firewood and any wood needed to build a camp. The hereditary estate owners and service landholders, to whom those forests belong, shall not take declarations from them. They shall not for any reason ride into the frontier defense line forests or into any other forbidden forests. Servicemen shall cart away firewood and any wood for camp construction for themselves, but not for sale.

24. If any military personnel, being in the sovereign's service; or any, who are not military personnel, traveling somewhere on a trip for their own affairs, pitch a tent on a field near the grain, and their horses trample the grain and knock the seeds out; or, having harvested any grain, they bring it to their camps to feed the horses: order them to pay in cash for that trampled grain two-fold without any mercy at the price assessed for that trampled grain by impartial third persons. Moreover, after review, inflict punishment on these same people for that.

25. If a serviceman, being in the sovereign's service, desires to buy grain supplies or fodder from someone at the statutory price, but has his own supplies and fodder adequate to cover his needs: order him not to buy such grain supplies and fodder at the statutory price. If he takes any supplies from someone at the statutory price, and it is established about that conclusively that he has his own supplies and fodder besides that [which he had purchased at the statutory price]: exact from those people for such seized supplies the statutory price in cash two-fold. Give [the sums] back to those people from whom they illegally bought those supplies so that others looking on will learn not to do that.

26. If horses belonging to any of the servicemen in the sovereign's service wander off from the camp, or flee somewhere from the herds; and someone finds and apprehends such horses somewhere: that person shall bring those horses for a declaration for registration to the generals in the regiments. If at that moment it happens that the generals are away somewhere from the regiments on an official mission, bring those horses for a declaration to the judges in the regiments, or to the centurions.

If plaintiffs, from whom those horses wandered off, file suit for those horses: return those horses to them whose horses they are. For bringing in those horses, order [a reward] collected from them and give it to that person who brought in those horses for the declaration at the rate of .10 ruble per horse.

Do not give a reward for anything else that is lost in the regiments and found by someone on the road or in the camps. Bring found movables for a declaration in the same way to the generals, and to the judges, and to the centurions. [No one] shall keep such found movables for himself.

27. If someone in the sovereign's service fails to bring in found horses for a declaration, and does not bring in found movables for a declaration, and there are petitioners against him for that; and if it is established that those horses and that gear are not his, as alleged in someone's petition: after investigation, deprive him of those horses and movables and give [them] back to the petitioners.

28. If someone, in service in the regiments, steals a weapon from someone: mercilessly beat that person with the knout. Concerning that which he stole: exact it from him and give it to the person from whom he stole it.

29. If someone in service steals a horse from someone else: cut off his hand for that theft.

30. If some military personnel, riding to the sovereign's service, or returning to their homes from the sovereign's service, proceed to billet in houses in hamlets and in villages, or in threshing barns, for felonious purposes and proceed to plunder, commit murder or rape, trample the grain in the threshing barns, or catch fish illegally from ponds and nurse-ponds or cause any other injury to anyone of any sort; and there are petitioners against them for that; and that felonious conduct of theirs is established conclusively at trial and investigation: punish those who committed homicide or rape with death.

For any other injury and for plundering, inflict on them punishment depending upon the offense. Concerning that which they plundered from someone: exact it from them two-fold and give it back to those people from whom they plundered it.

If there is no evidence on which to base an investigation about that case, giant a trial in that case. Use an oath, kissing the cross, [to resolve] everything in the case at trial and investigation.

31. If someone deliberately slanders servicemen by [filing] such a case, and that is established conclusively: inflict on that person who slanders someone with such a case the same punishment as would be meted out to that person whom he slandered with such a case.

32. If any serviceman, traveling to the sovereign's service, or riding [home] from the sovereign's service, approaches someone in camp out of enmity with intent to commence a fight; and an argument and a fight ensue between them in the matter; and if in the fight that person who illegally rode into someone else's camp kills, or wounds, or robs someone: after investigation, punish that person with death also for the murder.

But if at that camp he only strikes someone with his hand, but does not kill him, and does not wound [his victim]; or if he verbally insults someone, or takes something by plunder, and that is established conclusively: inflict on that person a punishment depending upon the offense. Order that person whom he struck with his hand or insulted verbally to exact from him his dishonor compensation and [the value of] the plunder two-fold.