CHAPTER 8. - The Redemption of Military Captives. In It Are 7 Articles.

1. To ransom military captives, annually collect money at the rate of .04 ruble per household from the towns of the entire Muscovite state: from the households of townsmen, and post drivers, and various residents who are living in towns in urban taxpaying districts; and from rural areas, and from peasants and landless peasants residing on estates belonging to the patriarch, and metropolitans and archbishops, and bishops, and monasteries. [Tax] peasants living in the sovereign's court villages, and in rural taxpaying districts, and on service landholdings, and on hereditary estates at the rate of .02 ruble per household. [Tax] servicemen, musketeers, and cossacks, and artillerymen, and gunners, and gatekeepers, and carpenters and smiths working for the state treasury, and various servicemen at the rate of .01 ruble per household.

Collect those monies annually in the Foreign Affairs Chancellery on the basis of the new census books, and not according to the cadastral census [books], so that no one will be omitted from that cash levy because such ransoming is a common act of mercy [for all]. The pious tsar and all Orthodox Christians will receive great recompense from God, as the righteous Enoch said: "Do not spare your gold and silver for your brother, but ransom him, and you will receive a hundred-fold from God."

And God told the Prophets: "Do not spare your silver for the sake of a man." Christ ordered that one should lay down not only silver, but his own life for his brethren. He said: "No one has greater love than he who lays down his life for his brethren." And thus for the sake of Christ's words it is not only proper that the pious tsar and all Orthodox Christians ransom military captives, but that they also lay down their lives for them, so that on that day they become worthy of a hundred-fold recompense.

2. Pay to ransom military captives who are dvoriane and deti boiarskie captured in combat [and later] brought in for ransoming by Turkish and Crimean ambassadors and Greeks an amount determined by their service land compensation entitlements, 20 rubles per 133 acres of land.

3. Concerning those who are seized into captivity not in combat and not on an official embassy: pay to ransom those people 5 rubles per 133 acres.

4. [Pay] 40 rubles apiece for Moscow musketeers.

5. [Pay] 25 rubles apiece for musketeers and cossacks of the frontier towns.

6. [Pay] 20 rubles apiece for townsmen.

7. [Pay] 15 rubles apiece for farming peasants and for slaves.