A local order: functions, role in the state in the XVI-XVII centuries.

In the 16-17th centuries. The ministries and departments that we used today did not exist. Analogues were orders. Their peculiarity was that they duplicated each other, the functions of a specific order were not fully understood. Sometimes it was impossible to solve the problem. However, among them stood the Local Order.

It is about its functions and features that will be discussed in this article.

Local order: functions

So, what kind of office was this? A local order in the 16th-17th centuries, or a local hut at a later time, occupied a central place in the administration of the Moscow State. This was the second most important after the discharge department. If the latter distributed key posts and posts, the Local Order managed local and patrimonial landownership. In order to understand its true significance, we turn to the key concepts of land use types.

What is the patrimony

In the 16-17th centuries. Muscovy was a single centralized state. However, this process was very long. Before that, in Russia there was only one type of land use - an ancestral land. Literally "from the father." Compare the modern "stepfather" - the words have a common root.

Vetchina is a possession that was passed from father to son. The tradition was so strong that this right was considered sacred. Even with the seizure of enemy lands, no one could think of taking the land from the owner. The state, in our understanding of this word, did not claim this. The owner of such land was called boyar. It was the highest title in our country from the formation of the state to the reforms of Peter the Great, ie, a thousand-year tradition. The peculiarity of such holding was that the boyar could join his land to any state, creating an enclave. Imagine a situation where, say, the owner of a land plot in the Novosibirsk region decided to join the United States or France. According to the laws of the 15th-16th centuries. It was quite possible. So, Moscow has pulled over to its side almost all the boyars of Ryazan, having made of this land a kind of a bagel. The Ryazan princes had no choice but to join the Moscow principality.

What is an estate

The estate is a fundamentally different property. The landlord is not a boyar, but a nobleman.

It performs the functions of state military service. For this and receives the land. If the prince did not like this or that landowner, he could calmly take the land from him. This is a fundamental difference from the fiefdom.

Role of the Local Order

Based on the concepts of land use, we can conclude what role the Local Order played:

• Distribution of estates.
• Proof of ownership.

Distribution of estates

Even to the uninitiated in our country it is possible to understand what authority the official who appointed the land used. The Moscow prince, and with the beginning of the reign of Ivan the Terrible, the tsar, as a rule, did not deal with the distribution of pieces of land to his future soldiers.

The right to own property was issued by the Discharge, however, the Local Order is an order that could identify both the best land and the swampy ones. From this department depended very much for the future destiny of man. Strangely enough, bribes and bribery played a small role in the distribution. Extra money is simply not needed in a feudal society that feeds on agricultural products. Of fundamental importance was the origin, genus. If a nobleman came from a noble boyar family, then he got the best estates. For the "serfs", that is, the peasants, the "worst" allotments were intended.

Proof of ownership

Until the 16th and 17th centuries. The Moscow state has made a difficult path of centralization. Fragmentation, constant wars, the transition of one principality to another gave birth to a lot of problems among the boyars. Sometimes their patrimonies could not be documented. A local order had a book in which dynasties with land use were kept. However, the transition to a unified management generated problems of a bureaucratic nature. Not all data from all lands reached the single office. Such boyars had to beat the thresholds of the Local Order for a long time. Some passed to the status of "boyar children", that is, de-landed boyars, whose ancestors once owned huge lands. Many of them also replenished the ranks of the nobility.

They received land, of course, but this was not property, but payment for service.

Of course, the discharge order was more important. It was he who appointed the estates and fiefdoms, but the land survey was conducted by the local one.

Subsequently, the role of the department increased. In addition to the traditional functions of the archive and the office under the Discharge Order, it was his task to collect all taxes and taxes from the land, census and land surveying, and recruitment to the army.

Number of

A local order is the second most important agency, as mentioned above. People "from the street" were not taken into it. At the head of the order was the boyar, who, as a rule, entered the Duma. Sometimes he was replaced by a Duma clerk, which, in principle, was equivalent. He had two assistants in the aides and about 200 employees - scribes. With the growth of functions, the staff reached 500 people.

The first land survey school

The local order is considered the first department in Russia, where they began to prepare surveyors. The students were divided between departments (tables). Their number reached 100 people. The training lasted about 2-3 years. The schoolboys studied mathematics, grammar, land surveying, drawing, land quality assessment techniques.

Operating procedure

If someone complains about the modern bureaucracy, tell him about the procedure for considering the request in the Local Order in the 16th-17th centuries:

1. At the petitions the deacons made a note of the preparatory stages necessary to hold the scribe.
2. Pododyachie found books, wrote out the necessary excerpts from them, attached all the references to the petition.
3. The request was heard at the Board of the order, a decision was made.
4. Local governors on the ground executed the decision.

The procedure is similar to modern litigation. Who has had experience, knows how many months, and sometimes even years, it can drag on.