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The consolidation of the ruling
landed nobility and the strengthening of its economic power went
hand in hand with the process of the enserfment of the
peasantry. The bonded status of the peasants became gradually
fixed in Russia’s law codes, starting from the first
restrictions of their free movements in the late fifteenth
century and reaching the stage of complete bondage, or
serfdom, by the middle of the seventeenth century.
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The starting
point in the establishment of serfdom was the restriction on the
peasants’ right to switch landowners. The law code of 1497 for the
first time limited the period during which the peasant could leave
his squire and move to another landowner’s manor. This period was
restricted to just two weeks each year, in late autumn after the end
of the harvest season. But even this severely constrained freedom
of movement from one master to another was later taken away from
them, thus leaving the peasants with only one, illegal, way of
obtaining personal freedom - by fleeing from their landlords. The
State continued to tighten the grip over the person of the peasant
by enacting legislation which gradually increased the number of
years, during which runaway peasants could be chased, and by
perfecting the system of catching escaped serfs.
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Finally, the
law code of 1649 removed any time limits on the period during which
the runaways and their descendants could be hunted down and returned
to their former masters. This, in effect, meant the culmination of
the process of the enserfment of the peasantry. Under the law code
of 1649, a form of a Muscovite ‘constitution’ which became the most
important legislation of the pre-Petrine Russia, the peasants were
bonded to the land and service to their squires, the small class of
townsmen was obligated to perform town duties, the serving nobility
had to perform military and government service. |
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Tsarist Russia |
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