the common practice with fome of the petty nobleffe of Poland.

5. DIETI-BOYARSKIE, or boyars?-children, and the patriarchal, as alfo the epifcopal nobles; of whom fome poffefs real nobility, while others are enregistered in the capitation. The ancient refpectable boyars, who poffeffed an extenfive property in land, erected a fort of dominion around them, in conformity with their feudal notions, and raised fome of their vaflals to diftinction over the reft, under the name of Dieti-boyarskie, i. e. boyars' children, who were to ferve the ftate. Their example was foon followed by the fuperior clergy who had large poffeffions; efpecially the patriarch, who took upon him, like the fovereign, to elevate perfons under his protection to the rank of nobility, and to grant them eftates. The tzars afterwards conferred real nobility on fome of them who had fhewn themselves worthy of it by abilities and merit. The governors of provinces likewife formerly appointed feveral kozaks that were stationed in towns to the dignity of boyar-children and nobleffe, as a reward for their fervices either in the military or civil department: yet they could not confer on them real nobility, nor have they ever been held in equal confideration with that which follows it.-In the eighteenth century, when the capitation-tax and the delivery of recruits were introduced, fuch of the boyar-children, and epifcopal or patriarchal nobleffe, as had vaffals, were admitted into the number of real nobles; others remained fubject to perfonal fervices; or, if they had entered into guilds and corporation companies, they were registered to the capitation. Their rank and their right to poflefs eftates are, however, held by fome to be very problematical.

It being a maxim with the ruffian fovereigns not more exprefsly to favour the antient than the new nobility,

nobility, and princes not more vifibly than the other nobles; infomuch, that even, according to the regulation for equipages published a few years ago, the nobleman who has not ferved, muft drive an inferior equipage in towns, that is, with only one horse, to the merchant, who may be drawn in his coach with two or four horfes at his difcretion: it follows, that every one muft ftrive to raise himself by good behaviour and fervices performed to the ftate, if he will not fink into oblivion, and live in his village without authority or confequence. For birth here gives but little claim to preference and confideration; both are regulated by the degree of rank acquired by fervice. Birth merely facilitates the way to honour. Accordingly there is not one place of rank which the new noble or the man of not-noble birth may not fill. No question is ever put concerning anceftry; and the officer's wife, who may be the daughter of a burgher, appears upon an equal footing with the most ancient princefs at the imperial court, where they both receive the respect attached to the rank of their husband.

Though it should appear from the charter granted by her late majefty in 1785, as well as from feveral ancient laws, that the right of poffeffing landed eftates is granted only to the nobility; yet it would be wrong to conclude thence, that the nobleman only and exclufively may poffefs property in land throughout the whole empire; or that by those ukafes the rights of other ranks and claffes were abolished. It is not to be denied, that on a flight view, those ukafes seem to appropriate folely to the nobility the right of being land-owners; nay, there is an ukafe by which merchants, who, though of the character of staff and upper officers, but have not the entire noble pre-eminence, were prohibited the purchase of eftates; confequently, in the prefent cafe, the nobility were not contrafted with the vaf

G 2

fals

fals or hereditary boors, but with the other ranks. It is no lefs undeniable, that not only private perfons and particular ranks*, but alfo whole tribes belonging in no refpect to the nobility, poffefs a real landed property, eftates, nay entire diftricts and provinces; we fee a proof of this in the odnodvortzi and the kozaks of Little Ruffia, each of whom has his little heritable estate ; so likewife the Don kozaks, who are real proprietors of the whole of their extenfive country, in which they have their lands and cow-yards; thus alfo the Tartars, Bafchkirs, and Vogules, who fell or let out large tracts of land or forefts of their own hereditary poffeffions, to the proprietors of mines. Ruffian merchants too, fince the reign of Peter I. poffefs property in land and boors alfo in Livonia and Efthonia real landed eftates have belonged from time immemorial to particular towns and bodies corporate; and the emprefs Catharine II. latterly made a free gift of the eftate of Vieratz in perpetuity to the incorporated burghers of the kreisftadt Fellin. That even fimple boors may buy a village with all the people belonging to it, will hereafter be fhewn from ukafes when we come to fpeak of the peafantry. On the whole then it appears, that in the expreffion of the ukafes above-mentioned, there is a manifeft obfcurity which may eafily lead into mistakest. In Livonia the laws reftricting the poffeffion of land have given rife to the practice of procuring patents of nobility from Vienna, or at leaft titles that confer the rank of nobles, by perfons of unnoble birth when they wish to purchase eftates.

* Monafteries and churches have ftill in Ruffia many parcels of land belonging to them; but feveral livonian and esthonian paftorates are real eftates provided with vaffals.

Thofe laws feem to relate principally to Great Ruffia; and there only to fuch eftates to which vaffals belong, though with fome limitation.

The

The noble eftates in Ruffia were formerly of two entirely different fpecies; the one termed landeftates, the other hereditary eftates; for Peter I. in 1714 introduced a fort of majority, or indivisibility, fo that the poffeffor of an estate could make it over to which of his children he pleased. This diverfity was the caufe of many difficulties in hereditary fucceffion. By an ukafe bearing date the 17th of March 1731, the empress Anna entirely repealed it; abolished the land-eftates, and declared all to be hereditary to which a complete right of property and free difpofal were attached. From that time thefe hereditary eftates have been inherited and fold as fuch. Only in Livonia and Efthonia there were still fiefs, whofe legitimacy was liable to fome doubt, and on an examination being ordered it caufed cruel apprehenfions to their owners. But the late emprefs quieted their fears, to the happiness of thefe two dukedoms, by an ukafe of May 3, 1783, whereby all fiefs are abolished, and thofe eftates are converted into real hereditary property with liberty

of alienation.

Of the ruffian eftates it is farther to be remarked: 1. That they are vulgarly called villagers, the value or greatnefs of which is eftimated by the fouls, i. e. the male heads of peafantry, as in general every proprietary reckons his riches according to fouls. When a proprietary wants to borrow money of the lombard, it will advance him forty rubles for every foul comprehended in the mortgage; the females are never taken into the account. 2. In heritages the estate is divided among all the children of both fexes; hence it is that at times a village belongs to feveral lords, each of whom poffeffes a certain number of fouls upon it, and if he will he may go and live upon it, conduct his own hufbandry, or leave the care of it to his boors; becaufe all the ground

ground and foil are his property. On failure of a direct heir, fometimes a family privilege comes in force; if, for inftance, the mother die, fhe leaves the eftate brought by her to her children; but, on their dying without heirs, it falls not to the father, but back to the maternal family.

Concerning the antient boyars, and their proper origin, nothing fatisfactory has hitherto been publifhed. During the tartarian and mongolian fovereignty no trace of them is found*; even during the reign of tzar Ivan Vaffillievitch I. no fuch title appears, though it feems to have arifen at that time or fhortly after. For, under the tzar Ivan Vaffillievitch II. the boyars had already endeavoured to collect a confiderable force about them; but were much over-awed by that monarch. In the fucceeding period, however, when the patriarch, and, under his protection, the fuperior clergy, raised great pretenfions, which, in the confufions that foon after fprang up, and from the indulgence or flothfulness of fome tzars, were brought to effect, the boyars took advantage of this favourable opportunity to extend their power allo. It is probable likewife that perfons of refpectable birth, from other countries,

In a german compilation the boyars are mentioned under. the mongolian fupremacy, and even earlier; but, as the author does not quote the authorities whence he has his accounts, no. thing can be decided from what he advances in favour of the antiquity of the boyars. It is likely he may have confounded expreflions; for boyar often indicates the nobility in general; and we fometimes hear the nobility in Moldavia and Valakhia called by the title of boyars. Even in the ruffian language boyarin fignifies a gentleman, a perfon of diftinction, a master of a family and the ruffian peafant ufually ftyles his nobleman, even though he has neither rank nor eftate, boyarin, or contractedly barin; and his fpoufe, boyarina. The task-fervice which the boors perform to their lord is therefore called, boyarfchtfchina.