On the Reliability of the Data on the Number of Serf Households in the “Registers” of Military Servicemen (Based on the Materials of the “Registers” of Scriveners from June 1653 and the Inventory of Peasant and Cottar Households in the Estates and Votchinas of Scriveners from Mid-July 1653)

Abstract

This article evaluates the reliability of the data on the number of serf households in the “registers” of scriveners on the occasion of the equestrian review of military servicemen in the Moscow ranks that took place in June 1653. The analysis draws on the following official documents: the inventory of peasant and cottar households in the estates and votchinas of scriveners complied in mid-July 1653 in the Pomestny Prikaz and based on the perepisnye, otkaznye, and otdelnye books; the “registers” of military servicemen. The documents studied were deposited in the collection of the Razryadny Prikaz of the Russian State Archives of Ancient Documents (RSAAD). The results obtained show that the numbers of serf households in the “registers” of scriveners are quite credible. However, there are some discrepancies in the number of serf households between the “registers” and the inventory, which is due to the specific way they were recorded in the documentation of the Pomestny Prikaz. If the data of the Pomestny Prikaz differed from those of the handwritten “register”, the serviceman gave explanations “at the reference” – an oral “register”. Thus, in the considered historical sources, the “registers” refer both to the actual handwritten “registers” and the explanations given by scriveners “at the reference” in the Pomestny Prikaz. The findings may be useful for specialists in the history of the Sovereign’s Court, social history, history of public administration, and source studies of clerical documents.