The well-known Kotoschichin, who was alive at the time, speaking of the accession of the Czar Alexis, son of Michael Romanov, notices the fact that, "contrary to the custom established by his predecessor, the new Czar signed no charter by which he undertook to inflict capital punishment only in accordance with law and justice, and to consult the boyars and men of the Douma on each and every question concerning the government of the land, so that no decision might be come to without their assent." Although Kotoschichin speaks more positively as to the constitutional character of the limitations imposed on Russian autocracy in the first quarter of the seventeenth century, we must notice the fact that he says nothing of the part which the Sobor or Parliament was called upon to play in this experiment in limited monarchy. He mentions only the boyars and the men of the Douma, not "those of the land," a phrase used at that time when speaking of the members of the Zemski Sobor.
The Swedish writer, Fokkerodt, is more explicit when he affirms that in the compromise signed by Michael, the young Czar promised to give free course to the judicial proceedings of the courts, so as to inflict no punishment on his own authority, to introduce no new law without the consent of the Sobor, to abstain from levying any tax without the consent of this representative Assembly, and to begin no war without its counsel and approbation.
As to Strahlenberg, his statement is as follows: Before the coronation Michael was forced to accept the following conditions:
He promised to (1) uphold and protect the existing creed of Russia; (2) to keep no memory of injuries inflicted on his family, to forget and to forgive all past animosities; (3) He took also the obligation to make no new laws or alter old ones, and to take no important measure which might contradict the existing laws, or suspend the legal proceedings of the court of justice. (4) He promised as well to begin no wars and to make no peace by his own will.(8*)This view of the power of the Sobor is confirmed by the fact of its quasi-permanent presence at Moscow during the whole reign of the first Romanov. The laws and proclamations issued at that time generally contain the following characteristic expression:
"According to our order (oukas) and the decision of the whole land (po vsei zemli prigovorou)." The whole land cannot mean anything else than the representatives in Parliament assembled.
Many important questions were discussed and settled by the Sobor. In the first years of the reign want of money obliged the Czar more than once to have recourse to forced loans and benevolences. These were levied side by side with the regular taxes on the goods of merchants and peasants (torgovii i soschnii liudi); the taxes received the consent of the Sobor, the benevolences were endorsed by it. The nomination of a new Patriarch in 1619 was also their work. The annals of the time tell us that the boyars, the dignitaries of the Court, and all the people of the "Moscovite State" called on Michael and asked him to induce his father Philarete to accept the primacy of the Russian church. Two years later, in 1621, a new Sobor was consulted on the question as to whether Russia should go to war with Poland. The Estates gave an answer in the affirmative, but the want of money and soldiers forced the Government to postpone the execution of this decision.
From 1622 the Sobors lose their character of quasi-constant assemblies, each remaining in session for several years and begin to be called only on special occasions, whenever their services were required for the settlement of important questions of State.
In 1632 war with Poland necessitated the levying of new subsidies. The Sobor Was accordingly assembled and gave its consent to the imposition of a general tax on all the estates of the empire, on the tradesmen as on the "men of service." The amount of money to be demanded from the latter was not fixed;each person could pay what he liked. The sums produced by the tax were intended for the payment of the army. During the next two years we find the Sobor consulting the Czar on matters of war and taxation, on the relations of the land with Poland and the Tartars of the Crimea. The Czar complained of the ill-treatment to which his envoy was subjected by the Khan. The superior clergy, whose answer alone has been preserved, insisted on the necessity of building fortresses on the Southern boundaries of the Moscovite empire, in those cities of the Ukraine, which like Belgorod or Voroneg, remained for centuries the pioneers of Christianity and culture in the southern steppes of Russia, and which were periodically plundered by the Tartars.
Two years later the military occupation of Asov by the Cossacks of the Don and the impending necessity of a war with the Crimean Tartars for the preservation of the conquest, caused a new Sobor to be convened. This Assembly was in favour of war and accordingly ordered the levy of military forces, "even from the villages belonging to the crown land and the lands of the clergy." In 1642 matters concerning the fortress of Asov again became the immediate cause of a new assembling of the Russian Estates. As the Turks had no intention of leaving Asov in the hands of the Cossacks, who were not able to hold it themselves, the question of annexing it to the Russian state suggested itself to the Government, though it involved the risk of incurring the responsibility of a new and almost imminent war. The Czar finding it necessary to know the feeling of the nation, summoned one hundred and ninety-five persons elected by the Estates, besides the Douma or Privy Council and the superior clergy, to Moscow.
Nearly all classes of society sent representatives, each class gave its opinion or advice separately on papers bearing the signatures of all the members of the same Estate, while the dissentients sent in their opinions on separate and private papers.
