than those in service (bojarin signifying free landowner); but as time passed the power of the serving boyars increased, and therewith their prestige. In the sixteenth century the boyar had already become a greater man than the prince. It was in the tsar's interest to restrict the princes to a purely honorary position, whereas those who directly served the court secured henceforward higher respect, so that the Russian term for nobleman was dvorjanin, "courtier."
It was impossible that the centralised great state should be administered by the monarch alone, and the sovereign therefore sought councillors and assistants in the duma of boyars. The ancient council of boyars, the composition of which had been subject to frequent changes, became transformed in Moscow into a species of permanent council of state.[1]
Owing to the increase in business it became necessary to appoint governmental departments; while scriveners, ready writers and experts in customary law, were also essential, and bore the title of dumnyi djak, secretary to the council. The secretaries, whose numbers varied from four to fourteen, occupied subordinate positions at first; but since they had continuously to work as delegates to the duma, they became ministers, as it were, holding important posts. Simultaneously the membership of the duma increased, and a differentiation of official duties occurred. Under John there were at the outset twenty-one members, whilst under Theodore Aleksěevič there were one hundred and sixty-seven. During the seventeenth century the department of justice, in especial, underwent separate development, and a foreign office was also established, these changes affording satisfactory proof of the manner in which the position of the tsars had become constitutionally established. The prestige and importance of the Moscow duma is indicated by the fact that the aforesaid Theodore in the year 1681, abolished the old system in accordance with which the leading posts in the public service had been filled by boyars an princes in conformity with the dictates of genealogical trees—to the great detriment of the administration in general and of military affairs in particular. Thus did the first Romanovs found the bureaucracy.
- ↑ It has not yet been ascertained whether and to what extent members of the duma were regularly summoned from other towns, and from ex-principalities. We must on no account in this connection think of a system of popular representation, nor had the duma any resemblance to a general assembly of the people
