243 place.^**' To all appearances it seems that decision-making in the guberniia administration never functioned on a collegial basis; instead, the provincial councillors were entirely subordinate to the authority of the governor. In his own dolia, however, the provincial councillor controlled the admmistrative and judicial functions, as well as the collection of taxes. At that level there was no separation of these various functions. The rents in kind and in cash that were collected from the peasants in the dolia were either sent to the central bursary in the guberniia or, in some cases, directly to St. Petersburg. The provincial councillors were aided in the supervision of tax collection and in the transportation of tax revenues by the ober-komissary. In his capacity as a judge, the provincial councillor served as the primary judicial instance, and his decisions could be appealed to the goverHis power to pass judgement, however, was considerably restricted. When it came to disputes between a landowner and his own serfs, or between serfs who belonged to the same landowner, either the landowner himself or his steward {prikazchik) functioned as the final judge. The provincial councillors were Instructed to draw up a register of all the homesteads subject to taxation. This registration of farms, or homestead census {landratskaia perepis'), which was conducted between 1715 and 1718, did not, however, have any practical impact upon the actual taxation of the peasantry, since, in connection with the quartering of the army in the provinces, the homestead was abandoned as a cameral unit and replaced by a systemof poll taxes {podushnaia podad). More important in this connection is the fact that the provincial councillors were, at the same time, given the task of locating the serfs who had escaped from their owners, a task that had been given to the voevodas in 1707.^“® It seems that the efforts of the provincial councillors produced considerable results, and in the Mozhaiskaia dolia of the Moscow guberniia alone nearly five thousand serfs were returned to their owners. The various commercial sectors of the population were expressly exeluded from the jurisdiction of the provincial councillors. The ukaz of 1715 stated that “the provincial councillors in all of the gubernii shall in no way whatsoever have jurisdiction over the town population {posadskie liudi) nor interfere with their affairs, but for the administration of Bogoslovskii (1903), 131, 134. >«=* Ibid., 141. '»•* Ibid., 107—108, 122. »'*•' Ibid., 111 —112. >'•« Ibid., 110. Miliukov, 473. PRP, VIII, 34—35. Bogoslovskii (1903), 138. 103 104 10.1 nor. 106 107 109 107 lOH
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