276 the Swedish instruktion were devoted to questions concerning the provincial economy (30—44). A continuous theme in these articles is that production in the province must not be allowed to decline to the detriment of the treasury. The landshövding wtis given broad responsibility for seeing to it that the crown’s incomes were maintained and even increased as much as possible, and the Russian instruktsiia placed similar responsibilities upon the voevoda. There are, however, significant departures from the Swedish text in this part of the Russian instructions, for the former presupposed the existence of the Swedish cameral system. Only seven of the fifteen articles mentioned above (30—31, 36, 39—40, 43—44) were included in the instruktsiia in much abbreviated versions, while eight of them(32—35, 37—38, 41—42) were excluded entirely. One article that was excluded from the instruktsiia v/as article 34, which concerned the so-called förmedling of nobiliar lands, and which may serve to exemplify the type of article the Russians chose not to borrow. Förmedling was a special cameral procedure by which a homestead’s mantal, or annual tax, could be lowered in the jordehoken if it was demonstrated that the homestead had lost its ability to pay taxes at the normal rate. Förmedling was to be proceeded by a survey and by an “investigation” by the district court into the reasons for the homestead’s having become insolvent, and the application was denied if the investlgation revealed that it had been made: not in view of the paucity of the fields, but rather because a nobleman has either burdened the peasant with all too many days of service, transports of goods, or transports of people, through which (the peasant) has been kept from the required upkeep of his homestead and fields, or (if the nobleman) has kept for himself any part of the arable, meadow, pasturage, fishing waters, grazing islands, forests, etc., reduced the holdings (of the peasant) for the betterment of his manor, (or) planted on the holdings cottagers who always perform service and day work for their landlord. This article reveals, among other things, that the Swedish peasant was taxed according to the acreage he farmed. At the basis of the assessment of taxes was a survey and an estimate of the expected production of the homestead. None of this was done in Russia at this time; instead, the Russians used the camerally diffuse term “homestead” (dvor) as the taxable unit, and for this reason article 34 was left out of the Instructions for voevodas."*^ For its part, the Russian instruktsiia was supplemented by three articles (31, 33, 35) which lacked parallels in the mstruktion for landshövdingar. These additional articles will be considered below in their respective historical contexts. See below, p. 284.
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