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39 in line with the interests of the magnates. A characteristic feature of the period was that the leading figures within the service elite gained an increasing amount of influence in the state apparatus. As Richard Hellie has pointed out, an “understanding of the Muscovite period is impossible until one comprehends that most policies, particularly internal ones, but also external ones, were conceived and executed almost exclusively in the interests of the magnates. The rare exceptions had to be coerced from the government by the interested parties. Subordinate to the judge were a number of so-called d'iaki, who in fact often ran the prikazy. The d'iaki usually had some form of personal dependent relationship with the head of the prikaz, who usually preferred to surround himself with his own people. When a judge left one prikaz to take up a position in another, therefore, it often happened that the d'iaki followed along with him.^'* The client system gave the judge more or less of a dictatorial position in his prikaz. The d'iaki in these prikazy were mainly recruited from the middle service class. Of those appointed by Peter I, sixty percent were noblemen, while thirteen percent were so-called raznochintsy, who were mainly recrulted from among the clergy or the commercial and manufacturing groups. The social background of the other twenty-seven percent is unknown, although we do know that there were no aristocrats among the d'iaki.-^ As for the decision-making process in the chancelleries, the rule was that all matters and cases of a disputable nature required a collective decision by all of the leaders of the prikaz. Thus, such decisions were to be made by the judge together with the d’iaki, whereas other matters could be decided by the judge or any one of the d'iaki on his own.-^ Finally, in each prikaz there was a lower category of personnel, the so-called pod’iachie, who carried out the practical office chores, such as making clean copies of documents and keeping the office accounts. However, there was no specified and regulated division of labor among this office staff.-- The number of pod'iachie could vary greatly from prikaz to prikaz, ranging from around ten to several hundred in any one chancel- ” 18 Hellie, 249—230. ** S. K. Bogoiavlenskii, “Prikaznye d'iaki XVII v.,” Istoricheskic zapiski, no. 1 (1937), 229—230. Ibid., 224—226. N. N. Ardashev, "K voprosu kollcgial’nosti prikazov," in I. N. Pokrovskii ct al., cds., Trudy VIll-go arkheologicheskogo s"ezda v Moskve 1890 g. (4 v., St. Petersburg, 1892—1897), III, 268. -- Veselovskii, 184.

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