Division III. 2. Structure of the provincial chancellery, staffing and ordering

At the assembly huts there were bailiffs or nedelshchiks, messengers, and watchmen '). The structure of the provincial chancellery appears much more complex: it is evident that it was the fruit of greater administrative ingenuity, the fruit of acquaintance with foreign regulations. Peter the Great, as we have seen, introduced collegial office work in all parts of the administration, and moreover, both in the central and regional administration. This office work, however, requires a demarcation between the board and the chancellery. Thus, the provincial chancellery was subdivided into the board chamber and the chancellery proper. Under Peter the Great, besides the governor and his associates, the composition of the board members included landrats and kamerirs, abolished in 1727. In the Moscow provincial chancellery, members of the Moscow magistrate were also invited to the board for merchant affairs °), and with the abolition of the tavern offices in 1761, one of the members of the former tavern office was invited to the board of the provincial chancelleries when judging tavern cases °). From the form of the provincial prosecutor's report, established in 1756, concerning the boards in the provincial chancellery, it is evident that the full composition of the board at this time included: the governor, the vice-governor, 2 governor's associates, and the prosecutor ‘). Almost the same composition of the board was established by the staffs of 1763, 5). The governor, like the president of a collegium, had supervision and care over the board members; in private litigation cases he might not be present, but in cases concerning the interests of the treasury, his presence was necessary b). As for the chancellery proper, according to the staffs of 1726, it was to consist of one secretary, 4 clerks, 8 copyists, and there were also 3 watchmen attached to it, '). Secretaries held the rank of the 12th class *), clerks had sergeant ranks, sub-clerks — corporal ranks e). By the decree of 1737, the Senate was ordered to appoint to the secretarial position 'worthy people with proper examination.' But the governors also willfully took secretaries from the town podyachys, and dismissed the former secretaries from their posts without waiting for a Senate decree, *). According to the General Regulation, it was also impossible to promote to protocolists and notaries without a Senate decree, but the governors did not fulfill this either, and in the gubernias and provinces there were protocolists and notaries appointed by governors and voivodes without reporting to the Senate 5). Subsequently, the provincial chancellery received the right to dismiss clerks from their posts by its own authority 5). The composition of the provincial chancellery, determined by the staffs of 1726, soon afterwards did not satisfy the needs of the complicated office work: in 1746, reports were sent to the Senate from various places about the shortage of clerical servants. The Senate on this occasion ordered the governors to recruit clerks from those who, having villages and other sustenance, live idly, and 'only go after affairs in the prikazes.' And those who begin to hide, their houses and villages are to be confiscated to the treasury ”). For the clerks, this was the same tyaglo [burden] that fell on the other estates, and only Catherine II, having freed the estates from compulsory service, emancipated the clerks from official duty as well. But these coercive measures could not fill the chancelleries with the necessary number of clerks: all the more so because sometimes the auditors, sent) See the book of staffs. — *) See Table of Ranks No. 5890. The decree of 1724 also prescribed not to appoint as secretaries anyone not from the nobility, — 3). P.S.Z. No. 1160 —