Servants in Foreigners’ Houses in Mid-Seventeenth-Century Muscovy: Local Differences in Legislation, Practices, and Administrative Handling

In mid-seventeenth-century Muscovy, conflicts between Orthodox citizens and foreigners of different Christian confessions attracted increasingly more attention from the authorities as the non-Orthodox population grew, especially in the capital. One of the most controversial issues arising from interreligious contacts centred on the employment and housing of Orthodox servants and workers in the homes of foreigners. New legislation intended to protect the faithful restricted such employment while at the same time new limitations were introduced limiting where foreigners were allowed to live. The codification of these new rules in the Law Code of 1649 culminated in the segregation of Moscow’s non-Orthodox inhabitants in their own suburb outside the city walls. However, in other Muscovite towns with non-Orthodox populations no such drastic measures were taken. Indeed, census data and court documents reveal that the way other towns coped with the new rules was different from how the capital approached them. Provincial authorities in the northern towns of Arkhangelsk and Vologda were more inclined to compromise and adapt to local conditions while those in the capital enforced the letter of the law and repeatedly searched foreignowned households for Orthodox servants. These differing environments are reflected in the ways foreigners obtained and employed servants. While in the provinces, foreigners negotiated for the continued employment and housing of Orthodox servants, foreign houseowners in the capital increasingly relied on non-Orthodox slaves obtained as prisoners of war or at slave markets.