Rented and purchased village lands of the tsar family's peasants in the European north of Russia

A class of the tsar family’s peasants was registered officially in 1797. The peasants were obliged to service to junior members of the tsar’s family. In the European North of the country these peasants constituted more than 11 % of the population. The agriculture based on draught lands played a significant role in the household life of the tsar family’s peasants. The existing deficit of such plots was constantly increasing. The peasants tried to compensate the lack of lands by quitrent and purchased grounds. Quitrent forests, soils and tillage belonged to the appanage departments and their territory enlarged with time. As a rule, these territories were involved into the household of peasants as leased lands for a four year term. A rental fee for quitrent lands grew constantly. The land lease was registered on a certain commonalty and the lands were common for the participants. Such land lease was always executed without any contest or tenders among participants. The lands were usually assigned to certain settlements. Appanage departments were unable to solve this problem. As a result, a lot of quitrent grounds lost their borders among peasants’ lands. These borders were established and the grounds were separated only during the abolition of serfdom in 1863. Starting from that time the peasants of imperial family could purchase grounds into private ownership. Nevertheless, from the very beginning such deals were rare because none of the owners wanted to sell their grounds. After 1808, when all deals on the purchase of grounds had to be registered officially through appanage departments, they were no longer registered in northern villages. The renting and purchasing of the grounds did not revolutionize because of the inert feudal policy of the appanage departments. The total plottage of the quitrent and purchased grounds was not big enough to compensate for the overall deficit of lands allocated for the tsar family’s peasants living in the North.