ABSTRACT
Muscovite slave lives were primarily of the household type, rather than the production type. In the Muscovite sense of peasants bound to the land, they began to be created only in the second half of the fifteenth century, and in many respects serfdom was set in place by the 1590s. In the 1590s, the government was alarmed by the growing number of slaves, who paid no taxes, so it changed the nature of limited service contract slavery. The Sheremetevs did not own slaves for the purposes of producing anything but primarily for the purpose of demonstrating that they were prosperous members of the Muscovite service class, as a visual demonstration of prestige. The role of Ignashka in the Muscovite service state was to provide the food and clothing that Miachkov and his family needed, as well as the fodder for Miachkov's cavalry warhorse. Miachkov's service landholding contained more land than his peasants could farm.
