Although the direct successor of Michael, Alexis Michaelovich, ascended the throne without entering into any covenant with his people, nevertheless the Sobor was called to confirm the act of his coronation. This happened in 1645. Four years later the Sobor was called upon to aid in the important business of codification. Modern inquirers have brought to light the fact that the petitions presented at this Assembly more than once furnished important materials for the reformation of the Russian law, and that their influence may be traced through the whole code of Alexis (known under the title of Oulogenie). During the following year the Sobor was again convened at Moscow in order to advise the Government as to the suppression of insurrectionary movements in different parts of the empire, and especially at Pskov. The Assembly advised lenient treatment of the insurgents, and the Government acted accordingly.
In 1651 and 1653 the Sobor on two different occasions declared itself in favour of the annexation of Little Russia.
This country had been liberated from the Poles by the "Hetman" of the Cossacks, Bogdan Chmelnizky, who soon afterwards offered it to the Czar of Russia. It was feared that the acceptance of this offer might involve Russia in a new war with Poland; therefore the advice of the Sobor of 1651 was only conditional. If Poland acquiesced in the demands of the Czar, Russia was to abstain from annexation; if not, the risk of a new war ought not to be avoided, and Christian brethren were to be taken under the protection of the orthodox Czar. Three years later, when the Polish king Jan Kasimir entered into direct alliance with the ancient enemies of Russia -- the Swedes and the Crimean Tartars -- and when therefore no doubt could be entertained as to the necessity for war, the Sobor openly invited the Czar to take the Hetman and the Cossacks of the Dnieper "under his high hand, together with their cities and lands, and that in order to preserve the true Orthodox Church." The delegates spoke of their readiness to fight the Polish king and to lose their lives for the honour of the Czar.
The Sobor of 1653 was the last general Assembly called in the time of Alexis. Following the example of bis predecessors, the Czar on several occasions also convened representatives of one single estate to consult with them on matters directly concerning their order. Such an assembly of notables sat in Moscow in the year 1617. It consisted chiefly of Moscovite merchants. It was convened to hear the opinion of Russian tradesmen as to the desirability of granting to English merchants trading in Moscow, and to their chief agent, John Merrick, the right of making explorations in search of a new road to China and India "by way of the river Ob." The majority of the delegates were opposed to the project.
The same feeling of animosity towards foreigners found its expression in 1626, when on the demand of English merchants to be allowed to trade with Persia, the members of the guild of guests and the Moscow merchants insisted on the necessity of upholding the monopoly which the Moscovite tradesmen enjoyed in going to Astrachan to buy Persian goods. The majority of the merchants declared themselves unable to compete with foreign merchants, and even the minority were of opinion that if free trade were permitted to English traders in return for large payments made by them to the crown, this liberty ought not to be extended to the traffic in Russian commodities. Half a century later, in 1667, the same Moscovite merchants, consulted by Alexis, stoutly opposed the demand of Armenian merchants for free trade in Persian commodities, and begged the Government not to endanger their own trade by foreign competition. Ten years later the Moscow tradesmen, together with the delegates of the black hundreds and villages, were called together to give their opinion as to the causes which tended to raise the price of corn. They complained of engrossers and asked that their practices might be forbidden in future. They also spoke of the great damage agriculture had sustained through recent wars. The increase in the number of distilleries was also mentioned as one of the principal reasons for the dearness of corn.
In 1681-2 the "men of service" were convened together with the Douma to reform the military administration. it was this memorable Assembly which abolished the old custom of appointing men to the chief posts in the army, not according to their personal merit, but to the rank of their family, and the length of time it had served the State; and which also ordered the heraldic books to be burnt.
The last instances we have of the convening of the Russian Sobors belong to the period of Eternal trouble which followed the death of the Czar Theodore. In 1682 a Sobor to which the inhabitants of Moscow alone were summoned, pronounced itself in favour of the occupation of the vacant throne by the youngest son of Alexis, the future emperor, Peter the Great. A new Assembly, which in its composition answered even less than its predecessor to the idea of a general representative council, was convoked a few months later by the party that favoured the political designs of the Princess Sophia, sister to Peter the Great. It insisted on the division of the sovereign power between the two brothers of Theodore, Peter and John. Princess Sophia became from that time the real ruler of the empire. Again Moscow alone was represented though the Acts speak of the presence of delegates from all the provinces and cities of the empire.
It was in 1698 that the Sobor was convoked for the last time.
