Muscovite Roots, 1462-
11obles, most of whom performed it as cavalrymen, accompanied by their
<):pendants. Later the obligation was extended from the well-born to a sizeable
s..:grnent of the non-privileged or 'taxpaying' population, in conditions that
were generally much more onerous. There gradually developed a complex
111ilitary structure that comprised several distinct groups, each with its specific
du1ies and (theoretically at least) rights. These corps could almost be called
~.isles, since they recruited new members primarily from the children of those
el ready enrolled. They were not hermetically sealed, but service was hereditary;
tt1us transfer from one group to another became increasingly difficult and
1.M1ally occurred only when the central authorities required it for reasons of
!heir own. Administratively, the Muscovite troops were something of a hodge-
p1>dge, and co-ordination of their efforts in the field left much to be desired.
Nevertheless these def ccts were exaggerated by historians writing in the Imperial
~ra, when it was taken for granted that the Russian army was a creation of the
t-ar-rcformcr' Peter the Great. It is now possible to take a more balanced
~1ew, and to recognize that in many respects the pre-Petrine armed forces were
r.·asonably well adapted to the relatively limited tasks they faced. The system
01 military administration, though cumbersome and often chaotic, had a flex-
bility and immediacy that were sacrificed under the rigorous bureaucratic
tc·ntralism of St. Pcter,hurg. In Muscovy, at least until the mid-seventeenth
CA:nt ury, service was usually rendered on an annual basis, for a single campaign,
<Jlld so involved less di~location for those concerned or for their dependants.
The origin\ of the Russian service state are not easy to pin down. There are
precedent~ in the By1antine empire, which in ~he pronoia developed a fore-
r111111er of the Muscovite pome.H 'ye, i.e. an estate held on conditional tenure in
r,·turn for the pcrformam:e of military duties (sec below, p. 44).^4 However,
there is no evidence of rnnscious emulation. Nearer geographically, if not
c.11lturally, were the Tatar khanates. Yet two and a half centuries of domination
l>y the Kipchak ('Golden') Horde left remarkably few direct traces on Russian
!..Kial life or in~titutions, important as its indirect consequences were. Some
l<nowledgc in the fields of military equipment, communications, nomenclature,
~11d perhaps lactics was transmi11ed.^5 Jaroslaw Pclenski has recently pointed
tu 'the striking similarilies' between the pomest 'ye and the soyurgluil of the
Kazan· Tatars; hut his claim that there was a 'reception of Kazanian institu-
!1onal models and societal arrangements in Muscovite Russia' must remain, in
default of supporting evidence, only a provoc'~tive hypothesis.^6 Parallel
developments arc not in themselves proof of cross-cultural influences. It seems
n1ore reasonable to infer that these two neighbouring but antagonistic
~1cieties, which faced simila. problems in mobilizing their scarce resources for
- G. O\trngor'k)', "Agrirnltmat Conditiom in the Byrnnline Empire in lhc l\faldtc Ages',
C.1111/irid11r /:'n11101111c /li.1111ry of Europe. 2nd edn., i. ed. M. M. Po~tan, Cambridge, 1971,
pp. 221-6; Uspen,ky. 'Znachcniyr", pp. 2t-7.
' G. V. Vern;uhky. T11e /110111111/.f and R11.<.<10 (A History of Russia, 3) New Haven and London,
')'·'· pp .. 1'12-tl. - Pelcnsk1. 'State and Su..:ic1y·. p. Ill].