26 Muscovite Roots, 1462-1689
monarchical power was weakened.^40 Thus in 1578/9 I. F. Mstislavsky and
I. P. Shuysky, t~o prominent boyars, instituted proceedings against members.
of the Golitsyn clan. Ivan IV ordered their plea to be duly registered and sent
for adjudication. But in the following year, when A. P. Kurakin refused to
serve under M. P. Kaiy-r.ev, and ~evera! othf'r men raised similar objections,
the tsar made them all serve 'according to the list', while in other such cases an
adjudication was promised at the conclusion of the campaign.^41
Mestnichestvo was clearly an obstacle to military efficiency: it limited the
choices open to those who took decisions on senior appointments and increased
the likelihood that these would go to men of ancient lineage but indifferent
talent. Why then did not so autocratic a ruler as Ivan IV simply abolish it? The
reason is not, as used to be thought, that the tsar's power was limited by
reactionary aristocrats, for whom precedence ranking was a weapon to bolster
their selfish interests against the Crown:c In fact Russia's autocratic monarchs
appreciated the usefulness of this custom in keeping the elite divided and sub-
servient. Their attitude was ambiguous and their reform efforts half-hearted.
There were many complaints about the harm done by mestnichestvo to the
country's defence effort, but even those provisions made to limit its impact
were not always observed in practice. According to the chronicle account in
1550 Ivan IV, after consulting with the metropolitan and 'all the boyars',
issued a ruling to ~he effect that 'princes and nobles [shall serve] in the
regiments with their commanders without [contesting] places, shall go on all
assignments [and] shall replace [other] people with all their; commanders, and
in this there shall be no diminution in their seniority ... '.^43 The terminology is
confusing; nor is it much clearer in the text contained in the official register. It
was issued after precedence disputes had obstructed earlier offensives against
the Kazan· khanate, and may have been intended to apply only to the current
campaign. In any event, the tsar later sat in judgement on pleas submitted
while fighting was under way, which suggests that he did not consider it
universally binding.^44 Ivan seems to have appreciated that mestnichestvo could
be manipulated in such a way to further the monarchy's interests. It was parti-
cularly handy in ensuring the loyalty of descendants of the formerly independent
princes, so integrating them into the service. Partly for this reason he consist-
ently favoured those progeny of Gedimin, Grand Prince of Lithuania, who
had come to Moscow over nobles of Ryurikid stock.^45 Kleimola observes that
'preoccupation with mestnichestvo concerns served to atomize the elite by
keeping its members in a constant state of watchfulness and rivalry'; the fact
40 For example, in the era of boyar rule (1533-47): Kleimola, 'Status, Place and Politics',
pp. 205-9.^41 RK, pp. 153, 295, 307.(^42) This was the view of pre-revolutionary and earlier Soviet historians such as Smirnov
(Ocherki, pp. 399-406), whose arguments are ably countered by Zimin, Reformy, pp. 343-4 and
Shmidt, 'Mestnichestvo i absolyutizm', p. 284.
(^43) PRP iv. 583.
(^44) Kleimola, 'Status, Place and Politics', p. 213.
45 Shmidt, '!Vtestnichestvo i absolyutizm', pp. 291, 294.