28 Muscovite Roots, 1462-1689Precedence ranking, as we shall see, could be abolished in^1682 without pro-
voking any noticeable opposition within the elite. The more broad-minded
senior nobles had long since recognized that it has lost its raison d'etre; they
could hope to do well under a more modern system of preferment which down-
played genealogical origin or ancestral feats in favour of individual merit
(razum, or intelligence) as well as one's service record (zaslugi).^51 In the new
ranking order which Peter I would introduce (see ch. 6) there was much that
was familiar; indeed, traditional habits of thought survived among Russian
dvoryane long into the Imperial era-just as the service state did.The metropolitan nobility comprised only a small fraction of the service elite,
whose total size at the end of the sixteenth century was probably around
80,000-exclusive of families and retainers-and over 200,000 a hundred years
later. Administratively, the provincial servitors were distinguished from those
we have been discussing by the fact that they were enrolled on the register of
their locality (gorod, 'town') rather than that of Moscow. As a rule they were
referred to officially as dvoryane i deti boyarskiye.^52 Socially, economically,
and psychologically the difference between the two groups was considerable,
even if there was no legal or customary barrier between them and in many
cases the divide might be bridged by kinship links. These differences widened
as time went on.
The deti boyarskiye are first mentioned in 1433, when Moscow was wracked
by dynastic strife; it was this conflict that called them into being and enabled
some of the more enterprising to rise up in the Grand Prince's service.^53 All the
autonomous or quasi-autonomous apanage princes had cavalry servitors; and
as these forces were gradually absorbed into the Muscovite army in the late fif-
teenth century the elements of a nation-wide gentry militia (opo/cheniye) came
into being. However, it lacked cohesion. Neither the local lieutenants
(namestnik1) nor the officials of the central military chancellery, when this
took shape in the 1530s, exercised much real authority. Herberstein speaks of
provincial deti boyarskiye being mustered and registered every second or third
year,^54 but this statement cannot be confirmed from native sources. He puts
51 Medvedev, Sozertsaniye, p. 19; Volkov, 'Ob otmene', p. 57.
52 The two elements in this designation were not clearly differentiated. The term dvoryane,
which in Imperial Russia came to mean nobility tout court, is first met with in 1175. Originally it
meant courtier, one who served in a prince's household: it was an office or function rather than a
rank or title. In the Muscovite era it was applied both to certain rank-holders in the metropolitan
nobility (dumnye, moskovskiye dvoryane) and to the provincial elite; the rest of the provincial
gentry were deti boyarskiye. This term literally meant 'boyars' children' (that is, dependants), and
reflected the patriarchal relationships in noble households of the apanage era; but by our period it
had nothing to do with kinship and was purely a social category. On early nomenclature see Sh.,
'Dvoryanstvo', pp. 557-61. Richard Hellie calls the provincial servitors the 'middle service class',
indicating that they stood between the metropolitan nobility and the lower-grade musketeers,
Cossacks, etc.
53 Alef, 'Crisis', pp.-45-6. One of these, Fedor Basenok, fell into disfavour early in the reign of
Ivan III, who had him blinded: ibidi, p. 52.
54 Von Herberstein, Moscovia, p. IOI.