Moscow's Men on Horseback 37
more plainly, tribute-from the population, within the limits established by
local custom.
The voivode was invested by the centre with enormous responsibilities but
givcii iicXi iu 11u fi11am.:iai n:sources wirh which to carry them out. His job was
to collect revenue, not to disburse it. This in itself forced him to cultivate
members of the local elite-an alliance from which the interests of the state
and the taxpaying population both suffered. In this partnership the dominant
role fell to the voivode fo~ three reasons: he belonged to the metropolitan
nobility (with the rank of sto/'nik at least); he had the aura that surrounded a
personal representative of the sacrosanct autocrat; last but not least, he had at
his disposal a body of troops which, especially in the border regions, might be
of considerable size.
No instance is known of a voivode using these troops in a sense contrary to
the wishes of the central power: this was !'!Ot the direction in which these men's
ambitions lay. Nor did the privileged elements in the local service organization
urge them to do so. For the Muscovite provincial cavalrymen had little in com-
mon with the nobilities of central, still less western, Europe. They constituted
something of a warrior caste^93 -yet paradoxically one that was not very
belligerent. Senior Russian servitors told a Swedish diplomat in 1647 that
peace was better than war and strongly condemned the Western practice of
hiring mercenaries.^94 Unlike the Polish or Hungarian elites, to look no further
afield, they did not conspicuously cherish the memory of deeds of valour per-
formed by honoured fellow-soldiers of noble ancestry: for this they lacked the
individualistic and chivalric spirit of the Latin West. Rather their attention was
directed to the routine execution of their allotted tasks, especially in border
defence. The Muscovite servitor was a bondsman of his sovereign: indeed, in
petitions he would commonly refer to himself as his kholop, which literally
meant slave-a practice that amazed status-conscious Western visitors. His
loyalty was buttressed by the surety system, even though in practice such
sureties might be rarely called in. In the next chapter we shall explore a little
further the mentality of the privileged servitors in the light of the socio-economic
milieu in which they Jived.
91 This term (also used by Crummey, 'Noble Officials", p. 62) is a little strong, since the
dvoryanstvo did not form a closed corporation but was open at the base to new emrants from the
under-privileged groups-a major weakness in its relationship with the Crown.
94 K. Pommerening to Queen Christina, 15 Sept. 1647, in Yakubov, Rossiya i Shvetsii'a, p. 410.