Soldiers of the Tsar. Army and Society in Russia, 1462-1874 - John L. Keep

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THE NOBLE SERVITOR AND HIS WORLD


'THE Muscovite army', states the invaluable Herberstein, 'always pitches camp
in open field. The notables put up tents, while the common soldiers build
huts of reeds, cover them with their cloaks, bring in their weapons, especially
their bows and arrows, and seek shelter there from inclement weather.' The
frugality with which men existed on campaign he found remarkable. When
leaving home the cavalryman would take two or three little bags of ground
millet and some salt pork; a spoonful of this with salt-only the wealthy added
pepper-comprised his meal, unless he happened to camp in an area where
game, fish, onions, or fruit were to be found. 'Master and servant are equally
content with this economical meal. But it may occur that the master is very
hungry, in which case he eats everything himself and his servants may fast
splendidly for two or three days.' Metropolitan nobles would sometimes enter-
tain their humbler fellow-servitors to a proper meal, after which they would
not eat again for several days.^1
An English traveller added: '[the soldiers') lying in the field is not so strange
as is their hardnesse: for every man must carrie and make provision for him-
selfe and his Horse for a moneth or two, which is very wonderfull ... I pray
you, amongst all our boasting Warriors how many should we find to endure
the field with them but one moneth?'^2 It was a refrain that Western observers
would echo for centuries.
That masters should have lived and eaten better than their men is not sur-
prising; the degree of inequality is not excessive. What foreign visitors did not
report-and it probably began only as Chancellor wrote-was that, although
self-maintenance was the norm, a rudimentary official 'supply service' also
existed. Grain was sent to the forces marching on Kazan' in 1552, and a few
years later we hear of it being collected from Novgorodian peasants for the
campaign into Livonia.^3 In the seventeenth century the Razryad arranged mat-
ters in more systematic fashion, with a rudimentary network of magazines.^4
When supplies gave out, troops took what they could find from the local
populace, despite official prohibitions and exhortations, much as they did
everywhere else in Europe. 'Prisoners taken as slaves, movable wealth and
cattle were prized. Both the rank of a servitor and the size of his following of


(^1) Von Herbcrs1cin, Moscovw, pp. 106-7.
(^2) Vernadsky er al. (ed~.). Source Book, i. 168; d. Fletl.'her, Russe Commonwealth, p. 184
(Schmidt edn., p. 82).
J Yepifanov, 'Voysko', pp. 375-6, citing DAI i. 70.
4 AMGiii. 77, 159(1660).

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