New-Model Army and Questions of Cost 87
officers imposed; they will also have resented the tsar's heavy reliance on them
in times of social crisis, such as the Moscow riots of^1648 or^1662 or the Razin
revolt. On the other hand these forces did provide a livelihood, however
modest, for thousands of geniry1m:11 wiiu woulJ uliic::i wi~e i1C:1ve fuu11J 11u
employment at all. In 1662/3 at least one-third, and perhaps as many as two-
thirds, of the members of this class were serving outside the traditional militia,
now as we know in decline.^41 Their only expertise was in military pursuits, and
so they needed an alternative to the levy if they were to maintain their social
prominence. In this way the new-model forces afforded the gentry a role to
which they could readily adapt and prevented them from having to redefine
their self-image. For the general health of Russian society it would no doubt
have been better if they had been encouraged to do so: to broaden their intel-
lectual horizons, to diversify their interests, and to shake off the constraints of
the militarized caste system that cost the country so dear-but this stage would
not be reached for another century or so.
In trying to assess the human and economic impact of Muscovite Russia's
military effort, one is hampered by the lack of reliable statistics on the size of
the armed forces and of the population. The Razryad seldom computed totals
of effectives, and the official data for the various elements are incomplete and
sometimes contradictory; an added difficulty lies in trying to distinguish those
who were actually mobilized for specific campaigns from those who remained
in reserve, so to speak.
Foreign observers produced rough estimates based on hearsay, and were
sometimes misled by boasting on the part of their official interlocutors. In
1525 D. Geras!_mov, an envoy of Vasiliy III in Rome, claimed that his master
habitually fielded over 150,000 cavalry, and this information was reproduced
by three sixteenth-century Western writers. Five others preferred a figure of
200,000, and two visitors to Muscovy-I. Fabra (1526) and R. Chancellor
(1553)-even spoke of 200,000 or 300,000 men of all arms.^42 Margeret reports
that in 1598 some foreigners in Moscow believed the army to number half a
million, but that he himself had doubts about such a high figure.^43 He was
right to be sceptical. The actual figure at the end of the sixteenth century for
what one might term the 'active army', excluding recruits, is probably around
110,000, of whom about four-fifths served in the gentry militia and one-fifth
in the musketeers or kindred forces. Horsey and Fletcher both came close to
this figure,^44 first established in 1891 by the pre-revolutionary historian S. M.
41 Keep, 'Muse. Elite', p. 211.
42 Zimin, Reformy, p. 446; Berry and Crummey, Rude and Barbarous Kingdom, p. 27. The
generally reliable von Herberstein reported non-committally (Moscovia, p. 173) that the army was
said to be 180,000 strong; Klyuchevsky (Skazaniya, p. 91) slates that he did not give a total figure.
43 Margeret, L 'Estal, p. 8. The record for wild guessing must go to Clement Adams, who stated
that the tsar never armed less than 900,000 men when preparing for a campaign. Klyuchevsky,
Skazaniya, p. 90.
44 Berry and Crummey, Rude and Barbarous Kingdom, pp. 180, 271.