64 Muscovite Roots, 1462-1689
privileged status in Muscovy.) Some stre/'tsy were employed fighting fires in
the capital-an important function, in view of the prevalence· of wooden
buildings, but scarcely a military one; after a fire, so Kotoshikbin tells u~, i.hc:y
were paraded and beaten if they were found to have stolen an~hing.^36 When
the army went on campaign, some musketeers were detailed to·in~mal security
duties: as many as six prikazy might guard a senior field commarlder.^37
Even among these picked troops discipline was often a problem. In 1622 the
authorities at Bryansk reported that Moscow strertsy sent to protect the town
were behaving licentiously; an investigation showed that they had been liberally
plied with alcohol by the local gentry. who were thereupon officially ordered
to desist.^38 When civil disorders occurred after a major fire in Moscow in 1636,
the musketeers joined the trouble-makers instead of combating them.^39 Twelve
years later a peaceful request for redress of grievances by various elements of
the population in the capital turned into a bloody riot after some units, which
initially helped to maintain order, mutinied and refused to obey their com-
mander B. I. Morozov, the young Tsar Alexis's unpopular favourite.-40 Their
example was later followed by some of the service gentry: it was the last time
that the two groups would act in concert. In the ensuing cha0S.threc of the
tsar's closest associates were killed by the mob. The troubles died down only
after the government consented to convoke a Land Assembly (zemskiy sobor)
to approve a new code of laws, the Ulozheniye, which came into force the
following year. Olearius noted that after the riots 'His Tsarist Majesty feasted
the strertsy who made up his bodyguard with vodka and mead' as part of his
endeavour to ensure the corps's continued loyalty.^41 Several hundred men were
exiled to Siberia for their part in the rising.
One reason for the musketeers' disaffection was that the Morozov regime,
in its eagerness to improve the state's financial posture, had cut their pay,
which in 1647 /8 amounted to only 2 to 3 roubles (and 6 quarters of grain) for
men in the ranks.^42 This reduction, coupled with burdensome new taxes and a
Crown monopoly on salt, threatened their livelihood as it did that of other
traders and artisans. The pay cuts seem to have been made goOd later,^43 but the
36 Kotoshikhin, 0 Rossii, p. 91.
37 Brix, Geschichte, loc. cit.; Shpakovsky, 'Strel'tsy', p. 145; Hellie, Enserfment, pp. 203, 214.
38 AMG i. 146.
39 Chistyakova, 'Moskva', pp. 307-8.
40 S. V. Bakhrushin, 'Mosk. vosstaniye 1648 g.', Nauchnye trudy, Moscow, 1952-9, ii. 72-4;
Hellie, Enserfment, p. 136.
41 Olearius, Travels, p. 213.
42 DAI iii. 36; cf. K. Pommerening to Queen Christina, IS Sept. 1647, in Yatubov, Rossiya i
Shvetsiya, p. 406: S roubles for stremyanniye, 4 roubles for other musketeers.
43 Sakharov, Obrar.ovaniye, p. 161. Pommerening reported on 30 Dec. 1648 a grant
(presumably once and for all) of 25 roubles-more than the 14 roubles inimlly promised:
Yakubov, Rossiya i Shvetsiya, pp. 427-8, 433. However, Stashevsky shows ('Smeta' .. p. 72) that
some musketeers on the south-eastern border received 8-10 roubles (cavalrymen) and S roubles
(infantrymen). There was a tendency to remunerate men stationed in the provinces with land
rather than cash (ibid., pp. 60-1 ). Such allotments might be reasonably generous: 8 quarters for an
ordinary soldier and 30 for a centurion: Zagorodsky, Belgorodskaya cherta, p. 103. ~