78 Muscovite Roots, 1462-1689
Abdullah), who came from Astrakhan'.^93 Kaibulla's military career from 1554
to 1565 is well documented: his assignments took him from 'the Swedish lands'
in 1555/6 to Livonia, Polotsk, and several other fortified towns along the
we<:tf'rn :mcl 50t!thi:-rn borders.^94
At one point during the Livonian War no less than 6,500.. oriental troops
descended 'upon the German and Lithuanian land' as part of-~ cavalry force
reputedly 28,000 strong, commanded by the tsar in person.9\ The psycho-
logical impact of their depredations was considerable. A ~ntemporary
German writer asserted (already in 1561) that they 'behaved tyrannically,
according to their customary inhuman cruelty' and even accused them of
engaging in cannibalism.^96 Such atrocities, in which the Rllssian troops cheer-
fully participated, helped to lead central-European publicists to identify the
Muscovites with the Turks as barbarians and natural foes of Christendom.
Several Western observers offered exaggerated estimates of the number of
orientals in Russian service. Jakob Ulfeldt, a Danish traveller, claimed to have
seen 25,000 Tatars moving towards Livonia in 1578.^97 According to Sir Jerome
Horsey 30,000 Tatars took part in the massacres in Novgorod eight years
earlier, during the oprichnina, and such troops comprised the majority of the
forces on the country's western border.^98 Jacques Margeret, the French cap-
tain who served in Muscovy during the 1590s, put at 27-28,000 the number of
oriental cavalrymen available for action.^99 The real figure was probably only
one-third as great, but it cannot as yet be determined accurately.
During the Time of Troubles the subject peoples of the Volga valley rose up
and entered the fray. Most of them took the side of the Cossaclcs and other
supporters of the Second Pretender;^100 some, however, backed the beleaguered
Tsar Shuysky and later joined the national levy of 1612.^101 The insurgents' aim
was to end Russian rule over their territories. Later in the seventeenth century,
once the risings had been suppressed and colonization resumed, the conflict
acquired more of a social character. The natives who joined the rebel forces of
Sten'ka Razin sought to preserve their lands and to reduce -the burden of
tribute (yasak)-or, in the case of those who were servitors, to escape the
additional duties now imposed on them. I0^2 Social differentiatign was increas-
ing. At the summit stood a small group of wealthier (and more russified) land-
owners; below them was a mass of petty-gentry servitors, most of whom had
few if any dependants; then there were lower-grade (po priboru) men who were
93 Vernadsky, Tsardom of Moscow, i. 94.
94 RK, pp. 150-226 passim s. v. Kaybul.
95 DR V xiv. 351-2; cf. Yepifanov, 'Voysko', p. 343.
96 Kappeler, 'Deutsche Russlandschriften ', p. 14.
97 Klyuchevsky, Skazaniya inostrantsev, p. 94.
98 Berry and Crummey (eds.), Rude and Barbarous Kingdom, pp. 269, 286 (Horsey is not
a reliable witness).
99 Margeret, L 'Estat, p. 26.
100 Kappeler, 'Rolle der Nichtrussen', pp. 254-5.
JOI Al ii. 145; Vernadsky, Tsardom of Moscow, i. 268.
102 Kappeler, 'Geschichte der Volker', pp. 261-2.