86 Muscovite Roots, 1462-1689
looked on service in the infantry as demeaning. When cavalry units were set up
two years later they joined more readily. It is not clear from the sources how
much coercion was applied at this juncture, but by 1638 the government had to
repeat its first order in a sterner tnn .. : the target figure was doubled, to four
thousand.^33 The Ryazan· gentry petitioned for exemption from such onerous
duties as constructing the fortified line or long-distance patro)\jng for intelli-
gence purposes.^34 It is probably in this context that one should set the
desperate petition by hungry servitors quoted on p. 49.
Those who were indeed destitute were natural candidates for conscription
once the need for their services became urgent. This moment came on the eve
of the Thirteen Years War, when privileged servitors not yet enrolled in the
traditional levy were assigned to the new infantry regiments, on pain of losing
their gentry status and becoming tillers of the soil (zemlepashtsy).3^5 The men
taken were to be 'of good repute and physically strong, desirous to serve and
train as soldiers'.^36 The ascription of gentrymen to cavalry units soon became a
regular practice: in 1660 1,480 'novices' were sent from the lower Volga region
to join l, 726 of their comrades already in the ranks.37 In 1678, as part of the
general reorganization attempted at this time, the government excluded all
noblemen who held less than 24 peasant homesteads from the-naditional levy
and assigned them to the new-model forces-as cavalrymen if they could
afford to serve in that way, as infantrymen if they could not.38 In this manner
those who did have some property, and not just those who were landless, were
brought within the scope of the conscription policy. They were to draw 24
roubles a year, less one rouble for every homestead they owned. Graduated
payments of this kind are also mentioned by Kotoshikhin,. writing in the
1660s.^39
Once enrolled in the new regiments, privileged servitors enjoyed better
opportunities, thanks to their social origin, to achieve officer rank, but there
were not nearly enough places to satisfy all aspirants; the majority will have
had to remain ordinary soldiers. The new-model forces seem to have served
primarily as an avenue of downward rather than upward social mobility. Pro-
motion to senior positions was difficult because of the targe number of
foreigners, whose qualifications were (or were deemed to be) superior; their
higher salaries doubtless generated ill feeling. In 1649 2,000 cavalrymen
objected to the appointment of a Dutchman as their commander, stating that
he was 'unbaptized' and that they had more practical experience themselves.^40
Such animosities were strongest among those from humbler circumstances,
whose natural xenophobia was reinforced by the brutal discipline that foreign
33 AMG i. 98, 112. 34 AMG i. 113. 35 Al iv. 70.
J6 Zagorodsky, Belgorodskaya cherta, p. 146.
37 AMG iii. 170; cf. PSZ i. 280 (1659).. is PSZ ii. 744 (1678), §§ 7, 12; Sh., 'Dvoryanstvo', p. 206.
39 Koroshikhin, 0 Rossii, p. 131.
.io Pommerening 10 Queen Christina, 22 Dec. 1649, in Yakubov, Rossiya i Slrtttsiya, p. 459.