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The Consequences of the Military Revolution in Muscovy: A Comparative Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Marshall Poe
Marshall Poe
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Extract

What has been called the early modern military revolution may be described most simply as the replacement of small cavalry forces by huge gunpowder infantry armies. The revolution was a diffusionary process with a relatively well-understood chronology and geography. The innovations at its core began in northern Italy in the later fifteenth century and spread throughout central, northern, and eastern Europe in the three centuries that followed. Seen in this way, it was a unique and unitary phenomenon. Thus we speak of the military revolution, an episode in world history, instead of several different revolutions in the constituent parts of Europe. Nonetheless, the course and impact of the revolution were different in the regions it eventually affected.

Type
Worlds of War
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 38 , Issue 4 , October 1996 , pp. 603 - 618
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1996

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References

The author would like to thank S. Baron, E. Keenan, M. Kestnbaum, and N. Kollmann, all of whom read earlier drafts of this essay. All errors are my own.

1 The original statement of the military revolution thesis was made by Roberts, M. in his 1956 lecture, “The Military Revolution, 1560–1660,” which is reprinted in his Essays in Swedish History (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1967), 195–225Google Scholar. There is now a huge literature devoted to the thesis, most of which supports Roberts' original position. The most recent summary statements are Parker, G., The Military Revolution. Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988Google Scholar) and Black, J., A Military Revolution? Military Change and European Society, 1550–1800 (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1991Google Scholar). On the historiography of the problem, see Rogers, C. J., “The Military Revolution in History and Historiography,” in The Military Revolution Debate. Readings on the Military Transformation of Early Modern Europe, Rogers, C. J., ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995), 2–10Google Scholar.

2 See, for example, Hale's, J. R.War and Society in Renaissance Europe, 1450–1620 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985Google Scholar) which, despite its title, devotes not a page to Muscovy.

3 This is true of Hintze, O., “The Formation of States and Constitutional Development: a Study in History and Politics,” in The Historical Essays of Otto Hintze, Gilbert, F., ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), 302Google Scholar–53; Anderson, P., Lineages of the Absolutist State (London: Verso, 1974), 328Google Scholar–62; Bendix, R., Kings or People? Power and the Mandate to Rule (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 88–127Google Scholar; and Downing, B., “Constitutionalism, Warfare and Political Change in Early Modern Europe,” Theory and Society, 17:1 (1988), 11Google Scholar; and Downing, B., The Military Revolution and Political Change. Origins of Democracy and Autocracy in Early Modern Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 38–43Google Scholar. The popularity of these assumptions is due in large measure to reliance on Pipes, R.' Russia Under the Old Regime (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1974Google Scholar). In the non-specialist literature Pipes is cited as an authoritative interpretation, when in fact his is one of several understandings of the nature of Muscovite society.

4 On the old order and the fiscal impact of the new forces, see the arguments and literature reviewed in Downing, The Military Revolution, 74.

5 Roberts, “The Military Revolution,” 207.

6 Ibid. Downing, The Military Revolution, explores this in great detail.

7 Comparative works routinely point to the uniqueness of these bodies and their importance for early modern constitutional development. See, for example, Tilly, C., “Reflections on the History of European State-Making,” in The Formation of National States in Western Europe, Tilly, C., ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975), 21–25Google Scholar; and Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State, 44–48; and Downing, The Military Revolution, 21–22, 23–24, 30–31, 74–78.

8 Roberts, “The Military Revolution,” 208–13. Most recently, see Mandlmayr, M. and Vbcelka, K., “Vom Adelsaufgebot zum stehenden Heer: Bemerkungen zum Funktionswandel des Adels im Kriegswesen der Frühen Neuzeit,” Wiener Beitrāge zur Geschichte der Neuzeit, 8 (1981), 112Google Scholar–25.

9 Roberts, “The Military Revolution,” 210.

10 Ibid., 209.

11 Ibid., 210.

12 Ibid., 212.

13 Ibid., 212–13. For a general treatment, see Raeff, M., The Well-Ordered Police Slate: Social and Institutional Change through Law in the Germanies and Russia, 1600–1800 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983Google Scholar).

14 See Roberts, “The Military Revolution,” 205 and 212–3, and Downing, The Military Revolution, 70.

15 See Collins, L. J. D., “The Military Organization and Tactics of the Crimean Tatars during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” in War, Technology and Society in the Middle East, Parry, V. J. and Yapp, M. E., eds. (London: Oxford University Press, 1975Google Scholar) and Majewski, W., “The Polish Art of War in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” in A Republic of Nobles. Studies in Polish History to 1864, Fedorowicz, J. K., ed. (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 179Google Scholar–97.

16 Throughout this essay court or elite (rather than the problematic nobility or aristocracy) will denote the Muscovite courtiers who ruled the empire, the so-called councilor ranks (dumnye chiny). On them, see Kollmann, N. S., Kinship and Politics: the Making ofthe Muscovite Political System, 1375–1547 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987Google Scholar) and Crummey, R., Aristocrats and Servitors. The Boyar Elite in Russia, 1613–1689 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983Google Scholar).

17 On the difficulty of interpreting the sources for the mid-century reforms, see E. L. Keenan's long review of Nosov, N. E., Stanovlenie soslovno-predstavitel'nykh uchrezhdenii v Rossii (Leningrad: Nauka, 1969Google Scholar) in Kritika 7–8 (1970–72), 67–96.

18 On the rise of precedence disputes and their interference with military action, see Kleimola, A., “Status, Place, and Politics: the Rise of Mestnichestvo during the Boiarskoe Pravlenie,” Forschungen zur osteuropäischen Geschichte, 27 (1980), 195–214Google Scholar. On measures to curb precedence disputes over military appointments, see Zimin, A. A., “K istorii voennykh reform 50-kh godov XVI v.,” Istoricheskie zapiski, 55 (1956), 344Google Scholar–48.

19 See Zimin, A. A., ed., Tysiachnaia kniga 1550 g. i dvorovaia tetrad' 50-kh godov XVI veka (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1950), 3–19Google Scholar, and Zimin, “K istorii voennykh reform 50-kh godov XVI v.,” 348. As Zimin demonstrates, it is unclear whether this reform was carried out. Nonetheless, the intentions of the court are made clear by the plan itself.

20 The date of the Military Service Chancellery's foundation is unclear, again due to lack of sources. Many scholars have argued that a predecessor of the military office existed as early as the 1530s. See Buganov, V. I., Razriadnye knigi poslednei chetverti XV-nachala XVII v. (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1962), 111Google Scholar; 1.Vemer, I., O vremeni iprichinakh obrazovaniia Moskovskikhprikazov (Moscow: Universitetskaia tipografiia, 1907), 55–56Google Scholar; Brown, P. B., “Muscovite Government Bureaus,” Russian History/Histoire Russe, 10:3 (1983), 324Google Scholar; and Likhachev, N. P., Razriadnye d'iaki XVI veka (St. Petersburg: V. S. Balashev, 1888), 80Google Scholar. However the evidence is far from clear. The first unassailable reference to military scribes (razriadnye d'iaki) is from 1563. See Likhachev, Razriadnye d'iaki, 458, and Zimin, A. A., “O slozhenii prikaznoi sistemy na Rusi,”Doklady i soobshcheniia Institut istorii Akademiia Nauk SSSR, fasc. 3 (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1945), 169Google Scholar–70. The phrase military office (razriadnaia izba) appears in 1566. See Zimin, “O slozhenii,” 169 (mistakenly writing 1556 for 1566) and Likhachev, Razriadnye d'iaki, 458. The term razriad was used to denote “Military Service Chancellery” for the first time in 1571. See Likhachev, Razriadnye d'iaki, 462, and Zimin “O slozhenii,” 169–70.

21 See Zimin, “K istorii voennykh reform,” 354–8; Chernov, A. V., Vooruzhennye sily Russkogo gosudarstva v XV-XVII vv. (Moscow: Voennoe izdatel'stvo Ministerstva Oborony SSSR, 1954), 46–52Google Scholar; Hellie, R., Enserfment and Military Change in Muscovy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971), 161CrossRefGoogle Scholar–5; and Keep, J., Soldiers of the Tsar. Army and Society in Russia, 1462–1874 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), 60–61Google Scholar.

22 The commutation of provender rents (kormlenie) is prescribed in the “edict on provender rents and service” (prigovor o kormleniiakh i sluzhbe) of 1555–56. The edict is found in the Nikonian Chronicle reprinted in Polnoe sobranie Russkikh letopisei (Moscow, 1846–), vol. 13,267–9. For discussions of it, see Zimin, A. A., “‘Prigovor’ 1555–1556 i likvidatsiia sistemy kormlenii v Russkomgosudarstve,”Istoriia SSSR (1958), no.1,178Google Scholar–82; Shmidt, S.O.,“Kistorii zemskoi reformy (Sobor 1555–1556 g.),” in Gorada feodal'noi Rossii. Sbornik stateipamiati N. B. Ustiugova, Shunkov, V. I., ed. etal. (Moscow: Nauka, 1966), 125Google Scholar–34; and Nosov, Stanovlenie soslovno-predstavitel'nykh uchrezhdenii v Rossii, 367–86.

23 Universal service according to graded landholding schedules is prescribed in the edict on “provender rents and service.” See Polnoe sobranie Russkikh letopisei, vol. 13, 269. See Hellie, Enserfment, 36ff. The effect of the reform can perhaps be seen in the appearance (Kashira, 1556) of regional muster records (desiatnia) which list servitors according to rank and land entitlements. See Krotov, M. G., “K istorii sostavleniia desiaten (vtoraia polovina XVI v.),” in lssledovaniiapo istochnikovedeniiu istorii SSSR dooktiabr'skogo perioda. Sbornik statei, Buganov, V. I., ed. (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1984), 56–72Google Scholar.

24 See Zlotnik, M., “Muscovite Fiscal Policy: 1462–1584,” Russian History/Histoire Russe, 6:2(1979), 243CrossRefGoogle Scholar–58.

25 On introduction of the new-model forces in the seventeenth century, see Chernov, Vooruzhennve sily, 133–98; Hellie, Enserfment, 167–201; Keep, Soldiers of the Tsar, 80–94.

26 Hellie, Enserfment, 136–9, 225, and 247.

27 Ibid., 224, on petitions and absenteeism.

28 Throughout this essay, gentry refers to the landed middle-ranking servitors (dvoriane and deti boiarskie) who made up the bulk of the traditional cavalry host. On them, see Pavlov-Sil'vanskii, N., Gosudarevy sluzhilye liudi. Proizkhozhdenie russkogo dvorianstva (St. Petersburg: Gosudarstvennaia tipografiia, 1898Google Scholar); Novitskii, V. I., Vybornoe i bol'shoe dvorianstvo XVI-XVII vekov (Kiev: Tip. 1-i Kievsk. arteli pechat. dela, 1915Google Scholar); Novosel'skii, A. A., “Praviashchie gruppy v sluzhilom ’gorode’ XVII v.,” Uchenye zapiski RANION, 5 (1929), 315Google Scholar–35; Hellie, Enserfment and Military Change, 21–47; Keep, Soldiers of the Tsar, 13–55: Kivelson, V., “Community and State: the Political Culture of Seventeenth-Century Muscovy and the Provincial Gentry of the Vladimir-Suzdal' Region” (Ph.D. disser., History Department, Stanford University, 1987Google Scholar); and Stevens, C. B., Soldiers on the Steppe. Army Reform and Social Change in Early Modern Russia (DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 1995)Google Scholar.

29 Muscovy had a sort of private property. See Weickhardt, G., “The Pre-Petrine Law of Property,” Slavic Review, 52:4 (1993), 663CrossRefGoogle Scholar–79 and idem, “Due Process and Equal Justice in Muscovite Law,” Russian Review, 51:4 (1992), 463Google Scholar–80. On the effects of partible inheritance, see Kivelson, V., “The Effects of Partible Inheritance: Gentry Families and the State in Muscovy,” Russian Review, 53 (1994), 1–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 On the merchants and urban classes in general, see Torke, H.-J., Die staatsbedingte Gesellschaft im Moskauer Reich. Zar und Zemlja in der altrussischen Herrschaftsverfassung 1613–1668 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1974Google Scholar); Hellie, R., “The Stratification of Muscovite Society: the Townsmen,” Russian History/Histoire Russe, 5:2 (1978), 119–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hittle, J. M., The Service City. The State and Townsmen in Russia, 1600–1800 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979CrossRefGoogle Scholar); Bushkovitch, P., The Merchants of Moscow; 1580–1650 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980Google Scholar).

31 On consensus among the court elite, see Rüss, H., Adel und Melsoppositionen in Moskauer Staat (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1975Google Scholar); Kollmann, Kinship and Politics, 149–52 and 184; and Crummey, Aristocrats and Servitors, 34–64.

32 See especially Pipes, Russia under the Old Regime, 48–54 and 106–8.

33 On provincial corporations, see Davies, B., “The Role of Town Governors in the Defense and Military Colonization of Muscovy's Southern Frontier: The Case of Kozlov, 1635–38” (Ph.D. disser., History Department, University of Chicago, 1983Google Scholar); V. Kivelson, “Community and State.” Both of these dissertations will shortly be published. Also see Davies, B., “Coercion and Community Interest Representation in Muscovite Local Government,”Soviet Studies in History, 26:3 (1987–88), 3–19Google Scholar.

34 See Hulbert, E. M., “Sixteenth-Century Russian Assemblies of the Land: Their Composition, Organization, and Competence” (Ph. D. disser., History Department, University of Chicago, 1970Google Scholar); Keep, J. L. H., “The Decline of the Zemsky Sobor,”Slavonic and East European Review, 36 (1957–58), 100Google Scholar–36; Torke, Die staatsbedingte Gesellschafi, passim, Szeftel, M., “La participation des assemblées populaires dans la gouvernement central de la Russie depuis l'époque Kiéviennejusqu'à la fin du XVIIIe siècle, Gouvernés et gouvernants, 4(1984), 239Google Scholar–65. For a review of the recent Russian literature, see Brown, P., “The Zemskii Sobor in Recent Soviet Historiography,”Russian History/Histoire Russe, 10:1 (1983), 77–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 On Muscovite political ideology, see Keenan, E., “Muscovite Political Folkways,” Russian Review, 45 (1986), 115CrossRefGoogle Scholar–81; Rowland, D., “The Problem of Advice in Muscovite Tales about the Time of Troubles,”Russian History/Histoire Russe, 6:2 (1979), 259CrossRefGoogle Scholar–83; Rowland, D., “Did Russian Literary Ideology Place Any Limits on the Power of the Tsar (1540s–1660s)?,”Russian Review, 49:2 (1990), 125Google Scholar–55; and Kivelson, V., “The Devil Stole His Mind: The Tsar and the 1648 Moscow Uprising,” American Historical Review, 98:3 (1993), 733Google Scholar–56.

36 Hellie, Enserfment, 211–26.

37 Throughout the seventeenth century the gentry petitioned the government for all three: cash entitlements (oklady), service estates (pomest'ia), and elimination of limitations on the recovery of fugitive serfs. On these petitions, see Hellie, Enserfment, 130, 131, 133, 136, and 239–40.

38 Hellie demonstrates that the government bullied the cavalry into the new units. He also provides data which show movement into the new army: “By 1672, 50.3 percent (19,003) of the dvoriane and deti boiarskie in seventy-seven southern towns were in new-formation regiments, compared with only 4.5 percent in 1651. In 1672 the rest of them were in town defensive service (14, 935, or 39.4 percent), and only a handful, 3,921 (10.3 percent) were in the old regimental solennala sluzhba, which was becoming extinct.” See Enserfment, 219. Also see Chernov, Vooruzhennye sily, 161; Keep, Soldiers of the Tsar, 85–87; and Stevens, Soldiers on the Steppe,34–36 and 76–87. Entire peasant communities were also forced into the new units. See Davies, B., “Village into Garrison: The Militarized Peasant Communities of Southern Muscovy,”Russian Review, 51:4 (1992), 481–501CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 On Muscovite infantry forces prior to 1550, see Hellie, Enserfment, 160. On the early grand princely secretariat, see Vodov, V. A., “Zarozhdenie kantseliarii Moskovskikh kniazei (seredina XIV V.–1425 g.),”Istoricheskie zapiski, 103 (1979), 325Google Scholar–49; Leont'ev, A. K., Obrazovanie prikaznoi systemy upravleniia v Russkom gosudarstve. Iz istorii sozdaniia tsentralizovannogo gosudarstvennogo apparata v kontse XV-pervoi polovine XVI v. (Moscow: Moskovskii Universitet, 1961Google Scholar); Alef, G., The Origins of Muscovite Autocracy. The Age of Ivan III, in Forschungen zur osteuropäischen Geschichte, 39 (1986), 273Google Scholar–82; Zimin, “O slozhenii prikaznoi sistemy na Rusi”; and Verner, O vremeni i prichinakh obrazovaniia Moskovskikh prikazov.

40 Hellie, Enserfment, 161.

41 Ibid., 170–1.

42 On the prikazy, see Brown, P. B., “Early Modern Russian Bureaucracy: the Evolution of the Chancellery System from Ivan III to Peter the Great, 1478–1717” (Ph.D. disser., History Department, University of Chicago, 1978Google Scholar) and idem, “Muscovite Government Bureaus.” On their staffs, see Plavsic, B., “Seventeenth-Century Chanceries and their Staffs,” in Russian Officialdom, Pintner, W. M. and Rowney, D. K., eds. (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1980), 19–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Demidova, N. F., Sluzhilaia biurokratiia v Rossii XVII v. i ee rol' v formirovanii absoliutizma (Moscow: Nauka, 1987Google Scholar).

43 Hellie discusses this at some length. See Hellie, R., “Warfare, Changing Military Technology, and the Evolution of Muscovite Society,” in Tools of War. Instruments, Ideas, and Institutions of War, 1445–1871, Lynn, J. A., ed. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990), 74–99Google Scholar.

44 See Hellie, R., ed. and trans., Text and Translation, pt. 1 of The Muscovite Law Code (Ulozhenie) of 1649, (Irvine, CA: Charles Schlacks, 1988Google Scholar).

45 The partial exceptions of Novgorod and Pskov—neither of which were Muscovite prior to the later fifteenth century—must be noted. Significantly, both cities had close ties to the lively Baltic trade. The simplicity of Muscovite society has been described in many places, most notably in Kaiser, D. H., The Growth of the Law in Medieval Russia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980Google Scholar), which uses law as an index of social complexity and finds Muscovy to be comparatively simple.

46 This is V. O. Kliuchevskii's famous formulation. See “Istoriia soslovii v Rossii,” in Sochineniia, 9 vols. (Moscow: Mysl', 1990), vol. 6:353Google Scholar.

47 For a general treatment, see Pavlov-Sil'vanskii, Gosudarevx sluzhilye liudi.

48 See Hittle, The Service City, 21–76.

49 See R. Hellie, Slavery in Russia, 1450–1725 (Chicago and London, 1982).

50 Esper, T., “Military Self-Sufficiency and Weapons Technology in Muscovite Russia,” Slavic Review, 28 (June 1969), 185–208CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 See Hellie, Enserfment, 167–8, on the translation of Western drill manuals.

52 Smith, D., “Muscovite Logistics, 1462–1598,” Slavonic and East European Review, 71:1 (January 1993), 35–65Google Scholar.

53 Poe, M., “Elite Service Registry in Muscovy, 1500–1700,”Russian History/Histoire Russe, 21:3(1994), 251–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

54 Reviews of the history of Muscovite government documentation are available in Vodov, “Zarozhdenie kantseliarii Moskovskikh kniazei,” and Poe, “Elite Service Registry in Muscovy.”

55 On the early use of legal documents, see Kaiser, The Growth of the Law in Medieval Russia. The paucity of Muscovite documents of all types to the mid-sixteenth century is well-known. The best treatment of the meager documentary legacy of early Muscovy remains Cherepnin, L. V., Russkie feudal'nye arkhivy XIV-XV vv., 2 vols. (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR,1948Google Scholar). For a general description of early Muscovite administration, see Veselovskii, S. B., Feodal'noe zemlevladenie v severovostochnoi Rusi (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1947Google Scholar). Also see Kollmann, Kinship and Politics, 24–36.

56 See M. Poe, “Muscovite Personnel Records, 1475–1550: New Light on the Early Evolution of Russian Bureaucracy,” in Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuwpas (forthcoming).

57 Alef cites the following figures concerning the number of state scribes (d'iaki) at court: 1470s: 14 d'iaki; 1480s: 10 d'iaki; 1490s: 17 d'iaki; and 1500–05: 20 d–iaki. See Alef, The Origins of Muscovite Autocracy, 273. Alef's data is drawn from Zimin, A. A., “D'iacheskii apparat v Rossii vtoroi poloviny XV—pervoi treti XVI v.,”Istoricheskie zapiski, 87 (1971), 219–86Google Scholar.

58 See Bushkovitch, The Merchants of Muscovy, 1. Also see Baron, S., “Who Were the Gosti?,” California Slavic Studies, 7 (1973), 1–40Google Scholar.

59 The explosion of literate administration has not gone unnoticed. See Hellie, Slavery in Russia, 603, and Kaiser, The Growth of the Law in Medieval Russia, 153–63. For a general treatment of Muscovite documentation, see Shmidt, S. O. and Kniaz'kov, S. E., Dokumenty deloproizvodstva pravitel'stvennykh uchrezhdenii Rossii XVI-XVII vv. (Moscow: Gosudarstvennyi Istoriko Arkhivnyi Institut, 1985), 19–20 and 37–38Google Scholar.

60 Shmidt and Kniaz'kov, Dokumenty deloproizvodstva, 19–20 and 37–38.

61 Ibid., 52–53.

62 Ibid., 42–43. Also see Eaton, H. L., “Cadasters and Censuses of Muscovy,”Slavic Review, 26:1 (March 1967), 54–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Pavlov-Sil'vanskii, V. B., Pistsovye knigi RossiiXVI v. (Moscow: Nauka, 1991Google Scholar).

63 In 1626 there were 623 chancellery people (prikaznye liudi) serving in Moscow. By 1698 there were 2,739. In the 1640s, 774 secretaries and under-secretaries were employed in the provincial offices; in the 1690s, there were over 1,900. See Demidova, Sluzhilaia biurokratiia, 23 and 37.

64 In 1550 there were no chancelleries (prikazy); in 1626 there were forty-four; and in 1698 there were fifty-five, each with a more or less distinct territorial or functional sphere of activity. See Demidova, Sluzhilaia biurokratiia, 23.

65 See Crummey, R., “The Origins of the Noble Official: The Boyar Elite, 1613,” in Russian Officialdom, 46–75Google Scholar; Weickhardt, G. G., “Bureaucrats and Boiars in the Muscovite Tsardom,”Russian History/Histoire Russe, 10:3 (1983), 331CrossRefGoogle Scholar–56; and O'Brien, B., “Muscovite Prikaz Administration of the Seventeenth Century: The Quality of Leadership,” Forschungen zur osteuropäischen Geschichte, 38 (1986), 223Google Scholar–35.

66 This idea has its origins in skewed early modern Western descriptions of Muscovy. See Poe, M., “‘Russian Despotism': the Origins and Dissemination of an Early Modern Commonplace” (Ph.D. disser., History Department, University of California, Berkeley, 1993Google Scholar); and Scheidegger, G., Perverses Abendland-barbahsches Rusland Begegnungen des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts im Schatten Kutureller Missverständuisse (Zürich: Chronos Verlag, 1993Google Scholar). For modern uses of the idea, see Pipes, Russia under the Old Regime; Pelenski, J., “Muscovite Russia and Poland Lithuania, 1450–1600,”in State and Society in Europe from the Fifteenth-Eighteenth Century, Pelenski, J., ed. (Warsaw: Warsaw University Press, 1980), 93–120Google Scholar; Pelenski, J., “State and Society in Muscovite Russia and the Mongol-Turkic System in the Sixteenth Century,”Forschungen zur osteuropaäischen Geschichte, 27 (1980), 156Google Scholar–67; Keep, Soldiers of the Tsar, 3 and 32.

67 This argument is implied in several comparative treatments, notably Hintze, “The Formation of States and Constitutional Development”; Bendix, Kings or People, 115–23: Anderson, Lineages, 328–41. The most complete rendition is found in Downing, The Military Revolution,38–44.