Boyar children (boyar sons). Army of the Russian State

Boyar children who existed from the end of the XIV century to the Petrovsky reforms were one of the key social classes of the Russian society of their time. Together with the nobles, they were the nucleus of the national army and the backbone of state power in the country.

First mentions

The phrase "boyar children" is found in chronicles dating back to the 13th century, when Rus was fragmented and dependent on the Golden Horde. However, this formulation had little to do with the classical concept of this social phenomenon. It is interesting that the boyars' sons are mentioned as participants in the Kulikovo battle on the side of Dmitry Donskoy.

The term is also found in one of the treaties of the Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily II, dated 1433. In this paper, the authorities confirmed the right of boyar children to serve their feudal lords, even if their estates were torn away by the war. That is, we can say with confidence that these servicemen up until the end of the XV century were a free estate. They could leave the master without fear of persecution by law.

The need for a new army

But times changed, and behind them were the boyar children themselves. In the XV century, the land of Russia finally united around Moscow. The princes of this city aspired to become real autocrats. They hated the weak feudal system of the previous era, which led to the fragmentation and weakness of the country. To finally give up the old order, they had to get rid of the petty feudal princes and find support for their own power.

If the first was achieved with the help of cunning diplomacy and increasing economic power, then the second needed a new social class. Boyar children became its representatives. Mention of them in the annals began to appear more often. For example, in 1445 the Russian army, consisting of these subjects of the Moscow prince, went to fight with the Lithuanian squad. In each detachment of boyar children there were 100 people each. One such formation was headed by a voivode, who was appointed directly by the prince.

The appearance of boyar children

There are several points of view about the origin of this important military and social class. The first to theoretically consider this issue was the eighteenth-century publicist and philosopher Prince Mikhail Shcherbatov. He became the founder of the idea that boyar children are from well-known boyar families. Another theory was proposed by no less famous historian Sergei Solovyov. He believed that the boyar sons appeared as a result of stratification before a single junior prince's squad, divided into sons of boyars, freemen and servants.

Finally, the third point of view speaks of the formation of a layer of boyar children due to the disintegration of urban communities at the end of the fourteenth century. The lands that belonged to them passed into private hands. Another process that influenced the emergence of the nucleus of the Russian army was the replenishment of the ranks of provincial service people at the expense of natives of the prince's court. At first these owners were only small landowners. But already in the XV century they began to buy up plots near the financially weakened city community. Studies of the genealogies of these landowners showed that among them were both descendants of noble families, and people from other strata of the population, for example, deacons.

The Local Army

When the nobles and boyar children became the nucleus of the new Russian state army, a conflict arose between the provincials and immigrants from Moscow. National and local groups of service people were formed. These were Novgorod, Ukrainian and Siberian boyar children. These people grew up on the outskirts of the Russian state. They by their origin could not get through to Moscow. In Siberia, this class was formed at the expense of local Cossacks. Also to the number of boyar children were assigned service detachments of Tatars, Chuvashes, Mordvins, Mari, etc. This happened after Russia joined the Volga region.

A noticeable increase in the importance of the new estate occurred in the second half of the 15th century, during the reign of Ivan III. The prince actively distributed estates and fiefdoms to servicemen who came to him from other masters (from specific princes, from Lithuania, etc.). Boyars, boyar children and nobles were on different steps of the state staircase.

Reforms of Ivan the Terrible

In the 16th century, the classical estate of boyar children was formed, divided into two main groups - courtyards (from the supreme aristocracy) and policemen (provincial). Tsar Ivan the Terrible at the beginning of his reign a lot engaged in the reforms of the state. Then boyar children also felt the change. The 16th century was the century when the so-called lodgers of the hundreds appeared.

These formations represented a new category of servicemen in the tsarist army. Hundreds were made up of the most vivid and capable boyar children. The authorities selected the best of them in the provinces and gave them estates in the counties near Moscow. The new military, as well as ordinary boyar children, had to perform military service for their patrimonies.

Under the Romanovs

The troubled time and inability of the local army to protect the state made Mikhail Romanov think about changes in the army. The first king of the new dynasty had a conflict with Poland. In the 1630s the boyar children became the basis of the regiments of the new system. They were also called foreigners, because there, among other things, foreigners were invited.

During the Smolensk war against Poland, the boyar children were also among the writers - mounted regiments, created according to the Western pattern. In these formations included non-local service people. To manage them, even a separate Reitart order was created. In 1682 detachments of boyar children were lastly subjected to reforms. Hundreds replaced 60 companies in each company, and 6 companies in total began to constitute a regiment. Transformation led to the abolition of parochialism - the system of distribution of state military posts according to the degree of nobility of origin.

The estate of boyar children disappeared at the beginning of the XVIII century during the reforms of Peter the Great. The monarch was not interested in supporting the army of the old model. He created a new army, organizing it in a European manner. He also increased the importance of the nobility. It was this group of aristocracy that swallowed the boyar children.