The boyar children that existed from the end of the 14th century until the Petrine reforms were one of the key classes of Russian society of their time. Together with the nobles, they were the core 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 Russia was fragmented and dependent on the Golden Horde. However, that formulation had little in common with the classical concept of this social phenomenon. Interestingly, the sons of the boyars are mentioned as participants in the Battle of Kulikovo 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 masters, even if their estates were torn away by the war. That is, it can be said with certainty that these service people until the end of the 15th century were a free estate. They could leave the master without fear of prosecution.
Need for a new army
But times have changed, and behind them the boyar children themselves. In the XV century, the lands of Russia finally united around Moscow. The princes of this city soughtbecome true autocrats. They hated the weak feudal system of the previous era, which led to the fragmentation and weakness of the country. In order to completely abandon the former order, they had to get rid of the petty feudal princes and find support for their own power.
If the former was achieved through cunning diplomacy and growing economic power, the latter needed a new social class. Boyar children became its representatives. Mentions of them in the annals began to appear more and 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. One such formation was led by a voivode who was directly appointed 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 publicist and philosopher of the 18th century, Prince Mikhail Shcherbatov, was the first to theoretically consider this issue. He became the founder of the idea that boyar children come from eminent boyar families. Another theory was proposed by no less famous historian Sergei Solovyov. He believed that the sons of the boyars appeared as a result of the stratification of the previously single junior princely squad, divided into the actual sons of the boyars and free and domestic servants.
Finally, the third point of view speaks of the formation of a stratum of boyar children as a result of the decomposition of urban communities at the end of the 14th century. earth,that belonged to them passed into private hands. Another process that influenced the emergence of the core of the Russian army was the replenishment of the ranks of provincial service people at the expense of people from the princely court. At first these proprietors were only small landowners. But already in the 15th century, they began to buy up plots from the financially weakened urban community. Studies of the pedigrees of these landowners showed that among them were both descendants of noble families and people from other strata of the population, such as clerks.
Local army
When nobles and boyar children became the core of the new Russian state army, a contradiction appeared in the army between 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. By their origin, they could not make their way to Moscow. In Siberia, this class was formed at the expense of local Cossacks. Also, service detachments of Tatars, Chuvashs, Mordovians, Maris, etc. were attributed to the number of boyar children. This happened after Russia annexed the Volga region.
A noticeable increase in the value 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 estates to service people who came to him from other masters (from specific princes, from Lithuania, etc.). Boyars, boyar children and nobles were on different rungs of the state ladder.
Reforms of Ivan the Terrible
In the 16th century, the classical class of boyar children was formed, which were divided into two main groups - yard (from the supreme aristocracy) and city (provincial). Tsar Ivan the Terrible at the beginning of his reign was much involved in state reforms. Then the boyar children also felt the changes. The 16th century became the century when the so-called tenant hundreds appeared.
These formations were a new category of service people in the royal army. Hundreds were made up of the brightest and most capable boyar children. The authorities selected the best of them in the provinces and gave them estates in the districts near Moscow. The new military, like ordinary boyar children, had to carry out military service for their fiefdoms.
Under the Romanovs
The Time of Troubles and the inability of the local army to defend the state made Mikhail Romanov think about changes in the army. The first king of the new dynasty had a smoldering conflict with Poland. In the 1630s, boyar children became the basis of the regiments of the new system. They were also called foreign, because foreigners were invited there, among other things.
During the Smolensk war against Poland, boyar children were also among the riders - cavalry regiments created according to the Western model. These formations included displaced service people. A separate Reiter order was even created to manage them. In 1682, the detachments of boyar children underwent reforms for the last time. Hundreds were replaced by companies of 60 people each, and 6 companies in total began to amount toregiment. The transformation entailed the abolition of parochialism - the system of distribution of state military posts according to the degree of nobility of origin.
The class of boyar children disappeared at the beginning of the 18th century during the reforms of Peter the Great. The monarch was not interested in supporting the old-style troops. He created a new army, organizing it in the European manner. He also increased the importance of the nobility. It was this group of aristocracy that swallowed up the children of the boyars.
