Incorporation of Various Service People into the System of Service Relations in the Muscovite Russia in the Fifteenth though Sixteenth Centuries

M. M. Bentsianov
Ural Federal University after the First President of Russia B. N. Yeltsin
19 Mira St., Ekaterinburg, 620002, Russia
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Studying the features of the process of formation and subsequent development of such an important layer in the social, political and economic structure of the Russian state of the late Middle Ages — the early New Age (“estate”) as service people, in recent decades has occupied not the last place in the historical research of Russian historians. The author of the article draws the attention of his readers to the ambiguity of the policy of the supreme authority on the “incorporation” of certain groups of service people who lived in territories that were not previously owned by the great Moscow princes. This policy was flexible - the supreme power tried to firmly tie service people to itself, taking into account local peculiarities and the nature of accession of one or another territory. This flexibility and the generosity shown by the authorities in relation to service people allowed to create a rather effective and tough system of service relations in the short historical terms. She cemented the state and allowed the authorities to engage in “social engineering” to create the all-Russian “rank” of service people.

Keywords: Early Modern time, estates, the Russian state, service people, service relations

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