previous next

Of their mustering, and levying of forces, maner of armour, and provision of victuall for the warres.

WHEN wars are towards (which they faile not of lightly every yere with the Tartar, & many times with the Polonian & Sweden ) the foure Lords of the Chetfirds send forth their summons in the Emperors name, to all the Dukes and Dyacks of the Provinces, to be proclaimed in the head townes of every Shire: that al the Sinaboiarskey, or sonnes of gentlemen make their repaire to such a border where the service is to be done, at such a place, & by such a day, and there present themselves to such, & such Captaines. When they come to the place assigned them in the summons or proclamation, their names are taken by certaine officers that have commission for that purpose from the Roserade, or high Constable, as Clarkes of the bands. If any make default & faile at the day, he is mulcted, & punished very severely. As for the General & other chief Captaines, they are sent thither from the Emperors owne hand, with such Commission & charge as he thinketh behoofull for the present service. When the souldiers are assembled, they are reduced into their bands, & companies, under their several Captaines of tennes, fifties, hundreds, thousands, &c. and these bands into 4 Polskeis, or Legions (but of farre greater numbers then the Romane Legions were) under their foure great Leaders, which also have the authoritie of Marshals of the field (as was sayd before.)

Concerning their armour they are but slightly appointed. The common horseman hath nothing els but his bow in his case under his right arme, & his quiver & sword hanging on the left side: except some fewe that beare a case of dagges, or a Javelin, or short staffe along their horse side. The under captains wil have commonly some piece of armour besides, as a shirt of male, or such like. The General with the other chiefe captaines & men of Nobilitie wil have their horse very richly furnished, their saddles of cloth of gold, their bridles fair bossed & tasselled with gold, & silk fringe, bestudded with pearle & precious stones, themselves in very faire armor, which they cal Bullatnoy, made of faire shining steele, yet covered commonly with cloth of golde, and edged round with armin furre, his steele helmet on his head of a very great price, his sword bow and arrowes at his side, his speare in his hand, with another faire helmet, and Shesta pera, or horsemans scepter carried before him. Their swords, bowes, and arrowes are of the Turkish fashion. They practise like the Tartar to shoote forwards and backwards, as they flie and retire.

The Strelsey or footeman hath nothing but his piece in this hand, his striking hatchet at his back, & his sword by his side. The stock of his piece is not made calieverwise, but with a plaine & straite stocke (somewhat like a fouling piece) the barrel is rudely & unartificially made, very heavie yet shooteth but a very small bullet. As for their provision of victual, the Emperor alloweth none, either for Captaine or souldiour, neither provideth any for them except peradventure some corne for their money. Every man is to bring sufficient for himselfe, to serve his turne for foure moneths, & if neede require to give order for more to be brought unto him to the Campe from his tenant that tilleth his land, or some other place. One great helpe they have, that for lodging and diet every Russe is prepared to be a souldier beforehand. Though the chiefe Captains & other of account cary tents with them after the fashion of ours, with some better provision of victual then the rest. They bring with them commonly into the Campe for victuall a kind of dried bread, (which they call Suchary) with some store of meale, which they temper with water, and so make it into a ball, or small lumpe of dowe, called Tollockno. And this they eate rawe in stead of bread. Their meat is bacon, or some other flesh or fish dryed, after the Dutch maner. If the Russe souldier were as hardy to execute an enterprise, as he is hard to beare out toyle and travell, or were otherwise as apt and well trained for the warres, as he is indifferent for his lodging and diet, hee would farre exceede the souldiers of our parts.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

Sort places alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a place to search for it in this document.
Russe (Bulgaria) (5)
Sweden (Sweden) (2)

Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.

hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: