In the thirteenth century, the Mongols captured vast expanses of northeastern Russia, and Russian principalities which did not enter directly into the new Mongol state, known as the Golden Horde, became its vassals. They were allowed to keep their social systems, but were supervised by a special military and administrative organization set up by the Mongols. The weakened Russian states in the north were attacked by the Swedes, Teutons and Lithuanians, but the Novgorod and Pskov principalities resisted these onslaughts.

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, Russia consisted of a number of independent principalities with economic and feudal relationships different from those in the west. Until the Mongol invasion, a military-feudal nobility existed, and was organized in over 100 druzhinas. The druzhina, which retained the name formerly used by a chieftain’s bodyguard, was a prince’s retinue of personal warriors. Members, called druzyniks, were granted estates (pomestiia) in exchange for their services. Once granted, ownership of these estates was free of all obligations, and if a druzynik decided to switch allegiances, he took his land with him to the new prince’s state. The estates were thus allodial, not feudal.

The druzhina was divided into senior and junior members, the senior members being boyars (great nobles) and state officers. The juniors made up the grid, and could be promoted upon coming of age, or by acquiring sufficient retainers to serve the prince in their own right. By the twelfth century, however, the boyars had become very powerful, and their personal appearances in the druzhina became rather infrequent; princes had to rely on the grid.

Militarily, the druzhina was organized according to the decade system: desiatniia (10 men), sotnia (100) and tisiach (1,000). The Kiev, Novgorod and, later, Moscow principalities had the largest druzhinas.

The Russian principalities waged practically continuous warfare against a series of Asiatic nomadic tribes, among them the Pechenegs, Cumans, Uzes, and the Mongol conquest in 1240 was the culmination of these protracted hostilities. These prolonged contacts ensured that Russia would, in military matters, gravitate towards the east, and not towards Europe, and the equipment worn by Russian warriors illustrates this. Another feature was the nobles’ conservatism: thirteenth century-style equipment was still in widespread use in the sixteenth century: scale armour with or without coif, lamellar or leather corselets with stitched-on rings and long mail corselets.

The pictured horseman is wearing a Byzantine-type kapalin helmet, and Asiatic plate vambraces.