Meanders of the Polish military revolution – standarization of cavalry units in the sixteenth century

Abstract

The objective of the article is to show the phenomenon of the internal standardization of the units of Polish cavalry in the 16^th century. The process, in which diverse armament and equipment of the soldiers was abandoned, is elusive in descriptive sources and only signaled in normative acts. The only type of sources, which allows us to reconstruct the real combat potential of the units are inspection registers (rejestry popisowe). Consequently, the process of specialization of units and forming different types of cavalry was basically marginalized. In the Crown, as late as the 1530s, cavalry rotas were very diverse. They consisted of lancers, Polish winged hussars (later: hussars) and light cavalry combined in various proportions (figure 1 and 5). This state of affairs is connected with three factors. First, the units of Permanent Defense (obrona potoczna) in their structure referred to Mass Mobilization (pospolite ruszenie). Second, provisions of law were not used for standardizing the armament and armor; on the contrary, at least by the 1530s they stimulated the internal diversification. Third, the Crown professional units were internally divided into towarzyszes and pocztowys, which prompted the diversification of armament inside a unit. The text shows the changes which occurred in the 1540s and 50s, which brought about a situation in 1557, where the rate of standardization was as high as 82.93% (figure 6). They were dynamic transformations but were not top-down planned reforms but a bottom-up initiative of rotmistrzes.

Keywords:

tactics of the 16th century, types of Polish cavalry, military law, rejestry popisowe (inspection registers), military reforms, military revolution in the Crown