CHAPTER XIII. 

 Russian Cavalry at this Epoch — Cossacks. 



About the end of the fifteenth century we begin to 

 hear of the cavalry known as the Cossacks, and as we 

 shall subsequently refer frequently to their operations, 

 and have to relate the most important results produced 

 by their exertions, it will be of interest to say a few 

 words about their early history. 



The Greek Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenetus 

 makes mention in the ninth century of a country named 

 Cosaquie, situated near the foot of the Caucasus. It is 

 said there existed, before th-j invasion of the Mongols, a 

 Tartar people called Cossacks, who lived on the banks of 

 the Don and the Volga. In 1021 they submitted to the 

 Grand Prince Mstislaff, who had them in his army in his 

 war in 1023 against his brother Jaroslaf. During the 

 Tartar yoke there were no Russian Cossacks, but after 

 that yoke was thrown off numbers of Russians estab- 

 Hshed themselves in the former habitations of the 

 Cossacks, and adopting a similar habit of living, natu- 

 rally received the same name.^ 



The historical Russian tablets of the twelfth century 

 often mention the existence of a free military organisa- 

 tion in the country lying between the Black Sea and the 

 Caspian. They were composed of emigrants of all 

 nations, but especially of Russia, Poland, and the Cau- 

 casus. They seem to have lived by war and plunder. 

 The Tartars called them by the word '* Khasaks," meaning 



* Haxthausen, La Force Militaire de la Russie, p. 147. 



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