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The opposition would not be reconciled, however, so in 1478 Ivan returned to bombard Novgorod into submission. This time there were arrests, and a hundred men were executed for treason. The Archbishop was implicated too. He was imprisoned in a monastery, and all his property confiscated. ⁹ The acreage at the disposal of the state was now huge, and it is here that a wider aspect of Ivan’s grand strategy becomes apparent. To secure this strategic region on Muscovy’s western frontier, Ivan needed to settle his own men, his own servitors, there. The Grand Prince appropriated about 2.7 million acres of land at a stroke. He retained nearly half of it for himself or the state (no distinction was drawn between the two); on the remainder he settled 2,000 of his people - some of them loyalists from Novgorod, the others outsiders. The idea, which anticipated that of the Irish plantations, had a similar purpose: to establish a politically reliable element of sufficient size to secure the region. The inspiration almost certainly came from Constantinople. Under the late-Roman/Byzantine pronoia system, state land was leased in small parcels in return for service to the state, and was heritable by a son who followed his father into state service.

Ivan seems to have imitated this practice. Under the system he laid down in Novgorod, a servitor was allotted land to support himself in service in the form of a conditional lease, which was heritable on the same condition. The institution, called pomestie in Russian, was to be extended subsequently with a series of deportations and resettlements. Good coin was relatively scarce in Muscovy, and an estate allowed a servitor to support himself and his family without need for cash. Furthermore, transportations and resettlements on a grand scale, especially in vulnerable frontier areas, had also been a late-Roman practice. ¹⁰ Pomestie was to allow Ivan to field an army three or four times the size of that which his father, Vasilii, had commanded. It was certainly a practice that was to be much used in Russia in the future. Indeed, it became the mainstay of both civil and military servicemen for generations to come — a major Russian institution: the cornerstone of the Muscovite service state.

It had administrative implications, however. Some time after the state took possession of the land on which servitors were to be settled, a small army of officials descended upon it. In effect they mapped each area, recording its extent, its settlements, its rivers, and the quality and lie of the land in cadastral registers. And the allotments to servicemen were also recorded. Indeed a new office had to be founded in Ivan’s reign to administer the servicemen who held the land, so that they could be called upon, properly armed and equipped, when they were needed. This came to be known as the Muster Office (Razriad), and so vital was it to a Russian ruler that from the beginning it was run not by a boyar, however trusted a counsellor, but by experienced senior secretaries responsible directly to the ruler.

Once affairs in Novgorod were settled, a harder line was imposed on Pskov, and then on Tver, whose Grand Prince Mikhail had sworn loyalty to Casimir of Poland. In the late summer of 1485 Muscovite forces descended on Tver in strength and with a powerful artillery train directed by an Italian in Ivan’s service, Aristotele Fioravanti. The show of overwhelming strength was sufficient to achieve Ivan’s purpose without being used. After suburbs had been set on fire, Tver capitulated. Prince Mikhail fled to Lithuania; the rest of the elite swore oaths of loyalty to Ivan. The oath-taking was not reciprocal. Allegiance to Ivan was not a matter of mutuality; furthermore, it was to extend to his heirs. ¹¹

Nevertheless, authority was imposed in ways that would not arouse more hostility than necessary, and the Grand Prince took care to show grace and favour to those on whom he most depended. As with other principalities that Moscow absorbed, steps were taken to reconcile those who mattered and put them to use, but at the same time the old elite were not neglected. The most important members, including some princes in their own right, were accorded the rank of boyar or of senior counsellor (okolnichii). These were the most senior people in the Grand Prince’s entourage. Such designations carried with them great prestige and privilege. They also gave the heirs of those so honoured the expectation of a similarly high place in the pecking order for court ceremonies as well as for judicial and administrative positions, and even military campaigns. There were no more than a dozen members of this exclusive order at this juncture. ¹² Subsequently it was to develop into a great council of state. Muscovy was already acquiring some institutions that were to facilitate the running of an empire.