Formation of registered Cossacks and its legal status

Registered Cossacks are Cossacks enrolled in the military service of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and recorded in special lists-registers. 

Worried about the numerical growth of the Cossacks and the spread of the anti-feudal movement in Ukraine, the ruling circles of Lithuania and Poland tried to split the Cossacks: to take part of the wealthy Cossacks into public service, to use them both against the masses of the people and to protect the southeastern borders from aggression by Turkey and Crimea khanate By universal decree of June 5, 1572, King Sigismund II Augustus ordered Crown Hetman Yu. Yazlovetskyi to recruit Cossacks for military service. Such a squad consists of 300 people. was subordinated to the "senior judge of all low-level Cossacks" appointed by the government. Cossacks accepted for public service were entered in the register (list), from where they got the name " registry Cossacks ". From that time, only those who were entered in the register were officially recognized as Cossacks. All others, that is, the main Cossack mass, remained outside its borders.

However, the registry could not fully fulfill the role assigned to it by the authorities, if only because it was numerically small. Meanwhile, the resistance of the exploited masses was increasing in Ukraine, and the number of Zaporizhia Cossacks was growing. In view of these events, the Polish government constantly expanded the register.

Registered Cossacks had a number of important privileges. First of all, when entering the register, they left the jurisdiction of the feudal lords, were freed from the authority of elders and governors if they lived on royal lands, as well as city magistrates, and came under the exclusive jurisdiction of the registry army. The register had its own "judgment", that is, the Cossacks had the right to be tried in their own courts. Registered Cossacks were exempted from taxes, had the right to own land, received: the right to freely engage in various industries and trade. For their service, they received, albeit not regularly, a monetary salary from the state treasury. From time to time, cloth, gunpowder, and lead were issued to registered Cossacks.

However, all this did not eliminate significant differences in the property status of registered Cossacks. The top of the register was the Cossack foreman and the wealthy Cossacks. They mostly came from the small Ukrainian nobility, owned villages and farms, various industries, water mills, and inns. The elder and the wealthy Cossacks exploited poor people and hired "neighbors". The position of the bulk of registered Cossacks was difficult. The obligation to perform unlimited military service at one's own expense, to go on a campaign with a horse, weapons, and military equipment required the registered Cossacks to spend a lot of money, and during military campaigns, they even had to hand over their farm to other hands.

In the strip along the Dnieper, which was occupied by registered Cossack settlements and farms, the latter were interspersed with state, magnate and noble estates. This created tension in the relations between the owners of estates and the main mass of registrants. The rights and privileges of registered Cossacks were a huge attraction for state-owned and privately owned peasants who refused to obey their masters and tried to enter the register. But, not achieving this, they arbitrarily left the estates of their masters, declared themselves Cossacks and thus replenished the mass of the population, which was not recognized by the authorities.

The position of the registered Cossacks was negatively affected by the inconsistent policy of the royal administration regarding the register. During the war, the government called for the register of all those who wanted to, including peasants of state and privately owned estates. And when the need for such a number of registered Cossacks disappeared, most of them were not only excluded from the register lists, but even returned to their former owners.

An important factor that determined the mood of the majority of registered Cossacks was the fact that there was always a threat of reducing the register and, as a result, being enslaved. In the end, the registered Cossacks, like the masses of people throughout Ukraine, too painfully perceived the national and religious oppression, which sharply intensified at the end of the 16th century. These circumstances explain the fact that during the popular uprisings of the end of the 16th and the first half of the 17th centuries. not only the Cossack lower ranks, but also the Cossack "middle" switched to the side of the fighters against serfdom and foreign oppressors.

Thus, at the beginning of the XVII century. in Ukraine, there were three not clearly demarcated categories of Cossacks: wealthy registered Cossacks who served the government, Zaporozhians who lived outside the borders of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the vast majority of Cossacks who lived in border towns, led a Cossack lifestyle, but did not have an officially defined status.