unity of language and religion, and the common idea that no princes must be taken by any Russian territory except from among the descendants of Yaroslav. The natural centres of the territory were its fortified towns, which offered a refuge to the population in case of need. In each town the folkmote remained supreme; it decided upon war and peace; it invited a prince to defend the territory, and the prince, before being recognised as such, had to sign a covenant (ryad), and to take the engagement to rule according to law. He was bound to keep a band of warriors (drujina) to protect the territory, and was entitled to levy for that purpose a tribute as well as the usual judicial fines: the disputes among the citizens being settled by twelve jurors (six for the defendant and six for the plaintiff), the prince or his deputy had to pronounce the sentence and to levy the fine when the parties applied before the prince's court instead of the folkmote. The cities usually were divided into sections and streets,' corresponding to the trade and artisans' guilds, and each of them had its own self-government; it elected its priests and functionaries, while the folkmote of the whole city elected the posadnik or mayor, the tysiatskiy (millenarium) or commander of the militia, and the bishop. The fortifications of the cities were mostly built out of the wealth accumulated by the cathedral church, which was the exchequer of the city. The guilds of the merchants in larger trading cities, like Novgorod and Pskov, used to carry on trade in the name, and, at the outset, for the benefit of the whole city. The city-not the individual-sent out its caravans and boats, and it also used to send out parties of young men into the lands of the Finnish tribes to carry on trade, to levy tribute, and to colonise them. In this way Novgorod conquered the north-east of Russia, and founded there its daughter-republics of Vyatka, Dwina, and Vologda; and later on its men crossed the Urals to trade with Siberia. Kieff was recognised as the eldest of the cities, and the eldest of the kin of the princes had to rule at Kieff. But this unwritten agreement was not always obeyed, and consequently numberless petty wars took place between the princes. The country, however, took no part in these wars, with the exception of a few isolated cases always specified in the annals. In each territory there was the chief city (gorod), and the subordinate ones (prigorod), but no traces of submission of the latter to the former can be discovered in the documents of the times, the annals simply mentioning that the prigorods take the same decisions as the gorod. The soil belonged to the freemen who cultivated it; but slavery existed, and there was some trade in slaves, chiefly prisoners of war. A free man who entered into any one's service without agreement and remained in a servant's position for more than one year was also considered kholop or slave, as well as he who sold himself into slavery under the pressure of necessity. Trade prospered at that time, especially at Kieff, which was the great storehouse for trade with Greece and Asia, and Novgorod (which later on joined the Hanseatic League) for the trade with Germany and Scandinavia. Pskov, Smolensk, and Polotsk also were important centres of commerce.

During the 10th, 11th, and 12th centuries Russia was thus covered with a number of free democratic republics. But the Greek Church already worked hard at introducing into Russian life the conception of the state and the authority of the monarch. Instead of the common-law view of justice as amends made by the offender for the wrongs he has done to the individual or the community, the church introduced the Roman conception of justice as established by the state, and with it the idea of cruel corporal and capital punishments. At the

same time it spread education and developed the taste for reading, and its monasteries were centres of further colonisation. But it also introduced the Byzantine ideas of asceticism and submission, and subsequently its influence, reinforced by that of the Mongols and the Tartars, contributed to give to woman a subordinate position quite contrary to the spirit of the Slav laws. And finally a new power grew up during the same centuries-viz. that of the boyars or bolars. Formerly they simply were the chief warriors and counsellors of the drujina; but later on, as some of them grew wealthier through trade and war, they acquired more and more importance in the cities as well as in the country. Thither they attracted peasants to settle on the free lands, and gradually reduced them to the condition of tenants. Such was the state of Russian society during the udyelnyi or feudal period before the Mongol invasion. Of all the princes who ruled at Kieff during that period Vladimir Monomachus (1113-25) deserves special mention as a ruler whose paternal authority was recognised by most Russian princes, whom he succeeded in bringing together for the defence of the territory against the Polovtsy. With him really ended the supremacy of Kieff, south-west Russia becoming more and more the prey of its nomad neighbours, as well as of its western neighbours, the princes of Volhynia and Galicia.

Owing to the gradual colonisation of the basin of the Oka and the upper Volga, a new Russian territory had grown in importance in the meantime. Suzdal and Rostov were its chief centres. It differed from south-west Russia in many respects: its inhabitants were Great Russians-a hard-working race, less poetical and less gifted, but more active than their southern brethren. Besides, a good many of its inhabitants were peasants settled on the lands of the boyars-country-people, not accustomed to the folkmotes of old; and the cities themselves, being of recent creation-like Vladimir and, later on, Moscow-had not those traditions of independence which characterised Kieff or Novgorod. It was therefore easier for the authority of the prince to develop in the north-east, under the guidance of the church and the boyars, without being interfered with by the vetche. The Suzdal prince, Andrei Bogolubskiy (1157-74), was the first representative of that policy. He and his churchly advisers founded a new town, Vladimir, on the Klazma, a tributary of the Oka, and sanctified it by transporting thither from Kieff an icon of the Virgin, which had come from Constantinople, and was reputed to have been painted by St Luke. He invited many Kieff boyars to settle in the land of Suzdal, and finally he undertook to strike the last blow at the supremacy of Kieff. He induced the land of Suzdal to levy an army, which took Kieff in 1169, plundered and burned it, massacred numbers of its inhabitants, and carried others away into slavery. The supremacy of Kieff was thus destroyed, and the land of Suzdal became the Îlede-France of Russia-the nucleus of the future Russian state. Andrei was killed by his own boyars; but the Suzdal land continued to grow and to enjoy prosperity during the next fifty years; economical, educational, and literary progress were marked, and the Russian territory extended farther eastwards. A rival was given to Novgorod in Nijni-Novgorod, at the junction of the Öka with the Volga. But in the 13th century a great calamity visited Russia; a Mongol invasion suddenly put a stop to the development of the country and threw it into a totally new direction.

For several centuries past the rapid desiccation of central Asia (see ASIA) had been compelling the inhabitants of the high plateau to migrate into the lowlands, and thence westwards towards Europe.

Under this pressure of Asia upon Europe the Ugrians, who inhabited the Urals, moved over the south Russian steppes to Hungary; and the Polovtsy, the Petchenegs, and other tribes were making in succession their raids upon south-west Russia. Now it was the turn of the nomads, who inhabited the very heart of Asia, and whom Genghis Khan (q.v.) had united into a great confederation, to enter Europe. They already had conquered Manchuria, part of north China, Turkestan, and Bokhara, and devastated the encampments of the Polovtsy. The Polovtsy applied for aid to the Russians, and their united forces met the invaders on the Kalka River (a tributary of the Don) in 1224. The Mongols and Tartars were completely victorious, but retreated and did not return to Russia till after thirteen years. In 1238 the hordes of Batu-khan invaded the whole of east and central Russia. Ryazan, Rostov, Yaroslav, Tver, and Torjok were burned; only the marshes of Novgorod protected the north-western republic from the same fate. In 1239-40 they ravaged the south-west, destroying Tchernigov, Galicia, and Kieff, and entered Poland and Hungary. But, being checked in Moravia, and receiving at the same time the news of the Khan's death, Batukhan returned to Asia, and built his palace at Sarai on the lower Volga. Thither the Russian princes had to go to pay tribute and receive their investiture by kissing the stirrup of the khan.

After having ravaged Russia the Mongols did not interfere much with her internal organisation. They respected the church; they left the peasants in possession of their lands, and the princes in possession of their authority; but every prince had to receive his investiture from the khan, and it was at the khan's court, sometimes on the banks of a tributary of the Amur, that intrigues for supremacy between the Russian princes were settled -sometimes through the assassination of the prince who was not rich enough to buy the support of the advisers of the khan. It was especially with Mongol aid, and often with Mongol armies, that the wealthy princes of Moscow succeeded in destroying the autonomy of the surrounding principalities, and imposed upon them their own yoke..

The taxes of Russia were originally farmed out by the khan to oriental merchants; but, to avoid popular revolts, the princes undertook to collect them with the aid of the Tartars. The courts of the Russian princes, who surrounded themselves with Tartar and Mongol advisers, took an oriental character. The industrial, artistic, and literary development of Russia was totally arrested. On the whole, Mongol rule threw the country more than 200 years behind the other states of Europe. The principalities of Kieff and Tchernigov never recovered afterwards. Their decline, however, made room for the rise of Galitch to preeminence in western Russia, and, amidst wars against Hungary and the Tartars, it preserved greater independence than any of the Russian principalities till, in the later half of the 13th century, it was taken possession of by Casimir III. of Poland. About the same time Volhynia was joined to Lithuania. The rise of this latter state much favoured by the prostration into which Russia had fallen; and after an existence of several centuries, during which it extended its power so as to include Livonia proper, the Russian provinces of White Russia, Volhynia, Podolia, and the Ukraine, it was joined in 1569 to Poland (q.v.). On the north of Lithuania arose in the beginning of the 13th century another power, the Livonian Knights Sword-bearers, who took possession of Livonia, Courland, and Esthonia, as well as some portions of the territory of Novgorod and Pskov; while the Scandinavians, blessed by Pope Gregory

was

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IX., undertook a crusade against Novgorod. They were, however, defeated by Alexander Nevski (q.v.; 1252-63).

In the beginning of the 14th century eastern Russia consisted of the principalities of Suzdal, Nijni-Novgorod, Ryazan, Tver, and Moscow, and long contests took place between them, especially. between the latter two. At last Moscow-a small village fortified by Yuriy Dolgorouki (1147)—took the upper hand. It was entirely free of municipal traditions, and the powers of the prince could freely develop there, unchecked by the vetche. It occupied an advantageous position at the junction of several main routes, and on a then navigable river, amidst a territory thickly peopled by boyars' peasants, who enriched the prince and the boyars. The church, always prosecuting its aim of creating a monarchy in Russia, soon perceived the importance of Moscow as a centre of a future state, and its head, the metropolitan, removed thither from Vladimir in 1325. The church, the boyars, and the princes thus created at Moscow the power which was necessary at that moment to oppose the encroachments of Catholic Lithuania, Poland, and Livonia. Ivan Kalita (1328-40), Simeon the Proud (1340-53), and the regency of boyars which administered the affairs under his weakminded son Ivan II. (1353-59), as also during the minority of Ivan's son Dmitri Donskoi (135989), all pursued the same policy of increasing the powers of Moscow by weakening the neighbouring principalities-Nijni-Novgorod, Tver, and Ryazan. Taking advantage of the weakness of the Mongol khanate, now divided into the hordes of Nogai, Crimea, Kazan, and Astrakhan, the east Russians made in 1380 the first attempt at throwing off the yoke; their armies federated under Dmitri, and they ventured for the first time to meet the Mongol armies in a battle on the field of Kulikovo, on the banks of the Don. The battle was not decisive, but the church ascribed the victory to the holy icons of the Moscow monasteries and to Dmitri. True, next year the Khan Tokhtamysh advanced suddenly on Moscow, burned it, killed no less than 24,000 people, and exacted a heavy tribute. But this was the last time that Moscow fell into the hands of the Tartars. Its Kreml (citadel), which had resisted in 1368 and 1371 the assaults of the Lithuanians under Olgerd, was more strongly fortified, and when Khan Edighei besieged it in 1408 he could only ravage the suburbs.

It was

The gradual increase of the Moscow principality continued under Vassili I. (1389-1425)-who bought from the khan the right of ruling at NijniNovgorod, and conquered Rostov and Murom-and Vassili II. the Blind (1425–62). Still the prince, though assuming the title of Great Prince, was merely recognised as the eldest by other princes, and the cities maintained their independence, simply paying to his delegates a tribute in exchange for military protection, while Moscow was ruled in reality by the duma (council) of the boyars, especially after Vassili II. became blind. under Ivan III. (1462-1505), named 'the Great' by some historians, that the prince of Moscow, after having for forty years seized every opportunity for abolishing the autonomy of other principalities, and having married Sophia, a niece of Constantine Palæologus (who came to Moscow with a numerous following of Greeks imbued with ideas of Roman autocracy), assumed the title of Ruler of all Russia' (Hospodar Vseya Rossi), and adopted the arms of the Byzantine empire. He took advantage of the divisions at Novgorod between the oligarchy of merchants, who were appealing for assistance to the Poles, and the people, and, supported by Tartar cavalry, marched against the republic (1471). Novgorod was defeated and sub

mitted; but new difficulties arose, and, after having preached a national war against the pope and his allies the Novgorodians,' Ivan took possession of the city (1481), decapitated numbers of boyars and rich people, and transported 8000 Novgorodians into the cities of eastern Russia. The colonies of Novgorod (Vyatka, Dvina) were conquered next, and in 1495 the Hanseatic market of Novgorod was pillaged by Ivan's men, and all the goods taken to Moscow. Novgorod thus lost both its independence and its trade.

The Tartar-Mongols being divided at this time, the Russians took advantage of the fact to refuse tribute; and when thereupon the khan of the Golden Horde, stimulated by Casimir's promises of support, marched against Moscow, an army of 150,000 men was sent to meet him on the Öka. Both armies stood there for months inactive, till, finally, the Tartars, seeing no support from Lithuania, and probably learning that Sarai had been plundered by a straggling band of Russians, suddenly retreated to ravage Lithuanian territory. This retreat is considered as the liberation of Russia from the Tartar-Mongol yoke (1480).

Russia's chief enemy, however, was Lithuania, united at that time with Poland. It stood at the very gates of Moscow, keeping garrisons in towns 150 miles distant from the Russian capital, and always ready to employ the Tartars against the Russians. A protracted war ensued, with the result that several princes on the upper Oka and Desna (tributary to the Dnieper) surrendered to Ivan. Smolensk, however, remained under the Lithuanians. Vassili III. (1505-33) followed his father's policy. He continued the war with Lithuania, and retook Smolensk. He annexed Ryazan and Novgorod-Syeversk, and conquered, by taking advantage of its internal dissensions, the last north-western republic, Pskov. The vetche was abolished, its bell taken to Moscow, and 300 wealthy families transported to east Russia.

Vassili's son, Ivan IV. (1533-84), was proclaimed Great Prince when he was only three years old. His reign is still the subject of the most contradictory estimates by historians. The fact is that by that time the boyars of Moscow, reinforced by all the dethroned princes and their descendants, had grown all-powerful. Not only the laws were issued by the boyar duma (council) in the name of the Great Prince and the boyars,' but their authority within the palace overshadowed that of the prince. In his childhood Ivan IV., though surrounded with adulation at official receptions, was kept in neglect and almost hunger. Russia was like to become another Poland ruled by the rival parties of nobles. During the first years of his reign Ivan ruled with their support and under the influence of the priest Sylvester and the minor noble Adashev. The states-general were convoked twice (1549 and 1550), the code (Sudebnik) of his grandfather was revised, and church matters were settled in 'The Hundred Articles' (Stoglav) by a council. Kazan was conquered in 1552, and Astrakhan two years later. But within the palace affairs stood at their worst. Ivan's two advisers, grown very powerful, were gained over to a party hostile to Ivan and favourable to his cousin, and when Ivan fell ill (1553) he witnessed during his sufferings the intrigues of his advisers. Once recovered, he exiled them. At the same time a mighty feudal prince, Andrei Kurbski, openly went over to the service of Lithuania, while other boyars maintained a secret understanding with Poland to place on the throne a ruler who might be their tool. Ivan IV. began most cruelly to persecute the boyars, and his cruelty soon attained the pitch of real madness. No less than

3470 victims, out of whom 986 are mentioned by name, were inscribed by Ivan IV. himself in his prayer-book, and among them are whole families with sons and daughters,' as well as 1505 Novgorodians, whose names, Almighty, Thou knowest.' Ivan's historical position appears very much like that of Louis XI.; it was the royal power struggling against the feudal oligarchy; but the struggle took a truly Asiatic character of refined cruelty, mingled with orgies and acts of monastic devotion. In order to carry on the struggle more successfully Ivan gave liberties to the towns and later on divided all Russia into two parts-the country as a whole and, on the other hand, what he claimed as his own part of the country (opritchnina)—the latter having the right of oppressing the former, peasants and boyars alike. Ivan IV. was the first autocrat in Russia, and he assumed the title of tsar (erroneously spelt Czar, q.v.), which is the name given in the Russian translations of the Bible to the kings of Judea and the Roman emperors. Contrary to the advice of his boyars, but with the approval of the states-general, he carried on a long and protracted war against Livonia, successful at the beginning, but most disastrous when Livonia was supported by the newly-elected king of Poland, Stephen Bathory. At the same time the khan Devlet Ghirei, crossing the Oka with 120,000 men, appeared before Moscow, and burned its suburbs. The Kreml only resisted, and the khan retreated ravaging the country and carrying away countless prisoners. By the end of Ivan's reign Siberia (q.v.) was conquered by bands of Cossacks under Yermak, and the English opened the trade by sea with Archangel.

Ivan IV., who had himself killed his eldest son in a fit of rage, left but a feeble-minded son, Feodor (1584-98), during whose reign the boyars recovered their former power. Feodor's brother-inlaw, Boris Godunoff, was nominated regent, and the old struggles between rival parties began afresh. Godunoff, though an able administrator, was generally hated by both the boyars and the people of Moscow, and he endeavoured to gain popularity among the minor nobility, in the interests of whom he promulgated (1597) a law which ultimately, especially after the law of 1648, developed into serfdom. Until that time the peasants remained free-nominally, at least. They were free to settle wherever they were offered the most advantageous conditions, and once a year (on St George's day) they were entitled to abandon their farms and to remove elsewhere if they had succeeded in finding better terms, and had contracted no debts with the landowner. Boris Godunoff abolished that right of free removal, thus attaching the peasants to the land, and the institution, developing into full serfdom, became the curse of Russia for the next 270 years. To secure the throne for himself and his dynasty, Godunoff first exiled Feodor and his mother to Uglitch, and later on sent assassins to murder the seven years' old child Dmitri in 1591. After Feodor's death the duma of boyars proclaimed Boris Godunoff (15981605) tsar of Russia, but he reigned six years only.

The most extraordinary thing then happened in Russia. A young man, supposed to be Grigoriy Otrepieff-a runaway monk from a Moscow monastery who had afterwards spent several years among the Zaporogian Cossacks-appeared in Poland under the name of the assassinated Dmitri. The Jesuits and some of the Polish nobility at once supported him; also King Sigismund; and when he appeared, with an army of Polish volunteers, under the walls of a Russian frontier fortress, he was received as the very son of Ivan IV. All over Russia the people rose to support the pretender. The mother of the murdered Dmitri recognised