against the prince of Tver and other princes, that the khan immediately summoned them to the horde, in order to restrain, or get rid of them. — [See Karamsin.]
1 See Kamenevitch (translated by Karamsin), describing the great mart of Mologa, where the commerce of Asia and of Europe met in the seventy inns of its Slavonian suburb; and where seven thousand two hundred pounds' weight of silver were collected for the treasury of the prince.
establish them as fixed principles; that prince did not neglect to increase the wealth[4] of his grandfather Ivan. The people had given to Ivan the surname of The Purse; as much, perhaps, with allusion to his treasures, as to the purse, filled with alms for the poor, which is said to have been always carried before him. At a later period, the constantly progressive riches of the grand princes of Moscow enabled them to enfeoff directly from the crown lands three hundred thousand boyar followers; and next, to keep up a body of regular troops, sufficiently strong to reduce their enemies and their subjects.[5]
This system of concentration of power which Ivan Kalita commenced, by means of his wealth, by the union of the sceptre with the tiara, and by restoring the direct order of succession; his horrible but skilful macchia- vellism against the princes holding appanages; finally, the fifty years' repose which, thanks to his policy, and to their dissensions, the Tatars permitted Russia to enjoy; these are the circumstances which entitle Ivan to be considered as standing next after Alexander Nevski among the most remarkable grand princes of the third period. It was he who had the sagacity on this stubborn soil to open and to trace so deeply the path which led to monarchical unity, and to point out its direction so clearly to his successors that they had nothing to do but to persevere in it, as the only safe road which it was then possible for Russia to follow.
This concentration of power brought about great changes from 1320 to 1329; as, at that epoch, all the Russian princes in concert solicited from the horde the recall of the Tatar governors. It was then that, more firmly fixed, the throne of the grand princes became the rallying point of the Russians: along with the consciousness of their strength, it inspired them with a public spirit, which emboldened them. This good understanding was, in reality, an effect of the ascendency which a direct and sustained succession, in a single branch of the Ruriks, had already given to it over all the others.
The Principle of Direct Succession
In fact, sometimes natural justice, sometimes oriental negligence and cupidity, often the fear of being disobeyed, and lastly, and especially, the power and riches of the princes of Moscow — whose presents always surpassed those of the other princes — all these motives had induced the khans to allow the succession to the grand principality to descend regularly from father to son in the branch of Moscow.[6] This natural order of succession Dmitri Donskoi, in 1359, established by a treaty, in which his kinsmen consented to renounce the mode of succession from brother to brother. It was the most remarkable among them, Vladimir the Brave, who was the first to sign this act. In several other conventions, Vladimir acknowledged himself the vassal and lieutenant, not merely of Dmitri, but also of Vasili his son, and even of the son of Vasili, when he was only five years of age. This example, set by a prince who, of all the possessors of appanages, was the most renowned for his prudence and his valour, was followed by the others. Thus, like the Capets, kings of France, did Ivan I, and particularly Dmitri Donskoi, begin the monarchy by restoring the direct succession, in causing, while they lived, their eldest sons to be recognised as their successors. Afterwards we see Vasili, son of Dmitri, persevering in this practice, and Vasili the Blind, his grandson, raising up his tottering throne, and preparing the autocracy of the fourth Russian period, by associating with himself his next heir, the great Ivan III.
It is easy to conceive the infallible effect of this order of succession, and with what promptitude it must necessarily have extended and consolidated the power of the grand princes. In fact, the ideas of the father being transmitted to the son by education, their policy was more consistently followed up, and their ambition had a more direct object. The nobles could not fail to attach themselves more devotedly to a prince whose son and heir, growing up amongst them, would know only them, and would recompense their services in the persons of their children; for the necessary consequence of the succession of power in the same branch, was the succession of favours and dignities in the same families.
Even before Dmitri had established the principle, the boyars saw the advantages which this order of succession held out to them. Here, as elsewhere, the fact preceded the law. This was the reason of their restoring the direct line in the grandson of Ivan Kalita; it was they who made him grand prince at the age of twelve years, and who subjected the other princes to him. In like manner, about 1430, they maintained this order of succession in Vasili the Blind. Contemporary annalists declare that these ancient boyars of the grand principality detested the descent from brother to brother; for, in that system, each prince of the lateral branch arrived from his appanage with other boyars, whom he always preferred, and whom he could not satisfy and establish but at the expense of the old. On the other hand, the most important and transmissible places, the most valuable favours, an hereditary and more certain protection, and greater hopes, attracted a military nobility around the grand princes. In a very short time, their elevation to the level of the humbled petty princes flattered their vanity, and completed their junction with the principal authority. This circumstance explains the last words of Dmitri Donskoi to his boyars, when he recommended his son to their protection. "Under my reign," said he, "you were not boyars, but really Russian princes." In fact (to cite only some examples), we see that his armies were as often commanded by boyars as by princes, and that, from this epoch, it was no longer a prince of the blood, but a boyar of the grand prince, who was his lieutenant at Novgorod.
Nay, more, when the succession from father to son was once established, there were, at the very beginning, two minorities (those of Dmitri, and of Vasili, his grandson), during which the boyars composed the council of regency, governed the state, and were the equals, and even the superiors, of the princes who held appanages. This will explain why, in 1392, the boyars of Boris, the last prince of Suzdal, gave up him and his appanage to Vasili Dmitrievitch of Moscow. The motive is to be found only in theirinterest; as the grand prince of Moscow entrusted them with the government of the appanages, and thus substituted the nobles in the place of the princes.
A very remarkable circumstance, ^ with respect to Dmitri Donskoi, is, on the one hand, the energy with which he subdued those princes, and, on the other, his circumspect treatment of his boyars. According to Karamsin, it is more especially to their pride and jealousy of the tyssiatchsky of Moscow (the boyar of the city, or of the commune, a sort of civil and military tribune, elected by the people), that we are to attribute the abolition of that office by Donskoi. During the preceding reign, another tyssiatchsky of Moscow, who claimed precedence of even the boyars of the grand prince, had been murdered by them.
When this hereditary protection afforded by the grand princes of the
Moscow branch was once fairly established, the nobles of each appanage, who constituted its army, had thenceforth an asylum, and, as it were, a tribunal for redress, to which they could appeal whenever they were dissatisfied with then- prince. It was this which made Tver fall before Ivan Kalita; for the sovereign prince of that first and last rival of Moscow having preferred to his boyars the people of Pskov, who had defended him, the former withdrew to Moscow.