A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1.

by Carlton J. H. Hayes

4. NORTHERN AND EASTERN EUROPE IN THE YEAR 1500

[Sidenote: Northern and Eastern Europe of Small Importance in the
Sixteenth Century, but of Great Importance Subsequently]

We have now reviewed the states that were to be the main factors in the historical events of the sixteenth century—the national monarchies of England, France, Portugal, and Spain; the Holy Roman Empire of the Germanies; and the city-states of Italy and the Netherlands. It may be well, however, to point out that in northern and eastern Europe other states had already come into existence, which subsequently were to affect in no small degree the history of modern times, such as the Scandinavian kingdoms, the tsardom of Muscovy, the feudal kingdoms of Poland and Hungary, and the empire of the Ottoman Turks.

[Sidenote: Northwestern Europe: the Scandinavian Countries]

In the early homes of those Northmen who had long before ravaged the coasts of England and France and southern Italy and had colonized Iceland and Greenland, were situated in 1500 three kingdoms, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, corresponding generally to the present-day states of those names. The three countries had many racial and social characteristics in common, and they had been politically joined under the king of Denmark by the Union of Calmar in 1397. This union never evoked any popularity among the Swedes, and after a series of revolts and disorders extending over fifty years, Gustavus Vasa (1523-1560) established the independence of Sweden. Norway remained under Danish kings until 1814.

[Sidenote: The Slavs in Central and Eastern Europe]

East of the Scandinavian peninsula and of the German-speaking population of central Europe, spread out like a great fan, are a variety of peoples who possess many common characteristics, including a group of closely related languages, which are called Slavic. These Slavs in the year 1500 included (1) the Russians, (2) the Poles and Lithuanians, (3) the Czechs, or natives of Bohemia, within the confines of the Holy Roman Empire, and (4) various nations in southeastern Europe, such as the Serbs and Bulgars.

[Sidenote: Russia in 1500]

The Russians in 1500 did not possess such a huge autocratic state as they do to-day. They were distributed among several principalities, the chief and center of which was the grand-duchy of Muscovy, with Moscow as its capital. Muscovy's reigning family was of Scandinavian extraction but what civilization and Christianity the principalities possessed had been brought by Greek missionaries from Constantinople. For two centuries, from the middle of the thirteenth to the middle of the fifteenth, the Russians paid tribute to Mongol [Footnote: The Mongols were a people of central Asia, whose famous leader, Jenghiz Khan (1162-1227), established an empire which stretched from the China Sea to the banks of the Dnieper. It was these Mongols who drove the Ottoman Turks from their original Asiatic home and thus precipitated the Turkish invasion of Europe. After the death of Jenghiz Khan the Mongol Empire was broken into a variety of "khanates," all of which in course of time dwindled away. In the sixteenth century the Mongols north of the Black Sea succumbed to the Turks as well as to the Russians.] khans who had set up an Asiatic despotism north of the Black Sea. The beginnings of Russian greatness are traceable to Ivan III, the Great (1462-1505), [Footnote: Ivan IV (1533-1584), called "The Terrible," a successor of Ivan III, assumed the title of "Tsar" in 1547.] who freed his people from Mongol domination, united the numerous principalities, conquered the important cities of Novgorod and Pskov, and extended his sway as far as the Arctic Ocean and the Ural Mountains. Russia, however, could hardly then be called a modern state, for the political and social life still smacked of Asia rather than of Europe, and the Russian Christianity, having been derived from Constantinople, differed from the Christianity of western Europe. Russia was not to appear as a conspicuous European state until the eighteenth century.

[Sidenote: Poland in 1500]

Southwest of the tsardom of Muscovy and east of the Holy Roman Empire was the kingdom of Poland, to which Lithuanians as well as Poles owed allegiance. Despite wide territories and a succession of able rulers, Poland was a weak monarchy. Lack of natural boundaries made national defense difficult. Civil war between the two peoples who composed the state and foreign war with the neighboring Germans worked havoc and distress. An obstructive parliament of great lords rendered effective administration impossible. The nobles possessed the property and controlled politics; in their hands the king gradually became a puppet. Poland seemed committed to feudal society and feudal government at the very time when the countries of western Europe were ridding themselves of such checks upon the free growth of centralized national states.

[Sidenote: Hungary in 1500]

Somewhat similar to Poland in its feudal propensities was the kingdom of Hungary, which an invasion of Asiatic tribesmen [Footnote: Hungarians, or Magyars—different names for the same people.] in the tenth century had driven like a wedge between the Slavs of the Balkan peninsula and those of the north Poles and Russians. At first, the efforts of such kings as St. Stephen (997-1038) promised the development of a great state, but the weakness of the sovereigns in the thirteenth century, the infiltration of western feudalism, and the endless civil discords brought to the front a powerful and predatory class of barons who ultimately overshadowed the throne. The brilliant reign of Matthias Hunyadi (1458-1490) was but an exception to the general rule. Not only were the kings obliged to struggle against the nobles for their very existence—the crown was elective in Hungary—but no rulers had to contend with more or greater enemies on their frontiers. To the north there was perpetual conflict with the Habsburgs of German Austria and with the forces of the Holy Roman Empire; to the east there were spasmodic quarrels with the Vlachs, the natives of modern Rumania; to the south there was continual fighting, at first with the Greeks and the Slavs—Serbs and Bulgars, and later, most terrible of all, with the Ottoman Turks.

[Sidenote: The Ottoman Turks in 1500]

To the Eastern Roman Empire, with Constantinople as its capital, and with the Greeks as its dominant population, and to the medieval kingdoms of the Bulgars and Serbs, had succeeded by the year 1500 the empire of the Ottoman Turks. The Ottoman Turks were a tribe of Asiatic Mohammedans who took their name from a certain Othman (died 1326), under whom they had established themselves in Asia Minor, across the Bosphorus from Constantinople. Thence they rapidly extended their dominion over Syria, and over Greece and the Balkan peninsula, except the little mountain state of Montenegro, and in 1453 they captured Constantinople. The lands conquered by the arms of the Turks were divided into large estates for the military leaders, or else assigned to the maintenance of mosques and schools, or converted into common and pasturage lands; the conquered Christians were reduced to the payment of tribute and a life of serfdom. For two centuries the Turks were to remain a source of grave apprehension to Europe.