[15] From 1333 to 1339 the princes who held appanages espoused the cause of the prince of Tver against the grand prince of Moscow, whom they called a tyrant. In 1339 the grand prince of Moscow returned to the horde, and so terrified Usbek Khan by his denunciations 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.]
[16] 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.
[17] See the treaty of Dmitri Donskoi with Vladimir his uncle, who promised to pay to him the tribute of his appanage, which bore the name of the khan’s tribute; and the second treaty with the same Vladimir, by which the latter prince engaged that his boyars should pay to Dmitri the same tax which the grand prince might think proper to impose on his own boyars.
[18] It was thus that, in France, in 1445, Charles VII took advantage of the exactions of the English, and of the terror which they inspired, to render perpetual the temporary taxes, and to keep up a permanent corps of twenty-five thousand men.
[19] Usbek, it is true, with macchiavellian policy, designated all the children of Ivan I as his successors; but, in 1340, he allowed Simeon, the oldest and ablest of them, to make himself sole master of the throne. Ianisbek Khan nominated Ivan II, the brother of Simeon, after his death and that of his children, to the exclusion of a prince of the branch of Tver or Nevski. A prince Dmitri, of the Nevski branch, who had been made grand prince by a whim of Naurus Khan, was deposed in 1362 by Murat Khan, who chose Dmitri Donskoi, grandson of Ivan I, and son of Ivan II. Taktamuisch also gave the throne to Vasili II, the eldest son of Donskoi (1389). Lastly, Ulu-Mahomet nominated Vasili III, son of Vasili II, and father of the great Ivan III, whom this long succession rendered so powerful that he completely crushed the horde.
[20] From 1362 to 1380.
[21] [150,000 in Soloviov and Rambaud.]
[22] A son of Alexander Nevski.
[23] “The origin of the Russian aristocracy,” says Turgeniev[f], quoting from Karamzin, “is lost in the most remote antiquity. The dignity of boyar is perhaps even more ancient than that of prince; it distinguished the knights and the most notable citizens, who, in the Slav republics, commanded the armies and administrated the country. This dignity appears never to have been hereditary, but only personal. Although in the course of time it was sometimes conferred by the princes, each of the ancient towns had nevertheless its own boyars, who filled the principal elective offices; even the boyars created by the princes enjoyed a certain independence. Thus, in the treaties of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, we often see the contracting parties confirming to the boyars the right of quitting the service of one prince to enter the service of another. Dissatisfied at Tchernigov, the boyar went with his numerous following to Kiev, Galitch, or Vladimir, where he found new fiefs and tokens of general respect. But when southern Russia had become transformed into Lithuania, when Moscow began to grow larger at the expense of the neighbouring principalities, when the number of princes possessing appanages began to diminish, at the same time that the sovereign’s power over the people was becoming more unlimited, then the dignity of boyar also lost its ancient importance. Popular power was favourable to that of the boyars, which acting through the prince on the people, could also act through these latter on the prince. This support at last failed them. Nothing remained to the boyars but to obey their prince, or to become traitors or rebels; there was no golden mean to take, and in the face of the sovereign, no legal means of opposition existed. In a word absolute power was developing itself.”
