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The Mongol Origins of Muscovite Political Institutions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Donald Ostrowski
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Sources of the first half of the fourteenth century provide evidence that a sharp rift in institutional continuity occurred in Muscovy. This rift constituted a kind of "punctuated equilibrium" in the evolutionary development of the Rus' political system. The political institutional structure inherited from the Vladimir-Suzdal' component of Kievan Rus' ended abruptly, and, concomitantly, a new political structure similar to that of the Kipchak Khanate was established. I contend in this article that the Muscovite princes introduced Mongol political and military institutions into Muscovy on a wide scale during the first half of the fourteenth century.

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Slavic Review , Volume 49 , Issue 4 , Winter 1990 , pp. 525 - 542
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Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1990

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References

I would like to thank Daniel Rowland as well as the participants in the 1989 Workshop on Early Russian History at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana for their constructive criticisms. Beatrice Forbes Manz has provided me helpful bibliographical references. I also owe a debt of gratitude to Edward L. Keenan for making me aware of the complexity of Mongol society. I am, however, solely responsible for my own opinions and the mistakes contained herein.

1. Throughout this article, I will use the contemporary term Kipchak Khanate instead of the anachronistic Golden Horde. The latter term, as applied in reference to the Ulus of Djuchi, first appears in Russian sources in the late sixteenth century; see George Vernadsky, The Mongols and Russia, vol. 3, A History of Russia, (New Haven, Conn.; Yale University Press, 1953), 140; and Bogatova, G. A., “Zolotaia Orda, ” Russkaia rech!, no. 1 (1970) : 74–75Google Scholar. V. L. Egorov guesses that the term derives from the golden tent of the Kipchak khan at Sarai and entered written sources from the spoken language where it had been maintained for more than two centuries ( Egorov, V. L., “Gosudarstvennoe i administrativnoe ustroistvo Zolotoi Ordy, ” Voprosy istorii, no. 2 (1972) : 34 Google Scholar). It is more likely that the term is fraught with sixteenth century propagandistic implications of Muscovy's being conqueror of the central (golden) component of the Mongol Empire, something the Kipchak Khanate never was and, so far as source evidence indicates, never claimed to be.

2. Our main set of sources for the administrative structure of the khanate is made up of the accounts of Arab travelers who were involved in diplomatic relations between the khanate and the Mamluks. For Muscovy, we have a handful of documents, the wills of the grand princes, and the chronicles, which report events rather than describe structures.

3. Vernadsky, The Mongols and Russia, 335. See also I. R. [Trubetskoi, N. S.] Nasledie Chingiskhana : Vzgliad na russkuiu istoriiu ne s zapada a s vostoka (Berlin : Evraziiskoe izdatel'stvo, 1925), 27.Google Scholar

4. Wittfogel, Karl A., “Russia and the East : A Comparison and Contrast, ” Slavic Review 22 (December 1963) : 635–636CrossRefGoogle Scholar; reprinted in The Development of the USSR : An Exchange of Views, ed. Donald W. Treadgold (Seattle : University of Washington Press, 1964), 331.

5. Yanov, Alexander, The Origins of Autocracy : Ivan the Terrible in Russian History (Berkeley : University of California Press, 1981), 101.Google Scholar

6. Pelenski, Jaroslaw, “State and Society in Muscovite Russia and the Mongol-Turkic System in the Sixteenth Century, ” Forschungen zur osteuropäischen Geschichte 27 (1980) : 159, 164 n.26, 165.Google Scholar

7. Halperin, Charles J., Russia and the Golden Horde : The Mongol Impact on Medieval Russian History (Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 1985), 95.Google Scholar

8. Ibid., 94 and n.24.

9. See, e.g., Gramoty velikogo Novgoroda i Pskova, ed. S. N. Valk (Moscow : Izdatel'stvo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1949), 57. Nasonov argues that, based on the names of settlements derived from “baskak, ” the basqaqs protected the fur trade along a line that ran from Rostov through Iaroslavl’ to Vologda and then to Ustiug. Nasonov, A. N., Mongoly i Rus’ (Istoriia tatarskoi politiki na Rusi) (Moscow and Leningrad : Izdatel'stvo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1940), 26, 58Google Scholar. See also Martin, Janet, Treasure of the Land of Darkness : The Fur Trade and Its Significance for Medieval Russia (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1986), 88 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For discussions of the available testimony about basqaqs in Rus', see Halperin, Russia and the Golden Horde, 33-40; and Fedorov-Davydov, G. A., Obshchestvennyi stroi Zolotoi Ordy (Moscow : Izdatel'stvo Moskovskogo universiteta, 1973), 30–31.Google Scholar

10. I am following here the line of interpretation initiated by I. N. Berezin and subsequently followed by G. S. Sablukov, Nasanov, and Bertold Spuler : Berezin, I. N., Tarkhannye iarlyki Tokhtamysha, Timur-Kutluka i Saadet-Gireia (Kazan : Tipografiia universiteta, 1851), 43 n.43Google Scholar; Berezin, I. N., “Ocherk vnutrennego ustroistva Ulusa Dzhuchieva, ” Trudy Vostochnogo otdeleniia Russkogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva 8 (1864) : 452–453 Google Scholar; Sablukov, G. S., Ocherk vnutrennego sostoianiia Kipchakskogo Tsarstva (Kazan : Tipografiia Kazanskogo universiteta, 1895), 8 Google Scholar; Nasonov, Mongoly iRus', 104-105; Spuler, Bertold, Die goldene Horde. Die Mongolen in Russland (Leipzig : Otto Harrassowitz, 1943), 303 Google Scholar. Istvάn Vάsάry argues that “no functional divergency can be detected between” a basqaq and a daruga : Istvάn Vάsάry, “The Origin of the Institution of Basqaqs, ” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 32, no. 2 (1978) : 205. In a previous article, Vάsάry had stated the similarity less categorically : “Though having the same Meaning and very similar functions, their spheres of activity do not necessarily overlap in all details “; see Vάgάry, Istvάn, “The Golden Horde Term Daruġa and Its Survival in Russia, ” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 30, no. 2 (1976) : 188 Google Scholar. Janet Martin has suggested to me that a basqaq may have had a specifically military function that a daruga did not necessarily have. Zimin believes that a popular uprising against Tatar oppression resulted in the elimination of the basqaq system : Zimin, A. A., “Narodnye dvizheniia 20-x godov XIV veka i likvidatsiia sistemy baskachestva v severno-vostochnoi Rusi, ” hvestiia Akademii nauk SSSR. Seriia istorii i filosofii 9, no. 1 (1952) : 61–65Google Scholar. For a discussion of the available evidence about the daruga in Rus', see Vάgάry, “The Golden Horde Term DaruVάgġrya, ” 187-197. For a detailed discussion of the office in general, which goes beyond the title of her article, see Beatrice Forbes Manz, “The Office of Darugha under Tamerlane, ” Journal of Turkish Studies 9 (1985) : 59-69.

11. On the trip of 1332, see Polnoe sobranie russkikh letopisei [PSRL], 38 vols. (St. Petersburg/ Petrograd/Leningrad and Moscow : Arkheograficheskaia komissiia and Nauka, 1843-1989) 7 : 203, 10 : 205, 16 : col. 68, 20 : 179, 23 : 104, 24 : 116, 25 : 170, 26 : 112, 28 : 69, 28 : 229, and Novgorodskaiapervaia letopis’ starshego i mladshego izvodov [NPL], ed. M. N. Tikhomirov (Moscow and Leningrad : Izdatel'stvo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1950), 99, 344. On the trip of 1333, see PSRL 10 : 206, and NPL, 346. On the trip of 1336, see PSRL 7 : 204, 10 : 207, 18 : 92, 20 : 179, 25 : 171, 26 : 112, 28 : 69, 28 : 230, 30 : 106, and NPL, 347. On the trip of 1338, see PSRL 10 : 208. On the trip of 1339, see PSRL 7 : 205, 10 : 208, 16 : col. 70, 18 : 92, 20 : 180, 23 : 105, 24 : 117, 25 : 172, 26 : 113, 28 : 69, 28 : 230, 30 : 106, and NPL, 349. The Kholmogory Chronicle also lists five trips by Ivan Kalita, but the dates differ from those in the other chronicles : PSRL 33 : 81-82.

12. Nasonov, Mongoly iRus', 110.

13. On Prince Semen's trip of 1340, see PSRL 7 : 206, 10 : 211, 16 : col. 70, 18 : 93, 20 : 180, 24 : 117, 25 : 172, 26 : 113-114, 28 : 70, 28 : 230, 30 : 106, and NPL, 351. On his trip of 1342, see PSRL 7 : 209, 10 : 215, 16 : col. 73, 18 : 94, 20 : 181, 23 : 107, 24 : 118, 25 : 174, 26 : 114, 28 : 70, 28 : 231, 30 : 107, and NPL, 355. On his trip of 1344, see PSRL 7 : 209, 10 : 216, 18 : 94, 20 : 184, 23 : 107, 25 : 175, 28 : 71, 28 : 231, and 30 : 107. On his trip of 1347, see PSRL 7 : 215, 10 : 218, 18 : 96, 20 : 185, 23 : 109, 25 : 177, 28 : 72, 28 : 232, and 30 : 108. On his trip of 1350, see PSRL1-.215, 10 : 221, 18 : 97, 25 : 178, 30 : 109. For the entry of 1340 regarding all the princes of Rus', see PSRL 7 : 206, 10 : 211, 18 : 93, 20 : 180, 23 : 105, 24 : 117, 25 : 172, 28 : 70, 28 : 230, 30 : 106, and NPL, 351. For the entry of 1354, see PSRL 10 : 227, 20 : 187, 23 : 111, 25 : 179, 26 : 116. 28 : 73, 28 : 234, 30 : 110, and 33 : 84. Some chronicles report that all the princes were also at Sarai in 1344 : PSRL 25 : 175, 30 : 107, and 33 : 82.

14. Horace Dewey points out that such practice reflects the concept of collective responsibility. Dewey, Horace W., “Russia's Debt to the Mongols in Suretyship and Collective Responsibility (Poruka)” Comparative Studies in Society and History 30 (April 1988) : 253–254CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the available evidence on sons of Rus’ princes at Sarai, see Poluboiarinova, M. D., Russkie liudi vZolotoi Orde (Moscow : Nauka, 1978), 13–15 Google Scholar. Poluboiarinova suggests that some sons were sent by their fathers to defend their interests at the khan's court. See also Paszkiewicz's claim that in 1364 Dmitrii of Suzdal’ sent his son Vasilii to Sarai to influence the khan; Paszkiewicz, Henryk, The Rise of Moscow's Power, trans. P. S. Falla (Boulder, Colo. : East European Monographs, 1983), 347 Google Scholar. Neither Poluboiarinova nor Paszkiewicz cites any evidence to support such a conjecture.

15. Acta patriarchates Constantinopolitani, 1315-1402, ed. Franz Ritter von Miklosich and Joseph Müller, 2 vols. (Vienna : Karl Gerold, 1860-1862) 2 : 188-192; Russkaia istoricheskaia biblioteka [RIB], 39 vols. (St. Petersburg/Petrograd/Leningrad : Arkheograficheskaia komissiia, 1872-1927), 6 (1908), Prilozhenie, no. 40, cols. 272-274; and Barker, John W., Manuel II Paleologus (New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press, 1969), 107–108.Google Scholar

16. Forasurvey of these explanations, see Halperin, Charles J., “The Epistle of Patriarch Antonius I to Grand Prince Vasilii I : A New Look, ” Canadian-American Slavic Studies 11, no. 4 (1977) : 539–541.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17. Ostrogorsky, George, History of the Byzantine State, rev. ed. (New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press, 1969), 553 Google Scholar. See also Vasiliev, A. A., “Was Old Russia a Vassal State of Byzantium?” Speculum 7 (July 1932) : 358–359CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Barker, Ernest, Social and Political Thought in Byzantium (Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1957), 195 n . l.Google Scholar

18. But see Meyendorff, John, Byzantium and the Rise of Russia (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1981), 255–256 Google Scholar, where he asserts that Metropolitan Kiprian, Aleksei's successor, was the one who initiated this change.

19. See, for example, Kuchkin, V. A., “Skazanie o smerti mitropolita Petra, ” Trudy Otdela drevnerusskoi literatury [TODRL] 18 (1962) : 77 Google Scholar. The iarlyki contained the stipulation to the metropolitans that the Rus’ clergy should pray for the well-being of the khans and their families. On the iarlyki, see, Priselkov, M. D., Khanskie iarlyki russkim mitropolitam (Petrograd : Nauchnoe delo, 1916 Google Scholar, esp. 96-98 for the text of the iarlyk from Khan Mengu-Temir to Metropolitan Kirill; Grigor'ev, A. P., “K rekonstruktsii tekstov Zolotoordynskikh iarlykov XIH-XIV vv., ” Istoriografiia i istochnikovedenie istorii stran Azii Afriki 5 (1980) : 15–38 Google Scholar; Usmanov, M. A., “Termin ‘iarlyk’ i voprosy klassifikatsii ofltsial'nykh aktov khanstv dzhuchieva ulusa, ” Aktovoe istochnikovedenie : Sbornik statei (Moscow : Nauka, 1979), 218–244 Google Scholar; Nasonov, Mongoly i Rus', 14-15; and Fedorov-Davydov, Obshchestvennyi stroi Zolotoi Ordy, 34-35. The patriarch of Constantinople, Antonios (1389-1397), wrote a letter to Vasilii and scolded him for his action. Antonios's letter, which expounds the power of the patriarch as Christ's representative on earth, reflects the growing power of the patriarch in Byzantine affairs during the second half of the fourteenth century. We do not have any-evidence about the immediate reaction to Antonios's rebuke. The testimony is mixed concerning which side prevailed at the time. See Meyendorff, Byzantium and the Rise of Russia, 256.

20. Elizabeth Endicott-West has commented on the willingness of the Mongols to rely on local “experts” especially over sedentary populations, rather than try to rule directly themselves : Endicott-West, Elizabeth, Mongolian Rule in China : Local Administration in the Yuan Dynasty (Cambridge, Mass. : Council on East Asia Studies, Harvard University : Harvard-Yenching Institute, 1989), 45 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also idem, “Imperial Governance in Yuan Times, ” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 46, no. 2 (1986) : 541-542.

21. It is indicative of this relative unfamiliarity that Grand Prince Semen sent a letter to the Byzantine emperor John Kantakouzenos to ask whether he (Semen) understood the concept of the power of the basileus. We know this from Kantakouzenos's reply written in 1347 in which he assures Semen that his understanding was correct. While it does show the grand prince's interest in the power of the basileus, Semen did not have to send such a letter to the khan since he was at the khan's court frequently and could see for himself : Actapatriarchatus Constantinopolitani 1 : 263-265; RIB 6 (Prilozhenie, no. 5) : cols. 25-30. Cherniavsky judges the grand prince's understanding of the power of the basileus to be “rather vague “; Cherniavsky, Michael, “Khan or Basileus : An Aspect of Russian Mediaeval Political Theory, ” Journal of the History of Ideas 20 (January-March 1959) : 74 n. 3CrossRefGoogle Scholar; reprinted in The Structure of Russian History : Interpretive Essays, ed. Michael Cherniavsky (New York : Random House, 1970), 65-79.

22. For discussions of aspects of this influence, see Golden, Peter B., “Imperial Ideology and the Sources of Political Unity amongst the Pre-Činggisid Nomads of Western Eurasia, ” Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi 2 (1982) : 37–76 Google Scholar. See also Halperin, Russia and the Golden Horde, 10-20.

23. On dual staffing and duplication of duties as a Mongol innovation, see Endicott-West, Mongolian Rule in China, 14, 16, 44-45. For discussion of the administrative structure of the khanate, see Egorov, “Gosudarstvennoe i administrativnoe ustroistvo, ” 32-42; and Fedorov-Davydov, Obshchestvennyi stroi Zolotoi Ordy, 89-103.1 based my diagram of the administrative structure of the Kipchak Khanate on the one presented by Egorov, V. L., “Zolotaia Orda pered Kulikovskoi bitvoi, ” Kulikovskaia bitva : Sbornik statei (Moscow : Nauka, 1980), 176.Google Scholar

24. Tizengauzen, V. G. [Tiesenhausen], Sbornik materialov otnosiashchikhsia k istorii Zolotoi Ordy, 2 vols. (St. Petersburg : S. G. Stroganov, 1884 Google Scholar; rep. ed., Moscow : Akademiia nauk SSSR, 1941) 1 : 249. Schamiloglu pointed out that Safargaliev mistakenly described this passage as referring to the administration of the Kipchak Khanate. Uli Schamiloglu, “The Qaraçϊ Beys of the Later Golden Horde : Notes on the Organization of the Mongol World Empire, ” Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi 4 (1984) : 286. See also M. G. Safargaliev, “Raspad Zolotoi ordy, ” Uchenie zapiski Mordovskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta [Saransk] 11 (1960) : 68-69.

25. Tizengauzen, Sbornik materialov, 1 : 229.

26. Schamiloglu, “The Qaraçϊ Beys, ” 288-289.

27. Dukhovnye i dogovornye gramoty velikikh i udel'nykh kniazei XIV-XVI vv. [DDG], ed. L. V. Cherepnin (Moscow and Leningrad : Izdatel'stvo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1950), no. 5 : 20; no. 11 : 31; no. 13 : 38; no. 17 : 47, 48; no. 27 : 71; no. 45 : 131, 133, 137, 139; no. 56 : 171, 174; no. 58 : 181, 185; no. 66 : 215.

28. A. A. Zimin, “O slozhenii prikaznoi sistemy na Rusi, ” Doklady i soobshcheniia instituta istorii AN SSSR 3 (1954) : 173-174.

29. I am accepting here Nancy Shields Kollmann's argument that the tysiatskii in Muscovy was different from the tysiatskii in Kiev : “the sole sources … associate the Moscow thousandman with high power at the grand-princely court, not with urban administration” as was the case in Kiev, and furthermore “fourteenth-century source references more frequently depict the thousandman … as a primus inter pares amongst the boiars.” Kollmann, Nancy Shields, “Tysiatskii, ” Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History [MERSH], ed. Joseph L. Wieczynski, 53 vols. (Gulf Breeze, Fla. : Academic International Press, 1976-1990) 40 : 130–131 Google Scholar. See also Kollmann, Nancy Shields, “The Boyar Clan and Court Politics : The Founding of the Muscovite Political System, ” Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique 23, no. 1 (1982) : 12–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30. The English justiciar differed most notably from the Muscovite tysiatskii in that the justiciar also had jurisdiction over the exchequer. See Francis West, The Justiciarship in England 1066-1232 (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1966), 45-46. In addition, English kings chose their justiciars from nonbaronial ranks whereas the tysiatskii and the beklaribek could be considered the leading “barons” in Muscovy and in the khanate. See Chrimes, S. B., An Introduction to the Administrative History of Medieval England (Oxford : Blackwell, 1952), 19.Google Scholar

31. See Akty, sobrannye v bibliotekakh i arkhivakh Rossiiskoi imperii Arkheograficheskoi ekspeditsiei Imperatorskoi Akademii nauk, 4 vols. (St. Petersburg : V tipografii II Otdeleniia Sobstvennoi E. I. V. Kantseliarii, 1836) 1 : 87-88, no. 115. On the position of bol'shoi namestnik in general, see Tikhomirov, M. N., Srednevekovaia Moskva v XIV-XV vekakh (Moscow : Izdatel'stvo Moskovskogo universiteta, 1957), 174–176.Google Scholar

32. Schamiloglu, “The Qaraçϊ Beys, ” 283-284. Schamiloglu argues that, according to two Islamic sources, “there existed at the court of the Yüan emperor a ‘Great Divan’ in which four officials participated in the administration of the state much in the same way as the ulus emirs and the qaraçϊ beys of the other Qingisid states” (ibid., 294). No description of this “Great Divan” appears, as Schamiloglu points out, in the official dynastic history, the Yuan shih, possibly because it was compiled at the beginning of the following dynasty. See Schamiloglu, “The garaçϊ Beys, ” 292-295.

33. As with almost every other claim about fourteenth century Muscovy, our evidence is minimal—in this case, three documents : DDG, no. 2 (dated by the editor to around 1350 or 1351), 11-13; no. 6 (dated by the editor to 1371), 21-22; no. 8 (dated by the editor to around 1375), 24-25. The document from 1350 or 1351 has six signators, but three of them are from the same clan, the Vel'iaminovs (see Kallmann, “The Boyar Clan and Court Politics, ” 16). Thus, only four “clans” are represented.

34. Vάgάry, “The Golden Horde Term Daruġa, ” 189, 194. One would also like to ascertain whether there is a connection between the put', on the one hand, and the Chinese administrative offices of too (circuit) and lu (route), on the other. See Endicott-West, Mongolian Rule in China, 10-11. On the evolution of the puti, see Leontovich, F. I., “K istorii prava russkikh inorodtsev drevnii mongolo-kalmytskii ili oiratskii ustav vzyskanii (Tsaadzhin-Bichik), ” Zapiski Imperatorskogo Novorossiiskogo universiteta 28 (1879) : 251–253 Google Scholar. For a discussion of the historiography concerning the development of prikazi in Muscovy, see Peter Brown, “Early Modern Russian Bureaucracy : The Evolution of the Chancellery System from Ivan III to Peter the Great 1478-1717” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1978), 4-56.

35. Vernadsky, The Mongols and Russia, 361; Howes, Robert Craig, The Testaments of the Grand Princes of Moscow (Ithaca, N.Y. : Cornell University Press, 1967), 85 Google Scholar; Vάgάry, “The Golden Horde Term Daruġa, ” 193. See also Kliuchevskii, V. O., Boiarskaia duma drevnei Rusi, 3rd ed. (Moscow : Sinodal'naia tipografiia, 1902), 101–108, 121-123, and 538–539 Google Scholar; and Kliuchevskii, V. O., Sochineniia, 8 vols. (Moscow : Izdatel'stvo Sotsial'no-ekonomicheskoi literatury, 1956-1959) 6 : 192–195.Google Scholar

36. A. P. Grigor'ev has made the point that Turkic served as the intermediary language with Muscovy; Grigor, A. P.'ev “Ofitsial'nyi iazyk Zolotoi Ordy XHI-XIV vv., ” Tiurkologicheskii sbornik 1977 (Moscow : Nauka, 1981), 81–89 Google Scholar. See also Golden, Peter B., “Turkic Caiques in Medieval Eastern Slavic, ” Journal of Turkish Studies 8 (1984) : 104–105 Google Scholar. Although other countries used scrolls, such as the English pipe rolls, the general scholarly consensus is that the use of scrolls came to Muscovy from the Tatars; see Brown “Early Modern Russian Bureaucracy, ” 147, and Tikhomirov, M. N., “Prikaznoe deloproizvodstvo v XVII veke, ” Rossiiskoe gosudarstvo XV-XVII vekov (Moscow : Nauka, 1973), 358.Google Scholar

37. Spitsyn, A. A., “K voprosu o Monomakhovoi shapke, ” Zapiski Russkogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva. Otdelenie russkoi i slavianskoi arkheologii 7, vol. 1 (1906) : 163 Google Scholar. See also Soloviev, A. V., “Die Entwicklung der Idee des Staates in den slawischen Monarchien, ” Corona Regni : Studien uber die Krone als Symbol des Staates im spdteren Mittalter, ed. Manfred Hellmann (Weimar : Hermann Bohlaus Nachfolger, 1961), 190–191 Google Scholar. Subsequently, in the late fifteenth century, the church co-opted the significance of the crown by providing a legend of an origin in Byzantium (See Spitsyn, “K voprosu, ” 162). On diplomatic ceremony, see Veselovskii, N. [I.], “Tatarskoe vliianie na posol'skii tseremonial v moskovskii period russkoi istorii, ” Otchet o sostoianii i deiatel'nosti Imperatorskogo S.-Peterburgskogo universiteta za 1910 god (St. Petersburg : B. M. Vol'f, 1911), 1–19 Google Scholar. As late as 1504, documentary sources report that Ivan III and his son and cornier, Vasilii, made obeisances in the Tatar manner to ambassadors of the Crimean khan; see Sbornik Imperatorskogo Russkogo istoricheskogo obshchestva, vol. 41, Pamiatniki diplomaticheskikh snoshenii Moskovskogo gosudarstva s Krymskoiu i Kachaiskoiu ordami i s Tuttsiei, vol. 1 : 1474-1505, ed. G. F. Karpov (St. Petersburg : Russkoe istoricheskoe obshchestvo, 1884), 556.

38. Golden, “Turkic Caiques, ” 109-110.

39. According to Dewey, the earliest Rus’ document to include the “headbeating” phrase is a Novgorod birchbark gramota from the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century (Dewey, “Russia's Debt, ” 268 n.90). This does not necessarily mean that chelom bit'e was first introduced in Novgorod, although it could have been, since Aleksandr Nevskii made several trips to the Mongols. It merely indicates that our earliest evidence of it in Rus’ does not predate the Mongol presence.

40. On the relationship of poshlina and dan’ to Turkic qalān and yasāq see Schurmann, H. F., “Mongolian Tributary Practices of the Thirteenth Century, ” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 19 (December 1956) : 352–359Google Scholar; and Smith, John Masson Jr., “Mongol and Nomadic Taxation,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 30 (1970) : 46–60, 83CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also various terms connected with commercial enterprise : bazar, balagan, bakaleia, barysh, kumach, stakan. For other terms of Turkic-Tatar origin, see Ritter von Miklosich, Franz, “Die tiirkische Elemente in den südost-und osteuropǤischen Sprachen (Griechisch, Albanisch, Rumunisch, Bulgarisch, Serbisch, Kleinrussisch, Grossrussisch, Polnisch), ” Denkschriften der Kaiser lichen Akademie der Wissenschaften : Philosophisch-historische Classe (Vienna) 34 (1884) : 239–338Google Scholar; 35 (1885) : 105-192; 37 (1889) : 1-88; 38 (1890) : 1-194; and Wanstrat, L., Beitrdge zur Charakteristik des russischen Wortschatzes (Leipzig : Markert and Petters, 1933), 63–82, 97–98.Google Scholar

41. Gustav, Alef, “The Origin and Early Development of the Muscovite Postal Service, ” Jahrbiicher fur Geschichte Osteuropas 15 (March 1967) : 4 Google Scholar. On the operation of i am under the Yuan dynasty, see Olbricht, P., Das Postwesen in China unter der Mongolenherrschaft im 13. und 14. Jahrhundert (Wiesbaden : Harrassowitz, 1954 Google Scholar. For a description of it in the Kipchak Khanate, see Spuler, Die goldene Horde, 404-415. Riasanovsky argues for a Kievan origin in Riasanovsky, V. A., “The Influence of Ancient Mongol Culture and Law on Russian Culture and Law, ” Chinese Social and Political Science Review 20 (January 1937) : 52.Google Scholar. For Halperin's view, see Halperin, Russia and the Golden Horde, 150 n. 15.

42. Horace, W. Dewey and Ann, M. Kleimola, “Russian Collective Consciousness : The Kievan Roots,” Slavonic and East European Review 62, no. 2 (1984) : 189.Google Scholar

43. Horace, W. Dewey and Ann, M. Kleimola, “Suretyship and Collective Responsibility in Pre-Petrine Russia,” Jahrbiicher fur Geschichte Osteuropas 18 (September 1970) : 34.Google Scholar. See also Dewey, Horace W., “Political Poruka in Muscovite Rus',” Russian Review 46 (April 1987) : 117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

44. Dewey and Kleimola, “Suretyship and Collective Responsibility, ” 342, 343.

45. The earliest poruchnaia zapis’ in east Slavic territory dates to before 1390. Akty, otnosiashchiesia k istorii iuzhnoi i zapadnoi Rossii, 15 vols. (St. Petersburg : Arkheograficheskaia komissiia, 1863-1892) 1 : 2, no. 2.

46. Vernadsky, The Mongols and Russia, 363. We can consider the term dvor to be the Muscovite equivalent of ordu. See the Nikon Chronicle where ordu is translated by the chronicler as dvor ﹛PSRL, 12 : 7). After the conquest of Kazan', the chancellery put in charge of that khanate was called until the early seventeenth century the Kazanskii dvorets (or Kazanskii i Meshcherskago dvortsa), not prikaz or izba. M. G. Kurdiumov, “Opisanie aktov, khraniashchikhsia v arkhivakh Imperatorskoi Arkheograficheskoi komissii, ” Letopis’ zaniatii Imperatorskoi Arkheograficheskoi komissii za 1906 god 19 : 165, no. 50. Other dvortsy in the sixteenth century within the Muscovite government were those of Dmitriev, Nizhnii Novgo rod, Riazan', Tver', and Uglich, each of which at one time had their own courts. See Zimin, “O slozhenii prikaznoi sistemy, ” 175. For a general discussion of the different uses of the term ordu, see B. P. Iudin, “Ordy : Belaia, Siniaia, Seraia, Zolotaia, ” in Kazakhstan, Sredniaia i TsentraVnaia Aziia vXVI-XVIH vv., ed. B. A. Tulepbaev (Alma Alta : Nauka, 1983), 106-165. My thanks to Craig Kennedy for pointing out this article to me.

47. Kliuchevskii, Sochineniia 6 : 384-385.

48. Vernadsky, The Mongols and Russia, 364-365. See also Grekov, B. D. and Iakubovskii, A. Iu., Zolotaia Orda i eepadenie (Moscow and Leningrad : Izdatel'stvo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1950), 127 Google Scholar. On the ranks in the Kipchak Khanate, see Hammer-Purgstall, Josef von, Geschichte der goldenen Horde im Kiptschak (Pest : C. A. Hartleben, 1840), 463–516 Google Scholar (esp. 473 on the bukaul), and I. N. Berezin, “Ocherk vnutrennego ustroistva, ” 439-442. For a correction in one of Berezin's references to the bukaul, see Veselovskii, N. I., “Mnimaia dolzhnost’ bukaul'nogo tamgovshchika v imperii Chingiz-khana,” Zapiski Vostochnogo otdela Russkogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva 24 (1916/17) : 201–204Google Scholar. For the Smolensk source, see Sergeevich, V. I., Drevnostirusskogoprava, 3rded., 3 vols. (St. Petersburg : M. M. Stasiulevich, 1908-1911) 1 : 458 Google Scholar. Sergeevich concludes that, because the term also appears in a Riazan’ gramota of 1341, this institution was not just Muscovite but “ail-Rus “’ (1 : 459). See also Akty istoricheskie, 5 vols. (St. Petersburg : Arkheograficheskaia komissiia, 1841-1842) 1 : 2, no. 2.

49. DDG, no. 2 : 13. The word okolinichii is reconstructed in the text.

50. For a firsthand account of the Mongol army, see John of Carpini, Plano, “History of the Mongols,” in The Mongol Mission : Narratives and Letters of the Franciscan Missionaries in Mongolia and China in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, ed. Christopher Dawson (New York : Sheed and Ward, 1955), 32–38 Google Scholar. On the structure, tactics, and weaponry of the Mongol army, see B. H. Liddell Hart, “Jenghiz Khan and Sabutai” in Great Captains Unveiled (London and Edinburgh : Blackwood, 1927), 3-34 (excerpts of which appeared as his “Mongol Campaigns” entry in the Encyclopedia Brittanica, 14th ed. [1929] 15 : 705-706); Khara-Davan, Erenzhen, Chingis-Khan leak polkovodets i ego nasledie : Kul'turno-istoricheskii ocherk Mongol'skoi imperii XII-XIV veka (Belgrade : published by the author, 1929), 63–93 Google Scholar; Martin, H. Desmond, “The Mongol Army, ” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1943 (pt. 1/2) : 46–85Google Scholar; idem, The Rise ofChingis Khan and His Conquest of North China (Baltimore : Johns Hopkins Press, 1950), esp., 11-47; Spuler, Die goldene Horde, 373-384; and Dupuy, R. Ernest and Dupuy, Trevor N., The Encyclopedia of Military History from 3500 B.C. to the Present, rev. ed. (London : Macdonald and Jane's, 1977), 340–345 Google Scholar. On the weaponry of the Muscovite army of the fourteenth century, see Kirpichnikov, A. N., Voennoe delo na Rusi v XUI-XV vv. (Leningrad : Nauka, 1976 Google Scholar. For a discussion of the structure and tactics of the Muscovite army in the late fourteenth century, see Kirpichnikov, A. N., Kulikovskaia bitva (Leningrad : Nauka, 1980), 46–61.Google Scholar

51. Kirpichnikov, for example, takes to task those who suggest there might be some connection between the Mongol and Muscovite armies; see A. Kirpichnikov, N., “Fakty, gipotezy i zabluzhdeniia v izuchenii russkoi voennoi istorii XIII-XV vv.,” Drevneishie gosudarstva na territorii SSSR : Materialy i issledovaniia 1984 god (Moscow : Nauka, 1985), 233–234 n. 18Google Scholar. Kirpichnikov resorts to the argument that Muscovy could not have borrowed from the Mongols because such borrowing would contradict the concept of the “heroic struggle of the Russian people with foreign enemies” (ibid., 230 n.3). Kirpichnikov concludes that “neither the Mongol nor other invasions … disrupted the development of our fatherland's culture” (ibid., 233 n.31).

52. On kinship relationships as a basis of social status in the Mongol Empire, see Krader, Lawrence W., “Feudalism and the Tatar Polity of the Middle Ages,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 1 (October 1958) : 86–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In the sixteenth century the Muscovite grand princes and tsars, under the influence of the church, adopted, at least ostensibly, the Byzantine concept that all the ruler's subjects were his slaves (kholopy, in Russian, and douloi, in Greek). The idea that the grand prince owned the property he controlled has been expressed before; see Gradovskii, A. D., Istoriia mestnogo upravlenie v Rossii (St. Petersburg : Golovin, 1868), 38.Google Scholar

53. Szeftel, Marc, “Aspects of Feudalism in Russian History,” in Feudalism in History, ed. Rushton Coulborn (Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, 1956), 171 n.6Google Scholar. Krader, “Feudalism and the Tatar Polity, ” 97. The only exception to this lack of reciprocal contractual arrangements before the reign of Ivan III (that is, before the introduction of pomest'e) is in the Testament of Ivan Kalita where it states that Borisko Vor'kov may keep the village of Bogorodicheskoe as long as he provides service to one of Ivan's sons (DDG, no. 1, second version, 10). Otherwise, grants are unconditional. But see Blum, Jerome, Lord and Peasant in Russia : From the Ninth to the Nineteenth Century (Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, 1961), 85 Google Scholar, where he states that conditional land grants became more frequent during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Blum does not cite any evidence to support this assertion.

54. On ungu bogol in the Kipchak Khanate, see Fedorov-Davydov, Obshchestvennyi stroi Zolotoi Ordy, 36-39. To make such a system work, the ruling family had to be willing to intermarry with subordinate clans. In 1345, Semen began the practice of marrying members of the grand princely family (in this case, his brother, Ivan Ivanovich) exclusively to members of subordinate and nonprincely clans within Muscovy (in this case, the Vel'iaminovs) rather than to members of ruling princely families independent of Muscovy. Kollmann, “The Boyar Clans and Court Politics, ” 14 n.67, 15. For the date of this marriage, see PSRL 10 : 216; 15 : pt. 1, col. 56; 24 : 118; 25 : 175. On the genealogies, see Kollmann, Nancy Shields, Kinship and Politics : The Making of the Muscovite Political System, 1345-1547 (Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, 1987), 27 Google Scholar. See also Veselovskii, S. B., Issledovaniiapo istorii klassa sluzhilykh zemlevladel'tsev (Moscow : Nauka, 1969), 465–519 Google Scholar.

55. See Dimnik, Martin, Mikhail, Prince of Chernigov and Grand Prince of Kiev, 1224-1246 (Toronto : Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1981)Google Scholar, who delineates the struggles among the Ol'govichi of Chernigov, the Rostislavichi of Smolensk, the Vsevolodovichi of Rostov-Suzdal', and the Iziaslavichi of Galicia-Volynia during the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. As long as one grand prince's son from each generation of each clan could become grand prince and as long as he had male heirs who survived him, that clan was assured of continuing to have a piece of the political pie. Concern about being left out of that system led Iurii Dolgorukii to remark, according to the chronicler, “there is no part in the Rus’ land for me and my sons” and to try to recover the Kievan throne from the Mstislavich branch of the Monomachi (PSRL 1 : col. 321 and PSRL 2 : col. 374; cf. PSRL 9 : 179). On the Daniilovichi, see Cherniavsky, Michael, “Ivan the Terrible and the Iconography of the Kremlin Cathedral of Archangel Michael,” Russian History 2, no. 1 (1975) : 12–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

56. See, for example, Pipes, Richard, Russia under the Old Regime (New York : Charles Scribner's Sons, 1974), 64.Google Scholar

57. Leo I (457-474) had worked as a butcher; Justin I (518-527) had been a swineherd; Phokas (602-610) rose from the rank of centurion; Leo III (717-740) had been a handy man; Michael III the Drunkard (842-867) had been a servant; Basil I (866-867) had been a peasant; and Romanos Lekapenos (919-944) was the son of an Armenian peasant and entered Byzantine service as a caulker of ships. See Guerdan, Rene, Byzantium : Its Triumphs and Tragedies, trans. D. L. B. Hartley (New York : Capricorn, 1962), 31.Google Scholar

58. Leontovich, “K istorii prava russkikh, ” 262-270. V. A. Riasanovsky disputes Leontovich's contention in his “The Influence of Ancient Mongol Culture, ” 529-530.

59. See Markevich, A. I., 0 mestnichestve : Russkaia istoriografiia v otnoshenii k mestnichestvu (Kiev : M. P. Frits, 1879)Google Scholar; and idem, Istoriia mestnichestvo v moskovskom gosudarstve v XV-XVII v. (Odessa : Odesskii, 1888). See also Kleimola, Ann, “Status, Place, and Politics : The Rise of Mestnichestvo During the Boiarskoe Pravlenie,” Forschungen zur osteuropaischen Geschichte 27 (1980) : 195–196 Google Scholar. Zimin does allow that it may have been developing earlier but then points out the paradox that “in that period when … mestnichestvo relations should have been established and developed, i.e., from the fourteenth to the early sixteenth centuries, we have almost no significant traces in the sources “; Zimin, A. A., “Istochniki po istorii mestnichestva v XV-pervoi treti XVI v.,” Arkheograficheskii ezhegodnik za 1968 g. (Moscow : Nauka, 1970), 110 Google Scholar. For a description of how mestnichestvo worked in theory, see Kliuchevskii, Sochineniia, 2 : 149-166.

60. Kollmann, Kinship and Politics, 67-70. For a description of lateral succession among steppe nomads of pre-Kievan times, see Gumilev, L. N., “Udel'no-lestvichnaia sistema u Tiurok v VI-VIII vekakh (K voprosu o rannikh formakh gosudarstvennosti), ” Sovetskaia etnografiia, no. 3 (1959) : 11–25Google Scholar. In contrast, the Mongols invoked the principle of the best qualified male of the ruling family (see below n.63).

61. But see Fennell, John, The Crisis of Medieval Russia, 1220-1304 (London : Longman, 1983 Google Scholar, where he asserts that lateral succession had ceased by the end of the thirteenth century (162), and that the title of grand prince “only passed from brother to brother when there was no male heir” (164). Elsewhere, he indicates that he considers “the law of lateral succession” to be still in effect as late as 1339 among the Iaroslavichi of Tver'; John Fennell, L. I., The Emergence of Moscow 1304-1359 (Berkeley : University of California Press, 1968), 226.Google Scholar

62. The dynasty of the Paleologi had ruled in Byzantium since 1261 and had followed mainly a father to-son (and on two occasions a grandfather-to-grandson) line of succession. By 1425, the vertical line of succession had become well established in Byzantium, and the principle most likely had entered Muscovy through the church.

63. Joseph Fletcher calls the Mongol method of selection “the principle of tanistry “; see Fletcher, Joseph, “The Mongols : Ecological and Social Perspectives,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 46, no. 1 (1986) : 17 CrossRefGoogle Scholar : “the succession … was supposed to go to the most competent of the eligible heirs.” See also idem, “Turco-Mongolian Monarchic Tradition in the Empire, Ottoman, Harvard Ukrainian Studies 3/4, pt. 1 (1979/80) : 239–241Google Scholar. Eligibility did not require that one's father have been the khan. The Daniilovichi, probably for practical reasons, never adopted'tanistry.

64. PSRL, 12 : 15-16.

65. The reigning Byzantine emperor could declare anyone he wanted as coruler; it did not have to be, though it often was, his son. The most extreme example of this practice may have been when Leo III had his son, who was less than a year old, crowned co-emperor in 719; Theophanes, , Chronographia, ed. Karl de Boor, 2 vols. (Leipzig : B. G. Teubner, 1883-1885) 1 : 401 Google Scholar. Coruler status did not necessarily entitle one to automatic succession to the imperial throne, but it helped.

66. Moses, Larry and Halkovic, Stephen A. Jr., Introduction to Mongolian History and Culture (Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 1985) 86.Google Scholar

67. See McNeill, William H., Plagues and Peoples (Garden City, N.Y. : Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1976), 132–175 Google Scholar, where he attributes the shifting disease balance between Asia and Europe (in particular the spread of plague to Kaffa on the Black Sea from where it traveled to Italy) to the effect the Mongols had on steppe ecology.

68. Crummey, Robert O., “Periodizing ‘Feudal’ Russian History,” in Russian and Eastern European History : Selected Papers from the Second World Congress for Soviet and East European Studies, ed. R. C. Elwood (Berkeley : Berkeley Slavic Specialties, 1984), 29.Google Scholar

69. Farquhar, David M., “Structure and Function in the Yiian Imperial Government,” in China under Mongol Rule, ed. John D. Langlois, Jr. (Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, 1981), 51–55.Google Scholar Endicott-West, Mongolian Rule in China, 44.

70. Manz, “The Office of Darugha, ” 64.

71. Edward L. Keenan, “Muscovy and Kazan, 1445-1552 : A Study in Steppe Politics” (Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1965), 84-114.

72. Stone, I. F., The Trial of Socrates (Boston : Little, Brown, 1988), x.Google Scholar

73. Hocart, A. M., Kings and Councillors : An Essay in the Comparative Anatomy of Human Society, ed. Rodney Needham (Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1970), 24 Google Scholar.