Political legitimacy in Kievan Rus' resided in the dynasty. The ruling family managed to create an ideological framework for its own pre-eminence which was maintained without serious challenge for over half a millennium. To this extent the political structure was simple: the lands of the Rus' were, more or less by definition, the lands claimed or controlled by the descendants of Vladimir Sviatoslavich. Like Vladimir, Iaroslav allocated regional possessions to his sons. Unlike Vladimir, he specified a hierarchy of seniority both within the dynasty and between the regional allocations, and he laid down some principles of inter-princely relations. The princes of Rus' were warlords, heading a military elite. Since prince of Kiev, Vladimir Vsevolodovich Monomakh wrote an 'Instruction' for his sons, a kind of brief curriculum vitae presenting as exemplary his own credentials and achievements. In the three generations after Vladimir the main implications of the official conversion to Christianity were made manifest.

The two institutions, the Riurikid dynasty and the Orthodox Church that had given identity and cohesion to Kievan Rus', continued to dominate north-eastern Russia politically and ecclesiastically. Over the next century dynastic, political relations within north-eastern Russia altered under the Golden Horde suzerainty impact. The lingering bonds connecting north-eastern Russia with Kiev and the south-western principalities loosened in the decades after the Mongol onslaught. North-eastern Russia separated from the south-western principalities of Kievan Rus' while the principality of Vladimir-Suzdal' fragmented into smaller principalities. The demographic shift, prompted by the devastation caused by Mongol attacks, stimulated economic growth. During the last quarter of the century the next generation of princes in north-eastern Russia appears to have taken advantage of political conditions within the Golden Horde to serve their own ambitions and challenge the inherited dynastic traditions. By the end of the reign of Grand Prince Ivan I Kalita the territorial orientation of the princes of Vladimir had been substantially altered.