nearly invincible on the battlefields.

Spain quickly became

Europe s 511
most powerful state n the sixteenth century.
The Formation of the Empire of
LUltimately the cdearest result of polit1cal developments throughout
Europe in the late Middle Ages was the preservation of basic high- RuSS1a
medieval patterns. The areas of ltaly and Germany which had been
politically divided before 1300 remained politically divided thercafter. The trumph of the
The emergence of middle-sized states in both of these areas in the fif- national monarchies
teenth century brought more stability than had existed
before, but
events would show that Italy and Germany would still be the prey of
the Western powers. The latter were clearly much
stronger because
they were consolidated around stronger national monarchies. The
trials of the later Middle Ages put the existence of these monarchies to
the test, but after 14 $0 they emerged
stronger than ever. The clcarest
illustration of their superiority is shown by the history of Italy in the
ycars immediately following 1494. Until then the ltalian states
peared to be relatively well governed and prosperous They experi- ap-
mented with advanced techniques of administration and
diplomacy.
But when France and Spain invaded the peninsula the Italian states fell
over like houses of cards. The Western monarchies could simply draw
on greater resources and thus inherited the
fuure of Europe.

S. THE FORMATION OF THE EMPIRE OF RUSSIA

Just as the half century after 1450 witnessed the definitive consolida-
tion of the power of the western European nation-states, so it saw the
rise to prominence of the state that henceforth was to be the dominant
power in the european East-Russia. But Russia was not at all ike a
Western nation-state; rather, by about 1500 Russia had taken the first
decisive steps on its way to becoming Europe's leading Eastern-style
empire.
Had it not been for a combination of late-medieval circumstances
one or several Russian states might well have developed along typical
Western lines. Indeed, the founders of the first political entity located
in the territories of modern-day Russia were themselves Westemers
Swedish Vikings who in the tenth century established a principality
centered around Kiev for the purposes of protecting their lines of trade
between Scandinavia and Constantinople. (The very word Rus is Slavic
A Swedish Viking. Ap elk-horn
for Swede.) Within two or three generations these Vikings became carving showing the sort of
linguistically assimilated by their Slavic environment, but the Kievan Viking warrior who founded
state they founded remained until about 1200 very much part of the the Kievan state.
greater European community of nations. Since Kiev lay on the west
ernmost extremity of the Russian plain (properly speaking, Kiev is
not in Russia at all but is the center of a territory known as the Ukraine) The Kievan state's ties to
it was natural for the Kievan state of the High Middle Ages to main- the West
tain close and cordial diplomatic and trading relations with western
 cleventh century off
ry II o
King Hcnry
France
in thc
For cxamplc, their son wvas
512 Europe. princess,
Kievan
Anne, and
conse
married to a a istening
christ that mark
The Later Middle was of Philip,
Ages the introductionthe
of Kicvan
this hitherto forcign first name nto the West. A.bore
name

quently given Aside

Western culture,
Kievan government bo
links with the rul
from such direct 1 n a s m u c h as
hg
limited monarchy
to Western of the vech
similarity thc institution
eche,
some
was limited by
power of
the Kicvan princes
or popular assembly. to dnua
developments conspired ve
But after 1200 four epoch-making Civilization. The
European fire
between Russia and
western
a wedge Tartars, in the
or

the conquest of most

of Russia by the Mongols,
century Kiev had been
Reasons for retreat from was
mid-twelfth
as the
the Wesu. (1) the Mongol thirteenth century. As carly known as Cumans, bur
the incursions of an Asiatic tribe
Onquests tn Russia buffeted by ultimately
federated Russian principalities
loosely
Kiev and other
Cumans at bay. The utterly savage
Mongols,
managed hold the
to
Asia into Russia in 1237, however, wvere
who crossed the Urals from
another matter. Commanded by
Batu, a grandson of the dreaded
quite swaths of devastation as they
Genghis Khan, the Mongols cut such
advanced westward that, according to one contemporary, "no eye

dead." In 1240 the Mongols overran

remained open weep for the
to
o w n state on the lower
Kiev, and two years later they created their
Horde--that exerted suzer
Volga River-the Khanate of the Golden
ainty over almost all of Russia for roughly the following
two centu-

ries. Unwilling or unable to institute governmental arrangements that

would permit them to rule the vast expanses of Russia directly, the
Russian
Mongol Khans instead tolerated the existence of several native
states, from whom they demanded obeisance and regular monetary
tribute. Under this "Tartar yoke," the normal course of Russian polit-
ical development was inevitably impeded.
The native Russian principality which finally emerged to defeat the
Mongols and unify much of Russia in the fifteenth century was the
Grand Duchy of Moscow, situated deep in the northeastern Russian

Kievans Chasing Cumans.

From a fifteenth-century
Russian manuscript.
 interior. Inasmuch as Moscow was located very far away from the 513
Mongol power base on the lower Volga, thc Muscovite dukes had
The Fermation of the Empire of
greater freedom of initiative to consolidate their strength free from
Mongol interference than did some of their rivals, and when the Mon- Russia
gol Khans began to realize what was happening, it was too late to stem
the Muscovite tide. But Moscow's remote location also placed it (2) the emergence of
extremely far from western Europe: about 60o miles (often snow cov- Moscow as d
uniyn
ered) farther away from France or Italy than the distance
those countries from Kiev. This added distance alone wouldseparating
force
have pre-
sented an appreciable obstacle to the establishment of close relations
between Moscow and the West, but, to make matters far worse, the
rise of Poland-Lithuania after 1386 and the fall of Constantinople in
1453 rendered cordial relations all but
impossible.
Throughout most of the Middle Ages the Kingdom of Poland had
been a second-rate
power, usually on the defensive against German
encroachments. But in the fourteenth century that situation
changed (3) resentment of Catholic
dramatically, partly because German strength had by then become a Poland's expansion
ghost of its former self, and above all because the marriage in 1386 of
Poland's reigning queen, Jadwiga, to Jagiello, grand duke of Lithu-
ania, more than doubled Poland's size and enabled it to become a
major
expansionist state. Even before 1386 the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
had begun to carve out an extensive territory for itself, not just on the
shores of the Baltic where the present territory of Lithuania lies, but
in the western Russian regions of Byelorussia and the Ukraine.
Obviously, Lichuania's expansionist momentum increased after the
union with Poland: in 1410 combined Polish-Lithuanian forces inflicted
a stunning defeat on the German military order of Teutonic Knights
who ruled neighboring Prussia at the battle of Tannenberg, and Poland-
Lithuania extended its borders so far east in the early fifteenth century
that the new power seemed on the verge of conquering all of Russia.
But Poland-Lithuania subscribed to Roman Catholicism in religion,
whereas many of the Russian peoples it had conquered were Eastern
Orthodox who accordingly resented the sway of their new rulers.
Eastern Orthodox Moscow was the obvious beneficiary of such dis-
content, becoming a center of religious resistance to Poland. Thus
when Moscow was able to move on the offensive against Poland-
Lithuania in the late fifteenth century, it appealed to religious as well
as national sentiments. Prolonged warfare ensued, greatly exacerbat-
ing antagonisms, and since Poland-Lithuania stood in the Muscovites
minds for all the West, Moscow's attitude toward all of Western civ
ilization became ever more etched by hostility.
Finally, interielated with this trend were the incalculable effects
Wrought by the fali of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453. We have
seen in Chapter 1o that missionaries from the Byzantine Empire had The impat of the full o
been responsible for converting Russia to the Eastern Orthodox faith Constanturnople
in the late tenth century. During the Kievan period Russia's comuut
ment to Eastern Orthodoxy posed no barrier to cordial comnmunica-
nsi2.chsv
SWEDEN

NORWAY
WIITE
SE
PArchangel

AND

REP. OF NOvGOROD
TEUTONIC
BALTIC SEA
/ LIVONIA ORDERS Novgorod

TEUTONIC
UROER

PRUSSIA LITHUANIA
KAZAN
DUCHY Kazan
T annenberg*
BYELORUSSIA MOSCOW
Nizhny
Smolensk\MöscoW Novgorod
KINGDOM OF POLAND
POLAND AND LITHUANIA

Cracow KHANATE OF
THE GOLDEN HORDE
. UKRAINE
Kiev
Moscow c. 1300
Expansion to 1369

HUNGARY
MOLDAVIA
Raieper vole
R
Expansionto 1462
Expansionto1505
- Kievan Russia

10-11th centuries)
VALLACHIA

ASTRAKHAN
CRIMEX s
BLACK SEA
OTTOMAN
Constantinople CASPIAN

SEA
EMPIRE

RUSSIA TO 1505
 tions with western Europe because there was as yet no insuperable 515
religious enmity between Orthodox Byzantium and the West. But The Formation of the Empire of
embittered hatred is the
only expression describe
Byzantine atti-
to
tudes toward Rome aftcr 1204 when the Western Fourth Cusaders
Russia

sacked Constantinople. Eastern Orthodox Russians came to sympa-

thizc with their Byzantine mentors thercafter, and felt all the more
that they had extraordinarily good reason to shun the "Roman infec-
tion after the debacle of 1453. This was because in 1438 the Byzan-
tines in Constantinople, sensing correctly that a mighty Turkish

onslaught was in the offing, swallowed their pride and agreed to a

submissive religious compromise with the papacy in the hope that this
inight carn
them Western military support for their last-ditch stand.
But despite this submission, no Western help was forthcoming and

Constantincople fell to Turks in 1453 without any Roman Catholic

the
knight lifting a hand. Meanwhile, however, the Orthodox hierarchy
of Moscow had refused to follow Byzantium in its religious submis-
sion for the obvious reason that Moscow was in no way threatened
by the Turks. Once Constantinople fell, therefore, the Muscovites
reached the conclusion that the Turkish victory was a divine chastise-
ment for the Byzantines' religious perfidy and the Muscovite state
became the center of a particularly zealous anti-Roman ideology.
It is against this backdrop that we can examine the reign of the man
who did the most to turn the Grand Duchy of Moscow into the nas-
cent cmpire of Russia, Ivan III (1462-15os), customarily known as Ivan the Great
Ivan the Great. Ivan's immediate predecessor, Vasily I, had already
gained the upper hand in Moscow's struggle to overthrow the domi-
nation of the Mongols, but Ivan was the one who completed this pro-
cess by formally renouncing all subservience to the Mongol Khanate
in 1480, by which time the Mongols were too awed by Muscovy's
strength to offer any resistance. Concurrently, between 1462 and 1485,
Ivan annexed one by one all the independent Russian principalities that
remained between Moscow and Poland-Lithuania. And finally, as the
result of two successive invasions of Lithuania (1492 and 1s01), the
mighty conqueror wrested away a whole stretch of Byelorussian and
Ukranian territory along his western border. Thus when Ivan the Great
died in 15os, it had become clear that Muscovy was a power to be
reckoned with on the European scène.
But it also would have been clear to any observer that Russian cul-
ture and government were now almost completely non-Western.
Having been divorcéd from the West for all practical purposes since Russia's isolation from the
about 1200, Russia had not kept up with the most basic Western intel- West
lectual and cultural developments. For example, there was virtually
no secular literature, arithmetic was barely known, Arabic numerals
were nor used, and merchants made their calculations with the abacus.
Nor were manners and customs comparable to those of the West.
Women of the upper classes were veiled and secluded, and fowing
beards and skirted garments were universal for men.

516
The Later Middle Ages
Toward Eastem-style
politiral autocracy and
impenialism
The Ottoman Empire as
heir to Byzantium and the
Arab kingdoms
Turkish origins and early
history
lvan III Russia was
the reign of
important, during
autocracy and
most
Perhaps
evolving in
political
the direction of Eastern-style lvan 's assumption of th
in
most clearly
can be scen
imperialism. This word tsar (sometimes spelled czae
all the Russias." The
title "tsar of ot it m c a n t that he wa
and Ivan's appropriation
is Russian for Cacsar,
s u c c e s s o r of
the defunct Byzantine emperors, wh
claiming to be the "To reinforce this
Roman Caesars.
had been heirs of the
last Byzantine ruler, adopted as
themselves
Ivan married the niece of the
claim, double-headed eagle, encouraged his
his insignia the Byzantine
Moscow as "the third Rome,'" and rebuilt
churchmen to proclaim in magnificent
residence, the Kreml1n,
Moscow's fortified princely Ivan's appropriation of the
his imperial splendor.
to manifest
style fateful for Russia's
future political development
Byzantine model was imitate the Byzantine
his s u c c e s s o r s to
because it enabled him and
who assumed without dis
like Oriental despots
emperors in behaving
cussion that "what pleases
the prince has the force oflaw." Moreover,
as the autocratic
Ivan conceived of himself
as"tsar of all the Russias,"
of all Russians, and
potentate not just of
the Russians of Moscow but
course of
even of Byelorussians
and Ukrainians. As the subsequent
was the beginning
ot an expansionist policy
events would show, this
both Russian and.
which futur: Russian tsars would incorporate
by variety of non-Russian peoples into Europe's largest empire.
wide
6. TURKISH EXPANSION AND THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
Advancing into western Asia and eastern Europe, bands of Turks in
the later Middle Ages laid the foundations for one of the world's great
empires. The Ottoman Empire reached its height in the sixteenth cen-
tury, when it included all the territories of the defunct Byzantine Empire
and most of the lands conquered by the Arabs during the first centu
ries of Islamic expansion. Bridging the three continents ot Europe,
Asia, and Africa, the Ottoman Empire thus became a successor state
both to Byzantium and to the Arab kingdoms and, while retaining
certain features of each, added much that was new and distinctive.
Originally one of the nomadic groups inhabiting the steppes of
Central Asia, the Turks forged an
empire in the sixth century A.D. Dy
uniting tribal chieftains. This empire, which reached from the Black
Sea to the borders of
China, quickly disintegrated. The rise of the
Turks to a prominent role on the
stage of world history began in the
eighth century with their conversion to Islam. Introduction to the rei-
gion came through contact with Arab warriors,
ries who had traders, and mission-
the Turks
penetrated into Central Asia. Unlike so many converts,
were never
conquered by the Arabs.
They embraced Islam
voluntarily and
enthusiastically, attracted initially by its simple
trines and its call for heroic
action in defense of the faith. doc
Accepted