"We wish to follow the doctrines of the true church. As for your doctrines, we have no wish to adopt them or to know them."
Although Novgorod was the only Russian city which the Tartars had not sacked and burned, it was not to escape the exactions of the Kan. Baty heard of Alexander's bravery, and one day a messenger appeared before the prince with a letter which read:—
"Prince of Novgorod, God has put many nations under me; wilt thou alone resist? If thou wishest to keep thy land, come to me, and thou shalt behold the grandeur and glory of my sway."
Alexander, knowing that to gainsay this summons was madness, went with his brother, Andrew, to Sarai, whence they were both sent, like their father before them, across the measureless deserts to the Grand the Horde. The Grand Kan received them kindly, confirmed them in their titles, and let them go, giving them costly gifts.
Three years later Baty's brother and successor at Sara! ordered a census to be taken and an immense tribute to be levied over all Russia. The men of Novgorod took to this by no means kindly; when the posadni, or burgomaster, declared in the popular assembly that they must needs bow before the strongest, a terrible cry arose and a tumult; the posadnik was torn to pieces.
The prince's son, Basil, declared against a father "who brought slavery upon free men;" the council voted to withhold the tribute, and sent back the envoys with gifts. Alexander was wiser; he arrested his son and threw him into prison; he punished the nobles who joined in the hubbub; some he hanged; he plucked out the eyes and cut off the noses of others; and then sent word to the Kan that Novgorod would humble itself to the census.
The Tartars entered the city and haughtily began their work. The inhabitants assembled around the cathedral of St. Sophia and said they would die for liberty and honor, and it was with difficulty that the prince kept them from falling on the baskaks and putting them to death. Only his threat to leave the city to the Kan's wrath brought them to terms. The insolent registers were then allowed to proceed in peace through the silent and deserted streets of the humiliated town.
A METROPOLITAN BISHOP.
The inhabitants of the other cities which belonged to Alexander's princedom revolted and murdered the tax collectors. Alexander, knowing his risk of the Kan's vengeance, again set out for the Horde to tender his excuses. He was forgiven, in spite of the many charges against him, but was kept for a year at the court of Saral, and his health broke down.
On his way back he died and a herald brought the tidings to the Metropolitan bishop as he was performing the service in the cathedral of Vladimir. The bishop turned to the people and said, —
"Know, dear children, that the sun of Russia is set."
And the people burst into sobs, and cried,—
"We are lost! we are lost!"
Novgorod, the Great Merchant Commonwealth
From earliest times Novgorod, or New Town, was the chief city of Northwestern Russia. Its possessions included the regions surrounding the great lakes and extended to the Frozen Ocean, and to the wilds of Siberia. Numberless cities paid tribute to "Lord Novgorod the Great."
A French traveller, who visited Russia early in the fifteenth century, has left us this description of the city:—
Novgorod is a prodigiously large town situated in a beautiful plain amid vast forests. The soil is low, subject to floods, marshy in places. The town is surrounded by poor ramparts made of screens filled with earth; the towers are of stone."
Novgorod was divided into halves by a deep and rapid river flowing from Lake Ilmen to Lake Ladoga. A bridge, famous in the annals of the town, joined the two parts. On the right bank was the Kreml, or Castle, built of hewn stone in the fourteenth century, and containing the palaces of the archbishop and the prince. This side was called Saint Sophia, and it was here that Fiery Fame the Great built his splendid cathedral. In the church are still preserved the ancient frescos• the pillars overlaid with gold and painted with pictures of the saints, stand as they were six hundred years ago. The legend says that Christ appeared to the artist who was charged to paint his image on the dome of Saint Sophia and said:—
"Represent me not with my hand stretched out for blessing. but with my hand closed, because within it I hold Novgorod, and when it is opened it will be the end of the city."
SEAL OF NOVOGOROD.
The Christ of the dome looks down upon the tombs of princes and archbishops, upon the bronze coffin of Venging Fame the Brave, the defender of Novgorod, and upon the banner of the Virgin, which so often revived the fainting courage of the battlers on the walls.
On the left bank of the river was the side of Commerce, with its Court of Fiery Fame, and its quarters named after the Carpenters, the Slav's, and the Germans.
The marshy, sandy soil of Novgorod was more fertile of famines and fevers than of food; its earliest record is that of a pestilence. In order for its one hundred thousand inhabitants to live, new cities had to be constantly founded in the forests of the north and east, its merchants had to trade with the tribes of the Urals, with the Slavs of the Baltic, with the Germans of the Hanse towns, with the oriental bazaars of Constantinople. The Greek annals tell how in the tenth century the Slavs of "Nemogard" descended the Dnieper, passed the rapids and the naval stations at the mouth of the river, and spread over all the shores of the Greek Empire.
A legend of Novgorod tells how their army once besieged Korsun, one of the Grecian cities, "with a grievous siege of seven years' time," and how the bondslaves, doubtful of their masters' return, possessed themselves of the towns, lands, houses, and also of their wives, who had grown weary of their lonely state. At last the army took the Grecian city, and returned in triumph, bringing with them the bronze gates and the great bell. On the way they learned of what had been done in their absence.
"At whiche newes being somewhat amazed and yet disdaining the villanie of their seruants, they made the more speed home: and so not fane from Nouograde met them in warlike manner marching against them. Whereupon aduising what was best to be done, they agreed all to fet upon them with no other shew of weopon but with their Horse whips (which as their manner is euery man rideth withall) to put them in remembrance of their servile condition, thereby to terrifie them and abate their courage.
"And so marching on and lashing together with their whips in their hands they gave the onset, which seemed so terrible in the Eares of these villaines and strooke such a sense into them of the smart of the whip, which they had felt before, that they fled altogether like Sheepe before the Driuers."
The type of the merchant of Novgorod was the rich Sadko, whose adventures have inspire whole volumes of song and tale. We see him at first a poor minstrel, playing his harp by the shores of the lake. The tsar of the blue waves, the old man of the waters, hears him, and is filled with delight at the sweet music, and rises from his cool depths and draws near the shore. At his bidding Sadko makes a wager with the merchant, of the town that he will net a fish with fins of shiny gold. The merchants stake their all that no such fish swims the lake. Sadko casts his net, and lo! There is the fish with the fins of shining gold, which the old man of the sea steers into the net. The merchants pay their fines, and Sadko is the richest man in all the city.