45 Knud Rasmussen, 'On the Information Level of the Muscovite Posol'skijprikaz in the Sixteenth Century', FOG 24 (1978): 91, 94.
inroads and exorbitant demands of Mikhail Iaroslavich, grand prince of Tver' and Vladimir. But in I3I7, the Novgorodians concluded a separate treaty with Mikhail. Nonetheless, in the mid-fifteenth century, Vasilii II and then his son Ivan III used the invitation to their ancestor Iurii and other fourteenth-century agreements that Novgorod reached with the Moscow grand princes against Tver', to claim that Novgorod waspart oftheirpatrimony. In 1456, by the Treaty of Iazhelbitsii, Novgorod agreed to submit its foreign policy to the approval of Muscovy. Subsequently, Vasilii II was the first grand prince of Moscow to claim Novgorod as his patrimony in his will (1462). Novgorod tried to break free of the constraints of this treaty by declaring Mikhail Olelkovich of Lithuania its prince in 1470. Ivan III advanced on Novgorod in 1472 and re-established the terms of Iazhelbitsii. In 1475, in a 'peaceful' visit to the city, Ivan arrested and deported to Muscovite lands a number of Novgorodian boyars. He took over Novgorod completely in 1478 when he became suspicious of further intrigue. He prohibited meetings of the veche (town assembly) and confiscated the bell that convoked such meetings. By I500, he had confiscated close to I million hectares (2.5 million acres) of Novgorodian boyar and Church lands, removed a number of landholders and merchants, and ended Novgorod's association with the Hansa.
After the conquest of Novgorod and the taking of Torzhok in 1478, Muscovite territory completely surrounded the principality of Tver'. The Tver' prince, Mikhail Borisovich, the brother of Ivan III's first wife, acknowledged a subordinate relationship with the Muscovite grand prince in 1483.46 When Mikhail sought a political alliance with Casimir IV of Poland and Lithuania in 1484, Ivan moved to pre-empt it. Tver' was formally annexed a short time later, in I485.
Between 1462 and 1533, the western steppe area of the Eurasian heartland witnessed a balance ofpower among five political entities of medium economic and military might: the Crimean khanate, the Great Horde (replaced in I502 by the khanate of Astrakhan'), the Kazan' khanate, the khanate of Tiumen' (soon to be replaced by the khanate of Sibir') and Muscovy. These five political entities occupied a frontier zone between three relatively distant major powers (or core areas): the Ottoman Empire, Poland-Lithuania and Safavid Persia. None of these three major powers was strong enough or close enough to exert hegemony over the western steppe or its accompanying savannah and forest border area.
46 Dukhovnyei dogovornyegramotyvelikikhiudel'nykhkniazeiXIV-XVIvv., ed. L.V Cherepnin (Moscow and Leningrad: AN SSSR, 1950), pp. 295-301.
Muscovy's first direct diplomatic contact with the Ottoman Empire came in 1496 although indirect relations had been conducted through the Crimean khan for twenty years before that. The Ottoman and Muscovite governments had good relations with each other despite the desire of many to get Muscovy involved in a war against the Ottoman Empire in order to free the Orthodox Christians there. Trade relations developed such that Turkish merchants purchased furs, iron tools, flax, walrus tusks and mercury from Muscovy while Russian merchants purchased brocades, taffeta and silk from Turkey.
Nonetheless, during the latter half of the fifteenth century, Muscovy was in a vulnerable position where it could be threatened by a possible coalition of Poland-Lithuania with one or the other of Muscovy's competitors - in particular, the Great Horde or the Crimean khanate. Kazan', however, found itself even more vulnerably placed in an intermediate frontier zone between Muscovy, the Tiumen' khanate, the Great Horde, and the Crimean khanate as well as the Nogai horde. This intermediate position, which made it vulnerable to military attack from one or a combination ofthe surrounding intermediate powers, also gave the Kazan' khanate its vitality as a commercial power.
From 1475, the Crimean khan was the nominal vassal of the Ottoman sultan, but operated independently in the western steppe. The Great Horde was no longer the major power it had been - that is, as the pre-break-up Qipchaq khanate. Yet, the khan of the Great Horde was, until 1502, still the nominal suzerain of Muscovy. And in the Astrakhan' khanate, a successor to the Great Horde, the khan continued to receive tribute from the Muscovite grand prince, as did the khans of the other successor khanates. As long as the Kazan' khanate remained favourable to Muscovy or at least neutral but independent, the Muscovite grand prince could feel relatively secure concerning eastern approaches to Muscovy, because Kazan' was not strong enough to defeat Muscovy alone. When Kazan' fell under the direct influence of one of the other neighbouring khanates, it could then be used as an advance base and provide additional forces for an attack on Moscow, as was done in 1521 by the Crimean khan Muhammed Girey.
Throughout this period the Muscovite grand princes continued to pay tribute to the khans as their nominal vassal. Among other evidence that this was so are the wills ofthe grand princes. The will of Ivan III (1504), for example, specifies that tribute be sent to the khanates of Astrakhan', Crimea and Kazan', as well as to the 'tsareviches' town' (Kasimov).[49]
In great part, we must attribute the dramatic reversal of western steppe power relations subsequently in the sixteenth century to the successful military strategies of the Muscovite leaders - in particular, in terms of mobilisation of troops and other military resources. During the period from the middle of the fourteenth century to the fifteenth century, the Muscovite grand princes were adept at getting Lithuanian princes and nobility and their attendant service people to come over into grand-princely service,[50] although by the sixteenth century some princes in the service of the Muscovite ruler would flee to the Lithuanian grand duke.[51] The Muscovite grand princes were also equally adept if not more so, especially during the period from the middle of the fifteenth century to the sixteenth century, in getting tsarevichi and other Tatar nobility and their attendant service people to enter grand-princely service.[52] Ivan III, for example, set up a puppet khanate in Kasimov where Tatar refugees could escape without violating their allegiance to Islam or Chingisid rule.
When Casimir IV died in 1490, Poland and Lithuania were once again under separate rulers. Ivan III took advantage of the resultant weakened position of Lithuania to follow an aggressive military policy against towns across the Lithuanian border. In 1494, Lithuania ceded Viaz'ma to Muscovy. The marriage in 1495 between Grand Duke Alexander and Elena, the daughter of Ivan, sealed the bargain. An outbreak of hostilities between Muscovy and Lithuania from 1500 to 1503 spread to involve the Livonian knights and the Great Horde (both on the side of Lithuania), and the Crimean khanate (on the side of Muscovy). Muscovy made further territorial gains, including the Chernigov-Seversk area, and the Great Horde was routed by Mengli Girey. During the reign of Vasilii III, Lithuania and Moscow were at war on two occasions: 1507-8 and 1512-22. It was during the latter war that Muscovy annexed Smolensk in 1514.
The term 'Great Horde' is the name we find in the sources after the middle of the fifteenth century until 1502 for the remnants of the Qipchaq khanate that remained after the splitting off of the Kazan' khanate and the Crimean khanate. By 1480, Ivan III had already been acting autonomously for many years without any need to gain approval for his policies from the khan of the Great Horde. In that year in the late summer and early autumn, Khan Ahmed of the Great Horde advanced with a large force to the south-west of Muscovy. He was apparently hoping for military help from Casimir, the king of Poland and grand duke of Lithuania. That help never arrived. Ivan, for his part, was without the support of two of his brothers, Andrei the Elder and Boris, or their accompanying armies. Ivan convened a war council made up of the boyar duma, the top Church prelates (including Metropolitan Gerontii and Archbishop Vassian Rylo), and Ivan's mother, Mariia, to discuss how to conduct the campaign. Prince Ivan Patrikeev was left in charge of the defences of Moscow.
50
See Oswald P. Backus,
51
Oswald P. Backus, 'Treason as a Concept and Defections from Moscow to Lithuania in the Sixteenth Century',
52
See my 'Troop Mobilization by the Muscovite Grand Princes (1313-1533)', in Eric Lohr and Marshall Poe (eds.),