Half a century after the Mongols set them on the throne of Vladimir, the princes of Moscow had transformed their realm. In addition to its visual signs, their growing power was manifested in Prince Dmitrii’s military victories first over a challenger from Tver, and then over a general from the Golden Horde itself—Mamai. These confrontations occurred while the discord within the Golden Horde, begun concurrently with his own ascension to the throne, intensified. Dmitrii, indeed, had obtained his patent from Mamai, to whom he had pledged to deliver the tribute gathered from his lands. Yet Dmitrii found it increasingly difficult to make those tribute payments for at least two reasons. As the conflicts in the horde disrupted the Volga markets in the 1360s and 1370s, Moscow’s revenue from commercial customs and transit fees collected from its Volga trade correspondingly declined. Second, Novgorod, whose commercial activities were responsible for importing silver into the Russian lands, was quarrelling with its Baltic Sea trading partners, who restricted the flow of silver to Novgorod and even temporarily suspended trade with Novgorod.
Mamai gambled on the supposition that he might receive larger tribute payments from another prince, and transferred the patent for the Vladimir throne twice, in 1370 and 1375, to the prince of Tver—Dmitrii’s chief rival. These actions provoked open warfare between Moscow and Tver in 1371–2 and 1375. Despite the fact that Tver received support from Mamai as well as Lithuania, both outbursts of hostility ended in victory for Moscow. In 1375 the prince of Tver agreed to recognize Dmitrii as his ‘elder brother’ and as the legitimate grand prince of Vladimir; Mamai also returned the patent for the throne to Dmitrii.
Nevertheless, within a few years Dmitrii and his patron Mamai were at war. Because of the mounting discord in the horde and the seizure of Sarai by Tokhtamysh (a Mongol khan from the eastern half of the horde’s territory), Mamai’s own situation had become desperate. To defeat Tokhtamysh he had to obtain supplementary troops, his own forces having been weakened by a bout of bubonic plague. For that he required funds. Mamai, therefore, demanded that Dmitrii pay the tribute in full. But Dmitrii, whose revenues had been reduced, hesitated. Mamai raised an army and, with promises of assistance from Lithuania, advanced upon his former protégé. Dmitrii gathered an army drawn from the numerous principalities over which he and his forefathers had established ascendancy. On 8 September 1380 the two armies fought in the battle of Kulikovo; it was here Dmitrii earned the epithet ‘Donskoi’. Dmitrii’s armies were victorious over Mamai, whose Lithuanian allies failed to arrive. Mamai suffered another defeat in an encounter with Tokhtamysh the following year. Having restored order in the horde, Tokhtamysh launched his own campaign against Dmitrii and the other Russian princes in 1382. He laid siege to Moscow, which had been abandoned by Dmitrii, and restored Mongol authority over the Russian principalities. He reasserted the horde’s demand for tribute and reconfirmed the Rus princes on their thrones.
The battle of Kulikovo did not terminate the Muscovite princes’ subordination to the Mongol khans, but it did reduce their dependence upon them for legitimacy. The battle demonstrated Moscow’s pre-eminence among the principalities of north-eastern Rus; no other branch of Riurikids ever again challenged the seniority of the Muscovite line and its claim to the position of grand prince of Vladimir. Although the princes of Moscow formally recognized the suzerainty of the khan of the Golden Horde, their practice, begun by Dmitrii Donskoi, of naming their own heirs implicitly minimized the significance of the khan’s right to bestow the patent to rule.
The Daniilovich success, however, was still incomplete. Although Dmitrii Donskoi had been able to mobilize a large number of northeastern principalities to defeat Mamai in 1380, some important lands remained beyond the range of his authority. One was Nizhnii Novgorod, whose prince refused to place his retainers under Muscovite command at the battle of Kulikovo. Another was Tver; despite its prince’s recent recognition of Dmitrii’s seniority, its forces did not join Dmitrii’s army. A third land, Novgorod, had similarly declined to participate.
Dmitrii’s successors set about to remedy that situation. Vasilii I gained control over Nizhnii Novgorod and made a concerted, but less successful, effort to take control of parts of Novgorod’s northern empire. Even before his reign, a monk, known as Stefan of Perm, had created a new bishopric for the far north-eastern portion of Novgorod’s realm; the newly converted inhabitants (the Zyriane or Komi tribes) transferred their tribute payments from Novgorod to Moscow. Vasilii I attempted to gain control of another region subject to Novgorod—the Dvina land, rich in fish, fur, and other natural products that constituted major sources of Novgorod’s wealth. Although his repeated efforts to annex the Dvina land failed, Vasilii did acquire Ustiug, which controlled access to both the Dvina and Vychegda rivers. Continuing pressure on its northern empire did, however, gradually undermine Novgorod’s control over its economic resources; Vasilii II then defeated the weakened Novgorod militarily in 1456 and his successor Ivan III finally absorbed it into Muscovy in 1478. Ivan III continued the process by also annexing Tver in 1485.
The efforts of the Muscovite princes to consolidate their position within their growing realm benefited from the Church, which, already in the fourteenth century, was advocating unity and centralization. The Church’s indirect endorsement of the Daniilovichi of Moscow provided a measure of domestically based legitimacy, which initially supplemented, but ultimately replaced Mongol favour as a justification for holding the throne of Vladimir.
Church support for the Daniilovichi was neither automatic nor explicit. Indeed, in the early fourteenth century Metropolitan Maxim (d. 1305) used his influence to discourage Iurii of Moscow from challenging the succession of Mikhail of Tver to the Vladimir throne. Although Metropolitan Peter, who succeeded Maxim, had sharp differences with Grand Prince Mikhail, he too did not unambiguously support Moscow. But he did co-sponsor the Church of the Dormition in Moscow, and when he died a few months after its construction had begun, he was buried in its walls; a shrine dedicated to him subsequently arose on the site. The association of Peter (who was canonized in 1339) with Moscow contributed to the city’s growing reputation as an ecclesiastical centre.
For Metropolitan Peter and his successor Theognostus, however, the political fortunes of various princes were secondary to ecclesiastical concerns, the most pressing of which was maintaining the integrity of the metropolitanate of Kiev and all Rus. For the metropolitans of the second half of the fourteenth century, Alexis and Cyprian, that issue became a preoccupation. Just as Alexis became metropolitan in 1354, the Lithuanian prince Olgerd succeeded in establishing a metropolitanate over the Orthodox bishoprics in his realm, including Kiev and western Chernigov. The Lithuanian metropolitan was related to Olgerd’s wife, a princess from the house of Tver. Alexis responded by formally transferring his seat from Kiev to Vladimir (a move made, de facto, by Maxim). Subsequent efforts to reunite his see took him to Constantinople, Sarai, and Kiev (where he was held in captivity from 1358 to 1360). Only in 1361, when the metropolitan of the Lithuanian see died, did he succeed in bringing the south-western Rus bishoprics back under his jurisdiction.
In 1375 the metropolitanate of Kiev and Lithuania was revived; its metropolitan, Cyprian, was expected to succeed Alexis and reunite the two sees. But when Alexis died in 1378 and Cyprian arrived in Moscow, he was humiliated and expelled by Prince Dmitrii. The prince gave his support to Pimen, who became metropolitan in 1380. Cyprian and Pimen competed for dominance within the Rus Church until the latter, as well as Prince Dmitrii, died in 1389. Cyprian was then able to return to Moscow; he led the Church until his own death in 1407.