Semen and Ivan II were also losing the loyalty of Novgorod. The dispute that arose in 1339 between Novgorod and Ivan I Kalita was resolved only after Ivan's death by his son Semen, who threatened Novgorod by sending an army to its borders and obliged it to make a special payment to Moscow. Semen himself only arrived in Novgorod to claim its throne in 1346. Whereas Semen and Ivan II demanded high payments from Novgorod, they did not fulfil their obligations to defend Novgorodto the city's satisfaction. Just as Ivan I had failed to defend Novgorod from Swedish attacks in 1337-8, so Semen provided little effective aid a decade later when Lithuania and Sweden attacked Novgorodian territories in 1346 and 1348, respectively. Although he dispatched his brother to fight the Swedes, who had seized the fortress at Orekhov, which Prince Iurii Daniilovich had erected in 1323, Ivan Ivanovich left Novgorod without embarking on the intended campaign. The Novgorodians recovered Orekhov in February 1349 without assistance from Moscow and only after a six-month siege. They similarly launched their counter-offensive against the Swedish post at Vyborg, which led to a cessation of hostilities between Novgorod and Sweden, without support from the grand prince of Vladimir. Indeed, Iurii Daniilovich had been the last prince to actually lead Novgorod's armies.[88]As a result Novgorod not only objected to the succession of Ivan II to the grand princely throne, but delayed its own acceptance of him as its prince, then basically conducted its affairs without reference to him.[89]
By the time Ivan II died in 1359, the two institutions that had defined Kievan Rus', the Riurikid dynasty and the Orthodox Church, continued to shape north-eastern Russia. But under the suzerainty of the Golden Horde the dynasty in particular had changed significantly. The Daniilovichi, the Moscow branch of the dynasty, illegitimate by traditional standards, held the throne of the grand principality of Vladimir. Their political position was dependent upon the good will and the power of the khans of the Golden Horde. The grand princes accordingly curtailed relations with the south-western Russian principalities, which entered the political sphere of Lithuania, and geared their policies to accommodate the Golden Horde. They strove to dominate tribute collection and control trade as well as to increase the size and strength of their own court and military retinue. The authority of the Daniilovichi over north-eastern Russia was nevertheless circumscribed. They lacked control over the grand principalities of Tver' and Suzdal'-Nizhnii Novgorod as well as Riazan', their neighbour to the south. In addition, Lithuania was demonstrating influence over Novgorod and north-eastern principalities that had previously accepted the leadership of the grand prince of Vladimir.
The Church similarly retained its authority. But unlike the princes of Moscow, the metropolitans attempted to sustain the ecclesiastic unity of all sectors of Kievan Rus'. They repeatedly sought to suppress efforts undertaken by Galicia and Lithuania to divide the metropolitanate of Kiev and all Rus'. Rather than cut ties with south-western Russia, the metropolitans continued to travel to those areas as well as to Constantinople and Sarai. They maintained a broad focus that encompassed the entire Orthodox population inherited from Kievan Rus'.
In 1359, Khan Berdibek was overthrown and the Golden Horde entered a twenty-year period of political turbulence. The base of support upon which Daniilovich authority in north-eastern Russia rested was, correspondingly, destabilised. The heir of Ivan II, his young son Dmitrii, could turn neither to other princes, who had not fully accepted the legitimacy of the Daniilovichi, nor to Metropolitan Aleksei, whose preoccupation with the division of his see had drawn him away from Moscow, to compensate for the weakening of support provided by the Golden Horde. With the Golden Horde in disarray and without reliable support from domestic sources, the dynasty and the Church, the future of Dmitrii Ivanovich and the continued pre-eminence of the House of Moscow in both Vladimir and north-eastern Russia were in jeopardy.
The emergence of Moscow (1359-1462)
JANET MARTIN
During the century following the Mongol invasion and subjugation of the Russian lands to the Golden Horde the princes of Moscow, the Daniilovichi, gained prominence in north-eastern Russia. By winning the favour ofthe khans of the Golden Horde they were able to break dynastic traditions of seniority and succession and become the grand princes ofVladimir. But the Daniilovich princes lacked the full support of other branches of the dynasty in northeastern Russia, whose members recalled traditional norms of legitimacy, and of the Church, whose hierarchs were preoccupied with securing the unity of the metropolitanate of Kiev and all Rus'. They were, therefore, dependent upon the continuing goodwill of the Golden Horde khans to maintain their position. But in 1359, Khan Berdibek (r. 1357-9) was overthrown and the Golden Horde entered a twenty-year period of civil war. The foundation upon which Daniilovich authority rested was destabilised.
The Daniilovich princes did not, however, lose their grip on the throne ofVladimir. Nor, despite the decline of the Golden Horde and sharp clashes with it, did they renounce their allegiance to the khan or lead north-eastern Russia to independence from Tatar hegemony On the contrary, the northern Russian princes, including the Daniilovichi, continued, albeit with greater reluctance and less frequency, to travel to the horde to receive their patents for office and to pay tribute to the khan.[90] It was not north-eastern Russia, led by the princes of Moscow, that was emerging as the state prepared to replace the disintegrating horde as the dominant polity in Eastern Europe. Lithuania was a stronger, more dynamic state that assumed that role and exercised influence over western and northern Russia. Within their domain, however, the Daniilovichi came to depend less on the khans and to develop domestic sources of support, rooted in their own court, in their relationships with former dynastic rivals and in the Church. While the Golden Horde gradually fragmented, Dmitrii Ivanovich, who ruled to 1389, and his successors Vasilii I Dmitr'evich (1389-1425) and Vasilii II Vasil'evich (1425-62) nurtured and developed these foundational elements to establish their legitimacy as rulers of a state of Muscovy and to monopolise for their direct descendants the position of prince of its expanding territorial possessions.
The Daniilovichi and the Golden Horde
The political disorder within the horde was preceded and accompanied by mounting social and economic upheavals. One factor contributing to the disturbances was the Black Plague. In 1346-7, it had appeared in the Tatar capital Sarai as well as in Astrakhan' and port cities on the Black Sea coast. In 1364, the plague attacked Sarai a second time, and a decade later the horde was visited yet again.[91]
In addition, the commercial network that economically sustained the Mongol Empire was fraying. The Ottoman Turk capture of Gallipoli and expansion into the Balkans disturbed sea traffic into and out of the Black Sea. In the east the Yuan dynasty in China collapsed (1368). The Ming rulers who displaced the Mongols were less interested in promoting the intercontinental trade that had transported goods along the Silk Road and had been a major commercial base for the entire empire. As a result of disruptions at both ends of the trade route, the commercial activities of the Golden Horde, which controlled the northern branch of its western segment, and the revenues derived from them declined.[92]
88
pp. 22, 33-4.
89
90
Gustave Alef, 'The Origins of Muscovite Autocracy. The Age of Ivan III',
91
Lawrence N. Langer, 'The Black Death in Russia. Its Effects upon Urban Labor',
92
David Morgan,