Dmitrii's actions and defeat ofMamai did not change the basic relationship between north-eastern Russia and the Golden Horde. Dmitrii and his successors continued to rely on the khan for a patent that legitimised their right to hold the grand-princely throne of Vladimir. They also continued to pay tribute to the khan. Thus, the coins struck by Dmitrii after 1382 were marked by the words 'Grand Prince Dmitrii Ivanovich' on one side, but the other side bore the inscription 'Sultan Tokhtamysh: Long may he live!' On his coins Vasilii I proclaimed himself to be 'grand prince of all Rus''. But until 1399, when Tokhtamysh and his ally Vitovt of Lithuania were defeated by Edigei at the Battle of Vorskla, he repeated the phrase 'Sultan Tokhtamysh: Long may he live' or variations of it on the reverse side. Symbols honouring the Mongols reappeared on Vasilii's coins after 1408.[103]
The nature of the relationship between the Muscovite princes and the Golden Horde was nevertheless changing. Edigei, the non-Chingisid who became the dominant figure in the horde after Timur deposed Tokhtamysh, once again mounted a campaign against north-eastern Russia (1408). He found it necessary to use force to impress north-eastern Russia with his power and convince Vasilii I to show appropriate deference to his suzerain. Vasilii, it was alleged, had failed to appear personally before him, had withheld tribute and had given refuge to his rivals and enemies, the fugitive sons of Tokhtamysh.15
Even afterthe Golden Hordebeganto disintegrate during the second decade of the fifteenth century, the princes of northern Russia recognised the authority of the khan. In 1430, when Prince Iurii Dmitr'evich challenged his nephew Grand Prince Vasilii II Vasil'evich for the throne of Vladimir and Dmitrov, the two princes turned to Ulu-Muhammed. The khan confirmed the appointment of Vasilii II as grand prince. His decision did not, however, have sufficient authority to resolve the dispute. Vasilii II fought a war against his uncle and cousins that lasted almost a quarter of a century before he secured his position.16 Vasilii II was the last Daniilovich prince to present himself before a Tatar khan to receive a patent for this throne and the first to name his own successor and bequeath his throne to him without prior approval of the khan.17
Several years after Ulu-Muhammed issued the Vladimir throne to Vasilii II, he led his horde northward from the region of the Crimean peninsula, where he had been located.18 The Tatars encountered a Russian army, led by Vasilii's cousins, near Belev on the Russian-Lithuanian border in 1437. The Tatar horde continued to migrate eastward down the Oka River. After clashing several times with Russian forces, they engaged Vasilii II, who was leading a small force, at the Battle of Suzdal' (1445). Vasilii II was wounded and captured. In return for his promise to pay a ransom of 200,000 roubles, according to one account, and make increased tribute payments, Ulu-Muhammed released him. The grand prince returned to Moscow in November 1445.19 Ulu-Muhammed's horde continued its migration, settling on the mid-Volga River to found the khanate of Kazan' (1445).
Despite the disintegration ofthe Golden Horde and the weakened condition of Ulu-Muhammed's horde, Grand Prince Vasilii II continued to acknowledge
15 PSRL, vol. xi, pp. 205-6; Ostrowski, 'Troop Mobilization', p. 38; A. A. Gorskii, Moskva i Orda (Moscow: Nauka, 2000), pp. 127-33; Charles Halperin, 'The Russian Land and the Russian Tsar: The Emergence of Muscovite Ideology, 1380-1408', FOG 23 (1976): 55-6; Crummey, Formation of Muscovy, p. 65; Vernadsky, Mongols, pp. 286-7; Nasonov, Mongoly iRus', p. 144.
16 A. A. Zimin, Vitiaz' na rasput'e. Feodal'naia voina v Rossii XV v. (Moscow: Mysl', 1991), pp. 43, 45-7.
17 Alef,'Origins', 40.
18 Vernadsky Mongols, p. 293; Gustave Alef, 'The Battle of Suzdal' in 1445. An Episode in the Muscovite War of Succession', FOG 25 (1978); reprinted in Gustave Alef,Rulers and Nobles in Fifteenth-Century Muscovy (London: Variorum Reprints, 1983), p. 12.
19 PSRL, vol. xii (St. Petersburg: Arkheograficheskaiakommissiia, 1901; reprinted Moscow: Nauka, 1965), pp. 63-5; PSRL, vol. iii: Novgorodskaia pervaia letopis' (Moscow: Iazyki russkoi kul'tury, 2000), p. 426; Alef,'The Battle of Suzdal', 14-15,17-19; Ostrowski, 'Troop Mobilization', p. 22; Cherepnin, Obrazovanie, p. 787.
the suzerainty of the Tatar khan. But in 1447, two of Ulu-Muhammed's sons, Kasim and Iakub, fled from their brother, who had murdered and succeeded Ulu-Muhammed. They presented themselves to Vasilii II and entered his service. For his services Kasim was granted territory on the Oka River that became known as the khanate of Kasimov, a dependency of the state of Muscovy.[104]Kasim and his brother were only the latest in a series of individual Tatar notables who from the 1330s had entered the service of the Daniilovich princes.[105]The appearance of these Tatars in the service of the princes of Moscow represents the beginning of a shift in the balance of perceived and, possibly, real power between the remnants of the Golden Horde and emerging state of Muscovy.
Although they did not renounce the suzerainty of the Tatar khans or permanently cease paying tribute, the Daniilovich princes gradually changed the nature of their relationship with their overlords whose own domain was disintegrating. If measured by the military victories of Tokhtamysh, Edigei and Ulu-Muhammed at the Battle of Suzdal', the balance of power favoured the Mongol khans. But measured by the tendency of the renegade Tatar notables to seek refuge with the prince of Moscow and to enter his service and by the ability of the prince of Moscow, by the end of the reign of Vasilii II, to ignore rituals of paying homage to the khans and display symbols of his own sovereignty, the balance was shifting in favour of the emerging state of Muscovy.
The Daniilovichi and the dynasty
When Grand Prince Ivan II died in i359, he was not immediately succeeded by his son Dmitrii. Khan Navruz issued the patent for the grand principality of Vladimir to Prince Dmitrii Konstantinovich of Suzdal' and Nizhnii Novgorod (i360). Despite the marriages that had been arranged by Ivan I Kalita to secure their families' loyalty, Prince Konstantin Vasil'evich of Rostov, an uncle of Dmitrii Ivanovich, and Prince Ivan Fedorovich of Beloozero, a cousin of the Moscow prince, supported Dmitrii Konstantinovich, as did Dmitrii Borisovich of Dmitrov.[106]
When Dmitrii Ivanovich did receive a patent for the grand principality, however, forces loyal to him, including those of his brother Ivan (d. 1364) and his cousin Vladimir Andreevich, drove his rival from Vladimir (1362-3) and prevented him from recovering the town.23 Dmitrii Ivanovich then arranged for his rival's supporters to be removed from their thrones. In i363, Dmitrii Ivanovich expelled the princes of Starodub and Galich from their lands. The next year he forced the transfer of Prince Konstantin Vasil'evich from Rostov to Ustiug. Konstantin's nephew, an ally of Dmitrii Ivanovich, replaced him in Rostov.24 In 1364, the two Dmitriis reconciled. Their alliance was sealed in 1366 with the marriage of Dmitrii Ivanovich to the daughter of Dmitrii Konstantinovich. Dmitrii Konstantinovich did not become a subordinate of the young grand prince of Vladimir, but having ceded the grand principality of Vladimir, he frequently supported Dmitrii Ivanovich and gave him critical military assistance.25
103
Thomas Noonan, 'Forging a National Identity: Monetary Politics during the Reign of Vasilii I (1389-1425)', in A. M. Kleimola and G. D. Lenhoff (eds.),
pp. i72-4.
104
Janet Martin, 'Muscovite Frontier Policy: The Case of the Khanate of Kasimov',