The Moscow princes used the wealth they acquired in part to embellish their city. Masonry construction, which had reflected the economic recovery of northern Russia earlier in the fourteenth century, continued during the reigns of Dmitrii Ivanovich and his son Vasilii. David Miller has shown that between 1363 and 1387 sixteen such projects were undertaken in north-eastern Russia; the projects accounted for just over one-quarter of all those in northern Russia. During the next quartercentury another twenty- one masonry structures or 29 per cent of all those in northern Russia were built in north-eastern Russia.[121] The projects included the walls that protected Moscow.
New construction was also associated with the monastic movement that had begun in the mid-fourteenth century, partially in response to outbreaks of plague.[122] Walled monasteries were built to the east, south-east and north of Moscow. Although the walls of the Holy Trinity monastery were insufficient to withstand the attacks of Tokhtamysh and Edigei, the ring of monasteries surrounding Moscow provided defensive protection. Fortified monasteries at
Table 7.1. Prince Ivan I Kalita and his descendants (names of grand princes are in capitals)
IVAN I KALITA d. 1341
SEMEN IVAN II Andrei
d. 1353 d. 1359 d. 1353
DMITRII DONSKOI Vladimir
d. 1389 d. 1410
| Iurii d. 1434 |
| VASILII I d. 1425 |
Andrei Petr Konstantin d. 1432 d. 1428 d. 1433
| Iaroslav d. 1426 |
Ivan Semen d. 1410 d. 1426
Andrei Vasilii d. 1426 d. 1427
| Vasilii d. 1486 |
VASILII II Vasilii Dmitrii Dmitrii Ivan Mikhail d. 1462 Kosoi Shemiaka Krasnoi (Mozhaisk) (Vereia) d. 1447/8 d. 1453 d. 1440 d. 1454 d. 1486
Daniilovich princes were able to freely transfer their service from one member of the family to another.
This situation prevailed until 1425, when Grand Prince Vasilii Dmitr'evich died. He was survived by four brothers and his son Vasilii. For the first time since the Daniilovichi had become grand princes of Vladimir, a dispute arose within the dynastic branch. The disagreements developed into a civil war that was distinguished by its length and its ferocity. The war took place in three phases and was fought over two related points of contention. The first issue was dynastic seniority and succession.
Tradition established that the senior eligible member of the dynasty should succeed to the position of grand prince when that position became vacant. The senior prince was the eldest member of the senior generation. Succession, confined to those princes whose fathers had been grand princes, thus followed a lateral or co-lateral pattern. The grand-princely station passed from elder brother to younger brother or cousin. When all eligible members of one generation had served as grand prince or died, the position passed to the next generation. The sons of former grand princes then inherited the throne in order of their seniority within their generation. Even when the Mongol khans transferred the grand-princely throne of Vladimir to the Daniilovichi, who were ineligible by these norms because Daniil had never been grand prince, they regularly issued patents according to the lateral, generational pattern of succession.
It was thus according to these norms that Ivan I Kalita came to the throne after his brother Iurii. When Ivan died, his position passed to the next generation and his eldest son Semen became grand prince of Vladimir. Plague claimed the lives of Semen, his sons, and his brother Andrei; his surviving brother, Ivan II, succeeded to the throne. Ivan II was the last member of his generation; when he died, the throne passed to his son Dmitrii. Due to the family's small size and early deaths these successions, while conforming to the lateral pattern, also defined a new vertical pattern of succession from father to son.
Although other members of the dynasty protested against their successions, the Daniilovich princes all accepted their senior members as grand princes. Only when Vasilii I assumed the throne in 1389 was there a weak protest from within the Moscow branch of the dynasty. Prince Vladimir Andreevich of Serpukhov, the cousin of Dmitrii Donskoi, evidently raised an objection to Vasilii's succession. It is not clear that Vladimir Andreevich was seeking the throne of Vladimir for himself. Although he did have seniority as a member of the elder generation, his father Andrei had died from the plague in 1353 and had never served as grand prince. Vladimir was therefore ineligible for succession.[123]
When Vasilii Dmitr'evich died in 1425, his brother Iurii was the legitimate heir according to the lateral pattern of succession. But in his will, dated 1423, Vasilii left the grand principality as well as Moscow and its possessions to his son Vasilii Vasil'evich. He thus asserted a vertical line of succession that bypassed his brothers and denied their seniority. To ensure that his wishes would be honoured, he placed his son, who was ten years old in 1425, under the protection of his brothers Petr and Andrei, two cousins, and Prince Vitovt of Lithuania, who was the boy's maternal grandfather.[124]
The second issue that generated the intra-dynastic war was the prerogatives of the grand prince, his authority over the family's territorial possessions and the relative status of the members of the ruling house. During the fourteenth century relations between the grand prince and his Muscovite relations were co-operative. Grand Prince Semen, for example, shared proceeds from customs fees with his two brothers; as the senior prince, however, he received half of the proceeds, not one-third.[125] Dmitrii Donskoi and his cousin Vladimir Andreevich similarly enjoyed cordial relations. The Serpukhov prince had autonomy within his principality, including the right to collect taxes from its inhabitants. He also had rights to one-third of the revenues collected from Moscow, the seat of the family's shared domain.[126]
The situation changed shortly after Vasilii II became grand prince. Vladimir Andreevich had died in 1410. All of his five sons had died by 1427; four of them were victims of an epidemic of plague in 1426-7. Only one grandson, Vasilii Iaroslavich, survived. When he was to inherit his family's lands, the regents for the grand prince intervened. They confiscated one portion of the Serpukhov patrimonial possessions for Vasilii II and gave another portion to the grand prince's uncle Konstantin Dmitr'evich.[127] In 1428, another of the grand prince's uncles, Petr Dmitr'evich of Dmitrov, died. Once again Vasilii II's government, ignoring the claims of the rest of the family to a share of Petr's principality, seized Dmitrov as a possession of the grand prince.[128]
122
Pierre Gonneau, 'The Trinity-Sergius Brotherhood in State and Society', in A. M. Kleimola and G. D. Lenhoff (eds.),
124
126
M. N. Tikhomirov, 'Moskovskie tretniki, tysiatskie, inamestniki',