Appanage Russia, also known as the period of appanages or the appanage period, and sometimes referred to as the period of fragmentation, was a period of Russian history spanning the 12th to 15th centuries.
Following the disintegration of Kievan Rus', over a dozen independent principalities emerged due to feudal fragmentation. Those principalities in turn fragmented further due to the custom of princes dividing their territories into appanages, which led to the proliferation of smaller appanage principalities. The Grand Principality of Vladimir, for instance, fragmented into over a dozen appanage principalities by the end of the 13th century.
These polities, known collectively as the Russian principalities, or as the Russian lands, were ruled by princes from the Rurikid dynasty. From this point on, medieval Russia constituted a loose conglomerate of principalities, alongside two city-republics: Novgorod and Pskov. Although republican institutions developed in Novgorod and Pskov, the head of state remained a prince invited from a neighboring principality.
By the late 15th and early 16th centuries, the remaining Russian principalities had been united with the Grand Principality of Moscow, leading to the creation of a centralized state. The end of the appanage period is typically dated to the reign of Ivan III (1462–1505) and it was succeeded by a new period in Russian history, known as Muscovite Russia.
Contents
History
Background
Following the Christianization of Kievan Rus' in 988, spiritual leadership belonged to the Byzantine Empire. After the death of Yaroslav the Wise in 1054, Kievan Rus' experienced a period of civil strife between his sons Iziaslav, Sviatoslav and Vsevolod. The following century, this was followed by a period of political fragmentation and decentralization. The proliferation of many smaller principalities weakened political unity, and by the mid-12th century, the capital Kiev was in decline. The lack of political unity in part facilitated the Mongol conquest. The traditional view has been that Kiev was in economic decline from the mid-12th century; however, some recent historians have instead adopted the view that there was economic expansion in the late Kievan period as the creation of new appanages represented the division of labor and delegation of authority among the Rurikids.
In the 12th century, 13 entities based on territorial units known as volosti emerged. They began to be called zemli ('lands'), a term used for sovereign states. From the mid-12th century, the term volost came to refer primarily not to a large principality, but rather to a part of its territory ruled by a particular prince.
13th–15th centuries
From the mid-13th century, the Russian principalities were dominated by the Golden Horde following their conquest by Batu Khan. Previously, princes and grand princes governed themselves and only had to acknowledge the spiritual ascendancy of the Byzantine emperor, but during Mongol rule, they had to be confirmed by the Mongol khan in order to have any power, and the Russians later began referring to the khan as tsar – a title that had previously been reserved for the universal Christian ruler. The only Russian land that was not governed by a prince was Novgorod, although it still depended on an extraneous prince and his army to defend its borders.
Güyük Khan appointed his own governors to oversee the Russian principalities. The tribute was known as the dan by the Russians; its main purpose was not only to tax subjects but also to conscript young men into the Mongol armies. Although the Russian princes did not unanimously support Mongol supervision at first, Mengu-Timur was able to strengthen his ties with the Russian principalities by making the Russian Church cooperate with the Mongol administrators. In 1267, he made Russian clergy exempt from taxation and military service, which was in line with the Mongol policy of religious tolerance. From the 1260s, local nobles collected taxes on the khan's behalf, and in an attempt to gain the support of the nobility, the Mongols allowed them to keep their land. Until 1380, the khans of the Golden Horde exercised political control over the Russian principalities, and from 1380 to 1480, they continued to demand tribute from the Russian princes, although they did not always receive this. The period until 1480 is known as the "Tatar yoke". Extrapolating from 1549 data, George Vernadsky estimated the annual tribute to be approximately 145,000 rubles, plus an additional 25,000 rubles from Novgorod under a special tax, equivalent to 15.6 tons of silver.
The leading Russian figure was the grand prince of Vladimir, which led to a struggle among the princes for the title. The grand prince had the right to collect the taxes from all the princes on behalf of the khan of the Golden Horde. However, this role was a heavy burden on the prince. Aleksandr Nevsky became grand prince in 1251, and when the Mongol census-takers and tax collectors came to Novgorod, there was resistance against what the Chronicle of Novgorod describes as "accursed, raw-eating Tartars" until Aleksandr was forced to lead an army into the city.
Between the Mongol conquest and the end of the 13th century, the fragmentation of the Grand Principality of Vladimir intensified as eight new principalities emerged: Starodub, Suzdal, Tver, Galich-Dmitrov, Kostroma, Moscow, Gorodets, and Belozersk. In addition, the following principalities had already separated: Rostov, Yaroslavl, Uglich, Pereyaslavl, and Yuryev. Vladimir remained the "capital" principality, and following the death of Aleksandr Nevsky, a practice emerged whereby the grand principality was held by representatives of one of the appanage principalities. This system remained subject to the traditional practice of collateral succession, which continued until the end of the century. The territory of the grand principality did not remain unchanged, as Kostroma, Pereyaslavl, Nizhny Novgorod, and Yuryev reverted to the grand prince as escheats in 1277, 1305, 1320, and the 1340s, respectively. The khan also exerted significant influence over the territory of the grand principality.
End of the appanage period
Between the accessions of Ivan III in 1462 and Ivan IV in 1533, there was not only the "gathering of the Russian lands" that took place but also the development of an autocratic power structure. Although Ivan III did not completely end the practice of creating appanages, he saw appanages as a source of disunity and was able to bring the appanages inherited by his younger brothers under his effective control. He bequeathed two-thirds of his lands to his son Vasily, while the remaining third was divided among his four younger sons, but their authority was strictly limited. The last person to be granted an appanage principality was Ivan IV's son, Dmitry, who was given Uglich, in 1584.
This "gathering of power" over the other principalities involved the extension of patrimonial power by applying the principle of the votchina to them. The Russian Church supported this process, thereby implying that the Muscovite rulers "had an explicitly religious referent that did not include a discourse on natural law". As a result, the concept of popular sovereignty did not develop, and to integrate new territories, local elites were absorbed into the court of the grand prince. Around the same time, the system of mestnichestvo was also developed.
The Russian Church not only preserved the idea of unity amidst political fragmentation but also influenced attitudes toward service, with nobles expected to serve the Muscovite ruler without the right to depart. The monk Joseph of Volokolamsk, for instance, said the grand prince "was the master of all masters of the Russian land". The dependence of the metropolitan also changed when the Russian Church became de facto autocephalous in 1448; the metropolitan was no longer confirmed by the patriarch of Constantinople, and thus became even more dependent on the grand prince, although the roots of this dependence go back to the Byzantine idea of symphonia.
The relative swiftness of the strengthening of grand princely power, when compared to contemporary composite monarchies, meant that regional identities remained weak. Not only were local elites absorbed, but the policy of gathering Russian lands meant that local self-government was also not tolerated, leading to the termination of the autonomies of Novgorod and Pskov in 1478 and 1510, respectively. Moscow's absorption of Ryazan, the last remaining independent Russian principality, was little more than a formality; it was dependent on Moscow until Oleg Ivanovich was deposed in 1520 and the principality was formally annexed the following year. However, according to the historian Andreas Kappeler, in the territories acquired through expansion—such as the southern steppe and Siberia—the Russian government, "centralist and autocratic, was confronted with the task of integrating societies which possessed a corporate organization, different estates and regional traditions". As a result, the government treated the oaths given by nomadic peoples and the indigenous Siberians as an act of eternal submission, which allowed them to remain largely undisturbed. The image of the Russian Orthodox community playing a unifying role helped ensure that Russia did not become a composite state.
Foreign relations
Golden Horde
The Mongols introduced a strict system of taxation in the Russian principalities. Following the Mongol conquest, the khan of the Golden Horde regularly sent tax collectors known as darughachi. These officials supervised the collection of tribute, but from the 1280s, the Russian grand princes took on this role. Initially, the responsibility for the collection of tribute rested with the grand prince of Vladimir, a title acquired by Ivan I of Moscow and passed on to his descendants. A more modest role was later given to the grand princes of Nizhny Novgorod, Tver, and Ryazan.
Many of the Russian princes were also required to visit the seat of the khan in order to receive confirmation of their office. The most significant princes first visited his seat in 1243–1245 to receive the patent (yarlyk) to their thrones, but princes soon began to visit his seat primarily when they laid claim to the grand princely throne. Other minor princes were not required to visit the khan, although when a dispute over succession occurred, pretenders would often visit the khan to present their cases.
The princes were also required to perform military service. Although the Mongols rarely deployed Russian auxiliary troops, they did participate in the Mongol invasions of Poland, Hungary, and the Caucasus. Russian troops were important when the khan intervened in Russian affairs, such as when Toqta provided military support to Andrey of Gorodets in 1293 against Dmitry of Pereslavl.
The Russian Church was granted a full exemption in 1267 as part of the Mongol policy of religious tolerance. Mengu-Timur also determined that Russian peasants would obey the nobles and religious leaders, and thus he used the tarkhan system to co-opt the nobility and win their support. These grants were translated from Mongol to Old Russian from the late 14th or early 15th century.