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passed by the rivers of Bavaria; and their past cruelties excluded them from the hope of mercy. Three captive princes were hanged at Ratisbon, the multitude of prisoners were slain or mutilated, and the fugitives, who presumed to appear in the face of their country, were condemned to everlasting poverty and disgrace.(39) Yet the spirit of the nation was humbled, and the most accessible passes of Hungary were fortified with a ditch and rampart. Adversity suggested the counsels of moderation and peace: the robbers of the West acquiesced in a sedentary life: and the next generation was taught, by a discerning prince, that far more might be gained by multiplying and exchanging the produce of a fruitful soil. The native race, the Turkish or Fennic blood, was mingled with new colonies of Scythian or Sclavonian origin;(40) many thousands of robust and industrious captives had been imported from all the countries of Europe;(41) and after the marrage of Geisa with a Bavarian princess, he bestowed honours and estates on the nobles of Germany.(42) The son of Geisa was invested with the regal title, and the house of Arpad reigned three hundred years in the kingdom of Hungary. But the freeborn Barbarians were not dazzled by the lustre of the diadem, and the people asserted their indefeasible right of choosing, deposing, and punishing the hereditary servant of the state.

[A. D. 839.] III. The name of RUSSIANS (43) was first divulged, in the ninth century, by an embassy from Theophilus, emperor of the East, to the emperor of the West, Lewis, the son of Charlemagne. The Greeks were accompanied by the envoys of the great duke, or chagan, or czar, of the Russians. In their journey to Constantinople, they had traversed many hostile nations; and they hoped to escape the dangers of their return by requesting the French monarch to transport them by sea to their native country. A closer examination detected their origin; they were the brethren of the Swedes and Normans, whose name was already odious and formidable in France and it might justly be apprehended that these Russian strangers were not the messengers of peace, but the emissaries of war. They were detained, while the Greeks were dismissed; and Lewis expected a more satisfactory account, that he might obey the laws of hospitality or prudence, according to the interest of both empires.(44) The Scandinavian origin of the people, or at least the princes, of Russia, may be confirmed and illustrated by the national annals(45) and the general history of the north. The Normans, who had so long been concealed by a veil of impenetrable darkness, suddenly burst (39) Katona, Hist. Ducum Hungariæ, p. 500, &c.

(40) Among these colonies we may distinguish, 1. The Chazars, or Cabari, who joined the Hungarians on their march (Constant. de Admin. Imp. c. 39, 40, p. 108, 109). 2. Jazyges, Moravians, and Siculi, whom they found in the land; the last were perhaps a remnant of the Huns of Attila, and were intrusted with the guard of the borders. 3. The Russians, who, like the Swiss in France, imparted a general name to the royal porters. 4. The Bulgarians, whose chiefs (A. D. 956,) were invited, cum magna multitudine Hismakelitarum. Had any of these Sclavonians embraced the Mahometan religion? 5. The Bisseni and Cumans, a mixed multitude of Patzinacites, Uzi, Chazars, &c. who had spread to the lower Danube. The last colony of 40,000 Cumans, A. D. 1239, was received and converted by the kings of Hungary, who derived from that tribe a new regal appellation. (Pray, Dissert. vi. vii. p. 109–173. Katona, Hist. Ducum. p. 95-99. 252-264. 476. 479-483, &c.)

(41) Christiani autem, quorum pars major populi est, qui ex omni parte mundi illuc tracti sunt eaptivi, &c. Such was the language of Piligrinus, the first missionary who entered Hungary, A. D. 973. Pars major is strong. Hist. Ducum. p. 517.

(42) The fideles Teutonici of Geisla are authenticated in old charters; and Katona, with his usual industry, has made a fair estimate of these colonies, which had been so loosely magnified by the Italian Ranzanus (Hist. Critic. Ducum. p. 677-681).

(43) Among the Greeks, this national appellation has a singular form, Pws, as an undeclinable word, of which many fanciful etymologies have been suggested. I have perused, with pleasure and profit, a dissertation de Origine Russorum (Comment. Academ. Petropolitanæ, tom. viii. p. 388-436), by Theophilus Sigefrid Bayer, å learned German, who spent his life and labours in the service of Russia. A geographi cal tract of d'Anville, de l'Empire de Russie, son Origine, et ses Accroissemens (Paris, 1772, 12mo.), has likewise been of use.

(44) See the entire passage (dignum, says Bayer, ut aureis in tabulis figatur) in the Annales Bertiniani Francorum (in Script. Ital. Muratori, tom. ii. pars í. p. 525), A. D. 839, twenty-two years before the era of Ruric. In the tenth century, Liutprand (Hist. 1. v. c. 6,) speaks of the Russians and Normans as the same Aquilonares homines of a red complexion.

(45) My knowledge of these annals is drawn from M. Leveque, Histoire de Russie. Nestor, the first and best of these ancient annalists, was a monk of Kiow, who died in the beginning of the twelfth century; but his chronicle was obscure, till it was published at Petersburgh, 1767, 4to. Leveque, Hist de Russie, tom. i. p. xvi. Coxe's Travels, vol. ii. p. 184.

forth in the spirit of naval and military enterprise. The vast, and, as it is said, the populous, regions of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, were crowded with independent chieftains and desperate adventurers, who sighed in the laziness of peace, and smiled in the agonies of death. Piracy was the exercise, the trade, the glory, and the virtue, of the Scandinavian youth. Impatient of a bleak climate, and narrow limits, they started from the banquet, grasped their arms, sounded their horn, ascended their vessels, and explored every coast that promised either spoil or settlement. The Baltic was the first scene of their naval achievements; they visited the eastern shores, the silent residence of Fennic and Sclavonian tribes, and the primitive Russians of the lake Ladoga paid a tribute, the skins of white squirrels, to these strangers, whom they saluted with the title of Varangians(46) or Corsairs. Their superiority in arms, discipline, and renown, commanded the fear and reverence of the natives. In their wars against the more inland savages, the Varangians condescended to serve as friends and auxiliaries, and gradually, by choice or conquest, obtained the dominion of the people whom they were qualified to protect. Their tyranny was expelled, their valour was again recalled, till at length, Ruric, a Scandinavian chief, became the father of a dynasty which reigned above seven hundred years. His brothers extended his influence: the example of service and usurpation was imitated by his companions in the southern provinces of Russia; and their establishments, by the usual methods of war and assassination, were cemented into the fabric of a powerful monarchy.

1

As long as the descendants of Ruric were considered as aliens and conquerors, they ruled by the sword of the Varangians, distributed estates and subjects to their faithful captains, and supplied their numbers with fresh streams of adventurers from the Baltic coast.(47) But when the Scandinavian chiefs had struck a deep and permanent root into the soil, they mingled with the Russians in blood, religion, and language, and the first Waladimir had the merit of delivering his country from these foreign mercenaries. They had seated him on the throne; his riches were insufficient to satisfy their demands; but they listened to his pleasing advice, that they should seek, not a more grateful, but a more wealthy, master; that they should embark for Greece, where, instead of the skins of squirrels, silk and gold would be the recompense of their service. At the same time the Russian prince admonished his Byzantine ally to disperse and employ, to recompense and restrain, these impetuous children of the North. Contemporary writers have recorded the introduction, name, and character of the Varangians: each day they rose in confidence and esteem; the whole body was assembled at Constantinople to perform the duty of guards; and their strength was recruited by a numerous band of their countrymen from the island of Thule. On this occasion, the vague appellation of Thule is applied to England; and the new Varangians were a colony of English and Danes who fled from the yoke of the Norman conqueror. The habits of pilgrimage and piracy had approximated the countries of the earth; these exiles were entertained in the Byzantine court; and they preserved, till the last age of the empire, the inheritance of spotless loyalty, and the use of the Danish or English tongue. With their broad and double-edged battle-axes on their shoulders, they attended the Greek emperor to the temple, the senate, and the hippodrome; he slept and feasted under their trusty guard; and the keys of the palace, the treasury, and the capital, were held by the firm and faithful hands of the Varangians.(48)

(46) Theophil. Sig. Bayer de Varagis (for the name is differently spelt,) in Comment. Academ. Petropolitanæ, tom. iv. p. 275–311.

(47) Yet, as late as the year 1018, Kiow and Russia were still guarded, ex fugitivorum servorum robere, confluentium, et maxime Danorum. Bayer, who quotes (p. 292,) the Chronicle of Dithmar of Merseburgh, observes, that it was unusual for the Germans to enlist in a foreign service.

(48) Ducange has collected from the original authors the state and history of the Varangi at Constantinople (Glossar. Med. et Infimæ Græcitatis, sub voce Bipayyot. Med. et Infirmæ Latinitatis, sub voce Vagri. Not. ad Alexiad. Anna Comnena, p. 256, 257, 258. Notes sur Villehardouin, p. 296-299). See likewise the Annotations of Reiske to the Ceremoniale Aulæ Byzant. of Constantine, tom. ii. p. 149,

[A. D. 950.] In the tenth century, the geography of Scythia was extended far beyond the limits of ancient knowledge; and the monarchy of the Russians obtains a vast and conspicuous place in the map of Constantine.(49) The sons of Ruric were masters of the spacious province of Wolodomir, or Moscow; and, if they were confined on that side by the hordes of the East, their western frontier in those early days was enlarged to the Baltic sea and the country of the Prussians. Their northern reign ascended above the sixtieth degree of latitude, over the Hyperborean regions, which fancy had peopled with monsters, or clouded with eternal darkness. To the south they followed the course of the Borysthenes, and approached with that river the neighbourhood of the Euxine Šea. The tribes that dwelt, or wandered, in this ample circuit were obedient to the same conqueror, and insensibly blended into the same nation. The language of Russia is a dialect of the Sclavonian; but in the tenth century, these two modes of speech were different from each other; and, as the Sclavonian prevailed in the South, it may be presumed that the original Russians of the North, the primitive subjects of the Varangian chief, were a portion of the Fennic race. With the emigration, union, or dissolution, of the wandering tribes, the loose and indefinite picture of the Scythian desert has continually shifted. But the most ancient map of Russia affords some places which still retain their name and position; and the two capitals, Novogorod(50) and Kiow,(51) are coeval with the first age of the monarchy. Novogorod had not yet deserved the epithet of great, nor the alliance of the Hanseatic league, which diffused the streams of opulence and the principles of freedom. Kiow could not yet boast of three hundred churches, an innumerable people, and a degree of greatness and splendour, which was compared with Constantinople by those who had never seen the residence of the Cesars. In their origin, the two cities were no more than camps or fairs, the most convenient stations in which the Barbarians might assemble for the occasional business of war or trade. Yet even these assemblies announce some progress in the arts of society; a new breed of cattle was imported from the southern provinces: and the spirit of commercial enterprise pervaded the sea and land from the Baltic to the Euxine, from the mouth of the Oder to the port of Constantinople. In the days of idolatry and barbarism, the Sclavonic city of Julin was frequented and enriched by the Normans, who had prudently secured a free mart of purchase and exchange.(52) From this harbour, at the entrance of the Oder, the corsair, or merchant, sailed in forty-three days to the eastern shores of the Baltic, the most distant nations were intermingled, and the holy groves of Curland are said to have been decorated with Grecian and Spanish gold. (53) Between the sea and

150. Saxo Grammaticus affirms that they spoke Danish; but Codinus maintains them till the fifteenth century in the use of their native English; Πολυχρονίζεσι οι Βαράγγοι κατα των πατριον γλώσσαν αυτών ητοι Ιγκληνιςι.

(49) The original record of the geography and trade of Russia is produced by the emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus (de Administrat. Imperii. c. 2. p. 55, 56, c. 9, p. 59-61, c. 13, p. 63-67, c. 37, p. 106, c. 42, p. 112, 113), and illustrated by the diligence of Bayer (de Geographia Russiæ vicinarumque Regionum circiter A. C. 948, in Comment. Academ. Petropol. tom. ix. p. 367-422, tom. x. p. 371-421), with the aid of the Chronicles and traditions of Russia, Scandinavia, &c.

(50) The haughty proverb, "Who can resist God and the great Novogorod?" is applied by M. Leveque (Hist. de Russie, tom. i. p. 60), even to the times that preceded the reign of Ruric. In the course of his history he frequently celebrates this republic, which was suppressed A. D. 1475 (tom. ii. p. 252--266). That accurate traveller, Adam Olearius, describes (in 1635) the remains of Novogorod, and the route by sea and land of the Holstein ambassadors (tom. 1. p. 123-129).

(51) In hac magna civitate, quæ est caput regni, plus trecentæ ecclesiæ habentur et nundinæ octo, populi etiam ignota manus (Eggehardus ad A. D. 1018, apud Bayer, tom. ix. p. 412). He likewise quotes (tom. x. p. 397,) the words of the Saxon annalist, Cujus (Russia) metropolis est Chive, æmula sceptri Constantinopolitani quæ est clarissimum ducus Græciæ. The fame of Kiow, especially in the eleventh century, had reached the German and the Arabian geographers..

(52) In Odoræ ostio qua Scythicas alluit paludes, nobilissima civitas Julinum, celeberrimam, Barbaris et Græcis qui sunt in circuitû præstans stationem; est sane maxima omnium quas Europa claudit civitatum (Adam Bremensis, Hist. Eccles. p. 19). A strange exaggeration even in the eleventh century. The trade of the Baltic, and the Hanseatic league, are carefully treated in Anderson's Historical Deduction of Commerce; at least, in our languages, I am not acquainted with any book so satisfactory.

(53) According to Adam of Bremen (de Sitû Daniæ, p. 58), the old Curland extended eight days' journey along the coast; and by Peter Teutoburgicus (p. 68, A. D. 1326), Memel is defined as the common frontier of Russia, Curland, and Prussia. Aurum ibi plurimum (says Adam) divinis, auguribus atqué

Novogorod an easy intercourse was discovered; in the summer, through a gulf, a lake, and a navigable river; in the winter season, over the hard and level surface of boundless snows. From the neighbourhood of that city, the Russians descended the streams that fall into the Borysthenes; their canoes, of a single tree, were laden with slaves of every age, furs of every species, the spoil of their bee-hives, and the hides of their cattle; and the whole produce of the North was collected and discharged in the magazines of Kiow. The month of June was the ordinary season of the departure of the fleet; the timber of the canoes was framed into the oars and benches of more solid and capacious boats; and they proceeded without obstacle down the Borysthenes, as far as the seven or thirteen ridges of rocks, which traverse the bed, and precipitate the waters, of the river. At the more shallow falls it was sufficient to lighten the vessels; but the deeper cataracts were impassable; and the mariners, who dragged their vessels and their slaves six miles over land, were exposed in this toilsome journey to the robbers of the desert. (54) At the first island below the falls, the Russians celebrated the festival of their escape; at a second, near the mouth of the river, they repaired their shattered vessels for the longer and more perilous voyage of the Black Sea. If they steered along the coast, the Danube was accessible; with a fair wind they could reach in thirty-six or forty hours the opposite shores of Anatolia; and Constantinople admitted the annual visit of the strangers of the North. They returned at the stated season with a rich cargo of corn, wine, and oil, the manufactures of Greece, and the spices of India. Some of their countrymen resided in the capital and provinces; and the national treaties protected the persons, effects, and privileges of the Russian merchant. (55)

But the same communication which had been opened for the benefit, was soon abused for the injury, of mankind. In a period of one hundred and ninety years, the Russians made four attempts to plunder the treasures of Constantinople: the event was various, but the motive, the means, and the object, were the same in these naval expeditions. (56) The Russian traders had seen the magnificence and tasted the luxury of the city of the Cesars. A marvellous tale, and a scanty supply, excited the desires of their savage countrymen: they envied the gifts of nature which their climate denied; they coveted the works of art which they were too lazy to imitate and too indigent to purchase the Varangian princes unfurled the banners of piratical adventure, and their bravest soldiers were drawn from the nations that dwelt in the northern isles of the ocean. (57) The image of their naval armaments was revived in the last century, in the fleets of the Cossacks, which issued from the Borysthenes, to navigate the same seas, for a similar purpose.(58) The Greek appellation of monoxyla, or single canoes, might be justly applied to the bottom of their vessels. It was scooped out of the long stem of a beech or willow, but the slight and narrow foundation was raised and continued on either side with planks, till it attained the length of sixty, and the height of

necromanticis omnes domus sunt plenæ....a toto orbe ibi responsa petuntur maxime ab Hispanis (forsan Zapanis, id est regulis Letoviæ) et Græcis. The name of Greeks was applied to the Russians even before their conversion; an imperfect conversion; if they still consulted the wizards of Curland (Bayer, tom, x. p. 378. 402, &c. Grotius, Prolegomen. ad Hist. Goth. p. 99).

(54) Constantine only reckons seven cataracts, of which he gives the Russian and Sclavonic names; but thirteen are enumerated by the Sieur de Beauplan, a French engineer, who had surveyed the course and navigation of the Dnieper or Borysthenes (Description d'Ukraine, Rouen, 1860, a thin quarto); but the map is unluckily wanting in my copy.

(55) Nestor, apud Leveque, Hist. de Russie, tom. i. p. 78-80. From the Dnieper or Borysthenes, the Russians went to Black Bulgaria, Chazaria, and Syria. To Syria, how? where when? May we not, instead of Evola, read Evavia (de Administrat. Imp. c. 42, p. 113)? The alteration is slight; the position of Suania, between Chazaria and Zazica, is perfectly suitable; and the name was still used in the eleventh century (Cedren. tom. ii. p. 770).

(56) The wars of the Russians and Greeks in the ixth. xth. and xith centuries, are related in the Byzantine Annals, especially those of Zonaras and Cedrenus; and all their testimonics are collected in the Russica of Stritter, tom. ii. pars ii. p. 939–1044.

(57) Προσεταιρισάμενος δε και συμμαχικον εκ ολίγον από των κατοικέντων εν τοις προσαρκτιοις το Οκεανο VALS Orov. Cedrenus, in Compend. p. 758.

(58) See Beauplan (Description de l'Ukraine, p. 54-61): his descriptions are lively, his plans are accurate, and, except the circumstance of fire arms, we may read old Russians for modern Cossacks. VOL. IV.-E

about twelve, feet. These boats were built without a deck, but with two rudders and a mast; to move with sails and oars; and to contain from forty to seventy men, with their arms, and provisions of fresh water and salt fish. The first trial of the Russians was made with two hundred boats; but when the national force was exerted, they might arm against Constantinople a thousand or twelve hundred vessels. Their fleet was not much inferior to the royal navy of Agamemnon, but it was magnified in the eyes of fear to ten or fifteen times the real proportion of its strength and numbers. Had the Greek emperors been endowed with foresight to discern, and vigour to prevent, perhaps they might have sealed with a maritime force the mouth of the Borysthenes. Their indolence abandoned the coast of Anatolia to the calamities of a piratical war, which, after an interval of six hundred years, again infested the Euxine; but as long as the capital was respected, the sufferings of a distant province escaped the notice both of the prince and the historian. The storm which had swept along from the Phasis and Trebizond, at length burst on the Bosphorus of Thrace; a strait of fifteen miles, in which the rude vessels of the Russian might have been stopped and destroyed by a more skilful adversary. In their first enterprise (59) under the princes of Kiow, they passed without opposition, and occupied the port of Constantinople in the absence of the emperor Michael, the son of Theophilus. Through a crowd of perils he landed at the palace stairs, and immediately repaired to a church of the Virgin Mary.(60) By the advice of the patriarch, her garment, a precious relic, was drawn from the sanctuary and dipped in the sea; and a seasonable tempest, which determined the retreat of the Russians, was devoutly ascribed to the mother of God. (61) The silence of the Greeks may inspire some doubt of the truth, or at least of the importance, of the second by Oleg, the guardian of the sons of Ruric.(62) A strong barrier of arms and fortifications defended the Bosphorus: they were eluded by the usual expeattempt dient of drawing the boats over the isthmus; and this simple operation is described in the national chronicles, as if the Russian fleet had sailed over dry land with a brisk and favourable gale. The leader of the third armament, Igor, the son of Ruric, had chosen a moment of weakness and decay, when the naval powers of the empire were employed against the Saracens. But if courage be not wanting, the instruments of defence are seldom deficient. Fifteen broken and decayed galleys were boldly launched against the enemy; but instead of the single tube of Greek fire usually planted on the prow, the sides and stern of each vessel were abundantly supplied with that liquid combustible. The engineers were dexterous; the weather was propitious; many thousand Russians, who chose rather to be drowned than burned, leaped into the sea; and those who escaped to the Thracian shore were inhumanly slaughtered by the peasants and soldiers. Yet one third of the canoes escaped into shallow water; and the next spring Igor was again prepared to retrieve his disgrace and claim his revenge. (63) After a long peace, Jaroslaus, the great-grandson of Igor, resumed the same project of a naval invasion. A fleet, under the command of his son, was repulsed at the entrance of the Bosphorus by the same artificial flames. But in the rashness of pursuit the

(59) It is to be lamented, that Bayer has only given a dissertation de Russorum primá Expeditione Constantinopolitana (Comment. Academ. Petropol. tom. vi. p. 365--391). After disentangling some chronological intricacies, he fixes it in the years 864 or 865, a date which might have smoothed some doubts and difficulties in the beginning of M. Leveque's history. (60) When Photius wrote his enciclic epistle on the conversion of the Russians, the miracle was not yet sufficiently ripe; he reproaches the nation as εις ωμότητα και μιαιφονίαν πάντας δευτερες τατζόμενον. (61) Leo Grammaticus, p. 463, 464. 121, 122. Simeon Logothet. p. 445, 446. Georg. Monach. p. 535, 536. Cedrenus, tom. ii. p. 551. ZonaConstantini Continuator, in Script. post. Theophanem, p. ras, tom. ii. p. 162.

(63) Leo Grammaticus, p. 506, 507. Incert. Contin. p. 263, 264.

(62) See Nestor and Nicon, in Leveque's Hist. de Russie, tom. i. p. 74-80. Katona (Hist. Ducum, p. 75-79,) uses his advantage to disprove this Russian victory, which would cloud the siege of Kiow by the Hungarians. Georg. Monach. p. 588, 589. Cedren. tom. ii. p. 629. Zonaras, tom. ii. p. 190, 191, and Liutprand, 1. v. c. 6, who writes from the narratives of his father-in-law, then ambassador at Constantinople, and corSimeon Logothet. p. 490, 491. rects the vain exaggeration of the Greeks.

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