Europe: A History (93 page)
By coincidence, the fall of Granada in 1492 was witnessed by a Genoese sailor who had come to the camp at Santa Fe to seek the Catholic monarchs’ patronage. Cristoforo Colombo (c.1446–1506), known as Cristóbal Colón, had long been seeking their support for his scheme to sail across the Atlantic Ocean in search of Asia. There, after the fall of Granada, he struck the deal. On 3 August, as ‘Admiral of the Ocean’, he set sail from the port of Palos in three tiny ships—the
Santa
María
, the
Pinta
, and the
Niña
. Ten weeks later, at two in the morning on 12 (21) October, a crewman sighted land. Columbus landed at daybreak, kissed the ground, named it San Salvador, and laid claim to it for Castile and Leon. He returned to Palos, via the Azores and Lisbon, on 15 March 1493, convinced that he had discovered a route to the (East) ‘Indies’.
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That same year, after vigorous petitioning by Spain and Portugal, Pope Alexander VI agreed to set a boundary between their respective spheres of overseas interest. All land discovered to the west of a line lying 100 leagues beyond the Azores was to belong to Spain; everything to the east was to be Portugal’s. The world was neatly divided in two on the sole authority of a pope. In 1494, by the Treaty of Tordesillas, the line was moved 250 leagues further west. The event was nicely medieval. Yet it could hardly have taken place, still less been exploited, if the Iberian kingdoms had not been freed from their preoccupations with Islam. After all, Ferdinand and Isabella had stubbornly refused to negotiate with Columbus until the fall of Granada was accomplished,
[STATE]
Three thousand miles to the east, at the other extremity of Christendom, the shift of the Christian–Moslem frontier was having equally unsettling effects. By 1452, almost the whole of the Orthodox Christian world was subject to foreign rule. The Orthodox of the Greek Rite, with the exception of the tiny Byzantine Empire and its dependencies, had fallen under Ottoman rule. The Orthodox of the Slavonic Rite, with minor exceptions, had all fallen under Tartar, Polish-Lithuanian, or Hungarian rule. So, when Constantinople surrendered, it looked as if the Orthodox of Europe were set to endure the same unending captivity that the Orthodox of Asia and Africa had endured since the seventh century. In one place alone, in the city of Moscow, there were thoughts of a different destiny.
Moscow in the mid-fifteenth century, though nominally subject to the Tartar khan, enjoyed a wide measure of autonomy. It was ruled by the Grand Prince Vassily II (r. 1425–62), who, having lost his sight, relied heavily on his son and heir. Ivan III (r. 1462–1505), therefore, was already an experienced politician when he mounted the throne. The once powerful Tartar Horde was greatly weakened, and Moscow had avoided payment of the annual tribute since 1452. As a result, Ivan had hopes of escaping ‘the Tartar yoke’ for good. In this, it was obvious that he should stress his role as the champion of the Orthodox Christians against the Muslims of the south and the Catholics of Poland-Lithuania to the west. If only he could gain recognition of his sovereignty, he would then become the one and only independent and Orthodox prince on earth.
Oddly enough, Ivan’s ambition was greatly assisted by the schemes of the Roman Pope. After the disaster of 1453 the Papacy had accepted the wardship of Zoe Palaeologos (b. 1445), niece of the last Byzantine Emperor. Zoe, daughter of Thomas, Despot of Morea, had been born in Greece, but had been well educated by tutors in Rome. In 1469 she was a bright young woman of 24, eager to escape her guardians. Pope Paul II, a Venetian, thought that he could revive the union of Florence and forge a Muscovite alliance against the Turks. So, when he heard that
Ivan III was recently widowed, he produced the ideal candidate. Papal emissaries appeared in Moscow, and the match was made. Zoe travelled after them via the Baltic port of Reval. She was readmitted to the Orthodox faith, and married to Ivan on 12 November 1472. The prestige which attended Ivan’s marriage to a Byzantine princess is hard to exaggerate. Up to then, Moscow had been the most peripheral province of the most downtrodden branch of Christendom. Its princes were barely on the map. But now they were touching the mantle of the Caesars. They were only one step removed from adopting the imperial mantle for themselves.
STATE
I
N
1493, the year in which Columbus returned to the Kingdom of Castile, the map of Europe from Portugal to the Khanate of Astrakhan contained at least thirty sovereign states. Five hundred years later, if one discounts Andorra and Monaco, the Union of Kalmar and the Swiss Federation, whose independence had been little more than
de facto
, no single one of those thirty states had maintained its separate sovereign existence. Of the sovereign states on the map of Europe in 1993, four had been formed in the sixteenth century, four in the seventeenth, two in the eighteenth, seven in the nineteenth, and no fewer than thirty-six in the twentieth. The rise and fall of states represents one of the most important phenomena of modern Europe (see Appendix III, p. 1268).
State-formation in Europe has been analysed in many ways. The traditional approach was based on constitutional and international law. The aim was to describe the legal framework within which empires, monarchies, and republics organize their government, control their dependencies, and gain recognition. More recently, greater emphasis has fallen on long-term considerations—on statistical calculations of the longevity of states,
1
for example. Norbert Elias viewed state-formation as part of a civilizational process operating since the period of feudal fragmentation through the steady accretion of princely power.
2
Others have looked more at the interplay of internal structures and external relations. In one view, three types of state have prevailed— tribute-raising empires, systems of fragmented sovereignty, and national states. Their internal life-force has been dominated either by the concentration of capital, as in Venice or the United Provinces, or by the concentration of coercion, as in Russia, or by varying concentrations of the two—as in Britain, France, or Prussia. Money and violence were the prime movers. The performance of states in the international arena depended on their participation in the elaborate multilateral power combinations that have constantly coalesced and recoalesced during more than 100 major wars in Europe since the Renaissance. The key questions were: ‘How did states make war?’ and ‘How did wars make states?’
3
Many of the issues resemble those examined in a more empirical fashion by Paul Kennedy.
4
The supposedly ultimate destination, the nation-state, has been achieved many times. But the paths leading to that destination have been extremely varied. In the last resort, everything turned on power.
‘Qui a la force’
, wrote Richelieu, ‘a
souvent la raison en matière d’État.’
5
In short, ‘might is right’. Which only makes one wonder whether the nation-state should really be the ultimate destination.
In 1477–8 Ivan moved against Novgorod the Great, whose five provinces far exceeded the territory of Moscow. Novgorod had recently conceded the secular overlordship of Lithuania and the ecclesiastical authority of the Metropolitan of Kiev. Ivan saw this as a personal affront, and his army soon forced the poorly defended city to capitulate and to switch allegiance. A second visitation was made to suppress sedition, and was followed by mass executions and deportations. Pskov and Vyatka received the same treatment. In the summer of 1480 Ahmad, Khan of the Golden Horde, launched the third of his expeditions to enforce payment of Moscow’s tribute. He had counted on the aid of Poland-Lithuania, but it did not materialize. When Ivan held firm, and Ahmad retired empty handed, Moscow’s dependence on the Horde was taken to have finally lapsed. Moscow was free. By that time Ivan had started to refer to himself as ‘Tsar’ and ‘Samodyerzhets’—Russian equivalents of Caesar and Autokrator. Like Charlemagne almost 700 years before, a semi-barbarian prince was building his image not as the founder of a modern state, but rather as the reincarnator of the old, dead, and barely lamented empire of the Romans.
The Feast of Epiphany, 6 January 1493, the Kremlin, Moscow
. The celebration of the holy day was proceeding amidst the splendours of the Grand Duke’s private chapel in the
Blagoveshchensky Sobor
, the Cathedral of the Annunciation. It was the twelfth day of Christmas, the final stage of the season of the Nativity, a remembrance of the time when Christ made himself manifest to the Three Kings. Sonorous voices intoned the Byzantine Rite in words of Old Church Slavonic, which echoed round every corner of the cathedral’s domes and frescoed walls. The icon screen, which cut off the inner sanctuary, was far older than the church. It was covered by rows of icons painted by Moscow’s greatest medieval artists— Theophanes the Greek, Andrei Rublev, Prokhor of Gorodets. Black-robed and bearded priests moved round the chancel, performing the preliminary ceremonies of vesting, censing, and veiling of the gifts.
This being Epiphany, the alternate liturgy of St Basil the Great took the place of the more usual liturgy of St John Chrysostom.
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In its Slavonic version, it was essentially the same as that which was used by the Orthodox of the Balkans. Though familiar, it was no more intelligible to the Russian congregation standing patiently before the screen than Latin was to Italians or Spaniards. The public
service, the
Synaxis
or Assembly, began as the celebrants entered the nave, and a deacon recited the Litany of Peace: ‘For peace from on high, and for the salvation of our souls, let us pray to the Lord. For the peace of the whole world …’ There followed hymns, ferial anthems, psalms, the Beatitudes, lessons from the Apostles and from the Gospel, prayers, further litanies, and the Cherubic Hymn of the Thrice-Holy. The Gospel reading, introduced by the usual Preface, was taken from the first verses of Matthew 2:
Map 15.
The Growth of Muscovy
The priest
, bowing as he takes up the Book, and coming out of the holy doors preceded by tapers, turns to the west and saith:
‘Wisdom, be steadfast, let us hear the holy Gospel. Peace be with you all.’
Choir
. ‘And with thy spirit.’
Deacom
‘The Lesson of the holy Gospel according to St Matthew.’
Choir
. ‘Glory be to Thee, O Lord.’
Priest:
‘Let us give heed.’
The deacon
then reads the Lesson:
(Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the Tsar, behold there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying: Where is he that is born Tsar of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him… )
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The second part of the service, the
Anaphora
or offering of the gifts, began with the Great Entrance, when priests and deacons processed round the nave with prayers, censers, and candles. There followed the recital of the Creed, the preparation of the bread and the wine, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Communion. During Communion, the choir sang ‘Receive ye the body of Christ, Taste ye of the fountain of immortal life’. The priest, in the Orthodox tradition, mentioned every communicant by name. ‘The servant of God, Ivan, partaketh of the holy precious body and blood of… Our Saviour Jesus Christ, unto remission of his sins and unto everlasting life.’ After the thanksgiving, the priest distributed the blessed bread, held up the Cross for the people to kiss, then re-entered the chancel before the gates were shut behind him. The closing words of the Dismissal—’Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace’—were accompanied by hymns ending with the Contakion of the Sixth Tone:
Unshakeable foundation of the Church hast Thou shewn Thyself,
Unto all mankind bequeathing an assured mastery
Sealed by Thy ordinances,
Basil by heaven proven most holy,
Both now, and for ever and world without end. Amen.
Far away, unbeknown to the people of Moscow, the Admiral of the Ocean was battling at that very time against midwinter gales on the final stage of his return voyage to Spain. He would land at Palos within the week.
