276 ORIGIN OF THE RUSSIAN MONARCHY. [CH. LV. The Normans, who had so long been concealed by a veil of impenetrable darkness, suddenly burst 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,* 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 a 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 objections have been answered by M. Christian Schlözer, the translator's son. Ch. Villers, Coup-d'œil sur l'Allemagne, p. 95.-Guizor.] [Of Schlözer's translation of Nestor's work a fifth volume was published in 1809, bringing the history down to the accession of Vladimir in 980, since which no more has appeared. The substance of Nestor is contained in Levesque (Hist. de Russie, 8 vols. 8vo.), and an epitome of both works has lately been given by Kelly in his history of Russia, published in Bohn's Standard Library.-ED.] Theophil. Sig. Bayer de Varagis (for the name is differently spelt), in Comment. Academ. Petropolitanæ, tom. iv. 275--311. [The Varægr of the Baltic (whose name is probably a corruption of Farægr, farers, or wanderers; see note on the Lombard Faras, vol. v. p. 120) must not be confounded with the Varangi of Constantinople. See a subsequent note.-ED.] methods of war and assassination, were cemented into the fabric of a powerful monarchy. 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.* 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 * Yet, as late as the year 1018, Kiow and Russia were still guarded ex fugitivorum servorum robore 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 278 GEOGRAPHY OF RUSSIA. [CH. LV. treasury, and the capital, were held by the firm and faithful hands of the Varangians.* 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.† The sons of Ruric were service. * Ducange has collected from the original authors the state and history of the Varangi at Constantinople. (Glossar. Med. et Infimæ Græcitatis, sub voce Bipayyol. Med. et Infimæ Latinitatis, sub voce Vagri. Not. ad Alexiad. Annæ Comnenæ, p. 256-258. Notes sur Villehardouin, p. 296-299.) See likewise the annotations of Reiske to the Ceremoniale Aulæ Byzant. of Constantine, tom. ii. p. 149, 150. Saxo-Grammaticus affirms that they spoke Danish; but Codinus maintains them till the fifteenth century in the use of their native English: Πολυχρονίζουσι οἱ Βάραγγοι κατὰ τὴν πάτριον γλῶσσαν αὐτῶν ἤγουν γκληνιστί. [These legends are so inconsistent and confused, that any more probable explanation of the Varangi may be admitted. It is well known that Tacitus (Germ. 40) heard of Varini and Angli as contiguous tribes. Four hundred years later, Theodoric (Cassiod. Var. 3. 3) addressed a letter to a "Rex Guarnorum et Thoringorum," and the code of laws imperfectly quoted by Gibbon (ch. 38, vol. iv. note, p. 225, 226) proves their existence at a later period, as a part of the Thuringian people. It is likely that some of these abandoned their ancient homes during the wars of Charlemagne, and that their descendants, after years of wandering, made their way to Constantinople, and offered their services to the emperor. Their names of Varini and Angli would easily blend together in that of Varangi; and their Anglic language, preserved by them, would still more easily be mistaken by the Greeks for the English of a remote and very imperfectly known people. This hypothesis is far more reasonable than that of the Varægr, or sea-rovers of the Baltic (Mallet, North. Ant. p. 193) having crossed the whole continent of Europe, by overland journeys, to ask for a conveyance back by sea; and of a colony of English and Danes seeking so distant a refuge as Constantinople from their Norman conqueror. See ch. 56. Nicetas (ad Alex. 2) says decidedly that the Varangi were Germans. Wilken (Geschichte der Kreuzzüge, 1. 106) calls them Germanische Völker. Reiske, in his Commentary (p. 474-6, edit. Niebuhr), makes the ȧkolóvlog of Const. Porph. (De Cere. p. 442) to be the "Varangorum securiferorum magister." This, if correct, would prove these guards to have wielded their battle-axes in Constantinople seventy years before the time of Vladimir, who is said to have first sent them there. It is, moreover, contended by Reiske that Varangi was only another form of Frangi or Franci. This is far more probable than the current tales; but he himself quotes passages in which Varangi et Franci are named as distinct bands of armed men; nor does he account satisfactorily for there being Angli among them. -ED.] The original record of the geography and trade of Russia is produced by the emperor 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 sea. 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* and Kiowt 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 Constantine Porphyrogenitus (de Administ. Imp., 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 Geographiâ 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. The haughty proverb "Who can resist God and the great Novogorod?" is applied by M. Levesque (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. i. p. 123– 129). + 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 decus Græciæ. The fame of Kiow, especially in the 280 GEOGRAPHY AND TRADE [CH. LV. 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 Cæsars. 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. 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, * eleventh century, had reached the German and the Arabian geographers. * In Odoræ ostio quâ 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. [Julin fell in the year 1177, and the Hanseatic league was not formed till the next century. (Sartorius, Geschichte des Hanseatischen Bundes, 1. 70.) There are two islands in the mouth of the Oder. On one of them, now called Usedom, stood a sea-port of the ancient Venedi, which old chronicles name Wineta. It was destroyed by fire or flood about the year 800. This catastrophe transferred its trade to Julin, on the adjacent island, between the two channels of the Schweine and Diwenow. In the hands of the Sclavonians, this place rose into importance by ministering to the wants of increasing society. It resisted successfully many attacks of the Danes, till, after nearly four hundred years of prosperity, it was overthrown and crushed by their king Waldemar, one of those acts of rapine which induced the Hanse Towns to confederate for mutual protection. This is the best ascertained history of two places respecting which there have been such exaggerations as to make the very existence of Wineta appear doubtful. (Mallet's North. Ant. p. 139.) Yet Sartorius believed them both to have been in succession early entres of Baltic commerce (1. 14). Julin indeed, still survives as Wollin, a small town containing from two to three hundred inhabitants, |