War and the Economy in the Reign of Vasilii II

Abstract

This article examines some of the economic dimensions of war in the reign of Vasilii II and argues that Rus’, much like England during the Wars of the Roses, suffered economic stagnation and perhaps even a depression. The combination of war, plague, and famine in Rus’ resulted in a decline in population and strained economic resources evidenced by abandoned agrarian lands, the burden of the Mongol tribute and princely debts, debased silver coinage, and the cessation of urban expansion, Moscow being the major exception. Moscow, like London, prospered, but most of England and northeastern Rus’ did not. Pillage, ransom, and territorial aggrandizement were some of the means Moscow employed to augment its acquisition of silver beyond that supplied by the fur trade. Immunity charters were offered to retain and to attract peasant settlers in an effort to stabilize agriculture and with it a taxable population. The relative prosperity of the eras of Ivan III and Vasilii III should not obscure the economic contraction that occurred in the late fourteenth and first half of the fifteenth centuries.