Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/892

Rh 860 M O S M O S a little more influence than other independent rulers in the affairs of north-eastern Russia, and was recognized as the eldest prince by the khans. The towns which recognized his supremacy were quite independent, and only paid to his representatives the judi ciary taxes, in exchange for military protection. It is only under Ivan III. (called the Great by some Russian historians) that the prince of Moscow asserted his claims on other parts of Russia, and called himself &quot; Ruler of all Russia &quot; (Hospodar vseya Eosii). It was about this time, when the wealth of Moscow was rapidly in creasing by the extension of its trade, that the embellishment of the town began. In room of the old cathedral Uspensky, a new structure was built by Fioraventi of Bologna, aided by Novgorod masons. The cathedral Arkhangelsky was also rebuilt, and a third, Blagovyeschensky, was erected, as well as a stone palace and other buildings. The Kremlin was fortified by strong towers, and the houses and churches built close to the walls were destroyed. In 1520 Moscow was said to contain 45,000 houses and 100,000 in habitants. Its trade was very active. Ivan IV. finally annexed Novgorod and Pskov to Moscow, and subdued Kazan and Astra khan. But after this reign Moscow suffered for a long time a series of misfortunes. In 1547 two dreadful conflagrations destroyed nearly all the city, and a few days later the khan of the Crimea advanced against it with 100,000 men. He was compelled to retire from the banks of the Oka, but in 1571, taking advantage of the state into which Russia was brought by the extravagances of Ivan, he took Moscow and burned all the town outside the Kremlin. The gates of the Kremlin having been shut, thousands of people died in the flames, and the annals record that of the 200,000 who then formed the population of Moscow, only 30,000 remained. In 1591 the Mongols were again in Moscow and avenged their repulse from the Kremlin on the inhabitants of the open town. By the end of the 16th century Moscow was a large city, not less than 14 miles in circumference. The &quot; Great Posad,&quot; or city, containing several Gostinoy Dvors for merchants of all nationali ties, was enclosed in 1534 by a trench and stone wall, which still exist. The &quot; White Town&quot; which enclosed the Kremlin and Great Posad from west and north was also fortified, in 1586, by a stone wall (destroyed in the 18th century) ; and in 1588 a third enclosure, a palisaded earthen wall, the Zemlyanoy-Gorod, was begun, including all the town that surrounded the three former subdivi sions ; it remained until the end of the 18th century. Foreigners who visited Moscow spoke with astonishment of its wealth and its beauty. But the internal affairs of the capital were in very bad case. During the century, owing to the increase of population, new annexations, and a lively trade, the power of the boyars had gradually increased. The peasants who settled on their lands, or on the estates of the prince given to boyars, had gradually become their serfs ; and the political tendency of the boyars, supported by the wealthier middle classes (which had also a rapid develop ment in the same century), was to become rulers of Russia, like the noblesse of Poland. During the reign of Theodore, Boris Godunoff, the regent, ordered the murder of the heir to the throne, Demetrius, son of Ivan IV., and himself became czar of Russia. Moscow suffered severely in the struggle which ensued, especially when the populace rose and exterminated the Polish garrison, on which occasion the whole of the town outside the Kremlin was again burned and plundered. But in compensation it had acquired in the eyes of the nation a greatly-increased moral importance, as a stronghold against foreign invasions. The monastery of Troitsa, which the Poles besieged without taking, was invested with a higher sanctity. The town also by and by recovered its commercial importance, and this the more as other commercial cities were ruined, or fell into the hands of foreigners ; and thirty years after 1612 Moscow was again a wealthy city. Owing, however, to the ever-increasing concentration of power in the hands of the czars, and the steady development of autocracy, it lost much of its political importance, and assumed more and more, especially under Alexis Miknailovitch, the character of a private estate of the czar, its suburbs becoming mere dependencies of his vast household. During the whole of the 17th century Moscow continued to be the scene of many troubles and internal struggles. The people several times revolted against the favourites of the czar, and were subdued only by cruel executions, in which the strcltzy a class of citizens and merchants rendering hereditary military service supported the czar. Afterwards appeared the raskol or noncon formist movement, and in 1648, when the news spread that Stenka Razin was advancing on Moscow &quot;to settle his accounts with the boyars,&quot; the populace was kept from rising only by severe repres sive measures and by the defeat of the invader. Later on, the strcltzy themselves engaged in a series of rebellions, which led the youthful Peter I. to shed rivers of blood. The opposition encoun tered at Moscow by his plans of reforming Russia according to his ideal of military autocracy, the conspiracies of the boyars and mer chants, the distrust of the mass of the people, all compelled him afterwards to leave the city, and to seek, as his ancestors had done, for a new capital. This he founded on the very confines of the military empire lie was trying to establish. In the course of the 18th century Moscow became the seat of a passive and discontented opposition to the St Petersburg Govern ment. Peter I., wishing to see Moscow like other capitals of western Europe, ordered that only stone houses should be built within the walls of the town, that the streets should be paved, and so on ; but his orders were only partially executed. In 1722 the Kremlin was restored. In 1739 the city became once more the prey of a great conflagration ; two others followed in 1748 and 1753, and gave an opportunity for enlarging some streets and squares. In 1755 the first Russian university was founded at Moscow. Catherine II. tried to conciliate the nobility, and applied herself to benefit the capital with new and useful buildings, such as the senate house, the foundlings and several other hospitals, salt stores, &c. The cemeteries within the town were closed after the plague of 1771 ; several streets were enlarged, and the squares cleared of the small shops that encumbered them. Water was brought by an aqueduct from the Mytischi villages. In 1787 the city had 303 churches, 24 monasteries and convents, 8965 houses (of which 1595 were of stone), one printing-office, and 314 manufactories and larger workshops. The last public disaster was experienced by Moscow in 1812. On 13th September, six days after the battle of Borodino, the Russian troops evacuated Moscow, leaving 11,000 wounded, and the next day the French occupied the Kremlin. The same night, while Napoleon was waiting for a deputation of Moscow notables, and received only a deputation of the rich raskolnik merchants, the capital was set on fire by its own inhabitants, the Gostinoy Dvor, with its stores of wine, spirits, and chemical stuffs, becoming the first prey of the flames. The inhabitants abandoned the city, and it was pillaged by the French troops, as well as by Russians them selves, and the burning of Moscow became the signal of a general rising of the peasants against the French. The want of supplies and the impossibility of wintering in a ruined city, continually attacked by Cossacks and peasants, compelled Napoleon to leave Moscow on 19th October, after he had unsuccessfully tried to blow up certain parts of the Kremlin. (P. A. K. ) MOSELLE. See EHINE. MOSER, JOHANN JAKOB (1701-1785), jurist, was born at Stuttgart on 18th January 1701. He studied at the university of Tubingen, where, at the early age of nineteen, he became professor extraordinarius of law. A year later he resigned his chair, with the expectation of receiving an appointment at Vienna, but this was refused him on his declining to join the Catholic Church. From 1729 lie for some years held an ordinary professorship of law at Tubingen, and in 1736 he accepted a chair and directorship in the university of Frankfort-on-the-Oder. On account, however, of differences with King William I. of Prussia, he resigned these in 1 739 and retired to Ebersdorf, a village in the principality of Reuss, where for several years he devoted himself wholly to study, and especially to the production of his Deutsches Staatsrecht. In 1751 lie was called back to Wiirtemberg as &quot;landschaftsconsulent,&quot; and in 1759 was imprisoned at Hohentwiel on account of the steps he had taken in connexion with this office against certain tyrannical proceedings of the duke. In 1764 he received his liberty and was restored to office, but from that time took little part in political affairs. He died 30th September 1785. Moscr was the first to discuss in an adequate form the subject of European international law, and he is the most voluminous German writer on public law. In all, he wrote more than 500 volumes, his principal works being Deutsches Staatsrecht, 1737-1754 ; Kcucs Deutsches Staatsrecht, 1766-1775 ; Deutsches Staatsarchiv, 1751-1757 ; Grundriss der hcutigcn Staatsrerfassung von Dcutschland, 1754. See Schmid, Das Lebcn J. J. Moscr s, 1868 ; Schulze, J. J. Moscr, der Vatcr dcs Dcutschcn Staatsrcchts, 1 869. MOSES. Of the life of Moses we have few certain details, though the history of Israel bears witness to the importance of his work. To what has been said under ISRAEL there will here be added a brief summary of what has been handed down about him. His origin and the history of his childhood can be read in Exod. i., ii. (comp vi. 16 sg.) ; the statements there given are enlarged and modified in the Jewish Mid rash, particularly as we find it in Josephus and Philo. 1 The daughter of Pharaoh, we are told, was called Thermutis (Ant., ii. 9, 5), or Merris (Euseb., 1 In still more fantastic form in the Palestinian Targuiu on Exodus, the details of which need not be repeated here.