Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/607

 EASTERN EUROPE IN LATER MIDDLE AGES 551 hundred thousand dwelling-houses and as reported to have once had an even greater population. From this center routes continued east to Bokhara and Samarkand, while others led south to the great port of Ormuz on the Persian Gulf, whence one could proceed to India and Ceylon by sea. There was also, of course, the southernmost route by the Red Sea which did not pass through Mongol territory. Russia remained under the sway of the Golden Horde until nearly the close of the fifteenth century. The Mongols allowed the Russians their own religion and to w. . . . . Russia some extent their own laws and princes, who were, however, liable to be executed at any moment by order of the khan. But the Mongols forced the Russians to serve in their armies, burdened them with oppressive taxes, and enslaved them if they did not pay. Under such conditions economic or intellectual progress was impos- sible. Finally, about 1480 the Golden Horde broke up and Russia escaped from the Mongol yoke. Ivan III of Mos- cow ( 1 462-1 505) now tried to bring all Russia under his rule. He ruined Novgorod and drove out the Hanseatic nerchants, and carried on successful campaigns against
 * he Lithuanians.

While both Poland and Hungary had suffered terribly Ifrom the first Mongol invasions, they escaped the later iomination of the Golden Horde. These two Kingdoms countries and Bohemia were contiguous, and as of central i result tended to form dynastic unions or to engage in wars over questions of boundaries with one an- other. In all three countries the kingship was elective. >ilesia, comprising the upper valley of the Oder, was the lisputed territory lying between Poland and Bohemia. egion between Poland and Hungary, while Moravia inter- ened between Hungary and Bohemia. 'oland had been divided into several contending tates. From 1300 to 1306 the King of Bohemia ecame king of the Poles also, and when the two coun-
 * }alicia, just north of the Carpathians, was the frontier
 * During much of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries