archy. During the whole of this time no tribute was paid to the
khan, though vast sums of money were collected in the Moscow treasury for
military purposes. In 1408 the Mirza Edigei ravaged Muscovite territory,
but was unable to take Moscow. In 1412, however, Basil found it necessary
to pay the long-deferred visit of submission to the Horde. The most
important ecclesiastical event of the reign was the elevation of the
Bulgarian, Gregory Tsamblak, to the metropolitan see of Kiev (1425) by
Vitovt, grand-duke of Lithuania; the immediate political consequence of
which was the weakening of the hold of Muscovy on the south-western Russian
states. During Basil's reign a terrible visitation of the "Black Death"
decimated the population.

See T. Schiemann, _Russland bis ins 17. Jahrhundert_ (Gotha, 1885-1887).

BASIL II., called TEMNY ("the BLIND") (1415-1462), son of the preceding,
succeeded his father as grand-duke of Moscow in 1425. He was a man of small
ability and unusual timidity, though not without tenacity of purpose.
Nevertheless, during his reign Moscow steadily increased in power, as if to
show that the personality of the grand-dukes had become quite a subordinate
factor in its development. In 1430 Basil was seized by his uncle, George of
Halicz, and sent a prisoner to Kostroma; but the nation, dissatisfied with
George, released Basil and in 1433 he returned in triumph to Moscow.
George, however, took the field against him and Basil fled to Novgorod. On
the death of George, Basil was at constant variance with George's children,
one of whom, Basil, he had blinded; but in 1445 the grand-duke fell into
the hands of blind Basil's brother, Shemyak, and was himself deprived of
his sight and banished to Uglich (1445). The clergy and people, however,
being devoted to the grand-duke, assisted him not only to recover his
throne a second time, but to put Shemyak to flight, and to seize Halicz,
his patrimony. During the remainder of Basil II.'s reign he slowly and
unobtrusively added district after district to the grand-duchy of Muscovy,
so that, in fine, only the republics of Novgorod and Pskov and the
principalities of Tver and Vereya remained independent of Moscow. Yet all
this time the realm was overrun continually by the Tatars and Lithuanians,
and suffered severely from their depredations. Basil's reign saw the
foundation of the Solovetsk monastery and the rise of the khanate of the
Crimea. In 1448 the north Russian Church b