Richard Hakluyt

“ Next unto Moscow, the city of Novogorode is reputed the chiefest of Russia; for although it be in majesty inferior to it, yet in greatness it goeth beyond it. It is the chiefest and greatest mart town of all Muscovy; and albeit the Emperor’s seat is not there, but at Moscow, yet the commodiousness of the river falling into the gulf which is called Sinus Finnicus, whereby it is well frequented by merchants, makes it more famous than Moscow itself. This town excels all the rest in the commodities of flax and hemp; it yields also hides, honey, and wax. ”

“ Which intention of yours we also of the nobility are ready to our power to help and further: neither do we hold anything so dear and precious unto us, which we will not willingly forego, and lay out in so commendable a cause. But principally I rejoice in myself, that I have nourished and maintained that wit which is like by some means and in some measure to profit and stead you in this worthy action. ”

“ This Emperor useth great familiarity, as well unto all his nobles and subjects, as also unto Strangers which serve him either in his wars or in occupations: for his pleasure is that they shall dine oftentimes in the year in his presence; and, besides that, he is oftentimes abroad, either at one church or another, and walking with his noblemen abroad. And by this means he is not only beloved of his nobles and commons, but also had in great dread and fear through all his dominions, so that I think no prince in Christendom is more feared of his own than he is, nor yet better beloved. ”

“ The husband is bound to find the wife colours to paint her withal, for they use ordinarily to paint themselves; it is such a common practice among them that it is counted for no shame. They grease their faces with such colours that a man may discern them hanging on their faces almost a fight-shot off. I cannot so well liken them as to a miller’s wife, for they look as though they were beaten about the face with a bag of meal; but their eyebrows they colour as black as jet. ”

“ As for the furniture of the Emperor himself, it is then above all other times most notable. The coverings of his tent for the most part are all of gold, adorned with stones of great price, and with the curious workmanship of plumasiers; as often as they are to skirmish with the enemy, they go forth without any order at all; they make no wings, nor military divisions of their men, as we do, but lying for the most part in ambush, do suddenly set upon the enemy. Their horses can well abstain two whole days from any meat. ”

“ When any man or woman dieth, they stretch him out, and put a new pair of shoes on his feet, because he hath a great journey to go; then do they wind him in a sheet, as we do; but they forget not to put a testimony in his right hand, which the priest giveth him to testify unto St. Nicholas that he died a Christian man or woman. And they put the corse always in a coffin of wood, although the party be very poor—and when they go towards the church, the friends and kinsmen of the party departed carry in their hands small wax candles, and they weep and howl and make much lamentation. ”

“ To those monks that are of this order there is amongst them a perpetual prohibition that they may eat no flesh; and, therefore, their meat is only salt fish, milk, and butter; neither is it permitted them by the laws and customs of their religion to eat any fresh fish at all, and at those four fasting times whereof we spake before they eat no fish at all: only they live with herbs, and cucumbers, which they do continually for that purpose cause, and take order, to grow and spring for their use and diet.
As for their drink, it is very weak and small. ”

“ All men are bound by their law to have those images in their houses; and over every gate in all their towns and cities are images set up, unto which the people bow and bend, and knock their heads against the ground before them. ”

“ The Metropolitan is next unto God, Our Lady and St. Nicholas excepted; for the Emperor’s Majesty judgeth and affirmeth him to be of higher dignity than himself: “For that,” saith he, “he is God’s spiritual officer, and I, the Emperor, am His temporal officer;” and therefore his Majesty submitteth himself unto him in many things concerning religious matters, as in leading the Metropolitan horse upon Palm Sunday, and giving him leave to sit on a chair upon the Twelfth Day, when the river Moscow was in blessing, and his Majesty standing on the ice. ”

“ The Emperor’s Majesty eateth but one morsel of bread and drinketh but one draught of drink but once in the day during that week, and all men that are of any reputation come not out of their houses during that time; so that the streets are almost void of company, saving a few poor folk who wander to and fro. The other six weeks they keep as we do ours, but not one of them will eat either butter, cheese, eggs, or milk. ”

“ Touching the Riphean Mountains, whereupon the snow lieth continually, and where hence in times past it was thought that Tanais the river did spring, and that the rest of the wonders of Nature which the Grecians feigned and invented of old were there to be seen, our men which lately came from thence neither saw them, nor yet have brought home any perfect relation of them, although they remained there for the space of three months, and had gotten in that time some intelligence of the language of Muscovy. The whole country is plain and champaign, and few hills in it ”

“ There is no ale brewed amongst the Estonians, but they have mead in profusion.
“There is also this custom with the Estonians, that when anyone dies the corpse continues unburnt with the relations and friends for at least a month, sometimes two; and the bodies of kings and illustrious men, according to their respective wealth, lie sometimes even for half a year before the corpse is burned, and the body continues above ground in the house, during which time drinking and sports are prolonged till the day on which the body is consumed. ”

“ Item, that John Brooke, our merchant for the Wardhouse, take good advice of the rest of our agents how to use himself in all affairs while the ship shall be at the Wardhouse; he to see good order to be kept, and make bargains advisedly, not crediting the people until their natures, dispositions, and fidelities shall be well tried; make no debts, but to take ware for ware in hand, and rather be trusted than to trust. ”

“ John Howlet, master, and John Robbins, pilot, of the Philip and Mary—shall confer and consult together that is most profitable to be done therefore for the benefit of the company, and to consider whether they may bargain with the captain of the Castle, and the inhabitants in that place, or along the coast for a large quantity of fish—dry or wet—killed by the naturals, or to be taken by our men at a price reasonable for truck of cloth, meal, salt, or beer, and what train-oil or other commodity is to be had there at this time, or any other season of the year ”

“ So that I think it the next way to know the just weight as well of the great pound as of the small.
There is another weight needful to be known, which is the weight of Wardhouse; for so much as they weigh all their dry fish by weight, which weight is the basemere as they of Russia do use, notwithstanding there is another sort in it. The names of those weights are these: the marke pound, the great pound, the wee and the ship pound. The marke pound is to be understood as our pound, and their great is twenty-four of their marke pound; the wee is three great pound; and eight wee is a ship pound. ”

“ They have no lawyers, but every man is his own advocate; and both the complaint of the accuser and the answer of the defendant are in manner of petition delivered to the Emperor, entreating justice at his hands. The Emperor himself heareth every great controversy, and, upon the hearing of it, giveth judgment, and that with great equity, which I take to be a thing worthy of special commendation in the majesty of a prince. ”

“ These two rivers come out together into Estmere, the Ilfing east from Eastland, and the Weissel south from Weonodland. Then the Weissel deprives the Ilfing of its name, and, flowing from the west part of the lake, at length empties itself northward into the sea, whence this point is called the Weissel-mouth. This country called Eastland is very extensive, and there are in it many towns, and in every town is a king. There is a great quantity of honey and fish; and even the king and the richest men drink mare’s milk, whilst the poor and the slaves drink mead. ”

“ When seven days are past, from the beginning of the fast, then they often do either go to their churches or keep themselves at home and use often prayer; and for that seven nights they eat nothing but herbs; but after that seven night fast is once past, then they return to their old intemperance of drinking, for they are notable toss-pots. As for the keeping of their fasting days, they do it very straitly, neither do they eat anything besides herbs and salt fish as long as those fasting days do endure; but upon every Wednesday and Friday, in every week throughout the year, they fast. ”

“ The great pound is just two small pounds; they call the great weight by the name of beasemar, and the small they call the skallawaight. With this small weight they weigh their silver coins, of which the Emperor hath commanded to put to every small pound three rubbles of silver; and with the same weight they weigh all grocery wares, and almost all other wares, which come into the land, except those which they weigh by the pode, as hops, salt, iron, lead, tin, and batrie, with divers others. Notwithstanding, they used to weigh batrie more often by the small weight than by the great. ”

“ Nicholas at anchor, you shall go ashore with the first boat that shall depart from the ship, taking with you such letters as you have to deliver to the agent there: and if he be not there at your coming ashore, then send the company’s letters to Colmogro to him by some sure mariner or otherwise, as the master and you shall think best; but go not yourself at any hand, nor yet from aboard the ship unless it be ashore to treat with the agent for the lading of the ship that you be appointed in, which you shall apply diligently to have done so speedily as may be. ”

“ Of Moscow, the Chief City of the Kingdom, and of the Emperor thereof.
It remaineth that a large discourse be made of Moscow, the principal city of that country, and of the prince also, as before we have promised. The empire and government of the king is very large, and his wealth at this time exceeding great. And because the city of Moscow is the chiefest of all the rest, it seemeth of itself to challenge the first place in this discourse. Our men say, that in bigness it is as great as the city of London, with the suburbs thereof. ”

“ If a poor man happen to grow in debt, his creditor takes him, and maketh him pay the debt in working either to himself or to some other man whose wages he taketh up. And there are some among them that used willingly to make themselves, their wives, and children bondslaves unto rich men—to have a little money at the first into their hands, and so for ever after content themselves with meat and drink, so little account do they make of liberty. ”

“ The town of Vologda is meetest for our merchants, because it lieth amongst all the best towns of Russia, and there is no town in Russia but trades with it; also the water is a great commodity to it. If they plant themselves in Moscow or Novogrod their charge will be great and wonderful, but not so in Vologda, for all things will there be had better cheap by the one-half ”

“ Which constancy of mind in all the company did exceedingly increase their captain’s carefulness; for he being swallowed up with like goodwill and love towards them, feared lest, through any error of his, the safety of the company should be endangered. ”

“ Item, if the Emperor will enter into bargain with you for the whole mass of your stock, and will have the trade of it to utter to his own subjects, then debating the matter prudently among yourselves, set such high prices of your commodities as you may assure yourselves to be gainers in your own wares, and yet—to buy theirs at such base prices as you may here also make a commodity and gain at home, having in your minds the notable charges that the company have defrayed in advancing this voyage ”

“ Their fields yield such store of corn, that in conveying it towards Moscow, sometimes in a forenoon, a man shall see seven hundred or eight hundred sleds going and coming, laden with corn and salt fish; the people come a thousand miles to Moscow to buy that corn, and then carry it away upon sleds; and these are those people that dwell in the north parts, where the cold is so terrible that no corn doth grow there, or, if it spring up, it never comes to ripeness. ”

“ Forasmuch as it is not possible to write and indite such prescribed orders, rules, and commissions to you the agents and factors, but that occasion, time, and place, and the pleasures of the princes, together with the operation or success of fortune, shall change or shift the same, although not in the whole, yet in part, therefore the said company do commit to you their dear and entire beloved agents and factors, to do in this behalf for the commodity and wealth of this company, as by your discretions, upon good advised deliberations, shall be thought good and beneficial. ”

“ Concerning the tolls and customs of Russia, it was reported to me in Muscovy that the Turks and Armenians pay the tenth penny custom of all the wares they bring into the Emperor’s land, and above that they pay for all such goods as they weigh at the Emperor’s beam two pence of the rouble, which the buyer or seller must make report of to the master of the beam. They also pay a certain horse toll, which is in divers places of his realm four pence of a horse. ”