he benefit of the State and
of the lord.

A Russian town consisted, first of the _kremlin_, a fortress of wood
which, when required, was defended by "men of the service"; then came
the suburbs, built around the kremlin, and inhabited by the people.
They were governed by a _voievod_ or governor, appointed by the czar,
or by a starost or mayor, elected by the nobles, priests, and
privileged citizens. The principal duty of the citizens was to pay the
taxes, and therefore they were forbidden to leave the city. Under the
Czar Alexis, the penalty for such offense was death.

The merchants did not form a separate class. They are known in Russian
as _gosti_ or guests, thus showing that, notwithstanding the old and
honorable record of Novgorod and Kief, the Tartar yoke and subsequent
arbitrary rule of the grand dukes had ruined trade or left it in the
hands of aliens. Ivan the Terrible called them the moujiks of commerce.
Fletcher, an Englishman who spent many years in Moscow under Ivan IV,
gives the following curious pen picture: "Often you will see them (p. 125)
trembling with fear, lest a boyard should know what they have to sell.
I have seen them at times, when they had spread out their wares so
that you might make a better choice, look all around them,--as if they
feared an enemy would surprise them and lay hands on them. If I asked
them the cause, they would say to me, 'I was afraid that there might
be a noble or one of the sons of boyards here: they would take away my
merchandise by force.'"

The Russian women were kept secluded in women's quarters as they are
in China, but they remained a member of their own family. A wife's
duty was "to obey her husband as the slave obeys his master," and she
was taught to think of herself as her master's property. He had the
right to punish her as he did his children or his slaves. The priest
Silvester advises the husband not to use sticks that are too thick or
tipped with iron, nor to whip her before his men, but to correct her
moderately and in private. No Russian woman dared object to being
beaten. A Russian proverb says: "I love you like my soul, and I dust
you like my jacket."

The men wore oriental tunics or robes, and a long beard; the women
painted their faces. Ivan the Terrible said that to shave the beard
was "a sin that the blood of all the martyrs could not cleanse. Was it
not to defile the image of man created by God?"

There was a general belief in magic and witchc