lty of the tax-gatherers led to local insurrections, and the
insurrections were of course always severely punished. But there was
never any general military occupation of the country or any wholesale
confiscations of land, and the existing political organisation was left
undisturbed. The modern method of dealing with annexed provinces was
totally unknown to the Mongols. The Khans never thought of attempting
to denationalise their Russian subjects. They demanded simply an oath
of allegiance from the Princes* and a certain sum of tribute from
the people. The vanquished were allowed to retain their land, their
religion, their language, their courts of justice, and all their other
institutions.

* During the Mongol domination Russia was composed of a
large number of independent principalities.

The nature of the Mongol domination is well illustrated by the policy
which the conquerors adopted towards the Russian Church. For more than
half a century after the conquest the religion of the Tartars was
a mixture of Buddhism and Paganism, with traces of Sabaeism or
fire-worship. During this period Christianity was more than simply
tolerated. The Grand Khan Kuyuk caused a Christian chapel to be erected
near his domicile, and one of his successors, Khubilai, was in the habit
of publicly taking part in the Easter festivals. In 1261 the Khan of the
Golden Horde allowed the Russians to found a bishopric in his capital,
and several members of his family adopted Christianity. One of them
even founded a monastery, and became a saint of the Russian Church! The
Orthodox clergy were exempted from the poll-tax, and in the charters
granted to them it was expressly declared that if any one committed
blasphemy against the faith of the Russians he should be put to death.
Some time afterwards the Golden Horde was converted to Islam, but the
Khans did not on that account change their policy. They continued
to favour the clergy, and their protection was long remembered. Many
generations later, when the property of the Church was threatened by the
autocratic power, refractory ecclesiastics contrasted the policy of
the Orthodox Sovereign with that of the "godless Tartars," much to the
advantage of the latter.

At first there was and could be very little mutual confidence between
the conquerors and the conquered. The Princes anxiously looked for an
opportunity of throwing off the galling yoke, and the people chafed
under the exactions and