Part 3

If any man be taken upon committing of theft, he is imprisoned, and often beaten, but not hanged for the first offence, as the manner is with us; and this they call the law of mercy. He that offendeth the second time hath his nose cut off, and is burnt in the forehead with a hot iron. The third time he is hanged. There are many cut-purses among them, and if the rigour of the prince did not cut them off, they could not be avoided.

OF THEIR RELIGION.

They maintain the opinions of the Greek Church; they suffer no graven images of saints in their churches, but their pictures painted in tables they have in great abundance, which they do adore, and offer unto and burn wax candles before them, and cast holy water upon them, without other honour. They say that our images, which are set up in churches, and carved, have no divinity in them. In their private houses they have images for their household saints, and, for the most part, they are put in the darkest place of the house; he that comes into his neighbour’s house doth first salute his saints, although he see them not. If any form or stool stand in his way, he oftentimes beateth his brow upon the same, and often, ducking down with his head and body, worshippeth the chief image. The habit and attire of the priests and of the laymen doth nothing at all differ; as for marriage, it is forbidden to no man: only this is received, and held amongst them for a rule and custom, that if a priest’s wife do die, he may not marry again nor take a second wife; and, therefore, they of secular priests, as they call them, are made monks, to whom then chastity for ever is commanded. Their divine service is all done and said in their own language, that every man may understand it; they receive the Lord’s Supper with leavened bread, and after the consecration they carry it about the church in a saucer, and prohibit no man from receiving and taking of it that is willing so to do. They use both the Old and the New Testament, and read both in their own language, but so confusedly that they themselves that do read understand not what they themselves do say; and while any part of either Testament is read there is liberty given by custom to prattle, talk, and make a noise; but in the time of the rest of the service they use very great silence and reverence, and behave themselves very modestly and in good sort. As touching the Lord’s Prayer, the tenth man amongst them knows it not; and for the Articles of our Faith and the Ten Commandments, no man, or, at the least, very few of them, do either know them or can say them: their opinion is that such secret and holy things as they are should not rashly and imprudently be communicated with the common people. They hold for a maxim amongst them that the old Law, and the Commandments also, are all abolished by the death and blood of Christ; all studies and letters of humanity they utterly refuse; concerning the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew tongues, they are altogether ignorant in them.

Every year they celebrate four several fasts, which they call according to the names of the saints: the first begins with them at the time that our Lent begins; the second is called amongst them the Fast of St. Peter; the third is taken from the Day of the Virgin Mary; and the fourth, and last, begins upon St. Philip’s Day. But as we begin our Lent upon Wednesday, so they begin theirs upon the Sunday. Upon the Saturday they eat flesh. Whensoever any of those fasting feasts do draw near, look what week doth immediately go before them; the same week they live altogether upon white meats, and in their common language they call those weeks the fast of butter.

In the time of their fasts the neighbours everywhere go from one to another, and visit one another, and kiss one another with kisses of peace, in token of their mutual love and Christian concord; and then also they do more often than at any other time go to the Holy Communion. 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.

There are very many monasteries of the order of Saint Benedict amongst them, to which many great livings, for their maintenance, do belong; for the friars and the monks do at the least possess the third part of the livings throughout the whole Muscovite Empire. 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. For the discharge of their office they do every day say service, and that early in the mornings, before day; and they do in such sort and with such observation begin their service, that they will be sure to make an end of it before day; and about nine of the clock in the morning they celebrate the Communion. When they have so done they go to dinner, and after dinner they go again to service, and the like also after supper; and in the meantime, while they are at dinner, there is some exposition or interpretation of the Gospel used.

Whensoever any abbot of any monastery dieth, the Emperor taketh all his household stuff, beasts, flocks of sheep, gold, silver, and all that he hath, or else he that is to succeed him in his place and dignity doth redeem all those things, and buyeth them of the Emperor for money.

Their churches are built of timber, and the towers of their churches for the most part are covered with shingle boards. At the doors of their churches they usually build some entrance or porch, as we do, and in their churchyards they erect a certain house of wood, wherein they set up their bells—wherein sometimes they have but one, in some two, and in some also three.

There is one use and custom amongst them which is strange and rare, yet it is very ridiculous, and that is this: when any man dieth amongst them they take the dead body and put it in a coffin or chest, and in the hand of the corpse they put a little scroll, and in the same there are these words written, that the same man died a Russian of Russia, having received the faith and died in the same. This writing or letter they say they send to St. Peter, who, receiving it (as they affirm), reads it, and by-and-by admits him into heaven, and that his glory and place is higher and greater than the glory of the Christians of the Latin Church, reputing themselves to be followers of a more sincere faith and religion than they; they hold opinion that we are but half Christians, and themselves only to be the true and perfect Church—these are the foolish and childish dotages of such ignorant barbarians.

ON THE MUSCOVITES THAT ARE IDOLATERS, DWELLING NEAR TO TARTARIA.

There is a certain part of Muscovy, bordering upon the countries of the Tartars, wherein those Muscovites that dwell are very great idolaters; they have one famous idol amongst them, which they call the Golden Old Wife, and they have a custom that whensoever any plague or any calamity doth afflict the country, as hunger, war, or such like, then they go by-and-by to consult with their idol, which they do after this manner: they fall down prostrate before the idol, and pray unto it, and put in the presence of the same a cymbal, and about the same certain persons stand, which are chosen amongst them by lot: upon their cymbal they place a silver toad, and sound the cymbal, and to whomsoever of those lotted persons that toad goeth he is taken, and by-and-by slain; and immediately, I know not by what illusions of the devil or idol, he is again restored to life, and then doth reveal and deliver the causes of the present calamity. And by this means knowing how to pacify the idol, they are delivered from the imminent danger.

OF THE FORM OF THEIR PRIVATE HOUSES, AND OF THE APPAREL OF THE PEOPLE.

The common houses of the country are everywhere built of beams of fir-trees; the lower beams do so receive the round hollowness of the uppermost, that by the means of the building thereupon they resist and expel all winds that blow, and where the timber is joined together, there they stop the chinks with moss. The form and fashion of their houses in all places is four-square, with straight and narrow windows, whereby with a transparent easement made or covered with skin like to parchment they receive the light. The roofs of their houses are made of boards covered without with the bark of trees: within their houses they have benches or grieves hard by their walls, which commonly they sleep upon, for the common people know not the use of beds: they have stoves wherein in the morning they make a fire, and the same fire doth either moderately warm or make very hot the whole house.

The apparel of the people for the most part is made of wool, their caps are picked like unto a rike or diamond, broad beneath, and sharp upward. In the manner of making whereof there is a sign and representation of nobility; for the loftier or higher their caps are, the greater is their birth supposed to be, and the greater reverence is given them by the common people.

THE CONCLUSION TO QUEEN MARY.

These are the things, most excellent Queen, which your subjects newly returned from Russia have brought home concerning the state of that country: wherefore if your Majesty shall be favourable, and grant a continuance of the travel, there is no doubt but that the honour and renown of your name will be spread amongst those nations, whereunto three only noble personages from the very creation have had access, to whom no man hath been comparable.

THE COPY OF THE DUKE OF MUSCOVY AND EMPEROR OR RUSSIA HIS LETTERS, SENT TO KING EDWARD VI., BY THE HANDS OF RICHARD CHANCELER.

“The almighty power of God, and the incomprehensible Holy Trinity, rightful Christian belief, etc. We, great Duke Ivan Vasilivich, by the grace of God Emperor of all Russia, and great Duke of Vladermerskij, Moskowskij, Novogrodskij, Cazanskii, Pskanskii, Smolenskii, Tuerskij, Hugorskij, Permskii, Veatskii, Bolgarskii, with divers other lands, Emperor also and great Duke of Novogoroda, and in the low countries of Chernigouskii, Rezanskii, Volotskii, Refskii, Belskii, Rostouskii, Yaroslavskii; Belocherskii, Oodorskii, Obdorskii, Codinskii, and many other countries, lord over all the north coast, greeting.

“Before all right great and worthy of honour Edward, King of England, &c., according to our most hearty and good zeal, with good intent and friendly desire, and according to our holy Christian Faith and great governance, and being in the light of great understanding, our answer by this our honourable writing unto your kingly governance, at the request of your faithful servant Richard Chanceler, with his company, as they shall let you wisely know, is thus. In the strength of the twentieth year of our governance, be it known, that at our sea coasts arrived a ship, with one Richard and his company, and said, that he was desirous to come into our dominions, and according to his request hath seen our Majesty and our eyes; and hath declared unto us your Majesty’s desire as that we should grant unto your subjects, to go and come, and in our dominions, and among our subjects to frequent free marts, with all sorts of merchandises, and upon the same to have wares for their return. And they have also delivered us your letters which declare the same request. And hereupon we have given order, that wheresoever your faithful servant Hugh Willoughbie land or touch in our dominions, to be well entertained, who as yet is not arrived, as your servant Richard can declare.

“And we, with Christian belief and faithfulness, and according to your honourable request and my honourable commandment will not leave it undone, and are furthermore willing that you send unto us your ships and vessels, when, and as often as they may have passage, with good assurance on our part to see them harmless. And if you send one of your Majesty’s council to treat with us, whereby your country merchants may with all kinds of wares, and where they will, make their market in our dominions, they shall have their free mart with all free liberties through my whole dominions with all kinds of wares, to come and go at their pleasure, without any let, damage, or impediment, according to this our letter, our word, and our seal, which we have commanded to be under-sealed. Written in our dominion in our town and in our palace in the Castle of Moscow, in the year seven thousand and sixty, the second month of February.”

This letter was written in the Muscovian tongue, in letters much like to the Greek letters, very fair written on paper with a broad seal hanging at the same, sealed in paper upon wax. This seal was much like the broad seal of England, having on the one side the image of a man on horseback in complete harness fighting with a dragon.

Under this letter was another paper written in the Dutch tongue, which was the interpretation of the other written in the Muscovian letters. These letters were sent the next year after the date of King Edward’s letters, 1554.

THE COINS, WEIGHTS, AND MEASURES, USED IN RUSSIA.

Written by JOHN HASSE in the year 1554.

Forasmuch as it is most necessary for all merchants which seek to have traffic in any strange regions, first to acquaint themselves with the coins of those lands with which they do intend to join in traffic, and how they are called from the valuation of the highest piece to the lowest, and in what sort they make their payments, as also what their common weights and measures be. For these causes I have thought good to write something thereof, according to mine own knowledge and experience, to the end that the merchants of that new adventure may the better understand how the wealth of that new frequented trade will arise.

First, it is to be noted that the Emperor of Russia hath no other coins than silver in all his land which goeth for payment amongst merchants; yet, notwithstanding, there is a coin of copper, which serveth for the relief of the poor in Moscow, and nowhere else, and that is but only for quas, water, and fruit—as nuts, apples, and such like. The name of which money is called pole or poles, of which poles there go to the least of the silver coins eighteen. But I will not stand upon this, because it is no current money amongst merchants.

Of silver coins there be these sorts of pieces: the least is a poledenga; the second, a denga; the third, nowgrote, which is as much to say in English, as halfpenny, penny, and twopence; and for other valued money than this there is none. There are oftentimes there coins of gold, but they come out of foreign countries; whereof there is no ordinary valuation, but they pass according to the agreement of merchants.