Hospitality at the Hands of the Muscovite Tsar: The Welcoming of Foreign Envoys in Early Modern Russia

Abstract

This article discusses hospitality as it connects to diplomatic practice in early modern Russia, or Muscovy. First-hand accounts of a number of embassies, as well as Muscovite archival documents preserved in Moscow strongly suggest that the Russians placed greater emphasis on hospitality when receiving foreign envoys than did most of their contemporaries. The tsar saw to all of his guests’ needs, and with pronounced generosity and public display, thereby not only honouring his fellow rulers, but also broadcasting to onlookers, Russian and foreign alike, his wealth, power and international status. Muscovy's rulers also showed themselves able to transform the critical Moscow stage of the tsar's welcome at moments of dynastic weakness, thus enhancing the representation of the majesty and legitimacy of rulers who found themselves particularly at risk of appearing weak and vulnerable in politically turbulent times.

Notes

1 Felicity Heal, Hospitality in Early Modern England (New York, 1990); Andrew Arterbury, Entertaining Angels: Early Christian Hospitality in its Mediterranean Setting (Sheffield, 2005); Julie Kerr, Monastic Hospitality: The Benedictines in England, c. 1070-c. 1250 (New York, 2007).

2 Kerr, Monastic Hospitality, p. 1.

3 Heal, Hospitality in Early Modern England, p. 2.

4 Heal, Hospitality in Early Modern England, pp. 19–20; Kenneth J. Arrow, ‘Gifts and Exchanges’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 1 (1972), pp. 344–45.

5 Bonnie Effros, Creating Community with Food and Drink in Merovingian Gaul (New York, 2002), p. 3.

6 Heal, Hospitality in Early Modern England, pp. 19–20; Effros, Creating Community with Food and Drink, p. 25.

7 Leonid Iuzefovich, Put’ posla: Russkii posol'skii obychai. Obikhod. Etiket. Tseremonial konets XV-pervaia polovina XVII v. (Saint Petersburg, 2007); and L. A. Iuzefovich, ‘Kak v posol'skikh obychaiakh vedetsia …’ (Moscow, 1998); N. M. Rogozhin, U gosudarevykh del byt’ ukazano … (Moscow, 2002).

8 Maija Jansson, ‘Measured Reciprocity: English Ambassadorial Gift Exchange in the 17th and 18th Centuries’, Journal of Early Modern History, 9 (2005), pp. 348–70.

9 Jansson, ‘Measured Reciprocity’, pp. 1, 348, 352, 354.

10 Daniel Rowland, ‘Architecture, Image, and Ritual in the Throne Rooms of Muscovy, 1550–1650: A Preliminary Survey’, in Chester S. L. Dunning, Russell E. Martin and Daniel Rowland (eds), Rude and Barbarous Kingdom Revisited: Essays in Russian History and Culture in Honor of Robert O. Crummey (Bloomington, 2008).

11 A. I. Filiushkin, Tituly russkikh gosudarei (Moscow-Saint Petersburg, 2006), pp. 222–37.

12 Evgeny Roshchin, ‘Supplanting Love, Accepting Friendship: A History of Russian Diplomatic Concepts’, Redescriptions, 13 (2009), pp. 125–26.

13 Timothy Hampton, Fictions of Embassy: Literature and Diplomacy in Early Modern Europe (Ithaca, 2009), p. 10.

14 Jan Hennings, ‘The Failed Gift: Ceremony and Gift-Giving in Anglo-Russian Relations (1662–1664)’, in I. B. Neumann and H. Leira (eds), International Diplomacy (Washington, 2013), p. 104.

15 Hennings, ‘The Failed Gift’, p. 104.

16 Robert O. Crummey, ‘Court Spectacles in Seventeenth-Century Russia: Illusion and Reality’, in Daniel Clarke Waugh (ed), Essays in Honor of A. A. Zimin (Columbus, 1985), pp. 131–32.

17 As we move into the sixteenth century, it is important to distinguish between ‘visiting’ diplomats, sent on a specific mission and permanent royal representatives at foreign courts, such as resident ambassadors or consuls. In the West, resident embassies, normally comprised of one or two individuals based at the host's court whose main function was to gather news and information for dispatch back home, began to emerge in the late fifteenth century. Although these proliferated in Europe in the course of the sixteenth century, ‘extraordinary’ embassies sent on short but particularly important or sensitive missions continued to function alongside. Garrett Mattingly, Renaissance Diplomacy (London, 1970), passim; Rayne Allinson, A Monarchy of Letters, Royal Correspondence and English Diplomacy in the Reign of Elizabeth I (New York, 2012), p. xii; Natalia Neverova, ‘The Emperor and Diplomatic Relations: Rudolf II through the Eyes of Foreign Ambassadors’, in Sean McGlynn and Elena Woodacre (eds), The Image and Perception of Monarchy in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 2014), p. 131. Elsewhere, for example in Russia, the focus of this article, resident embassies were generally established much later, in the Petrine era (late seventeenth-early eighteenth centuries), particularly in the context of the Northern War (1700–1721), although as early as the 1630s, the Muscovites did, in exceptional cases, allow resident diplomats to establish themselves in Moscow. Zh. A. Ananian et al., Istoriia vneshnei politiki Rossii. XVIII vek (ot Severnoi voinyi do voin Rossii protiv Napoleona) (Moscow, 1998), passim; W. Leitsch, ‘Kliuchevskii's Study on the Report of Foreign Travellers about Muscovy: A Belated Review’, Canadian-American Slavic Studies, 20 (1986), p. 299.

18 Mattingly, Renaissance Diplomacy, p. 35.

19 Albert J. Loomie (ed.), Ceremonies of Charles I. The Note Books of John Finet, 1628–1641 (New York, 1987), p. 341.

20 Jansson, ‘Measured Reciprocity’, p. 360.

21 Ibid.

22 Iuzefovich, Put’ posla, p. 109.

23 Heal, Hospitality in Early Modern England, pp. 309–10.

24 Iuzefovich, ‘Kak v posol'skikh obychaiakh vedetsia’, p. 82; and Put’ posla, p. 110.

25 Iuzefovich, Put’ posla, p. 108.

26 Iuzefovich, Put’ posla, p. 110; and ‘Kak v posol'skikh obychaiakh vedetsia’, p. 81.

27 Iuzefovich, Put’ posla, p. 108; and ‘Kak v posol'skikh obychaiakh vedetsia’, p. 82.

28 Neverova, ‘The Emperor and Diplomatic Relations’, pp. 141–2.

29 Iuzefovich, Put’ posla, p. 109. For details on the Smuta, see Chester S. L. Dunning, Russia's First Civil War: The Time of Troubles and the Founding of the Romanov Dynasty (University Park, PA, 2012).

30 Jansson, ‘Measured Reciprocity’, p. 359. These substantial and frequent expenses incurred to match the tsar's magnanimity would prove to be a serious financial burden on the Muscovy Company in the opening decades of the seventeenth century, when pressing military/political (Russia) and trade (England) issues produced a flurry of diplomatic exchanges. Aside from supporting Russian ambassadors who had come to England, the Muscovy Company was also called upon to pay for the four English embassies sent to Moscow between 1613–23. The crippling effects of these costs are a common theme in English sources of the period. Calendar of State Papers Domestic, 1619–23, no. 27, p. 96; no. 57, p. 302; no. 4150, p. 300; Public Record Office, State Papers 14/124, fol. 50; 103/61, fols 26r-27v. See also, Paul Dukes, Graeme P. Herd and Jarmo Kotilaine, Stuarts and Romanovs: The Rise and Fall of a Special Relationship (Dundee, 2009), p. 38.

31 Iuzefovich, Put’ posla, p. 108. Among lesser powers, as far as I have been able to ascertain, Moldavia appears to have also adhered to the model of host provisioning diplomatic legations at no cost to the latter, although the extent of the provisioning (its various components, its duration, peculiarities revolving around the presentation of the legation at court, etc …) remain unlcear. Michał Wasiucionek, ‘Diplomacy, Power and Ceremonial Entry: Polish-Lithuanian Grand Embassies in Moldavia in the Seventeenth Century’, Acta Poloniae Historica, 105 (2012), p. 57.

32 John Darwin, After Tamerlane: The Rise and Fall of Global Empires, 1400-2000 (New York, 2007), pp. 68–9.

33 Hennings, ‘The Failed Gift’, p. 104. As a number of scholars have observed, early modern monarchs were not oblivious to evolving court styles abroad, but rather kept abreast of the latest information and, to varying degrees, copied with an eye to keeping up with their royal peers and exalting themselves ever more magnificently. Ralph E. Giesey, ‘The King Imagined’, in Keith M. Baker (ed.), The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture, vol. 1: The Political Culture of the Old Régime (Oxford, 1987), p. 45; John Adamson, ‘The Making of the Ancien-Régime Court 1500-1700’, in John Adamson (ed.), The Princely Courts of Europe: Ritual, Politics and Culture under the Ancien Régime 1500–1750 (London, 2000), p. 35.

34 Giora Sternberg, ‘Epistolary Ceremonial: Corresponding Status at the Time of Louis XIV’, Past and Present, 204 (2009), p. 87.

35 The Muscovites recognized three types of diplomats by the early sixteenth century (of varying social/political rank, depending on the individual), to whom they ascribed different degrees of importance. First in dignity came the posol (ambassador), followed by the poslannik (envoy), and finally the gonets (courrier). Over time, they came to distinuguish between ‘great’ (velikie) and ‘lesser’ (legkie) ambassadors. V. O. Kliuchevskii, Skazaniia inostrantsev o Moskovskom gosudarstve, with an introduction and commentary by A. N. Medushevskii (Moscow, 1991), p. 31; Irina Zagorodnaya, ‘English Diplomats at the Court of the tsars’, in Olga Dmitrieva, Natalya Abramova (eds), Britannia and Muscovy: English Silver at the Court of the tsars (New Haven, 2006), p. 177.

36 Iuzefovich, Put’ posla, pp. 75–132; and ‘Kak v posol'skikh obychaiakh vedetsia’, pp. 61–82.

37 On the evolving role of the Muscovy Company agent, see S. Konovalov, ‘Anglo-Russian Relations, 1620–1624’, Oxford Slavonic Papers, IV (1953), p. 85; Dukes, Herd and Kotilaine, Stuarts and Romanovs, pp. 38–40. The activities of Agent Simon Digby in the 1630s and 40s offer a useful glimpse into this role. These are discussed in Maria Salomon Arel, ‘The Archangel Trade and the Drive to Modernize: State Monopolization of Russian Export Commodities under Mikhail Fedorovich’, in Marshall Poe, Jarmo Kotilaine (eds), Modernization in Seventeenth-Century Russia (New York, 2004), pp. 185–99; Maria Salomon Arel, ‘The Perils of Profit: Patrons and Protection in Muscovite Trade’, in Cathy Potter, Jennifer Spock, David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, Nikos Chrissidis (eds), Religion and National Identity in Russia and the Soviet Union: A Festschrift for Paul Bushkovitch (Bloomington, 2011), pp. 56–7.

38 The process began at the border, upon the arrival of the ambassador or envoy, which was promptly announced to the local voevoda, or governor. The arrival had to be reported to Moscow and permission granted for entry into Russian territory. Permission from Moscow included instructions for the appointment of a pristav, or escort, as well as for the provisioning of the guest (food and drink) and his horses (fodder) while on the road to Moscow. Iuzefovich, Put’ posla, pp. 75–78, 82, 108, 110; and ‘Kak v posol'skikh obychaiakh vedetsia’, p. 61, 67; Rogozhin, U gosudarevykh del byt’ ukazano, p. 67. For example, the English ambassador Sir Thomas Smythe was welcomed by a pristav on board the ship that brought him from England, as it anchored just beyond Archangel: “… being come within a mile of the Arch-angell, we ankered … [and] came at 11 of the clocke in the night a Gentleman … sent to bee his Prestave, to provide the Ambassadours house, and victuals, and to garde him from the iniuries of a strange nation.” Anonymous, Sir Thomas Smithes Voiage and Entertainment in Rushia (London, 1605), fols. C3-4. Aspects of this embassy, as recorded in unpublished Posol'skii Prikaz documents, are discussed in Maria Salomon Arel and S. N. Bogatyrev, ‘Anglichane v Moskve vremen Borisa Godunova (po dokumentam posol'stva T. Smita, 1604-1605 goda)’, Arkheograficheskii ezhegodnik za 1997 god (1997), pp. 439–55.

39 The Company owned several. For details, see Maria Salomon Arel, ‘Masters in Their Own House: The Russian Merchant Elite and Complaints against the English in the First Half of the Seventeenth Century’, The Slavonic and East European Review, 77 (1999), pp. 421–22.

40 Anonymous, Sir Thomas Smithes Voiage, D2, D3-D4, E2, H, I2v. Mikulin had headed a Russian embassy to England a few years earlier, in 1600–01, sent by Boris Godunov to Elizabeth I.

41 Robert M. Croskey, Muscovite Diplomatic Practice in the Reign of Ivan III (New York, 1987), p. 163.

42 Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv drevnikh aktov/Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts [henceforth RGADA], Fond 35 [Posol'skii Prikaz/Foreign Affairs Chancellery], Opis’ 1 [English Affairs], Delo 164, fols. 15r-22r; Delo 163, fols. 8r-25r.

43 Iuzefovich, Put’ posla, p. 97; and ‘Kak v posol'skikh obychaiakh vedetsia’, p. 61; Rogozhin, U gosudarevykh del byt’ ukazano, p. 74.

44 Iuzefovich, Put’ posla, pp. 113–15; and ‘Kak v posol'skikh obychaiakh vedetsia’, pp. 82–3; Rogozhin, U gosudarevykh del byt’ ukazano, p. 67.

45 Iurii V. Tolstoii, The First Forty Years of Intercourse between England and Russia, 1553-1593 (New York, 1973), p. 231.

46 T. S. Willan, The Early History of the Russia Company, 1553-1603 (Manchester, 1956), p. 174. Anglo-Russian relations had been strained for some time, during the later years of the reign of Feodor's recently deceased (1584) father, the mercurial Ivan IV. By 1588, factions at the Russian court hostile to English interests were undermining the trade privileges of the Muscovy Company and making all manner of serious of allegations about the Queen's merchants. Fletcher's mission was to address these issues directly and work towards the restoration of a more stable commercial and diplomatic relationship between England and Russia. His report on the embassy, including an account of hard treatment at the hands of his hosts, is reproduced in Edward A. Bond (ed.), Russia at the Close of the Sixteenth Century (London, 1856), pp. 342–51. The report begins with: “My whole intertainment from my first arrival till towards the very end, was such as if they had divised means of very purpose to shew their utter disliking both of the trade of the Marchants [Muscovy Company] and of the whole English nation.”

47 Willan, The Early History of the Russia Company, p. 174.

48 Bond, Russia at the Close of the Sixteenth Century, p. 279.

49 Bond, Russia at the Close of the Sixteenth Century, p. 280.

50 Anonymous, Sir Thomas Smithes Voiage, fols. C5-6.

51 Samuel H. Baron (ed.), The Travels of Olearius in Seventeenth-Century Russia (Stanford, 1967), p. 48.

52 Sergio Bertelli, The King's Body: Sacred Rituals of Power in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, R. Burr Litchfield (trans.) (University Park, Pennsylvania, 2011), p. 122.

53 Martin Butler, The Stuart Court Masque and Political Culture (Cambridge, 2008), pp. 75–6, 84, 100. More on this point below.

54 Kliuchevskii, Skazaniia inostrantsev, p. 37

55 Iuzefovich, Put’ posla, p. 111; and ‘Kak v posol'skikh obychaiakh vedetsia’, p. 81.

56 Digby's complaint to the tsar's officials in Moscow about the ill treatment and “dishonour” he endured triggered a flurry of communications between several chancelleries and a thorough investigation. RGADA, Opis’ 1, Delo 126, fols. 139r-140r; fols. 143r-154r.

57 George F. Warner (ed.), The Nicholas Papers, Correspondence of Sir Edward Nicholas, Secretary of State, vol. I, 1641–52 (London, 1886), p. 185.

58 Culpeper failed to sway the Muscovites on the trade issue and, although he did not leave Russia empty-handed as far as the loan was concerned, the tsar agreed to only £20,000 (in furs and grain). This was no small sum to be sure, but considerably less than Culpeper had sought (between £50,000–100,000). The embassy is discussed in detail in Z. I. Roginskii, ‘Missiia Lorda Kolpepera v Moskvu (iz istorii anglo-russkikh otnoshenii v period angliiskoi burzhuaznoi revoliutsii XVII v.)’, in L. G. Beskrovnyi (ed.), Mezhdunarodnye sviazi Rossii v XVII-XVIII vv.; Sbornik statei (Moscow, 1966), pp. 84–102. For a brief summary, see Dukes, Herd, Kotilaine, Stuarts and Romanovs, pp. 90–92.

59 R. E. F. Smith and David Christian, Bread and Salt: A Social and Economic History of Food and Drink in Russia (New York, 1984), p. 118.

60 Rogozhin, U gosudarevykh del byt’ ukazano, p. 67. There is no record in extant sources of envoys ever wanting for food or drink given the copious amounts provided by their host. Not surprisingly, however, there is evidence of them having too much to consume. Put’ posla, p. 112.

61 Baron (ed.), The Travels of Olearius, p. 96.

62 Ibid.

63 Muscovite generosity aside, such large quantities of drink are probably also a reflection of “strikingly high” alcohol consumption across Europe in the early modern period. Adam Smyth (ed.), A Pleasing Sinne: Drink and Conviviality in Seventeenth-Century England (Cambridge, 2004), p. xvi. Given the frequent contamination of potable water, most people in the period (including children) drank beer for their daily hydration needs, and if they drank water at all (rarely), it was mixed in some wine, which was believed to have antiseptic properties. Bearing in mind as well that most food was preserved at this time with huge amounts of salt, producing what one historian has described as “oceanic thirst” among Europeans, it is not hard to imagine how very much they all liked their strong drink. Smyth (ed.), A Pleasing Sinne, xvi; Massimo Montanari, The Culture of Food, Carl Ipsen (trans.) (Cambridge, Mass., 1994), pp. 121-22.

64 Baron (ed.), The Travels of Olearius, p. 96.

65 Iuzefovich, Put’ posla, pp. 114-15; and ‘Kak v posol'skikh obychaiakh vedetsia’, p. 82.

66 This episode in Anglo-Russian relations, on the eve of the expulsion of the Muscovy Company from the Russian interior in 1649, is both a fascinating chapter in the century-long relationship between the two states at that point, and an important, contributing factor, I would argue, to Russian action against the English merchants shortly after the execution of Charles I. The sources and events surrounding the Nightingale/Bond missions are complex, as I discussed at length in my doctoral work some years back. See, Maria Salomon Arel, ‘The Muscovy Company in the First Half of the Seventeenth Century; Trade and Position in the Russian State: A Reassessment’ (Doctoral Thesis, Yale University, 1995), pp. 446–64, 494–505.

67 RGADA, Fond 35, Opis’ 2 [English Royal Letters], No. 79.

68 Prior to these events, Charles had followed closely in the footsteps of his father James I, and of Elizabeth I before him, in coming to the defence of the Muscovy Company in his numerous epistolary exchanges with Alexis's father, Tsar Michael. In a number of intercessions in support of English trade to Russia over the years, he had energetically assured the tsar that any reports of wrongdoing by his subjects were either conscious misrepresentations by their competitors (Russian and foreign), or simply a misunderstanding of the true facts. RGADA, Fond 35, Opis’ 2, No. 37 [published by Inna Lubimenko in ‘Letters Illustrating the Relations of England and Russia in the Seventeenth Century’, English Historical Review, 32 (1917), pp. 98-100]; No 46; No 68; No 75.

69 RGADA, Fond. 35, Opis’ 1, No 163, fols. 47–59.

70 In Charles’ words, “… all foreign Princes shall know, That as such Person hath parted with his loyalty to us, so he must not hope for any Security by us”. That the king made good on his threat is evident in actions taken against English trading companies abroad, for example by Christian IV of Denmark against the Merchant Adventurers and the Eastland Company in 1642–43, and by Ottoman authorities against the Levant Company in 1646. Ben Coates, The Impact of the English Civil War on the Economy of London, 1642–50 (Aldershot, 2004), pp. 117–21. The secret message carried by Nightingale to Russia was surely a part of this larger royalist strategy.

71 RGADA, Fond 35, Opis’ 2, No. 80: 31 March 1647, Charles I to Alexis. A Russian translation of this letter is included among the Russian documents surrounding Bond's mission: RGADA, Fond 35, Opis’ 1, Delo 164, fols. 46-57. ‘Holmby’ is an older spelling of Holdenby in Northamptonshire.

72 RGADA, Fond 35, Opis’ 1, Delo. 165, fols. 4r-6r.

73 Korm pochestnoi for Luke Nightingale: RGADA, Fond 35, Opis’ 1, Delo 163, fols. 8r-25r; and for Thomas Bond, Delo 164, fols. 34r-43r, 44r-45r.

74 The letter given to Bond, dated 11 July 1647, is extant only in a Russian copy: RGADA, Fond 35, Opis’ 1, Delo 164. Nightingale was apparently given a letter dated 3 July 1647, of which neither the original nor a copy has been preserved. It can, however, be largely reconstructed by a close reading of Charles’ response of 1 June 1648, brought to Russia once again by Nightingale, on his second mission. On the basis of such a reconstruction, it is clear Alexis's letter of 3 July 1647 given to Nightingale was almost a duplicate of that of 11 July 1647 given to Bond.

75 RGADA, Fond 35, Opis’ 1, Delo 164, fols. 17r-22r. Nightingale received 100 roubles worth of sables, while Bond was given only seventy roubles worth.

76 The practice was long-standing both in Russia and the West. Pierre Chaplais, English Diplomatic Practice in the Middle Ages (New York, 2003), p. 243.

77 Thus, Parliament's letter to Tsar Alexis, sent in the spring of 1646 [RGADA, Opis'1, Delo 154, fols. 120r-120v], some months before either Nightingale or Bond arrived in Russia with letters from Charles, was never acknowledged by the tsar.

78 In describing how he was lavishly feasted by the local governor upon his arrival at the White Sea coast, before embarking on his return to England, Jerome Horsey noted how the voevoda had acted on the tsar's instructions (“commission”). Bond, Russia at the Close of the Sixteenth Century, p. 279.

79 Baron (ed.), The Travels of Olearius, pp. 48–51.

80 E. F. Morison, St. Basil and His Rule: A Study in Early Monasticism (New York, 1912), pp. 120–22; Anna M. Sivas, The Asketikon of St. Basil the Great (New York, 2005), pp. 216–18, 447. Another very important rule in the Russian context was that of Iosif Volotskii, the founder of the Iosif-Volokolamsk Monastery. The monastery also produced a large homiletic literature, including sermons, which instruct the community, rather laconically, to “give hospitality to all who come”. Tom E. Dykstra, Russian Monastic Culture: ‘Josephism’ and the Iosifo-Volokolamsk Monastery, 1479–1607 (Munich, 2006), p. 167.

81 Ulla Birgegård (ed.), J. G. Sparwenfeld's Diary of a Journey to Russia, 1684–87 (Stockholm, 2002), pp. 100–03, 107, 115–17. Even more than the food and drink, Sparwenfeld appears to have most appreciated opportunities to enter the monastery for a full visit and, in some cases, even attend church services, as at the Iverskii-Bogoroditskii Sviatozerkii Monastery at Valdai, where he was allowed daily access to the church (to attend “matins”) and was given two icons, “contrary to all expectations and what was common”. At Vydropuzhsk, Sparwenfeld and his party were received at a local monastery and offered bread, beer and aquavit, but were not allowed to enter the village church attached to it, although the monk accompanying them on their visit told them that “he knew that that they were Christians too”. Sparwenfeld had better luck as he approached Moscow. Eighty kilometres from the city, he visited the Voskresenskii-Instrinksii Novyi Ierusalim Monastery, where he was generously received. The archimandrite allowed him to attend church daily and dined with the Swedes throughout their three-day stay, during which time Sparwenfeld “kept a complete Russian fast”. Birgegårded, (ed.), Sparwenfeld's Diary, pp. 79, 99, 119, 215.

82 Baron (ed.), The Travels of Olearius, pp. 49–51.

83 Birgegård (ed.), Sparwenfeld's Diary, pp. 85–6, 129.

84 Anonymous, Sir Thomas Smithes Voiage, fol. D2v.

85 Effros, Creating Community, p. 3. In this observation, Effros draws on the insights of anthropologist Annette B. Weiner in her seminal work Inalienable Possessions: The Paradox of Keeping-While-Giving (Berkeley, 1992). Here, Weiner discusses the importance of being able to “give generously and publicly without seeming to suffer a loss”, which effectively demonstrates “the abundance of possessions in one's control” and thus one's dominance.

86 Julian A. Pitt-Rivers, ‘Honour and Social Status’, in J. G. Peristiany (ed.), Honour and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society (London, 1965), p. 27.

87 Bertelli, The King's Body, pp. 91–3.

88 Heal, Hospitality in Early Modern England, pp. 6–7.

89 For a fascinating analysis of the culture of display at the early Stuart court, see Butler, The Stuart Court Masque and Political Culture.

90 John Adamson, ‘The Tudor and Stuart Courts 1509-1714’, in Adamson (ed.), The Princely Courts of Europe, p. 100. Butler's study also notes the “medieval standards of hospitality” maintained by the early Stuart court, which was much larger than that of Elizabeth because of the Scottish influx. Under Charles I, providing for the diet of so many individuals swallowed up no less than 2/5 of the king's peacetime budget. See, Butler, The Stuart Court Masque and Political Culture, pp. 51, 53.

91 Butler, The Stuart Court Masque and Political Culture, pp. 75–6, 84.

92 Norbert Elias, The Court Society, Edmund Jephcott (trans.) (Dublin, 1983), pp. 78–145.

93 Croskey, Muscovite Diplomatic Practice, p. 134.

94 Detailed descriptions of such feasts are provided by Iuzefovich, Put’ posla, pp. 210–22; and ‘Kak v posol'skikh obychaiakh vedetsia’, pp. 131–8; Smith and Christian, Bread and Salt, pp. 113, 116.

95 Jacques Margeret, Un mousquetaire à Moscou; Mémoires sur la première révolution russe 1604–1614, Alexandre Bennigsen, ed. (Paris, 1983), pp. 87–9.

96 Anonymous, Sir Thomas Smithes Voiage, fols. F-F2.

97 Rowland, “Architecture, Image, and Ritual”, p. 66.

98 Iuzefovich, Put’ posla, pp. 208–9; and Iuzefovich, ‘Kak v posol'skikh obychaiakh vedetsia’, pp. 129–30.

99 Butler, The Stuart Court Masque and Political Culture, p. 2.

100 By the mid-sixteenth century, it had become customary in Russia to feast the foreign guest not only in connection with the welcome audience, but also, depending on the importance of the embassy and its progress, during the course of negotiations, and sometimes following the final audience as well. Iuzefovich, Put’ posla, pp. 208–09; and ‘Kak v posol'skikh obychaiakh vedetsia’, pp. 129–30.

101 In a fascinating anecdote connected to these latter preparations, the account captures some of the drama of the moment in popular perceptions, as a decade of political chaos, war and social revolts were about to engulf the country (the so-called Time of Troubles). It relates how Tsar Boris passed away while the embassy sojourned in Vologda, before it continued on to Archangel to its homeward-bound ship. As information (and misinformation) trickled in from Moscow in these tense days, some Vologdans speculated that Smythe and his entourage were so well treated because the tsarevich, Boris’ heir, “was in English apparel, within the Ambassadour's lodging”. It was also rumoured that “the Prince would come downe, and go over unto England with the Ambassadour … Also … that the Prince and the Ambassadour were in cheines to be sent up to the Moskoe”. Anonymous, Sir Thomas Smithes Voiage, fols. D3v, Hv, I2-I2v.

102 Suzanne Desan, ‘Crowds, Community, and Ritual in the Work of E. P. Thompson and Natalie Davis’, in Lynn Hunt (ed.), The New Cultural History (Berkeley, 1989), p. 53.

103 Valerie Kivelson, Cartographies of Tsardom: The Land and its Meanings in Seventeenth-Century Russia (Ithaca, 2006), p. 7.

104 Nancy Shields Kollmann, ‘Pilgrimage, Procession and Symbolic Space in Sixteenth-Century Russian Politics’, in Michael S. Flyer and Daniel Rowland (eds), Medieval Russian Culture, vol. 2 (Berkeley, 1994), pp. 163–4, 165–6, 180.

105 Adamson, ‘The Making of the Ancien-Régime Court’, pp. 34–5.

106 William Roosen, ‘Early Modern Diplomatic Ceremonial: A Systems Approach’, The Journal of Modern History, 52/3 (1980), pp. 427, 473.

107 Brenda Bolton and Christina Meek (eds), Aspects of Authority in the Middle Ages (Turnhout, 2007), p. 2; Roosen, ‘Early Modern Diplomatic Ceremonial’, p. 474.

108 Kollmann, ‘Pilgrimage, Procession and Symbolic Space’, p. 172.

109 Crummey, ‘Court Spectacles in Seventeenth-Century Russia’, p. 132.

110 Butler, The Stuart Court Masque and Political Culture, pp. 1–2.

111 Ibid., p. 3.

112 Ibid.

113 See note 30 on the Smuta.

114 Rowland, ‘Architecture, Image, and Ritual’, p. 69.

115 Anonymous, Sir Thomas Smithes Voiage, fols. F-F2; RGADA, Fond 35, Opis’ 1, Delo 87, fol. 37r; Delo 113, fols. 16r-19r; Delo 123, fols. 15r-36r; 43r-45r, 57r-60r; Delo 126, fols.74r-75r, 134r-135r, 521r-528r; Delo 148, fols. 1r-3r; Delo 157, fols. 1r-10r.

116 Iuzefovich, Put’ posla, p. 224; and ‘Kak v posol'skikh obychaiakh vedetsia’, p. 131.

117 Iuzefovich, Put’ posla, pp. 223-4; and ‘Kak v posol'skikh obychaiakh vedetsia’, p. 131; Rowland, ‘Architecture, Image, and Ritual’, p. 69.

118 Lindsey Hughes, ‘The Courts of Moscow and St. Petersburg c. 1547–1725’, in Adamson (ed.), The Princely Courts of Europe, p. 300.

119 Kliuchevskii, Skazaniia inostrantsev, p. 34. The impulse would continue and grow in the course of the seventeenth century, a period for Russia, which has been characterized, from a diplomatic perspective, as a time of “active learning and the socialization of an emerging actor into an existing ‘international society’’. Evgeny Roshchin, ‘Supplanting Love, Accepting Friendship: A History of Russian Diplomatic Concepts’, Redescriptions, 13 (2009), p. 139.

120 Adamson, ‘The Making of the Ancien-Régime Court’, p. 33. Recent work shows how the early Stuarts, “systematically” under Charles I, placed serious effort into publicizing the splendour of court and dynasty. Thus, the “cripplingly extravagant” masques that they staged for a relatively small court audience were “recorded” in one way or another “for all to learn about and admire”, thus furthering the cause of “dynastic aggrandisement”. See Butler, The Stuart Court Masque and Political Culture, pp. 3, 75.

121 On the distinction between court ritual and state ceremonial, see Giesey, ‘The King Imagined’, p. 43.

122 Glyn Redworth and Fernando Checa, ‘The Courts of the Spanish Hapsburgs 1500-1700’, in Adamson (ed.), The Princely Courts of Europe, p. 65.

123 Margeret, Un mousquetaire à Moscou, pp. 89–90.

124 Anonymous, Sir Thomas Smithes Voiage, fol. G3.

125 Warner (ed.), The Nicholas Papers, pp. 183–4.

126 Foy de la Neuville, A Curious and New Account of Muscovy in the Year 1689, Lindsey Hughes (ed.) (London, 1994), p. 12.

127 Birgegård (ed.), Sparwenfeld's Diary, p. 169.

128 Montanari, The Culture of Food, p. 92.

129 Zagorodnaya, ‘English Diplomats’, pp. 182–3.

130 Rowland, ‘Architecture, Image, and Ritual’, p. 67. Thus, when the Earl of Carlisle's embassy arrived in Moscow late in the day, his grand solemn entry and procession towards the Kremlin was delayed so that torches could be lit throughout the streets. It was imperative that observers, including the many foreigners residing in the city who would report back home in one medium or another, might witness the “splendor” of the ceremonial and “the world [would] know of the brotherly friendship between king and Tsar”. Hennings, ‘The Failed Gift’, p. 99.

131 Robert Zaller, The Discourse of Legitimacy in Early Modern England (Stanford, 2007), p. 15.

  This article is based on a conference paper presented at the 44th Annual Convention of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (New Orleans, LA, 15-18 November 2012).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Maria Salomon Arel

Maria Salomon Arel

Dr Maria Salomon Arel is a historian of early modern Russia, whose research interests centre on Anglo-Russian relations, the Muscovy Company, diaspora history, and issues of cross-cultural interaction. Her most recent publication is ‘The Perils of Profit: Patrons and Protection in Muscovite Trade’, in Cathy Potter, Jennifer Spock, David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye and Nikos Chrissidis (eds), Religion and Identity in Russia and the Soviet Union: A Festschrift for Paul Bushkovitch (Bloomington, Slavica Publishers, 2011); and she has forthcoming in 2016, ‘Cultural Diversity, Imperial Strategies and the Issue of Faith: Religious Toleration in Early Modern Russia in Comparative Perspective’, in D. Ostrowski, N. Lupinin (eds), The Tapestry of Russian Christianity: Studies in History and Culture, vol. 2 of Eastern Christian Studies (Columbus, OH: Center for Slavic and East European Studies). She is currently working on an article entitled, ‘Western Knowledge, Russian Abundance and Godly Aspirations—Muscovy Meets the Puritan Mission in the 1630s and 40s’, as well as a book project on the history of the Muscovy Company in the first half of the seventeenth century. She is a faculty member at Marianopolis College in Montreal, Canada.