With the death of Iaroslav, and the division of the empire, a new period of darkness and misrule began. The character of the legislator, which influenced his own time, was speedily absorbed in the general confusion. Iaroslav’s name was held in reverence, but the memory of his excellence did not awe the multitudes that, upon his decease, sprang from their retirement to revive the disastrous glories of domestic warfare. Much as he had done for the extension of Christianity, he had failed in establishing it in the hearts of the people. He was an able theologian, and well acquainted with the church ordinances, agenda, and other books of the Greek religion, many of which he caused to be translated into the Russian language, and distributed in copies over the country. So strong an interest did he take in the cultivation of the doctrines of the church, that he established a metropolitan at Kiev, in order to relieve the Russian people and their priests from the inconveniences of attending the residence of the ecclesiastical head at Constantinople, and also with a desire to provide for the more prompt and certain dissemination of the principles of faith. But the value of all these exertions expired with their author. He did much to raise the fame and consolidate the resources of the empire; but the last act of his political career, by which he cut away the cord that bound the rods, had the effect of neutralising all the benefits he meditated to accomplish, as well as those that he actually effected, for his country. His reign was followed by a period of savage anarchy that might be said to have resolved the half-civilised world into its original elements.[k] FOOTNOTES [2] According to recent computations the Russian Empire covers an area of 8,660,000 square miles--about one sixth of the land surface of the globe. [3] [This treaty was not so favourable to the Russians as the one concluded with Oleg--a result, evidently, of the former defeat. Another point of importance is that it makes mention of Russian Christians, to whom there is no allusion in the treaty of 911. From this we may conclude that Christianity had spread largely during this interval.[g]] [4] [According to another Ms., Constantine, son of Lev.] [5] _Ex. XXI, 17._ [6] [In the original Nestor always calls thus the sister of the emperors.] [7] [An antiquarian inquiry instituted by Catherine in 1794 resulted in proving that Tmoutarakan was situated on the isle of Taman, forming a key to the confluence of the sea of Azov with the Black Sea.[k]] [8] A copper coin, of the value, as near as we can ascertain, of about 4½_d._ of English money. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER II. THE PERIOD OF THE PRINCIPALITIES THE CHARACTER OF THE PRINCIPALITIES [Sidenote: [1054-1224 A.D.]]