Andrei’s wars were waged always to benefit Vladimir and the people. He had no thought for petty quarrels among princes, and never took part in them. A prince in his place needed no special army. Towns and cities in that region were numerous, and ever prompt to send warriors in defense of their interests. Whenever an enemy came, all people were ready to rise. Instead of a chosen legion, led by boyars, who, in the old time, surrounded the prince and curbed freedom immensely, Andrei received into his “courtyard” whomever he wished, people of all sorts, and even all origins. They were not called as in the old days drujina (friends), but dvoryani (court men). They lived in his court and around it in complete acquiescence; they were people of his court. Though the former name of drujina was not abandoned immediately, it lost its old meaning, and soon the prince’s assistants were known as dvoryani, a word translated later as noble. This word, used afterward to denote specially the highest people of Moscow, had its origin in the Vladimir of Andrei. The wars carried on by Andrei had a definite policy. If he gave aid to some prince who annoyed him by imploring, this aid was limited to sending a small detachment. But he defended those who asked assistance against enemies more by a threat than by fighting. If he warred, as happened later, he did so in the interest of his own principality. His problem was to manage freely in Kief and in Novgorod for the benefit of Vladimir. When one or another prince asked his permission to reign in Kief, the mother city, that prince had to take an oath not to meddle with Novgorod. Andrei did not care about Kief, but between Novgorod and Vladimir there were endless dissensions, which rose from the fact that Vladimir and Novgorod were neighbors. Novgorod, rich in commerce, was poor in land, and had to get wheat and rye from Vladimir or regions beyond it. “Vladimir and Novgorod stood face to face as opponents.” And besides the question of grain on one side and of trade on the other was that of the boundless North with its treasures. Novgorod claimed that northern region, claimed all of it. Wherever a foot of land presented itself Novgorod wanted that to be the land of a man in its service. This proud understanding of things was expressed by the phrase: “Who can stand against God and Lord Novgorod?” But into those northern places had entered Rostoff and Suzdal, and now they were dealing with Andrei of Vladimir.