voluntary contributions”; that minute fiscal and domestic regulations (similar in nature to those existing in some of the Swiss cantons in the Middle Ages) were enforced in the lands of the republic and in relation with other Russian provinces; and that fur-pelts had not yet been wholly displaced, as a medium of payment, by the circulation of money. The petty and irritating nature of some of these restrictions may have been the effect, rather than the cause, of the long series of quarrels between princes and citizens, but they could hardly fail to produce friction under the most favourable circumstances. Yaroslav soon had proof of the independent dispositions of his northern subjects, who peremptorily thwarted his design for a campaign against the sister republic of Pskov, which had elected a Lit’uanian chief as its ruler without consulting the Grand Prince. The latter soon after returned to the more congenial atmosphere of Vladimir, leaving as his representative his nephew, Urii Andreievitch. Relieved of the presence of the Velikie-kniaz, the Novgorodskie, allied with Dovmont, the aforesaid Prince of Pskov, marched with an army 30,000 strong, furnished with battering-rams and other siege engines, into the charmed region of the Baltic provinces, where German knights, the Archbishops of Riga, Danes, Swedes, Lit’uanians, and Russians disputed over and over again, with never-flagging zest, every corner of that most debatable land. The objective of the Russ-Lit’uanian army (with which marched Dimitri, the whilom Prince of Novgorod), was the Dane-held town of Rakovor (Wesenberg), in Estland; as they approached the town, however, the Russians found themselves confronted by a strong force of “the gentlemen of God” (as they magnanimously, or satirically, styled the Teutonic knights), under the command of their Landmaster, von Rodenstein--the last people they were anxious to meet. The dark winter day (18th February 1268) was all too short to decide the furious combat which ensued, and many a noted leader, many a thousand men-at-arms, fell on either side without the issue being settled one way or the other. The Novgorodskie lost their posadnik and the tisyaszhnik[50] Kodrat, while on the other side Alexander, Bishop of Dorpat, was among the slain. Better armed and better disciplined, it is probable that the knights of the Order inflicted the heavier loss on their opponents, and the Russians had to abandon their projected attack on Rakovor. The spring of the next year brought von Rodenstein and his pied-mantled warriors into the territory of Pskov, where they burnt Izborsk, the old pre-Rurikian town on the Lake Peipus, and stormed Pskov itself. Its Lit’uanian Prince was a match for the Teutons, and for ten days steel and iron and stone clashed and hurtled round the tottering ramparts. Dovmont himself wounded the Landmaster, and held the enemy at bay till the bear-blazoned standard of Velikie Novgorod waved in the distance