The truth is that the democracy of the Slavs was too little developed. It was nearer akin7 to Anarchism than to Socialism, and the mind of the race was not as yet sufficiently8 advanced to grasp the political exigencies9 of the new situation. There was no national consciousness, and there could be no national defence and administration, because there was no nation; and a body of disconnected communities, scattered11 over a wide area, was in those days bound to succumb12 to marauders.
Russian historians of the official school eagerly point out that the situation plainly called for a monarchic13 institution, and that the monarchs15 rendered great service in welding the scattered communities into a nation. That they did unite the people and make the great Russia of to-day is obvious. It is equally obvious that, with rare exceptions, they did this in their own interest, and that in all cases they exacted a reward which made serfs of the independent Slavs, sowed corruption17 amongst the rising middle class, and laid upon all an intolerable burden.
The period of the Norse warrior-chiefs and their descendants lasted about three centuries, and it fully18 exposes the fallacy of the monarchic principle. From being military servants the Norsemen rapidly became, as is customary, princes and parasites19. As long as they discharged their duty, binding20 the communities and securing for them the necessary peace against external foes21, this departure from the primitive democracy might be regarded as merely a regrettable necessity. But the sheep soon found that the protecting dog was first-cousin of the wolf, The principle of hereditary22 succession and the practice of providing for all sons and relatives soon led to a worse confusion than ever, and the distracted and weakened country was prepared for a foreign invasion. The long and sanguinary history of the descendants of Rurik may be briefly23 sketched24 before we see how the autocratic Mongols beat a path for the autocratic Tsars.
Oleg, who had united the Slav tribes under his ill-defined rule, was murdered in the year 945. To the north of Kieff a tribe known as the Drevlians (“tree-folk”) wandered in the forests and paid a reluctant and uncertain tribute in furs. When Oleg tried to enforce his tax upon these, they captured him and tied him to two young trees in such fashion that, when the bent26 trees were released, Oleg’s body was torn asunder27. Oleg’s widow, Olga, was a handsome Valkyrie of the masterful northern type, and she sent her armies to scatter10 the thunders of Thor among the wild foresters. It is said that she afterwards visited the Greek capital and was won to the Christian29 religion. She lives as St. Olga in the calendar of the Russian Church. Her successor involved the Russians in long and terrible wars with Constantinople, to enforce his ambitious claim to Bulgaria, and at his death the fierce feuds30 and murders of his three sons plunged31 the country into a condition of bloody32 anarchy33.
From this sordid34 strife35 of the shepherds whom the Slavs had hired to protect them there emerged in 972, over the corpses36 of his brothers, the blond beast St. Vladimir, the founder37 of Christianity in Russia. To what extent the lusty and lustful38 Prince Vladimir was, as the priestly chronicles maintain, transformed into a saint during his life we need not stay to consider. He seems to have been converted as superficially as his prototype, the Emperor Constantine. He was married to a beautiful nun39 who had been torn from a convent during one of the raids upon the Greek Empire, and whom he had taken from his murdered brother; and thousands of concubines relieved the comparative tedium40 of her companionship. The monastic chronicle tells us, in trite41 language, that he at length wearied of sin and sought more substantial spiritual aid than the paganism of his fathers could afford. Judaism, Mohammedanism, and Christianity now offered their rival assurances to such a promising42 penitent43, and it is said that Vladimir, with the broad-mindedness of a modern Japanese, sent his servants to inquire into the merits of the three religions. The rich ritual of the Greek Christians44 at Constantinople prevailed over the more sober practices of the Mohammedans and the less consoling assurances of the religion of the Old Testament45, and Vladimir became a Christian and a saint.
But the chronicles also recount that Vladimir, whose principality of Russia was now so important that it could sustain wars with the Greeks, sought a matrimonial alliance with the royal house of Constantinople, and the prosy imagination of our time finds here a safer clue to the development. The Emperors Basil and Constantine replied that the hand of their sister Anne would be bestowed46 upon the experienced barbarian47 if he would consent to baptism; and Greek priests, who were apt also to be courtiers, were sent to expound48 to him the new religion. Vladimir readily consented to pay so small a price for so great an honour and advantage. He threw into the river the idols49 of the Russian gods—these carven figures had been introduced since the settlement in Russia—and lent his energy and truculence50 to the extirpation51 of paganism. His people were driven in troops into the rivers, the Greek priests pronounced over them the sacred formula, and in a very short time the nature-gods of the old Slavs and Norsemen were turned into devils and the cross of Christ glittered above gilded52 domes53 in the wooden settlements of the land. Vladimir was so generous to the new clergy54 that he died in the odour of sanctity.
But the sins of Vladimir’s pagan manhood lived after him. Seven sons, by various legitimate55 mothers, claimed the succession to his dominions57, and there ensued such bloody anarchy as the handsome Teutonic princes, no matter what gods they worshipped, knew how to create. As usual the fitter to survive in such a world—the more lusty and less scrupulous—emerged from the struggle, and Prince Iaroslaf, one of the heroes of early Russian history, reunited the various regions under his rule.
Iaroslaf has been compared, not quite ineptly58, to Charlemagne. From Novgorod, which his father had left him, he cut his way to Kieff, and definitely made the southern city the metropolis59 of the country. Kieff was enriched and adorned60 with a splendour which, in the mind of the Russians, rivalled that of Constantinople. The southern rivers now bore thousands of Greek artists and architects, musicians and scholars, priests and courtiers, to the new capital of barbarism. Four hundred churches soon shone like gilt61 mushrooms in the summer sun, and the grateful clergy discovered that a monarchy62 which rested on a divine foundation in Constantinople could hardly have an inferior basis in Kieff. Iaroslaf, it is true, was not a monarch14 in title, Russia had no constitution or political organisation63. It was still semi-barbaric in culture and judicial64 procedure. The duel65, the ordeal66, and the payment of blood-money still flourished, and literacy existed only in the form of feeble lamps here and there in the vast darkness. It must be remembered that Constantinople itself was, with all its splendour of gold and mosaics67 and jewels and silks, half barbaric in its moral complexion68. The most sordid and brutal69 crimes disgraced its palace-life on the shores of the Sea of Marmora, and the most revolting penalties of vice16 and crime were publicly inflicted70. The discovery by modern apologists that there was a glow-worm here and there does not relieve the terrible gloom of the Dark Ages.
In such an age, amidst so scattered and helpless a people, Iaroslaf needed no kingly title to enable him to act as monarch. To sustain the new splendour of Kieff and his court—his sister and daughters married into the royal families of Poland, Norway, France, and Hungary—a larger tribute from the people was needed, and it was not meekly71 solicited72. Russian historians of the old school have dilated73 upon the magnificence with which Iaroslaf invested his capital and the measure of prestige which Russia gained in the eyes of the world. They do not point out that this concentration of light at Kieff and the court darkened the life of the Russian people. For the first time we now encounter the odious74 name for a child of the soil moujik. Foreigners who lightly repeat that name to-day are unaware75 that it is in origin a term of disdain76. It means “mannikin.” The warriors77 in glittering armour78 or shining silks who gathered about the court were the prince’s “men.” The vast mass of the people, whose labour ultimately paid for this magnificence, were “mannikins.”
The burden fell most heavily upon the scattered peasantry. Not only were the “legitimate” taxes wrung79 from them, but the military leaders exacted tribute to support their own splendour and pleasure. The feudal80 system, which now prevailed over the remainder of Europe, was not introduced. The land was still the possession of the people, and military chiefs remained about the court instead of raising, as they did where stone abounded, massive provincial81 castles from which they might enslave the peasantry and even defy the ruler. But in their excursions the soldiers behaved as wantonly as feudal barons82 of the west, and the people sank under the burden. Slavery still flourished in Christendom, and many a Slav found his way to the distant market at Constantinople. Moreover, under the degenerate83 Greek influence there was introduced the practice of flogging and torture which the rough chivalry84 of the northerners had hitherto avoided.
To say that the unity85 of faith, the protection against invaders86, and the introduction of art and a small amount of mediocre87 culture compensate88 for these evils is an historical mockery. The death of Iaroslaf at once revealed the insecurity and selfishness of the regime he had established. It was followed by two hundred years of civil warfare89 and murderous confusion. Eighty-three struggles which seem worthy90 of the name of wars devastated91 Russia during those two centuries, and over the enfeebled frontiers the waiting tribes repeatedly poured while the guardians92 of the Russian people slew93 each other for their petty principalities. Sons, legitimate and illegitimate, abounded in that world of blond warriors, and the successful chief provided for each out of his dominion56. Titles were disputed, or the old title of the longer sword was boldly advanced. A dozen large principalities were carved out of the princedom of Iaroslaf, and fragments of these were constantly detached by heredity and restored by war.
It is not my intention to follow the grisly chronicles over this prolonged anarchy and select for admiration94 the heroic butcheries of some strong-armed soldier. For our purpose it suffices to notice that the mass of the Russian people were, as a rule, the passive and suffering spectators of this brutal pandemonium95. During the summers they sowed and gathered their corn and flax, and the long winters occupied them with the making of clothes and the quest of fur. The Mir was still the centre of every village. But a tithe96 of its produce had now to go to sustain this costly97 petty monarchy, a tithe to support the whitened monasteries98 and gold-domed churches, and a tithe to repair the damage when the tornado99 of civil war or some fierce band of Asiatics had passed over their district. There were, we shall see, provinces of Russia where the larger intelligence of the townsmen saw that the proper thing to do was to form a strong republic, armed in its own defence. These still hated “tyranny” and sustained the old tradition of the race. But the greater part of the Russian people were not sufficiently developed to perceive this, or were too scattered to achieve it, and they sank under the military power they had invited to serve them.
A few pages borrowed from the story of this dark period of anarchy will suffice to explain how Russia was prepared for the later schemes of the Moscovites. Kieff remained “the mother of Russian cities,” and it was natural that, as its princes founded petty princedoms here and there for their descendants, the more ambitious of these should invent a title to the rule of the metropolis itself or found rival cities. One of the chief of these new principalities was Suzdal, on the Volga and the Oka. Here, at the extremity100 of the Russia of the time, a large dominion was created out of the marshes101 and forests, and braced102 by incessant103 conflicts with the neighbouring Finns. George Dolgoruki, who, after failing to get Kieff, had founded this principality, regarded it as in an especial sense his own creation and possession, and his monarchic sentiment was strengthened.
But the democratic tradition was not wholly obliterated104, and the military caste itself—the boyars, or captains of the troops—formed some check upon the will of the prince. George’s successor, therefore, Andrew Bogolyubski, an astute105 and ambitious man, made a new capital of a small town or village called Vladimir. Andrew possessed106 the supposed miraculous107 painting of the face of Christ, which had once been the great treasure of Constantinople, and he professed108 that this gave him some special measure of divine guidance. He pitched his camp near the village of Vladimir, and shortly afterward28 the people of Suzdal heard with consternation109 that he had been divinely directed to convert the little settlement into his capital. Andrew had the great advantage of being extremely pious110 and generous to the clergy, as nearly every great Russian adventurer has been. The priests warmly supported him, and Vladimir soon grew into a city.
Kieff still had an immeasurably greater splendour, and was in closer touch with Constantinople. Andrew raised a large army and led it south against the metropolis. A three days’ siege was followed by three days of such pillage111 that Kieff lost forever its supremacy112. Even the churches and monasteries were looted, and the golden treasures of both palace and cathedral were carried off to enrich the aspiring113 city of Vladimir. Flushed with this and other triumphs Andrew then turned his arms against the republic of Novgorod, where the old democratic spirit was best preserved, and, after fierce fighting, compelled it to accept a prince of his own nomination114. He extended his rule in other directions, setting a conspicuous115 example of autocracy116 and ambition to the Princes of Moscow who would later issue from his blood. But Russia was not yet reduced to the state of servility which Andrew’s design of supremacy required. In 1174 his powerful boyars rebelled and assassinated117 him, and the oppressed people rose in turn and vented118 their democratic sentiment in the pillage and slaughter119 of the rich.
This is but one outstanding figure amidst the host of brutal soldiers or scheming princes who fill the chronicle of the time with blood. It is a wearisome repetition of the same process. A strong or unscrupulous man unites a large part of Russia under his sway, then a group of less strong, but not less ambitious, sons and grandsons fight for the spoil over the helpless bodies of the peasantry. Those who succeed must reward their boyars and the clergy, and the land of Russia passes more and more into the hands of large proprietors120 and is worked by slaves. “If you want the honey, you must kill the bees,” was the characteristic remark of one of these descendants of Rurik, as he despatched his victims; and the little restraint which their new faith imposed upon them may be gathered from the flippant retort of another princeling, who was accused of breaking an oath solemnly made over a cross: “It was only a little cross.”
There were, as I said, northern parts where the democratic evolution proceeded healthily. Novgorod, a large northern city of a hundred thousand souls, rising in the centre of a beautiful plain fringed by forests, had become a republic with wide territory and three hundred thousand subjects beyond the rude defences of the city. There is a legend that it had rebelled even against Rurik, the first Scandinavian adventurer. It accepted, of its own choice, what had come to be called princes, but it endorsed121 or rejected them, and curtailed122 their powers, with a good deal of civic123 pride and independence. “Come and rule us yourself or else we will choose a prince,” the citizens said to a Grand Prince of Kieff who ordered them to receive his nominee124. To another Grand Prince, who would send his son to govern them, a later generation of citizens replied: “Send him—if he has a head to spare.” They had even an independent Church and elected their archbishop. The old democratic Véché, or council of citizens, was the central institution of the city, and the great bell summoned all to the market-square whenever some business of importance called for a decision. The neighbouring republics of Pskoff and Viatka were hardly less faithful to the democratic tradition. While these territories were the farthest from Constantinople, they were nearest to Germany and the Baltic, and they were enriched by the commerce which was then beginning to civilise the northern cities.
Tatars of the Mongol Period
Even Novgorod, we saw, felt the heavy hand of Andrew of Vladimir, and the remainder of Russia steadily125 lost its vitality126 under the drain of civil war. Upon this distracted and enfeebled population there now fell an autocratic ruler of the most arbitrary character. The year 1237 is, in the chronicles, one of calamities127 and portents128. The fires which so often devoured129 the timber settlements of the Slavs were more numerous and destructive than ever. Drought and famine made haggard faces over large regions, and from the sky a terrifying eclipse and other portents seemed to mock their prayers for deliverance. As the dreadful year passed a new evil broke upon them. Into the southern principalities poured crowds of fugitives130 from the east, who told that immense hordes131 of ferocious133 and inhuman134 horsemen were covering the land and completing its desolation. Toward the close of the year the first wave of the Tatars shook the southern frontiers of the Slavs.
Asia had, as well as Europe, its adventurers, and the baleful dream of conquest had lit the imagination of a Tatar chief, Dchingis Khan, amidst the dreary135 wastes of Siberia. Gathering136 about him the rough tribes of his race, a swarm137 of hardy138 shepherds who knew not what a house, much less a city, was, he led them against the civilisation139 of the south. His men lived in the saddle, and each was a master in the use of the bow, the sabre, and the lance. Camels and buffaloes140 bore their (at first) scanty141 possessions, and they moved with all the speed of devouring142 nomads143. The villages of Manchuria, the tame and placid144 cities of China, and all the wide spaces of central Asia were successively overrun and forced to pay tribute. From the civilised Chinese the wonderful and profoundly ignorant barbarian quickly learned the art of gathering taxes and enjoying luxury, and he moved further west in a vague design of conquering the earth.
This strange and terrifying horde132, a cloud of fiercely yelling centaurs145 with troops of animals which no Russian had ever seen, first fell upon the southern Russians in 1224. Their method was to press the peasantry into their service and attempt to disarm146 the towns with hollow assurances of friendship, but, in whatever way the town was taken, there followed a merciless slaughter and a thorough pillage. The Russians, alarmed by the reports of the outlying tribes, sent out a great army to meet the Mongols on the steppes, and were crushingly defeated. The Mongols had, however, retired147 to Asia, where their dominion was not solidly established, and it was a vaster army, under a new Khan, that appeared in the south of Russia in 1237.
From 1237 to 1240 the Khan Batu led his army of 600,000 men, with appalling148 destruction, across the various principalities of Russia. Weakened by their feuds, severed149 by their selfish rivalries150, the various provinces fell one by one under the feet of the merciless invaders. Rape151, murder, fire, and pillage were the invariable sequels of success. The Russians appealed to the nations of the nearer west to help them to dam this Asiatic flood, but the Latin Christians were not minded to stir themselves for semi-barbarians who did not respect the Pope. When the Khan passed over the prostrate152 body of Russia and advanced still further, in his determination to conquer an earth of which he knew less than a child in a modern infant-school, the Poles and Hungarians at length spread their barrier of steel across his path. But the check did not now profit Russia. Batu retired upon Russia, built a city, Sarai, on the banks of the Volga (beyond the limits of the principalities), and began a life of organised parasitism153 upon the unfortunate people. The comparative unity brought about by their Norse defenders154 had prepared the way for the Khan. The Khan was to prepare the way for the Moscovite.
Again we may ignore the crowded details, the rise and fall and eternal feuds of petty princes, of the Russian chronicle. What matters is that the entire country which was then known as Russia was overspread by a network of tax-gatherers, and the people learned to tremble at the commands of a distant autocrat25. At Sarai the Mongols established a court of barbaric magnificence, and this in time declared itself independent of the Tatar Empire in Asia and sought the nourishment155 of its luxury in Russia. The western sovereignty came to be known throughout Europe as the Golden Horde, and the western nations heard with indifference156 the cynical157 extravagance and the occasional brutality158 with which it treated schismatic Slavs.
No prince could now don his tattered159 dignity in Russia without the august permission of the semi-civilised ruler on the Volga, and a system was soon evolved which enabled the courtiers and concubines of the Khan to share the good fortune of their lord. In the constant disputes about succession claimants to the various Slav principalities made the perilous160 journey to Sarai, and the richness of the presents they brought sufficed to illumine the obscurity of their titles. Occasionally a prince whose loyalty161 to the Mongols was suspected was summoned to Sarai, and not a few who could not pass the humiliating tests left their bones among the Mohammedan Tatars. To those who bent their backs or tendered the cup with servile respect the Khan was gracious. They returned with power to extort162 the taxes for the Tatars and a large additional sum for themselves. If their people or rival princes were restive163, a troop of the dreaded164 Tatar horse was put at their disposal, and the lash165 and the sabre cowed every attempt at revolt. The spying and flogging with which the servants of the Khan protected their master’s interests were copied by the Slav-Norse princes. The Byzantine civilisation had itself introduced many devices of autocratic barbarism, for the jails of Constantinople, especially the dungeons166 of the superb imperial palace, witnessed ghastly tortures and mutilations. The cruelty of the Asiatic completed this machinery167 of the later Tsars; and the Princes of Moscow were the readiest of all to be the tax-gatherers of the Khan and the pupils of his unscrupulous ministers.
The scattered Slavs had, after the three or four years of terror, returned from the forests to their burned villages and their plundered168 towns. The gold and silver had gone from their churches: the inmates169 of their nunneries were the playthings of the Asiatic officers: their democracy was a mockery. Their industry soon healed the torn face of the country, but lands and lives now belonged to the foreign master. One-tenth of all their produce must be paid in taxes, and they might at any time be summoned to do military service. Kieff was in large part a ruin; Suzdal, Moscow, Riazan, and other cities were despoiled170. Even Novgorod and Pskoff had, after a bloody resistance, to present their fleece to the shearer171.
The miserable172 condition of the Slavs was further darkened by the behaviour of their Christian neighbours on the west. The Swedes, pleading that the men of Novgorod hindered the conversion173 to the true faith of the remaining pagans of the north, induced the Pope to declare a holy crusade, with the customary spiritual and temporal advantages, against Russia, and a zealous175 army advanced against Novgorod. It was shattered, but the Catholic zeal174 of the west was not extinguished. The Knights176 of the Sword, the German order which enforced baptism as truculently177 as the early Mohammedans had enforced the Koran, next appeared on the Russian frontier, and took Pskoff. The Teutonic adventurers were not less formidable in white mantle178 and red cross than they had been in the dress of the pagan Norsemen, and were hardly less ferocious, but they had to retreat before the stalwart Novgorodians. In the fourteenth century, however, the united Lithuanians and Poles crossed into Russia and added to the miseries179 of the people. Only half a dozen of the Russian principalities could hold out against the invaders. The Tatars were now in decay, and the red spears of the Lithuanian knights were even seen as far south as the Black Sea.
It is to this demoralisation of the Russians rather than to any direct Tatar influence that we must turn our attention. There was little mingling180 of Mongol and Slav blood, beyond the occasional marriage of a Tatar princess by some sycophantic181 prince, and the enslavement of Russian women in the spacious182 harems of the Asiatics. “Scratch a Russian and you will find a Tatar” is an untruth. Few races in the civilised world are purer in blood than the Russian Slavs. Nor did the Khans modify the Russian culture more than the levying183 of tribute demanded. With the clergy they were on friendly terms, knowing their power over the ignorant peasants, and they suppressed neither the Mir of the village nor the Véché of the town, as long as it furnished the collective tribute. On the other hand, they entirely184 broke the original spirit of independence; they organised the country for purposes of extortion, and disorganised it for purposes of self-defence; they helped to convert the brutal and masterful Norseman into a calculating and coldly selfish prince; and they encouraged the subjection of women which the teaching of the Byzantian priests and monks185 had begun.
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addicted
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| adj.沉溺于....的，对...上瘾的 | |
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furry
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| adj.毛皮的；似毛皮的；毛皮制的 | |
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abounded
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| v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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monk
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| n.和尚，僧侣，修道士 | |
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primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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meek
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| adj.温顺的，逆来顺受的 | |
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akin
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| adj.同族的，类似的 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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exigencies
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scatter
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| vt.撒，驱散，散开；散布/播；vi.分散，消散 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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succumb
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| v.屈服，屈从；死 | |
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monarchic
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| 国王的，君主政体的 | |
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monarch
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| n.帝王，君主，最高统治者 | |
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monarchs
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| 君主，帝王( monarch的名词复数 ) | |
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vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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corruption
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| n.腐败，堕落，贪污 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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parasites
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| 寄生物( parasite的名词复数 )； 靠他人为生的人； 诸虫 | |
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binding
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| 有约束力的，有效的，应遵守的 | |
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foes
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| 敌人，仇敌( foe的名词复数 ) | |
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hereditary
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| adj.遗传的，遗传性的，可继承的，世袭的 | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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sketched
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| v.草拟（sketch的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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autocrat
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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asunder
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| adj.分离的，化为碎片 | |
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afterward
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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feuds
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| n.长期不和，世仇( feud的名词复数 ) | |
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plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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anarchy
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| n.无政府状态；社会秩序混乱，无秩序 | |
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sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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strife
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| n.争吵，冲突，倾轧，竞争 | |
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corpses
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| n.死尸，尸体( corpse的名词复数 ) | |
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Founder
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| n.创始者，缔造者 | |
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lustful
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| a.贪婪的；渴望的 | |
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39
nun
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|
| n.修女，尼姑 | |
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40
tedium
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|
| n.单调；烦闷 | |
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41
trite
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|
| adj.陈腐的 | |
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42
promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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43
penitent
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|
| adj.后悔的；n.后悔者；忏悔者 | |
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44
Christians
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|
| n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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45
testament
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|
| n.遗嘱；证明 | |
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46
bestowed
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|
| 赠给，授予( bestow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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47
barbarian
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|
| n.野蛮人；adj.野蛮(人)的；未开化的 | |
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48
expound
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|
| v.详述；解释；阐述 | |
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49
idols
|
|
| 偶像( idol的名词复数 )； 受崇拜的人或物； 受到热爱和崇拜的人或物； 神像 | |
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50
truculence
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|
| n.凶猛，粗暴 | |
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51
extirpation
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|
| n.消灭，根除，毁灭；摘除 | |
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52
gilded
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|
| a.镀金的，富有的 | |
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53
domes
|
|
| n.圆屋顶( dome的名词复数 )；像圆屋顶一样的东西；圆顶体育场 | |
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54
clergy
|
|
| n.[总称]牧师，神职人员 | |
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55
legitimate
|
|
| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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56
dominion
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|
| n.统治，管辖，支配权；领土，版图 | |
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57
dominions
|
|
| 统治权( dominion的名词复数 )； 领土； 疆土； 版图 | |
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58
ineptly
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|
| adv. 不适当地，无能地 | |
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59
metropolis
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|
| n.首府；大城市 | |
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60
adorned
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| [计]被修饰的 | |
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61
gilt
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|
| adj.镀金的；n.金边证券 | |
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62
monarchy
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|
| n.君主，最高统治者；君主政体，君主国 | |
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63
organisation
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|
| n.组织，安排，团体，有机休 | |
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64
judicial
|
|
| adj.司法的，法庭的，审判的，明断的，公正的 | |
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65
duel
|
|
| n./v.决斗；(双方的)斗争 | |
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66
ordeal
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|
| n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验 | |
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67
mosaics
|
|
| n.马赛克( mosaic的名词复数 )；镶嵌；镶嵌工艺；镶嵌图案 | |
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68
complexion
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|
| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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69
brutal
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|
| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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70
inflicted
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|
| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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71
meekly
|
|
| adv.温顺地，逆来顺受地 | |
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72
solicited
|
|
| v.恳求( solicit的过去式和过去分词 )；（指娼妇）拉客；索求；征求 | |
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73
dilated
|
|
| adj.加宽的，扩大的v.（使某物）扩大，膨胀，张大( dilate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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74
odious
|
|
| adj.可憎的，讨厌的 | |
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75
unaware
|
|
| a.不知道的，未意识到的 | |
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76
disdain
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|
| n.鄙视，轻视；v.轻视，鄙视，不屑 | |
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77
warriors
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|
| 武士，勇士，战士( warrior的名词复数 ) | |
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78
armour
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|
| （=armor）n.盔甲；装甲部队 | |
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79
wrung
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|
| 绞( wring的过去式和过去分词 )； 握紧（尤指别人的手）； 把（湿衣服）拧干； 绞掉（水） | |
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80
feudal
|
|
| adj.封建的，封地的，领地的 | |
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81
provincial
|
|
| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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82
barons
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|
| 男爵( baron的名词复数 )； 巨头； 大王； 大亨 | |
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83
degenerate
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|
| v.退步，堕落；adj.退步的，堕落的；n.堕落者 | |
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84
chivalry
|
|
| n.骑士气概，侠义；（男人）对女人彬彬有礼，献殷勤 | |
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85
unity
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|
| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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86
invaders
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|
| 入侵者，侵略者，侵入物( invader的名词复数 ) | |
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87
mediocre
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|
| adj.平常的，普通的 | |
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88
compensate
|
|
| vt.补偿，赔偿；酬报 vi.弥补；补偿；抵消 | |
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89
warfare
|
|
| n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突 | |
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90
worthy
|
|
| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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91
devastated
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|
| v.彻底破坏( devastate的过去式和过去分词)；摧毁；毁灭；在感情上（精神上、财务上等）压垮adj.毁坏的；极为震惊的 | |
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92
guardians
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|
| 监护人( guardian的名词复数 )； 保护者，维护者 | |
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93
slew
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|
| v.（使）旋转；n.大量，许多 | |
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94
admiration
|
|
| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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95
pandemonium
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|
| n.喧嚣，大混乱 | |
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96
tithe
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|
| n.十分之一税；v.课什一税，缴什一税 | |
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97
costly
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|
| adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的 | |
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98
monasteries
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| 修道院( monastery的名词复数 ) | |
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99
tornado
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|
| n.飓风，龙卷风 | |
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100
extremity
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|
| n.末端，尽头；尽力；终极；极度 | |
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101
marshes
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|
| n.沼泽，湿地( marsh的名词复数 ) | |
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102
braced
|
|
| adj.拉牢的v.支住( brace的过去式和过去分词 )；撑牢；使自己站稳；振作起来 | |
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103
incessant
|
|
| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
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104
obliterated
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|
| v.除去( obliterate的过去式和过去分词 )；涂去；擦掉；彻底破坏或毁灭 | |
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105
astute
|
|
| adj.机敏的，精明的 | |
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106
possessed
|
|
| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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107
miraculous
|
|
| adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的 | |
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108
professed
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|
| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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109
consternation
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|
| n.大为吃惊，惊骇 | |
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110
pious
|
|
| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
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111
pillage
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|
| v.抢劫；掠夺；n.抢劫，掠夺；掠夺物 | |
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112
supremacy
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|
| n.至上；至高权力 | |
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113
aspiring
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|
| adj.有志气的；有抱负的；高耸的v.渴望；追求 | |
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114
nomination
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|
| n.提名，任命，提名权 | |
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115
conspicuous
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|
| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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116
autocracy
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|
| n.独裁政治，独裁政府 | |
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117
assassinated
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|
| v.暗杀( assassinate的过去式和过去分词 )；中伤；诋毁；破坏 | |
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118
vented
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| 表达，发泄（感情，尤指愤怒）( vent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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119
slaughter
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|
| n.屠杀，屠宰；vt.屠杀，宰杀 | |
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120
proprietors
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|
| n.所有人，业主( proprietor的名词复数 ) | |
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121
endorsed
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|
| vt.& vi.endorse的过去式或过去分词形式v.赞同( endorse的过去式和过去分词 )；在（尤指支票的）背面签字；在（文件的）背面写评论；在广告上说本人使用并赞同某产品 | |
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122
curtailed
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|
| v.截断，缩短( curtail的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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123
civic
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|
| adj.城市的，都市的，市民的，公民的 | |
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124
nominee
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| n.被提名者；被任命者；被推荐者 | |
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125
steadily
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|
| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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126
vitality
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|
| n.活力，生命力，效力 | |
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127
calamities
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|
| n.灾祸，灾难( calamity的名词复数 )；不幸之事 | |
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128
portents
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| n.预兆( portent的名词复数 )；征兆；怪事；奇物 | |
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129
devoured
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|
| 吞没( devour的过去式和过去分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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130
fugitives
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|
| n.亡命者，逃命者( fugitive的名词复数 ) | |
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131
hordes
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| n.移动着的一大群( horde的名词复数 )；部落 | |
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132
horde
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| n.群众，一大群 | |
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133
ferocious
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|
| adj.凶猛的，残暴的，极度的，十分强烈的 | |
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134
inhuman
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|
| adj.残忍的，不人道的，无人性的 | |
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135
dreary
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|
| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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136
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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137
swarm
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| n.(昆虫)等一大群；vi.成群飞舞；蜂拥而入 | |
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138
hardy
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|
| adj.勇敢的，果断的，吃苦的；耐寒的 | |
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139
civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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140
buffaloes
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|
| n.水牛（分非洲水牛和亚洲水牛两种）( buffalo的名词复数 )；（南非或北美的）野牛；威胁；恐吓 | |
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141
scanty
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|
| adj.缺乏的，仅有的，节省的，狭小的，不够的 | |
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142
devouring
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|
| 吞没( devour的现在分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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143
nomads
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|
| n.游牧部落的一员( nomad的名词复数 )；流浪者；游牧生活；流浪生活 | |
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144
placid
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|
| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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145
centaurs
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| n.（希腊神话中）半人半马怪物( centaur的名词复数 ) | |
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146
disarm
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|
| v.解除武装，回复平常的编制，缓和 | |
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147
retired
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|
| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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148
appalling
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|
| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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149
severed
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| v.切断，断绝( sever的过去式和过去分词 )；断，裂 | |
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150
rivalries
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|
| n.敌对，竞争，对抗( rivalry的名词复数 ) | |
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151
rape
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| n.抢夺，掠夺，强奸；vt.掠夺，抢夺，强奸 | |
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152
prostrate
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|
| v.拜倒，平卧，衰竭；adj.拜倒的，平卧的，衰竭的 | |
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153
parasitism
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|
| n.寄生状态，寄生病；寄生性 | |
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154
defenders
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|
| n.防御者( defender的名词复数 )；守卫者；保护者；辩护者 | |
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155
nourishment
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|
| n.食物，营养品；营养情况 | |
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156
indifference
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|
| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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157
cynical
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|
| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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158
brutality
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|
| n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮 | |
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159
tattered
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|
| adj.破旧的，衣衫破的 | |
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160
perilous
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|
| adj.危险的，冒险的 | |
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161
loyalty
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|
| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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162
extort
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|
| v.勒索，敲诈，强要 | |
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163
restive
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| adj.不安宁的，不安静的 | |
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164
dreaded
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| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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165
lash
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| v.系牢；鞭打；猛烈抨击；n.鞭打；眼睫毛 | |
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166
dungeons
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| n.地牢( dungeon的名词复数 ) | |
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167
machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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168
plundered
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| 掠夺，抢劫( plunder的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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169
inmates
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| n.囚犯( inmate的名词复数 ) | |
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170
despoiled
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| v.掠夺，抢劫( despoil的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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171
shearer
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| n.剪羊毛的人；剪切机 | |
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172
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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173
conversion
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| n.转化，转换，转变 | |
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174
zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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175
zealous
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| adj.狂热的，热心的 | |
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176
knights
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| 骑士； （中古时代的）武士( knight的名词复数 )； 骑士； 爵士； （国际象棋中）马 | |
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177
truculently
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178
mantle
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| n.斗篷，覆罩之物，罩子；v.罩住，覆盖，脸红 | |
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179
miseries
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| n.痛苦( misery的名词复数 )；痛苦的事；穷困；常发牢骚的人 | |
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180
mingling
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| adj.混合的 | |
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181
sycophantic
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| adj.阿谀奉承的 | |
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182
spacious
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| adj.广阔的，宽敞的 | |
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183
levying
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| 征（兵）( levy的现在分词 )； 索取； 发动（战争）； 征税 | |
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184
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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185
monks
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| n.修道士，僧侣( monk的名词复数 ) | |
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