The feudal tradition in Western Europe supported the supremacy of the law and was strong enough to counter the growth of monarchical power at the end of the Middle Ages. In Russia, on the other hand, as a result of Mongolian and Byzantine influences, the supremacy of the ruler became the tradition. Western doctrines of government led to an emphasis on rights, whereas Russian ones emphasized obligations. This variance is one of the basic reasons for differences between Russia and the West. . . .Before the Mongolian period, the Russian prince was not an autocratic ruler. Vernadsky thus analyzes the situation: "The political organization of the Russian principalities in the pre-Mongolian period was a combination of monarchical, aristocratic and democratic government." . . . The results of two hundred years of Mongolian rule were reflected in a "new view regarding the power of the Prince. The power of the Khan was one of merciless strength. It was autocratic; submission to it was unqualified." After repudiating Tatar control, the rulers of Moscow found themselves successors of the Khans and absolute masters over their subjects. With the fall of Constantinople before the Turks in 1453 and the marriage of Ivan III to the heiress of the Paleologues, these rulers were able to think of Moscow as the new and ultimate Rome and to add prestige to power. Now that the Russian Tsar felt himself to be tsar of all the Russias and heir of the Byzantine Empire, the Byzantine-Roman conception of the Emperor as sole legislator seems to have taken root. Attitudes acquired from the Tatars, traditions founded on Roman law and taken from Byzantium, and the unswerving support of the Church, all contributed to the development of autocracy in Russia.

The growth of monarchical power in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was not, of course, restricted to Russia. In many countries of Western Europe decline in the strength of feudal barons, together with other factors, had increased the power of the kings. There was however, one significant difference between developments in Western Europe and those in Russia. There was, in the West, an authority which proved itself a counterweight to royal power, replacing that formerly provided by the feudal barons. This counterweight was a legacy of feudalism: ". . . the principle that the community is governed by law and that the ruler as much as the subject is bound to obey the law." No such rival to royal power existed in post-Mongolian Russia.