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monasteries. This power was rudely tempered by theviolence of class divisions, and the unruly city mob foundsome effective organization, at least in times of crisis, inthe traditional popular assembly that was formally thesovereign body of the city. The powers of the localprince had soon been closely curtailed: after 1272 hewas dispensed with altogether. Thus, both politicallyand socially, Novgorod, and Pskov, developed verydifferently from the other Russian centres during theMongol period. She acknowledged the suzerainty ofthe grand-princes of Vladimir or Moscow and paidtribute to the Horde, but acted as an independent state.There was, however, one essential element of weakness :she was usually dependent for food supplies on theVolga-Oka region.In the latter part of the fifteenth century the Balticquestion began to be transformed and the days ofNovgorod were numbered. The growth of Lithuania-Poland (see pp. 203-204) and the consolidation ofMuscovy under Ivan the Great (reigned 1462-1505; seepp. 95-96 and 205) were the overriding facts. Novgorod(1471, 1478) and Pskov (1510) fell, not to Lithuania-Poland, but to Muscovy. The Hanseatic League waseverywhere in decline, and in 1494 Ivan cancelled itsprivileged position: henceforth rival trading interests—Scandinavian, Dutch, finally English—competed forMuscovite trade through the Baltic. Poland had hadthe upper hand of the Teutonic Knights since her greatvictory at Tannenberg (1410; see p. 204) and was nowre-established on the Baltic at the mouth of the Vistula.German power was also weakening fast in Livonia andEstonia. Ivan the Great's new fortress of Ivangorod overagainst the German key centre of Narva, his heavy defeatof the Order in 1501, and his alliance with Denmarkand war with Sweden (1493-96) foreshadowed the newshape of things to come. During the next three centuriesRussians and Swedes were pitted in war against eachother for the Baltic lands nine times: five times theDanes were in alliance, ineffectually, with the Russians.But first, for both Muscovy and Sweden, Poland was themajor foe.259