The name Moscow first appears in the Russian Primary Chronicle in 1147. In 1156, there is a reference to the building of a wall around the city, and in 1177 there is mention of the city burning down. However, through the twelfth century, Moscow appears to have been a fairly minor city.

This changed in the thirteenth century. In 1237, Vladimir, the prince of Moscow, was killed by the Mongols when the city was sacked; he was eventually succeeded by Daniel, the youngest son of Alexander Nevskii, who ruled the city for most of the second half of the thirteenth century. Daniel successfully seized the mouth of the Moscow River, securing that area for both commerce and agriculture, and left his son Iurii, who succeeded him in 1303, a considerably larger territory.

Iurii was the first of the Muscovite princes to enter into a competition for the Grand Princedom. The most common adversary for the Muscovites were the princes of Tver, and these two cities engaged in a power struggle for the position of Grand Prince for nearly 100 years. As part of this, Iurii married one of the sisters of the khan of the Golden Horde, and was rewarded by being granted the title of Grand Prince. During the subsequent civil war with Tver, Iurii's wife was captured and died in captivity. Iurii accused Michael, the prince of Tver, of having poisoned her, and the khan responded by arresting Michael and having him executed.

Iurii's position as grand prince was again recognized by the khan in 1319, but he lost the throne to Michael's eldest son Dmitrii in 1322. The khans used the position of Grand Prince to keep the Russian princes in an almost constant state of civil war, thus weakening them to the point that they could not fight against the khanate. In 1325, Iurii was killed by Dmitrii, without the khan's permission; Dmitrii was called to Sarai and executed by the khan. Dmitrii's brother Alexander was then made grand prince, but he ran afoul of the khan and escaped to Lithuania, where he remained for several years before returned to Tver to become prince in 1337. Apparently he had been offered a safe passage by the khan, but that was only a pretense to get him back to Russia; in 1338 he was executed by the khan.

The Dominance of the Moscow Line

When Alexander fled to Lithuania, Iurii's younger brother Ivan became grand prince (in either 1328 or 1332; the Chronicle is not clear). Nicknamed "Kalita", or "moneybags", Ivan was notoriously tight with money, which placed him in clear contrast with the previous grand princes. He apparently was also a good leader with close ties to the khan, as he remained in power until his death in 1341.

He used his talents as an adminstrator to increase his own power, and did so in a way which did not threaten the khan. While he continued to be subservient to the khan, he began to collect tribute from the princes of the other cities in Russia, and received a commission for performing this service for the khan. He used that money to purchase more lands, so that by the time of his death he had more than tripled the lands that he had initially inherited, including incorporating the ancient city of Vladimir into the holdings of the prince of Moscow.

It was also during Ivan's reign that Moscow became the religious capital of Russia. Previously, Vladimir had been the center of religious activity in Russia (after the destruction of Kiev, which had held that position previously), but in 1326, the metropolitan Peter died while in Moscow. Rather than returning his body to Vladimir, Ivan had it buried in Moscow, where it quickly became a shrine. In 1328, Ivan persuaded the new metropolitan, Theognost, to live in Moscow, and the city became the official center of Russian religion, and the successor to Kiev.

All of these actions added to the prestige and dominance of Moscow within Russia, and Ivan's successor Simeon the Proud did little to change this; in fact, he declared himself prince of all the Russias, as well as being declared Grand Prince by the khan, and he expanded the holdings of Moscow further during his 12 year reign. When he succumbed to the plague in 1353, he was succeeded by his brother Ivan II, or the Meek, who was not a particularly good ruler. Ivan only ruled until 1359, at which point he was succeeded by his young son Dmitrii. Dmitrii's primarily advisor was a cleric, Aleksei, who eventually became the metropolitan of Moscow and was canonized by the church for his efforts during a time of great confusion under the rule of the Golden Horde; Aleksei managed to help hold together the princedom of Moscow until Dmitrii was old enough to rule on his own; this struggle included a civil war between the prince of Suzdal and the prince of Moscow, with Dmitrii of Moscow (or more accurately his advisors) emerging victorious. It was a crucial win not just for the city of Moscow, but also for the idea of primogeniture (inheritance by the eldest son), which had only begun to be practiced in Russia. Prior to Dmitrii's victory, brothers usually inherited, with the inheritance split among all of the heirs; Dmitrii's victory changed that, and primogeniture became the norm.

Dmitrii Donskoi and the Defeat of the Mongols

Young prince Dmitrii reigned from 1359-1389, and his 30 year reign saw significant changes. In addition to fighting the princes of Suzdal, Dmitrii and his advisors were forced to fight against Tver, Lithuania, the Volga Bulgars, and Riazan to maintain their power. While the early part of his reign was dominated by advisors, Dmitrii emerged in the 1370s as a powerful leader, and his victory at Kulikovo in 1380 marked a turning point in the relations between the Russians and the Golden Horde.

At Kulikovo, on the Don River (hence Dmitrii's sobriquet, Donskoi, of the Don), a Russian army of 150,000 men defeated a slightly (200,000 men) large Golden Horde army. It was the first time that the Russians had successfully fought against the Horde, and it proved that the Horde was not invincible. It also made Donskoi a hero for all of the Russians to rally around, as they increasingly did. There was little time to savor the victory; the khan responded by sending a larger army and sacking and burning Moscow in 1382. However, the khan's men and Donskoi's troops did not meet in battle, and an agreement was reached to allow Dmitrii to remain grand prince while the khan remained his nominal overlord. However, it was clear that the power of the khan was not as great as it had been, and Donskoi concentrated his efforts for the rest of his reign on neutralizing the other Russian princes.

Vasilii I and Vasilii II

Donskoi was succeeded, without dispute, by his son Vasilii I, who captured the capital of the Bulgar empire and added to the prestige of Moscow by defeating the Lithuanians. His reign, which lasted until 1425, was one of great expansion and general stability for Moscow.

He was succeeded by his son Vasilii II, who came to power after fighting the only true war of succession in Muscovite history; the dispute was between Vasilii II and Vasilii I's brother Iurii, and eventually Vasilii II won, despite having been blinded during the struggle (blinding was a common tactic used to incapacitate leaders without killing them, the idea being that it was not regicide but that no one would agree to be led into battle by a blind man). His reign, which lasted until 1462, saw the division of the khanate into several pieces, including the khanates of Kazan, Astrakhan, and the Crimea. For all intents and purposes, Moscow was free of Mongolian rule by 1452, although this was not a formal declaration until 1480.

Vasilii's reign also saw the signing of the Treaty of Florence, signed at the Council of Florence in 1439. The Byzantine Orthodox, in Constantinople, increasingly feared the power of the Seljuk Turks and tried to reunite with the Western Roman Catholic Church; this agreement was reached at the Council of Florence, although not without substantial controversy. The Russian metropolitan who agreed to and signed the treaty was arrested and deposed from power, and Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453, ending the power of the Byzantine Orthodox Church.

Ivan III and Vasilii III

The reign of Ivan III (1462-1505) is generally considered the end of appanage Russia and the beginning of the Muscovite period. By the time he came to power, Moscow's territory encompassed about 15,000 square miles (from 600 in the reign of Daniel), but there were still several major obstacles in the way of Moscow being the sole ruler of Russia. The most serious of these remained Novgorod and Tver.

Ivan III was unusual in that he actually served as one of his father's advisors and so was uniquely qualified once he came to power in 1462. His first actions were to gather up territories, and to specifically eliminate any opposition to his rule. In 1478, he forced Novgorod to submit to him (the city had been deserted by their Lithuanian allies, and could not fight Moscow alone); in 1485 he incorporated Tver into the Muscovite state.

Ivan III did not limit himself to areas within Russia; he considered himself the heir to the state of Kiev, and all the lands that state had held, and in 1493 began to call himself Sovereign of all the Russias. The Kievan lands were held primarily by Lithuania, which had stepped into the void left by the destruction of Kiev, and Ivan intended to reclaim all of those territories.

His successes led Ivan, in 1480, to formally renounce his relationship with the Mongols, who responded by promising to crush Russia; however, political intrigue and unrest within the khanate prevented the Mongols from being able to do anything, and Russia stopped paying tribute to the Mongols. By 1500, the Golden Horde had largely fallen under the control of the Crimean Tatars.

Ivan also cemented his role by marrying into the Byzantine royal family; in 1472, he married Zoe, the niece of the last Byzantine emperor, and while it did not place the Russians under the Western Roman Church (as many had hoped it might) it did give Russia a certain prestige on the world stage that it had previously lacked. The Russian princes began to use the double headed eagle (one of the symbols of the Byzantines) as their own symbol, and increasingly used the titles autocrat and tsar, although the latter would not become commonplace until the reign of Ivan IV. The coronation of the tsar became a religious event, held in Moscow, and Ivan himself used his reign to sponsor civic projects throughout the city, making Moscow a more obvious and significant capital city.

Ivan's death in 1505 led to the succession of his son, Vasilii. He continued many of the policies of his father, including the annexation of additional territories such as Pskov and Riazan and warfare against the Lithuanians. He also allowed more foreigners into Russia, and created a separate part of Moscow, called the German or foreign suburb, in which they could worship their own faiths and live among their own kind. In domestic affairs, he very much continued the policies of his father, including trying to check the power of the nobles (boyars); this period also saw the decline of the middle class (in part due to the fall of several of the major commercial centers, including Pskov) and a worsening of the position of the peasantry. Slavery was also commonplace in the period, with slaves performing all types of jobs (agricultural, servants, etc) within the wealthy households in Russia.

Vasilii's reign lasted 28 years, but at the time of his death, he left a three year old son, Ivan, as his heir; in addition, he named his young wife, Elena, as the regent, and this spelled disaster for the young prince. Elena Glinskaia was from one of the wealthy but resented boyar families, and her dependence (and rewards to) her family caused rifts within the court; Elena died in 1558, probably of poison, leaving 8 year old Ivan at the mercy of his courtiers.