Plus ça change: The Shaping of Early Muscovite Diplomatic Rituals

This study examines the diplomatic rituals and ceremonies employed in formal exchanges of envoys between Muscovy and the Grand Principality of Lithuania in the late fifteenth century and first decades of the sixteenth and also analyzes the application of parallel procedures in the reception of messengers conveying “private” letters between Lithuanian lords (pany) and Moscow boiars. The concerns for honor, precedence, and control of information, as well as the manner of negotiating, all so evident in the seventeenth century, were well established by the 1530s, if not earlier. At the same time the “private” contacts, orchestrated behind the scenes by the sovereigns and their official representatives, offered more flexibility and provided a “back channel” for keeping communications open without loss of face.