--- title: Muscovy, England and France: how the big powers grew — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Muscovy, England and France: how the big powers grew», a lesson of the geography course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Big countries were not born big: in 1337 Moscow was a small principality paying tribute to the Golden Horde, Englan --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/34-muscovy-england-and-france-how-the-big-powers-grew/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Geography](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/) / Muscovy, England and France: how the b… # Muscovy, England and France: how the big powers grew Lesson 34 of the geography course of Mova's primary school: 18 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/geography/34-muscovy-england-and-france-how-the-big-powers-grew/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/34-muscovy-england-and-france-how-the-big-powers-grew/0/) — Big countries were not born big: in 1337 Moscow was a small principality paying tribute to the Golden Horde, England still held Gascony in France, and the French king ruled directly only part of what is France today. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/34-muscovy-england-and-france-how-the-big-powers-grew/1/) — They grew like a snowball rolling downhill, picking up land by war, by marriage, by inheritance and by deals, and sometimes losing it again, as England lost almost all its French lands by 1453. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/34-muscovy-england-and-france-how-the-big-powers-grew/2/) — Europa Universalis 5 lets you "form Great Britain" or push Muscovy across Siberia with a few clicks, but in real life each step took decades and cost the lives and freedom of ordinary people. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/34-muscovy-england-and-france-how-the-big-powers-grew/3/) — Russian serfs were bound to the land and could be sold with it, Irish Catholics lost most of their land to settlers, and Siberian peoples lost their hunting grounds to fur traders. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/34-muscovy-england-and-france-how-the-big-powers-grew/4/) — At the very end of the game's period the French Revolution and Napoleon turned the map of Europe upside down, and in 1815 the Congress of Vienna redrew it again. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/34-muscovy-england-and-france-how-the-big-powers-grew/5/) — Moscow was a small principality, a land ruled by a prince, under the overlordship of the Golden Horde in 1337, and it grew into the centre of a large Russian state; Ivan III stopped paying tribute, the yearly payment of a ruled land to its overlord, to the Horde in 1480. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/34-muscovy-england-and-france-how-the-big-powers-grew/6/) — Russia expanded east across Siberia from the 1580s and reached the Pacific coast by the 1640s, largely in search of furs. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/34-muscovy-england-and-france-how-the-big-powers-grew/7/) — Siberian peoples such as the Khanty, Evenks and Yakuts lost land, and many died from new diseases and violence. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/34-muscovy-england-and-france-how-the-big-powers-grew/8/) — In Russia most peasants became serfs, bound to their landlord's estate and not free to leave, until serfdom was abolished in 1861. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/34-muscovy-england-and-france-how-the-big-powers-grew/9/) — Peter the Great built St Petersburg on the Baltic coast from 1703 and made it Russia's capital, giving Russia a sea port facing western Europe; many forced labourers died building it on marshy land. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/34-muscovy-england-and-france-how-the-big-powers-grew/10/) — England began as a kingdom on part of one island, and in 1337, when EU5 starts, it still held lands in France, such as Gascony. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/34-muscovy-england-and-france-how-the-big-powers-grew/11/) — The Hundred Years' War between England and France began in 1337, and by 1453 England held only Calais in France. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/34-muscovy-england-and-france-how-the-big-powers-grew/12/) — England and Scotland joined to form the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707, and Ireland joined in 1801 to make the United Kingdom. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/34-muscovy-england-and-france-how-the-big-powers-grew/13/) — English and later British rulers took land from Irish Catholics and gave it to Protestant settlers, especially in the 1600s, so that by the 1700s Catholics owned only a small share of the land. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/34-muscovy-england-and-france-how-the-big-powers-grew/14/) — France grew from the lands around Paris held by its kings into a large, united kingdom by absorbing great territories such as Burgundy and Brittany; Brittany joined through royal marriages and was formally united with France in 1532. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/34-muscovy-england-and-france-how-the-big-powers-grew/15/) — Louis XIV ruled France from 1643 to 1715 and built the palace of Versailles, making France the strongest power in Europe, though his wars left France deep in debt. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/34-muscovy-england-and-france-how-the-big-powers-grew/16/) — The French Revolution began in 1789, ended the monarchy in 1792 and spread new ideas about rights and citizens across Europe. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/34-muscovy-england-and-france-how-the-big-powers-grew/17/) — Napoleon's empire at its height, around 1810 to 1812, controlled or dominated most of western and central Europe, and after his defeat the Congress of Vienna redrew the map in 1815. - ← previous: [Castile, Portugal and the first sea empires](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/33-castile-portugal-and-the-first-sea-empires/) - next →: [The Mughals, the Ming and the empires of Asia](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/35-the-mughals-the-ming-and-the-empires-of-asia/) - ↑ back to [Geography](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/)