Novgorod veche

The traditional scholarship lists among the powers of the veche the election of the town officials such as the posadnik, tysyatsky, and even the archbishop (he was then sent to the metropolitan for consecration); it also invited in and dismissed the princes.

The traditional scholarship goes on to argue that a series of reforms in 1410 transformed the veche into something similar to the public assembly of Venice; it became the Commons or lower chamber of the parliament.

The difficulty in understanding the veche is that the term was used to mean any sort of assemblage of people, from a formal legislature or judicial entity to a mob or riot.

Jonas Granberg has called into question the very existence of the Council of Lords (sovet gospod), saying it is an interpolation or interpretation of modern historians of very scanty evidence.

This bell was a symbol of republican sovereignty and independence and for this reason, Ivan III carted it off to Moscow when he took control of the city, to show that the old way of doing things was at an end.