The Horde

by Marie Favereau

  The tarkhan system allowed the Russian clergy to establish new landed properties. The Orthodox monks prospered, too: they were not conscripted nor sent away, and monasteries prospered. Unlike the dhimmis, the tarkhans were exempt from paying taxes; for the Mongols, elite loyalty was enough. This soon proved to be a very advantageous system for the Orthodox churches and monasteries as they started to grow their capital.

  It was not only by means of incentives that the Horde won support of the Russian elite. The Jochids also wielded superior strength of arms, which was appealing to Russian elites who understood that Mongol protection could be beneficial for them. This advantage was perhaps most obvious in Novgorod, which was the most important commercial center of northern Russia but also subject to economic and military pressures that made life precarious.

  Located on the banks of the Volkhov River, Novgorod sat at the intersection of popular east-west and north-south trade routes. From Novgorod, merchants could link up to a network of rivers that carried their goods to the Baltic Sea, the Volga Valley, Kiev, and the Black Sea. What is more, Novgorod teemed with skilled artisans. But the city was hampered by a lack of raw materials. Iron could be found locally, but otherwise the boyars who owned the craft workshops had to import metals from Europe. Craftsmen also needed high-quality wood from the Caucasus, amber from the Baltics, and gemstones from the east. The Novgorodians paid for the raw materials with salted fish, wax, honey, and furs—commodities whose production was likewise controlled by the boyars.20

  The elites of Novgorod and its surrounding region were thus deeply invested in trade, which meant that they were exposed to shocks affecting the region’s trade networks. And such shocks were not uncommon. Novgorod had to cope with two serious military threats, both from the northwest. Despite their defeat in 1240 against Alexander Nevsky, the Swedes continued to compete with Novgorod for the control of the Gulf of Finland, a key area for the Baltic trade. On top of this, in the late 1260s Teutonic Knights were beginning to colonize the Baltic shores and expand toward Novgorod. In 1269 the Novgorodians defeated the knights at Rakvere, in Estonia, bringing peace to Novgorod’s western border. But the truce was temporary, and everybody knew it.

  Under duress from the northwestern sea powers, the Novgorod boyars accepted Mongol protection, which guaranteed favorable trading conditions. This meant the boyars would have to acknowledge subordination to the grand prince—he was, after all, the Mongols’ vassal—which was historically unusual, as the Novgorodians had always maintained independence. But subordination was a small price to pay in exchange for protection and noninterference in their business, especially since it was mostly for show. The boyars had merely to welcome and host the grand prince’s officials, who had no real power. Under Mongol auspices, the boyars reached an agreement with the grand prince that prevented him from owning lands and delivering justice in the Novgorod principality. Most importantly the Novgorodians obtained the right to collect the Mongol tribute themselves. This would help to avoid tensions of the kind that beset the Mongol census under Alexander Nevsky, who, as grand prince, had tried to mediate between the Mongols and the Novgorod elites and commoners who refused to pay taxes. With the boyars overseeing tax collection directly, the Mongol levy would seem less of an imposition.

  The Novgorod agreement proved beneficial to both the Jochids and the Russians and arguably had a catalytic effect on economic development across Europe. With the Mongols set to referee disputes, relations between Novgorod and German traders improved, facilitating a durable, large-scale commercial alliance involving Novgorod, Riga, Lübeck, Hamburg, Cologne, Visby, Bergen, and other northwestern cities. Together, merchants in these cities formed what became known as the Hanseatic League. For centuries to come, the league’s trading houses dominated the vital fish and salt businesses of the Baltic and North seas and shaped exchanges between Northern Europe and the wider world. The Mongols thus enlarged the commercial horizon and multiplied the trade prospects of their northern subjects. In doing so, the Mongols had profound effects on the future of the region. In the last decades of the thirteenth century, the Russians recovered from the devastations of conquest and built new stone churches. By 1302 the Novgorodians began erecting a stone kremlin to replace their old wooden fortress. Such developments might have been impossible without the Mongols’ protection, political acumen, and liberal trade policies. Security and free passage for merchants and goods; privileged treatment for elites, clergy, traders, and artisans; carefully planned tax and land regimes; and mostly indirect governance were the stuff of prosperity, for Russian subjects and Mongols alike.21

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  Like its treatment of its Russian subjects, the Horde’s foreign relations were dominated by the demands of commerce. Möngke-Temür wanted peace with his neighbors, as long as they agreed to trade with the Horde on terms favorable to his people.

  With this in mind, the khan sought early in his rule to reestablish peaceful tributary relations with the Byzantine Empire, relations that had frayed after Nogay’s deep incursion into Byzantine lands to rescue the Seljuq sultan ‘Izz al-Dīn in 1263. In the aftermath, Emperor Michael Palaiologos’s attempts to win over Berke had been rejected. But around 1266, after Berke’s death, Michael tried again, sending Möngke-Temür a large tribute of textiles. To seal the deal, Michael also offered the khan one of his daughters. Möngke-Temür welcomed the Byzantine princess and married her to Nogay, whose horde was closest to the Byzantines. From this point forward, the Horde and the Byzantine Empire would regularly communicate on rules of exchange and regional politics.

  The new peace with the Byzantines reflected the recent improvement of relations between the Jochids and the Ilkhanids. The Byzantines had allied with the Ilkhanids, resulting in a crushing Byzantine defeat at Nogay’s hands. But with relations between the Jochids and Ilkhanids normalizing under Abaqa and Möngke-Temür, there was no reason for the Horde to continue standing against the Byzantines. That said, while the Horde and the Ilkhanids claimed to be on peaceful terms, Möngke-Temür had men stationed in the northern Caucasus watching the border on the Kura River. On the other side, Abaqa had ordered a wall and ditch built along the river. His warriors, too, watched the border day and night. Only caravans of merchants could pass; an armed horseman crossing the Kura would have meant war. So both parties kept the wary peace. For the time being, it was in the Jochids’ interest to honor the terms of the peace with the Ilkhanids and allow diplomatic envoys and caravans to come and go.22

  Möngke-Temür also maintained the alliance with the Mamluks of Egypt and Syria. For the entirety of Möngke-Temür’s rule, merchants could navigate from the Volga to the Nile, developing a lucrative trade channel. The alliance was beneficial for both the Jochids and Baybars’s Mamluks, who did not seem to care that Möngke-Temür had no apparent interest in following Berke along the path of Islam. What mattered was the exchange, for each party had something to offer the other. Each side desired special novelties, what Mongols called tangsuq and Mamluks called tuhaf. Möngke-Temür requested medicines—anything that could heal, protect, or extend life. The khan, in turn, sent Baybars what the Mamluks wanted most: slaves, furs, and hawks. The alliance with the sultanate had deep geopolitical consequences. The threat of a possible counterattack from Baybars’s Jochid allies prevented Abaqa from concentrating his forces and conquering Mamluk Syria, while the sale of young men to the Mamluk Sultanate refreshed Baybars’s armies, which also served to keep Abaqa at bay.23

  Another key Jochid alliance was with the Genoese, who wished to establish a port in Crimea, the westernmost domain of the Horde. Crimea was an old commercial nexus, inhabited by both sedentary and nomadic peoples. For Western Europeans, Crimea was the main door to the steppe landmass now under Mongol domination. The Genoese were familiar with the region and the Mongols, having previously traded at Sudak and taken part in Berke’s first embassy to Baybars. The Genoese understood that they could profit from the alliance between the Horde, the Byzantines, and the Mamluk
s, provided that the Genoese had their own harbor from which to run their business. At Sudak the Genoese had to share resources with Greeks, Jews, Alans, Venetians, and others. But the Genoese were tired of sharing. Seasoned and ambitious merchants, they had fought against the Venetians and the Greeks to expand their business, and they wanted to control their own destiny.

  Möngke-Temür let the Genoese know that they were welcome to settle on his lands as long as they paid taxes and followed his rules. We do not have records of the negotiations, but we can surmise that, by 1281, the khan had allowed the Genoese to occupy Caffa, an old Greek settlement on the southeastern coast of the Crimean Peninsula. The new Genoese settlement was small and only seasonally active, for every year between December and March, heavy winds prevented sailors from navigating the Black Sea. But the Genoese hoped to expand their commercial activities and eventually turn the settlement into a permanent fortified position to rival Sudak and the harbors controlled by their Venetian rivals.24

  For their part, the Jochids wanted more out of the Genoese than taxes. The Jochids also wanted a seafaring partner. Mongols were avid surveyors, who made the best use of their land and riverine resources and had an eye for defensible locations. However, it was not enough to project power over spaces they could reach on horseback, so the Jochids had to rely on middlemen on the coasts, who could connect them to the world beyond. Caffa was a strategically privileged location in this regard. Through the Genoese, the Mongols could control the nearby strait of Kerch, which connects the Black and Azov seas. Whoever controlled the strait controlled Black Sea access to the Horde.

  Other sea routes important to the Horde were secured by the Byzantines and Venetians. The Byzantines oversaw the Bosporus and Dardanelles and thus the trade channel between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, while the Venetians occupied the eastern bank of the Azov Sea soon after 1268. From there, the Venetians could reach the mouth of the Don River, a water highway 1,162 miles long that flowed from the Russian city of Ryazan and traversed the Horde. Through treaties, military threats, and regular contacts, the Jochids were the overlords of these critical passages, as well as Kerch. The alliance system was a diplomatic jewel, which saw the Jochids benefiting from competition among the very parties with whom the Horde allied. But diplomacy of this sort was also a tricky balancing act. The Jochids had to be cautious that their allies did not settle their own differences and combine forces against the Horde.

  For the Horde itself this had important implications: while the alliance with the Byzantines had strengthened the Jochids’ control over Black Sea access and allowed its people to exit and enter through the Bosporus and Dardanelles, the alliance with the Mamluks gave the Jochids access to the Nile and the Red Sea. Whether Genoese, Pisan, Venetian, Greek, Armenian, or Egyptian, sea traders and coastal powers became essential strategic partners for the Jochids.

  Another key to Jochid commerce under Möngke-Temür’s reign was southeastern Moldavia. Notably, the Jochids did not just obtain access to the region—they controlled it directly, installing Nogay as its ruler. Southeastern Moldavia was essential to the Jochids for at least two reasons. First, from southeastern Moldavia they could watch the end points of the Dniester and Danube rivers. These were critical trade routes that connected the Black Sea to a galaxy of inland ports. Second, portions of southeastern Moldavia—specifically, the Bujak steppe and the region of the Danubian lakes—were ideal for winter camps. A large corridor between the Dniester and Danube rivers, the Bujak steppe provided more than 3,800 square miles of grasslands. Since the Bronze Age, it was mostly a nomads’ land, and in the first half of the thirteenth century, Qipchaqs dominated the native peasants and semi-sedentary herders. The Mongols knew from the Qipchaqs where to find the best winter and summer grasses. Southeastern Moldavia was a place where Mongols could live, which meant they needed to govern it directly, not through intermediaries as in Russia.25

  Moldavia was also an ideal location from which to develop industries producing tradable commodities. For one thing, the region was one of the most profitable salt production centers in Europe. The salt came from western Perekop, the eastern Carpathians, Transylvania, and saline lagoons stretching between the Dniester and Danube. Salt fueled local economies and was exported to northern Russia, Anatolia, Poland-Lithuania, and territories deep within the Horde. In addition to salt, Moldavia produced wheat, wine, honey, horses, wood, pigs, cattle, fish, fish oil, caviar, and wax. All were exported from the cities along the lower Danube and Dniester. Many other commodities were imported and traded in those cities, including cotton, silk, and woolen textiles; glassware; metalwork; and fur. On top of that, human trafficking remained a prosperous business throughout the region and attracted dealers from far away.26

  To solidify their territorial control, the Jochids sponsored the construction of permanent settlements. In Moldavia these often developed on older urban locations like Isaccea, a trade hub on the Danube delta and the site of Nogay’s capital. From Isaccea it was easy to cross the Danube and go from Moldavia to the hilly plains of Dobruja, where Bulgarian, Alan, and Seljuq populations lived. The Jochids had two other key towns: Kilia, a Danubian hub, and Cetatea Alba or White City, on the lower Dniester. These trade centers blossomed under the Mongol regime, attracting ever more settlers. The Jochids also created entirely new settlements along the Danube and Dniester, such as Orheiul Vechi and Costeşti. These towns had mosques, shops, baths, workshops, and houses of stone, brick, and earth. As in the lower Volga two generations earlier, the Jochids protected the sitting cities that emerged on their territory, serving natives and merchants and bringing in new subjects.27

  From the Bujak steppe, one could access an extensive land and water network connecting the Black Sea coast and Europe. One part of this network was the Dniester River, which offered the most direct route from White City to the principality of Galicia-Volhynia and to Poland. Yet the river was navigable only in its middle and lower courses, which meant traders needed a land route for part of their journey. This land and water network was known as via Thartarica, the Mongol road. It emerged after the Mongol arrival, helping to connect the Black Sea littoral to Lwow on the Poltva river, at the other extreme of the Dniester, more than 400 miles northwest of White City. Part of the Hanseatic League, Lwow was a German-dominated hub, from which traders could make connections to Brașov, Krakow, the Baltic, and even Bruges, in Flanders. It was precisely on this route that German merchants met their primary trade partners, the Genoese. Through the via Thartarica, there was the prospect of linking from the Horde all the way to Western Europe.28

  In the case of the via Thartarica and elsewhere, we see the Jochids operating as a high-level facilitator of a large-scale trade network. Mongols financed and carried out trade themselves, but they also supplied the nodes and connections—ports, roads, river routes, fords, merchant-friendly settlements—that others used to transport goods. For the Jochids, their emergence as facilitators of Eastern European and Mediterranean trade circuits could not have come at a better time. In the second half of the thirteenth century, the Crusader kingdoms along the eastern Mediterranean coast were in continuous decline, costing the Genoese key trading posts. The Genoese needed access to new harbors, and the Black Sea market was particularly enticing thanks to the 1261 Treaty of Nymphaeum, which the Genoese had signed with the Byzantines. In exchange for Genoese aid in the Byzantines’ war with the Venetians, the treaty granted the Genoese trade-tax exemptions and rights to acquire land, creating highly favorable conditions to develop their business in the Byzantine Empire. But at this point, half of the Black Sea coast belonged to the Jochids, limiting the value of the agreement. So the Genoese established contact with the Mongols around 1263 and finally, during Möngke-Temür’s rule, secured their Black Sea position, first at Sudak and then at Caffa by 1281. The historical records suggest that the Genoese quickly established themselves at Caffa and, within months of arriving, had a thriving business at the mouth of the Danube. Soon after, they cre
ated trading posts at the Mongol cities of Kilia and White City, which the Genoese linked to Constantinople, Europe’s most urbanized location.29 The Genoese were not alone in taking advantage of the Jochid network, which also linked Germans, Slavs, and Greeks. Greeks in particular had a large presence at Kilia. Between them, Greek and Genoese traders bought most of the crops grown in the Bujak steppe and sent large quantities of grain to Constantinople.

  Throughout the network, encompassing the Black Sea littoral and the lower river valleys from the Danube to the Don, the Mongols were in command, bringing together the scattered merchants of Europe. The Jochids supervised and taxed all this trade. They also monetized it; as usual, the coin dies were theirs. Byzantine coins were also used, but to a much lesser extent than Jochid coins. The Jochids created the tools of exchange and reaped the rewards in taxes, fees, and tributes. Not only that, but the Jochids turned long-distance traders and local elites into loyal proxies. Germans, Genoese, and other fragmented but dynamic groups of European settlers attached themselves to the Mongol giant and kept the Horde booming.30