The Horde
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Finally, what was perhaps most distinctive about the Horde was the Jochids’ ability to reconcile Islamic and Mongol ways of rule. The Horde used Mongol institutions such as tarkhan exemptions to uphold the administrative structures of khan and keshig while also investing in Islamic cultural and religious institutions. The impact on Islam itself was considerable, as the Jochids brought together diverse Muslim heritages within a single society. The Horde linked together Seljuq, Abbasid, Volga Bulgar, and Khwarezmian Islamic practices, fostering a sense of unity among otherwise-disparate peoples. It is due in part to the Horde that Sufism became such a powerful force in Central Asia. Yet the Islamization of the Horde after Berke did not blunt the advance of Christianity in the Jochid territories, and Buddhists continued to hold an important place among the Jochid elites and herders. And the same Mongols who adopted Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism continued to perform steppe rituals, to honor the ancestors, and to uphold Chinggis, his descendants, and Tengri.
Through its singular adaptiveness and assimilative capacities, the Horde changed the world. The Horde shaped the politics of Russia and of Central Asia and firmly anchored Islam in the Caucasus and Eastern Europe. The Horde brought steppe peoples to Mamluk Egypt and Franciscans to Crimea and the lower Volga. The Mongol exchange, of which the Jochids were the key agents, knit together east and west. And all of this was achieved through processes of evolution that made the Horde at once unique and recognizably Mongol. There was as much a Jochid way of empire as there was a Roman way, an Ottoman way, and a British way. When we think about the legacy of empires, we of course recognize the cosmopolitan effects of the Mediterranean, European, and Ottoman powers that made the world smaller through practices of tolerance, coercion, exploitation, protection, investment, and conquest. These empires are credited with driving global history. But nomads drove global history, too, and none more so than the people of the Horde.
Glossary
ak orda
White Horde, western wing of the Horde
anda
alliance of sworn brotherhood
aqa
elder brothers, senior members of a lineage
basqaq
civil commander in charge of a sedentary population, tasked especially with tax collection (syn. daruga, darughachi)
beg
nomadic leader
beglerbeg
eldest or highest-ranking beg; supreme commander
bitigchi
imperial secretaries
bo’ol
free men, warriors
boyar
nobleman, landowner (Slavic)
bulqaq
anarchy, crisis; referring specifically to the period (1360s and 1370s) following the collapse of the senior Jochid lineages
darughachi, daruga
civil officer in charge of a sedentary population, tasked especially with tax collection (syn. basqaq)
dhimmi
legally protected non-Muslim under Muslim rule (Arabic)
Etügen
the Earth (deity)
ger
felt tent (also known as yurt)
gerege
passports, documents guaranteeing safe conduct (also known as paiza)
güregen
imperial husband
ini
younger brothers, junior members of a lineage
inju
personal property, dowry, or premortem inheritance
kebte’ül
night guard and member of the keshig
keshig
personal guard or administrator, man in permanent service to khan; pl. keshigten
khan
ruler
khatun
wives and daughters of the khan
kök orda
Blue Horde, eastern wing of the Horde
kniaz
Russian prince; pl. kniazia
kumis
fermented mare’s milk (also known as airag)
kuda anda
alliance through marriage
kupchir
property tax paid in food, drink, clothing, and animals
lestvitsa
principle of princely succession (Russian)
minggan
military unit of a thousand warriors
morin yam
relay postal service on horseback
narin yam
secret communication system, faster than other yam services
nuntug
homeland, site for retirement and burial
oboq
named groups whose members claimed a single, often legendary, ancestry
ochigin
youngest son, “hearth-keeper”
ongon
felt effigies, sometimes carried as talismans
ordo
defined space surrounding khan’s palace-tent, protected by keshigten, often housing the central administration of the khan’s domain
ordo geren
khan’s tents
ortaq
licensed merchant
qarachu
non-Chinggisid nomadic elite who served the golden lineage (late evolution of bo’ol status)
qoruq
burial grounds
qubi
share of conquered people, goods, and territory
quda
marriage partner
quriltai
great assembly
sarai
palace, city
sharil
Buddhist relic
sülde
vital force binding people together; ruler’s charisma
tamga
lineage mark (on animals, coins, or seals)
tammachi
garrison troops stationed along borders and in newly settled colonies
tangsuq
unusual and highly prized gifts
tarkhan
status exempting protected classes (e.g., high clergy, craftsmen, certain military men) from taxes and conscription
Tengri
the Sky, Heavens (deity)
tergen yam
relay supply system for heavy loads
tümen
military decimal system; contingent of ten thousand men
Ulugh Kul
“Great Center,” the khan’s private domain
ulus
people; political community
uruq
lineage
voivode
high-ranking military, and later civil, office (Slavic)
yam
relay stations for messages and supplies (also known as örtöö)
yarlik
imperial order
yasa
code of conduct derived from Chinggis Khan’s teachings; imperial regulations
yeke Mongghol ulus
the Mongol Empire
Notes
INTRODUCTION
1. See John A. Boyle, The Mongol World Empire (London: Variorum Reprints, 1977). On historiographical development of the concept of the Mongol world empire, see Timothy May, The Mongol Conquests in World History (London: Reaktion, 2012), 7–23. Janet Abu-Lughod offers important insights into the meaning of a world system when she explains that “no world system is global in the sense that all parts articulate evenly with one another.” What makes a world system is the interdependence of various geographically distinct subsystems. Janet L. Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250–1350 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 32 (emphasis original).
2. Pamela Kyle Crossley, Hammer and Anvil: Nomad Rulers at the Forge of the Modern World (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2019), 149–155; Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper, Empires in World History: Power and Politics of Difference (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), 104–115.
3. May, The Mongol Conquests, 22.
4. See Crossley, Hammer and Anvil, xvii–xxiii; May, The Mongol Conquests, 8.
5. See Thomas T. Allsen, Mongol Imperialism: The Policies of the Gran
d Qan Möngke in China, Russia, and the Islamic Lands, 1251–1259 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987); Thomas T. Allsen, Commodity and Exchange in the Mongol Empire: A Cultural History of Islamic Textiles (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997); Thomas T. Allsen, Culture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001); Thomas T. Allsen, The Royal Hunt in Eurasian History (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006); Thomas T. Allsen, The Steppe and the Sea: Pearls in the Mongol Empire (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019).
6. See especially May, The Mongol Conquests; Michal Biran, “The Mongol Empire and Inter-Civilizational Exchange,” in The Cambridge World History, vol. 5: Expanding Webs of Exchange and Conflict, ed. B. Z. Kedar and M. E. Wiesner-Hanks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 534–558; Hodong Kim, “The Unity of the Mongol Empire and Continental Exchange over Eurasia,” Journal of Central Eurasian Studies 1 (2009): 15–42.
7. See, for instance, methodological reflections in Eugenio Menegon, “Telescope and Microscope: A Micro-Historical Approach to Global China in the Eighteenth Century,” Modern Asian Studies 54, no. 4 (2020): 1315–1344.
8. Karl Wittfogel and Fêng Chia-shêng, History of Chinese Society: Liao (907–1125) (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Association, 1949), 508.
9. Lhamsuren Munkh-Erdene, “Where Did the Mongol Empire Come From? Medieval Mongol Ideas of People, State and Empire,” Inner Asia 13, no. 2 (2011): 211–237, 211. On the evolution of the Mongol ulus into yeke Mongghol ulus (the Mongol Empire or Great State), see Timothy Brook, Great State: China and the World (London: Profile Books, 2019), 7–9.
10. Ron Sela, Ritual and Authority in Central Asia: The Khan’s Inauguration Ceremony, Papers on Inner Asia no. 37 (Bloomington: Indiana University Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, 2003).
11. See also Pekka Hämäläinen, The Comanche Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), who titles his conclusion, “The Shape of Power.”
12. Russian historians based in the United States, such as George Vernadsky, were able to use terms other than “Tatar yoke.” The notion of a Mongol or Tatar yoke finds its way into more recent English-language scholarship, e.g., Charles J. Halperin, The Tatar Yoke (Columbus, OH: Slavica, 1986); and Leo de Hartog, Russia and the Mongol Yoke: The History of the Russian Principalities and the Golden Horde, 1221–1502 (London: British Academic Press, 1996).
13. Devin DeWeese, Islamization and Native Religion in the Golden Horde: Baba Tükles and Conversion to Islam in Historical and Epic Tradition (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994).
14. See Charles J. Halperin, Russia and the Golden Horde: The Mongol Impact on Medieval Russian History (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985); Halperin, The Tatar Yoke; Hartog, Russia and the Mongol Yoke; Donald Ostrowski, Muscovy and the Mongols: Cross-Cultural Influences on the Steppe Frontier, 1304–1589 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
15. Janet Martin, for example, notes Russian economic development under Mongol sovereignty, although she does not seek to explain the phenomenon. Janet Martin, “North-Eastern Russia and the Golden Horde (1246–1359),” in The Cambridge History of Russia, vol. 1, ed. Maureen Perrie (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 132.
16. See Michael Khodarkovsky, Russia’s Steppe Frontier: The Making of a Colonial Empire, 1500–1800 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002).
17. Barbaro i Kontarini o Rossii: k istorii italo-russkikh sviazei v XV v., ed. and trans. E. Ch. Skrzhinskaia (Leningrad: Nauka, 1971), 148.
18. The oldest written steppe epic, Ötemish Hājjī’s Chinggis nāme, dates to the mid-sixteenth century. There are several editions, including Utemish Khadzhi [Ötemish Hājjī], Chingiz-name, ed. and trans. V. P. Iudin, Iu. G. Baranova, and M. Kh. Abuseitova (Almaty: Gilim, 1992); and Kara tavarikh, trans. I. M. Mirgaleev and E. G. Sayfetdinova (Kazan: Sh. Marjani Institute of History of the Tatarstan Academy of Sciences, 2017).
19. We can be confident that court chronicles from the Horde were not merely lost, because there is no mention of their existence in later works patronized by the leaders of the Horde’s successor regimes, such as the Uzbek and Khivan khans. If such court literature had existed, it would have been referenced in these subsequent sources.
20. See Utemish Khadzhi, Chingiz-name; DeWeese, Islamization and Native Religion; Mária Ivanics and Mirkasym A. Usmanov, Das Buch der Dschingis-Legende. Däftär-i Čingiz-nāmä (Szeged: Department of Altaic Studies, University of Szeged, 2002).
1 • THE RESILIENCE OF THE FELT-WALLED TENTS
1. On Qiu Chuji, see Igor de Rachewiltz and Terry Russell, “Ch’iu Ch’u-chi,” in In the Service of the Khan: Eminent Personalities of the Early Mongol-Yüan Period (1200–1300), ed. Igor de Rachewiltz, Chan Hok-lam, Hsiao Ch’i-ch’ing, and Peter W. Geier, 208–223 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1993).
2. The report of Qiu Chuji’s journey to the West was written by his disciple Li Zhichang and published in 1228 under the title Qiu Chang Chun Xi You Ji (Travels to the West of Qiu Chang Chun). English translations include Emil Bretschneider, “Si Yu Ki (Ch’ang Ch’un, 1221–24),” in Mediaeval Researches from Eastern Asiatic Sources, 2 vols. (London: Trübner, 1888), vol. 1: 35–108; and The Travels of an Alchemist; the Journey of the Taoist, Ch’ang-ch’un, from China to the Hindukush at the Summons of Chingiz Khan, Recorded by His Disciple, Li Chih-ch’ang, trans. Arthur Waley (London: Routledge, 1931). Quotations from Bretschneider, “Si Yu Ki,” 86.
3. On the expression “Felt-Walled Tents,” see Secret History, § 202. Unless otherwise specified, quotations from the Secret History are from The Secret History of the Mongols: A Mongolian Epic Chronicle of the Thirteenth Century, trans. Igor de Rachewiltz (Leiden: Brill, 2004). See also Christopher Atwood, “How the Mongols Got a Word for Tribe—and What It Means,” Studia Historica Mongolica 10 (2010): 63–89. On the Mongol terms irgen (people) and aimag or aimagiin xolboo (tribe or tribes), see Christopher Atwood, “The Administrative Origins of Mongolia’s ‘Tribal’ Vocabulary,” Eurasia: Statum et Legem 1, no. 4 (2015): 7–45, esp. 17–25, 38. Atwood argues that, rather than a social group, “oboq” seems to designate the name inherited from an ancestor, but scholars commonly translate oboq as clan based on ancestry. See also Françoise Aubin, “Mongolie,” Encyclopedia Universalis (1978), vol. 11, 243; Christopher Atwood, “Mongol Tribe,” in Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire (New York: Facts on File, 2004), 389–391; Paul Buell and Judith Kolbas, “The Ethos of State and Society in the Early Mongol Empire: Chinggis Khan to Güyük,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 26 (2016): 43–56.
4. On Mongol effigies, see Isabelle Charleux, “From Ongon to Icon: Legitimization, Glorification and Divinization of Power in Some Examples of Mongol Portraits,” in Representing Power in Ancient Inner Asia: Legitimacy, Transmission and the Sacred, ed. Isabelle Charleux, Grégory Delaplace, Roberte Hamayon, and Scott Pearce, 209–261 (Bellingham, WA: Center for East Asian Studies, Western Washington University, 2010). On Tengri, see Mahmūd al-Kāshgarī, Dīwān lughāt al-Turk, ed. Kilisli Rifat Bey (Istanbul, 1333–1335 [1915–1917]), vol. 3, 278–279; English translation: Dīwān lughāt al-Turk, trans. Robert Dankoff and James Kelly (Duxbury, MA: Tekin, 1982–1985), vol. 2, 342–343; and Gerhard Doerfer, Türkische und mongolische Elemente im Neupersischen (Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1965), vol. 2, 577–585; V. F. Büchner [G. Doerfer], “Täñri,” Encyclopaedia of Islam (Leiden: Brill, 2000), vol. 10: 186–188. On sülde see Charleux, “From Ongon to Icon,” 217; and Tatyana Skrynnikova, “Sülde—The Basic Idea of the Chinggis-Khan Cult,” Acta Orientalia Hungaricae Academiae Scientiarum 46, no. 1 (1992–1993): 51–60.
5. On the social structure of the early Mongols, see Tatyana Skrynnikova, “Relations of Domination and Submission: Political Practice in the Mongol Empire of Chinggis Khan,” in Imperial Statecraft: Political Forms and Techniques of Governance in Inner Asia, Sixth-Twentieth Centuries, ed. David Sneath, 85–115 (Bellingham, WA: Center for E
ast Asian Studies, Western Washington University, 2006); and Atwood, “Mongol Tribe,” 390–391.
6. Skrynnikova, “Relations of Domination and Submission,” 93–96. Some earlier sources describe bo’ol as slaves, but bo’ol were not economically dependent. On Mongol genealogies see Rashīd al-Dīn, (Fazlullah’s-Jami‘u’t-tawarikh) Compendium of Chronicles: A History of the Mongols, trans. Wheeler Thackston (Cambridge, MA: Dept. of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University, 1998–1999), 79–82; Christopher Atwood, “Six Pre-Chinggisid Genealogies in the Mongol Empire,” Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi 19 (2012): 5–58. On Mongol exogamy, see Jennifer Holmgren, “Observations on Marriage and Inheritance Practices in Early Mongol and Yuan Society, with Particular Reference to the Levirate,” Journal of Asian History 20, no. 2 (1986): 127–192, 136.
7. See Peter Golden, “The Türk Imperial Tradition in the Pre-Chinggisid Era,” in Imperial Statecraft: Political Forms and Techniques of Governance in Inner Asia, Sixth-Twentieth Centuries, ed. David Sneath, 23–61 (Bellingham, WA: Center for East Asian Studies, Western Washington University, 2006). On the Kereit, see İsenbike Togan, Flexibility and Limitation in Steppe Formations: The Kerait Khanate and Chinggis Khan (Leiden: Brill, 1998).