The Travels of Marco Polo Volume II Part 72

Russia was overrun with fire and sword as far as Tver and Torshok by Batu Khan (1237-1238), some years before his invasion of Poland and Silesia.

Tartar tax-gatherers were established in the Russian cities as far north as Rostov and Jaroslawl, and for many years Russian princes as far as Novgorod paid homage to the Mongol Khans in their court at Sarai. Their subjection to the Khans was not such a trifle as Polo seems to imply; and at least a dozen Russian princes met their death at the hands of the Mongol executioner.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mediaeval Russian Church. (From Fergusson.)]

NOTE 2.--The _Lac_ of this pa.s.sage appears to be WALLACHIA. Abulfeda calls the Wallachs _Aulak_; Rubruquis _Illac_, which he says is the same word as _Blac_ (the usual European form of those days being _Blachi, Blachia_), but the Tartars could not p.r.o.nounce the B (p. 275). Abulghazi says the original inhabitants of Kipchak were the _Urus_, the Olaks, _the Majars_, and the _Bashkirs_.

Rubruquis is wrong in placing _Illac_ or Wallachs in Asia; at least the people near the Ural, who he says were so-called by the Tartars, cannot have been Wallachs. Professor Bruun, who corrects my error in following Rubruquis, thinks those Asiatic _Blac_ must have been _Polovtzi_, or c.u.manians.

[Mr. Rockhill (_Rubruck_, p. 130, note) writes: "A branch of the Volga Bulgars occupied the Moldo-Vallach country in about A.D. 485, but it was not until the first years of the 6th century that a portion of them pa.s.sed the Danube under the leaders.h.i.+p of Asparuk, and established themselves in the present Bulgaria, Friar William's 'Land of a.s.san.'"--H.C.]

NOTE 3.--_Oroech_ is generally supposed to be a mistake for _Noroech_, NORWEGE or Norway, which is probable enough. But considering the Asiatic sources of most of our author's information, it is also possible that _Oroech_ represents WAREG. The _Waraegs_ or _Warangs_ are celebrated in the oldest Russian history as a race of warlike immigrants, of whom came Rurik, the founder of the ancient royal dynasty, and whose name was long preserved in that of the Varangian guards at Constantinople. Many Eastern geographers, from Al Biruni downwards, speak of the Warag or Warang as a nation dwelling in the north, on the borders of the Slavonic countries, and on the sh.o.r.es of a great arm of the Western Ocean, called the _Sea of Warang_, evidently the Baltic. The Waraegers are generally considered to have been Danes or Northmen, and Erman mentions that in the bazaars of Tobolsk he found Danish goods known as _Varaegian_. Mr. Hyde Clark, as I learn from a review, has recently identified the Warangs or Warings with the _Varini_, whom Tacitus couples with the Angli, and has shown probable evidence for their having taken part in the invasion of Britain. He has also shown that many points of the laws which they established in Russia were purely Saxon in character. (_Bayer_ in _Comment. Acad. Petropol._ IV.

276 seqq.; _Fraehn_ in App. to _Ibn Fozlan_, p. 177 seqq.; _Erman_, I. 374; _Sat. Review_, 19th June, 1869; _Gold. Horde_, App. p. 428.)

[1] This Ukak of Ibn Batuta is not, as I too hastily supposed (vol. i. p.

8) the _Ucaca_ of the Polos on the Volga, but a place of the same name on the Sea of Azof, which appears in some mediaeval maps as _Locac_ or _Locaq_ (_i.e. l'Ocac_), and which Elle de Laprimaudaie in his Periplus of the Mediaeval Caspian, locates at a place called Kaszik, a little east of Mariupol. (_Et. sur le Comm. au Moyen. Age_, p. 230.) I owe this correction to a valued correspondent, Professor Bruun, of Odessa.

[2] The word is, however, perhaps Or. Turkish; _Som_, "pure, solid."

(See _Pavet de Courteille_, and _Vambery_, s.v.)

CHAPTER XXIII.

HE BEGINS TO SPEAK OF THE STRAITS OF CONSTANTINOPLE, BUT DECIDES TO LEAVE THAT MATTER.

At the straits leading into the Great Sea, on the west side, there is a hill called the FARO.--But since beginning on this matter I have changed my mind, because so many people know all about it, so we will not put it in our description, but go on to something else. And so I will tell you about the Tartars of the Ponent, and the lords who have reigned over them.

CHAPTER XXIV.

CONCERNING THE TARTARS OF THE PONENT AND THEIR LORDS.

The first lord of the Tartars of the Ponent was SAIN, a very great and puissant king, who conquered ROSIA and COMANIA, ALANIA, LAC, MENJAR, ZIC, GOTHIA, and GAZARIA; all these provinces were conquered by King Sain.

Before his conquest these all belonged to the Comanians, but they did not hold well together nor were they united, and thus they lost their territories and were dispersed over divers countries; and those who remained all became the servants of King Sain.[NOTE 1]

After King Sain reigned King PATU, and after Patu BARCA, and after Barca MUNGLETEMUR, and after Mungletemur King TOTAMANGUL, and then TOCTAI the present sovereign.[NOTE 2]

Now I have told you of the Tartar kings of the Ponent, and next I shall tell you of a great battle that was fought between Alau the Lord of the Levant and Barca the Lord of the Ponent.

So now we will relate out of what occasion that battle arose, and how it was fought.

NOTE 1.--+The COMANIANS, a people of Turkish race, the _Polovtzi_[or "Dwellers of the Plain" of Nestor, the Russian Annalist] of the old Russians, were one of the chief nations occupying the plains on the north of the Black Sea and eastward to the Caspian, previous to the Mongol invasion. Rubruquis makes them identical with the KIPCHAK, whose name is generally attached to those plains by Oriental writers, but Hammer disputes this. [See a note, pp. 92-93 of _Rockhill's Rubruck_.--H.C.]

ALANIA, the country of the Alans on the northern skirts of the Caucasus and towards the Caspian; LAC, the Wallachs as above. MENJAR is a subject of doubt. It may be _Majar_, on the k.u.ma River, a city which was visited by Ibn Batuta, and is mentioned by Abulfeda as _k.u.mmajar_. It was in the 14th century the seat of a Franciscan convent. Coins of that century, both of Majar and New Majar, are given by Erdmann. The building of the fortresses of Kichi Majar and Ulu Majar (little and great) is ascribed in the _Derbend Nameh_ to Naos.h.i.+rwan. The ruins of Majar were extensive when seen by Gmelin in the last century, but when visited by Klaproth in the early part of the present one there were few buildings remaining.

Inscriptions found there are, like the coins, Mongol-Mahomedan of the 14th century. Klaproth, with reference to these ruins, says that _Majar_ merely means in "old Tartar" a stone building, and denies any connection with the _Magyars_ as a nation. But it is possible that the Magyar country, i.e.

Hungary, is here intended by Polo, for several Asiatic writers of his time, or near it, speak of the Hungarians as _Majar_. Thus Abulfeda speaks of the infidel nations near the Danube as including Aulak, Majars, and Serbs; Ras.h.i.+duddin speaks of the Mongols as conquering the country of the Bashkirds, the Majars, and the Sa.s.san (probably Saxons of Transylvania).

One such mention from Abulghazi has been quoted in note 2 to ch. xxii.; in the _Masalak-al-Absar_, the _Cherkes_, _Russians_, _Aas_ (or Alans), and Majar are a.s.sociated; the Majar _and Alan_ in Sharifuddin. Doubts indeed arise whether in some of these instances a people located in Asia be not intended.[1] (_Rubr._ p. 246; _D'Avezac_, p. 486 seqq.; _Golden Horde_, p. 5; _I.B._ II. 375 seqq.; _Busching_, IV. 359; _Cathay_, p.

233; _Numi Asiatici_, I. 333, 451; _Klaproth's Travels_, ch. x.x.xi.; _N. et Ex._ XIII. i. 269, 279; _P. de la Croix_, II. 383; _Rein. Abulf._ I. 80; _D'Ohsson_, II. 628.)

["The author of the _Tarikh Djihan Kushai_, as well as Ras.h.i.+d and other Mohammedan authors of the same period, term the Hungarians _Bashkerds_ (Bashkirs). This latter name, written also _Bashkurd_, appears for the first time, it seems, in Ibn Fozlan's narrative of an emba.s.sy to the Bulgars on the Volga in the beginning of the 10th century (translated by Fraehn, 'De Bashkiris,' etc., 1822).... The Hungarians arrived in Europe in the 9th century, and then called themselves _Magyar_ (to be p.r.o.nounced Modjor), as they do down to the present time. The Russian Chronicler Nestor mentions their pa.s.sing near Kiev in 898, and terms them _Ugry_. But the name Magyar was also known to other nations in the Middle Ages.

Abulfeda (ii. 324) notices the _Madjgars_; it would, however, seem that he applies this name to the Bashkirs in Asia. The name _Madjar_ occurs also in Ras.h.i.+d's record. In the Chinese and Mongol annals of the 13th century the Hungarians are termed _Madja-rh_." (_Bretschneider, Med. Res._ I. pp.

326-327.)--H.C.]

ZIC is Circa.s.sia. The name was known to Pliny, Ptolemy, and other writers of cla.s.sic times. Ramusio (II. 196 _v_) gives a curious letter to Aldus Manutius from George Interiano, "_Della vita de'_ Zychi _chiamati Circa.s.si_," and a great number of other references to ancient and mediaeval use of the name will be found in D'Avezac's Essay, so often quoted (p. 497).

GOTHIA is the southern coast of the Crimea from Sudak to Balaklava and the mountains north of the latter, then still occupied by a tribe of the Goths. The Genoese officer who governed this coast in the 15th century bore the t.i.tle of _Capita.n.u.s Gotiae_; and a remnant of the tribe still survived, maintaining their Teutonic speech, to the middle of the 16th century, when Busbeck, the emperor's amba.s.sador to the Porte, fell in with two of them, from whom he derived a small vocabulary and other particulars. (_Busbequii Opera_, 1660, p. 321 seqq.; _D'Avezac_, pp.

498-499; _Heyd._, II. 123 seqq.; _Cathay_, pp. 200-201.)

GAZARIA, the Crimea and part of the northern sh.o.r.e of the Sea of Azov, formerly occupied by the _Khazars_, a people whom Klaproth endeavours to prove to have been of Finnish race. When the Genoese held their settlements on the Crimean coast the Board at Genoa which administered the affairs of these colonies was called _The Office of Gazaria_.

NOTE 2.--The real list of the "Kings of the Ponent," or Khans of the Golden Horde, down to the time of Polo's narrative, runs thus: BATU, _Sartak, Ulagchi_ (these two almost nominal), BARKA, MANGKU TIMUR, TUDAI MANGKU, _Tulabugha_, _Tuktuka_ or TOKTAI. Polo here omits Tulabugha (though he mentions him below in ch. xxix.), and introduces before Batu, as a great and powerful conqueror, the founder of the empire, a prince whom he calls _Sain_. This is in fact Batu himself, the leader of the great Tartar invasion of Europe (1240-1242), whom he has split into two kings. Batu bore the surname of _Sain Khan_, or "the Good Prince," by which name he is mentioned, e.g., in Makrizi (_Quatremere's Trans._ II.

45), also in Wa.s.saf (_Hammer's Trans._ pp. 29-30). Piano Carpini's account of him is worth quoting: "Hominibus quidem ejus satis benignus; timetur tamen valde ab iis; sed crudelissimus est in pugna; sagax est multum; et etiam astutissimus in bello, quia longo tempore jam pugnavit." This Good Prince was indeed _crudelissimus in pugna_. At Moscow he ordered a general ma.s.sacre, and 270,000 right ears are said to have been laid before him in testimony to its accomplishment. It is odd enough that a mistake like that in the text is not confined to Polo. The chronicle of Kazan, according to a Russian writer, makes _Sain_ succeed _Batu_. (_Carpini_, p. 746; _J. As._ ser. IV. tom. xvii. p. 109; _Busching_, V. 493; also _Golden Horde_, p. 142, note.)

Batu himself, in the great invasion of the West, was with the southern host in Hungary; the northern army which fought at Liegnitz was under Baidar, a son of Chaghatai.

According to the _Masalak-al-Absar_, the territory of Kipchak, over which this dynasty ruled, extended in length from the Sea of Istambul to the River Irtish, a journey of 6 months, and in breadth from Bolghar to the Iron Gates, 4 (?) months' journey. A second traveller, quoted in the same work, says the empire extended from the Iron Gates to _Yughra_ (see p. 483 supra), and from the Irtish to the country of the _Nemej_. The last term is very curious, being the Russian _Niemicz_, "Dumb," a term which in Russia is used as a proper name of the Germans; a people, to wit, unable to speak Slavonic. (_N. et Ex._ XIII. i. 282, 284.)

["An allusion to the Mongol invasion of Poland and Silesia is found in the _Yuen-s.h.i.+_, ch. cxxi., biography of Wu-liang-ho t'ai (the son of Su-bu-t'ai). It is stated there that Wu-liang-ho t'ai [Urtangcadai]

accompanied Badu when he invaded the countries of _Kin ch'a_ (Kipchak) and _Wu-la-sz'_ (Russia). Subsequently he took part also in the expedition against the _P'o-lie-rh_ and _Nie-mi-sze_." (_Dr. Bretschneider, Med. Res._ I. p. 322.) With reference to these two names, Dr. Bretschneider says, in a note, that he has no doubt that the Poles and Germans are intended. "As to its origin, the Russian linguists generally derive it from _nemoi_, 'dumb,'

i.e., unable to speak Slavonic. To the ancient Byzantine chroniclers the Germans were known under the same name. Cf. _Muralt's Essai de Chronogr.

Byzant., sub anno_ 882: 'Les Slavons maltraites par les guerriers _Nemetzi_ de Swiatopolc' (King of Great Moravia, 870-894). Sophocles' Greek Lexicon of the Roman and Byzantine periods from B.C. 146 to A.D. 1100: '_Nemitzi_'

Austrians, Germans. This name is met also in the Mohammedan authors.

According to the Masalak-al-Absar, of the first half of the 14th century (transl. by Quatremere, _N. et Ext._ XXII. 284), the country of the Kipchaks extended (eastward) to the country of the _Nemedj_, which separates the Franks from the Russians. The Turks still call the Germans _Niemesi_; the Hungarians term them _Nemet_."--H.C.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure of a Tartar under the feet of Henry II, Duke of Silesia, Cracow, and Poland, from the tomb at Breslau of that Prince, killed in battle with the Tartar host at Liegnitz, 9th April, 1241.]

[1] This doubt arises also where Abulfeda speaks of _Majgaria_ in the far north, "the capital of the country of the _Madjgars_, a Turk race"

of pagan nomads, by whom he seems to mean the _Bashkirs_. (_Reinaud's Abulf._ I. 324.) For it is to the Bashkir country that the Franciscan travellers apply the term Great Hungary, showing that they were led to believe it the original seat of the _Magyars_. (_Rubr._ 274, _Plan.

Carpin._ 747; and in same vol. _D'Avezac_, p. 491.) Further confusion arises from the fact that, besides the Uralian Bashkirs, there were, down to the 13th century, Bashkirs recognised as such, and as distinct from the Hungarians though akin to them, dwelling in _Hungarian territory_. Ibn Said, speaking of Sebennico (the cradle of the Polo family), says that when the Tartars advanced under its walls (1242?) "the Hungarians, the Bashkirs, and the Germans united their forces near the city" and gave the invaders a signal defeat. (_Reinaud's Abulf._ I. 312; see also 294, 295.) One would gladly know what are the real names that M. Reinaud refers _Hongrois_ and _Allemands_. The Christian Bashkirds of Khondemir, on the borders of the Franks, appear to be Hungarians. (See _J. As._, ser. IV. tom. xvii. p. 111.)

CHAPTER XXV.

OF THE WAR THAT AROSE BETWEEN ALAU AND BARCA, AND THE BATTLES THAT THEY FOUGHT.

It was in the year 1261 of Christ's incarnation that there arose a great discord between King Alau the Lord of the Tartars of the Levant, and Barca the King of the Tartars of the Ponent; the occasion whereof was a province that lay on the confines of both.[NOTE 1]