Asian Experiences: Mongols

views updated

Asian Experiences: Mongols

Prester John. One of the most enduring tales of the Middle Ages was that of Prester John. It told of a Christian kingdom somewhere in Asia (or, later, Africa) that had been converted by and was ruled over by a benevolent theologian-king by the name of Prester John. Where and when the tale originated is not known, although some conjecture that it could have been associated with the legends of Saint Thomas’s mission to India. However, soon after the Crusades were under way, the popularity of Prester John increased. The idea was that once the Holy Land was occupied and returned to Christianity, new Crusaders and explorers would be sent to seek out Prester John and unite his kingdom with the rest of Christendom. Later, when the Crusades proved to be unsuccessful, it was believed that Prester John would bring a military force to the Middle East and restore the Holy Land to Christianity. It was even reported in 1145, following the fall of Edessa and the initiation of the Second Crusade (1144-1187), that a letter had been received from Prester John. In this epistle the theologian-king, after telling of his kingdom and its marvels, expressed his desire to visit the Holy Sepulcher after facing and defeating the enemies of Christianity. (Indeed, so convincing was this now lost letter that in 1177 Pope Alexander III wrote a reply to Prester John and sent it off to the East in the care of an envoy, Philip, who traveled to the Holy Land, but thereafter promptly disappeared.) Even as late as 1221, when the Crusading forces, led by King Louis IX (St. Louis) of France, languished at Damietta, there was a rumor of oncoming aid from Prester John or his descendant King David, although again this promise remained unfulfilled.

Eastern Horde. While Prester John’s Christian kingdom in Asia was truly fictional, however, there was another group of people in thirteenth-century Asia who did affect medieval Europe and the Crusader Kingdoms: the Mongols. In 1222 the first onslaught of Mongols against those living west of them occurred. The initial target was southern Russia, and Russia would continue to be plagued by Mongol assaults for the next several generations. Yet, that land would not be the only western ambition of the Mongol conquerors, known throughout history as the Mongol Horde.

Motivations The reason for the Mongol’s conquest is not known, as prior to the early thirteenth century they seem to have been largely disunited tribes far more concerned by their agriculturally dominated economy than in military activity. The man who may have changed this situation was born in 1167 as Temuchin, but has become known historically by the name he took as a military and political leader, Ghenghis Khan (Mightiest King). Early in his life his father was murdered, and Temuchin became a fugitive. By surviving he gained a reputation for enterprise and daring that attracted many followers and eventually, in 1206, bolstered him to leadership over not only the Mongol

tribes, but also over neighboring Tatar, Kerait, Naiman, and Merkit tribes.

Conquest. Genghis Khan’s objective as ruler over and military leader of the Mongols was simple: to utilize the horsemanship, which every Mongol male was taught from youth, to make conquests against non-Mongolians. Whether these potential enemies were nearby or far-away did not seem to matter. In 1211 the Mongols attacked China, moving against the Chin Empire, which ruled the northern part of the country, and occupying the capital, Peking, in 1215, although the entire Chin Empire would not fall until 1234, after Genghis’s death. In 1218 the Mongols conquered the empire of Kara Khitai in central Asia. In 1222 he attacked the Khwarismian Empire, located in the region between the Aral Sea and Afghanistan. In this conquest, Genghis Khan made his first contact with, and conquest of, a Muslim state.

Successors. In 1227 the Mightiest King died while attempting to besiege Ning-Hsia, capital city of the Tangut kingdom of Hsi-Hsia, which lay between Mongolia and China. However, his dreams of world conquest did not die with Genghis Khan. His immediate successor, Ogotai Khan, made increased territorial gains. Indeed, in the 1230s, while one of his armies set about attacking the Sung empire in China with the conquest of Korea, a second army was attacking the Seljuk Turkish empire of Rum in Asia Minor, and a third army began a conquest of Russia and Eastern Europe.

Devastation in Russia. This latter attack which proved to be the most devastating, and the most brutal, of those that the Mongols made into the west. It was led by the chieftains Subotai and Batu and may have numbered as many as 150,000 (although the entire army never participated in any one military engagement). They set out in 1236, and by the end of 1237 Subotai and Batu had advanced into Russia, capturing and destroying the city of Riazan and killing or enslaving its entire population. They followed this depredation in February 1238 with a similar destruction and slaughter of the towns and people of Vladimir and Suzdal. Two years later, after an unexplained pause in the campaign, the Mongols attacked the impressive city of Kiev, destroying it and nearly wiping out its large population. Indeed, so many were killed that even as long as eight years later the bones of the dead could still be seen lying where the Mongols had left them.

Hungary. Once the Mongols had finished with their attacks on Russia, in early 1241, they turned toward Poland and Hungary. On 9 April 1241 they were met near the borders at Liegnitz by a Western army of Germans, Poles, Teutonic Knights, and Knights Templars. The Western army was devastated, and the Mongols reportedly sent nine sacks of ears from the enemy dead to Karakorum as evidence of their victory. Two days later a Hungarian army was also defeated. Hungary lay open to conquest, which occurred throughout the rest of 1241, while a contingent of Subotai and Batu’s force even rode to the gates of Vienna. It seemed that Germany was to be the next target of this unstoppable Mongol horde, with the rest of Western Europe fearing for its own safety. (The German Emperor, Frederick II, even wrote to King Henry III of England, asking him for assistance against the Mongols.)

New Focus. What Western armies could not do, the death of Ogotai Khan in December 1241 did: the Mongol armies, even those as far away as the borders of Germany, returned to Karakorum for the seating of a new Great Khan, in this case Ogotai’s brother, Kuyuk. Yet, Kuyuk’s reign was short, and his successor, Mangu Khan, while certainly interested in extending his empire in the West, desired to campaign against Middle Eastern Muslims rather than European Christians. (Although a few Mongol raids were made into Europe in the ensuing years, none came close to the geographical acquisition or brutality of the 1237-1241 attacks.) In 1256, Mangu Khan set upon and completely destroyed the Muslim sect of Assassins, who, living in mountain fortifications in what is now Iran, terrorized all nearby peoples. In 1258 Mangu Khan besieged and captured

Baghdad, the intellectual center of Islam and capital of the Abbasid caliphate. In addition he invaded Syria and seized Damascus, but in turn he was defeated by an Egyptian army at the battle of Ain Jalud. By this time, Mangu Khan had died and was succeeded by his brother, Kublai Khan. Kublai had little interest in the West, either in the Middle East or Europe, but was instead engrossed with the Mongol s,especial l y China. In 1259, as soon as he ascended to the throne of his dead brother, he moved the Mongolian capital from Karakorum to Peking, which he renamed Khanbalik. He then, by 1279, completed the conquest of the rest of China, becoming the first Yuan emperor.

Diminishing Threat. With the death of Mangu Khan and Kublai Khan’s shift of interest to the Far East, the Mongol military threat to Europe and the Middle East largely vanished. Russia and the Ukraine would continue to be harassed by Mongolian tribes, and, for a while during the early fifteenth century, Eastern Europe, the Byzantine Empire, and the Ottoman Turks were forced to face a new but relatively short-lived Mongolian threat in the Tatar invasion led by Tamerlane. However, on the whole, the time of the attacks of the Mongol horde fell into historical memory.

Missionary Efforts. What did not fall into historical memory, at least to the Christians of Western Europe, was that many non-Christians lived to the east of them. Proselytizing had not been effective in European Christian relationships with the Muslims of the Middle East, Africa, or Spain, although some missionary endeavors with these people had been attempted and, almost always, failed. However, with the Mongols, especially as they had little discernable religion, at least in the perception of European Christians, missionary efforts might well be successful, and even if not, the Christian missionaries sent among them would be able to serve as diplomats and spies.

Dominicans. The first of these Christian missionaries to the Mongols were Dominican Friars sent by the Hungarian King, Bela IV, in the early part of the thirteenth century. Their target was the Cuman and Bashkir tribes of southern Russia and Siberia. Little is known about this first mission, even whether these missionaries ever encountered their proselytizing subjects, let alone whether they converted any of them. Yet, a later missionary attempt initiated by Bela IV, made by the Dominican priest Julian in 1236-1237, failed to reach the Bashkirs but had discovered plans for the impending Mongol attack that so completely devastated Russia and Eastern Europe.

Franciscans. A second missionary effort followed in 1245 when Pope Innocent IV appointed two Franciscans, Giovanni di Plano Carpini and Lawrence of Portugal, to travel to the Great Khan himself. Their record, which Carpini regularly wrote, provided the first accurate glimpse into the Mongolian life, which up to that time for Europeans had existed largely of nightmarish myths. Carpini and Lawrence left Lyons bound for Asia in April 1245. In Breslau they were joined by a third Franciscan, Benedict the Pole. Together they arrived at Kiev early in 1246, where the destruction of eight years previously still haunted the region. Certainly this scene was a sorry sight for Christian missionaries to see; yet, undaunted, the missionaries pressed on. By July 1246 they had made contact with the main Mongol army and on 24 August witnessed the crowning of Kuyuk, whose succession had been disputed for several years, as Great Khan. The three Franciscan missionaries were able to acquire a letter from Kuyuk, written to Innocent IV, although its content, which questioned the Christian presumption of “God’s Will,” did not bode well for either their or future missionary activities among the Mongols.

Growing Interest. Nevertheless, when Carpini returned to Lyon in November 1248 and shortly thereafter published his History of the Mongols, despite his detailing all of the depredations of the Mongols, the interest of Europeans for these Eastern marauders was anything but dampened. A veritable flood of Westerners traveled to Karakorum in the following years. By the 1250s the rulers of Russia, Georgia, Hungary, Nicea, and Armenia had either traveled to meet the Great Khan themselves or sent envoys. Merchants, too, journeyed there, from as far away as France and the Low Countries. Also, of course, Christian missionaries continued to try to convert the Mongols, joined in their efforts also by Muslim, Buddhist, Byzantine, and Nestorian Christian missionaries.