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City names of the western Steppe at the time of the Mongol invasion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Donald Ostrowski
Donald Ostrowski
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Harvard University
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Extract

Section 274 of the Secret History of the Mongols (Yuanchao bishi) tells us that Khagan Ögödei placed governors over the conquered peoples whose cities were ‘Asud, Sesüd, Bolar and Mankerman-Kiwa’. I present the entire passage, first, in the transliterated edition published in 1972 by Igor de Rachewiltz, then in two English translations, the first by Francis Woodman Cleaves, the second by Rachewiltz:

batu büri güyük möngge teri'üten olon kö'üt qanglin kibca'ud-i bajigid-i oro'ulju ejiljayaq meget balaqasu ebdeljü orusud-i kiduju ülüttele talaba asut sestüt bolar man-kerman kiwa teri'üten balaqad-un irgen-i dawuliju else'üljü daruqacin tammacin-i talbiju qariba.

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Articles
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Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 61 , Issue 3 , October 1998 , pp. 465 - 475
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Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1998

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References

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25 Pelliot, Notes sur l'histoire, 129, n.6.

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28 PSRL, 7: 139–41; 10: 106–7; 15.2, cols. 367–8; 18: 55–6; 24: 92–3; 25: 126–8; 26: 71–2; 28: 52, 210; Novgorodskaya pervaya letopis': starshego i mladshego izvody, ed. Tikhomirov, M. N. (Moscow and Leningrad: Akademiya Nauk SSSR, 1950), 75–6,287–8Google Scholar.

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30 Secret History (Cleaves), 210 (bracketed word added).

31 ‘Secret History’ (Rachewiltz), 31, 1985, 26.

32 In Mongol, a verb can be turned into a noun, and a noun can be used as an attribute of another noun by simple placement before it. Gronbech, Kaare and Krueger, John R., An introduction to classical (literary) Mongolian (2nd ed., Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1976), 10–11Google Scholar, 18.

33 Carpini, ‘toria Mongalorum’, ch. 5, §§25–6, pp. 69–70; Carpini, ‘History of the Mongols’, 28–9 (bracketed words added).

34 ‘]Relatio Fr. Benedicti Poloni\’, 137; ‘The narrative of Brother Benedict the Pole’, 80.

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37 Bretschneider, E., ‘Notices of the mediæval geography and history of central and western Asia’, Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, n.s., 10, 1876, 236 and 135, n. 91; cf. Bretschneider, Medieval researches, 2:57 and 1:285–676.Google Scholar

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50 Mission to Asia, 59, n. 1.

51 Kovalevsky, A. P., Kniga Akhmeda ibn-Fadlana o ego puteshestvii na Volgu v 921–922 gg. stat'i, perevody i kommentarii (Kharkiv: Izdatel'stvo Gosudarstvennogo universiteta im. A. M. Gor'kogo, 1956), 153Google Scholar.

52 Barthold, W., ‘Khwarizm’, Encyclopaedia of Islam (1st ed., Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1913–1936), 4: 909Google Scholar; Bosworth, C. E., ‘Khwārazm’, Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd ed.), IV, 1063Google Scholar.

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55 We have no documentary evidence of a Rus' prelate named Peter during this period. This lack of evidence has led to controversy over who this Peter might have been. Speculation runs the gamut from an imposter, perhaps an agent of the Pope, to a previously unknown metropolitan of Kiev appointed by Grand Prince Mikhail of Chernigov without patriarchal approval. See, interalia, Tomashivs'ky, S., ‘Predtecha Isidora. Petro Akerovich, neznaniy mitropolit rus'kii (1241–1245)’, Analecta Ordinis Sanctii Basilii Magni//Zapysky chyna sv. Vasyliya Velykoho, 2.3–4, 1926 (Zhovkva, 1927), 221–313Google Scholar; Dimnik, , Mikhail, Prince of Chernigov, 39–40Google Scholar, n. 78; Senyk, Sophia, A history of the church in Ukraine, Vol. 1: To the end of the thirteenth century (Rome: Pontificio Istituto Orientale, 1993), 429–31Google Scholar. My own view is that Matthew's ‘archbishop of Russia, Peter’, was Peter Akerovich, hegumen of the Holy Saviour Monastery in Berestovo, who may either have misrepresented his rank or been misunderstood concerning it.

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57 Paris, Matthew, Chronica majora, 7 vols., ed. Luard, Henry Richards (London: Longman, 1872–1983), vol. 4: A.D. 1240 to A.D. 1247, 386–7Google Scholar; Dörrie, Heinrich, ‘Drei Texte zur Geschichte der Ungarn und Mongolen’, Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen. Phil.-hisl. KL, 67, 1956, 189–90Google Scholar. Sanders identifies ‘Bathatarcan’ as the Mongol general Subedei on the basis that this name is a corruption of bahadur = hero. Sanders, J. J. ‘Matthew Paris and the Mongols’, Essays in medieval history presented to Bertie Wilkinson, (ed.) Sandquist, T. A. and Powicke, M. R. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969), 125. But the ending ‘-can’ signifies ‘khan’ as the Luard translation has it, and ‘khan’ could not be used to designate Subedei but only those who were ‘white bone’, that is a Chingizid, like Batu, who was a grandson of Chingiz Khan.Google Scholar

58 Painter, , ‘Tartar relation’, 103.Google Scholar

59 Fr. Iulianus, ‘Epistola fr. Iuliani de bello Mqngolorum’, nos. 4 and 5, and ‘Epistola de vita Tartarorum’, no. 6, in Bendefy, ‘Fontes authentici itinera’, 35, 40, 41, 45 and 46. A more recent edition of one of the epistles can be found in Dörrie, ‘Drei Texte’, 170–1.

60 Sinor, Denis, ‘Un voyageur du treizième siècle: le Dominicain Julien de Hongrie’, BSOAS, 14/3, 1952, 594CrossRefGoogle Scholar, n.5.

61 Painter, ‘Tartar relation’, 104.

62 See, e.g., Sanders, ‘Matthew Paris and the Mongols’, 123.

63 For the reference of 1346, seePSRL, 4: 57; 7: 210; 10: 217; 15.1: 57; 18: 95; 25: 175; 28: 71, 232; 39: 109; and Pnselkov, M. D., Troitskaya letopis': rekonstruktsiya teksta (Moscow and Leningrad: Akademiya Nauk SSSR, 1950), 368Google Scholar.

64 For the reference of 1358, see PSRL, 8: 10; 10: 230; 15.1: 67; 18: 100; 25: 180; and Troitskaya letopis', 376.

65 For the reference of 1387, see PSRL, 11: 93.

66 Bosworth, ‘Khwarazm’, 1064.

67 For the reference of 1395, see PSRL, 11: 159, and Prilozheniya, 248; 24: 161; 25: 222; 26: 283, 342; and 28: 71,251.

68 Heyd, W]ilhelm[, Histoire du commerce du Levant au Moyen-Âge, 2 vols. (Leipzig, Otto Harrassowitz, 1885–86), 2: 375Google Scholar; Barthold, W., ‘Toktamish’, Encyclopaedia of Islam (1st ed.), VIII, 809Google Scholar; Grousset, René, The empire of the steppes: a history of central Asia, tr. Walford, Naomi (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1970), 441–2; Mihnea Berindei and Gilles Veinstein, ‘La Tana-;Azaq: de la présence italienne à 1'emprise ottomane (fin XIII-milieu XVI siecle)’, Turcica. Revue d'Etudes Turques, 8, 1976, 124.Google Scholar

69 The early nineteenth-century Russian historian N. M. Karamzin identified Ornach' as being located ‘at the mouth of the Don’. Karamzin, N. M., Istoriya gosudarstva Rossiiskogo, 12Google Scholar vols. in 3 books (5th ed., St Petersburg: Eduard Prats, 1842–43), 4 (Primechaniya): 142, n.357. Indexers to the Polnoe sobranie russkikh letopisei at first accepted Karamzin's identification, but then seem to have been influenced by Barthold's identification of Ornach' with Urgendj. The index (published in 1918) to the Nikon Chronicle identifies Ornach' with Tana at the mouth of the Don. PSRL, 14. 2: 235. The index (published in 1949) to the ‘Compilation of the end of the fifteenth century’ mentions Karamzin's identification but adds with question marks the possibility that Ornach' might be Urgendj in Khwarezm. PSRL, 25: 441. The index (published in 1959) to the ‘Compilations’ of 1497 and 1508 state only the possibility that it is Urgendj. PSRL, 26: 399.