This chapter deals with various political, military, and social institutions that were rooted in the Mongols’ steppe tradition, which pre-dated the founding of their world empire. These institutions, which were continuously developed and modified by regional Chinggisid polities, also impacted post-Mongol empires. The chapter explains the formation and the transformation of the key concept of ulus (people, nation), and analyzes the composition and the maintenance of the ordo (mobile court) which was the geopolitical center of the ulus. It also analyzes military institutions, including decimal units, e.g., mingghan (chiliarchy) and tümen (myriarchy); the royal guards (keshig) and the garrisons (tamma); the main civil officials, such as the darughachi (governor) and jarghuchi (judge); and the postal system (jam). These topics only partially represent the wide variety of Mongol imperial institutions that still await extensive research, yet they offer a glimpse of how the Mongols ruled the world.

The chapter traces the origins of Roman civil service and the office of the scriba in Etruscan models and tries to understand the workings of decurial organisation, i.e. the recruitment, assignment and organisation of the public scribal apparitores. It postulates a high susceptibility of the system to the Roman phenomenon of patronage and social relations.