Reframing the Mongols in 1260: The Armenians, the Mongols and the Magi (original) (raw)
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Acta Mongolica, 2024
The Mongol Empire, founded by Chinggis Khan (Чингис хаан)1, was the most extense empire in history. It covered a vast area from eastern China to southern Persia, and reached Hungary in the west. The empire’s fast growth in the 13th century surprised the whole world, including Western Europe which knew little about the Mongols, often called Tartars, at that time. This study analyses how these portrayals were different according to the authors’ contact with the Mongols, and how they changed over a few decades, from viewing them as an enigmatic ally against Islam or a negligible pagan society, to being considered “wild barbarians” and eventually an exotic, mysterious and powerful nation. This paper suggests that Mongol representations in chronicles, letters, and travel accounts were influenced by factors such as cultural differences, geographical distance, and European political and religious identities. It provides valuable insight into how the West perceived the Mongols during the 13th century, illuminating the broader cultural and historical context of the time.
The Kingdom of God in Yurts: Christianity among Mongols in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries
Africanus Journal vol. 3, no. 2 November, 2011
Two branches of Christianity, the Nestorian Church and the Roman Catholic Church, played important religious, social, and political roles in the Mongol Empire of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The Nestorian Christians entered the Mongol Empire as a result of a Mongol military conquest of Nestorian peoples. Roman Catholic Christians were sent into the Mongol empire as ambassadors and missionaries because of the fear of conquest. In this essay, we will examine the background of the Mongols’ own adaptation of Christianity in Yellow Yurts, in light of the Nestorian revivals in the
in Charlotte Methuen, Andrew Spicer and John Wolff (eds), Christianity and Religious Plurality (Studies in Church History, 51. London: Boydell Press, 2015), 2015
A mong the richest, and strangest, sites for religious encounter during the medieval period was the network of Mongol encampments on the Eurasian steppe. In the middle decades of the thirteenth century, a vast empire was administered from these itinerant cities. In consequence, they were crammed with a transient population of people drawn, summoned or seized from diverse societies across the continent. Within these cities, physical space, approved gestures and permitted actions were heavily ritualized according to shamanistic practice, but as long as these customs were respected, the Mongols encouraged an atmosphere of relative egalitarianism among the various faiths represented in the camps. 1 Indeed, they actively sought the services of the clerical classes of the different groups, requiring each to offer prayers and blessings within public and private ceremonies. 2 This meant the permanent presence in the camps of shamans, priests, monks, imams and others, who embodied the authority of their faith in that place. These individuals seem to have spent their time competing for the favour of powerful Mongols, forming brief alliances, differentiating themselves or exhibiting signs of syncretism, quarrelling and drinking together. How far the rest of the non-Mongol population of the camps participated in these peculiar * In writing this essay, I have benefited from discussions at the meetings of the AHRC-funded network, 'Defining the Global Middle Ages', conversations with Miles Larmer, Caroline Dodds Pennock and Miriam Dobson, and the opportunity to present a version at
The Routledge Handbook of the Mongols and Central-Eastern Europe. Ed. by A.V. Maiorov, R. Hautala, 2021
Before and after the Great Western Campaign 13 1 Omens of the apocalypse: the first Rus' encounter with the Mongols through the prism of the Medieval mind 15 Fedor N. Veselov 2 Diplomacy, war, and a witch: peace negotiations before the Mongol invasion of Rus' 36 Alexander V. Maiorov 3 The Mongol invasions of Poland in the thirteenth century: the current state of knowledge and perspectives for future research 82 Witold Świętosławski 4 Mongol inroads into Hungary in the thirteenth century: investigating some unexplored avenues 98