The Mongol Empire’s Northern Border: Re-evaluating the Surface Area of the Mongol Empire

GENIUS LOCI LASZLOVSZKY 60 edited by Dóra Mérai and Ágnes Drosztmér, Kyra Lyublyanovics, Judith Rasson, Zsuzsanna Papp Reed, András Vadas, Csilla Zatykó i  Genius loci Laszlovszky 60 edited by Dóra Mérai and Ágnes Drosztmér, Kyra Lyublyanovics, Judith Rasson, Zsuzsanna Papp Reed, András Vadas, Csilla Zatykó Budapest 2018  The publication of this volume was generously funded by ISBN 978-615-5766-19-0 © by the Authors and Archaeolingua Foundation 2018 ARCHAEOLINGUA ALAPÍTVÁNY H-1067 Budapest, Teréz krt. 13 www.archaeolingua.hu Copy editing and language editing: the editors Layout: Zsanett Kállai Map: Viktor Lagutov, Zsuzsa Eszter Pető, Mária Vargha, István Gergő Farkas Front cover design: Eszter Bence-Molnár  Table of contents Tabula gratulatoria v Kiadói előszó vi Publisher’s Preface viii Köszöntő x Salutation xi Boundaries, Frontier Zones / Határvonalak, határvidékek ALEKS PLUSKOWSKI – ALEX BROWN – SEWERYN SZCZEPANSKI – ROWENA BANERJEA – DANIEL MAKOWIECKI What Does a Frontier Look Like? The Biocultural Dynamics of the Lower Vistula Borderland in the Middle Ages 2 STEPHEN POW The Mongol Empire’s Northern Border: Re-evaluating the Surface Area of 8 the Mongol Empire IAN WOOD Two Roman Frontiers and Their Sub-Roman Afterlife 14 Crossing Borders / Határokon át SZAKÁCS BÉLA ZSOLT Gyulafirátót, avagy a rendi építészeti hagyományok átjárhatósága 19 CRISTOPHER MIELKE A Queen’s Crusading Connections: Yolanda of Courtenay, the Fifth Crusade, and the Military Orders 25 BÁRÁNY ATTILA Angol keresztes a magyar végeken: Robert de Champlayn 28 CRISTIAN GAȘPAR Trespassing Pigs, Sons of Whores, and Randy Dogs: Marginalia on a Medieval Document from Caransebeș/Karánsebes 32 VADAS ANDRÁS A kecskeméti marhahajtók megpróbáltatásai és egy végvár jóllakott őrsége 38 LÁSZLÓ KONTLER Borders and Crossings: A Jesuit Scientist in the Whirlwind of Enlightened Reform 41 PAUKOVICS GERGŐ Hajsza az örök fiatalságért. Dr. Voronoff és a dübörgő 20-as évek 45 PINKE ZSOLT – STEPHEN POW A Gangesz-deltából a globális porondra: történeti ökológiai szempontok a kolera kórokozó (Vibrio cholerae) elterjedési területének átalakulásához 50 MARCELL SEBŐK Tangible Cultural Heritage: The Early History of Blue Jeans 55  TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S Inhabiting the Landscape / Élet a tájban SÓFALVI ANDRÁS A Barcaság határai és 13. század eleji településképe a Német Lovagrend adományleveleiben 60 NIKOLINA ANTONIĆ The Hospitallers’ Estate of Čičan and its Neighbors: Spatial Analysis Yields New Information 64 ÜNIGE BENCZE The Abbey of Meszes: New Insights on the Site Location 68 MÓGÁNÉ ARADI CSILLA – MOLNÁR ISTVÁN Kísérlet a bárdudvarnok-szentbenedeki premontrei prépostság környezeti rekonstrukciójára 72 BEATRIX ROMHÁNYI Monasteries along the Danube 77 PUSZTAI TAMÁS – P. FISCHL KLÁRA A dél-borsodi síkság bronzkori és középkori településstruktúrájának összehasonlítása 82 VIZI MÁRTA Komplex régészeti kutatás egy egykori dél-dunántúli mezőváros területén 89 BATIZI ZOLTÁN Fagyosasszony és Kammerhof 95 PÁLÓCZI HORVÁTH ANDRÁS A középkori Kenderes településszerkezete 99 SZŐCS PÉTER LEVENTE Adatok Nagybánya és vidéke középkori egyházi topográfiájához 103 ZATYKÓ CSILLA Eltűnt berzencei malmok 108 SZABÓ PÉTER Középkori cseh erdőgazdálkodás a choustníki uradalom erdőszámadásainak tükrében 113 ANDREA KISS Before and After the Great Heat and Drought of 1540: Multiannual Trends of Grape and Grain Harvest Dates in the Vienna Hospital Accounts 117 LÁSZLÓ BARTOSIEWICZ “Kleine Fische, gute Fische” – But Sturgeon is Great 121 LYUBLYANOVICS KYRA Vad háziállat, házi vadállat: Számi rénszarvastartás a középkori és kora újkori Norvégiában 126 JUDITH RASSON Mountains in the Lifeways and History of Northern Macedonia 138 JEREMY MIKECZ Crossing the Abyss: The Apurímac Canyon at the Time of the Spanish Invasion of Peru (1533) 142 Busy Places / Nyüzsgő terek PETROVICS ISTVÁN Újabb adatok Pécs késő középkori történetéhez 147 URBÁN MÁTÉ Lokális búcsújáró helyek a késő középkori Nyugat-Dunántúlon 151 BALÁZS NAGY The Marketplace of Csütörtök – A Local Market in Fourteenth-Century Hungary 156 KATALIN SZENDE The Sopron Fish Market 159 GERHARD JARITZ The Craftsman’s Voice and Words in Late Medieval Austrian Urban Space 165  TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S ANA MARIA GRUIA Healthcare in Cluj in the Sixteenth Century: Overlapping Professions 168 ANA MARINKOVIĆ John Capistran’s Mantle and the Early Propaganda of Franciscan Observant Cults in Dubrovnik 171 SABINA MADGEARU Ceremonial Space in Front of Medieval Buda: An Illuminated Fifteenth-Century French Vision 175 VÉGH ANDRÁS Óbuda látképeken 177 Layers of the Past / A múlt rétegei KODOLÁNYI JUDIT Templomok és temetők a visegrádi Sibrik-dombon 181 ROSTA SZABOLCS Egy új lehetőség kapujában – tatárjáráskori védművek a Kiskunságban 186 BOTÁR ISTVÁN Árpád-kori edényégető kemence Csíksomlyón 193 PETAR PARVANOV Fire and Stone: Placing Flints in Graves in Late Medieval Kaliakra 197 GYARMATI JÁNOS Kumpi Wasi. Textilműhely egy inka tartományi központban 201 ZSUZSANNA PAPP REED Post It: Notes from Thirteenth-Century St Albans 207 VALERY REES The Salt of Genius: Marsilio Ficino on Food, Spices, and Nutrition 213 ROSSINA KOSTOVA The Mother of God Monastery near Varna, Bulgaria: More about Missionary Monasteries in Bulgaria in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries 217 DANIEL ZIEMANN The Imperial Abbey of Corvey in the Ninth and Tenth Century: At the Crossroads of Power 221 VIRÁGOS GÁBOR Kartal vagy Cyko? Kísérlet egy középkori nemesi család történetének rekonstruálására 226 TÓTH BOGLÁRKA – BOTÁR ISTVÁN A sepsikilyéni unitárius templom tetőszerkezeteinek kormeghatározása 244 RÁCZ MIKLÓS Egy tiszazugi újkori négyosztatú ház – Dokumentálás és építéstörténet 248 Objects beneath Our Feet / Tárgyak a föld alól LANGÓ PÉTER A Tiszakeszi-Szódadombon talált kora Árpád-kori kereszt 254 RÁCZ TIBOR – NAGY BALÁZS Tatárjárás kori kincslelet Jászkarajenőről 258 SZENDE LÁSZLÓ Lehetett-e hadijelvény a csajági kereszt? 267 NÓRA UJHELYI Thoughts about Medieval Book Fittings from the Castle of Visegrád 270 MÁRIA VARGHA – THOMAS KÜHTREIBER Treasures of the “Lower Ten Thousand”? Hoards of Iron Objects 273  TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S K. NÉMETH ANDRÁS „Sarlóját ez okért bősz fegyverré köszörülte” Késő középkori kiegyenesített sarló Kospa falu helyéről 280 MAXIM MORDOVIN A Collection of Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Cloth Seals from Szolnok 285 TÜNDE KOMORI Ottomans in Pest in the Light of “Luxury” Ceramics: Four Cups from Kígyó Street 289 WICKER ERIKA A 17. századi rácszentpéteri kincslelet 294 Marking the Place / Helyek és jelek CSERNUS SÁNDOR Keresztes családtörténet és kőbe vésett emlékezet 300 LŐVEI PÁL A pilisszántói keresztes kő legendája 305 MÉRAI DÓRA Sügérek a Nyárádmentén: Sigér Mátyás síremléke leporolva 311 VESZPRÉMY LÁSZLÓ A bambergi lovas szobra és Szent István 316 TAKÁCS MIKLÓS A pétervárad-tekiai reneszánsz kőfaragvány 321 ANNELI RANDLA What and Whom Should We Remember? The Case of the Teutonic Order’s Church and Castle in Pöide, Livonia 325 Heritage Sites, Sacred Places / Örökségi helyszínek, szent helyek ALEKSANDAR PANTIĆ The Ambiguity of Heritage Interpretation: A Late Roman Tomb in Brestovik, Serbia 330 GYÖRGY ENDRE SZŐNYI Rocamadour: Monastic Center, Pilgrimage Place, Art Historical Interest, World Heritage Site 335 KATEŘINA HORNÍČKOVÁ A Penitent Judas Iscariot: An Exemplum of Christian Morals on the Eve of Hussitism? 339 JAMES PLUMTREE Buddha, Lenin, and the Prophet Muhammad Approaching the Landscape and Cultural Heritage of Issyk-Ata 343 ROBERT SHARP The Thames Estuary: The Cultural Heritage and Memory of the Thames Estuary at Southend-on-Sea 349 ESZTER SPÄT Constructing Religio-Ritual Heritage: The New Shrine of Shekhsê Batê in Khetar, Northern Iraq 353 ZSUZSANNA RENNER Delhi, Old and New: Changing Cityscapes and the Cultural Heritage of India’s Capital City 357 FELD ISTVÁN Pszeudovár vagy történeti rekonstrukció? 364 ILON GÁBOR A velemi régészeti témaparkról 371 WOLLÁK KATALIN Örökség alapú fejlesztés Kölkeden 374  TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S Places of Memory / Az emlékezet helyei JÁNOS BAK Nádor 20 Capriccio 380 SZENTPÉTERI JÓZSEF Pilistől Tételig. Elektronikus levélféle a 60 esztendős Laszlovszky Józsefnek 382 RICHARD HODGES Scarlino in the 1980s, Forty Years On 386 KLANICZAY GÁBOR Egy hozzászólás Kremsben 390  The Mongol Empire’s Northern Border: Re-evaluating the Surface Area of the Mongol Empire Stephen pow* In making a contribution to the Festschift for founded by pastoral nomads delineated the bor- József Laszlovszky, a scholar who characteristi- ders of its state. Three considerations help make cally takes big perspectives, asks broad ques- better sense of the issue. Firstly, we need to in- tions, and sees patterns between widely dispa- vestigate modern historical scholarship to trace rate medieval topics, it is fitting to explore a how this northern border was initially deter- topic with similar horizons. Thus, the issue of mined. Secondly, we must revisit the primary sweeping proportions investigated here is the sources to see what they say about Mongol con- borders of the Mongol Empire, particularly the quests in the north. Thirdly, we must take the question of its northern border. We often read Mongols’ own ideology and political philosophy that the Mongols in the thirteenth century pos- into account, considering how they perceived the sessed “the largest historical empire in terms of extent of their own state and defined a popula- contiguous territory,” and its maximum size is tion’s or geographical region’s inclusion in it. set at 24 million km2.1 A distinction is made be- Taking all these perspectives into account, I con- tween the British Empire as the largest histori- tend that we ultimately reach the conclusion that cal empire at 35.5 million km2 (in 1920) and the the Mongol Empire’s northern borders are mis- Mongol Empire, listed as the second largest, al- represented. Based on the Mongols’ claims of beit one not divided over several continents. The rulership and their recorded interference in consistent reinforcement of these numbers and northern regions, it appears that representations rankings on popular online sources like Wiki- of the Mongol Empire on maps have depressed pedia, 2 or Worldatlas,3 makes them something the actual extent of its real and claimed control; like official, canonical facts. it was in fact the world’s largest empire. Ever since modern scholarship began trying In the first issue pertaining to modern map to quantify and depict the extent of the Mongol depictions, it appears that the northern border Empire, map representations have apparently is drawn today based on earlier maps that placed been constructed based on primary sources. it somewhat arbitrarily. A standard map of the While much primary source material is available to outline the Mongol Empire’s limits to the south, west, and east,4 the situation becomes much less clear for the northern borders owing to sparse records. Thus, how exactly are historians deter- mining the Mongols’ northernmost extent, and more significantly, are current representations accurate? After all, if the northernmost extent of the Mongol Empire is not accurately depicted it certainly calls into question the standard approx- imation of its total land area. Answers are seldom clear-cut when dealing with questions of how a medieval administration ► Fig. 1. A standard depiction of the Mongol Empire on * Central European University, Department of Medieval Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, accessed: October 22, 2018, Studies https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mongols-map.png.  THE MONGOL EMPIRE’S NORTHERN BORDER 9 ► Fig. 2. The Mongol Empire’s northern border. Attribution: Jeremiah Curtin, The Mongols: A History (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1908). Mongol Empire on Wikipedia (Fig. 1) shows that raise some suspicion for today’s historians that with the exception of a deviation along the Amur the most defined sections of the Mongols’ border River, the Mongol Empire’s northern border ap- occur in a region where their northern neighbor pears to be more or less a straight line, as though is listed as “Unknown Countries.” William R. the Mongols established their border from the Shepherd’s Historical Atlas (1923) made another Amur to Moscow along a parallel of latitude – early twentieth-century map of the Mongol something that is, of course, anachronistic. The Empire in which its northern border is basically Encyclopædia Britannica gives an alternative straight, lacking any undulations along the approach, featuring a suspiciously detailed and boundary of the Ob and Amur; in fact, Mongol undulating northern border, dropping south- dominion stretches far north of the Amur here ward along the Ob River for some unknown (Fig. 3). Modern depictions, such as that found reason and then rising precipitously northward on Wikipedia, represent hybrids between these in the region west of Lake Baikal.5 It appears that two earlier, basically arbitrary approaches. It is such modern depictions owe something to the telling that D’Ohsson and Bretschneider were map in a popular work of the last century, The experts who closely consulted the primary Mongols: A History (1908), written by American sources and while they did provide detailed folklorist and celebrated author, Jeremiah Curtin maps of Eurasia in the front matter of their re- (Fig. 2). A talented enthusiast with varied inter- spective works, they conspicuously avoided ests rather than a specialized historian of the drawing any northern borders of the Mongol Mongols, his northern border features these Empire.6 Maps with such borders appear to have same characteristic undulations, but it should originated in general works. 10 STEPHEN POW labor instead of goods.11 The Parrosites appear to be the Permians (Permiaks), well-documented in medieval source material and termed Barrosites by al-Idrisi in the twelfth century.12 The Samoyed people (Nenets) are also well-documented Uralic- speaking people dwelling near the Arctic Ocean. Even Carpini’s far-fetched tales of Parrosite eating habits seem to have their origin in truth. The Syrian al-Umari reported the account of a Muslim visitor that Finno-Ugric people of the “farthest northern regions” gathered bones and boiled them repeatedly, drinking the broth to extract ► Fig. 3. The Mongol Empire’s border in William R. Shepherd, Historical Atlas (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1911, any nutrients whatsoever.13 The Russian term 2nd ed.1923) Source: University of Texas Libraries, accessed “Samoyed” is thought to stem from the derogatory October 22, 2018, http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/ shepherd/mongol_dominions.jpg. “self-eater,” suggesting hunger was a by-word among the northern tribes. It should be no surprise that the Mongols sub- Thus, the second consideration is exploring the jugated northern tribes up to the White Sea, par- textual evidence to determine if a remapping of ticularly considering that Novgorod had subju- the Mongol Empire’s northern frontier is in or- gated the area before the Mongol conquest. der. Meager though it is, the evidence does sug- Novgorodians had permanent stations on the gest that Mongol control extended far north of Northern Dvina in 1137, were taxing the people where modern conventions have established it. on the Pechora River by 1187, and they had a hold Carpini detailed that after their conquest of the over the Kola Peninsula and the Yughra on the Volga Bulgars and Magna Hungaria the Mongols Arctic Ocean by the early 1200s.14 Since Novgorod campaigned northward against people called itself submitted to the Mongols and paid taxes “Parrosites” who lived on steam inhaled from (something seldom reflected in recent maps), it meat broth, and then the Samoyeds “who live seems improbable the Mongols would have entirely on their hunting,” until finally they simply ignored the Novgorodians’ own subject reached the shores of the Arctic Ocean, populat- peoples. Norse sources support the view that the ed by monsters including men who bark like Mongols conquered up to the Arctic. The mid-thir- dogs.7 In a separate passage, Carpini listed the teenth-century Saga of King Haakon tells of how Parrosites and Samoyeds among the Mongols’ he Christianized and settled “many Bjarmir” in subject peoples,8 though C. de Bridia, repeating Malangen after they “fled from the east for the Carpini’s narrative about these northern peo- strife of the Tatars.”15 Previously the Norwegian ples, added that the Mongols despised them for their poverty or monstrousness.9 He also im- plies the conquests reached the Arctic Ocean in the north.10 It is tempting to dismiss these stories as out- growths of the Alexander Romance-type of medi- eval literature that envisioned a world beyond Latin Christendom peopled by dog-headed men and other monsters, but that approach is short- sighted. The Franciscan William of Rubruck’s remarkably sober report on his journey to Mon- golia in the 1250s noted that Mongols told him ► Fig. 4. A free depiction of the Mongol Empire that appears these “poor tribes stretching as far north as the to be using as a template the map found at Ulan Bator air- port. Wikipedia. Wikimedia Commons, accessed: October 22, cold permits” were not actually monsters, but 2018, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mongo- were so poor that the Mongols made them supply lia_1500_AD.jpg.  THE MONGOL EMPIRE’S NORTHERN BORDER 11 ► Fig. 5. A reimagined bordering of the Mongol Empire according to source evidence and the Mongols’ own stated imperial ideology. Created by S. Pow. Map data © 2018 Google. king had been making war or trading with Bjar- east of Russia to rob the inhabitants. Reaching maland.16 During the reign of Haakon (1217–1263), these settlements, the Mongols would “rob the datable Norwegian expeditions to Bjarmaland people of everything they can lay their hands on,” ceased abruptly, with the trade route from the far before cleverly having their mares lead them back north to the Volga permanently abandoned.17 to foals that the Mongols had intentionally left on Moreover, a mid-thirteenth-century Icelandic the borders.23 geographical treatise suddenly lists Tartararíki The Mongol willingness to push far north even (Tartar kingdom) as being located north of into uninhabited regions is not surprising; it all Rúzaland (Russia).18 It seems obvious based on relates to the third point, above, which relates to this data that we have to change what we think Mongol imperial ideology. The wording in Güyüg we know about Mongol conquests in the far north, Khan’s letter to the pope in 1246 concisely trans- but other historians have chosen to argue that mits the underlying premise: “From the rising of there must have been no direct Mongol-Permian the sun to its setting, all the lands have been made contacts,19 or to advance the absurd notion that subject to me.”24 Beyond language, this funda- Tartararíki meant Russia in the Norse sources.20 mental belief was also conveyed in symbols – a Mongol penetration of the far north extended powerful symbolism that was missed by an out- eastward judging from Russian folklore about a sider like Carpini. As the “solemn court” to en- Mongol bogatyr’ (hero) from Veliky Ustyug21 and throne Güyüg began, when the Mongol leaders Marco Polo’s account that when the Great Khan and foreign ambassadors gathered together (Khubilai) wished to obtain peregrine falcon nest- around an enormous palisade and tent, Carpini lings, he sent men north of Mongolia, and even noted that on the first day the Mongol chiefs all far north of the Merkit lands in the forest zone, wore white velvet, then red on the second day, until they reached uninhabited mountains bor- blue on the third, and brocade (baldaquin) on the dering the Ocean Sea (Arctic Ocean). They even fourth day.25 In the medieval Turkic directional obtained gerfalcons from islands in the Arctic system, white represented the west, red the south, Ocean.22 Polo also describes how Mongols peri- blue the east, and black the north, while in the odically entered the Land of Darkness (Siberia) Mongolian system yellow (gold) could imply the 12 STEPHEN POW center or north.26 Certainly three of the cardinal Mongol Empire’s borders according to the source directions were symbolized in this ceremony, so evidence and reflecting the Mongols’ own impe- presumably the brocade was in keeping with the rial ideology. It comes out to 36.5 million km2 (Fig. symbolic program, be it gold or black. The north 5), a full million square kilometers larger than was also part of the Mongol mandate of conquest the British Empire. A case can and should be in so far as it had value in resources and people. made that the Mongol Empire was not simply the Al-Umari stated that the Golden Horde’s dominion largest contiguous empire, but rather the largest stretched along the Irtysh and to the Yughra of empire, full stop. the Arctic Circle – Islamic traders visited them.27 A Georgian chronicle records that when Batu de- Notes cided to find out how many troops he could draft, 1 Peter Turchin, Jonathan M. Adams, and Thomas D. Hall, his officials journeyed “down to the Dark,” taking “East-West Orientation of Historical Empires and Modern a census of his entire dominion.28 The “Land of States,” Journal of World Systems Research 12, no. 2 (2006): 220, 222. Darkness” was part of the Jochi Khan’s patrimony 2 “List of largest empires,” Wikipedia, accessed October 20, – according to sources Chinggis Khan had origi- 2018, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_em- pires. nally ordered his eldest son to “bring under con- 3 “Largest Empires in Human History by Land Area,” Worl- trol all the lands to the north, from Ibir-Siber … datlas, accessed October 20, 2018, https://www.worldatlas. to the Caspian straits.”29 If the Mongol imperial com/articles/largest-empires-in-human-history-by-land- area.html. ideology claimed all lands – even uninhabited 4 Sources from Mamluk historians, the Delhi Sultanate, and regions to the north – and if nobody was effec- even Java, besides copious official sources composed in Chinggisid courts, detail the Mongols’ southernmost con- tively challenging their claims to authority, why quests. For Mongol expansion in the West, much material do we not give them the benefit of the doubt and by anxious observers in Latin Christendom and the ascribe that territory to them? Is that merely a Levant help to define clear borders. The question of why the Mongols invaded and then withdrew from Hungary prerogative granted to later empires? in 1241-1242 so that it formed the Mongols’ westernmost To conclude, there is not enough evidence to neighbor is still a topic of lively debate in scholarship. See: Zsolt Pinke, László Ferenczi, Beatrix F. Romhányi, József precisely and reliably reconstruct a northern Laszlovszky, and Stephen Pow, “Climate of doubt: a border for the Mongol Empire. There is admit- re-evaluation of Büntgen and Di Cosmo’s environmental tedly a degree of facetiousness in my proposal to hypothesis for the Mongol withdrawal from Hungary, 1242 CE.,” Scientific Reports 7, 12695 (2017). DOI: 10.1038/ remap it, but this exercise has helped expose s41598-017-12128-6. In the East, official dynastic histories problems with the tendency of modern historians of the Yuan state, the Korean kingdom, and even Japanese records of the failed invasions of Japan help to draw a to assign precise surface areas to historic empires. similarly clear picture. I argue there is enough evidence to suggest that 5 “Mongol empire,” Encyclopædia Britannica, accessed Oc- the present ways of drawing the Mongols’ tober 20, 2018, https://www.britannica.com/place/Mon- gol-empire/media/389325/235959. northern border do not do their empire justice. 6 Constantine D’ohsson, Histoire des Mongols depuis Tchin- Several years ago, I was in Ulan Bator’s Chinggis guiz-Khan jusqu’à Timour Bey ou Tamerlane vol. 1 (Am- sterdam: Van Cleef, 1834); Emil Bretschneider, Medieval Khan International Airport and saw an enormous Researches from Eastern Asiatic Sources vol. 1 (London: map of the Mongol Empire on the wall. Rather Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. Ltd., 1910). than displaying a precise northern border, the 7 Christopher Dawson, The Mongol Mission (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1955), 30–31. empire seemed to simply stretch upward, its dark 8 Ibid., 41. color blurring and fading out of sight as the map 9 George Painter, “The Tartar Relation,” in: The Vinland Map and the Tartar Relation, ed R. Skelton et al. (New abruptly ended in the Arctic region (Fig. 4). I was Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 73–74. skeptical at the time that this was patriotic exag- 10 Ibid., 75. geration, but as a result of the study here I tend 11 Dawson, Mongol Mission, 170-171. This account rather agrees with C. de Bridia’s account of their poverty. The to believe that the map is correct and probably idea that Mongols would put the northern tribes to work one of the only depictions to ever conceptualize after assessing that they had little to tax seems plausible. 12 Painter, “The Tartar Relation,” 74, no. 1. These people properly the Mongol polity’s relationship to the are Bjarmians of the Bjarmaland documented in Norse north. sagas and described in the Old English “Voyage of To satisfy my curiosity and because the tech- Ohthere” for instance. A Russian account from 1118 tells of what a Novgorodian experienced among the “Pechera” nology is widely available, I undertook an admit- people who dwelt in the vicinity of the more northerly tedly crude and imprecise readjustment of the Yughra, “dwelling in the north with the Samoyeds” by  THE MONGOL EMPIRE’S NORTHERN BORDER 13 the Arctic Ocean. See: Caroline Stone and Paul Lunde appeared behind in the south. There was, it appears, an (trans.), Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness (London: element of exploration in these sorts of expeditions. Penguin, 2012), 180. 23 Ibid., 324–325. Marco Polo mentions that this exploitation 13 Stone and Lunde (trans.), Ibn Fadlan, 198-199; Klaus Lech, was driven by the wealth of furs in the region which were Klaus, trans., Das mongolische Weltreich, Al-‘Umari‘s also traded with people to the south. This sort of regular Darstellung der mongolischen Reiche in seinem Werk fleecing of the local people can be seen as a form of sub- Masālik al-abṣār fī mamālik al-amṣār (Wiesbaden: Harras- jugation, even if the Mongols chose not to occupy the sowitz, 1968), 138, 143. Al-Umari mentions pale-skinned region permanently, and they also evidently viewed the Siberians habitually boiling bones seven times. uninhabited areas where they collected birds as their 14 Mervi Koskela Vasaru, Bjarmaland (Oulu: University of sovereign territory. Oulu, 2016), 413. 24 Dawson, Mongol Mission, 86. The message was one that 15 G. W. Dasent, Icelandic Sagas, vol. 4 (London: Eyre and the Mongols claimed to have received from Chinggis Spottiswoode, 1894), 371. The events described in the saga Khan. Their divine mandate was the conquest of the are thought to date to around 1240. These Permian refu- entire world – not just the steppe belt and not just Chinggis gees were settled in Norway’s far north, having fled east Khan’s personal enemies. – all of which supports that the Mongols were really cam- 25 Ibid., 61; Anastasius van den Wyngaert, ed., Sinica Fran- paigning in the area of the White Sea. ciscana vol. 1 (Florence: Collegium S. Bonaventura, 1929), 16 Ibid., 73. 117. The term in Latin is baldikinis (baldaquin), a fabric 17 Vasaru, Bjarmaland, 232–233. originally manufactured in Baghdad. The color is not im- 18 Ibid., 218, 223–224. mediately evident. Benedict the Pole claimed 5000 princes 19 Ibid., 237–238. and chiefs wore baldaquin on the first day of this cere- 20 Alan S. C. Ross, The Terfinnas and Beormas of Ohthere (Re- mony rather than the fourth day as Carpini remembered print: London: Viking Society for Northern Research, it. See: A. van den Wyngaert, Sinica, 139. 26 1981), 46-47. Ross noted that in the 1940s, the prevailing Timothy May, “Color Symbolism in the Turko-Mongolian view in Russian literature was that Tattarar meant Rus- World,” in The Use of Color in History, Politics, and Art, ed. sians from Novgorod. I share Ross’s view that this unduly Sungshin Kim (Dahlonega: University of North Georgia simplified the problem of why the Mongols were reported Press, 2016), 60-61; Omeljan Pritsak, “Qara: Studie zur to be ruling north of Russia though “Mongol penetration Türkischen Rechtssymbolik,” in Studies in Medieval Eur- is not usually assumed to have extended nearly as far asian History (London: Variorum Reprints, 1981), 249. north as ‘Bjarmaland’.” Ross reached the perceptive con- 27 Lech, Das mongolische Weltreich, 145. clusion that, judging by the evidence, Mongols must have 28 Stephen Jones, Kartlis Tskhovreba: A History of Georgia been campaigning not far from the Dvina. (Tbilisi: Artanuji Publishers, 2014), 350. 21 Ibid., 48. 29 Wheeler Thackston, Rashiduddin Fazlullah’s Jami’u’ta- 22 Nigel Cliff, trans., Marco Polo: The Travels (London: Pen- warikh: Compendium of Chronicles, 2nd Edition (Cam- guin, 2015), 76–77. Polo clarified that the region was un- bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998–1999), 347. inhabited but for the people of the khan who went to get Thackston notes that this refers to the Middle Irtysh region, the birds, and that it was so far north that the Pole Star Siberia taking its name from this designation.