MONGOLS AND THE SILK ROAD | Facts and Details

MONGOLS AND THE SILK ROAD


The Mongol conglomerate linked Europe and Asia and ushered in an earned run average of frequent and extend contacts between East and West. The Mongols neither discouraged nor impede relations with foreigners. Though they never abandoned their claims of universal rule, they were hospitable to extraneous travelers, even those whose monarchs had not submitted to them. The relative stability achieved under the Mongols expedited and encouraged locomotion in the ample section of Asia that was under their dominion, permitting european merchants, craftsmen, and envoys to journey ampere far as China for the first base time. asian goods reached Europe along the van trails of the Silk Roads, and the ensuing european demand for these products finally inspired the search for a sea route to Asia. therefore, it could be said that the Mongol invasions indirectly led to Europe ‘s “ Age of Exploration ” in the fifteenth hundred. [ source : asia for Educators, Columbia University afe.easia.columbia.edu/mongols ]
Richard Kurin, a cultural anthropologist at the Smithsonian institution, wrote : “ With the Mongol descendants of Genghis ( Chinghis ) Khan in master of Asia from the Black Sea to the Pacific, a third Silk Road flourished in the 13th and 14th centuries. The emissary of King Louis IX of France, Willem van Rubruck, visited the woo of the Mongol ruler in 1253, and, seeing the wealth of silks, realized that Cathay, or China, was the fabled Seres of Roman times. The venetian Marco Polo followed. ” [ Source : “ The Silk Road : Connecting People and Cultures ” by Richard Kurin, the Smithsonian mental hospital ]
“ The Mongols, with their huge asian empire skirting the border of Russia and Eastern Europe, were, through a assortment of hegemony and ferociousness, able to assure a measure of peace within their domains, a Pax Mongolica. They were besides pragmatic and quite kind in respective spheres, among them arts and religion. Their mongol capital of Karakorum hosted, for exemplar, 12 Buddhist temples, two mosques, and a church. The Mongols developed continental postal and travelers ‘ rest house systems. Kublai Khan welcomed european, taiwanese, persian, and Arab astronomers and established an Institute of Muslim Astronomy. He besides founded an Imperial Academy of Medicine, including indian, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and chinese physicians. european, iranian, chinese, Arab, Armenian, and russian traders and missionaries traveled the Silk Road, and in 1335 a Mongol mission to the pope at Avignon suggested increased trade and cultural contacts .
During this “ third ” Silk Road under the Mongols, silk, while still a highly valued chinese export, was no longer the primary commodity. Europeans wanted pearls and gems, spices, cute metals, medicines, ceramics, carpets, early fabrics, and lacquerware. All kingdoms needed horses, weapons, and armaments. Besides, silk output already was known in the arab populace and had spread to southerly Europe. Silk weavers and traders — Arabs, “ Saracens, ” Jews, and Greeks from Sicily and the easterly Mediterranean — relocated to new commercial centers in northerly Italy. italian silk-making finally became a leading Renaissance art in Venice, Florence, Genoa, and Lucca in the 14th and 15th centuries. New stylistic techniques were added, like alto-e-basso for velvets and brocades, while previous motifs, like the stylize Central Asian pomegranate, took on new life.

Good Websites and Sources on the Silk Road: Silk Road Seattle washington.edu/silkroad ; Silk Road Foundation silk-road.com ; Wikipedia Wikipedia ; Silk Road Atlas depts.washington.edu ; Old World Trade Routes ciolek.com ; Yo Yo Ma ’ s Silk Road Project silkroadproject.org ; International Dunhuang Project idp.bl.uk ; Marco Polo: Wikipedia Marco Polo Wikipedia ; Works by Marco Polo gutenberg.org ; Marco Polo and his Travels silk-road.com ; Zheng He and Early Chinese Exploration : Wikipedia Chinese Exploration Wikipedia ; Le Monde Diplomatique mondediplo.com ; Zheng He Wikipedia Wikipedia ; Gavin Menzies ’ s 1421 1421.tv ; First Europeans in Asia Wikipedia ; Matteo Ricci faculty.fairfield.edu Books: on the Silk Road “ The Silk Road ” ( Odyssey Guides ) ; “ Marco Polo : A Photographer ‘s Journey ” by Mike Yamashita ( White Star, 2002 ) ; “ Life along the Silk Road ” by Whitfield, Susan ( Berkeley : University of California Press, 1999 ) ; “ The Silk Route : Trade, Travel, War and Faith ” by Susan Whitfield, with Ursula Sims-Williams, eds. ( London : british Library, 2004 ) ; “ The Camel and the Wheel ” by Richard Bulliet ( Cambridge : Harvard University Press, 1975 ). You can help this site a fiddling by ordering your amazon books through this connection : Amazon.com ; Television show: “ Silk Road 2005 ”, a 10-episode production by China ‘s CCTV and Japan ‘s NHK, with music by Yo Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble. The original series was shown in 1980s .
Websites and Resources: Mongols and Horsemen of the Steppe:
Wikipedia article Wikipedia ; The Mongol Empire web.archive.org/web ; The Mongols in World History afe.easia.columbia.edu/mongols ; William of Rubruck ‘s Account of the Mongols washington.edu/silkroad/texts ; Mongol invasion of Rus ( pictures ) web.archive.org/web ; Encyclopædia Britannica article britannica.com ; Mongol Archives historyonthenet.com ; “ The Horse, the Wheel and Language, How Bronze-Age Riders from the eurasian Steppes shaped the Modern World ”, David W Anthony, 2007 archive.org/details/horsewheelandlanguage ; The Scythians – Silk Road Foundation silkroadfoundation.org ; Scythians iranicaonline.org ; Encyclopaedia Britannica article on the Huns britannica.com ; Wikipedia article on eurasian nomads Wikipedia
RELATED ARTICLES IN THIS WEBSITE: SILK ROAD factsanddetails.com ; SILK ROAD EXPLORERS factsanddetails.com ; SILK ROAD : PRODUCTS, TRADE, MONEY AND SOGDIAN MERCHANTS factsanddetails.com ; SILK ROAD ROUTES AND CITIES factsanddetails.com ; MARITIME SILK ROAD factsanddetails.com ; DHOWS : THE CAMELS OF THE MARITIME SILK ROAD factsanddetails.com ; MARITIME-SILK-ROAD-ERA SHIPS, EXPORT PORCELAINS AND SHIPWRECKS factsanddetails.com ; EARLY HISTORY OF SILK AND THE SILK ROAD factsanddetails.com ; SILK ROAD DURING THE HAN DYNASTY ( 206 B.C.- A.D. 220 ) : WU DI, ROMANS, SOGDIANS AND PARTHIANS factsanddetails.com ; SILK ROAD DURING THE TANG DYNASTY ( A.D. 618 – 907 ) factsanddetails.com ; SILK ROAD, BYZANTIUM AND VENICE factsanddetails.com ; END OF THE SILK ROAD AND RISE OF THE EUROPEAN SILK INDUSTRY AND SILK ROAD TOURISM factsanddetails.com ; CARAVANS AND TRANSPORTATION ALONG THE SILK ROAD factsanddetails.com ; SILK ROAD AND BACTRIAN CAMELS AS CARAVAN ANIMALS factsanddetails.com ; CAMEL CHARACTERISTICS factsanddetails.com ; SILK ROAD AND RELIGION factsanddetails.com ; SPREAD OF BUDDHISM AND BUDDHIST ART ON THE SILK ROAD factsanddetails.com ; CHINA ’ S GIFTS TO THE WEST factsanddetails.com ; IDEAS INTRODUCED FROM CHINA TO THE WEST factsanddetails.com ; SILK, SILK WORMS, THEIR HISTORY AND PRODUCTION factsanddetails.com ; MONGOLS, CHRISTIANITY, NESTORIANS AND THE SILK ROAD factsanddetails.com

Mongol Trade and the Silk Road


For a relatively brief menstruation between 1250 and 1350 the Silk Road trade routes were opened up to European when the land occupied by the Turks was taken over by the Mongols who allowed free trade. alternatively of waiting for goods at the Mediterranean ports, european travelers were able to travel on their own to India and China for the first time. This is when Marco Polo made his historic journey from Venice to China and back .
Mongol military power reached its vertex in the thirteenth hundred. Under the leadership of Genghis Khan ( Genghis Khan ) and two generations of his descendants, the Mongol tribes and assorted Inner Asian steppe people were united in an efficient and formidable military state that briefly held rock from the Pacific Ocean to Central Europe. The Mongol Empire was the largest empire the global has always known : at its largest extent it was doubly the size of the Roman Empire and the district conquered by Alexander the bang-up. The alone other nations or empire that rivaled it in size were the Soviet Union, the spanish empire in the New World, and the british empire of the nineteenth hundred .
The Mongols were impregnable supporters of free deal. They lowered tolls and taxes ; protected caravans by guarding roads against bandits ; promoted trade with Europe ; improved the road system between China and Russia and throughout Central Asia ; and expanded the canal organization in China, which facilitated the exile of grain from southern to northern China
Silk Road deal flourished and trade between east and west increased under Mongol rule. The Mongol conquest of Russia opened the road to China for Europeans. The roads through Egypt were controlled by Muslim and prohibited to Christians. Goods passing from India to Egypt along the Silk Road were so heavily taxed, they tripled in price. After the Mongols were gone. the Silk Road was shut down .
Merchants from Venice, Genoa and Pisa got rich by selling oriental spices and products picked up in the Levant ports in the eastern Mediterranean. But it was Arabs, Turks and other Muslims who profited most from the Silk Road craft. They controlled the estate and the trade routes between Europe and China indeed completely that historian Daniel Boorstin described it as the “ Iron Curtain of the Middle Ages. ”

Mongols and the Maritime Silk Road


It wasn ’ thymine precisely overland barter that prospered. According to the National Palace Museum, Taipei : “ China under the Mongols witnessed an expansion in land and ocean commerce. numerous caravans traveled along extensive land routes and ships traveled the seas. Many of the commercial products that they carried have farseeing since disappeared, but ceramic shards have been recovered to serve as testimony to art and trade in the Mongol earned run average. Shards from the Pescadores liberally lent by the P’eng-hu Bureau of Culture testify to the commercial routes that once passed by Taiwan in the Yuan dynasty under the Mongols. [ reference : National Palace Museum, Taipei \=/ ]
“ After the Mongols established a organization of state and ocean routes for their empire, taiwanese objects of the Yuan dynasty were able to be more easily exported to meet foreign demand. such valued and exotic objects as silks, ceramics, and lacquer wares were the most normally sought taiwanese objects in commerce. Wang Ta-yuan of the former Yuan dynasty, for case, accompanied two merchant trips and visited a sum of 98 locations. At the clock time, chinese ships were even able to travel directly to the east coast of Africa. Though silks that these ships transported have retentive since perished, ceramic shards recovered from ocean routes serve as testimony to the flourishing craft under the Mongols in Yuan China. \=/
Merchants from Venice, Genoa and Pisa got rich by selling oriental spices and products picked up in the Levant ports in the easterly Mediterranean. But it was Arabs, Turks and early Muslims who profited most from the Silk Road trade wind. They controlled the land and the trade routes between Europe and China so completely that historian Daniel Boorstin described it as the “ Iron Curtain of the Middle Ages. ”

Mongol Paper Money and Silk Road Trade

20080212-paper money brook.jpg
Early paper money The Mongols were the first people to use newspaper money as their sole shape of currency. A nibble of wallpaper money used under Kublai Khan was about the size of a sheet of typing paper and had a furred felt-like feel. It was made from the inner bar of mulberry trees and according to Marco Polo was “ sealed with the seal of the Great Lord. ”
Paper money was first gear produced in China in 11th hundred when there was a alloy dearth and the government did n’t have adequate aureate, silver and copper to meet the demand for money. It was n’t long before the chinese politics was producing newspaper currency at a rate of four million sheets a year. By the twelfth hundred newspaper money was used to finance a defensive structure against the Mongols. Notes produced in 1209 that promised a pay holders with amber and silver medal were printed on perfumed paper made of silk. [ generator : “ The Discoverers ” by Daniel Boorstin ]
A while of newspaper money used under Kublai Khan in the thirteenth hundred was about the size of a sheet of typing newspaper and had a furred felt-like feel. It were made from the inside bark of mulberry trees and according to Marco Polo was “ sealed with the seal of the Great Lord. ” The worldly concern ‘s largest paper money was a 1 guan note issued by the Ming dynasty of 1368-99 that was 9 by 13-inches
“ Of this money, ” Marco Polo wrote, “ the Khan has such a quantity made that with it he could buy all the gem in the worldly concern. With this currentness he orders all payments to be made throughout every state and kingdom and region of his empire. And no one dares refuse it on pain of losing his biography … I assure you, that all the peoples and populations who are discipline to his convention are perfectly will to accept these papers in payment, since wherever they go they pay in the lapp currency, whether for goods or for pearls or valued stones or gold or argent. With these pieces of wallpaper they can buy anything and pay up for anything … When these papers have been so long in circulation that they are growing torn and frayed, they are brought to the mint and changed from new and fresh ones at a discount of 3 per cent. ”

Mongols and Trade

According to Columbia University ’ second Asia for Educators : “ Along with western missionaries, traders from the West ( particularly from Genoa ) began to arrive in the Mongol domains, by and large in Persia and finally farther east. The Mongols were quite receptive to this. This position, which facilitated contacts with West Asia and Europe, contributed to the begin of what we could call a “ global history, ” or at least a eurasian history. [ source : asia for Educators, Columbia University afe.easia.columbia.edu/mongols ]
“ The Mongols always favored craft. Their mobile way of life sentence caused them to recognize the importance of trade from the very earlier times and, unlike the Chinese, they had a cocksure position toward merchants and commerce. The confucian Chinese professed to be contemptuous of trade and merchants, whom they perceived to be a parasitic group that did not produce anything and were involved alone in the exchange of goods. Mongols altered that position and in fact sought to facilitate external trade .
“ In China, for example, the Mongols increased the come of paper money in circulation and guaranteed the value of that paper money in precious metals. They besides built many roads — though this was merely partially to promote deal — these roads were chiefly used to facilitate the Mongols ‘ rule over China. ”

Merchants in the Mongol-Era China

According to Columbia University ’ s Asia for Educators : “ traditionally, merchants were accorded a relatively first gear social condition in China. The Mongols, however, had a more favorable position toward merchants and department of commerce — their mobile way of life, which is much reliant on trade with sedentary peoples, had caused them to recognize the importance of trade from the identical earliest times. therefore, the Mongols worked to improve the social condition of merchants and traders throughout their domains. [ source : asia for Educators, Columbia University afe.easia.columbia.edu/mongols ]
“ In especial, the Mongols initiated the Ortogh, or merchant associations, that helped merchants who were in the commercial enterprise of long-distance trade. They besides increased the handiness of newspaper money and reduced some of the tariffs imposed on merchants. The resultant role was an extraordinary increase of deal across and throughout Eurasia. ”
“ Under the Mongols, merchants besides had the profit of not being faced with confiscatory taxation, as was the case during the rule of the traditional taiwanese dynasties. accompaniment for trade characterized not alone mongol policy in China but their policy throughout their domains. In Persia the Mongols granted higher tax breaks and benefits to traders in an effort to promote commerce. The Mongols even tried to introduce newspaper money into Persia — though this would become merely a fail experiment. however, the try indicates the desire of the Mongols to provide extra aid to traders .

Mongol Support for Merchants

According to Columbia University ’ sulfur Asia for Educators : “ Under Mongol rule, merchants had a higher status than they had in traditional China. During their travels they could rest and secure supplies through a postal-station system that the Mongols had established. The postal-station system was, of course, in the first place devised to facilitate the transmittance of official mail from one part of the empire to another. Set up approximately every 20 miles along the major craft routes and stocked with supplies of food, horses, and lodge, the stations were an incredible boon to all travelers, whether they were traveling for clientele or differently. [ informant : asia for Educators, Columbia University afe.easia.columbia.edu/mongols ]
“ To foster patronize trade and commerce, the Mongols established Ortogh specifically to promote caravan trade over long distances. The Mongols recognized that the caravan trade wind across Eurasia was inordinately expensive for any single merchant. Often there would be ampere many as 70 to 100 men on each mission, and all had to be fed and paid and provided with supplies ( including camels, horses, and indeed on ) over a drawn-out period of time. [ generator : asia for Educators, Columbia University afe.easia.columbia.edu/mongols ]
“ Quite a number of the caravans merely did not make it, either because of natural disasters of one sort or another or rape by bandit groups. Travelers, for example, mentioned coming across numerous skeletons, animal and homo, on these routes. Because of the expense involved in such a disaster, merely one such failed caravan could devastate an individual merchant ‘s holdings .
Through the Ortogh system merchants could pool their resources to support a single van. If a caravan did not make it, no individual merchant would be put out of commercial enterprise. The losses would be shared, as would any risks, and of course, profits when the caravans succeeded. The Mongols besides provided loans to merchants at relatively low rates of matter to, arsenic long as they belonged to an Ortogh .

Silk Trade Under the Mongols

Daniel C. Waugh of the University of Washington wrote : “ The Mongol Empire created what historically were the best conditions ever for the overland craft, as accounts such as that of Marco Polo document. italian merchants were involved in the China deal, and the development of a booming silk industry in Italy in region was thanks to the handiness of cheap taiwanese raw silk. Under the Mongols, silk production in the caspian provinces of northerly Iran besides expanded. Imports from that region to the Mediterranean world increasingly were preferred to those from China which often were damaged in the retentive transportation system by camel caravan. [ informant : Daniel C. Waugh, University of Washington, depts.washington.edu/silkroad * ]
“ The Mongol courts developed a detail taste for a gold-embroidered silk known as nasij, the techniques of whose production originated in the Middle East. The fame of this “ Tartar ” fabric spread both east and west. Chingis Khan ‘s invasion of Central Asia in 1219 seems to have been occasioned by a dispute involving craft. One authoritative product the Muslim merchants brought to the Mongol court was the fabric produced presumably in Central Asia and Persia. *\
“ Among the significant activities of the Mongol rulers was to conscript craftsmen from areas they conquered and otherwise to encourage or require technical experts to serve them in regions army for the liberation of rwanda from their homes. As sources such as Marco Polo associate, colonies of weavers from the Middle East were established in northern China. There presumably their techniques of embellishment combined with chinese traditions of silk fabricate to produce the most sought textiles. A alike radiation pattern of conscription has been documented for the reign of Tamerlane, the Mongols ‘ successor in Central Asia in the deep fourteenth hundred, who populated his capital Samarkand with merchants and craftsmen, including weavers from Damascus. ” *\

Silk Road Guidebook from the Mongol Era

At one point there were indeed many Europeans going to Asia that there were guidebooks for the Silk Road written in european languages. In 1340, Florentine banker Francesco Balducci Pegolotti advised travelers in central Asia : “ In the first base locate you must let your beard turn and not shave. And at Tana you should furnish yourself with a dragoman. And you must not try to save money by taking a badly one rather of a good one. For the extra wages of a good one will not cost you deoxyadenosine monophosphate much as you will save by having him. ”
Pegolotti besides wrote : “ And if the merchant likes to take a charwoman with him from Tana, he can do therefore ; if he does not like to take one there is no obligation, merely if he does take one he will be kept much more comfortable than if he does not take one. ”
20080321-silkroad hofstra u3366.gif In regard to changing money the Florentine banker wrote : “ Whatever silver the merchants may carry with them angstrom far as Cathay the lord of Cathay will take from them and put into his treasury. And to merchants who frankincense bring silver they give their wallpaper money in exchange … With this money you can readily buy silk and early merchandised that you desire to buy. And all the people in the country are bound to receive it. ”
By 1342 there was an archbishop in Beijing and the Christian clergy “ had their subsistence from Emperor ‘s table in their most estimable manner. ”

Foreign Exchange and the Mongols

According to the National Palace Museum, Taipei : “ The Mongol empire at its acme extended directly or indirectly over much of Asia and into the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and even Europe. This was a period of capital cultural commute in China that led to visits by envoys from Persia, France, Syria, and Korea equally well as by missionaries, merchants, and scholars. Combined with the storm migration of artisans from versatile lands, these peoples brought with them the techniques, objects, and crafts of their homelands to China. [ source : National Palace Museum, Taipei \=/ ]
According to Columbia University ’ s Asia for Educators : “ The Mongols ‘ receptiveness to foreigners was a critical divisor in promoting cultural exchange and a sincerely “ global ” history. Their position of relative openness toward foreigners and alien influence led to an extraordinary interchange of products, peoples, engineering, and skill throughout the Mongol domains. [ source : asia for Educators, Columbia University afe.easia.columbia.edu/mongols ]

“ So it is no accident that Marco Polo reached China during this era [ see Marco Polo ]. And besides no accident that Ibn Battuta, the big Islamic traveler from Morocco, besides reached China during this time, and that Rabban Sauma, a nestorian christian from the sphere around Beijing, reached Europe and had audiences with the kings of England and France and the Pope .
“ From the Mongol period on, then, we can speak about a eurasian — if not a ball-shaped — history, in which developments in one part of Europe would have an shock not only in Europe but besides in Asia, with the like being true for Asia. And if we remember that Christopher Columbus was actually looking for a raw route to Asia when he landed in America — and that one of the few books he had with him was Marco Polo ‘s account of his travels in Asia — we could even say that ball-shaped history begins with the Mongols and the bridge they built between the East and the West .

Pax Mongolia and Cultural Exchanges

According to Columbia University ’ second Asia for Educators : “ The Mongols promoted inter-state relations through the alleged “ Pax Mongolica ” — the mongolian Peace. Having conquered an enormous territory in Asia, the Mongols were able to guarantee the security and base hit of travelers. There were some conflicts among the assorted Mongol Khanates, but recognition that trade and change of location were significant for all the Mongol domains meant that traders were broadly not in risk during the 100 years or so of Mongol domination and rule over Eurasia. [ source : asia for Educators, Columbia University afe.easia.columbia.edu/mongols ]
“ The Mongols ‘ friendly position toward artisans benefited the Mongols themselves, and besides ultimately facilitated external contact and cultural substitute. The Mongols recruited artisans from all over the know populace to travel to their domains in China and Persia. Three disjoined weaving communities, for exemplar, were moved from Central Asia and Persia to China because they produced a specific kind of fabric — a fabric of gold — which the Mongols cherished .
“ apparently some chinese painters — or possibly their form books — were sent to Persia, where they had a enormous impact on the development of iranian miniature paintings. The dragon and phoenix motifs from China first appear in irani artwork during the Mongol earned run average. The representation of clouds, trees, and landscapes in persian paint besides owes a great batch to Chinese art — all due to the cultural infection supported by the Mongols. ”

Rome Missionaires to the Mongols

According to Columbia University ’ second Asia for Educators : “ The Mongol Era brought about the first instances of lineal contact between Europe and Mongol-ruled China. The Mongol attacks on Hungary and Poland in 1241 had alerted the Europeans to the power of the Mongols and so frightened them that, in 1245, the Pope in Rome called an ecumenic council to deliberate on a reply to the Mongols. Two franciscan missionaries were finally dispatched to the East. [ source : asia for Educators, Columbia University afe.easia.columbia.edu/mongols ]
“ The first, who left Europe in 1245, was John of Plano Carpini, and the second was William of Rubruck, who traveled through the Mongol domains during 1253-1255. Both sought to achieve a kind of reconciliation with the Mongols, attempting to deter them from far attacks and invasions on Europe, angstrom well as seeking to convert them to Christianity .
“ The Europeans had received information that the Mongols had a leader, named “ Prester John, ” who had converted to Christianity. They besides assumed that many of the Mongols already were Christians. In fact, some Mongol women, including Genghis Khan ‘s own mother, had converted to a dissident form of Christianity known as nestorian Christianity. The nestorian sect had been banned from Europe from around the fifth Century C.E., but had first spread to West Asia and then reached all the direction to East Asia. But the mind that the Mongols could be converted to Christianity was an magic trick at best .
“ Nonetheless, John of Plano Carpini and William of Rubruck were greeted heartily at the Mongol courts. Though they succeeded in neither their religious nor diplomatic missions, they were able to bring back the first accurate accounts of the Mongols. ”

Friar John of Pian de Carpine

The first base known european to travel from Europe to China on the Silk Road was John of Pian de Carpine ( 1180 ? -1252 ), a Franciscan friar and erstwhile companion of Saint Francis of Assisi, who was dispatched by Pope Innocent IV in 1245 to go to Mongolia with the mission of setting up diplomatic ties with the Mongols and converting the Great Guyuk Khan to Christianity. Carpine traveled to Asia 28 years before Marco Polo. Their mission at the clock was comparable to sending a man to the daydream and bringing him second alive. [ reservoir : “ The Discoverers ” by Daniel Boorstin ]
Friar John attended Guyuk ‘s coronation and was granted an audience with the Great Khan. He delivered a message from the Pope in which the pope expressed his wish for Christians and Mongols to be friends but insisted that the Mongols must embrace Christianity and repent for murdering Christians in Hungary and Poland. The Great Khan was not moved. His answer delivered in a note carried back to Europe by Friar John read : “ Come, Great Pope … and pay court to us. ”
Friar John and his polish companion, Friar Benedict, went first gear to the ruins of Kiev and then the Mongol summer camp at Sira Ordu, covering the concluding 3,000 miles to Karakorum in 106 days. The most unmanageable contribution of their journey was in the Altai mountains where, Friar John wrote : “ I was ill to the degree of death ; but I had myself carried along in a cart in the intense cold through the bass snow, so as not to interfere with the affairs of Christendom. ”
They besides had a hard clock in the Gobi Desert. The Mongols, he wrote, “ told us that if we took into Mongolia the horses which we had, they would all die, for the snows were deep, and they did not know how to dig out the grass from under the coke like Mongol horses, nor could anything else be found ( on the manner ) for them to eat, for the Tartars had neither straw nor hay nor cannon fodder. then, on their advise, we decided to leave our horses there. ”
When the two Friars arrived in Karakoram, two thousand Mongol chiefs were there Guyuk Khan ‘s coronation. Friar John wrote : “ They asked us if we wished to make any presents ; but we had already used up closely everything we had, so we had nothing to give them at all. “ Given up for dead, Friar John made it back to Europe two and half years after beginning his travel. other friars followed in their footsteps in the follow years but they excessively had little success in converting the Great Khan to Christianity .
See separate Article on William of Rubruck .

Christianity and the Mongols


many Mongol warriors and tribes in the era of Genghis Khan and Kublia Khan were Christians. several tribes had been Christian for centuries. Stephen Andrew Missick wrote in the Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies : “ The Mongol Christians belonged to the assyrian akkadian church of the East, which is besides known as the nestorian Church and the East syrian Church. The church of the East was concentrated in the Middle East, specially in the region of advanced Iraq and Iran. Early in the Christian era, assyrian akkadian missionaries spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ throughout India, China, and Mongolia. [ informant : Stephen Andrew Missick, Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies, July 2012 ]
An significant milestone the conversion of the Keriat tribe. The Keriats protected Temujin before he became Genghis Khan. Missick wrote : “ Around the year 1,000 AD the Mongol tribe of the Keriats became Christian. The tribe numbered over 200,000 men. The history of their conversion was recorded by the Jacobite Bar-Hebraeus and by the ecclesiastical chronicler of the assyrian neo-aramaic Church and can be found in The Eclipse of Christianity in Asia by Laurence E. Brown. The headman of the Keriats became lost in the wilderness during a hunt and despaired for his life. suddenly an apparition appeared before him. The supernatural being identified himself as Saint Sergius and promised to show him the way home if he would place his faith in Jesus. miraculously the headman found himself back in his camp. immediately he sent for some assyrian akkadian merchants he knew of and when they arrived he submitted to Christ and requested religious instruction. This incident shows that assyrian akkadian merchants and traders participated in spreading Christianity as they bought and sold along the Silk Road .
“ Marco Polo mentions visiting hundreds of churches during his travels and seeing thousands of Christians during his travels throughout the Mongol Empire from 1271 to 1295. The assyrian Church reached its stature during the Mongol Empire and was on the verge of becoming the dominant religion of the Empire but unfortunately declined in power due to resistance from Muslims and Roman Catholics and internal weaknesses, notably nominalism. The refuse began as certain warlords, including the ill-famed Timerlane, began converting to Islam. Timerlane declared a Jihad, Islamic holy War, against the Christians of the Far East and virtually destroy Christianity in Central Asia. ”

Prester John and the Mongols

many of the early european explorers to Asia and Africa were hoping to meet up with Prester John, a fabulous priest-king who resided somewhere in the East and was supposed to help the Crusaders reclaim Jerusalem. portuguese explorers went looking for him up the Senegal and Congo Rivers in Africa. Maps from the former sixteenth hundred had the kingdom of Prester John located in contemporary Ethiopia. Some of the first base Europeans to guess on the Silk Road traveled east towards Central Asia and China looking for him .
The caption of Prester John is believed to have originated with Saint Thomas, an Apostle of Christ said to have traveled to India in the A.D. inaugural century. More miracles have been attributed to Saint Thomas than any other enshrine. additionally, stories of Ung Khan — a Mongol ruler who preceded Genghis Khan and who may have been a nestorian Christian — may have made their way to Europe, placing Prester John in Central Asia .
Stephen Andrew Missick wrote in the Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies : “ The european caption held that a mighty priest-king reigned in ‘ India ’, meaning the Far East. Somewhere in the Far East, they believed was the brilliant King John of India, known as Prester John of the Indies. He was immortal, fabulously affluent and besides tidal bore to join with Europe to fight a campaign against the Muslims. The caption of Prester John had three historical sources ; The Saint Thomas Christians of India, the Christian Empire of the Ethiopian Coptic Christians, and the Nestorians of Mongolia and Central Asia. When accounts of Christians in southern India, east Africa or Central Asia reached Europe they became confused and confuse and finally became the legend of Prester John. This was due to the fact that Europe at that time had no accurate cognition of universe geography. For centuries Europeans thought that Africa, India and China were all the Indies. The original source of the caption was respective nestorian princes and kings who ruled in Central Asia. Marco Polo, Bar-Hebraeus and William of Rubruck all attempted to identify Ung Khan as Prester John. John of Montecorvino believed that his change from the assyrian Church, King George, was a descendant of Prester John. [ source : Stephen Andrew Missick, Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies, July 2012 ]
The legend of Pester John began with a shape thirteenth century letter that was vastly democratic and appeared as a 10-page manuscript booklet, written in numerous languages including italian, german, English, Serbian, Russian and Hebrew. The Kingdom of Prester John included 42 “ mighty and good Christian kings ; ” the Great Feminie, ruled by three queens and defended by 100,000 women warriors ; pygmies who fought wars with birds ; bowmen “ who from the waist up are men, but whose lower separate is that of a cavalry ; ” worms that survived merely in fires, maintained by 40,000 men, that produced silk that could only be cleaned in fires ; and charming mirrors, enchanted fountains and underground rivers with waters that turned into valued stones. [ reservoir : Daniel Boorstin, “ The Discoverers ” ]

Nestorian Christians in the Mongol Court


nestorian Christians were authoritative among the Mongols in numbers and influence. According to Gibbon, “ the nestorian church was diffused from China to Jerusalem and Cyprus ; and their numbers, with those of the Jacobites, were computed to surpass the Greek and Latin communions. ” [ source : Stephen Andrew Missick, Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies, July 2012 ]
Stephen Andrew Missick wrote in the Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies : “ many nestorian priests served as ambassadors for the Mongolians. Rabban Simeon, Rabban Ata met with Andrew of Longjumeau, a european envoy. This monk sent Pope Innocent IV a letter requesting him to be tolerant towards nestorian Christians and urging him to make peace with Fredrick II. This letter is preserved in the Vatican archives. The nestorian general Elijigidei sent two nestorian priests to King Louis IX on 14 December 1248. The priests were Dawoud and Markos. Elijiadei wished Louis success in his war against the Muslims and requested he “ invalidate discriminating between Latin and non-Latin Christians, since under Mongol govern all sects were held to be equal. ”
nestorian Christianity today is largely extinct today but at one time it was quite a powerful christian faction and was at the center of important doctrinal controversies. The Nestorians emphasized the duality of being between man and divine. They were regarded as heretics by other sects for their belief that there were two separate persons in the incarnate Christ and their denial that Christ was in one person both God and man. They went on to argue that Mary was either the beget of God ( a blasphemous concept to many Christians ) or the mother of the man Jesus ; but she could n’t have it both ways .
nestorian Christianity is named after Nestorius, the bishop of Constantinople from A.D. 428 to 431. Of iranian origin, he became a monk and lived in a monastery in Euprepius near Antioch. The person who in truth defined nestorian Christianity was Theodore ( died 431 ), bishop of Mopsuestia in Colicia and a schoolchild of Diodorus, bishop of Tarsus. Theodore emphasized the world of Jesus and argued that he acquired his department of state of purity by uniting with the Person of the Divine Word. which he received as an prize for attaining a state of purity. The Word, he insisted, dwell in the man Christ. Nestorians thus rejected the union of God and valet and Mary was considered the mother of a man not a idol .

Islam and the Mongols


The earliest attest of Islam in Mongolia is dated to 1254, when the Franciscan William of Rubruck visited the court of the great khan Mongka at Karakorum. He said he saw two mosques along with a nestorian Christian church and seven temples of the “ idolators ” ( possibly Buddhist, Hindu and Taoist temples ). therefore, historians date the arrival of Islam to Mongolia to between 1222 and 1254. Islam besides gained the detect of the Mongols after Genghis Khan invaded Afghanistan. In 1222, on his way back to Mongolia, he visited Bukhara in Transoxiana. It was believed he inquired about Islam, and subsequently approved of Muslim tenets except the Hajj, considering it unnecessary. [ source : Wikipedia + ]
Genghis Khan ‘s grandson Berke converted to Islam due to the efforts of Saif ud-Din Dervish, a dervish from Khorazm, frankincense Berke became one of the foremost Mongol rulers to convert. early Mongol leaders owed their conversion to Islam due to the determine of a Muslim wife. [ 6 ] Later, it was the Mamluk ruler Baibars who played an authoritative function in bringing many Golden Horde Mongols to Islam. Baibars developed potent ties with the Mongols of the Golden Horde and took steps for the Golden Horde Mongols to travel to Egypt. The arrival of the Golden Horde Mongols to Egypt resulted in a meaning count of Mongols accepting Islam. By the 1330s, three of the four major khanates of the Mongol Empire had become Muslim. These were the Golden Horde, Hulagu ‘s Ulus and Chagatai ‘s Ulus. The Yuan Empire besides embraced Muslim peoples such as the Persians. +
According to Columbia University ’ s Asia for Educators : “ The Mongol dynasty ‘s sexual intercourse to Islam, in particular, had fantastic impact on China ‘s relations with the outdoor worldly concern. The Mongols recruited a issue of Muslims to help in the govern of China, particularly in the field of fiscal presidency — Muslims frequently served as tax collectors and administrators. They were accorded extraordinary opportunities during the Mongol period because Kublai Khan and the other Mongol rulers of China could not rely entirely upon the subjugated Chinese to help in ruling China. They needed outsiders, and the Muslims were among those who assisted Kublai. [ source : asia for Educators, Columbia University afe.easia.columbia.edu/mongols ]
“ The Mongols in China besides recognized that Islamic scholars had made big leaps in the studies of astronomy and medicine, and they invited many specialists in those fields to come to China. Among those to make the trip was the iranian astronomer Jamal Al-din, who helped the Chinese set up an observatory. Bringing with him many diagrams and advance astronomic instruments from Persia, Jamal Al-din assisted the Chinese in developing a new, more accurate calendar. The Mongols were besides impressed by the Persians ‘ advances in medicate. They recruited a number of iranian doctors to China to establish an Office for Muslim Medicine, and the resultant role was even greater contact between West Asia and East Asia .
Muslim Mongols used camp mosques. Tents were an integral part of Mongol life and customs even after the Mongols adopted a more sedentary life style and converted to Islam in 1295. An double from Rashid al-Din ’ mho “ Jami al-tavarikh shows a boastfully tent with the panels knotted back to reveal the inside. [ informant : “ The Legacy of Genghis Khan : Courtly Art and Culture in western Asia, 1256-1353 ”, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2003 exhibition ^\^

Mongol Restrictions on Muslims

Genghis Khan and the play along yuan emperors forbade Islamic practices like Halal butchery, forcing Mongol methods of butchering animals on Muslims, and other restrictive degrees continued. Muslims had to slaughter sheep in mystery. Genghis Khan directly called Muslims and Jews “ slaves ” and demanded that they follow the Mongol method of eating rather than the halal method acting. circumcision was besides prevent. Jews were besides affected, and forbidden by the Mongols to eat Kosher. [ source : Wikipedia ]
One chronicle on Mongols reported : “ Among all the [ discipline ] estrange peoples only the Hui-hui say “ we do not eat Mongol food ”. [ Cinggis Qa ’ an answer : ] “ By the aid of heaven we have pacified you ; you are our slaves. Yet you do not eat our food or drink. How can this be correct ? ” He thereupon made them eat. “ If you slaughter sheep, you will be considered guilty of a crime. ” He issued a regulation to that effect … [ In 1279/1280 under Qubilai ] all the Muslims say : “ if person else slaughters [ the animal ] we do not eat ”. Because the hapless people are upset by this, from nowadays on, Musuluman [ Muslim ] Huihui and Zhuhu [ Jewish ] Huihui, no matter who kills [ the animal ] will eat [ it ] and must cease slaughtering sheep themselves, and cease the rite of circumcision. [ beginning : Donald Daniel Leslie “ The Integration of Religious Minorities in China : The Case of Chinese Muslims ”, 1998, The Fifty-ninth George Ernest Morrison Lecture in Ethnology ]

double Sources : Wikimedia Commons ; Map : Hofstra University
text Sources : Robert Eno, Indiana University indiana.edu /+/ ; Asia for Educators, Columbia University afe.easia.columbia.edu ; University of Washington ’ s Visual Sourcebook of Chinese Civilization, depts.washington.edu/chinaciv /=\ ; National Palace Museum, Taipei \=/ Library of Congress ; New York Times ; Washington Post ; Los Angeles Times ; China National Tourist Office ( CNTO ) ; Xinhua ; China.org ; China Daily ; Japan News ; Times of London ; National Geographic ; The New Yorker ; Time ; Newsweek ; Reuters ; Associated Press ; Lonely Planet Guides ; Compton ’ mho Encyclopedia ; Smithsonian cartridge holder ; The Guardian ; Yomiuri Shimbun ; AFP ; Wikipedia ; BBC. many sources are cited at the end of the facts for which they are used .
last update November 2016

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Category : Maritime
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