Socratic Seminar: The Mongols
Instructions
Read the following primary source documents and other articles in order to discuss during the Socratic Seminar on Tuesday, December 10th. Be sure to answer the questions in this packet to prepare. Our questions are:
Overall, were the Mongols a force for good in the world from 1200-1500?
Were the Mongols any more or less “brutal” or “evil” than the Romans, Vikings, and/or European crusaders?
Two European travelers to lands controlled by the Mongols in Central Asia leave us their documented observations. Both contain impressions about the lives of Mongol women, who at the time had more rights in Mongolia than in China, Europe, or many other cultures. Giovanni DiPlano visited the Mongols between 1245-1247 at Pope Innocent IV's command. He is credited with being the first European to produce a firsthand report about the Mongols. Marco Polo (1254-1324) was a keen observer of the lives of the women in his detailed account of Mongol life on the steppes in chapter 47 of his book, “Il Milione,” or “The Travels of Marco Polo.”
Giovanni DiPlano Carpini:
“Girls and women ride and gallop as skillfully as men. We even saw them carrying quivers and bows, and the women can ride horses for as long as the men; they have shorter stirrups, handle horses very well, and mind all the property. The Tartar (commonly used term for Mongols) women make everything: skin clothes, shoes, leggings, and everything made of leather. They drive carts and repair them, they load camels, and are quick and vigorous in all their tasks. They all wear trousers, and some of them shoot just like men."
Marco Polo: “Chapter 47: Of the wandering life of the Tartars--of their domestic manners, their food, and the virtue and useful qualities of their women.
“...Now that I have begun speaking of the Tartars, I will tell you more about them. The Tartars never remain fixed, but as the winter approaches remove to the plains of a warmer region, to find sufficient pasture for their cattle; and in summer they frequent cold areas in the mountains, where there is water and verdure, and their cattle are free from the annoyance of horse- flies and other biting insects. During two or three months they go progressively higher and seek fresh pasture, the grass not being adequate in any one place to feed the multitudes of which their herds and flocks consist. Their huts or tents are formed of rods covered with felt, exactly round, and nicely put together, so they can gather them into one bundle, and make them up as packages, which they carry along with them in their migrations upon a sort of car with four wheels. When they have occasion to set them up again, they always make the entrance front to the south. Besides these cars they have a superior kind of vehicle upon two wheels, also covered with black felt so well that they protect those within it from wet during a whole day of rain. These are drawn by oxen and camels, and convey their wives and children, their utensils, and whatever provisions they require.
The women attend to their trading concerns, buy and sell, and provide everything necessary for their husbands and their families; the time of the men is devoted entirely to hunting, hawking, and matters that relate to the military life....Their women are not excelled in the world for chastity and decency. Of conduct, nor for love and duty to their husbands. Infidelity to the marriage bed is regarded by them as a vice not merely dishonorable, but of the most infamous nature; while on the other hand it is admirable to observe the loyalty of the husbands towards their wives, amongst whom, although there are perhaps ten or twenty, there prevails a highly laudable degree of quiet and union. No offensive language is ever heard, their attention being fully occupied with their traffic (as already mentioned) and their several domestic employments, such as the provision of necessary food for the family, the management of the servants, and the care of the children, a common concern. And the virtues of modesty and chastity in the wives are more praiseworthy because the men are allowed the indulgence of taking as many as they choose. Their expense to the husband is not great, and on the other hand the benefit he derives from their trading, and from the occupations in which they are constantly engaged, is considerable; on which account when he receives a young woman in marriage, he pays a dower to her parent. The wife who is the first espoused has the privilege of superior attention, and is held to be the most legitimate, which extends also to the children borne by her. In consequence of this unlimited number of wives, the offspring is more numerous than amongst any other people. Upon the death of the father, the son may take to himself the wives he leaves behind, with the exception of his own mother. They cannot take their sisters to wife, but upon the death of their brothers they can marry their sisters-in-law. Every marriage is solemnized with great ceremony.”
Questions:
1) How do Carpini and Polo view the Mongols and the way they treat women?
The Chronicles of Novgorod, 1016-1417, written by anonymous monks in Novgorod near Russia.
[In 1238] foreigners called Tartars came in countless numbers, like locusts, into the land of the Ryazan, and on first coming they halted at the river Nukhla, and took it, and halted in camp there. And thence they sent their emissaries to the Knyazes of Ryasan, a sorceress and two men with her, demanding from them one-tenth of everything: of men and Knyazes and horses – of everything one tenth…. And the Knyazes said to them: “Only when none of us remain then all will be yours.”…. And the Knyazes of Ryazan sent to Yuri of Volodimir asking for help or him to come. But Yuri neither went himself nor listed to the request of the Knayazes of Ryasan, but he wished to make war separately. But it was too late to oppose the wrath of God…. And then the pagan foreigners surrounded Ryazan and fenced it in with a stockade. And the Tartars took the town on December 21, and they had advanced against it on the 16th of the same month. They likewise killed the Knyaz and the Knyaginya, and men, women, and children, monks, nuns and priests, some by fire, some by sword, and violated nuns, priests’ wives, good women and girls in the presence of their mothers and sisters…. And who, brethren, would not lament over this, among those of us alive when they suffered this bitter and violent death? And we, indeed, having seen it, were terrified and wept with sighing day and night over our sins…
Questions:
2) How do these Russian monks view the Mongols? Can this account be trusted? Why or why not?
A Report on Gender Relations, William of Rubruck, a Franciscan friar who visited the Mongols in 1250’s on behalf of the King of France.
One woman will drive twenty or thirty wagons, since the terrain is level…. It is the women’s task to drive the wagons, to load the dwellings on them and to unload again, to milk the cows, to make butter and grut [curds or cheese], and to dress the skins and stitch them together, which they do with a thread made from sinew.
The men make bows and arrows, manufacture stirrups and bits, fashion saddles, construct the dwellings and the wagons, tend the horses and mares, churn the comas [that is, the mare’s milk], produce the skins in which it is stored, and tend and load the camels.
Questions:
3) How are Mongol men and women treated according to Rubruck?
Genghis Khan’s Four Great Legacies
Tolerance
One of Chinggis Khan's greatest legacies was the principle of religious tolerance. In general, Chinggis provided tax relief to Buddhist monasteries and to a variety of other religious institutions. And though Chinggis himself never converted to any of the religions of the sedentary peoples he conquered (he remained loyal to Mongolian shamanism), he was quite interested in Daoism, particularly because of the Daoists' pledge that they could prolong life. In fact, on his expedition to Central Asia Chinggis was accompanied by Changchun, a Daoist sage from China, who kept an account of his travels with his Mongol patron. Changchun's first-hand account has become one of the major primary sources on Chinggis Khan and the Mongols. [Also see The Mongols in China: Religious Life under Mongol Rule, to compare Chinggis's legacy to Khubilai Khan's policy of religious tolerance.]
Written Language
The creation of the first Mongol written language was another legacy of Chinggis Khan. In 1204, even before he gained the title of "Chinggis Khan," Chinggis assigned one of his Uyghur retainers to develop a written language for the Mongols based upon the Uyghur script. [Also see The Mongols in China: Cultural Life under Mongol Rule, to compare Chinggis's legacy to Khubilai Khan's commissioning of a Mongol script.]
Trade and Crafts
A third legacy was Chinggis's support for both trade and crafts, which meant support for the merchants and artisans in the business of trade and craft. Chinggis recognized early on the importance of trade and crafts for the economic survival of the Mongols and actively supported both. [Also see The Mongols in China: Life for Artisans under Mongol Rule and Life for Merchants under Mongol Rule, to compare Chinggis's legacy to Khubilai Khan's support artisans and merchants.]
Legal Code
Chinggis also left behind a legal code, the so-called Jasagh, which consisted of a series of general moral injunctions and laws. The Jasagh also prescribed punishments for transgressions of laws relating particularly to pastoral-nomadic society.
A Tactic of Religious Tolerance
The Mongols had a benevolent attitude toward foreign religions, or at least a policy of benign neglect.
Their belief in Shamanism notwithstanding, the Mongols determined early on that aggressive imposition of their native religion on their subjects would be counter-productive. Instead, they sought to ingratiate themselves with the leading foreign clerics in order to facilitate governance of the newly subjugated territories. They even offered tax benefits to the clerics of Buddhism, Islam, Daoism, and Nestorian Christianity in order to win the support of those religions.
A quintessential Mongol view of religion may be found in Marco Polo's writings. According to Marco Polo, Khubilai Khan said:
"There are prophets who are worshipped and to whom everybody does reverence. The Christians say their god was Jesus Christ; the Saracens, Mohammed; the Jews, Moses; and the idolaters Sakamuni Borhan [that is, Sakiamuni Buddha, who was the first god to the idolaters]; and I do honor and reverence to all four, that is to him who is the greatest in heaven and more true, and him I pray to help me."
What's Wrong with the Popular Impression of Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun and The Mongols?
by Christopher I. Beckwith
Mr. Beckwith, professor of Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, is the author of Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present (Princeton University Press, 2009).
The popular Western idea of Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, and other famous Central Eurasians should be obvious to anyone familiar with the portrayal of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s characters in the popular movies Conan the Barbarian and Red Sonja—they’re Barbarians!
But this is more than just an idea in the popular imagination. Despite many scholars’ addition of scare quotes to the word (“barbarian”) in a nod to political correctness, or their omission of the word entirely from their writings, the traditional view of Central Eurasians it embodies has remained largely unchallenged even among specialists. The barbaric Huns appeared suddenly from out of nowhere and for no apparent reason, other than that they were barbarians and could not help themselves; they attacked the innocent Romans, destroyed their cities, killed countless people, and helped bring about the fall of the glorious Roman Empire.
Similarly, the barbaric Mongols attacked the innocent, peaceful Persians and Chinese, destroyed their cities, and killed millions of people, ending both the glorious age of medieval Islamic civilization and the great Chinese civilization of the Sung Dynasty. This picture is buttressed by repetition of biased, inaccurate accounts of Central Eurasian peoples, especially the steppe nomads, from selected ancient and medieval sources, and by omission of the positive views and accurate accounts of the same peoples in the very same sources. Historiographically we are back in the days when the American Indians were evil savages who for no good reason attacked the innocent, peaceful European settlers. Lip service, at best, is paid to the institutionalized brutality of the Roman conquerors, or the racism of the European conquerors.
Perhaps because the overt idea of the Central Eurasian barbarian has been partly suppressed due to PC, it has continued, unrecognized, to distort the history of Eurasia. According to the usual view, the ‘sedentary’ peoples of the Eurasian periphery (mainly the Chinese, Persians, Greeks and Romans) are seen as having been essentially good, while the ‘nomadic’ Central Eurasian peoples in the middle were fundamentally bad. Central Asia, a subregion within Central Eurasia, is popularly but erroneously believed to have been a stopping place on a transcontinental commercial transportation system called the "Silk Road"; trade goods passed through the otherwise unimportant region, despite the barbaric nomads, and so made their way to the important places—China and the Graeco-Roman world, especially. It is assumed that Central Eurasia, a poor, backward region in modern times, must always have been like that. The nearly universal practice of ignoring the Central Asian origin of many great early Buddhist thinkers and nearly all the great scholars and scientists of the golden age of medieval Islamic civilization only reinforces this misconception. The attempts of many specialists to correct specific errors in Central Eurasian history have not changed the broader view always lurking in the background, still ruled by the underlying fantasy of the barbarians and their innocent "sedentary" victims in the periphery as well as in Central Asia.
Questions:
4) What is Beckwith’s main argument in this article? Do you agree or disagree with him?