Mongols

In this episode I interview my special guest Dr. Nicholas Morton, author of The Mongol Storm (Basic Books, 2022), about the Mongols and their invasion of and impact upon the thirteenth-century Near East. Our discussion covers who and what the Mongols were; why they were so effective militarily; Mongol religion and religious 'toleration'; their reputation for horrific brutality; why the Mamluks of Egypt were able to defeat them in battle; and the economic and cultural impact of the so-called Pax Mongolica.

Suggested reading:
Abu-Lughod, Janet L. Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250- 
     1350  (Oxford University Press, 1989)
Favereau, Marie. The Horde: How the Mongols Changed the World (Belknap Press,
     2021)
Jackson, Peter. The Mongols and the Islamic World: From Conquest to Conversion 
     (Yale University Press, 2017)
May, Timothy. The Mongols Empire (Edinburgh University Press, 2018) 
Morton, Nicholas. The Mongol Storm: Making and Breaking Empires in the Medieval
     Near East  (Basic Books, 2022)
Morton, Nicholas. "Life Under the Mongols." BBC History Magazine. Vol. 24 (April
     2023)
Rossabi, Morris. The Mongols and Global History (Norton Documents Reader) (W.W.
     Norton, 2010)

This episode includes a sound clip from the theatrical trailer for the epically terrible 1956 movie "The Conqueror," starring John Wayne as Genghis Khan--yes the John Wayne as Genghis Khan!!!
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHt0Pb8rkXU)

As always, we are grateful to the talented and generous composer Alexander Nakarada for the podcast's intro and exit music.

Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com

Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada

If you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com

Transcript

MONGOLS 

(‘Tis But A Scratch: Fact & Fiction About the Middle Ages, episode 25)

Wed, May 24, 2023 2:19PM • 1:13:19

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

mongols, mongol, mamluks, mongol empire, east, army, empire, nomadic, city, khan, fight, areas, conquest, societies, region, movie, battle, great, genghis khan, defeat

SPEAKERS

richard abels, Nicholas Morton, Richard Abels, Movie trailer for The Conqueror

Richard Abels  00:06

welcome to the podcast despite a scratch, fact and fiction about the Middle Ages. I'm your host, Professor Richard Abels. And today's episode is about Mongols, in particular, about the Mongol impact upon the medieval Near East. We're very fortunate to have as our guest, the leading expert on this subject, Dr. Nicholas Morton, associate professor in history at Nottingham Trent University in the UK. Nick is the author of four books in countering Islam on the First Crusade, Cambridge University Press 2016. The field of blood, the battle for Aleppo and the remaking of the medieval Middle East, Basic Books 2018. The Crusader States and their neighbors of military history, Oxford University Press 2020. And most recently, the Mongol storm making and breaking empires in the medieval Near East. Basic Books. 2022. Welcome, Nick. I'm so glad you could join us. I have a lot of questions. So let's just get started.

Nicholas Morton  01:16

Ready when you are Yeah, absolutely. Let's get cracking.

Richard Abels  01:19

I'm sure that our listeners have all heard about Mongols, and they've heard about the devastation of the Mongols. The title of your book, The Mongol storm really resonates with our listeners, but they probably don't know very much about who they were historically. So who were the Mongols?

Nicholas Morton  01:38

Sure. Well, I think one of the best ways to explain this is that across much of Central Asia, there it's a very, very varied landscape, you've got mountains and forests just as you do anywhere else. But you've also got huge areas of grassland. And those areas are extremely suitable for nomadic peoples with large herds of sheep, and goats and horses and other animals. And if you move from grazing ground to grazing ground, often from spring to winter grazing grounds, and often they'll do that in peace. And throughout history, what had the names of various peoples who have conducted them and its way of life in those various areas, or the Mongols are one such group. One such group that's towards the eastern end of that huge area, huge grass, see, as it's sometimes known, in Central Asia, in the region around not directly around the area of modern Mongolia. And, as with many of these nomadic peoples, from time to time, they form, they form confederations. And those confederations can then attack the various societies around their perimeter. That's why you have the Great Wall of China to keep particularly the nomadic peoples out, 

Richard Abels  02:53

Yeah, the really proved effective.

Nicholas Morton  02:54

(Laughing) Yes. And, and then with the Muslim world, you've got a series of big fortress cities, often, most of them along the line or the opposite river. And then in western Christendom, which has also suffered nomadic attack or before that the Roman Empire with from people like the A VAZ or the Huns, or people like that.

richard abels  03:14

And the Hungarians or Magyars in the ninth century as well.

Nicholas Morton  03:18

Indeed, you have the thick area of deciduous woodland, which often proved very difficult to penetrate for nomadic peoples. So this is a sort of a much bigger Eurasian story. And the Mongols are one such people and they form a crucial part because they were in many ways, the most effective of these nomadic confederations that was to emerge and then conquer the various societies around the periphery,

Richard Abels  03:44

where the Mongols a single people, or are we talking about a linguistic group? Or what exactly were they were they a confederation of different groups

Nicholas Morton  03:55

that they started off as a single group. But what's interesting about the Mongol identity is that as the Mongols began to conquer or defeat neighboring peoples, they'd be able to draw them in to the Mongol people and that and essentially making the Mongols to the idea of being a Mongol became a much broader identity. And even later on in the Mongols, conquests. In some cases, the Mongols might defeat an empire of society, sometimes not even just nomadic ones, but potentially even agricultural ones too, and then enroll some of the defeated warriors into their own ranks. So it became a sort of much broader identity, rather than being a specifically defined sort of name for a group of people.

richard abels  04:40

In other words, a cultural rather than a genetical ethnic identity.

Nicholas Morton  04:46

Indeed, and such people who were involved they weren't allowed to choose whether they wanted to be enrolled in the Mongol people this was often done by force. And once you had been enrolled, you're expected to cut your hair and the Mongol fashion and were mumbled Everything in a Mongol hat and to conduct yourself like other Mongol warriors. And there's a famous regulation which had it that if someone should try and flee from battle, perhaps someone who had been forcibly recruited into the Mongol army, if you fled from battle, the rest of your squad will be killed. Wow, there's so there is a very strong incentive, even if you have no desire at all, to fight for the Mongols, you're still gonna do it. Because you know, if you don't, then you're members of a company will suffer. And if an entire company of 10 should flee, then they'll do so knowing that the broader regiment of 100 soldiers will then be executed,

richard abels  05:43

which ensures that your fellow soldiers will be monitoring you and making sure that you don't desert

Nicholas Morton  05:50

indeed, and they will want to make sure you don't flee because they know what's gonna happen. As an

Richard Abels  05:55

Anglo Saxon historian, this reminds me of the pre conquest, tithing, in which you had 10, free men, all of whom were responsible for the good behavior of the others. And if one should break the laws, the others had to either produce them for justice, or had to pay the fine in his place. But it's a lot more brutal than the tithing ever was,

Nicholas Morton  06:21

it seems to me to have been tremendously effective irrespective of the moral questions it raises.

richard abels  06:28

Yes. So we have this nomadic people and for centuries, they're, they're tending their herds. And then what late 12th century things champ.

Nicholas Morton  06:39

So a leader begins to emerge called Terrigen and Temujin. He's not blessed with unbroken success, he has his fair share of defeats, but he keeps going. And eventually he manages whether through military conquest or alliances, to put together a, a critical mass of soldier it's a critical mass of people, with which he is then able to start to wage war, not just on nomadic neighbors, but on much more powerful agricultural or semi agricultural societies, perhaps most notably, areas of northern, urban northern China. And telogen. And 1206 takes the title Chinggis Khan, which of course, he's much more famous as Genghis Khan, as its as sometimes pronounced. And so yeah, it's it's a long term process this welding together of peoples that it's not in fact, Temujin or Chinggis Khan, who embarks on who conducts most of the major offensives of the Mongol Empire Genghis Khan dies until 37, while a Mongol Empire is still in the process of expansion, but he creates a model from which his sons and successes will then build to then bring about the conquest of the Mongol Empire across areas of China, the Near East, western Eurasia, and even as far afield as distant and remote places like Western Christendom or parts of it.

richard abels  08:00

I know that the title Genghis Khan means in Mongolian universal leader, but was global conquest, really, Genghis Khan's goal.

Nicholas Morton  08:12

This is a source of academic debate, opinions divided on this particular subject, because some people feel that chingus can't felt that he had a mandate to conquer the entire globe or human civilization. And he felt he had that mandate very early on. And that mandate, as far as chingus calm was concerned, he felt derived from the eternal heaven Tengri. And he felt that he had received this mandate from Tengri to rule all human civilization, and therefore that is the mainspring for his subsequent conquests that's possible. It some people seem to feel that, in fact, that objective of planetary conquest essentially, that only emerged later, during the reign of his son Agha die. It's not quite clear whether it crystallized on the Genghis Khan or under his son Ogedei, but certainly by the time you get to Ogedei’s reign, then certainly the Mongols believe that they are in the process of bringing about the total subjugation of all human civilization under their control. And that's the underlying message.

richard abels  09:24

The Great Khan Güyük , a grandson of Genghis Khan, made this crystal clear in a letter that he sent to Pope Innocent the Fourth. In 1247. The Pope had sent the Franciscan missionary John of Plano Carpini to the court of the Great Khan and hope of converting him to Roman Christianity. The Great Khan was not impressed to say the least. In response to the Pope's rhetorical question. What crime had the Hungarians committed that justified the Mongols conquering their lands and those of other Christians? The Great Khan replied, changes Khan And the Great Khan Agha die have both transmitted the order of the eternal God. The letter is in Arabic, and the scribe apparently translated Tengri as Allah as God, the order of the eternal God that all the world should be subordinated to the Mongols. But they disregarded God's order. And thus the eternal God Himself has killed and exterminated the people in those countries, through the power of God, all empires from the rising of the sun, to its setting have been given to us, and we own them. How could anyone achieve this, except by God's order

Nicholas Morton  10:38

And of course, the fact that the Mongols go from victory to victory to victory, will only serve to embed them in that belief, because of course, well, they're winning, so there must be must be doing something right.

richard abels  10:48

This sounds similar to the etiology of the early Islamic expansion. As the caliphate enjoyed pretty much unbroken military success until a year long siege of Constantinople in 717, to 718, failed, and the Saracen army was defeated at Tours by the Frankish leader, Charles Martel, in 732, the conquest of Persia, and the Byzantine Near East played into the idea that the mission of the caliphs was to bring the entire world under submission to the will of God. It's difficult in this secular age to appreciate how culturally ingrained the idea was in the early Middle Ages, and the High Middle Ages, that victory on the battlefield and defeat are the battlefield reflected the will of God, the Mongols weren't unique in this,

Nicholas Morton  11:42

I think certain needs to be taken very seriously that once a civilization has got hold of the idea that it has a right to rule, neighboring areas, the world, whatever, once they feel that is a divine mandate. And once they feel they've received confirmation of that, generally, by means of repeated military victories. And of course, the more you win more than when you took more than you tend to go on winning, because your troops are more experienced and more confident and your enemy stopped backing away, even before they started fighting. Once you've got that kind of environment going. That can be a very powerful driver for just simply ongoing success that just builds and builds and builds

richard abels  12:17

it may be at this point, just a few words about Mongol religion. It's a shamanistic religion, is it monotheistic?

Nicholas Morton  12:26

It's complicated

Richard Abels  12:29

That's the perfect academic answer.

Nicholas Morton  12:32

Yeah, it is. It's not a very helpful, I'm afraid. The Mongols believed in Tengri, the eternal sky or the eternal heaven. Now, that's not a synonym for God necessarily. It's not God in sort of, I don't know, the conventional Western European sense, you might say. But it is the perception that in the sky, there is this spiritual force that has given the Mongols this very specific mandate. So that is obviously a key element of the Mongols beliefs. But you're right, the Mongol society itself, it has all sorts of spiritual taboos. And perhaps the easiest way to explain this is it's it's a little bit like a sort of a landscape really, in that it's perceived that the landscape and the various elements of it, they have spiritual forms and qualities of the river and running water has a spiritual quality to it, and that there are certain spiritual entities or spiritual beings that live in certain hills or mountains or cracks. And so the landscape is imbued with a very strong spiritual resonance. And that makes some areas very desirable, some areas, an area of fear, but it's a spiritual way of looking at the world around you. And linked to this, there are all sorts of taboos, things to do things not to do so as to appease the right spiritual forces or the right spiritual beings, and so as so as not to incur the wrath of those that you don't want to upset. So it's, it's a complex spiritual world. But one of the most interesting dimensions to the Mongols, religious beliefs or spiritual beliefs is that they accepted the presence of other religions. They accepted that other religions had potentially religious power, spiritual force, and were therefore true as far as they went, but that they were all subsumed within the broader Mongol mission and like to rule the world that creates a very interesting environment, because the Mongols that are sometimes described as practicing a form of religious tolerance. Yeah. And sometimes they're praised to the skies for this and sort of the forebears of tolerance as it might be understood in the modern day. I don't go quite that far. What the Mongols seem to have wanted from the various other religions and religious groups under their control, is they wanted the religious leaders of those religions to channel their spiritual power as this as it's understood for the betterment of the Mongol Empire, its expansion, the health and the life of its leaders and its victory in battle. So in many ways, religions are seen as sort of resources to be used. They're not deemed to be false or wrong. Conversion is not really a thing in quite the same way. But they are nonetheless, assets that the Mongol Empire wants to channel towards their own greater goals. And certainly they see their own religious mandate as encompassing those of all other religions.

Richard Abels  15:33

There's an interesting analogy here to the way that the Romans looked at other religions. In the creation of their empire, they accepted the existence of foreign gods, which is a lot less of a problem. If you're a pagan than if you're a monotheistic and rather than impose their gods. Upon conquered enemy's they appropriated those deities, and integrated them into their own pantheon. Yes, this is underscored by the so called Fetial law, or Rerum Repetitio, to the ritual by which the Romans declared war. The underlying theological concept was that the gods are just an in disputes will support those with just cause. Before the Romans went to war, they sent a priest to the border of enemy territory. There, the priests would announce to the gods, the injuries that the enemy had committed against Rome, and man, just restitution, the fetial priest within cross into enemy territory, and make the same announcement to the first person encountered. And then to the first magistrate he accounted. If restitution was not made. Within 33 days, the priest would return to the border, and throw across it, a javelin, whose tip had been dipped in blood, while calling upon the Roman gods, the conspicuously not mas, and the enemy gods, to recognize the justice of Rome's declaration of war, and support them in the conflict. And it's not cynical, it's an acceptance of spirit of a spiritual world in which the moral superiority of the Roman cause would be recognized and supported by the deities, of course, the Jews of Judea as mono theists, who knew that there God was the only God had some difficulties with this. And that led to a couple of unsuccessful rebellions. I'm sure that the Mongols found some difficulty dealing with Christians and Muslims for the same reason

Nicholas Morton  17:44

Yeah, it's an interesting comparison.. First of all, there's also tremendously frustrating for particularly for a Franciscan or Dominican missionaries from Western Christendom, because they would go to the Mongol Empire and start preaching. And the Mongols would listen to them. And, and you, there's a guy called William of rubric who wrote about this. And he said, Well, when I tried to explain all these things to them, they said, well, it's it's simple. We're Mongols, and you're Christian. So we believe in Mongolia, and you believe in the Christian vision. And I say this, as the the missionaries had had virtually no purchase hold on that at all. So it's, I think, what makes it so fascinating, what makes this whole subject so fascinating, is that coming in, I suppose from a Western European perspective, you're engaging with a society that has a very different way of viewing the world, hearing the ordering and life of a human being. And it's fascinating just just to see how these collisions of different mentalities different viewpoints, whether it's Muslim, or Buddhist or Christian travelers to the Mongol Empire, what they made of the Mongols, and in many cases, the areas where they simply don't understand each other, or they're trying to trying to understand each other, but trying to grapple with the fact that their frame of reference is so very different is that that I always find that very fascinating.

Richard Abels  19:01

I could understand the frustration the Franciscan Missionaries, the Mongol religion might well have seemed to them to be a form of monotheism, with Kangri being the Mongol name for God. So if they could only find the right way to explain Christianity, they could convert the Mongols to the true God, if you just simply explained it well enough to them. It just doesn't work.

Nicholas Morton  19:27

Yeah, that would be certainly what the missionaries would were hoping at the time, but there is some interesting permutations of this. So we're here for example of a an Armenian Christian monk from the Jerusalem area who went to visit the Mongols. And he's it he he tried to begin to sort of weave in Christianity into the Mongols own religious beliefs and tried to sort of present Christianity as if it's, it's in somehow it's compatible. It's linked to the Mongols own beliefs. And there's lots of people trying this app during this era. or you've got advocates from various religions. They've understood the Mongols are winning in any sense of the word given the expansion of their empire. So the Mongols can't be defeated on the battlefields and so what they try and do is to work their own beliefs, work their own theologies into the Mongol theologies, as a way that as a bridge to try and draw the Mongols is to view their religion favorably, or even better if you can manage it, to convert them to whichever religion they're trying to advocate for. Yes,

richard abels  20:32

so we have a nomadic people. And this nomadic people becomes a Eurasian military force. What made the Mongols so successful militarily? Sure,

Nicholas Morton  20:47

there's a lot of a lot of factors here. nomadic peoples from the Central Asian steppe have got lots of traditional advantages anyway. So a society that is where children are born and raised to ride and shoot, and conduct mass, large scale hunts. And these are all qualities with military applications. The fact that the Mongol Empire like so many nomadic peoples, that fact that it's it's accustomed to moving from one area to another on block, bringing all your resources with you, and being quite spot sparser than Hardy about how you bring that about. So you don't need that much food. You're not weighed down with luxuries or ridiculous things that other agricultural societies might bring along. There's no sort of huge sort of wealth or furniture or even animals of animals being brought with you except those which you need. So all of that makes for a very effective vehicle for conquest anyway. And that's before we start engaging with the Mongols specific strengths. In addition to those, those are the underlying ones. But there are many more things I've mentioned one already, which is the Mongols ability to incorporate defeated opponents into their own ranks, and they're very adept at breaking up the various peoples or civil civilizations or societies that they've conquered, and then enroll in them or forcibly incorporating them into their own ranks. So with every victory, they grow in number, all of which is very powerful. They're also very effective learners. They want to know better, they want to build up their skills, they want to address any deficiencies in their war craft, so they can get stronger and stronger. And so early on, the Mongols identify that they need to be better at siege craft. And so they begin to recruit. During their campaigns in northern China, various Chinese siege engineers who they then use to create weapons for them in other conquest in other parts of the world. Another matrix, their commanders also have a real knack for stratagems for coming up with specific tactics to break down the doors of various civilizations. And so one of the earliest conquests in the Near East took place between 1220 and 21, when two commanders called Jebe and Subutai, travelled south of the Caspian Sea that up to the caucuses, and in that process, they conquered greater Armenia, and Georgia north and they won many victories against armies in that region. And one of the ways they did it was to bear across in front of their army as they staged that invasion. Now, it seemed very likely that was a strategy. We didn't know that for certain, but it certainly had the effect of persuading the army sort of formed up to see who these people was. They thought they were about to meet allies. And they continue to think that right up until the Mongols broke into a charge. And so there are all sorts of strategies like this, you hear about the use of fake warriors so, so model warriors on model horseback on a hillside. So the enemy orientates itself, facing these fake warriors, only for the real attack to come from the side. It's all sorts of things like that.

richard abels  23:53

Brilliant. How does someone like Subutai become a commander? Was he from an aristocratic family? Did the Mongols in fact have a hereditary military aristocracy?

Nicholas Morton  24:05

Sure. Yes. I mean, anyone connected to the to the overall Mongol Dynasty is has preferential treatment they are deemed to be set apart from everyone else. But then there are commanders who do well, rise from the ranks might be a slight, slight over exaggeration, but it's not just the leading family that has a monopoly on military command, even if they do provide a large number of commanders. But a key factor which underpins the efficacy of many of these commanders, is they're fighting so many campaigns and they're often winning. And so they're learning. They're building up confidence and experience as they go. There are adopting new techniques. They fought different opponents, on different battlefields and beaten all of them so they've got a reasonable idea of how to do this. And of course, with every victory, there soldiers will be picking up better quality equipment, better quality horses, and will continue to do so as long as they continue to win battles. And another strategy and for example, it's used in the early phases of the Mongol invasion into the Khwarazmian Empire centered in Persia, but which also controls various surrounding territories as well. And with the conquest of each city, the Mongols would gather together a levy from the conquered city, and then drive that ledge levy on to the next city, and then force that levy to be in the first wave of the assault on the next city. So the defenders of that next city will experience that first wave of assault. They'll fire all their crossbow bolts, shoot all the arrows, they'll release solar category ammunition, and utterly destroy that first wave, at which put them on boards then begin their real attack

richard abels  24:08

what British armies in the 17th through 19th centuries, called the Forlorn Hope, and the French called the enfant, Purdue, The Lost Children, though I doubt that the Mongols were as generous to the survivors of these assaults, as the British and French would later be, maybe a better term for them would be cannon fodder. Sure, yes. Actually, the 13th century English Benedictine monk, Matthew Paris, took note of this particular tactic in the entry for 1241. In his Chronica Majorca, the Greater Chronicle, Matthew Paris wrote, quote, "and if by chance, they spared anyone who begged them, they compelled them like the lowest of slaves to fight in front of them against their own people, if they pretended to fight or perhaps secretly won them, so that they might flee. These Tartars who followed in their rear killed them. If they fought bravely and conquered they came no thanks as a reward. And so they used up their captives, as if they were beasts of burden." What most struck 13th century Western Europeans about the Mongols was their brutality. Matthew Paris famously or notoriously described them as Demonic Beasts. Quote. "So what mortal joys might not continue, and the delights of the world bike no longer be enjoyed without mourning. In this very year 1241 A detestable satanic people, namely, an immense army of taut hearts burst out from their mountain encircled land, which had been made fast with an impassable massive rocks, escaping like demons released from Tartarus. So they are well cold totters as if they are inhabitants of Tartarus that tell they swarmed out and like locusts overwhelmed the face of the earth. They devastated the lands of the east with dreadful destruction, laying waste with fire and carnage. Traveling through the lens of the Saracens. They leveled cities cut down forests tore down fortresses ripped up, vineyards, destroyed agricultural fields and massacred city dwellers and rural folk. For the men are inhuman and bestial. They should be called monsters rather than human beings, thirsting after in drinking blood, carrying a pod and devouring the corpses of dogs humans. They're clothed in the skins of bulls, are armed with iron lances, short in stature, stocky and compact and body, vigorously, strong, invincible in war, untiring and labor; as a delicacy they drink blood flowing from their cattle. Devoid of human laws, they have no knowledge of clemency. They are more ferocious than lions and bears. They have swords and daggers with one cutting edge. They are marvelous archers, not spearing sex, age or rank." A gifted artist Matthew Parris illustrated his text with a picture of a tar tar feast, featuring people roasted on spits. Matthew Paris got all of this secondhand, but his contemporary, the Italian Franciscan, the aforementioned John of Plano Carpini, who travelled among the Mongols was just as appalled and even more conscious of the danger posed by the bangles. In the wake of the Mongol invasion of Poland in Hungary. Pope Innocent the Fourth sent the 65 year old Franciscan on a mission to the Great Khan, with the goal of converting him to the Roman Catholic religion. Carpini traveled all the way to Mongolia, meeting with the Great Khan give a look at his Imperial kept near Karakoram. Unsurprisingly, the Great Khan refused to convert an ordered piney to commend the Pope and other Christian leaders to come before Him and submit to His rule. When  Carpini wrote about his visit to the Mongols. He depicted them as brutal, uncivilized and untrustworthy. He wrote that quote, killing other people was like nothing to them, and want his readers that they represented imminent threat to the Church of God. Warfare and Christian to them in the high and late Middle Ages was brutal. The main military activities were pillaging and sieges. Chivalry, to an extent protected the knights, at least from other knights, but it didn't extend to the lower classes, and the civilian population of a town taken by stone was libeled to be slaughtered. Nonetheless, the warfare practice by the Mongols struck both Christian and Muslim medieval writers as being particularly horrific. I can't help wonder whether the Mongols consciously used terror as a tactic to persuade enemies. That resistance was not only futile, but would result in their extermination, and that it was better to surrender than to fight.

Nicholas Morton  30:41

It's it's a common factor of armies of this era that they want to be seen as fearsome. And I mean, just just a slight digression. The Crusaders would fire decapitated heads over the walls of opposing towns and cities.

richard abels  30:57

Yeah, the First Crusade began with the Crusaders, catapulting the decapitated heads of dead Turks into Nicaea. A year later, during the siege of Antioch, Crusaders are said to have gathered together 500 Muslim heads. They impaled 300 of them on stakes in front of the city, to demoralize the defenders and towards the other 200 into Antioch, 

Nicholas Morton  31:20

or the Seljuk Turks. They would surround their opponents when their opponents woke up in the morning they were not hammering great drums to create an aura of disquiet and unease. And again, head taking your scalp taking it's common for many peoples in the Middle East.

richard abels  31:35

Yeah, Muslim head taking in the aftermath of the battle is at the heart of an anecdote told by the 12th century Arab warrior poet Usama ibn Munqidh. Selective snippets from Usama Munqidh’s memoirs are often used medieval and world civilization classes to contrast the sophistication of the Muslim near east to the barbarism of the Western Crusaders. One anecdote that is not used is how Usama and his companions were taking his trophies after they ambush the contingent and Frank's one of the Muslim warriors, however, was so nearsighted that he mistakenly decapitated the corpse of his own brother to his lasting shame. Head taking in itself, however, was quite acceptable.

Nicholas Morton  32:25

It's I suspect that for many of these peoples, it is simply a military tool. They know that they've got a better chance of winning a better chance of survival if their opponents are already worried before they start fighting. And the Mongols in many ways are the epitome of this and the Mongols, as you say, they fully understood this. And so you have examples of entire urban centers being massacred, wide scale raiding widescale killings across many, many areas. And as victory builds on victory as army after all, if fails to stop them, that will have a multiplier effect. You hear stories about how Spears were erected in settlements where the Mongols had killed 1000 people and so one spirit represent 1000 dead. And that certainly has a serious effect. And so you have these fears be expressed. Matthew Paris is a great example, that others can be found from other societies. It's not just Western Christendom, of people responding in this way. And so for some people, they begin to reach out for tales of the Apocalypse, to try and understand who the Mongols are. And there's a debate which you find in various manifestations, both in Christian and Muslim cultures about whether the Mongols are in some ways linked to the apocalyptic peoples of Gog and Magog who, as it says, In the Bible, one day will emerge from the gates of the North wreak havoc on all humans civilization, and people aren't sure. Is this what we're seeing here? Is this who the Mongols are, and the answers that seems to be an astonishing cross cultural way. No, they're probably not Gog and Magog, but they might live nearby.

Richard Abels  34:12

And they're not Prester John either

Nicholas Morton  34:14

They're not Prester John. Well, that's a different question, because of course, there is a thought initially that maybe they are, at least in Western Christendom may or maybe they're the legendary armies of Prester John, arriving to save Christendom, but that that, that to be the case, that doesn't last very long. Yeah.

Richard Abels  34:32

So far, we've been emphasizing the success of the Mongols as they swept across Eurasia. But as you've described in your book, The Mongol storm, the Mongols seem to have met their military match in the Mamelukes of Egypt. Yeah, when the Mongols under law to Khan and his general sabotage, invade Central Europe in 1241. It appears that the only thing that really turns them back is either the death of the Great Khan and the need to go back and elect a new one, or just simply the marshy nature of the Hungarian claim, which is just not suitable for the type of warfare that the Mongols conducted. But they weren't defeated by the Hungarians or by the polls or, or by the Germans. They won victory after victory. But when it comes to the Mamelukes, there's a different story to be told. So maybe you should tell us a story about what happened in their invasions of the Near East

Nicholas Morton  35:38

show. But you're absolutely right. Kingdom of Poland, King of Hungary neither of them manage to stop the Mongols.

richard abels  35:44

Yeah, after his crushing defeat in the battle of Mohi, King Bela the Fourth of Hungary spent almost a year being chased from town to town in Dalmatia by a Mongol contingent intent upon capturing him, and as you said, the Poles didn't do any better, engaging the Mongols that year,

Nicholas Morton  36:03

a crusading army is raised to try and defeat the Mongols in western Christendom, but it never really makes contact. And you're right as well. There is an ongoing debate as to what it is that caused the Mongols to ultimately back off. I don't think that whatever the reason for them backing off in 1241 I don't think that's the reason why they didn't ultimately take Western Christendom because they're actually preparing for another massive offensive 20 years later, which never actually materialized. But the society that does defeat the Mongols is the Mamluks. They're not the first society to defeat the Mongols. There have been sporadic defeats encountered by the Mongol armies on various occasions previously, but no one's beaten them consistently. The normal pattern is that the Mongols may suffer a defeat one year. And then the following year, the massive Mongol counter attack utterly wiped out whoever it was, who dared to defeat them the first time round. And so this is not something that Mongols are accustomed to. And and yet there is Mamluk Egypt. So a bit of background Mamluk. Egypt is an empire that emerged in 1250. The Mamluks were originally enslaved people who had been enrolled or purchased and then enrolled and then trained in the Ayyubid. Army. That's the Ayyubid empire. That's the Empire established by Saladin, right. But in 1250, the Mamluks became too powerful and they overthrew their or Ubud rulers and took control in Egypt.

richard abels  37:28

Yeah, at the same time, the King Louis the Ninth of France, that is, St. Louis, was conducting his unsuccessful crusade in Egypt. In fact, the Mamluk coup d'etat took place as King Louis was negotiating the surrender of his army to the Ayyubid Sultan Turanshah. Turanshah unwisely insulted the Egyptian-based Bahri Mamluks by replacing their leaders with his own Syrian Mamluks. So the Bahri Mamluks, led by Baybars, killed him, much to the confusion and distress of the French Crusader and chronicler Joinville.

Nicholas Morton  38:00

Very true, and in fact, it's the defeat of Louis the Ninth's army that seems to have gone some way to showing the Mamluks they did actually have quite a lot of strength in their own right. Yeah, and that may go some way to to explaining why they staged their coup. But you have this man look empire in Egypt, when the Mongols begin a major offensive into the Near East and 1260 and this is two years after the horrific Mongol overthrow of the city of Baghdad

richard abels  38:28

in event that shocked the Muslim world. As you describe in your book, the Mongol leader Hulegu ordered a systematic sack after the Caliph al-Musta’sim unconditionally surrendered the city. Over the next few days. Mongols razed Baghdad's mosques and its great libraries and slaughtered its inhabitants, spearing only the city's Christians, because hooligans wife was a Christian, its merchants and some members of the Shia community. In a letter to Louis the Ninth, Hulegu claimed that he had put 200,000 people to the sword--though this may be an exaggeration. Historians estimate the death toll at about half that number, with many dying from disease in the overcrowded, beseech city whose water supply was polluted with dead bodies. But as you point out, contemporary sources describe the gutters running red with blood. Hulegu's letter to King Louis is a good example of the Mongol use of terror to demoralize potential enemies

Nicholas Morton  39:29

They then advanced across the Tigris and Euphrates River, and then into northern Syria. Now at this time, northern Syria is all that's left of the Ayyubid Empire, and it collapses almost without a fight the Mongols take Aleppo and just a few days, and Damascus capitulates, and so at this point, there's really only two societies that are still independent, at least in that zone, in the sort of the Levant zone. There's the Mamluks in Egypt. And then there's the Crusader States, where the Crusader States are not going to fight the Mongols. They're much too weak militarily, and they seem they seem to try and do is to try and play a sort of mixed game of sending the Mongols gifts and trying to be nice to them without actually submitting to them. Now, we will never know if that would that would actually have worked, it seems likely that it probably wouldn't have because nonetheless, the Mamluks do something remarkable. The Mamluks marched out from their borders and seek battle with the Mongols. And I really want to stress that point. Because in the past, yeah, societies have put up a fight and the Mongols have invaded. Sometimes they never marched out beyond their borders to fight the Mongols. So in some ways they wrong foot them all that no one was expecting this, no one ever marches out to fight that they wait to be attacked. And I suspect it's rather with that kind of thinking in mind that shortly after taking Aleppo, the leader of the Mongol army, the brother of the Great Khan, called someone's uncle Hulegu learns that his brother the Great Khan has died and so withdraws eastwards. It may not just be that the Great Khan has died as possible. It's also in search of grazing because he moved into what today would be the caucuses in Azerbaijan, that sort of region where there's excellent grazing. So he may have gone for that reason. But he brings with him 90% of his troops. And he leaves in the Near East, only a fairly small garrison, perhaps no more than 10,000 Troops, certainly more than 20 to hold the area. And I expect that he his thinking in that is that will no one ever marches out to attack the Mongols. So he can, all he's got to do is put enough troops on the ground to hold the territory. I mean, knock over a few castles. But that's it, because no one's going to challenge them. Although that's never happened before. And yet the Mamluks do. Now I don't think the Mamluks knew the Mongol army had withdrawn. So it's not as if they were sort of being extremely cunning about this, I think they will be extremely bold. If they were marching with their army, which probably number much more than 12 to 15,000 troops against what was as far as they were concerned, a full scale Mongol invasion on may have numbered as much as 100,000 troops. And so they arrive outside acre, the capital city of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which is the most powerful of the Crusader States. And they say, Do you want to help us effectively, and the Crusader state stay? Well, sort of. Obviously, I'm summarizing here. But they don't want to fight the Mongols. They realize that it's too dangerous, and they'll never defeated the Mongols. Why would they psych themselves up to that, but they also don't, to loot to fall out of favor with the Mamluks either. So they give the Mamluks provisions, possibly also horses, and on the Mamluks go, and then the Mamluks meet the Mongol army in battle. And this is where we come to it. Why did the Mamluk army defeat the Mongols because even though the Mongols have just left a garrison behind, it's still at least as big as the Mamluk army. And it's difficult to say part of it, it goes back to the fact the Mamluks themselves are actually very similar to the Mongols, because when they are humans previously purchased all these warriors who they would then turn into Mamluks. The people that they purchased the enslaved people, often from the Black Sea region, were often from Turkic nomadic communities who lived and fought in much the same way as the Mongols themselves. And the Mamluks encouraged this. So they would train their warriors with the same traditional strengths that their peoples had always had, which are the same as the Mongols used to ride shoot, conduct large scale hunt, so in some ways their fight fighting very similar forces. Some people have wondered whether the Mamluks horses may have been better. Certainly there's a strong tradition of rearing effective mounts in Egypt, often mixing Arab horses with the North African BB horses, as what research has shown not my own research, I'm afraid, but it's, it shows that that the mixing of those two types of horse can produce very sturdy, powerful war horses. Perhaps that goes a long way to explaining why they were so successful. And yet, I can't help thinking that the Mongols having conquered the better part of the Near East would probably already have reserved for themselves, whichever horses they wanted, and therefore probably equally as well mounted. So in many ways when the Mongols Mamluks fight one another, they're actually very similar in a number of ways. But that doesn't really answer the question of them. Why did the Mamluks defeat the Mongols and it's it is difficult to say. Various people have wondered if Mamluks were soldiers a soldier more effective. That's a very difficult one to call. It may just have been down to the cut and thrust on the day itself and is how things worked out. Certainly one factor seems to be that at this battle, it's called the Battle of Ayn Jalut, an Ayyubid contingent, a contingent from the former Ayyubid empire that the Mongols had forced to go into battle with them, change sides, mid battle, and that seems to have had an effect. I can't help wondering as well if there's a degree of a sort of back against the wall type phenomenon here the Mamluks have nowhere else to go, so they're either going to have to win here or that's it. So you can never quite be sure what kind of effect that will have on their combat effectiveness and morale.

Richard Abels  45:09

Why don't they submit? I mean, the Seljuk Turks have already submitted, right? Yeah, the caliphate has already submitted Well, we've been destroyed the most effective and scary empire in that region. And I'm not going to be able to pronounce this correctly, the Khwarazmian Empire has been destroyed. Why don't the Mamluks just simply accept the Mongol superiority?

Nicholas Morton  45:40

It's a good question. And it's a difficult one to answer that tell us what we do know is that when the Mongols started their offensive, they sent ambassadors to Mamluk Egypt, and to demand the Mamluks submission, and amendments could not have been more clear, they killed one and shaved the others, in order to make the point they are going to resist Of course, once that's been done, there can be no more talk of diplomatic outcome from this. I don't know why I why they resisted so staunchly when, as you say other civilizations hadn't. I mean, people like the Seljuk Turks, for example, they did put up a fight that didn't just submit without any resistance. But they did ultimately submit once they'd suffered battlefield defeat, it may be because the Mamluks was such a young empire. That's such a young society that he'd been going for about 10 years, because their rulers were ultimately in their origins, at least enslaved people, they weren't deemed to have much legitimacy by neighboring powers, they may have felt that they wouldn't survive if they became a client state and therefore they had to fight or they were going to go down one way or another anyway.

richard abels  46:47

Yeah, yeah. What is the impact of this mammoth victory at arms? Julep? Is it really significant?

Nicholas Morton  46:57

Again, historian's answer alert, sort of. [Laughter]  It proves to be enormously significant, but it's complicated, because as soon as Hulegu, who as I mentioned, that's the brother of the former Great Khan, who withdrew to Azerbaijan directly before the Battle of Ayn Jalut. When he learns his forces have been defeated, he makes it perfectly clear he wants to go straight back into the region and reassert his dominance and to crush the Mamluk Empire, which would be the natural response, given sort of the values at the time, that's just the way it's done. And the Mamluks knew this too. And so the Counter Strike is always the question that hanging in the air whether the Mongols going to come back. And it seems at this point that what helps the Mamluks is a number of others events and developments that they had no real impact on which helped them enormously. The first one is that when Hulagu conquered much of the Near East, or appropriated control over former areas under Mongol control in the Near East, he very much upset another branch of the Mongol Empire to the north, centered in what to do with the region rather north of the Black Sea, and to the north of the Crimea, as well as many surrounding territories. And so that rival Dynasty, which in turn will become known as the Golden Horde. Yes, it did not appreciate, who have you taken control of the theories, because as far as they were concerned, the Near East falls within their jurisdiction, they're all within the Mongol Empire. But it's a question of which branch of the imperial family has jurisdiction over a particular area, right, an area known as Ulu, to to these families at the time. And so when Hulegu conquers much of the Near East and takes control, they do not appreciate the fact that he is essentially us up their claims. And so they marched south in order to contest to control. And so soon after, I enjoyed this, that the tensions between the two break into open warfare, and that warfare doesn't really go away. And that means that from that time onwards, there is what effectively a second front, for the Mongols in the Near East, they've got to watch the Mamluks on one side, but they've got to keep the bulk of their troops along the line of the Caucasus mountains in case the Golden Horde would come south, or if they want to push North they're perfectly capable of being aggressive themselves.

richard abels  49:16

What is the Great Khan think about all of this?

Nicholas Morton  49:20

Well, this is this is the period really when the Mongol Empire is in the process of disaggregating. itself, it's beginning to split up is, is it this isn't the moment the Mongol Empire collapses into its various Lego bricks, but it is in that it is in that process, because you do have these Imperial families that increasingly are asserting their individual family identity alongside that of the broader Mongol Empire. They're increasingly want a firmer control over the EU or territories within their jurisdiction and within the process of taking on the form of individual empires, with the overall brackets of the Mongol Empire getting thinner and thinner and thinner as they rise up as powerful chunks within it.

richard abels  50:06

Okay. Okay. Could you talk a little bit about the nonmilitary impact that the Mongols had upon the medieval Near East? I think that for again, most of the listeners, they hear Mongo, and they think of warfare, and they think of destruction.

Nicholas Morton  50:23

Yeah, it's the Mongols legacy and their impact its people could people spin this in various different ways. And you're right, the traditional view is that the Mongols, their impact on the Near East was one of destruction.

Richard Abels  50:38

Well, they do they do destroy Baghdad.

Nicholas Morton  50:41

They destroy Baghdad, they sack many cities, they destroy many areas. And I don't in any way want to minimize the sheer loss of life. And not just the loss of life, the dislocation of people as 10s of 1000s Flee west to get out of the way, and the traumas of that, and what that would have entailed. And even for those people who survived, even those people who didn't have to flee, it's still going to have a profound effect on their on their life, their worldview, their sense of security, and where they're also we're talking about an enormous upheaval, with a massive impact on the entire region. And for many, for many people. This would be that their invasions would lead directly to their deaths, right. I don't want to minimize that. But as you say, there is another side to the equation. Because, for a start, the Mongols have a rather different view of religion to many other of the religious communities in the Near East and elsewhere. And, as I've mentioned, the Mongols felt that their beliefs encompass everyone else's, but they did accept other religions had a right to exist and practice their faith provided they practiced and pointed at the Mongol Empire and its greater prosperity. And so it is, it is a form of tolerance. It's not tolerance for tolerance is sake but it is a form of tolerance and that changes the dynamics in the Near East, particularly for minority groups or subjugated groups across the region. Suddenly, they're no longer subjugated. Yesterday's subjugated and subjugated are now equal within the Mongol Empire. So that's an interesting development.

richard abels  52:22

A number of authors, notably Lila Abu-Lughod, Timothy May, and most recently, Marie Favreau have credited the Mongol conquest with establishing a Pax Mongolica, a Mongol Peace, similar to the earlier Pax Romana. This Mongol Peace, it's argued, led to the creation of an integrated Eurasian trading network, arguably the first world trade system. I'm interested in your thoughts about that.

Nicholas Morton  52:48

The Mongols are also very keen on trade. And that goes right the way back to their historic origins, they've always had an interest in trade. And of course, the Near East has a number of trade routes running through it, most famously the Silk Roads from Central Asia and China and also  the Northern extension of the spice route across the northern Indian Ocean region. And the Mongols are interested in this. And they want to encourage the prosperity of these routes because of course, every conquerors favorite word is tax, and they want to make sure that they get as much of it as they can, of course, like every other conqueror, and so they do want to see economic flourishing, following the extraordinarily brutal overthrow of these regions. Now, whether we should see this as a time of economic recovery, or economic growth, economic growth seems a bit ambitious economic recovery, well, perhaps a little bit, but certainly they are keen on this and they do want the various communities under their control, to practice their trades continue to produce goods, which can then be shipped and taxed or transport fungible by caravan. So yeah, that is another dimension

richard abels  53:59

they impose peace, there is a Mongol peace within the empire.

Nicholas Morton  54:04

Yes, again, this is this is another one, which is another one, which gets very heavily debated because there are periods when the Mongols are not at war with each other. But it would be possible for a merchant to go from the Western extension of the Mongol Empire, all the way across to the Pacific coast. And the Mongols protect the trade routes to some degree as they want that to happen. On the other hand, you also have examples of the Mongols fighting amongst themselves, such as the examples we've already given. And there's quite a lot of rebellions to the Mongols rule, particularly as the 13th century goes on. People do start to rebel, there's still reports of bandit activity. And so, again, historians have sort of, again, come back to the awkward historians answer of well, yes or no? Yeah. I find there's various analysis put out there but I've always found the analysis persuasive. That yes, there were windows of opportunity to travel great distances in a way there hadn't been previous asleep. But we shouldn't get to sort of Starry Eyed about seeing this as a as an entire safe zone. There are still armies who crisscross it, there are still bandits and raiders and rebels, who will make your life difficult if they can.

Richard Abels  55:15

You know, it appears that in some instances, Mongol leaders go native Kublai Khan seems to be both Mongol and also taking on trappings of a traditional Chinese emperor. And eventually, the Mongols do convert--at least many of them do--to Islam. 

Nicholas Morton  

Yeah. 

Richard Abels  

Why?

Nicholas Morton  55:36

As this is another million dollar question. And you're asking million dollar questions

Richard Abels  55:40

 and you're giving the billion dollar answers (laughter)

Nicholas Morton  55:44

Okay, so, yeah, in many cases, the Mongols adopt the religious beliefs of the people that they've conquered. And certainly that's, that's true to some degree in China, to some degree, it's true in the Near East, or at least some parts of the religious beliefs at the very least, it's less true in western Eurasia, what to do, maybe Russia and parts of Eastern Europe, because the underlying population in large part in those regions is Christian, but they convert to Islam by a large so it is partly true. Yes. The question of why. Now, this is a tricky one. There's various possible explanations. Many in in the Near East…. the Mongols are not the first nomadic conquerors to reach the region. A little over a century before they arrived. The Seljuk Turks conquered the region, and sailed it Turks are very similar to the Mongols in a great many ways, including their basic culture and religious beliefs before the Seljuks converted to Islam, in the 11th century, when the Mongols conquered the region, they often work with these various target groups that have posts, Soldier groups and communities and rulers across the area. And often these are the people who get enrolled into the Mongol army. And so the argument has been made not by me, but it's a persuasive one. I think that because you have all these Turkic communities in the Near East that are being subsumed into the Mongol Empire. And because these target groups are Islamic, but with a nomadic shamanistic background, that might provide a very powerful template for the Mongols to follow.

Richard Abels  57:10

It’s been argued that the Muslim wives and concubines of Chinggis Khan’s grandsons played a key role in the Mongol conversion to Islam. Chinggis and his successors took wives and concubines from the local elites as a tool of political control, as well as a symbol of domination. Chinggis himself had seven Mongol wives and is said to have had 500 concubines. That this is not mere hyperbole is confirmed by the astounding finding published in 2003 in the The Journal of Human Genetics, that one in 200 males worldwide are direct descendants of Chinggis Khan.  As the Mongols conquered the Near East, these wives and concubines increasingly came from Muslim families, and the khanate harem was likely one conduit for religious conversion.  I would also think that Muslim elites of conquered territories would have made every effort to convert their Mongol rulers to the true faith, as had been done earlier with the Seljuk Turks.. And pragmatic Mongol rulers, accustomed to using the religious establishments of the people’s they conquered to solidify their rule, would have appreciated the political benefits of conversion.

Nicholas Morton  58:34

But we shouldn't exclude the spiritual dynamic to and certainly the various sources that describe the Mongols conversion, at least in the near east, described the Mongols being very much inspired by Sufi teachings and Sufi Sufi Islam. So that's another possible element to the equation. 

Richard Abels  58:50

Well, we could talk about Mongols for hours, but we are running out of time. Is there something that we've left out in our discussion that you'd like our listeners to think about?

Nicholas Morton  59:00

There's a point I would like to make, I think, which is one of the one of the things which research is bringing out more and more--and it's right that it should--it's an important part of the Mongol legacy. And that is a question of mental horizons. And what I mean by that is that, prior to the Mongol invasions, societies, whether that's the Ayyubid empire, or the Mamluk empire, or the Byzantines empire, or the Crusader States, or Western Christendom, or the Khwarazmian empire, or the Armenians or the kingdom of Georgia, and all the various territories that we've been discussing, so far, they can see a fair way into central Eurasia, they have some idea of what is out there, some better than others. And yet, in many, many ways, in many cases, this is a sort of Here Be Dragons region for all of them. They don't really know what's out there, they don't really know what you'd encounter if you set out, like I said, some better than others. But nonetheless, there's a lot of gray zones where actually you don't know much of what's, what's out there or what it involves. But with the rise of the Mongol Empire, you have suddenly have emissaries, missionaries, merchants, diplomats, adventurous and the foolhardy in many cases, who can now suddenly set out over enormous distances to visit the Mongol, the Mongol great cards, 

Richard Abels  100:24

like Marco Polo

,

Nicholas Morton  100:25

like Marco Polo, some people are forcibly relocated. Because the Mongols often up route, say a group of textile workers from one region, and then take them where they think that we have most value. And they do the same with intellectuals and scientists as well. And so suddenly, people are traveling great distances, and sometimes they return home, with the return home intact, with both their body and mind still capable of working, which isn't always the case, but sometimes it does. And so I'll give an example of this. There's a English troublemaker, who is thrown out of the Kingdom of England, we don't know his name. And we don't know exactly why he was thrown out. But we do know that he found his way one way or another, to the Kingdom of Jerusalem. And the capital of the Kingdom of Jerusalem is the port city of Acre. An acre is well known as being a hive of thieves and trouble. And because it's such a big commercial city, it's supposed to smell tremendously badly and the seeds Sliquid slime because it's a big city without sewerage or without any ways of getting rid of it's rubbish. And he finds his way into acre. And it's disastrous for him. He gambles away what's left of his money. And so he is essentially broke. He's done, he's got nowhere to go, nowhere to turn. And so like so many artists and and translators, and professionals and mercenaries, he heads out to other territories in the Near East in search of employment. And this is by no means unusual. All sorts of professional people and warriors criss cross between Muslim Eastern Christian and Frankish societies pursuing their trades, that's totally normal. And he's one of them, he finds his way into the Mongol Empire. And it turns out, he's got a facility with languages and he picks them up very quickly. So as a result, he starts to learn these languages and becomes a translator. And so his fortunes changed. Suddenly, he's no longer in rags. He's now a respected individual working within the Mongol Empire. And so when the Mongols invade Hungary, he is one of their ambassadors. So he has come back as the representative of the very people trying to conquer well, not the Kingdom of England, but Western Christendom ultimately, as a whole. But he has taken prisoner. And so the so the wheel turns and comes full circle and eventually, he finds his way all the way back to Western Christendom. But my point is that he's returned writings having gone through this astonishing career, but he returns with news of strange places people I've ever been to before the use of strange plants or animals. And so he suddenly the knowledge horizon begins to push back. And I've given an example from Western Christendom. But this is equally true of Cilicia Armenia where the king of Armenia goes out to the Mongol court and comes back with packs of unfamiliar animals and, and places and cities. And the Mongols do this too. And we have examples of the Mongols testing their legends, against the ambassadors, they meet from faraway places, because they want to see if that the legend is actually true. And so in the Mamluks send ambassadors to the Golden Horde in the 1260s, the Mongol sale we've heard about Egypt, isn't there an enormous bone that sits over the River Nile, it's so big, you could actually walk across it at the Mamluks want to stay in a favor with the Mongols, so they don't just sort of start laughing or something, they're very tactful, and said that they haven't personally seen it. But nonetheless, the knowledge horizon is being driven back and suddenly the unknown is being replaced by the, the known or perhaps the sort of known in other in other areas. And I find that fascinating, that sense that all these societies are suddenly gaining a better or clearer appreciation of the world around them, in a way they hadn't done previously. The Mongols aren't doing this deliberately, but it's a side effect of what they do.

Richard Abels  1:04:20

Well, thank you very much. In fact, I'd like to end by by giving a plug for your most recent book, The Boundless dog making a breaking Empire is in the medieval Near East, published by Basic Books. And let me read a blurb from William Chester Jordan, professor of history at Princeton University. This is the most exciting study of the Mongols and their encounters with the people of the Near East I have ever read is a story of epic proportions, demanding much from his story and Morton rises to the challenge, I find it extremely difficult to put this marvelous book down. And I agree, it's really well written. It's a great read. And it's really informative. And it tells it told me more about the complications of the political system in the near east than I really ever appreciated before. So I really thank you for the book for having written this book and for educating me,

Nicholas Morton  1:05:20

That’s very kind of you. That’s very kind of William ChesterJordan to be so generous, but thank you,

richard abels  1:05:26

Nick, I know that the portrayal of Mongols and movies is not your thing. But I'd like to leave our listeners with my recommendations for a good and not so bad, and a downright ugly representation of Mongols in movies and television. The good is the 2007 film Mongol the rise of Genghis Khan, directed and co-written by the Russian filmmaker Sergei Bodrov. The movie is a Russian German in Kazakhstan  co-production, largely filmed in Inner Mongolia and Kazakhstan. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, the movie as well acted and beautifully. Bodrov based his script upon the only primary source for the rise of Genghis Khan, The Secret History of Mongols, composed for the Mongol royal family, sometime they have to change his his death in 1227. It tells how Temujin survived a childhood in which he was repeatedly captured by enemies of his father and even reduced into slavery, to rise to power and unify the Mongol tribes under his leadership. The movie focuses on two significant relationships to imagens marriage to Bothe and his friendship and rivalry with the Mongol leader Jamukha. Critics praised the visual spectacle the movies breathtaking landscapes, its ferocious and elaborate battle scenes, and its rich ethnographic detail. Although some found the story of Temujin’s, repeated captures and escapes repetitive and the movie overlong. I used to show parts of it in my course on warfare in the Middle Ages. The not so bad is the Netflix television series, Marco Polo, which lasted two seasons 2015 and 2016. Although filled with historical eras, the show made a real attempted to pick mongrel culture. The downright ugly is the 1956 epic film, The Conqueror produced by Howard Hughes, with John Wayne in the role of gangs con. Yes, I'm not kidding. John Wayne as Genghis Khan

Movie trailer for “The Conqueror”  107:38:

Richard Abels  1:09:05

The movie is a treasure for those who love really terrible films. It's featured in Harry Medved and Randy Dreyfus’ The 50 Worst Movies of All Times (and How They Got That Way), in Harry and Michael Medved’s  The Hollywood Hall of Shame and The Golden Turkey Awards, and John Wilson's The Official Razzie Movie Guide” Enjoying the Best of Hollywood's Worst. The movie is notorious, not only for its bizarre casting, and its stilted dialogue, but more seriously because of a fatal choice made by the producers to film it downwind of the US government's Atomic Testing site in Nevada. This became an issue when it was discovered that 91 of the film's 220 crew members develop cancer for which 46 died, including John Wayne, Susan Haywood, and director Dick Powell. But many of these were heavy smokers. And the percentage of those who developed cancer is not all that out of proportion to the general American public in the 1950s and 1960s. Still, The Conqueror has become firmly entrenched in Hollywood myth as the film that killed John Wayne, Genghis Khan's last victim. 

Well, thank you for joining us. Our next episode will be the long promised episode on King Alfred the Great and I'll have as my co-host, my wife, Ellen, I hope you'll join us for it. If you are enjoying his buddy scratch fact and fiction about the Middle Ages. Please spread the good news among your friends, good ratings and good reviews will help others find the podcast. 

Bye for now.