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ПУБЛИКАЦИИ
УДК 930.23
LATIN SOURCES' INFORMATION ABOUT THE MONGOLS RELATED TO THEIR RE-CONQUEST OF TRANSCAUCASIA
Roman Hautala
(Sh.Marjani Institute of History, Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tatarstan)
(University of Oulu, Finland)
The author of this article tried to trace the evolution of the Mongols' perception in Latin sources based on information about their military expansion in the Middle East.
The first mention of the Mongols appear in Latin sources in 1221. According to these sources, the Mongol army, which accomplished a number of conquests in Central Asia, Persia, and Transcaucasia, consisted of baptized nomads. Latin authors asserted that at the head of this army stood a certain David, "king of the Indies", which sought to help the Middle Eastern Christians and "liberate" Jerusalem from Muslim rule. Undoubtedly, the Latin sources meant by the "deeds of king David" the first western campaign of the Mongols led by Genghis Khan, which began in 1219 and was directed against the Central Asian sultanate of Khwarezm. These Latin sources were written at the time, when the troops of Genghis Khan had already conquered Khwarezmian territory in Central Asia and began military actions in Khorasan, while the separate divisions of the Mongols led by Jebe and Subedei invaded Transcaucasia and inflicted the first serious defeat to the Christian kingdom of Georgia.
Later, however, a positive Mongols' perception in the West began to gradually change. First of all, this change was affected by reports of the Georgian rulers expressing obvious doubts about former confidence that the Mongol army was entirely composed of Christians. Even greater impact had information about beginning of the Mongol re-conquest of Transcaucasia. An early report of the Patriarch of Jerusalem about the Mongol units' appearance in Transcaucasia headed by Chormaqan noyan still reflected the hope for the Mongols' adherence to the Christian faith. However, subsequent reports on the beginning of the Mongol conquest of Great Armenia radically changed European perceptions of the Mongols.
Starting from 1236, Latin sources began to represent the Mongols as fiends trying to interpret their appearance in accordance with apocalyptic scenarios of popular eschatological writings.
Keywords: history of the Mongol Empire, Mongol expansion in the Middle East, Latin sources, European perception of the Mongols, medieval eschatology.
The first mention of the Mongols appear in Latin sources in 12211. According to these sources, the Mongol army, which accomplished a number of conquests in Central Asia, Persia, and Transcaucasia, consisted of baptized nomads. Latin authors asserted that at the head of this army
1 Currently the following Latin translations of the "king David's" reports or their mentions are known:
1. Report of the legate Pelagius sent to the Papal Curia in January-February 1221. The text of report has not been preserved and it is known by the circular letter of Pope Honorius III, dated by 13th March, 1221. In turn, the text of this circular letter of the pontiff is known from the copies contained in the so-called "Romersdorfer Manuscript", in the "Dunstable Annals", and in the "Chronicle" of Alberic de Trois-Fontaines [94, p. 612-613; 8, p. 66-67; 24, p. 911]. This Papal letter contains the first ever mention of the Khwarezmian campaign of Genghis Khan, where the Mongol attack on the Georgian kingdom has not yet been mentioned.
2. Parallel message of the Middle Eastern Templars known only by the mention in the "Chronicle" of Alberic de Trois-Fontaines [24, p. 911].
3. Latin translation of the first Nestorian report contained in the seventh letter of the Catholic Archbishop of Acre, Jacques de Vitry, and referred to as the "History of the Deeds of David, King of the Indies" [83, p. 41-51; 56, p. 177-191; 51, p. 141148; 93, p. 45-56; 41, p. 48-55]. According to Jacques de Vitry, this report was delivered to the Prince of Antioch, Bohemond IV, by his spies in Muslim countries and translated from Arabic into Latin [51, p. 149]. Jacques de Vitry dates his letter by 18th April, 1221. However, the report could reach Antioch a little earlier, but not earlier than February 1221 [56, p. 12; 58, p. 136-137; 51, p. 54-55].
4. The same report was included in the second message of the legate Pelagius, which he sent to Europe between February and April 1221 [58, p. 136-137; 51, p. 6062; 8, p. xvii, 69-74].
5. Latin translation of the second Nestorian report contained in the seventh letter of Jacques de Vitry and following the first report [83, p. 52-54; 56, p. 192-195; 51, p. 148-149; 93, p. 57-58; 41, p. 55-57]. According to Jacques de Vitry, this report was delivered by the Eastern merchants simultaneously with the first report [51, p. 149]. The second report lists the same conquests, which are mentioned in the "History of the Deeds of David", but contains a number of references to commercial products supplied from the East [83, p. 31; 80, p. 140; 77, p. 233, nota 6]. These details are missing in the "History of the Deeds of David".
6. Latin translation of the third Nestorian report. This translation was contained in a letter by two canons regular of the cathedral of Münster participated in the Fifth Crusade. In turn, a copy of canons' letter has been preserved in two manuscripts containing the differences in the initial part of the letter [83, p. 54-56; 94, p. 613-614; 93, p. 58-59]. Unfortunately, the canons of Münster do not report, how they became owners of this report's translation, and we can only assume that the third Nestorian report came to Antioch together with the two previous. The third Nestorian report has obvious similarities with the second report included by Jacques de Vitry in his letter but it contains some additional details: a reference to the family ties between "king David" and Prester John [93, p. 58] and an indication of the presence of non-Christians in his army [94, p. 614; 93, p. 58-59].
7. Mention of the Nestorian reports in the Oliver of Paderborn's "Historia Damiatina" [49, p. 258-259; 33, II, coll. 1427-1428].
The first Nestorian report contained in a letter by Jacques de Vitry represents the most complete version [51, p. 141-148].
stood a certain David, "king of the Indies", which sought to help the Middle Eastern Christians and "liberate" Jerusalem from Muslim rule. Undoubtedly, the Latin sources meant by the "deeds of king David" the first western campaign of the Mongols led by Genghis Khan, which began in 1219 and was directed against the Central Asian sultanate of Khwarezm. These Latin sources were written at the time, when the troops of Genghis Khan had already conquered Khwarezmian territory in Central Asia and began military actions in Khorasan, while the separate divisions of the Mongols led by Jebe and Subedei invaded Transcaucasia and inflicted the first serious defeat to the Christian kingdom of Georgia.
Even though the later Oriental sources indicate the presence of certain baptized nomads in the Mongol army, at the moment it is known for certain that the bulk of the nomadic army of Genghis Khan did not adhere to the Christian religion and the Mongol divisions led by Jebe and Subedei were sent by Genghis Khan in the west in pursuit of the former Khwa-rezmian Sultan Muhammad rather than for the "liberation" of Jerusalem or provision of any tangible support to the Middle Eastern Christians.
Thus, the early Latin information about the Mongols contains relatively accurate description of the western conquests of Genghis Khan, but represent a specific explanation for the Mongol expansion, which did not correspond to historical reality.
It should be noted that the illusion of Latin authors about the Mongols' adherence to the Christian religion was also shared by Eastern Christians. In their letters to Pope Honorius III in 1223, the Georgian Queen Rusudan and atabeg Iwane Zak'arian emphasized that they were not prepared for the attack of the Mongols, since they thought that the Mongols were Christians [34, no. 251-252, p. 178-180; 7, XX, a. 1224 xvii-xx, p. 483-484; 58, p. 158-159]. Both letters contained exaggerated claims about the subsequent victory over the Mongols, despite the fact that in reality the Georgian troops had suffered two major defeats. But thanks to these messages, the Roman Curia received convincing evidence refuting the previous reports about "king David". Doubts about the veracity of these reports appear in the "Chronicle of Tours" [36, p. 467-468; 37, p. 300-301] and they are most clearly expressed in the later report on the Battle of the Kalka River in the "Chronicle" of Alberic de Trois-Fontaines containing the assumption that the Mongols could be the pagans [24, p. 911; 80, p. 148].
Probably, these doubts appear exactly after receiving of the letters from Georgia, since parallel reports of the Battle of the Kalka River written in the same year as the letters of Georgian rulers [86, p. 110-111; 27, p. 623-624] still continue to represent the Mongols in accordance with their description in the reports on "king David" including references to the custom attributed to the Mongols to place image of the Cross on the banners of their military units [cfr. 51, p. 146].
Greater interest for this article represent the Latin authors' reports both concerning the Mongols' re-emergence in Transcaucasia headed by Chormaqan noyan and displaying the subsequent evolution of the Western European perception of the Mongols.
Information about the Mongol re-conquest of Transcaucasia
Citing information of an anonymous Armenian bishop, Alberic de Trois-Fontaines reported in his "Chronicle" that the Mongols appeared in Great Armenia for the first time in 1208 but after their departure "they were not seen until 20 years" [24, p. 889]. Of course, Alberic was wrong in his dating of the first Mongol invasion in Transcaucasia, which actually began at the end of 12202. Though his statement about the Mongols re-emergence in the region in 1228 could well be connected with communication of his Armenian informant about a major and inconclusive battle between the Mongols and the troops of Khwarezmshah Jalal ad-Din Mingburnu that occurred at Isfahan on 25th August, 1228 [64, p. 19; 13, p. 330]. More important, however, is the Alberic's reference to complete lack of information about the Mongols after the conclusion of military campaign led by Jebe and Subedei: after relatively numerous reports on the Battle of the Kalka3, Latin authors lose sight of the Mongols until the beginning of their re-conquest of Transcaucasia.
Undoubtedly, the political developments in the Middle East continued to raise keen interest in Western Europe since they could have a negative impact on the welfare of the Latin possessions in the Holy Land. In particular, the letter of Gregory IX [76, no. 621, coll. 397-398] addressed to the monarchs of England and France on 25 th April, 1231, contains an explicit Papal concern in connection with the strengthening of the Sultanate of Jalal ad-Din Mingburnu and his alleged plans to attack the Franks' possessions in Palestine. Apparently, the Pontiff's concern was associated with communication of the Middle Eastern Templars and Johannites about the conquest by Khwarezmshah of important strategic fortress of Khilat on 14th April, 1230. On the other hand, Gregory IX had not yet been informed about the subsequent crushing defeat of Jalal ad-Din suffered in the Battle of Erzincan against the combined Ayyubid and
2 The first major clash between Georgian troops and the Mongols occurred between December 1220 and February 1221. The battle took place either in the valley of the river Kotman or of the river Gardman, the right tributary of the river Shamkhor-Chai, which flows into the Kura [29, p. 54-56; 74, p. 171; 60, p. 124-126; 75, p. 125; 42, p. 112; 4, p. 11; 10, p. 94-95, 98; 1, p. 64-65; 11, p. 18; 13, p. 310-311; 15, I, p. 294].
3 See the "Chronicle" by notary Riccardo of San Germano [86, p. 110-111]; "Second Klosterneuburg Continuation (of the Annals of Melk)" [27, p. 623-624]; treatise by Caesarius of Heisterbach "Dialogue on Miracles" [21, II, p. 250-251]; "Livonian Chronicle" by Henrik of Latvia [46, p. 186-187; 47, p. 316]; "Chronicle" by Alberic de Trois-Fontaines [24, p. 911].
Seljuk armies on 10th August of the same year. And, more importantly, the Pope did not know about unexpected appearance of the Mongol troops led by Chormaqan noyan in autumn 1230, which dramatically changed political situation in the Transcaucasian region [29, p. 60; 72, p. 138; 83, p. 6162; 25, p. 605; 57, p. 504; 1, p. 73-74; 40, p. 703; 13, p. 333-334].
Apparently, the first mention of the Mongol re-conquest of Transcaucasia is contained in a letter by the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem addressed to the Roman Pontiff [25, p. 612-613; 78, p. 245; 30, no. 27, p. 383-384]. The dating of this letter causes some difficulties because it does not contain any reference to the time of its writing nor the personal name of its compiler or recipient. As a consequence, researchers have put forward a number of assumptions in an effort to clarify when the Patriarch wrote this letter [58, p. 154; 11, p. 29; 79, p. 220], among which the most probable seems the dating by the 1230's [54, p. 59]. This assumption is justified by consideration that, in the first place, the author of the letter do not longer consider the Mongols as potential allies of the Latins, allowing us to argue that the Patriarch's letter was written after the first Mongol invasion in Transcaucasia, which ended in early 1222. On the other hand, the Latin Patriarch did not yet use the term of "Tartars" in relation to the Mongols, which appears in Latin sources since 1236. Thus, we can assume that the Patriarch's letter was written in the first half of the 1230's. And if this assumption is correct, then its author had to be Herold of Lausanne consecrated to the Patriarchal rank in 1225 but arrived in Palestine only in 1228 with the beginning of the Sixth Crusade [45, p. 257, 374].
First of all, the Patriarch's letter contains an obvious difference in the perception of the first and second Mongol invasions in Transcaucasia. If early reports on the "deeds of king David" represented the troops of Jebe and Subedei as undeniable allies of the Latins, then the Patriarch of Jerusalem described the Mongols as "barbarians wearing the skins" who came from the edge of the earth and were merciless towards all civilians without exception. Moreover, the Mongols treated in the most cruel way representatives of the religious estate and longed, in the highest degree, "for blood of monks". The "barbarous people" sent by Divine Providence "as a punishment of the human race" was quite different from the Christian host of "king David". And this suggests that the Patriarch of Jerusalem did not realize the connection between the tumens of Jebe and Subedei and emerging units of Chormaqan noyan.
More detailed copy of the Patriarch's letter preserved in a letter by Hugo, cardinal presbyter of the church of St. Sabina [30, no. 27, p. 383-384], contains a description of the conquerors. And if the assumption about the Patriarch's letter dating by the first half of the 1230's is true, then this is the first reflection of the Mongols' appearance occurring in Latin sources. The Patriarch of Jerusalem claims that he received this information from his informants remained with the army of the conquerors nearly a month. However, this is probably not quite true. Apparently, information contained in
the letter of the Latin prelate was initially of the Nestorian origin and represented to a certain extent idealized image of the Mongols. So, the Patriarch claimed that the Mongols were higher than ordinary people on one elbow and preceded this statement with specifying their extraordinary physical beauty sharply different from the future descriptions of Christian writers emphasizing the "monstrous" appearance of the nomads [67, III, p. 488489; 60, p. 33-34; 75, p. 179]. Also an indication that the conquerors "did not consume the food of other people because they saturated themselves with bark and leaves of trees when feeling the need and hunger", complements the image of "virgin barbarians" not affected by achievements of the human civilization as well as by its vices.
Undoubtedly, the Mongols in the letter of Patriarch differ from warriors of "king David" mentioned in the "Chronicle" of Italian notary Ric-cardo of San Germano [86, p. 110-111], because, unlike the latter, they do not feel compassion with respect to both the Gentiles and Christians. However, their appearance was obviously predetermined by Divine Providence and military successes of the Mongols were directly related to their adherence to the Christian faith. The conquerors treated Christian priests in the most brutal way. However, by doing this, they fulfilled the prophecies contained in a certain Nestorian Apocrypha and predicting both eradication of the Church's vices and revival of the Christian religion [31, p. 53]4. Thus, the Mongols of Patriarch of Jerusalem performed a beneficial role and implemented the moral reform of the Christian community.
Later, however, this interpretation underwent substantial modification that was probably due to the proliferation of more reliable information on the religious affiliation of the Mongols.
In his "History of the Battles of Alexander the Great" of 1236, Quilichino of Spoleto completely ignores previous assumptions of the Mongols' adherence to the Christian faith [38, p. 216; 73, p. 294]5. Starting with Quilichino, Latin sources regarded the sudden appearance of
4 Similar interpretations are also found in the later Sufi traditions where the legendary founders of the Sufi orders are presented as religious leaders of the Mongols or even as initiators of the Mongol invasion [32, p. 52].
5 "The History of Battles" by Quilichino belongs to the number of derivatives from the Latin translation of the "Alexander Romance" made in the middle of the 10th century by the archpriest Leo of Naples, which received later widest popularity in Western Europee. A number of derivatives from the "Alexander Romance" including embed-dings of other apocryphal texts were written under the same name as the poem of Quilichino. The first group of these texts customary called the interpolation J2 (middle of the 12th century) based both on the Latin translation of Leo of Naples and prototype interpolation (J1) of the Greek origin (5th century), which included a number of borrowings from the writings of Paul Orosius. In turn, the writing of Quilichino was based on the interpolation J3 independent from J2 and that took shape no earlier than the middle of the 12th century and no later than the date of the appearance of the Quilichino's poem [70, p. 31-32; 44, p. 211; 14, p. 217; 85, p. 50; 23, p. 11, 38; 38, p. 239].
nomads from the depths of Asia in the key of ancient apocalyptic prophecies, which were initially mentioned in the "Alexander Romance" by pseudo-Callisthenes at the beginning of the 3rd century AD and underwent numerous modifications over the next millennium6. In particular, Quilichino of Spoleto presents in his "History of the Battles" the widespread interpretation of "Revelation" of pseudo-Methodius of Patara identifying invasion of the Christian world by the nations of Gog and Magog with the attack on Israel by the descendants of Ishmael who, according to the Old Testament, had been banished in the Desert7. However, the Quilichino's innovation consisted of comparing Gog and Magog with the "Tartar crowd", which was trapped in due time by Alexander the Great in the impenetrable mountains but broke free at the time of his poem's writing. Thus, Quilichino was the first Latin writer who applied the name of "Tartars" to the Mongols as directly associated with the Greek Tartarus and widely used in the subsequent Latin writings8.
6 In the Middle Ages, the figure of Alexander the Great was always associated with the idea of establishing of a solid border between the ecumene and hostile forces potentially threatening the existence of civilization. Initially, this boundary was located in the "Caspian Gates" of ancient authors. Later it was placed in the Caucasus, in Derbent or Daryal passes, and gradually receded to the north or east due to the expansion of geographical knowledge about Asia [43, p. 343; 23, p. 130-131; 5, p. 66]. For the first time, the mention of imprisonment of unclean nations by means of the wall built by Alexander occurs in the early Greek version of the "Alexander Romance" attributed to Callisthenes but actually written by an anonymous Alexandrian author in the early 4th century AD [14, p. 217; 85, p. 33; 23, p. 9; 5, p. 20, nota 1]. After that, the medieval description of this most popular act of Alexander was included in the "Revelation" of pseudo-Methodius of Patara composed by a Syrian anonymous author in the second half of 7th century [59, p. 125-126, nota 3; 54, p. 145; 53, p. 94; 3, p. 1, 12; 85, p. 34; 23, p. 130-131; 5, p. 44-45, 48]. In turn, in the 12h century, Peter Comestor presented his version of imprisonment of unclean nations in his "Scholastic History" that enjoyed the widest popularity in Western Europe at the time of writing of Quilichino's poem [55, p. 33; 53, p. 94; 85, p. 35; 23, p. 72-73, 130-132; 5, p. 65].
7 Despite the fact that pseudo-Methodius presented a prophecy about the invasion of Gog and Magog through the Caspian Gates [55, p. 33; 23, p. 18] separately from predictions of the return of descendants of the biblical Ishmael from their exile in the Desert [53, p. 93; 26, p. 128; 12, p. 16], Latin authors often combined their attacks because, according to pseudo-Methodius, their invasions was going to happen around the same time [55, p. 33; 20, p. 160, nota 38; 5, p. 45, 79].
8 It should be recalled that the first time the name of "Tatars/Tartars" is mentioned in the Latin language in 1223 in the letters by Georgian Queen Rusudan and Amirspasalari Ivane [34, no. 251-252, p. 178-180; 7, XX, a. 1224 xvii-xx, p. 483484; 58, p. 158-159]. Two years later, based on the Russian information, Henry of Latvia used this term in respect to the Mongols of Jebe and Subedei who defeated the combined Russian-Polovtsian army at the Battle of Kalka [46, p. 186-187; 47, p. 316]. In turn, Alberic de Trois-Fontaines pointed out in his entry on 1222 to the obvious connection between the name "Tartar" and the Greek Tartarus [24, p. 910912]. However, it remains unclear exactly when he made this entry in his chronicle written by Alberic between 1232 and 1252.
Theodore of Antioch, the "philosopher" of Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen9, developed the Quilichino's interpretation in his identification of the "Tartars" with "unclean nations" imprisoned by Alexander [18, p. 163-166; 91, p. 9] and compared the Mongols with "headless monsters" mentioned already in the "Natural History" of Pliny. Despite the fact that this identification criteria remain unclear [70, p. 17; 61, p. 2122], comparison of the Mongols with "headless people" is mentioned also in 1240 by Muslim historian Sibt ibn al-Jawzi in his multi-volume work "Mir'at al-Zaman fi Ta'nkh al-A'yan" (Mirror of the Time on the History of the Elie) [54, p. 152]. Circulation of this comparison in the Islamic world can explain, to some extent, the origin of its mention in a letter by Theodore of Antioch, which authorship he attributed to his Muslim col-league10. However, Theodore undoubtedly was also influenced by the Christian apocalyptic tradition manifested in the simultaneous comparison of the Mongol expansion with the invasion of Gog and Magog and attack of the biblical descendants of Ishmael11.
The obvious attributing of the Mongols to "imprisoned nations" is also mentioned in the "Chronica Majora" of Matthew Paris in his entry on 1238 [67, III, p. 488-489]12. Probably, an indication of the British chroni-
9 Theodore of Antioch, best known for his translation from the Arabic of the treatise "On the Art of Hunting with Birds" (De arte venandi cum avibus), was a Monophysite of Syrian origin. After had received a broad education in Mosul and Baghdad, Theodore tried to get at the court of the Sultan of Iconium and, later, of the King of Cilicia. However, having failed in both cases, he received an invitation to move to southern Italy, to the court of Emperor Frederick II. Starting from 1238, Theodore acted as a "philosopher" of Emperor Frederick performing the duties of a translator of official documents in the Arabic language, of physician and, first of all, of the personal astrologer of Frederick [19, p. 38-48, 50, 64-66; 22, p. 96; 20, p. 153; 92, p. 305, 310].
10 Theodore attributed the authorship of the letter to "al-Kindi" that can not be true because the famous Arab philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer Yaqub ibn Ishaq ibn Sabbah al-Kindi died in 873. However, it should be noted that the name of al-Kindi was widely known in Western Europe due to the fact that at the time of writing of this letter at least thirty of his works circulated in Europe in Latin translations. An indication of the authorship of al-Kindi was to reinforce the accuracy of the information contained in the letter since al-Kindi was regarded in Europe as a credible predictor of the future [18, p. 154; 87, p. 116-117].
11 Obviously, in the course of writing of his letter, Theodore of Antioch relied on an anonymous treatise "Marvels of the World" (Mirabilia mundi), which was compiled a little earlier than the "History of the Battles" of Quilichino of Spoleto and that possibly had also a direct impact on the Quilichino's poem. In turn, the author of the "Marvels of the World" borrowed his description of unclean nations from Honorius of Autun, the Burgundian scholastic of the beginning of the 12th century and author of the treatise "Description of the World" (Imago mundi) containing the reworking of cosmological and geographical information of Solin and Isidore of Seville [20, p. 153-154, 156-159, 161].
12 As in the case of the "Chronicle" of Alberic de Trois-Fontaines, it also remains unclear when Matthew Paris made this entry in his work written between 1240 and 1259.
cler of the Mongol conquest of "Great Hungary" and reference to the Mongol ultimatums requiring unquestioned subordination to their leader based on information received from the Kingdom of Hungary [89, X, p. 41]. On the other hand, Matthew Paris makes it clear that he learned his description of the "monstrous" appearance of nomads from Muslim informants came from the Middle East. No less interesting is the negative European reaction toward the Muslim proposal to enter into anti-Mongol military alliance displayed in the same fragment of the "Chronica Majora"13. According to the British chronicler, in the late 1230's the Mongols were already perceived as undoubted enemies of the Catholic world. However, Matthew Paris also saw the potential benefits of the Mongol expansion, which could weaken the Muslim world and contribute to the success of the future crusade in Palestine14.
Apparently, the carefree attitude of Western Christians towards the Muslim call to take urgent measures aimed at countering the increased
13 This fragment contains reference to arrival of the Nizari envoys in Western Europe who proposed the kings of France and England to conclude a military alliance against the Mongols. Since reference to this visit is not found in other sources, researchers expressed some doubts about the reliability of the Matthew Paris's information [54, p. 60; 82, p. 83; 68, p. 176]. At the same time, the Nizari unquestionably had every reason to fear the rise of the Mongol military activity and therefore they could begin to seek a rapprochement with the Latins.
Originally, the Nizari openly supported the Mongol military campaign against Khwarezm and significantly expanded their territorial possessions beyond their areas in the Elburs mountains and Kuhistan after they had timely recognized their formal submission to the Mongols. However, their expansion was interrupted due to the establishment in Azerbaijan of the Sultanate of Khwarezmshah Jalal ad-Din Ming-burnu in 1226. Therefore, in the course of their confrontation with Jalal al-Din, the Nizari also acted as natural allies of the Mongols. However, after the collapse of the Sultanate of Jalal ad-Din and his death in 1231, new expansionist plans of the Nizari met an open confrontation of the Mongols who, in the same year, took away at the Nizari the city of Damgan situated in northern Persia. After that, relations between the Nizari and Mongols constantly deteriorated and it could well push their leadership to a rapprochement with the Latins [65, p. 234-235, 237; 68, p. 175; 48, p. 477-479].
In all likelihood, the embassy departed to Western Europe on the initiative of the head of the Persian Nizari, the imam Ala al-Din Muhammad III (1221-1255) [65, p. 234; 87, p. 121; 48, p. 422]. However, the actual embassy consisted of the Syrian Nizari sent to the West by their head, Siraj-ad-Din Muzaffar ibn al-Hussein [65, p. 235; 69, p. 44-45; 62, p. 127; 87, p. 120-121].
14 This refers to the so-called crusade of the barons led by Thibaut of Champagne and Richard of Cornwall (1239-1241). Despite the insignificance of deployed forces, this Middle Eastern campaign proved to be one of the most successful among all the Crusades due to the fact that it coincided with the conflict between the sultans of Cairo and Damascus. Skillfully using the discord among Muslims, the leaders of the Crusaders achieved from the Sultan of Damascus, al-Malik al-Salih II, significant territorial concessions through diplomatic negotiations and without a significant use of military force [84, p. 104; 63, p. 173-175; 54, p. 23-24; 50, p. 577-578; 52, p. 3260; 71, p. 463; 39, p. 725-736; 35, p. 413-422; 28, p. 526-561].
Mongol activity in the Middle East, was not caused by a lack of information on the extent of the Mongol expansion. So, the letter of Philip, the prior of the Dominicans in the Holy Land, addressed to the Roman Curia in 1237 and describing the missionary successes of the Order of Preachers among Eastern Christians in the Middle East [67, III, p. 396-399; 24, p. 941-942; 6, p. 846], contains only superficial references to the actual Mongol conquest of the Great Armenia. Probably, Philip did not go into a more detailed description of this conquest since the Papal curia was already well informed about the Mongol military successes in Transcaucasia [54, p. 59]15. New Mendicant Orders of the Dominicans and Franciscans was active in missionary work in the Middle East since the 1230's, but during this period they focused on preaching of the Roman doctrine among the local Christians [81, p. 44; 90, p. 37-38; 16, I, no. xcvii, p. 100-101]. However, it is interesting to note that the Mendicants' missionary successes were promoted, first of all, by the Mongol military threat forcing the Eastern Christians to seek support from their Western coreligionists [88, p. 52; 9, p. 469; 90, p. 32]. So, the letter of Gregory IX on 13th January, 1240 [17, no. cxcviii, p. 108-109; 7, XXI, a. 1240 xxxix-xliii, p. 225-226; 34, no. 765, p. 664-665; 2, no. 261, p. 338-341] was written in response to the letter of the Georgian Queen Rusudan, which contained a request for urgent military support to repel the Mongol conquest of the Caucasus. The Pontiff s answer contained a polite refusal and veiled requirement to provide more convincing evidence to support the desire of Georgian rulers and prelates to conclude durable Church Union. Gregory IX had not yet taken seriously the Mongol military threat on the eve of the invasion of Batu in Hungary and Poland.
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About the author: Roman Hautala - Senior Research Fellow, Usmanov Center for Research on the Golden Horde and Tatar Khanates, Sh.Marjani Institute of History Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tatarstan; Postdoctoral researcher, Historical branch at the Faculty of Humanities, University of Oulu, Ph.D. (History) (420014, Kremlin, entrance 5, Kazan, Russian Federation; 90014, Pentti Kaiteran st., 1, Oulu, Finland); virisequisque@hotmail.com
СВЕДЕНИЯ ЛАТИНСКИХ ИСТОЧНИКОВ О МОНГОЛАХ, СВЯЗАННЫЕ С ИХ ПОВТОРНЫМ ЗАВОЕВАНИЕМ ЗАКАВКАЗЬЯ
Роман Хаутала
(Институт истории им. Ш. Марджани Академии наук Республики Татарстан) (Университет Оулу, Финляндия)
Автор настоящей статьи попытался проследить эволюцию восприятия монголов в латинских источниках, основывавшуюся на сведениях об их военной экспансии на Ближнем Востоке.
Первые упоминания монголов в латинских источниках появляются в 1221 году. В представлении авторов этих источников, армия монголов, осуществившая ряд завоеваний в Средней Азии, Персии и Закавказье, состояла из крещенных кочевников и возглавлялась неким Давидом, «царем Индий», главным стремлением которого было прийти на помощь христианам Ближнего Востока и «освободить» Иерусалим от мусульманского правления. Несомненно, под свершениями «царя Давида» латинские источники понимали первую западную кампанию монголов во главе с Чингисханом, которая началась в 1219 году и была направлена против среднеазиатского султаната Хорезма. К моменту написания упомянутых латинских источников, войска Чингисхана завоевали хорезмийские территории в Средней Азии и приступили к военным действиям в Хорасане; тогда как отдельные подразделения монголов во главе с Джебе и Субедеем вторглись в Закавказье и нанесли первое серьезное поражение христианскому королевству Грузии.
Однако в дальнейшем позитивное восприятие монголов на Западе стало постепенно меняться. В первую очередь, на это изменение повлияли отчеты грузинских правителей, выражавшие очевидные сомнения по поводу прежней уверенности, что монгольская армия полностью состояла из христиан. Еще большее влияние имели сведения о начале повторного монгольского завоевания Закавказья. Ранний отчет Иерусалимского патриарха о появлении в Закавказье монгольских подразделений во главе с нойоном Чор-маганом еще отражал надежду на приверженность монголов к христианской религии. Но последующие сообщения о начале монгольского завоевания Великой Армении в корне изменили европейское восприятие монголов.
Начиная с 1236 года, латинские источники стали представлять монголов как исчадий ада, стремясь интерпретировать их появление согласно апокалиптическим сценариям популярных эсхатологических сочинений.
Ключевые слова: история монгольской империи, монгольская экспансия на Ближнем Востоке, латинские источники, европейское восприятие монголов, средневековая эсхатология.
Сведения об авторе: Роман Хаутала - старший научный сотрудник Центра исследований Золотой Орды и татарских ханств им. М.А. Усманова Института истории им. Ш. Марджани АН РТ; исследователь на историческом отделении гуманитарного факультета Университета Оулу, Ph.D. (история) (420014, Кремль, подъезд 5, Казань, Российская Федерация; 90014, ул. Пентти Кайтера, д. 1, Оулу, Финляндия); virisequisque@hotmail.com
