Chapter 14: The last great
nomadic challenges from
Chinggis Khan to Timur
Objective
Trace the political and social
development of the monarchies and
empires of the Mongols and Turks
Summary
• 13th century nomads reenter the picture
• The Mongols ended or interrupted the great post
classical empires while extending the world network
• The Mongols under Chinggis Khan and his successors
dominated most of Asia for 150 yrs.
• Mongols are portrayed as barbarians but generally
people under Mongol rule enjoyed peace, religious
tolerance and had unified laws
• Mongol territory was a bridge between civs. of the east
as products and ideas moved among civilized and
nomadic people
Mongol Collapse
• The empire began to collapse after rebellion in
China
• In the 1360s Timur-i Lang attempted to
reestablish the Mongol empire
• Instead his forces laid waste to large areas of
the Middle East, India and southern Russia
• One unforeseen result of the Mongol empire
was the rise to power of Moscow in Russia
Evaluate how the Mongol conquest can be said
to have brought an end to the postclassical civs.
in eastern Europe , western Europe and Islam
• In western Europe Mongol influence had a limited direct
effect as the conquest was quickly halted
• An important indirect effect was facilitating transmission of
the Black Death to western Europe
• The conquest marked the end of western European
postclassical period
• The opening of trade with the east marked the beginning of
the aggressive western commerce typical of the early
modern period
• For Islam, the conquest ended Abbasid and other minor
dynastic rule
• This opened the path for political division of the Islamic
heartland between the Ottoman and Mamluks
Appraise the proposition that the Mongol era was an
extension of the incursions of nomadic peoples into the
affairs of sedentary civs. In what sense was it a
civilization in its own right?
• Mongol khanates remained dependent on tribal
organization and herding
• They attempted to maintain their separateness as a people
with nomadic cultural patterns
• Even in China under the Yuan dynasty, strict efforts were
made to uphold cultural differences
• Their control of trade was typical of nomadic incursions; so
was the limited period of the Yuan rule and its use of cities
• Chinggis Khan established a uniquely Mongol admin. for an
empire based on such Islamic and Chinese precedents as a
universal law code, adoption of a Mongol script,
maintenance of empire-wide peace and promotion of
commerce and travel
Evaluate how the Mongol conquest can be said
to have brought an end to the postclassical civs.
in eastern Europe , western Europe and Islam
• Eastern Europe marked the end of Kievan
dominance
• The political balance shifted to Moscow as it took
up chief resistance to Mongol Rule
• The religious center also moved to Moscow
• These moves marked the beginning of Russian
political centralization
• In Byzantium, the Mongol conquest meant the
opening of Ottoman dominance in Asia Minor
• Also the eventual loss of Constantinople