“exceedingly tall in structure”: Rashid al-Din, The Successors of Genghis Khan, trans. John Andrew Boyle (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971), pp. 61–62.
newly recruited clerks: For more information on the growing administration, see Thomas T. Allsen, “The Rise of the Mongolian Empire and Mongolian Rule in North China,” in The Cambridge History of China, vol. 6, Alien Regimes and Border States, 907–1368, ed. Herbert Franke and Denis Twitchett (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 397.
“a castle with doors”: Juvaini, Genghis Khan, pp. 236–237.
“would sit, every day”: al-Din, Successors of Genghis Khan, pp. 84–85.
a 10 percent bonus: For more information on the bonus, see Larry Moses and Stephen A. Halkovic Jr. Introduction to Mongolian History and Culture (Bloomington, Ind.: Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, 1985), p. 71.
In an effort to improve trade: See Thomas J. Barfield, The Perilous Frontier: Nomadic Empires and China, 221 B.C. to A.D. 1757 (Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1992), p. 206.
weights and measures: See Henry H. Howorth, History of the Mongols, pt. 1, The Mongols Proper and the Kalmuks (London: Longmans, Green, 1876), p. 156.
– “that wherever profit”: Juvaini, Genghis Khan, p. 77.
“every tenth returned to his home”: The Chronicle of Novgorod: 1016–1471, trans. Robert Michel and Nevill Forbes, Camden 3rd Series, vol. 25 (London: Offices of the Society, 1914), p. 66.
“the Tartars turned back”: Ibid., p. 66.
“Tartars came in countless numbers”: Ibid., p. 81.
“They have hard and robust breasts: The quotes in this paragraph are from Matthew Paris, Matthew Paris’s English History from the Year 1235 to 1273, trans. J. A. Giles, 1852. (London: Henry G. Bohn; reprint, New York: AMS Press, 1968), vol. 1, p. 469.
“no eye remained open to cry for the dead”: J. J. Saunders, The History of the Mongol Conquests (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001), p. 82.
“an immense horde of that detestable race of Satan”: Paris, Matthew Paris’s English History, vol. 1, p. 314.
“ravaged the eastern countries”: Ibid., p. 314.
“They clothe themselves”: Ibid., p. 314.
“They have no human laws”: Ibid., p. 314.
“clouds of Tatars”: Saunders, History of the Mongol Conquests, p. 83.
“To thee, Tsar, I bow”: Chronicle of Novgorod, pp. 87–90.
“headstrong and brave”: al-Din, Successors of Genghis Khan, p. 138.
“You broke the spirit of every man”: Secret History, § 277.
the two armies met: For information on the battle, see Erik Hildinger, “Mongol Invasion of Europe,” Military History (June 1997).
“great head”: Jan Dlugosz, The Annals of Jan Dlugosz, trans. Maurice Michael, commentary by Paul Smith, Chichester, United Kingdom: IM Publications, (1997), entry for the year 1241.
“The dead fell”: James Ross Sweeney, “Thomas of Spalato and the Mongols,” Florilegium: Archives of Canadian Society of Medievalists 12 (1980).
“cannibals from Hell”: Paris, Matthew Paris’s English History, vol. 1, pp. 469–472.
– Christian clerics looked to the Bible: Information on the hypothetical biblical connections to the Mongols can be found in Axel Klopprogge, Ursprung und Auspraegung des abdendlaendischen Mongolenbildes im 13. Jahrhundert: Eine Versuch zur Ideengeschichte des Mitterlaters (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1993).
“in the time of the government”: Paris, Matthew Paris’s English History, vol. 1, p. 314.
“the enormous wickedness of the Jews”: The quotes in this paragraph are from ibid., pp. 357–358.
a thirty-year-old literate Englishman: For an interesting novel on the identity of the English knight, see Gabriel Ronay, The Tartar Khan’s Englishman (London: Cassell, 1978).
7. Warring Queens
“Just as God”: Christopher Dawson, ed. The Mongol Mission: Narratives and Letters of the Franciscan Missionaries in Mongolia and China in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1955), p. 195.
record of Torogene’s power: For a fuller discussion of Toregene’s edict, see Igor de Rachewiltz, “Töregene’s Edict of 1240,” Papers on Far Eastern History 23 (March, 1981), pp. 38–63.
“became the sharer”: Ata-Malik, Juvaini, Genghis Khan: The History of the World Conqueror, trans. J. A. Boyle (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997), pp. 245–246.
“desist entirely”: Christopher Dawson, ed., The Mongol Mission: Narratives and Letters of the Franciscan Missionaries in Mongolia and China in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1955), pp. 73–76.
“He sent again”: Juvaini, Genghis Khan, p. 245.
“but God knows the truth”: Minhaj al-Siraj Juzjani, Tabakat-I-Nasiri: A General History of the Muhammadan Dynasties of Asia, trans. Major H. G. Raverty (Bengaclass="underline" Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1881; reprint, New Delhi: Oriental Books, 1970), p. 1144.
“hungry and thirsty”: Juvaini, p. 245.
“his predestined hour arrived”: Juvaini, Genghis Khan, p. 185.
“the affairs of the world”: Ibid., p. 556.
Mongke Khan expanded the trials: For more on the purge, see Thomas T. Allsen, “The Rise of the Mongolian Empire and Mongolian Rule in North China,” in The Cambridge History of China, vol. 6, Alien Regimes and Border States, 907–1368, ed. Herbert Franke and Denis Twitchett (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 394.
“if I were to see among the race of women”: Morris Rossabi, “The Reign of Khubilai Khan,” in The Cambridge History of China, vol. 6, Alien Regimes and Border States, 907–1368, ed. Herbert Franke and Denis Twitchett ed. (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 414.
“I follow the laws of my ancestors”: Thomas T. Allsen, Mongol Imperialism: The Politics of the Grand Qan Mongke in China, Russia, and the Islamic Lands, 1251–1259 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), p. 36.