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Wolff, R. L.; Hazard, H. W. (ed.) / The later Crusades, 1189-1311
(1969)
XXI: The Mongols and the Near East, pp. 715-733
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Page 715
XXI THE MONGOLS AND THE NEAR EAST he Mongol empire, the most extensive known to history, stretched from Korea to Poland, and from Tonkin to the Mediter ranean. Its birth, like that of so many empires of nomadic origin, had all the earmarks of the miraculous, but while others vanished as quickly as they appeared, leaving few traces worth noting, the Mongol empire lasted no little while and placed its stamp on many generations to come. Needless to say, its formation marked a critical moment in the history of the crusades and of the relations between east and west. Although we cannot trace the history of the Mongol empire here, even in general, we can sketch those of its features of greatest importance for the subjects dealt with in these volumes. Before the thirteenth century, the Mongols were hardly known except to their immediate neighbors in China and Central Asia, and to a few merchants and missionaries, Moslem or Nestorian. For Anatolia, see the bibliography given above for the Selchükids of Rum, chapter XIX, p. 675. Up-to-date references are furnished in the Turkish Jsldm ansikiopedisi and, to the extent that it has appeared, the new edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam. There exist only special studies, often in Turkish; one may find, however, some important general observations, not always in agreement, in F. Koprulu, Les Origines de l'empire ottoman (Paris, 1937), and P. Wittek, The Rise of the Ottoman Empire (London, 1938). As for the sources, one may read the English translation of Bar Hebraeus by Sir Ernest A. Wallis Budge, The Chronography of Gregory Aba'l Faraj, the Son of Aaron, the Hebrew Physician, commonly known as Bar Hebraeus (2 vols., London, 1932); the French translation by C. Defréméry and B. R. Sanguinetti (4 vols., Paris, 1853—1858, reprinted 1879—1914, 1954) of the Voyages of Ibn-BattUtah, now being translated into English by H. A. R. Gibb, The Travels of Ibn Battuta, A.D. 132 5—1354, I, Works Issued by the Hakluyt Society, znd series, CX (Cambridge, 1958); and for a translation of Ibn-Bibi's chronicle, see H. W. Duda, Die Seltschukengeschichte des Ibn Bihi (Copenhagen, 1959). The works of W. Barthold, Histoire des Turcs de l'Asie centrale (Paris, r 946), and Turkestan down to the Mongol Invasion (London, 1928), remain indispensable, as do his numerous articles in Russian. For the fl-khanid state, one need only refer to Bertold Spuler, Die Mongolen in Iran (and ed., Berlin, 1955), where there may be found all the bibliographical references necessary; to which add, for the Mongol thrust toward western Asia, R. Grousset's and S. Runciman's histories of the crusades, and C. Cahen's La Syrie du nord. One of the principal sources, part I of the Ta'rikh-i-Jahan-Gusha of Juvaini, has been translated into English by J. A. Boyle (Cambridge, 1957). See also D. Sinor, "Les Relations entre les Mongols et l'Europe jusqu'à la mort d'Arghun," in Cahiers d'histoire mondiale, III (1956), 39—62. 715
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