Early Latin Reports about the Mongols (1221): Reasons for Distortion of Reality »

• Published in: Золотоордынское обозрение
• Main Author: Roman Hautala
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Tatarstan Academy of Sciences, Marjani Institute of History 2015-01-01
• Subjects: Crusade ideology; Fifth Crusade; Khwarezmian campaign of Genghis Khan; Nestorian documents; Latin sources.
• Online Access: http://goldhorde.ru/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/%D0%97%D0%9E-1-2015-50-67.pdf
• ISSN: 2308-152X; 2313-6197

The first mention of the Mongols appears 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. 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 Khwarezmian 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 does not correspond to historical reality. This article represents an attempt to explain this distortion of reality. In the first part of the article, the author gives a brief description of the Latin sources containing information about the “king David’s” advance to the west. In the second part, the author attempts to find an explanation for the distortion of historical reality in Latin sources by considering the information of these sources in the ideological context of the Fifth Crusade.