Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World - Jack Weatherford [177]
“It is proper to keep the commandments”: Ibid., pp. 266–267.
imagery of Mongol greatness: For more on “The Squire’s Tale” and the Mongols, see Vincent J. DiMarco, “The Historical Basis of Chaucer’s Squire’s Tale,” Edebiyat, vol. 1, no. 2 (1989), pp. 1–22, and Kathryn L. Lynch, “East Meets West in Chaucer’s Squire’s and Franklin’s Tales,” Speculum 70 (1995), pp. 530–551.
“This noble king”: The original text by Chaucer reads as follows:
Heere Bigynneth the Squieres Tale
At Sarray, in the land of Tartarye,
Ther dwelte a kyng that werreyed Russye,
Thurgh which ther dyde many a doughty man.
This noble kyng was cleped Cambyuskan,
Which in his tyme was of so greet renoun
That ther was nowher in no regioun
So excellent a lord in alle thyng.
Hym lakked noght that longeth to a kyng.
As of the secte of which that he was born
He kept his lay, to which that he was sworn;
And therto he was hardy, wys, and riche,
And pitous and just, alwey yliche;
Sooth of his word, benigne, and honourable,
Of his corage as any centre stable;
Yong, fressh, and strong, in armes desirous
As any bacheler of al his hous.
A fair persone he was and fortunat,
And kepte alwey so wel roial estat
That ther was nowher swich another man.
This noble kyng this Tartre Cambyuskan.
10. The Empire of Illusion
“When Christopher Columbus”: David Morgan, The Mongols (Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1986), p. 198.
– For information on the plague in Mongol territories, see Michael W. Dols, The Black Death in the Middle East (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977).
– For more information on the plague in general, see Robert S. Gottfried, The Black Death (New York: Free Press, 1983), and David Herlihy, The Black Death and the Transformation of the West (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997).
bodies of plague victims catapulted over the walls: Belief that the Mongols deliberately spread the plague remained strong enough to inspire imitation of it through the years, but without success. Russian troops reportedly used the tactic against Sweden in 1710, and in World War II, Japan tried it by dropping infected fleas from airplanes onto Chinese villages. The fleas had been exposed to a particularly virulent form of plague and did infect some villagers, but they did not create an epidemic.
the population of Africa declined: For population estimates, see Massimo Livi-Bacci, A Concise History of World Population, 2nd ed., trans. Carl Ipsen (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1997), p. 31, and Jean-Noel Biraben, “An Essay Concerning Mankind’s Evolution,” Population (December 1980).
the epidemic permanently changed life: For a fuller discussion of the impact of the plague and similar diseases, see William H. McNeill, Plagues and People (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1976), pp. 132–175.
“venerable authority of laws”: Boccaccio, The Decameron, trans. M. Rigg (London: David Campbell, 1921), vol. 1, pp. 5–11.
Christians once again turned on the Jews: For information on the Jews being blamed for the plague, see Rosemary Horrox, The Black Death (Manchester, U.K.: Manchester University Press, 1994), pp. 209–226.
the Mongol authorities increased repression: Regarding anti-Chinese policies on the Mongols, see John W. Dardess, Conquerors and Confucians: Aspects of Political Change in Late Yüan China (New York: Columbia University Press, 1973).
granted ever more favor and power to Buddhism: Regarding Tibetan Buddhism under the Mongols, see Hok-lam Chan and William Theodore de Bary, eds., Yüan Thought: Chinese Thought and Religion Under the Mongols (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), p.484.
the collapse came quickly: For an account of the end of Mongol rule in China, see Udo Barkmann, “Some Comments on the Consequences of the Decline of the Mongol Empire on the Social Development of the Mongols,” in The Mongol Empire and Its Legacy, ed. Reuven Amitai-Preiss and David O. Morgan (Leiden: Koninklijke Brill NV, 1999).
expelled the Muslim, Christian, and Jewish traders: For more on the impact of