City, castle, palace: the merchants' town vocabulary
Editorial contextThe glossary gives, column by column, Latin, Persian and Cuman words for places. A city (civitas) is 'saar' or 'chent' in Cuman, a castle is 'kalaa', a palace is 'saray', and a house is 'eu' (ev). The words for city, castle and palace are loans from Persian and Arabic (shahr, qal'a, saray), next to the Turkic 'kent' and 'ev'. The Italian merchants clearly needed these words for dealing with towns in the Horde's lands.
city: (Persian) shahr / (Cuman) shahr or kent; castle: (Persian) qal'a / (Cuman) qal'a; village: (Persian) deh / (Cuman) qala; palace: saray / saray; house: (Persian) khana / (Cuman) ev.
Working translation
Original wording
ciuitas ghachar saar ul chent castrum kala kalaa casale de gala palacium saray saray domus ghana eu
About Cumans (Qipchaqs) of the Golden Horde
Keep in mind
The modern equivalents in the translation are the usual identifications of these spellings; the scribe's spellings are Italian.
Checked against the page image; 'ul' is the manuscript's abbreviation for Latin 'vel', 'or'.
Caffa: Tatar and Genoese buildings blown up by Russian officials
Editorial contextXavier describes what happened to Caffa after the Russian annexation of 1783. The Genoese walls and towers were pulled down for barracks, the great Turkish baths and the old cathedral-turned-mosque were demolished with pickaxe and gunpowder in 1833, and the Tatar population was expelled. It is a first-hand record of who actually destroyed the old buildings of a Tatar-era city.
In 1833, the ignorance of a civil governor, Kasnatcheief, completed this afflicting work of destruction, which extended at the same time to the great baths that still remained untouched. A fortnight's work with the pickaxe and gunpowder razed to the ground the two admirable monuments with which the Genoese and the Turks had adorned the town.
About Crimean Tatars; Genoese; Turks
Keep in mind
The authors are hostile to Russian officials; the demolition itself is widely recorded, but the blame is their own judgement.
Caffa: Tartar songs among the ruins
Editorial contextArriving at night at Theodosia, the old Caffa, Alexander found ruin on every side. He heard Tatars singing under an arch in a melancholy strain, as if mourning the decay of the once-flourishing city, and noted the crumbling citadel walls by the shore. The town's houses, he says, were built partly in the Tatar and partly in the Genoese style. From there he crossed the steppe by 'the commercial Tartar city of Karasubazar'.
we heard some Tartars under an arch singing in a most melancholy strain, and seemingly mourning over the decay of this once flourishing city: the dilapidated walls of a citadel were on the sea-shore, and near them was the stranded wreck of a Greek mystico. The houses of Caffa were built partly in the Tartar and partly in the Genoese style of architecture.
About Crimean Tatars; the former Genoese colony
Keep in mind
'Seemingly mourning' is his romantic reading of a song he could not follow.
Kaffa, 'Little Constantinople', in ruins
Editorial contextKaffa (Feodosia), called by the Tartars 'Little Constantinople', had been the Genoese capital in the Crimea and stayed populous under Tartar rule. After the Russian conquest and mass emigration it was 'a prodigious heap of ruins'. Pallas credits the strong freestone walls and towers, still almost whole, to the Genoese, and admires the great mosque in the centre of the town.
…though it was also called by the Tartars Kutshuk-Stambul, or Little Constantinople. Being erected in an excellent situation very favourable to commerce, it was the principal place in the Crimea, possessed by the Genoese. Even under the Tartar government, it was a populous town, flourishing by its trade,
About Crimean Tatars; Genoese builders
Continue in this sourcePallas's travels through southern Russia and the Crimea1793 to 1794 · 20 passagesCaffa, a fallen Genoese trading city
Editorial contextCaffa (ancient Theodosia, modern Feodosia) belonged to the Turks, not the Khan. Chevalier describes it as a once-great Genoese trading port that had declined under Ottoman rule but still had five or six thousand houses and a mixed population, mostly Christian, with dozens of churches.
it was one of the most trading Towns of the Levant … yet there are still remaining about five or six thousand Houses; the Inhabitants are Greeks, Italians, the remainder of the Genoeses, Armenians, Jews, Turks and Tartars, but the most part of them are Christians
About Crimean Tatars, Turks, Greeks, Armenians, Jews and Italians
Continue in this sourceA French officer's account of the Cossacks and the Crimean Tartars17th century · 13 passagesKaffa: a walled port of many nations
Editorial contextThe fullest city description in his Tartary chapter is of Kaffa, the Genoese port in Crimea. He counts six thousand houses inside the inner wall and eleven thousand within the outer walls, three bishops (Roman, Greek and Armenian), Muslim and Jewish places of worship, and four thousand houses in the suburbs.
A city called Kaffa, which lies by the Black Sea, and is surrounded by two walls. Within one wall are six thousand houses, in which are Italians, Greeks, and Armenians; it is a chief city on the Black Sea
About Genoese colony within Golden Horde territory
Keep in mind
Kaffa was built and run by the Genoese, not by the Tartars, though it lay in lands they claimed.
800,000 captives and old men given to boys
Editorial contextAfter the 1521 raid the Crimean khan is said to have driven off more than 800,000 prisoners, selling many to the Turks at Kaffa. Herberstein repeats the lurid claim that old captives, worth little at market, were handed to Tartar youths for practice in killing. He flags the numbers himself ('scarcely be considered credible', 'they say').
But he took with him from Moscow so great a multitude of prisoners as would scarcely be considered credible ; they say that the number exceeded eight hundred thousand, part of whom he sold in Kaffa to the Turks, and part he slew.
About Crimean Tartars
Keep in mind
The figure is a rumour and far larger than is plausible; the slave trade through Kaffa itself is well documented.
Mamai flees to Kaffa, and the Genoese mock him with Batu's memory
Editorial contextIn the poem Mamai escapes from his army 'howling like a grey wolf' and runs to the city of Kaffa, the Genoese colony in Crimea. The Fryazi (Italians) jeer that he is no Batu: Batu had 400,000 armoured men and warred over the whole Russian land, while Mamai came with nine hordes and seventy princes and now flees with eight companions. Historically Mamai did flee to the Crimea and was killed near Kaffa.
You will never be like Tsar Batu: Tsar Batu had four hundred thousand armoured men, and he made war on the whole Russian land from east to west … And you came to the Russian land, Tsar Mamai, with great forces, with nine hordes and seventy princes, and now, pagan, you flee with eight companions to the sea-shore.
Working translation
Original wording
А не бывати тебѣ въ Батыя царя, у Батыя царя было четыреста тысячъ кованные рати, а воевалъ всю Русскую землю отъ востока и до запада … И ты пришелъ на Рускую землю, царь Мамай, съ многими силами, съ девятью ордами и семидесятью князьями, а нынѣ ты поганый бѣжишь самъ-девятъ въ лукоморье.
About Mamai and the Golden Horde; Genoese (Fryazi) of Kaffa
Keep in mind
The flight to 'Khafesta grad' (Kaffa) is on the previous page, n31. The figures are poetic, not a muster roll.