Henry Yule, a British scholar of medieval Asia, gathered and translated early European and Asian notices of China for the Hakluyt Society in 1866. This first volume holds his long preliminary essay (with extracts such as the Persian embassy of Shah Rukh to the Ming court in 1419 to 1422), the travels of the Franciscan Friar Odoric of Pordenone, who dictated his account in 1330 after about three years at Khanbaliq (Beijing) under the Mongol Yuan dynasty, and letters of missionary friars. Yule's footnotes are dense and learned. For Tartars, the prize is Odoric's eyewitness picture of the Great Khan's capital and court.
How they knew
Part eyewitness
Who “Tartar” means here
In Odoric, the Tartars are the Mongols of the Yuan dynasty who ruled China from Khanbaliq. Yule's notes also use 'Tartar' for the Khitan and the Jurchen (Kin) peoples, and for the 'Tartar city', the walled inner city of Qing-era Peking.
Why read it
Odoric gives one of the few Western eyewitness views of the Mongol palace at Beijing, and Yule's notes trace how the 'Tartar city' of later Peking descends from the city the Mongols built.
Watch out
This is an anthology, so each extract has its own author and reliability. Odoric's text survives in many differing manuscripts (some passages are only in the 'Minor Ramusian' version), and he mixes what he saw with things he was told.
Editorial contextOdoric says the Tartars captured the ancient city of Cambalech and then built a second city half a mile away, called Taydo (Dadu, 'Great Court'). Yule's footnote dates the new city to Kublai Khan in 1267 and explains that it became the 'Tartar city' of later Peking. A clear case of a Tartar-built capital, recorded by someone who lived there.
I came to that noble city Cambalech, an old city of that famous province of Cathay. The Tartars took the city, and then built another at a distance of half-a-mile, which they called Taydo.
Friar Odoric of Pordenone (translated by Henry Yule, 1866)
Golden columns and a Green Mount in the Khan's palace
Editorial contextOdoric describes the palace: a raised basement, twenty-four golden columns, walls hung with red leather, and a giant jade jar hooped with gold and fed by conduits of drink. On the page before he describes an artificial hill planted with trees, the Green Mount, with a lake and bridge. Yule notes that the hill still stood inside the Peking palace walls in his day.
But his own palace in which he dwells is of vast size and splendour. The basement thereof is raised about two paces from the ground, and within there be four-and-twenty columns of gold ; and all the walls are hung with skins of red leather, said to be the finest in the world.
Friar Odoric of Pordenone (translated by Henry Yule, 1866)
Dancing golden peacocks and ladies crowned with a 'foot'
Editorial contextIn the palace hall are golden peacocks that flap their wings when Tartars clap their hands, which Odoric thinks is done by devilry or hidden machinery. He then describes the court seating and the tall headdress of married Mongol women, which he likens to a man's foot topped with crane feathers and pearls. Yule's note links this to the bogtak headdress also described by Rubruck and Ibn Battuta.
In the hall of the palace also are many peacocks of gold. And when any of the Tartars wish to amuse their lord, then they go one after the other and clap their hands ; upon which the peacocks flap their wings, and make as if they would dance. Now this must be done either by diabolic art, or by some engine underground.
Friar Odoric of Pordenone (translated by Henry Yule, 1866)
Editorial contextOdoric reports the 'vegetable lamb': melons on the 'Caspean Mountains' that ripen and split to reveal a little lamb. He admits he did not see it and heard it from others. Yule's note traces the later 'Tartar lamb' or borametz legend, which Scaliger placed among the Tartars of the Zavolha horde, and identifies the likely source as a woolly fern root.
Another passing marvellous thing may be related, which however I saw not myself, but heard from trustworthy persons. For 'tis said that in a certain great kingdom called Cadeli there be mountains called the Caspean Mountains, on which are said to grow certain very large melons. And when these be ripe, they burst, and a little beast is found inside like a small lamb
Friar Odoric of Pordenone (translated by Henry Yule, 1866)