Nomads beyond the Wall who ate only meat
Editorial contextBetween Cialis and the Chinese frontier, the account says, the country was notorious for Tartar raids: merchants scouted from the hills by day and travelled silently by night, and passed Muslim travellers who had been murdered for going alone. The Tartars rarely killed the settled locals, calling them their slaves and shepherds whose flocks they could seize. They refused grain and rice as fodder for animals, lived on meat including horse, mule and camel, and were said to live past a hundred.
although the Tartars rarely kill the local people themselves, saying that they are their slaves and shepherds, from whom they carry off flocks of sheep and herds of cattle. They themselves eat neither grain nor rice nor any other pulse, saying that this is fodder for beasts, not food for men; so they live on meat alone, and do not shrink from horses, mules or camels. And yet it is said that they live very long, often past a hundred years.
Working translation
Original wording
quanquam raro Tartari indigenas ipsos mactent, asserentes eos esse servos suos ac pastores, quibus arietum greges, & boum armenta eripiunt; sed neque frumento, neque oriza aliove legumine ipsi vescuntur, dicentes hoc iumentorum esse non hominum pabulum: sola igitur carne vesci solent, nec ab equis, mulis, aut Camelis abhorrent, & tamen fama est eos diutissime vivere, & fere annorum centum excedere senectutem.
About Tartars (Mongol nomads north and west of the Great Wall)
Keep in mind
Travellers' report passed through Isaac the Armenian and Ricci; the hundred-year lifespan is explicitly rumour ('fama est').
The scan is too rough to double-check this quote by machine. Compare it with the page.
Chinese warhorses that bolt at a Tartar neigh
Editorial contextDescribing Chinese livestock, Ricci says the Chinese do not know how to break horses and simply geld them to make them docile. Their cavalry horses are countless but so feeble that they flee at the mere neigh of a Tartar horse, which makes them nearly useless in war. It is a Jesuit's jab at Ming cavalry and a measure of the fear the steppe horsemen still inspired.
The Chinese hardly know how to break them; all those used for everyday work are tamed by gelding. War horses are almost countless, but so degenerate and unwarlike that they cannot bear even the neigh of a Tartar horse without running away
Working translation
Original wording
Eos Sinae domare minime norunt, castrati omnes mansuescunt, quotquot ad usus quotidianos adhibentur. Equi porro militares sunt propemodum innumerabiles, sed ii ita degeneres atque imbelles, ut ne hinnitu quidem equi Tartari sine fuga ferant
About Tartars (Mongol horsemen), compared with the Chinese
Keep in mind
A sweeping judgement meant to impress European readers.
Fake embassies from 'Tartar princelings'
Editorial contextAt Suzhou, the account explains, caravans from the west entered China as 'embassies' bringing tribute of jade and other goods every six years, with forged letters from their kings offering submission. The emperor paid their costs, so the posts were bought and sold. China received similar embassies from Cochinchina, Siam, the Ryukyus, Korea and some Tartar princelings, at huge cost to the treasury; Ricci thinks the officials knew it was a sham and kept it up to flatter the emperor.
when the time for the embassy comes, they forge official letters from their kings offering the King of China the homage of a vassal. The Chinese admit similar embassies from various kingdoms, from Cochinchina, Siam, the Ryukyus and Korea, and from some Tartar princelings, at an incredible cost to the public treasury; by these tricks the Chinese themselves (who are well aware of the fraud) deceive their own King
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Original wording
cum tempus legationis advenit publicas Regum suorum litteras effingunt, quibus Sinarum Regi clientelare obsequium deferunt. Similes legationes e variis regnis admittunt Sinae e regnis Caucincino, Sian, Leuchieu, Coriano, & ab aliquot Tartarorum Regulis non sine incredibili aerarii publici sumptu, quibus artibus ipsi Sinae (qui fraudem minime ignorant) Regem suum ludunt
About Western merchants posing as envoys; minor Tartar rulers
Keep in mind
A hostile outsider's reading of the tribute system.
A 'Tartar custom': sharing out a dead man's goods
Editorial contextAfter Goes died at Suzhou, the Muslim merchants of the caravan seized his goods, destroyed his diary (which recorded their debts) and bound his companion Isaac, threatening to kill him unless he invoked Muhammad. The account explains that among these merchants a 'Tartarea' custom had taken hold: the goods of anyone who died on the road were divided among all. Three centuries earlier Pegolotti (W116) warned that the lord of the land seized a dead merchant's goods on the Tartar road.
Among those merchants a thoroughly Tartar custom has taken hold, that the goods of merchants who die on the road are divided among them all; for this reason they bound Benedict's companion Isaac and threatened him with death unless he called on Muhammad.
Working translation
Original wording
Tartarea plane consuetudine inter Negotiatores illos invaluit, ut morientium in itinere Negotiatorum bona inter omnes dividantur, hac ex causa Benedicti Socium Isaac vinxerunt, mortem minati, nisi Mahometem inclamasset.
About Muslim caravan merchants at Suzhou
Keep in mind
'Tartarea' can mean 'Tartar' or 'hellish' in Latin, and here probably carries both. The story comes from the Jesuit side of a dispute.
Cathay: the Tartars' name for China
Editorial contextRicci explains why Europe thought Cathay and China were two countries. Marco Polo came when the Tartars ruled China, perhaps with them, and so Europe learned the country under the names the Tartars used: Cathay, with its royal city Cambalu. The Portuguese later brought home the name China and the city name Peking, and mapmakers drew two kingdoms side by side. On the previous page he offers a folk etymology that splits Campalu into Tartar 'Cam' (great) and the Chinese words 'Pa' (north) and 'Lu' (Tartars); the name is really Turkic Khanbaliq, 'city of the khan'.
From this it is plain that Marco Polo the Venetian entered this kingdom at the time when the Tartars ruled the Chinese, and perhaps entered with them. Through his writings the kingdom of China became known to Europe by the name the Tartars used, calling it Cathay and its royal city Cambalu. … At present, however, no region outside the Chinese walls is found that is called Cathay.
Working translation
Original wording
inde plane apparet, Marcum Paulum Venetum eo tempore in hoc regnum penetrasse, quo Tartari Sinis imperitabant, & fortasse cum illis ipsis eo penetrasse. Eius deinde commentariis Europae, Sinarum Regnum innotuit eo nomine, quo Tartari utebantur, Cataium videlicet & urbem Regiam Cambalu appellantes. … Hoc tamen tempore nulla extra muros Sinenses Regio reperitur, quae Cataium vocitetur.
About Tartars (Mongols) who ruled China in Marco Polo's day
Was China's Tartar conqueror Tamerlane?
Editorial contextRicci writes that China had never been wholly conquered by foreigners until a Tartar leader invaded; his line ruled until 1368, when the Chinese threw off the yoke and the Ming founder Hongwu expelled the Tartars. Some Jesuits guessed this conqueror was Tamerlane, because the Chinese called him 'Tiemor'. Ricci gives up and simply calls him 'the Tartar'. The Chinese name was almost certainly Tiemuzhen, that is Temüjin (Chinggis Khan), not Timur, who lived a century later and never reached China.
yet we do not read that it was ever wholly conquered by foreign peoples until, in the year of our salvation …, some leader from Tartary, a conqueror of kingdoms, invaded this kingdom with his victorious army. Some of our men, on conjectures that in my judgement are not slight, think this leader was Tamerlane or one of his successors, for the Chinese call him Tiemor … Whoever he was, I shall call him the Tartar.
Working translation
Original wording
nunquam tamen prius ab externis populis legitur universim esse subactum, quam anno nostrae salutis … e Tartaria Dux nescio quis, regnorum domitor, in hoc regnum sese cum exercitu victore immisisset. Eum Ducem nonnulli e nostris, nec levibus, meo iudicio, coniecturis Tamerlanem, vel e successoribus eius aliquem fuisse arbitrantur. Eum enim Sinae Tiemor appellant … Quisquis is fuerit, Tartarum appellabo.
About Tartars (Mongols) who conquered China
Keep in mind
The year is illegible in both scans and is omitted. The Tamerlane identification is wrong.
The scan is too rough to double-check this quote by machine. Compare it with the page.
Chinese Muslims as 'remnants of the Tartars'
Editorial contextTelling of a clash near Macao, the account notes that one of the Chinese magistrates was a 'Saracen' (Muslim) by origin and religion. Ricci explains that many remnants of the Tartars stayed on in China after the Mongols fell; after four generations they count as natives and may even sit the examinations and hold office. It shows Europeans linking China's Muslim communities with the Mongol period.
Among these magistrates was one who was a Saracen by origin and religion: for many of the remnants of the Tartars remained in that kingdom, who after the fourth generation are held to be natives and are not barred even from the literary degrees and public offices.
Working translation
Original wording
Ex iis Magistratibus erat unus origine ac professione Saracenus: nam ex Tartarorum reliquiis multi in eo regno remanserunt, qui post quartam generationem pro indigenis habiti, ne a litterariis quidem gradibus publicisque muneribus prohibentur.
About Chinese Muslims, described as descendants of the Tartars
Keep in mind
Ricci's own explanation; many Chinese Muslims descend from Central Asian and Persian Muslims settled under the Mongols rather than from Mongols themselves.
The scan is too rough to double-check this quote by machine. Compare it with the page.
'A Tartarean law' and the image of 'some Tartar'
Editorial contextAt Nanchang, local graduates petitioned to have the Jesuits expelled. In Trigault's Latin their complaint says the foreigners had moved from cramped lodgings to grand houses, preached a 'tartarea' law, and handed out pictures of 'some Tartar or Saracen' they called God come down from heaven. The word play is Latin: tartareus means hellish, from Tartarus, while 'tartarus' here also means a barbarian foreigner. It is Trigault's rendering, not the petition's own Chinese wording.
that these same men at first lived in cramped lodgings, but have now bought others, roomy and magnificent; that they preach a Tartarean law and lead the ignorant crowd into deception … that they hand out certain images of some Tartar or Saracen, whom they said was God, who had come down from heaven to teach and set free mankind
Working translation
Original wording
Eos ipsos primum in angustis sedibus habitasse, nunc vero alias capaces atque magnificas coemisse, legem ab iisdem tartaream praedicari, rude vulgus in fraudem induci … eos certas imagines distribuere, nescio cuius tartari aut Saraceni, quem dicebant esse Deum, qui ad mortales instruendos liberandosque e caelo venerat
About Chinese scholars accusing the Jesuits; 'Tartar' as an insult
Keep in mind
A hostile petition summarised in Latin by the Jesuits' own historian.