The word for a dwelling was 'yurt'
Editorial contextIn the merchants' glossary the Latin word 'mansio' (dwelling, lodging) is given in Persian as 'manzel' and in Cuman as 'yurt'. Kuun adds that the word is widespread across the Turkic languages and compares the Mongol 'ger' (house). The steppe word for home and camp-place was the same word English later borrowed for the felt tent.
dwelling (Latin) / manzel (Persian) / yurt (Cuman) … A word widespread in the domain of the languages of Turkic origin. Compare Mongolian ger, 'house', 'dwelling'.
Working translation
Original wording
mansio manxel yurt … Vox late patens in dominio linguarum turcicae originis. Cf. mongolicum ger «domus», «habitatio»
About Cumans (Qipchaqs)
Keep in mind
A glossary entry, not a description; 'yurt' in Cuman meant a dwelling place or homeland rather than specifically a felt tent.
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A sorceress is a 'kam khatun', a shaman woman
Editorial contextUnder the verb 'to divine' the glossary gives the Cuman 'kamlik etermen', literally 'I do shamaning', and a later hand added 'incantatrix' (enchantress) as 'kam katun kisi', a shaman-woman. 'Kam' is the old Turkic word for a shaman. The steppe people living around the Italian colonies still had words for shamans and women diviners.
I divine: (Persian) ram mikunam / (Cuman) kamlik etermen, (also) ranzilik etermen … enchantress: she is a kam khatun person (a shaman woman).
Working translation
Original wording
adiuino ram mecunem kamlik etermen ranzilic etarmen … incantatrix kam katun kisi dir
About Cumans (Qipchaqs)
Keep in mind
Kuun notes the 'incantatrix' line was added by a later hand.
Checked against the page image (the corpus OCR misreads 'kamlik' as 'kamhk').
The Lord's Prayer in the language of the Horde
Editorial contextThe German Franciscan part of the Codex contains Christian texts turned into Cuman for preaching. This is the start of the Lord's Prayer: 'Our father who art in heaven, blessed be thy kingdom, thy will be done as in heaven so on earth, give us this day our daily bread'. Elsewhere in the Codex the word for God is 'Tengri', the old Turkic name of the sky god, as Kuun's word index shows.
Our father who art in heaven. Blessed be thy kingdom (khanate). Thy will be done, as in heaven so on earth. Give us today our daily bread.
Working translation
Original wording
Atamis kim köctä sen. Algiszle bulsun senig hanlechin. bulsû senig tilemegin nezikkim kocta alley ierda. kundegi ötmackimisni bisga bugun bergil.
About Cumans (Qipchaqs)
Keep in mind
A missionary translation, so it shows the language, not the beliefs of the people who spoke it. 'Kingdom' is rendered with the Turkic word for a khan's realm.
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A riddle: 'like a white tent, with no door'
Editorial contextThe Codex preserves Cuman riddles, the oldest recorded Turkic riddles. This one runs: 'Like a white tent, it has no mouth. That is the egg.' Kuun reads 'akkoy' as 'ak ev', literally 'white house', and renders it 'the tent of a new bride'. The riddle draws on the everyday sight of a tent, the home of the people who told it.
Like a white tent (ak ev), it has no mouth. That is the egg.
Working translation
Original wording
[6,] akkoy mania avzu joh. ol jumurtka.
About Cumans (Qipchaqs)
Keep in mind
Kuun's footnote on the page explains 'akkoy' as 'ak ev', 'tentorium novae nuptae' (the tent of a new bride); the gloss depends on his reading.
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One language and one script 'in all these kingdoms'
Editorial contextKuun quotes a Franciscan missionary from the order's annals: he decided first to learn the language of the land, and 'by the grace of God' learned Cuman and the Uighur script, which were used in common 'throughout all these kingdoms'. It shows the Horde as a literate world with a shared Turkic language and an old Uighur script, not a land without writing.
But I, after taking counsel, wished first to learn the language of the land, and by the grace of God I learned the Cuman language and the Uighur script, which language and script are used in common throughout all these kingdoms.
Working translation
Original wording
Ego vero, consilio habito, prius volui linguam terrae addiscere, et per gratiam Dei addidici linguam Cumanicam et literaturam Uiguricam, qua quidem lingua et literatura utuntur communiter per omnia regna ista
About Cumans and Tatars of the Golden Horde
Keep in mind
The missionary is not named on this page; Kuun cites the annals of the Friars Minor (Rome, vol. VII).
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In the Cumans' own language, 'Tatar' simply meant 'Turkic'
Editorial contextKuun's index of the Cuman words in the Codex gives the entry 'Tatar' as meaning 'a Turk' or 'Turkish', and the phrase 'tatar til' ('Tatar tongue') as meaning plain, sincere speech. So the merchants and friars who compiled the book heard the steppe people use 'Tatar' for their own Turkic language, not for a lost empire. The phrase occurs on page 229 of the Codex.
Tatar: 'a Turk', 'Turkish'; tatar til: 'honest (plain) speech', page 229.
Working translation
Original wording
Tatar «Turca», «turcicus», tatar til «sermo sincerus» pag. 229.
About Cumans (Qipchaqs) of the Golden Horde
Keep in mind
Kuun's gloss of 'tatar til' as 'sermo sincerus' is his reading of a phrase in the German part of the Codex; later editors (Bang, Gronbech) revised many of his readings.
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Hungarian hymns called the Cumans 'Tartars'
Editorial contextKuun shows how loosely the name was used in medieval Hungary. Hymns to St Ladislaus sometimes call the Cumans 'Tartars', and the chronicler Thuroczy says the chief of the Cumans whom King Stephen II took in (in 1129) was himself named Tatar. This is more than a century before the Mongol invasion of 1241, so 'Tatar' here is a personal name and a label for steppe Turks, not for the Mongols.
In the old Latin and Hungarian hymns of St Ladislaus the Cumans are sometimes called Tartars … Thuroczy, in his Chronicle, likewise names the supreme chief of the Cumans received into Hungary by King Stephen II 'Tatar': 'King Stephen loved the Cumans at that time; their chief, named Tatar, had fled with a few men to the king from the slaughter by the (Greek) emperor'.
Working translation
Original wording
In antiquis hymnis latinis et hungaricis sancti Ladislai Cumani interdum Tartari nuncupantur … Thuroczy in suis Chronicis, Cumanorum a rege Stephano II in Hungariam receptorum summum ducem itidem Tatar nominat: «Rex autem Stephanus, diligebat Cumanos tunc temporis; quorum dux nomine Tatar, qui a cede imperatoris (Graecorum), cum paucis, ad regem fugerat»
About Cumans (Qipchaqs) in Hungary
Keep in mind
Kuun is assembling medieval Hungarian testimony; Thuroczy wrote in the 1480s about events of 1129.
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Islam among the Cumans was called 'the Tartar rite'
Editorial contextKuun notes that Islam had spread among the Cumans and that later Latin church writers called their religion 'the Tartar rite'. He quotes John, deacon of Kukullo, saying that King Louis I of Hungary had the Cuman people, 'wrapped in the Tartar rite', converted to Catholicism. So in church Latin 'Tartar' could simply mean 'Muslim steppe people'.
The Muhammadan religion … spread also among the Cumans, and later Latin church writers called this religion of the Cumans 'the Tartar rite', for example John, deacon of Kukullo: 'He (namely Louis I, king of Hungary) also had the Cuman people, wrapped in the Tartar rite, converted to the Catholic faith'.
Working translation
Original wording
Religio Muhammedanica … etiam apud Cumanos propagata fuit, eam Cumanorum religionem scriptores ecclesiastici latini posteriores «ritum tartaricum» nominabant, ita e. g. Joannes diaconus Küküllőiensis: «Hic etiam gentem Chomanorum, ritui Tartarico involutam … ad fidem Catholicam converti procuravit (scilicet Ludovicus I. rex Hungariae)»
About Cumans in Hungary
Keep in mind
Kuun's statement that the Cumans were Muslims is his interpretation; many Cumans were pagan.
Checked against the page image; a dash in the printed quotation is replaced by an omission mark.
Inscribed Cuman tombstones in a Moravian church? The editor doubts it
Editorial contextKuun quotes the Czech Jesuit Bohuslav Balbin, who said that near Ivancice and the Oslavany convent there was a church whose floor was paved almost entirely with Cuman tombs and stones inscribed in their letters, 'as I saw myself'. Kuun says plainly that he hardly believes it. It is a good example of a striking claim reported and then doubted by the editor himself.
'There survives even today some memory of the barbarians not far from Ivancice and the Oslavany convent: a notable Christian church in which very many tombs of the Cumans and stones carved with their letters are to be seen, with which stones almost the whole floor of the church is paved, as I saw myself.' For my part I would hardly think this story of Bohuslav's true.
Working translation
Original wording
«Superest hodieque aliqua barbarorum memoria non procul Evanczicio et Oslovanensi Coenobio, insigne templum Christianorum, in quo plurima Cumanorum sepulchra et saxa litteris illorum incisa spectantur, quibus saxis totum fere Templi solum stratum est, ut ipse vidi.» Ceterum hanc Bohuslavi narrationem ego quidem vix veram esse putaverim.
About Cumans
Keep in mind
Balbin claims to have seen the stones; Kuun doubts it, and no such Cuman inscriptions are known.
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