Broad chests, short legs, white skin: a Tartar portrait
Editorial contextThomas describes the invaders as terrifying to look at: short legs but huge chests, broad faces, white skin, beardless cheeks, hooked noses and small eyes set far apart. Their armour was made of ox hide in overlapping plates, light but, he says, impenetrable. It is one of the earliest European portraits of the Mongols, and notably it calls their skin white.
They present a very terrifying face: they have short legs but vast chests; the face is broad and the skin white, the cheeks beardless and the nose hooked, the eyes small and set wide apart. Their armour consists of coverings made of ox hides fitted together like plates, yet impenetrable and very safe.
Working translation
Original wording
Terrificum valde exhibent faciei aspectum, breves habent tibias, sed vasta pectora, lata est facies, & cutis alba, imberbis gena, & naris adunca, breves oculi spacio longiore disjuncti. Arma eorum sunt quaedam tegmina ex taurinis coriis laminarum more compacta, impenetrabilia tamen, & valde secura.
About Mongol warriors
Keep in mind
Second hand, and 'terrifying' is Thomas's judgement; other writers of the time describe Mongol features differently.
Unshod horses like wild goats; mare's blood with curdled milk
Editorial contextTheir horses, Thomas writes, were small but strong, able to bear hunger and toil, running over rocks without iron shoes like wild goats and content with a little straw after three days of hard work. The men too cared little for food: they disliked bread, ate any meat, clean or unclean, and drank curdled milk mixed with horse blood.
their horses short but strong, enduring hunger and toil … They run over rocks and stones without iron shoes, as if they were wild goats; after three days of continuous labour they are content with a little fodder of straw. The men likewise care almost nothing about taking food; they feed on cruelty alone, loathe the use of bread, eat the flesh of clean and unclean animals alike, and drink curdled milk with horse's blood
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Original wording
equos breves, sed fortes, patientes inediae, & laboris … Per rupes vero, & lapides absque ferramentis discurrunt, ac si caprae forent silvestres: Tribus enim continuis diebus labore quassati parvo stipularum pabulo sunt contenti, homines simili modo nil pene de alimentorum perceptione curantes, sola crudelitate pascuntur, usum panis abhorrent, mundorum & immundorum carnibus indifferenter utuntur, & lac concretum cum sanguine potant equino
About Mongol army
Keep in mind
'They feed on cruelty alone' is rhetoric; the horse blood detail echoes reports of Mongols bleeding their horses on campaign.
Graves trampled flat so no sign remains
Editorial contextThomas says the Tartars did not like to throw away their lives. If one of them fell in battle, the others at once carried him off, buried him in a very hidden place, levelled the mound and trampled the spot with their horses' hooves so that no sign of a grave could be seen. Hidden burial is also reported for Mongol rulers by later writers.
The Tartars themselves do not willingly expose themselves to death; but if one of them happens to die in battle, they carry him off at once, and taking him to a most hidden place bury him in the earth, levelling the mound and trampling the spot with the feet of their horses, so that no sign of a burial appears
Working translation
Original wording
Ipsi Tartari non se libenter morti exponunt, sed si quem eorum in bello mori contingat, statim rapiunt, & efferentes in occultissimo loco terra infodiunt, complanantes tumulum, & locum equorum pedibus conculcantes, ne quod sepulturae appareat signum
About Mongol warriors
Forty thousand axemen cut the road
Editorial contextKing Béla had blocked the mountain passes into Hungary with barricades of felled trees. Thomas says the Tartars had forty thousand men with axes marching ahead of the army, cutting down woods, laying roads and clearing obstacles, so that the great barricades of fir and oak were crossed as if they were made of straw, then broken up and burned.
they had forty thousand axe-bearers who went before the army, cutting down forests, laying roads and removing every obstacle from the approaches. Therefore they crossed the barricades that the king had had prepared as easily as if they had been built not of a pile of huge firs and oaks but of light straw
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habebant autem quadraginta millia securigeros, qui praeibant exercitum, sylvas caedentes, vias sternentes, & omnia offendicula ab ingressibus removentes. Quamobrem indagines, quas Rex parari fecerat, tam facile transcenderunt ac si non ex ingentium abietum, & quercuum fuissent extructae congerie, sed ex levibus essent stipulis praeparatae
About Mongol army
Keep in mind
The number is Thomas's figure from report, not a count.
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Tartar women fought like men
Editorial contextAmong the cruelties of the occupation, Thomas reports that the Tartars' women armed themselves like men and rode boldly into battle. He adds that they treated captive women even more savagely than the men did, killing good-looking ones out of jealousy and disfiguring others to make them servants. Mongol women travelling and sometimes fighting with the army are also mentioned by Matthew Paris's informants.
Moreover the women of the Tartars, girded with arms in the manner of men, charged boldly into battle like men; they raged more cruelly against captive women, for if they saw any with a more beautiful face, of whom they might in any way fear jealousy, they at once drew a sword and killed them
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Original wording
Praeterea mulieres Tartarorum virili more armis accinctae in pugnam audacter ferebantur, ut viri, hae in mulieres captivas atrocius saeviebant, si quas enim venustiori vultu cernebant, ex quibus zelotypiae motum possent aliquatenus formidare, statim extracto gladio perimebant
About Mongol women with the army
Keep in mind
An atrocity report Thomas did not witness.
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'In their own language they are called Mangoli'
Editorial contextThomas opens his chapter 'On the nature of the Tartars' by saying he will report what he could hear from people who had looked into the matter closely. Their land lies where the East meets the North, and in their own language they are called 'Mangoli', that is, Mongols. He adds that their country is said to border on 'further India' and names their king in a garbled form. So a Dalmatian writer of the 1260s already knew that 'Tartar' was not what these people called themselves.
Now I will tell a few things about the nature and dress of that people, as far as I could hear from those who investigated the matter more carefully. Their region lies in that part of the world where the East joins the North, and those peoples, in the proper usage of their own language, are called Mangoli. They say, however, that their land borders on further India
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Nunc vero de natura, & habitu gentis illius prout ab his audire potui, qui rem curiosius indagarunt, pauca narrabo: Est enim regio illorum in ea parte orbis sita ubi Oriens conjungitur Aquiloni, gentesque illae secundum proprietatem linguae suae Mangoli appellantur. Ferunt tamen quod terra illorum confinis sit ulterioris Indiae
About Mongols
Keep in mind
Thomas says plainly that this chapter is hearsay from informants.
'Tartar' from a river, or from a word for 'multitude'
Editorial contextThomas insists that 'Tartar' is not the people's own name. He offers two explanations he had heard: that they were named after a river flowing past their country, or that 'Tatar' means 'multitude'. The river story also appears in Matthew Paris; neither explanation is how historians now explain the name, which came from the Tatar tribe that the Mongols had defeated.
This name Tartars is not the people's own name, but they were so called from a certain river that flows past their region; or, according to some, Tatar means the same as 'multitude'
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Hoc autem nomen Tartari non nomen est gentis proprium, sed a quadam aqua, quae illorum praeterfluit regionem sic appellati sunt, vel secundum quosdam Tatar idem sonat, quod multitudo
About Mongols
Keep in mind
Both explanations are reports Thomas heard; he does not choose between them.
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Rumour: the Tartars will pile up a mountain to overtop the walls
Editorial contextWith the Tartars on the coast, Thomas says the people of Split started 'empty rumours'. Some said the Tartars were building huge siege machines to throw the towns down; others that they were heaping up earth and stones like a mountain, so they could stand higher than the cities and take them easily. Thomas himself calls these rumours vain and baseless: a record of fear, not of what happened.
They began to spread empty rumours, inventing vain and idle opinions. Some said that the Tartars were building huge machines and many instruments of war with which they were trying to throw down these cities; others asserted that they were heaping up a pile of earth and stones like a mountain, and so, rising above the cities, would easily capture them.
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Coeperunt autem vanos agitare rumores, confingentes opiniones vanas, & inanes. Dicebant alii quod ingentes machinas, & plurima instrumenta bellica Tartari fabricarent, quibus Civitates has deiicere conabantur; asserebant alii, quod ad montis instar terrae, ac lapidum congeriem acervabant, & sic Civitatibus supereminentes, facile eas esse capturos.
About Tartars as imagined by frightened citizens
Keep in mind
Thomas reports these as rumours he did not believe.
Scholars decide they are the peoples before Antichrist
Editorial contextAfter the Hungarian disaster, Thomas says, the whole world trembled. Even the emperor Frederick II was said to be thinking not of resistance but of a hiding place. Learned men searched old writings and concluded, above all from the prophecies attributed to Methodius, that these were the peoples who must come before Antichrist, and cities began fortifying themselves in case the Tartars marched on Rome.
Even Frederick, the Roman emperor, is said to have thought not of resisting but of a hiding place. Then many learned men, searching the old writings, conjectured, above all from the sayings of Methodius the Martyr, that these were those peoples who must come before the advent of Antichrist.
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Original wording
Ipse etiam Fredericus Rom. Imperator non de resistendo, sed de latibulo dicitur cogitasse. Tunc litterati plerique viri veteres scrutantes scripturas, conjiciebant maxime ex dictis Methodii Martyris has fore illas gentes, quae praecedere debent antichristi adventum.
About Tartars as seen by Latin scholars
Keep in mind
The claim about Frederick is gossip ('is said'); the Methodius prophecy is the Pseudo-Methodius apocalypse, which linked enclosed northern nations with the end of the world.
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The 'Tartars' Road' over Mount Vlaško
Editorial contextWriting four centuries later, the Trogir historian Giovanni Lucio (Ivan Lučić) explains why King Béla did not trust the island next to Trogir: the Hungarians knew that Tartars swam their horses across huge rivers. He then records a local tradition that the Tartars, leaving, rode past in the king's sight along the slope of Mount Vlaško, and that the road there had been called 'the Tartars' road' ever since, just as a nearby rock is still called the King's Rock.
the Hungarians, knowing that the Tartars were accustomed to cross very large rivers by swimming with their horses, feared that they would cross to the island of Bua as well … who, as they went away, passed in his sight along the slope of Mount Vlasko, having on that occasion left their name to the road, which from then on has been called the Tartars' road
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Original wording
sapendo gl'Ongari, che li Tartari erano soliti passare con Caualli à nuoto grossissimi fiumi, dubitassero, che passassero anco nell'Isola Bua … i quali nell'andar via passarono à vista sua sopra la costa del monte Vlasco, hauendo lasciato con tal occasione il nome alla strada, che d'indi in qua vien detta strada de Tartari
About Mongol army of Kadan (in local tradition)
Keep in mind
A place-name tradition recorded in 1674, not a medieval report.