Mud and dung huts in winter, round houses on carts in summer
Editorial contextBroniewski, the Polish envoy who spent nine months in the Crimean khanate, describes Tatar winter villages called 'ulus': huts of very thin wood daubed with mud and animal dung and roofed with reed. In April the Tatars leave them with wives, children and slaves, carrying round felt-covered houses that barely hold four or five people on two-wheeled carts drawn by camels or oxen, and return in October.
Tartar huts, which the barbarians commonly call 'vlnsi' (evidently ulus, a misprint), made like villages of very thin wood, plastered with mud or muck and the dung of cattle or animals, and roofed with reed ... But in summer and autumn the Tartars do not live in these huts, for in April, with wives, children, household and slaves, they are carried with their houses, which are round, covered with penulae (felt coverings), and scarcely roomy enough for four or five people to live in, on carts resting on two wheels ...
Working translation
Original wording
tugurijs Tartaricis, quæ vulgo vlnsi à Barbaris nominantur, ac vt pagi ex tenuissimis lignis, limo vel cœno stercoribusque pecorum seu animalium obliti, facti, & arundine tecti sunt … Verùm æstate & in autumno Tartari in eis tugurijs non degunt, nam in Aprili cum vxoribus, liberis, familia, mancipijs ac domibus, quæ rotundæ penulis obsitæ quatuor vel quinque hominibus ad degendum vix commodæ sunt, & in carris rotis duabus sustentatis … vehũtur.
About Crimean and Nogai Tatars (Broniewski's 'Tartars')
A note on this quote
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Bakhchisaray: a stone palace, and mosques built from Christian ruins
Editorial contextThe khan lives in a stone house in Bakhchisaray, a town between two mountains with a small river through it. Broniewski says the stone mosque and the khans' tombs were built from the ruins of Christian buildings. Next to it lies the town of Salachik, and a palace of the khans that, he says, the early Tatar princes adorned with buildings, mosques, tombs and baths. So he credits Tatars as builders, reusing older stone.
He has a not undistinguished town, and a principal stone house in which he always lives, called Bakhchisaray. ... A stone Muslim temple and the tombs of the khans have been built near the town out of the ruins of the Christians. ... The palace or house of the khans was sumptuously and magnificently adorned by the early princes of the Tartars with buildings, temples, tombs and baths.
Working translation
Original wording
Oppidum non ignobile, & domum lapideam primariam, in qua ille semper residet, Baccasaraium nuncupatam ille habet. … Mahometicum templum lapideũ, & sepulturę Chanorum ex ruinis Christianorum penes oppidum exstructæ sunt. … Chanorum Regia vel domus à priscis Tartarorum Principibus sumptuosè ædificijs, templis, sepulturis, & balneis magnificè exornata est.
About Crimean Tatars (Giray khans)
Keep in mind
The claim about Christian ruins is his reading of reused stone; he did not see the building work.
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Ruined castles and cities credited to the Greeks
Editorial contextBroniewski notes very deep wells cut by the old Greeks or the ancient peoples who lived in Crimea before them, and frequent, very large Greek ruins of castles, cities, churches and monasteries in the mountains and forests. They had stood empty so long that their names were lost. He does not credit these ruins to the Tatars.
very deep wells, of wonderful depth and difficulty, cut and made long ago by the ancient Greeks or by those very ancient and great peoples who inhabited the peninsula before the time of the Greeks ... very ancient and very large Greek ruins of castles, cities, churches and monasteries are found very frequently; having lacked inhabitants for many ages, they have lost their names through the antiquity of the times.
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Original wording
fontes seu putei altissimi mira profunditate & difficultate à veteribus Græcis seu populis illis antiquissimis & maximis, qui eam Peninsulam ante Græcorum tempora incolebant, quondam excisi & facti … arcium, ciuitatum, templorũ, monasteriorumq; antiquissimæ & maximæ Græcæ ruinæ frequentissimæ admodum reperiuntur, quæ cum multo sęculo habitatoribus caruêre propter antiquitatem temporũ cognomina sua amiserũt.
About Crimean Tatars (present), ancient Greeks and earlier peoples (builders)
Keep in mind
'Greek' covers Byzantine, Gothic and Genoese remains; he guesses builders from style and local lore.
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Wooden houses 'in the Turkish style', and crafts left to slaves and foreigners
Editorial contextThe Tatars build wooden houses much in the Turkish manner, but they themselves very rarely practise crafts. Whatever merchants or artisans are found in the towns are Christian slaves or Turks, Armenians, Jews, Circassians and Roma. Fields are worked by captive Hungarians, Russians, Muscovites and Moldavians. This is a direct statement of who built and made things in the khanate.
They build wooden buildings and houses very much in the Turkish manner ... but they very rarely practise the mechanical arts, and whatever merchants or artisans are found there are either Christian slaves, or Turks, Armenians, Jews, Circassians, Piatigorians who are Christians, 'Philistines' or Gypsies, men of obscure and the lowest condition.
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Original wording
Aedificia & domus ligneas similes admodum Turcico more ædificant … mechanicas autem artes rarissimi exercent, & quicunq; mercatores vel artifices ibi reperiuntur, vel Christianorum mancipia, vel Turcæ, Armeni, Iudæi, Cercesij, Petigorenses, qui Christiani sunt, Phylistini vel Cyngani obscurę & extremæ conditionis homines sunt.
About Crimean Tatars; Christian slaves, Turks, Armenians, Jews, Circassians, Roma
Keep in mind
A diplomat's generalisation; it ignores Tatar artisans who certainly existed in towns like Bakhchisaray.
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Walls rebuilt after the Tartar fire, a Kremlin by Italians
Editorial contextPossevino classifies Muscovite fortresses: some of stone and brick, some of earth banks woven with wicker and rammed hard, some of squared timbers filled with earth. Moscow's outer wall of the wattle and earth kind was put up after 'the Tartar fire', while the two stone citadels of Moscow were built for Ivan's father Vasily by a Milanese architect with Italian workmen. Here the Tartars burn, and Italians build.
Some are of stones and bricks, like the two that adjoin the city of Moscow ... Others are of earth banks woven with wicker and pressed hard: such is Smolensk, and the circuit of the walls of Moscow itself, raised after the Tartar fire. ... The two citadels of Moscow were ordered built by this prince's father Vasily, with a Milanese architect and Italian workmen.
Working translation
Original wording
Aliæ ex saxis, et lateribus, quales duæ sunt, quæ ciuitati Moscuæ hærent … Aliæ aggeribus vimine contextis, & ad duritiem pressis: quale Smolencium est, ipsiusq; Moscuæ mœnium ambitus, post Tartaricum incendium excitatus. … Arces autem Moscuæ duas Principis huius parens Basilius ædificari iussit, Mediolanense architecto, Italis operarijs.
About Muscovites (the Tartars appear as destroyers)
Keep in mind
The attribution of the Kremlin works to Italian masters is broadly right, though Possevino compresses the history (much was done under Ivan III as well as Vasily III).
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Kurgans on the steppe: battle markers or tombs
Editorial contextCrossing the steppe toward Ochakiv, Broniewski saw very high, large and numerous mounds called 'mogily'. Most people, he says, hold that they mark great and bloody battles or are the tombs of famous men, which he thinks reasonable. He does not say the Tatars built them.
Mounds or tumuli, commonly called mogily, very high, very large and very numerous, are seen, which, as most people assert, and as seems likely and consistent with reason, are the surest signs of once very great and very bloody battles, or the tombs of illustrious men.
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Original wording
Cozles seu tumuli vulgò Mogilij dicti altissimi maximi & frequentissimi maximorum ac cruentissimorum, vt plurimi asserunt, ac verisimile, rationiq; consonum videtur, quondam bellorum certissima signa; seu illustrium virorum sepulturæ cõspiciuntur.
About Unknown builders; Tatars and Cossacks roam the area
Keep in mind
Explanation from common opinion; most such kurgans are much older burial mounds.
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Crimean guides who led a Turkish army to starve
Editorial contextAsked how the Muscovites had inflicted a great defeat on the Turks when a river diversion was attempted, Possevino's informant said it was not the Muscovites but the Crimean Tatars who did it. Though allies of the Turks, they feared a heavier yoke if the scheme succeeded, so they offered themselves as guides and led the Turkish troops through vast forests and foodless country until nearly all died of hunger and toil.
... the Muscovite had inflicted [so great a defeat on the Turks], when he had ordered the Don to be diverted into the Borysthenes: he answered that this was done not by the Muscovites but by the Precop Tartars, though allies of the Turks, who resented the scheme because they foresaw a heavier yoke hanging over them. So, offering themselves as guides to the Turkish forces, they led them round through huge forests and places without supplies, so that almost all of them perished of hunger and toil.
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Original wording
cladem Moscus intulisset, cùm Tanaim deriuari iussisset in Boristhenem: respondit, hoc non à Moscis, sed à Tartaris Præcopensibus, licèt Turcarum fœderatis, accidisse, ægrè ferentibus id fieri, vnde grauius sibi iugum pendere prospicerent. Quamobrem cùm sese duces itineris Copijs Turcicis exhibuissent, per ingentes syluas, & loca commeatus egena, eas circumduxisse, vt fame, ac labore pleræq; omnes fermè interierint.
About Crimean ('Precop') Tatars; Ottoman Turks
Keep in mind
Hearsay. The river named is garbled: the real 1569 Ottoman plan was a Don to Volga canal to reach Astrakhan (a reader of this copy wrote 'Volgam' in the margin).
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Millet porridge, mare's milk and distilled spirit
Editorial contextMost Tatars, Broniewski says, neither plough nor sow but live from horses, camels, cattle and sheep. The nobles have bread, meat, distilled spirit and mead; the ordinary people have no bread but eat pounded millet mixed with milk and water, called 'cassa', and drink mare's milk and eat cheese. Worn-out camels, horses and oxen are slaughtered for meat.
many do not till fields or sow, but abound in horses, camels, oxen, cows, cattle and sheep, and live from them. The nobles, however, have bread, meat, food, burnt wine and mead to drink; the rustics lack bread, but use pounded millet diluted with milk and water, which they commonly call cassa, for food, and mare's milk and cheese for drink.
Working translation
Original wording
plurimi etiam agros non colunt, nec serunt, equis, camelis, bobus, vaccis, pecoribus & ouibus abundant, ac inde victitant. Nobiliores tamen panem, carnes, cibum, vinum crematum & mulsum potum habent, agrestiores verò pane carent, verùm milio concusso, lacte & aqua diluto, quem cassa vulgo nominant, pro cibo, pro potu lacte equino & caseo vtuntur.
About Crimean Tatars
A note on this quote
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Raids that emptied the countryside
Editorial contextExplaining why Muscovy seemed half empty, Possevino lists plague, wars and the constant Tartar raids, including the burning of the capital twelve years earlier. Abandoned ploughland and young forest showed where people had once lived, while the north stayed well peopled because the Tartars never raided there. He checked this with Italian and Spanish captives freed through him who had walked across the country.
... and the continual raids of the Tartars, and the capital itself burned by them twelve years ago ... But the abandoned fields, and the young woods that have grown up everywhere, are signs of formerly more numerous inhabitants: although the regions that lie north of Moscow have a fairly dense population, because the Tartars have not raided there, and they enjoy a healthier climate.
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Original wording
Tartarorumq; continentes excursiones, ipsaq; ab ijsdem ante duodecim annos combusta Regia … At verò dedolati agri, & recentes Syluæ, quæ passim succreuerunt, indicia sunt frequentiorum anteà incolarum: licèt quæ regiones supra Moscuam versùs Septentrionem vergunt, eæ admodùm frequentes incolas habeant, quòd excursiones illuc Tartari non fecerint, & salubriore cœlo fruantur
About Crimean and Nogai Tatars (raiders)
Keep in mind
Part observation, part report from freed Italian and Spanish captives; war with Poland and famine also emptied the land.
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Muslim Tatars in the streets of Vilnius
Editorial contextIn a polemical letter to King Stephen Bathory, Possevino points to Vilnius, capital of Lithuania, where the king could see on one side 'faithless Tartars' and schismatic Ruthenians and heretics of many kinds, and on the other many Catholics. The Tartars are 'faithless' because they follow Muhammad. It is a glimpse of the settled Muslim Tatar community of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
You came not long ago to this city, the capital of Lithuania. Here you see on one side faithless Tartars and schismatic Ruthenians, and various kinds of heretics, and on the other side very many Catholics. And the Tartars indeed because they follow Muhammad, the Ruthenians because with their schism they have drunk in many errors
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Original wording
Venisti non ita pridem ad hanc ciuitatem Lituaniæ caput. Hic vides ex altera parte perfidos Tartaros & schismaticos Ruthenos, ac varia hæreticorum genera, ipsos autem ex altera parte Catholicos plurimos. Et Tartari quidem, quoniam Mahometem sectantur, Rutheni autem quoniam cum schismate multos errores hauserunt
About Lithuanian Tatars
Keep in mind
Religious polemic; it tells us Tatars were a visible Muslim group in Vilnius, not how they lived.
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Muslims who learned letters and law from the Turks
Editorial contextThe Crimean Tatars are Muslims with mullahs and mosques and write in Arabic letters, somewhat cruder than the Turks'. Broniewski believes that before they came into Crimea they were a wild steppe people without Muslim laws, letters or customs, and that the nobles learned 'civility' and the faith from the Turks.
Those Tartars are Muslims; they have priests and Muslim temples, and use Chaldaic or Arabic letters, somewhat more corrupt or rougher than the Turks', although before they came into Taurica or the peninsula that wild steppe people seems to have had much ruder manners ... for it then wholly lacked those Muslim laws, rights, letters and customs.
Working translation
Original wording
Tartari illi Mahometani sunt, presbyteros & templa Mahometica habent, literis Chaldaicis vel Arabicis à Turcis paulò corruptioribus vel rudioribus illi vtuntur, etsi antequam in Tauricam seu Peninsulam venerant, moribus multo agrestioribus gens ea fera & campestris … fuisse videntur: nam illis Mahometicis legibus, iuribus, litteris & moribus illa tum prorsus caruit.
About Crimean Tatars
Keep in mind
His view of their earlier 'wildness' is a guess, not something he could observe; the Golden Horde had adopted Islam long before.
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Nine months without hearing of a single lawsuit
Editorial contextJustice follows Muslim law: cadis judge in the towns, beys in the villages, and the khan with his council decides capital and property cases. Even the poorest Tatar or foreigner can put his case to the khan in person without lawyers or delays. Broniewski says that in more than nine months there he never heard of a criminal or civil case or a feud among them.
For Tartars of the lowest condition, or foreigners, set out their wrongs quite freely by themselves before the judges and the khan himself, by whom they are always heard and quickly dispatched ... I stayed there more than nine months, and never heard that any criminal or civil action had taken place among them, nor any settlement made on account of feuds.
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Original wording
Extremæ enim conditionis Tartari vel peregrini homines coram Iudicibus & Chano ipso, à quo semper audiuntur, & celeriter expediuntur, iniurias suas ipsi per se liberè admodum exponunt … Mensibus amplius nouem ibi ego mansi, nec audiui prorsus aliquem actum criminalem, nec ciuilem inter eos contigisse, nec inimicitiarum causa compositionem aliquam obtigisse.
About Crimean Tatars
Keep in mind
An envoy kept under escort saw little of daily disputes; the praise also serves as a rebuke to his own society.
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'Czar' is a Tartar word, not 'Caesar'
Editorial contextAt the peace talks Possevino mediated, the Muscovite envoys begged that their master be styled 'Czar of Kazan and Astrakhan'. Possevino replied that Kazan and Astrakhan were not important enough to add a new imperial title, and that if the emperor allowed it, it should be understood that 'Czar' did not mean Caesar but a royal title 'used by the Tartars'. A few pages on (n166) the Polish side refuse to call a Christian prince by 'a Tartar or Turkish title, like that Tartar Czar'.
that he be called Czar of Kazan and Astrakhan ... Kazan and Astrakhan were not so great a matter that a new title, as of another Caesar, Emperor or King, should be added. If the Emperor did it, it should be known that the word Czar does not mean Caesar, but something else used by the Tartars, signifying a kind of royal title.
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Original wording
vt ille Czar Casani, & Astracani diceretur … non esse tantam rem Casanum, & Astracanum, vt nouus titulus quasi alterius Cæsaris, Imperatoris, vel Regis addatur. Si Cæsar id fecerit, sciri vocem istam Czar non Cæsarem, sed aliquid aliud à Tartaris vsurpatum, quasi Regium titulum designari.
About Muscovite envoys; the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates as sources of the title
Keep in mind
Possevino's etymology serves his argument; the Russian title tsar does derive ultimately from Caesar, though Muscovites also used it for the Tatar khans.
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Descendants of Chinggis, come from the Volga
Editorial contextBroniewski says the Tatars moved gradually into the steppe between the Don and the Dnieper and reached Crimea about 160 years before his time. Their khans were anciently called the 'Cyngisson' line (descendants of Chinggis Khan), all tracing descent from one khan he calls Lochtonus, the first ruler of Crimea. On the previous page he says these Crimean or Perekop Tatars sprang from and were named after the Volga (Rha).
Further, it is clear that they advanced gradually into the plains between the very famous, deep and great northern rivers Tanais or Don and Borysthenes, and reached Taurica or the peninsula a hundred and sixty years ago or a little more. ... The line of the khans or princes of those Tartars was anciently called the Cyngissons, from which came a certain khan Lochtonus, from whom all the khans take their origin.
Working translation
Original wording
Porrò inter celebratissimos, altissimos & maximos Tanaim seu Donum & Boristhenẽ Septentrionis fluuios in campos paulatim progressos fuisse, ab annis verò centum sexaginta, vel paulo amplius in Tauricam seu peninsulam eos peruenisse manifestè apparet. … Chanorum vel Principum Tartarorum illorum Cyngissonum genus antiquitus nuncupatum fuit, ex quo Lochtonus quispiam Chanus, à quo vniuersi Chani ortum trahunt.
About Crimean Tatars and their Giray khans
Keep in mind
'Lochtonus' is a garbled name (probably Toqtamish); the dates are approximate lore.
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Muscovites 'descended from Scythians and Tartars'
Editorial contextIn a hostile character sketch of the Muscovites, Possevino claims that most of them descend from or are mixed with Scythians and Tartars, which in his view explains their cunning and suspicion. He adds that the grand princes' pride grew from the time they freed themselves from the Tartars, 'whose tributaries they had been'. This is Counter-Reformation polemic, not ethnography.
These things are plainly seen in the Scythians and Tartars, from whom most of the Muscovites take their origin or of whom they are made up, so it is no wonder they have not yet put off that nature which piety has refined and overcome in other nations. ... Since these three things have been in the Grand Dukes of Muscovy above all from the time when they freed themselves from the Tartars, whose tributaries they had been
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Original wording
Ea in Schytis, & Tartaris perspicuè cernuntur, ex quibus cùm pleriq; Moscorum originem ducant, aut constent, mirum non est, quòd hactenus naturam illam non exuerint, quam pietas in alijs nationibus excoluit, ac vicit. … Quæ tria cùm in Magnis Moscouiæ Ducibus ab eo potissimùm tempore fuerint, quo se à Tartaris, quorum erant tributarij, in libertatem asseruerunt
About Muscovites; Tartars as their supposed ancestors and former overlords
Keep in mind
A prejudiced generalisation; 'Scythians and Tartars' is a stock label for steppe peoples, not a genealogy he could check.
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A Tartar emperor in Asia who keeps Christian rites
Editorial contextThe same informant adds that the 'Cham', emperor of the Tartars in Asia, lives not far from the Circassians and still keeps many Christian rites because his people were once converted. This is an echo of the medieval Prester John and Christian khan legends, repeated as current news.
He added, moreover, that the Cham, Emperor of the Tartars in Asia, is not far from that people, and still keeps much of the Christian rites, since they once came over to our faith.
Working translation
Original wording
Adiecit autem, Cham, Tartarorum in Asia Imperatorem, non procul ab ea gente abesse, qui multum adhuc rituum Christianorum retineat, cũ olim ad fidem nostram accesserint.
About 'Cham, emperor of the Tartars in Asia'
Keep in mind
Rumour with no named ruler or place; by 1580 no Christian 'Cham' ruled near the Caucasus.
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