Houses built on wheels and covered in white felt
Editorial contextRubruck opens his description of the Tartars with their homes. The sleeping-houses sit on wheels, are made of interlaced wooden laths that rise to a smoke-hole like a chimney, and are covered with white felt smeared with lime, white earth or powdered bone so that they gleam. He stresses that the Tartars have no fixed dwelling and divide the steppe from the Danube eastward into seasonal pastures.
The houses in which they sleep are set on wheels … [made of] interlaced pieces of wood, and they come together at the top in an opening like a chimney, and they cover this with white felt, which they coat with lime or earth
Working translation
Original wording
Les maisons où ils habitent pour dormir sont fondées sur des rouës … des pieces de bois entrelassées, & abboutissent en haut en vne ouuerture comme vne cheminée, & couurent cela de feutre blanc, qu'ils enduisent de chaulx ou terre
About Tartars (Mongols of the Golden Horde)
Keep in mind
A margin note has run into the line after 'rouës'; the omitted words are garbled.
Twenty-two oxen to pull one house
Editorial contextRubruck took a tape to a Mongol wagon-house. He measured one at twenty feet between the wheels, with the house overhanging them, and counted twenty-two oxen, eleven abreast on each side, hauling it, with an axle as thick as a ship's mast. On the same page he says the felt roof was painted and the door-felt embroidered with vines, trees, birds and beasts.
They have some of these houses so large that they are a good thirty feet long: for I once took the trouble to measure one that was a good twenty feet from one wheel to the other, and when the house was set on it, it overhung the wheels. … And I counted up to twenty-two oxen drawing one of these houses, eleven on one side and eleven on the other.
Working translation
Original wording
Ils ont de ces maisons-là de telle grandeur, qu'elles ont bien trente pieds de long : car i'ay pris la peine quelquefois d'en mesurer vne qui auoit bien vingt pieds d'vne rouë à l'autre : & quand ceste maison estoit posée dessus, elle passoit au delà des rouës. … & ay conté iusqu'à vingt-deux bœufs pour traisner vne de ces maisons, vnze d'vn costé, & vnze de l'autre.
About Tartars (Mongols of the Golden Horde)
The silver tree that poured four drinks at Karakorum
Editorial contextBeside Möngke's palace at Karakorum stood a great silver tree made by a captive Parisian goldsmith, Master Guillaume. Four silver lions at its foot and pipes hidden in the trunk delivered wine, kumiss, honey-mead and rice beer, and a silver angel on top blew a trumpet (worked by a man hidden inside) to call the servers. It is a vivid case of a Mongol showpiece built by a foreign craftsman.
this Master Guillaume had made him a great silver tree, at whose foot were four lions, also of silver, each with a pipe or channel from which mare's milk flowed. The four pipes were hidden in the tree, rising to the top and flowing down from there. On each of these conduits were gilded serpents whose tails wound round the trunk of the tree.
Working translation
Original wording
ce M. Guillaume luy auoit fait vn grand arbre d'argent, au pied duquel estoient quatre lyons aussi d'argent, ayans chacun vne pipe ou canal d'où sortoit du lait de iument. Les quatre pipes estoient cachées dans l'arbre, montans iusqu'au sommet, & de là s'escoulans en bas. Sur chacun de ces muids ou canaux y auoit des serpens dorez dont les queuës venoient à enuironner le corps de l'arbre.
About Mongols (court of Möngke Khan); Guillaume Boucher, a Parisian goldsmith
A Russian husband who built houses for the Tartars
Editorial contextAt the Mongol court Rubruck met Paquette, a woman from Metz captured in Hungary, who had married a young Russian. She told him her husband was expert in building, 'an art much valued and needed among the Tartars', and that a Parisian goldsmith was working at Karakorum. The Mongols' building work, in other words, was often done by captives from conquered lands.
having a young husband from Russia, by whom she had three fine children; and her husband was very skilled at building, which is an art much esteemed and in demand among the Tartars. She also told us that at Karakorum there was a Parisian goldsmith named Guillaume Boucher
Working translation
Original wording
ayant vn ieune mary de Russie, dont elle auoit trois beaux enfans, & son mary s'entendoit fort aux bastimens, qui est vn art bien estimé & requis entre les Tartares. Elle nous donna encor aduis qu'à Caracarum il y auoit vn Orfeure Parisien, nommé Guillaume Boucher
About Tartars (Mongols); Paquette of Metz and her Russian husband
Cuman grave mounds, statues and brick towers on the steppe
Editorial contextCrossing the steppe, Rubruck describes the tombs of the Cumans, the Turkic people the Mongols had conquered there. They raised a mound over the dead with a statue facing east holding a cup; for the rich they built little pointed houses, and he saw great brick towers and stone houses in a land without stone. The same page notes that nobody knew where Chinggis Khan was buried.
As for the Cumans, they are accustomed to raise a mound over the grave of the dead man and set up a statue for him facing east … For the rich and great they put up pyramids, or little pointed houses, and in some places I saw great towers of brick, and in others houses built of stone, although no stone is found in those parts.
Working translation
Original wording
Pour les Comans, ils ont coustume d'esleuer vne motte ou tertre sur la sepulture du mort, & luy dressent vne statuë la face tournée à l'Orient … Aux riches & Grands ils dressent des pyramides, ou petites maisons pointuës, & ay veu en des endroits de grandes tours de brique, & en d'autres des maisons basties de pierres; encores qu'en ces quartiers là on n'y trouue point de pierres.
About Cumans (Qipchaqs), under Mongol rule
Keep in mind
These are Cuman (Qipchaq) monuments, not Mongol ones; Rubruck does not say who built the brick towers.
A tent for two thousand people at Güyük's election
Editorial contextAt the assembly that elected Güyük Great Khan, Carpini found a huge tent of white purple cloth which he reckoned could hold more than two thousand people, ringed by a wooden palisade painted with figures. The chiefs changed the colour of their robes each day. A few pages on he describes another tent, the 'Golden Horde', on pillars covered with gold plates fixed with gold nails.
There we found a very large tent of white purple, so large, in our opinion, that it could hold more than two thousand people. Around it they had set up a scaffold or palisade of wood, covered with various figures and paintings.
Working translation
Original wording
Nous trouuames là vne tente de pourpre blanc tres-grande, voire telle, à nostre aduis, qu'elle estoit capable de tenir plus de deux mil personnes. A l'entour d'icelle on auoit fait esleuer vn eschaffaut ou palissade de bois, remply de diuerses figures & peintures.
About Tartars (Mongol princes and chiefs)
Round felt tents, some carried whole on carts
Editorial contextCarpini gives his own short description of Mongol dwellings: round, tent-shaped, built of slender rods, with a round window at the top for light and smoke, a central fire, and felt walls, roof and door. Some can be taken apart and loaded on pack animals; others travel whole on carts pulled by one ox or by several.
Their dwellings are round, shaped like tents, and made with very slender rods and sticks; and on top, right in the middle, there is a round window through which the light comes in and the smoke goes out, for they always make their fire in the middle; the walls and roofs of these dwellings are covered with felts … Some are very easy to take down and put up again
Working translation
Original wording
Leurs logemens sont ronds, en forme de tentes, & faits auec des verges & bastons fort deliez; & au dessus, droit au milieu, y a vne fenestre ronde, par où la lumiere entre, & la fumée sort; car ils font tousiours leur feu au milieu: les parois & toits de ces logis sont couuerts de feutres … Quelques-vnes sont fort aisées à deffaire & refaire
About Tartars (Mongols)
How kumiss is made, and what it tastes like
Editorial contextRubruck explains the Mongols' summer drink, fermented mare's milk. Foals are tethered on a line so the mares let themselves be milked; the milk is churned in a skin with a club until it bubbles like new wine and turns sour. He found it prickled the tongue, left a taste of almonds and could make a weak head drunk; a clear black kind, cara-cosmos, was kept for the great.
they pour it into a skin or other vessel, where they beat and stir it very well … it begins to bubble like new wine, then to turn sour like leaven … it stings the tongue like rough wine when you drink it. When you have finished drinking, it leaves a taste of almonds on the tongue and greatly cheers the heart
Working translation
Original wording
ils le versent dans vn outre, ou autre vaisseau, là où ils le battent & remuent tres-bien … cela commence à boüillir comme du vin nouueau, puis à s'aigrir, comme du leuain … cela pique la langue comme feroit du vin raspé quand on le boit. Lors que l'on a acheué de boire, cela laisse sur la langue vn goust d'amande, & resioüit grandement le cœur
About Tartars (Mongols)
A great man buried sitting in his tent, with a mare and foal
Editorial contextCarpini describes the secret burial of a Mongol noble: he is buried out on the steppe with his tent, seated before a table with a bowl of meat and a cup of mare's milk, with a mare and foal and a saddled horse. Another horse is eaten and its skin, stuffed with straw, is raised on four poles, so the dead will have a home, milk and horses in the next world. His name may not be spoken for three generations.
they bury him secretly in the open country, with his tent, and he is seated in the middle of it, with a table in front of him and a bowl full of meat and a cup of mare's milk; they also bury with him a mare and her foal, and a horse saddled and bridled; and they eat another horse, whose skin they stuff with straw
Working translation
Original wording
on l'enterre secrettement en la campagne, auec sa loge, & est assis au milieu d'icelle, auec vne table deuant luy, & vn bassin plein de chair, & vne tasse de lait de iument; On enterre aussi auec luy vne iument, & son poulain; & vn cheual sellé & bridé: & mangent vn autre cheual, dont ils remplissent la peau de paille
About Tartars (Mongols)
Keep in mind
Carpini did not witness a noble burial; he reports Mongol practice as described to him.
Bergeron's guesses: a river Tartar, or Syriac for 'abandoned'
Editorial contextIn his Traicté, Bergeron lists Hayton's seven Mongol nations and offers two origins for the name: a river called Tartar, or a Syriac word meaning 'the abandoned', favoured by those who made the Tartars descendants of the ten lost tribes of Israel. He reports claims that some northern hordes bore the tribal names Dan, Zabulon and Naphtali, but on the next page calls the theory weak, resting on an apocryphal book.
The name Tartar, Tatar or Totar comes from the river Tartar, or from the word Totar or Tatar, which in the Syrian language means 'forsaken' or 'abandoned', according to the opinion of those who would make them descend from the ten tribes of Israel exiled in Media and afterwards come to the land of Arsareth.
Working translation
Original wording
Le nom de Tartar, Tatar, ou Totar, vient du fleuue Tartar; ou du mot Totar, ou Tatar, qui en langage Syrien veut dire delaissez, ou abandonnez, suiuant l'opinion de ceux qui les veulent faire descendre des dix lignées Israëlites releguées en Medie, & depuis venuës au pays d'Arsareth.
About Tartars (Mongols and their subject peoples)
Keep in mind
Compiled speculation; Abel-Rémusat (W261) later dismissed both etymologies and the river Tartar as imaginary.
Men with ox feet and dogs' faces by the northern ocean
Editorial contextIn his account of Mongol campaigns Carpini passes on marvels: far north, beyond the Samoyeds who live by hunting and wear only skins, the Tartars met at the Ocean monsters shaped like men but with ox feet and dogs' faces, who spoke a few words and then barked. On the facing page are the Parossites, with tiny mouths, who live only on the steam of boiled meat.
From there they came as far as the Ocean sea, where they found monsters which in every other respect had the form of men, but they had the feet of oxen and faces like a dog.
Working translation
Original wording
De là ils paruindrent iusqu'à la mer Oceane, où ils trouuerent des monstres, qui en tout le reste auoient forme d'hommes, mais ils auoient des pieds de bœuf, & le visage fait comme vn chien.
About Tartars (Mongol armies) and fabled northern peoples
Keep in mind
Carpini never went to the far north; these are travellers' tales in the classical tradition of dog-headed peoples.
The scan is too rough to double-check this quote by machine. Compare it with the page.
Gog and Magog shut behind a rock at the end of the world
Editorial contextBergeron retells what French chroniclers such as Joinville and Nangis had heard from envoys: the Tartars said that at the northern end of the earth a rock no one could pass shut in the peoples Gog and Magog, whom Bergeron equates with the Mongal of other writers and the Moal the Tartars call themselves, destined to come with Antichrist at the end of the world. Behind the rock lay the sandy desert where the Tartars lived as tributary herders until Chinggis roused them.
the peoples called Goths and Magoths were shut in (who are the Gog and Magog of Scripture, the Mongal of other writers and the Moal of the Tartars themselves). And that these people were to come at the end of the world with Antichrist.
Working translation
Original wording
estoient enclos les peuples appellez Goths & Magoths (qui est le Gog & Magog de l'Escriture, & le Mongal des autres Escriuains, & le Moal des Tartares mesmes). Que ces gens-là deuoient venir à la fin du monde auec l'Antechrist.
About Tartars (Mongols), as imagined by medieval French chroniclers
Keep in mind
Secondhand legend; the chroniclers' 'Tartar origin story' is already filtered through biblical expectation.
A shaman's night séance and a demon on the roof
Editorial contextRubruck describes how Mongol diviners answered the Khan's questions: meat is laid in the middle of the house at night, the shaman mutters charms, beats a drum on the ground, raves and is tied up, and the 'devil' comes in the dark to eat and give answers. He then repeats a story from the goldsmith Guillaume about a hidden Hungarian who heard the demon shrieking on the roof, unable to enter because a Christian was present.
the one who performs the invocation begins to mutter his charms and, holding a drum in his hand, beats it hard against the ground, and throws himself about so that he becomes as if beside himself and begins to rave; then he has himself bound tight; then the devil comes in the darkness of the night and gives him some of the meat to eat
Working translation
Original wording
celuy qui fait l'inuocation commence à murmurer ses charmes, & tenant vn tabourin en la main, le frappe fort contre terre, & se demene & agite en sorte qu'il deuient comme hors de soy, & commence à resver, puis il se fait lier bien serré; lors le diable vient durant l'obscurité de la nuict, & luy donne à manger de ces chairs
About Tartars (Mongol shamans)
Keep in mind
Rubruck did not attend such a séance; the roof-demon story comes secondhand from Master Guillaume, and he frames it all as devil-worship.