1
of his younger brother, the second-born Batu,
Golden Horde Khanate
ISTVÁN VÁSÁRY
Loránd Eötvös University, Hungary
POLITICAL HISTORY
The Golden Horde Khanate was the western-
most part of the Great Mongol Empire
founded by Chinggis Khan (Genghis Khan).
The central part of the Golden Horde was
the huge Qipchaq (Kipchak) Steppe, country
of the former Cuman confederation. Its bor-
ders spread from the Irtysh River through
southwest Siberia, the Kazakh Steppe, and
the South Russian plain up to the Dniester
River. In the south the Crimean Peninsula,
the northern foothills of the Caucasus Moun-
tains, as well as the northern part of Khwar-
azm belonged to the Golden Horde. The
former Volga Bulgar state also became part
of the Golden Horde, and the Russian princi-
palities became its vassals. If we look at its
ethnic composition, the Mongols were in
the minority, and by the end of the 13th
century they became completely assimilated
into the Turkic (Cuman-Qipchaq and Bulgar)
population. Thus, the Golden Horde Khan-
ate, though organized by the Mongols, was
an empire with a Turkic majority.
According to the Mongol conception, the
entire empire was the property of the khan’s
family. Chinggis, the founder of the empire,
awarded the area of the Irtysh River and the
Altai Mountains to his first-born son, Jochi,
with the command to conquer the western
steppe, the Dasht-i Qipchaq, as well. The appa-
nages that Chinggis designated as his sons’ ter-
ritories were called ulus in Mongol. Jochi died
unexpectedly in 1227. His first-born son,
Orda, refused to succeed his father in favor
The Encyclopedia of Empire, First Edition. Edited by John M. MacKenzie.
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/9781118455074.wbeoe233
who became the first khan of the western
Mongol appanage, which was established in
the western part of the Mongol Empire.
In most sources it was called “Jochi’s ulus,”
but later the Russian term “Golden Horde”
(Zolotaia Orda) spread and became accepted
also in modern historical scholarship.
In 1236 the Mongol imperial assembly
called quriltai decided upon a large western
campaign, which was a common enterprise
of the whole Mongol Empire. First the Mon-
gols conquered the country of the Volga Bul-
gars and launched an attack against the
Russian principalities. Ancient Russian cities
such as Ryazan, Kolomna, Moscow, Vladimir,
and Suzdal fell one after the other, followed by
the southern principalities of Galicia and
Lodomeria. In 1240, Kiev, the ancient capital
city of Rus’, center of the Russian Church and
symbol of Russian statehood, also fell. The
road to Central and Western Europe now
stood open. Batu made his decision and the
Tatar forces rapidly advanced toward Poland,
Moravia, and Hungary.
One contingent of the Tatar forces moved
in the direction of Cracow. At Liegnitz (mod-
ern Legnica in Poland) the conquerors
defeated Duke Henry II of Silesia on April
9, 1241, two days before the army of King Béla
IV of Hungary was crushed on the plains of
Muhi. After running through Moravia the
Tatar troops hurried to unite with their com-
rades in Hungary.
Simultaneously with the Polish and Mora-
vian campaign, another Tatar force under
Batu crossed the Carpathians, while a third
group, under the warlord Qadan’s authority,
entered Transylvania. The situation of King
Béla IV of Hungary was hopeless, and after
the decisive battle of the Muhi plain the king
2
only narrowly escaped to Dalmatia. Batu’s
army then moved against Pest and butchered
the city’s population. Later, it captured
Esztergom, the royal residence and wealthiest
city of Hungary, following a siege. Qadan’s
Mongol troops set off to pursue Béla IV,
but having failed to catch the king they moved
through Serbian lands to Bulgaria, where they
united with the Tatar forces leaving Hungary.
The abrupt way the Tatars left Dalmatia and
Hungary can be explained by the arrival of
news of the Great Khan Ögedei’s death, which
caused them to return immediately, thus free-
ing Hungary from the immediate threat of
Tatar occupation.
Batu Khan chose the lower course of the
Volga River as the center of his newly
founded ulus. His forces lived a nomadic
existence along the Volga River: the summer
camps reached the territory near modern
Saratov, while the winter camps stretched
down to the huge delta region in the area
of modern Astrakhan. The lower Volga
region played an especially important role
as a meeting point of international caravan
and water routes, so it was not by chance
that in the early 1250s Batu founded a city,
Sarai, on the Volga delta, which became
the capital of the Golden Horde. Both Batu
and his successors encouraged the region’s
primarily Muslim traders by granting them
privileges.
Following Batu’s demise in 1255–1256, and
after a short period of rule by two successive
khans, Sartaq and Ulaghchi, Batu’s younger
brother, Berke, became khan in 1257. He
was an experienced leader who probably
adopted Islam before his accession to the
throne. Although his conversion to Islam
was a decisive event that paved the way for
its wider adoption, during his reign Islam
did not yet become the official religion of
the state. Berke was an energetic ruler who,
along with his predecessor Batu, can
be viewed as a true founder of the Golden
Horde. Batu created the framework of the
empire while Berke organized it into an actual
state. An important phase in the process of
consolidation was the census, ordered by
Great Khan Möngke in 1257 and instituted
throughout the empire in order to organize
the collection of taxes. The Tatar officials
who conducted the census and collected the
taxes were called basqaq in Turkic and daruga
in Mongol. Although they encountered oppo-
sition everywhere, all of the Russian principa-
lities were irrevocably placed under the
Tatars’ control.
Warfare against Mongol-led Persia took up
Berke’s reign. After the capture of Baghdad
(1258) by Hulagu, the Golden Horde and
the newly developed Iranian Mongol state
openly challenged one another. Although
Azerbaijan had completely come under Hula-
gu’s rule, a hundred-year-long struggle broke
out between the Jochids and the Hulaguids
for actual control of the territory. The Golden
Horde found a natural ally in Mamluk Egypt
in its struggle against Mongol-led Persia. In
the long run, the Golden Horde was unsuc-
cessful in obtaining Azerbaijan, which would
remain from this time forward in the hands of
the Il-Khans of Iran.
Mengu-Temur Khan (r.1267–1280) was
the first khan who was independent not only
de facto, but also de jure: the Great Khan in
China had no more voice in the workings
of the distant Golden Horde. As an expres-
sion of sovereignty, Mengu-Temur was
the first khan to mint coins in his own name.
During his reign, Italian (Genoese and Vene-
tian) trading colonies were founded in
the Crimea.
Mengu-Temur’s younger brother, Tuda-
Mengu, followed him on the throne
(r.1280–1287). He was a pious Muslim and
a weak ruler, who abdicated in favor of his
nephew, Tole-Bugha. But the rapidly increas-
ing political anarchy could not be halted even
by Nogai, himself a Jochid, who from the

1260s to his demise in 1300 dominated the
political life of the Golden Horde. He was a
mighty warlord who at the end of his life
adopted the title khan, but was considered a
usurper. Nogai first distinguished himself in
the Persian campaign of the 1260s. From
1265 onward, he was a constant protagonist
in the power struggles between Byzantium
and Bulgaria. The next khan, Toqta
(r.1290–1312), raised to the throne with
Nogai’s help, proved to be a capable ruler.
As he fought against the political anarchy,
he ultimately came into conflict with Nogai.
The final showdown occurred in 1300 at
Kugenlik, where Nogai died on the battlefield.
After Nogai’s death, the Golden Horde lost
the influence it once exercised in the Balkans,
Bulgaria, and the Byzantine Empire; and in
the 14th century, the Ottomans, who were
approaching the Balkans from Anatolia,
gained control there.
After Nogai’s defeat, Toqta Khan could
direct all of his energy toward empire-
building: he strengthened central authority
and promoted trade and urban culture. Dur-
ing the long reign of his successor, Uzbek
(1312–1344), the Golden Horde attained its
most illustrious period. Being a Muslim from
his youth, he promoted the Islamization proc-
ess initiated by Berke in the Golden Horde. As
a result, Islam spread and became firmly
rooted, and the Golden Horde became an
organic part of the Islamic world.
Owing to the relatively tolerant religious
policy of the Mongols, non-Muslim commu-
nities were able to live undisturbed. The
Russian Orthodox Church acquired a general
tax exemption and an Orthodox bishop
resided in Sarai. Catholic missionary orders,
especially the Franciscans, were active from
their main centers in the Crimea and in Sarai,
but their hopes of converting the Tatars
remained unrealized.
Among the Russian princes, the Grand
Prince of Vladimir was the most important
3
figure. The bestowal of the title belonged to
the jurisdiction of the khan of the Golden
Horde, thus it was an effective means of con-
trolling the Russians. In the 1320s, the new
Prince of Moscow, Ivan Kalita, gained the
grand princely title, and afterwards the Grand
Princes of Moscow acquired the right to col-
lect the taxes owed to the Tatars from their
fellow Russian princes; consequently, his
own authority and wealth grew. This eco-
nomic revival of northeastern Russia paved
the way for the political rise of Muscovy in
the coming centuries.
In 1357 during the reign of Uzbek’s son
Janibek (r.1342–1357), the century-old dream
of obtaining Azerbaijan was realized, largely
because a weakened Iran was no longer able
to resist in the long period of anarchy that fol-
lowed the death of the last Il-Khan, Abu Sa‘id,
in 1335. Janibek only briefly enjoyed the great
triumph of his life: en route back to Sarai he
died and was succeeded by his son Berdibek
(r.1357–1359), who shortly afterwards was
murdered.
Now the Golden Horde fell into total anar-
chy and did not constitute a unified political
state for the next 20 years (1359–1380). More
than 25 khans succeeded one another, and
intrigue, murder, and usurpation became eve-
ryday practice. Nothing illustrates more faith-
fully the chaos of the age than the coins issued
by the Tatar rulers. For example, within a
period of a single year (AH 762 = November
11, 1360–October 30, 1361 CE), the capital city
and political center Sarai changed hands no
fewer than six times judging by the khans’
names on the coins struck there (Mahmud
Khidr, Temur-khoja, Abdullah, Keldibek,
Ordu-Melik, and Murid).
Owing to the political chaos, the territory
of the Golden Horde began to shrink: in
1362 at Sinie Vody, the Lithuanians defeated
the Tatars and tore Podolia away from the
Golden Horde. Later, in 1365–1370, the
Lithuanians also wrenched Kiev from Tatar
4
hands. In the east the city of Urgench broke
away from the Golden Horde in the 1360s.
The Volga Bulgar territories and the region
of the Moksha River with Narovchat as its
center also became quasi-independent under
the rule of their local lords.
The territory west of the Volga, including
the North Caucasus and the Crimea, had
for a long time been controlled by Emir
Mamai, himself a non-Chinggisid warlord
and kingmaker. A conflict between Mamai
and the Russians soon emerged. During
Dmitrii Ivanovich’s reign (later called Dmitrii
Donskoi, r.1362–1389), Moscow’s influence
and economic strength were constantly on
the rise. In 1378, Dmitrii’s forces repulsed
the Tatar cavalry in the vicinity of the Vozha
River, and Emir Mamai wanted to avenge
this defeat, to which end he succeeded in
obtaining the military support of the Lithua-
nian Grand Prince and the Prince of Ryazan.
The Russian forces moving southwards
crossed the Don and met the Tatar forces
on the field of Kulikovo. The Russian Church
fully supported Dmitrii, and Sergei of Rado-
nezh, who would later be canonized as a saint,
gave his personal blessing to the army. Here,
in September 1380, the Russians gained their
first important victory over the Tatars since
their defeat on the Kalka in 1223. The Tatar
state, in the years after Kulikovo, quickly
revived, but the psychological impact of the
battle for the destiny of the Russian people
cannot be underestimated.
After more than 20 years of anarchy a
capable new khan emerged in the person of
Toqtamish, who originated from the terri-
tory of the left wing – the region of today’s
Kazakh Steppe, the eastern part of the former
Dasht-i Qipchaq, distinct from the territories
to the west of the Ural River called the right
wing. The two wings were also designated as
Kök Orda, “Blue Horde,” and Aq Orda,
“White Horde,” in the contemporary
sources, but there is such confusion in the
usage of these terms that even scholarly liter-
ature is divided concerning their definition.
The two Hordes did not have a common
name, since both were governed by the
Jochid khans. From the beginning, Batu
acknowledged his older brother, the first-
born Orda, as the khan of the left wing; how-
ever, the latter was not totally independent of
the right wing. Orda’s descendants held the
title khan, although they had to obey the
Batuid khans of the right wing ruling in
Sarai. They therefore did not have the right
to mint coins and had to participate in the
campaigns of the Golden Horde. Mubarak-
khoja was the first khan to mint coins in
the Blue Horde, in Sighnaq (1367–1368), as
a sign of independence.
His successor, Urus Khan, was overthrown
by Toqtamish, who ascended the throne in
1378–1379 with the effective support of
Timur Leng (Tamerlane). The latter was
overlord of the former Chagatai Khanate in
Central Asia, himself not a Chinggisid but
originating from the Turco-Mongol Barlas
tribe. Soon a clash between Toqtamish and
his patron, Timur, seemed unavoidable. In
1391 Timur organized a large campaign
against Toqtamish, and at the Qundurcha
River Toqtamish’s troops suffered a complete
defeat. In 1394, after crossing Derbent, he
attacked Timur’s territories in Persia and
Shirvan. Once again Timur emerged victori-
ous. Moreover, in the coming years, Timur
attacked and devastated Azak, Hajji-Tarkhan
(next to modern Astrakhan), and finally the
capital Sarai. These campaigns by Timur
shattered that section of the Eurasian caravan
route whose trade constituted the main eco-
nomic strength of the Golden Horde. These
cities, though partly rebuilt, could never
regain their former glory. Toqtamish’s rout
brought a decisive change in the life of East-
ern Europe, and it was primarily the Russians
who profited from the enfeeblement of the
Golden Horde.

In 1396 Timur devastated the Golden
Horde and Toqtamish became a refugee.
The new khan, Temur-Qutlugh (r.1397–
1400), was of course loyal to Timur. In
1396–1419, a new warlord emerged, Edigu,
whom we can consider the third king-maker
of the Golden Horde, similar to Nogai and
Mamai. He was a non-Chinggisid, the chief
of the Turco-Mongol Mangit tribe, core of
the later Nogai Tatars. Meanwhile, Toqtam-
ish had fled to Grand Prince Vitautas
(Witold) of Lithuania, who settled a part of
Toqtamish’s Tatars in Trakai (Troki), near
Vilnius (Wilno). In 1399, Toqtamish fled to
western Siberia where he died shortly after-
wards in Tumen (present-day Tyumen) in
1406. With Toqtamish’s demise, the possibil-
ity of resuscitating the former glory of a uni-
fied Golden Horde dwindled. The Tatars still
represented a power factor in the history of
15th- to 16th-century Central Asia and East-
ern Europe, but after Edigu’s death in 1419,
the Golden Horde disintegrated into regional
polities (the Khanates of Kazan, Kasimov,
Crimea, Astrakhan, Sibir’/Siberia, the Great
Horde, and the Nogai Horde), each one con-
sidering itself the legitimate successor to the
Golden Horde’s heritage.
STATE AND SOCIETY
The state and society of the Golden Horde
were a unique West Eurasian state formation
and social economic entity that must be
described and analyzed on their own. By
the time of Chinggis Khan’s (1167?–1227)
emergence, economic differentiation in the
Mongol tribes and clans strengthened, but
no steppe aristocracy existed as yet. Chinggis
Khan organized the nomadic warriors into a
strong military force, following the patterns
of all former nomadic empires beginning
with the Xiongnu. But the real novelty in
Chinggis’ case was that he was attempting
5
to form an irreversibly binding central
authority, the basic condition for which was
the crushing of the tribes. This took place in
its final form when Chinggis was chosen to
be Great Khan in 1206 and placed the unified
Mongol–Turkic tribal world under the
authority of his 95 newly appointed confidant
colonels.
The Mongols called the political authority
they established and extended over the tribes
and peoples of the empire ulus. In their view,
the entire collection of conquered peoples
and tribes was the property of the conquer-
ing clan. In our case, therefore, Chinggis
Khan and his clan (called altan urugh,
“golden branch”) was the possessor of the
Mongol ulus. The khan gave certain parts
of the empire for hereditary use to the royal
princes, and these parts were also designated
as ulus. First, the Great Mongol Empire fell
apart into four uluses, amongst which the
westernmost belonged to the elder son Jochi.
The gradual fragmentation of territories into
ever-newer uluses continued as a growing
number of Chinggisid princes acquired their
appanages. By the middle of the 14th cen-
tury many small appanage principalities
emerged within the larger ones, thereby giv-
ing way to centripetal forces. Although the
system described here in many respects dis-
plays features reminiscent of the European
feudal system, the two cannot actually be
equated.
Jochi’s ulus, which extended from the
Irtysh River to the Danube during the period
of its greatest expanse, was divided into two
parts from the very moment of its birth, fol-
lowing the dual division of the Mongol mili-
tary organization into right and left wings.
Batu ruled the western (right wing) part while
his elder brother Orda resided in the eastern
(left wing) part of the Golden Horde Khanate.
The two parts were practically independent,
but the actual primacy belonged to Batu
and his descendants.
6
The Golden Horde Khanate, as in all
nomadic empires, was created by conquest
and it was the military that ensured the exist-
ence of the state. Consequently, the whole
society was organized along military princi-
ples, which meant a centralized and hierar-
chical authority. The khan at the top of this
pyramid-like construction was an absolute
ruler who received his mandate to rule from
the Eternal Heaven. Although European
sovereigns also ruled by the grace of God
(Dei gratia), the khan’s power was really
absolute and unrestricted by any social force.
The next level was composed of the members
of the khan’s family, then the tribal and mil-
itary aristocracy who received both territories
and subjugated peoples (uluses) as donations.
This aristocracy was in total subordination to
the khan in everything. The merger of the
military and societal functions was indicated
by the fact that the leaders of the military
units were uniformly denoted by the terms
noyon in Mongol, beg in Turkic, and amir
in Arabic–Persian. These terms originally
referred to the members of the nomadic elite,
the hereditary tribal aristocracy. The tribal
chiefs who had submitted to the khan were
able to remain as leaders in the military estab-
lishment, although on the basis of service and
loyalty, and commoners who were pushing
into the higher military ranks from obscurity
could also become begs.
All Turco-Mongol tribal societies of Inner
Asia had their own unwritten customary laws
that regulated the life of society. Chinggis
Khan molded the Turco-Mongol customary
law into its final form and sanctioned it with
the strength of his own despotic power so that
it became, so to speak, the empire’s book of
laws and constitution. This collection of the
Mongol law was named yasak (or yasa).
Although Islam existed in the Golden Horde
from the reign of Berke Khan, it was only dur-
ing Uzbek’s rule (1312–1344) that it took
root. At this time, the Muslim law called
Sharia made its appearance in every facet of
life and began to push aside the Mongol law
from the administration of justice, so that
the rules of the yasak remained valid only
for military affairs. From the mid-14th cen-
tury onward Muslim religious officials and
institutions received ever-increasing recogni-
tion in the civil sphere of society.
The ethnic composition of the Golden
Horde was extremely heterogeneous.
In regions like China and Iran, where the
Mongols had encountered societies and states
possessing deep traditions of civilization, they
quickly became assimilated into the local
societies. In the case of the Golden Horde,
the Mongols conquered mainly Turkic peo-
ples who possessed nomadic traditions along
with agricultural and urban centers, the three
major ones being Khwarazm, Kazan, and the
Crimea. Here, the integration of the Mongols
into the local Turkic population occurred
fairly quickly.
The entire economic base of the Golden
Horde was created by nomadic pastoralists,
agriculturalists, and craftsmen. Members of
the nomadic elite occupied the tiny upper
section of the social pyramid, and they organ-
ized and held military and state power in their
hands. They exerted power over the other sec-
tions of society through the functioning of the
state apparatus and administration that origi-
nated from Chinggis’ time and were based on
Mongol–Chinese models. Later, with the
expansion of Islam in the Golden Horde,
the Iranian traditions of civil state adminis-
tration became more firmly rooted. By the
14th century the organized collaboration of
the nomadic and settled populations brought
forth social transformations and develop-
ments: the Golden Horde gradually changed
from a military state of nomadic origin
into an Islamic steppe empire in which
the military was dominated by nomadic
Turco-Mongol traditions, while the civil soci-
ety of agriculturalists and merchants was

governed by civil officials of the Islamic state
tradition. The main figures of civil adminis-
tration were the regents or governors that
ruled individual territories or cities. During
the reigns of the first khans these governors,
called daruga in Mongol and basqaq in Tur-
kic, carried out a census of the settled popu-
lation and imposed tribute on them. Among
the clerks of civil administration were Islamic
religious officials, such as muftis, kadis, and
secretaries and scribes. Officials of the taxa-
tion and financial apparatus came next, and
the last links of the administrative chain were
the leaders of the urban guilds and the bosses
of the agricultural and village communities.
In order to administer state affairs, a highly
developed chancellery system was needed.
This evolved from the traditions of the Mon-
gol chancellery, which itself went back to two
sources: the Uyghur-Turkic writing (from
which it had adopted the script, a large num-
ber of technical terms, and the style of com-
posing charters) and Chinese chancellery
traditions (whence it took over the use of
the square seal and tablets of authority).
These were the Inner Asian and Far Eastern
components of the Golden Horde’s chancel-
lery, but over time an ever growing influence
of Islamic literary tradition can be observed.
Above all, the official Uyghur script was grad-
ually replaced by the Arabic alphabet. These
impacts reached the Golden Horde primarily
from the Persian chancelleries of the age.
In sum, the chancellery of the Golden Horde,
as a drop in the ocean, shows the social and
cultural changes and influences that appear
in other aspects of its historical development
as well.
Aristocracy and nobility as they existed in
the European feudal societies of the age were
never institutionalized in the Golden Horde,
but the emergence of two kinds of privileges
granted by the khan displays similarities to
Western institutions of the same type. Their
appearance implies the transformation from
7
nomadic to feudal privileges. The early
Mongol tarkhan institution meant for the
privileged person mainly “negative” gifts: he
entertained tribute exemptions and legal
immunity for nine generations (which was
already hereditary). The other social institu-
tion, called soyurgal, appeared after the
mid-14th century as a technical term of
Mongol-Turkic origin. It arose simultane-
ously in Iran, Central Asia, and the Golden
Horde, and played a key role from 1350 to
around 1500 in the social and economic his-
tory of the period. Actually it meant a land
grant that was a “hereditary service posses-
sion.” The institution of soyurgal resembles
in many respects the fiefs (beneficium) of con-
temporary Western Europe.
ECONOMY AND TRADE
The main occupation of the conquering
nomadic tribes of the Golden Horde was ani-
mal husbandry. They bred primarily horses,
horned cattle, cows, sheep, and goats, and
they moved with their livestock from pasture
to pasture. The khan and lords lived in tented
camps, which gave the impression of large
“moving cities,” while the nomadic popula-
tion took cover in small camps, on many
occasions scarcely numbering a couple of
dozen tents. The Turco-Mongol nomads
lived in felt houses called yurt.
The Golden Horde annexed old agricul-
tural territories in Khwarazm, Volga Bul-
garia, and the Crimea. The peasant
population of Iranian and Turkic origin lived
here in small settlements or villages. But
urban centers such as Bulgar, Caffa, Sudak,
Eski Kirim, Azak, and Urgench also survived
and the Mongols placed governors at the
head of the cities who were responsible for
collecting tribute.
During the course of their conquests the
Mongols spared the lives of craftsmen and
8
carried them off as slaves. They collected
them by their thousands from Central Asia,
the Russian cities, the North Caucasus, the
Crimea, and Volga Bulgaria and settled them
in their newly founded cities that arose out of
the steppe. These craftsmen ensured the func-
tioning of urban life with their high-level
activities. Since the khan and his family’s pas-
tures lay along the lower Volga, and the delta
region of this river was an important junction
for trade between Khwarazm and the Crimea,
the construction of Sarai as the capital of
the Golden Horde was launched during
Batu’s lifetime. It was located in the region
around today’s Astrakhan near the village of
Selitrennoe.
In addition to being centers of handicrafts,
the Golden Horde’s older and newly built
cities were centers of international trade.
In an east–west direction the empire was situ-
ated on the ancient route of transcontinental
trade that tied China and Europe together
via the lower Volga region and the Crimea.
From the beginning, the plan to cash in on
the profits of trade guided the khans’ policy
for supporting cities and, after craftsmen, tra-
ders were the second most important group
in the Golden Horde’s cities. Traders, irre-
spective of their origin and nationality (they
included Greeks, Armenians, Italians,
Russians, Jews, and Turks), were all esteemed
and important individuals in the Tatar state.
The famous Pax Mongolica, “Mongol peace,”
guaranteed the security of trade and traders.
Among the most important theaters of
international trade were the ports built along
the shores of the Crimea and the Sea of Azov.
The Italians played a decisive role in this
Black Sea trade. Beginning in the 1260s,
Genoese traders settled in Caffa (near pres-
ent-day Feodosia). Although formally under
Tatar authority, in internal affairs the city
was independent under the jurisdiction of
a consul who represented the Genoese
Republic. Shortly after the capture of
Constantinople in 1453, Ottoman forces cap-
tured Caffa (1478), and as a result the Geno-
ese traders finally disappeared from this
region. Another city, Tana (near today’s
Azov), which was the main center of Italian
traders from Venice, existed for an even
shorter time: it could not overcome destruc-
tion by Timur Leng in 1395.
Muslim and Russian merchants had long
held sway over trade along the Volga, which
tied together the regions of the middle Volga
and the Ural Mountains with the Caspian Sea.
Consequently, during the period of the
Golden Horde, Muslim traders were found
everywhere in the Russian cities, counterparts
to the Russian traders who lived in the kha-
nate’s capital of Sarai. In the western half of
the khanate Poles and Lithuanians took over
an increasing part of the Golden Horde’s con-
tinental trade, the main centers of which were
Krakow and Lemberg (Lviv). The arrange-
ment of this vast trade activity was made pos-
sible by the excellent road network and the
system of postal stations (known as jam in
Mongol, yam in Turkic). The construction
of roads and building of stations were
undoubtedly priorities for the Mongols from
Ögedei Khan onward.
The most important goods for export and
import in the Golden Horde’s trade and com-
merce were leather, felt, furs, wax, incense,
types of grain, cheese, wine, salt, fish, spices,
silk, and fabric. Silk was obtained first of all
from China, while incense came from India.
However, the most important and profitable
branch of international trade, which went
through the Crimea, was the slave trade.
The slave trade directed toward Egypt
(Alexandria) was carried on by Muslim tra-
ders in order to supply the Egyptian army
with slave-warriors (called Mamluks).
Although no written records were made relat-
ing to the cargo, state contracts between the
Golden Horde and Egypt constantly fixed
and regulated the slave trade. In contrast,

Genoese and Venetian profiteers, who were in
charge of the slave trade toward Europe, accu-
rately recorded every stage of the sale in con-
tracts certified by their notaries.
The Golden Horde’s external and internal
trade was settled with few exceptions
through the circulation of money. The mint-
ing of coins and the exchange of money
existed in three areas: Volga Bulgaria, the
Crimea, and Khwarazm. The right to mint
and issue coins was strictly the monopoly
of the state and the ruler. The first independ-
ent coins of the Golden Horde were minted
in 1266–1267 in Eski Kirim in the name of
Mengu-Temur Khan. From the beginning
of the 13th century silver coins (dirhems)
minted in Sarai became the norm for the
entire empire and played a decisive role in
money circulation. For minting, large stocks
of silver had to be accumulated that origi-
nated primarily from tribute payments from
the Russian principalities. After the begin-
ning of the 14th century, hand in hand with
the decay of the capital, the minting of coins
stopped in Sarai and continued only in the
Crimean, Volga Bulgar, and Astrakhan terri-
tories. By the second half of the 14th century,
the Golden Horde as a predominantly Mus-
lim empire worked out and implemented an
intricate system of taxation based on Islamic
law, which contained numerous taxes, cor-
vées, and customs duties, and only a few ele-
ments of the former Mongol tributes
remained.
WORLDVIEWS, RELIGIONS,
AND CULTURES
Customarily, the primeval worldview of the
Turkic and Mongol peoples is described by
the word shamanism, the shaman being
the person who mediated between the spir-
itual and terrestrial worlds. But a higher
being or God (called tengri) also existed in
9
this worldview, which could also be termed
a primitive monotheism. This system of
beliefs enabled the Mongols to be tolerant
and open to all religions. Thus in the 13th
century, certain Mongol lords were Nesto-
rian Christians while others were Buddhists,
others again were Muslim, but all of this did
not fundamentally influence their world-
view. The khans confirmed tax exemption
everywhere for clergy of the different reli-
gions, the sole requirement being to pray
on the khan’s behalf. The Mongols were
convinced of the divine mandate given to
Chinggis and his royal clan, and held the
obedience of subordinates to the khan and
their superiors as the highest moral stand-
ard. Thus, their imperial ideology and uni-
versal claim for world power was based on
and buttressed by serious religious
principles.
But soon the victorious religion of Islam
appeared and spread throughout the khanate.
Not that Islam was previously unknown to
them: two important regional blocs of the
Golden Horde’s population, namely Khwar-
azm and Volga Bulgaria, were already
Islamized at the time of the Mongol conquest.
The first khan of the Golden Horde who
adopted Islam was Batu’s younger brother
and successor, Berke. However, he funda-
mentally remained a follower of the yasak,
and the adoption of Islam signified for him
a political orientation through which he
entered into a diplomatic relationship and
alliance with Mamluk Egypt against Iran.
But after a long period of religious openness,
an era of complete conversion followed.
Uzbek, the greatest ruler of the Golden
Horde, adopted Islam in 1313 upon his ascent
to the throne. He was the first Muslim ruler of
the Golden Horde who immediately banished
shamans and Buddhists from the empire
while making Islam the state religion. In the
14th century, Islam made its way down to
the level of the wider population and became
10
the sole religion of the people. All the Islamic
institutions were established and came to full
flower.
Christianity was tolerated as a religion and
was represented mainly by the Russian
Orthodox Church. However, in the early dec-
ades of the Golden Horde, Catholic missions
were very active since the Tatars’ conversion
was part of a wider political plan that would
have set the “Christian” Tatars against the
Muslim power in the Middle East. Dominican
and Franciscan missionaries (the monk Julian
in 1236–1237, John of Plano Carpini in 1247,
and William of Rubruck in 1251–1255), set
out on journeys with the goal of widespread
proselytization, but the complete victory of
Islam in the mid-14th century thwarted their
hopes.
The Golden Horde Khanate was a multi-
lingual and multicultural state. The conquer-
ing Mongols (Tatars) were in the minority
from the start, and by the end of the 13th
century the Mongol idiom ceased to be spo-
ken with the absorption of the Mongol-
speaking nomads into the Turkic-speaking
majority. From the beginning, the mass of
the Golden Horde’s population spoke Turkic
languages, and from the mid-14th century
they produced Islamic literary works written
in their own idioms. In addition, Armenians,
Greeks, and Jews in the Crimea and the cap-
ital city of Sarai cultivated their own, above
all religious, literature in their own languages
and scripts.
SEE ALSO: Chaghadai Khanate; Crimean
Khanate; Egypt: 4. Late medieval
(including Syria: Ayyubid, Mamluk); Genoese
Republic; Il-Khanate Empire; Kazakh Khanate;
Kazan Khanate; Lithuania, Grand Duchy of;
Mongol Empire, Great; Nogai Horde; Russia:
2. Moscow, Grand Duchy of (13th century to
1547); Sibir’, Khanate of; Timurid Empire;
Venetian Empire; White Horde Khanate;
Xiongnu Empire
FURTHER READING
DeWeese, D. 1994. Islamization and Native Religion
in the Golden Horde: Baba Tükles and Conversion
to Islam in Historical and Epic Tradition. Univer-
sity Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Egorov, V. L. 1985. Istoricheskaia geografiia Zolotoi
Ordy v XIII–XIV vv. (A Historical Geography of
the Golden Horde). Moscow.
Grekov, V. D. and A. JI. Iakubovskiĭ. 1950. Zolotaia
Orda i ee padenie (The Golden Horde and
its Fall). Moscow and Leningrad. New edition,
Moscow, 1998.
Halperin, C. J. 1985. Russia and the Golden Horde:
The Mongol Impact on Medieval Russian His-
tory. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Hammer-Purgstall, J. von. 1840. Geschichte der
Goldenen Horde in Kiptschak, das ist: der Mon-
golen in Russland. Pest: C. A. Hartleben’s Verlag.
Ostrowski, D. 1998. Muscovy and the Mongols:
Cross-Cultural Influences on the Steppe Frontier,
1304–1589. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press.
Spuler, B. 1965. Die Goldene Horde. Die Mongolen
in Rußland 1223–1502. Wiesbaden: Otto
Harrassowitz. First published Leipzig, 1943.
Thackston, W. M. (Trans. and Ann.) 1998–1999.
Rashiduddin Fazlullah’s Jami’u’tawarikh:
Compendium of Chronicles. A History of the
Mongols, I–III. Sources of Oriental Languages
and Literatures 4. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Tizengauzen, V. G. 1884. Sbornik materialov,
otnosiashchikhsia k istorii Zolotoi Ordy, Volume
1. St. Petersburg. New edition of the Russian
translations, without the original Arabic texts,
Moscow, 2004.
Tizengauzen, V. G. 1941. Sbornik materialov,
otnosiashchikhsia k istorii Zolotoi Ordy, Volume
2. Moscow and Leningrad. New edition of the
Russian translations, without the original Per-
sian texts, Moscow, 2004.
Vásáry, I. 2009. “The Jochid Realm: The Western
Steppe and Eastern Europe.” In P. B. Golden,
N. di Cosmo, and A. Frank (Eds.), The Cam-
bridge History of Inner Asia, Volume 2: The
Chinggisid Age: 67–85. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Vernadsky, G. 1953. The Mongols and Russia
(A History of Russia, Volume 3). New Haven:
Yale University Press.