The Horde and the Mongol Peace

The Horde, commonly called the Golden Horde, rose in the north-western part of the Mongol empire after the fall of Baghdad in 1258. It covered great parts of Russia, Kazakhstan, and eastern Europe. It was ruled by a coalition of nomadic leaders in association with a ruler. The ruler, bearing the title of khan, had to be a descendant of the eldest son of Chinggis-khan. Like most empires, the Horde was multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-cultural. What makes it nonstandard is that the nomads controlled the imperial centre. During three centuries, they held an empire in which the cooperation between nomadic and sedentary communities was key to the social balance. In this presentation, I intend to show how the nomads fashioned their own imperial entity, how they developed long-term strategies to control the access to the natural resources, the trade routes and the market places. I will focus on the period of the Mongol Peace (Pax Mongolica). Between 1260 and 1360, an unprecedented commercial boom transformed the human landscape in western Eurasia. This flourishing epoch is conventionally called ‘the Mongol Peace’ in reference to the post-conquest stability of the Mongol empires (ulus) and relatively peaceful relationships between the descendants of Chinggis-khan. The North-South itinerary (“the Fur Road”) interconnected with the East-West itinerary (“the Silk Road”), at the level of the lower Volga basin: the heart of the imperial Horde. In this area, two major ways were passable, the eastern one towards north India and China, the western one through the steppes and the Crimean peninsula towards the Mediterranean and the Middle East. As I will show, the Horde was not only the stage of this dramatic change, but also the nomads played the leading role in the new inter-regional order.