The Public Defense of the Doctoral Dissertation of STEPHEN POW
on
CONQUEST AND WITHDRAWAL: THE MONGOL INVASIONS OF EUROPE IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY
will be held on
Thursday, 26 March 2020, at 10:00 in the
Monument Building, TIGY Room Central European University (CEU)
Budapest, Nádor u. 9 Examination committee
Chair: László Kontler, CEU Department of History
Members: Balázs Nagy, CEU Department of Medieval Studies (primary supervisor) József Laszlovszky, CEU Department of Medieval Studies (associate supervisor)
Katalin Szende, CEU Department of Medieval Studies László Veszprémy, Péter Pázmány Catholic University External readers:
Christopher P. Atwood, University of Pennsylvania (present) Roman Hautala, University of Oulu (present)
István Vásáry, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest (present)
The doctoral dissertation is available for inspection on the CEU e-learning site.
Should you wish to access it, please contact Csilla Dobos (dobos@ceu.edu)
Summary of the Doctoral Dissertation
In this dissertation, my aim is to provide an explanation for the abrupt Mongol withdrawal from Europe in 1242. A lesser aim is to explore the Mongols’ intentions during their exchanges with European powers for the next half-century. Scholars have long debated the withdrawal and as yet no explanation has the wide consensus of
experts; it remains a mystery in part because the primary sources say so little about what prompted it. I have attempted to offer a thorough, holistic analysis of source references to the initial invasion and its short- and long-term aftermath, combined with the use of relevant archaeological findings. Since the Mongol leadership expressed a desire to conquer Hungary and Europe, before and after their first invasion, we must ask why they withdrew in 1242, and did not subsequently incorporate much of Europe into their
unified empire (or its successor states after 1260). The failure to follow up on their ultimatums demanding surrender could imply that the Mongol leadership was somehow deterred from carrying out their project. The present work represents a deviation from persistent ideas that still prevail in the scholarship. Since the twentieth century, the idea is popular in the general and scholarly literature that Europe had been “saved” through no merit of its own, but in my view, the evidence for resistance invites a more complex and nuanced explanation of these events; 1242 withdrawal was a complex event
stemming from multiple drivers.
Regarding methodology, I have analyzed the four major theories for the Mongol withdrawal in approaching this historical problem. Recently, a clearer picture of the 1242 invasion and the surrounding context has been offered scholars working in diverse fields, their research being made widely available. Thus, this dissertation is a “re-
visiting” of all the relevant issues, especially pertaining to the first Mongol invasion, the reasons for the withdrawal, and the subsequent role of the Golden Horde in Europe. I use a comparative approach to the primary sources on the Mongol Empire which are incredibly diffuse in terms of genre as well as geographic and literary contexts,
emerging from authors writing in Persian, Chinese, Mongolian, Russian, Latin, Arabic, Greek, French, Turkic, etc.While it poses linguistic challenges, one of the advantages for a researcher is the huge range of sources. Relevant materials were recorded in such distant geographical and linguistic contexts that it is often unlikely their authors could have influenced each other. Nevertheless, there is often remarkable correlations in their descriptions of historical episodes or the Mongols’ habits. With the assumption that the similar descriptions we encounter largely reflect real conditions and events rather than the identical biases and misrepresentations of the Mongols employed by the respective
sedentary authors, my approach has been to never squander the wide-ranging comparisons which allow us to better approach specific events and issues tied to Mongol-European interactions. A major implication emerged from this methodology:
the assertions found in the Latin sources that the 1241-42 campaign was very difficult for the Mongol side cannot be dismissed merely as wishful thinking since we find complementary claims by authors outside of Europe, even under Mongol auspices.
Regarding structure, Chapter 1 is largely devoted to outlining the first invasion of Europe and the larger westward advance of the Mongols (1236-44), while drawing attention to some problematic issues that persist in the scholarly discussions. For the subsequent chapters, I followed a precident set by Greg S. Rogers over two decades ago for exploring the four main theories for the withdrawal – the “political” theory; the
“geographical” (and climatic-environmental) theories; the “military weakness” theory;
and the “gradual conquest” theory. I approach theories for the withdrawal obliquely, asking specific questions which bring focus to the crucial issues at play. Chapter 2 looks into Mongol preconceptions of Europe and Hungary, as well as the conventional theory that the Mongols withdrew from Europe owing to the death of Ögedei Khan.
Chapter 3 analyzes arguments which attribute the Mongol withdrawal to environmental or climatic factors, and also explores the explanation that the Mongols never intended a lasting conquest in 1241. Chapter 4 explores the merits of the theory that strong
resistance compelled the Mongols to withdraw, and while I do not agree with this theory as it has appeared in past works, this is the explanation in which we see some European sources showing agreement with the scanty materials on the events recorded outside of Europe. Thus, I then present my own explanation of a complex series of factors that likely brought about the withdrawal. Chapter 5 pertains to the oft-neglected details of Mongol-European relations for the remainder of the thirteenth century which reveal that the Mongols still intended to subjugate Europe, even as reforms in East-Central Europe reduced the likelihood that a lasting conquest could be achieved. Across the entire region, fortification reforms and social adaptations reinforced the ability of those areas to combat future invasions. As a result, the major Mongol inroads of the 1280s against Hungary and Poland were military failures, though weather-related factors contributed to those outcomes.
Conclusions. Based on this “revisiting” of the existing explanations for the Mongol withdrawal in 1242 and the following half-century of Mongol-European interactions, some conclusions emerge. A first key point is the Mongol ideology of world conquest seems to have been the driving factor behind the invasion of Europe in 1241. Thus, the purpose behind invading Hungary was the same that motivated other
Mongol invasions across Eurasia: subjugation of territory, its ruler, and its people to the divinely chosen Chinggisid dynasty whose mandate was to rule the entire world. The evidence is overwhelming that this objective applied to the whole of Europe since the Great Khan sent that message with his (extant) seal on it, intended for the pope. The recorded formulae we see in such ultimatums sent by Chinggisid khans in the 1200s were not topoi dreamt up by sedentary authors in distant settings, writing in different genres. Rather, this topos of a Mongol ideology of world conquest originated from their highest decision makers.
Secondly, the initial invasion of Hungary was a startling success in terms of military history, but the occupation of Hungary was only a partial success. Archaeology corroborates that the destruction of the country was in part, rather than total. Many regions of the kingdom still had troops and a healthy population, and there were still unconquered countries in the vicinity so that Hungary was a salient for Batu’s forces. A consistent message emerging the sources is that the stiff resistance encountered there was a problem for the Mongols, despite the enormous defeats and slaughters they inflicted on the local population. A third point is that fortifications played an important role in the defense of parts of Europe and the survival of segments of the population in affected regions. Broad and massive fortification reforms took place across the entire region of East-Central Europe after 1242. While we have textual records of failed
Mongol sieges, perhaps a much better indication of fortifications’ usefulness can be seen in the costly and labor-intensive construction projects that were undertaken as a response throughout the thirteenth century. One might take it that there was a prevailing feeling across the region that such reforms were worth the effort. A fourth consideration is that when the Mongols did pull back from the heartland of the Kingdom of Hungary, their subsequent movements, documented in Rashid al-Din’s work and elucidated by other sources, do not create a picture of an army rushing back to Inner Asia owing to some political contingency. In fact, there is much evidence that they moved in the direction of Constantinople.
A fifth conclusion, related to methodology, might represent that most worthwhile historiographical contribution this study can make. It relates to the problem of unrelated written sources. So often, medievalists are keen to see narrative structures, topoi, and the rules of genre at play in the surviving texts, shaping narratives. In the case of Mongol attacks on Europe, we see independent sources in multiple genres that could not possibly have influenced each other corroborating and complimenting one another. Moreover, other types of evidence such archaeological findings and environmental data seem to help corroborate the picture in the textual sources. I would argue that in this type of
situation, as we often encounter in research of the Mongol Empire in general, we should consider our textual sources very circumspectly before dismissing their claims as mere narrative structures rather than descriptions of events which actually occurred.
Curriculum Vitae
Education
2014– PhD in Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary 2009–2012 M.A. in History, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada
1999–2003 B.A. in Ancient & Medieval History, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada
Selected Fellowships, Grants, Awards
2019 Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Armenian Communities Project Grant 2017-2019 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Canada
Conference Papers and Talks Relevant to the Dissertation
2019 The Mysterious Battle in Hayton’s Manuscript, the Death of Batu, and Russia’s St. László Legend. Eighth International Conference on Medieval History of the Eurasian Steppe Nomads and their Neighbors in the Middle Ages – Sofia University, Sofia, Bulgaria – November, 2019
2019 Mongol Defeats in Europe: Baseless Rumors or Real Events? Presentation Organized by the Slovak Archaeological Society (Slovenská archeologická spoločnosť) under the Institute of Archaeology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences – The Slovak National Museum, Bratislava, Slovakia – September 2019
2019 What Did ‘Mongol’ Mean? Proposals on the Evolution of the Tatar and Mongol Ethnonyms in the Thirteenth Century.” VI International Golden Horde Forum, “Pax Tatarica: генезис и наследие государственности Золотой Орды [The Genesis and Legacy of the Statehood of the Golden Horde]” – Tatarstan Academy of Sciences, Kazan, Russia – June, 2019
2019 Escaping Iron Prisons and Seeking the Relics of the Three Kings: Did the Mongols Promote Religious Misconceptions about Themselves? Mongol Empire Spring Series [MESS] 2019: Mongols and Religion – Austrian Academy of Sciences & University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria – May, 2019
2019 [with Zsolt Pinke,Zoltán Kern] A hypothesized connection of post-volcanic climate events with cholera outbreaks and the collapse of the Mongol
Empire. VICS 4th workshop: Volcanic Impacts on Climate and Society:
The Common Era and beyond – University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK – April, 2019
2018 Nationes quae se Tartaros appellant: Exploring the Historical Possibility that the Mongols Called Themselves Tatars.” International Symposium:
Shihab al-Din al-Mardjani and his Legacy: History and Present – Institute of History, Tatarstan Academy of Sciences, Kazan, Russia – September, 2018
2018 Mongol Methods for Collecting Information about the European ‘Other.’
‘Foreign Knowledge’ Medieval Attitudes toward the Unknown – Ruhr- University Bochum, Bochum, Germany – June, 2018
2018 Drawing the Mongol Empire’s Northern Border. International Conference of Doctoral School of History: Borders, Boundaries, Territories: Creating and Reshaping Collective Identities – University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania – June, 2018
2018 Refugees as Informants: The Role of Refugees in Disseminating Information about the Mongol Military and its Tactics. Third Biennial Conference of the Medieval Central Europe Research Network (MECERN) - University of Zagreb (Humanities and Social Sciences), Zagreb, Croatia – April, 2018
2017 Climatic and Environmental Limiting Factors in the Mongol Empire’s Westward Expansion: A Discussion of Büntgen and Di Cosmo’s
‘Environmental Hypothesis’ for the Mongol Withdrawal from Europe in 1242. The Rise and Fall: Environmental factors in the Socio-Cultural Changes of the Ancient Silk Road Area (PAGES – Past Global Changes) – Kiel University, Kiel, Germany – September, 2017
2017 What a Source Says, When It Says Nothing at all: Extracting Information from Jochi Khan’s Biography in the 117th Chapter of the Yuan Shi.
Networks, Regions and Institutions in Mongol Eurasia: A Meso-Historical Analysis – Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel – May, 2017
2016 The Last Campaign and Death of Jebe Noyan. The 17th Annual Conference of the Central Eurasian Studies Society (CESS) – Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA – November, 2016
2016 The Usage of Tatar and Mongol as Exonyms and Endonyms in the Thirteenth Century Mongol Empire. International Conference on Social Governance in Medieval Europe and China – Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China – October, 2016
2016 The World-Adorning Ruler and Padishah of Islam: Chinggisid Ancestry as a Means of Dynastic Legitimization in Early Modern Central Asia. Dynasty and Dynasticism 1400-1700 – University of Oxford, Oxford, UK – March, 2016
2015 Requests for Alliance, Threats of Destruction: Europe's Encounters with Mongol Diplomacy in the Aftermath of 1242. International Medieval Congress 2015 – University of Leeds, Leeds, UK – July, 2015
Selected Publications Relevant to the Dissertation
2020 Stephen Pow,Tamás Kiss, Anna Romsics, and Flora Ghazaryan. Simon of Saint-Quentin: History of the Tartars – A Digital Humanities Annotated Translation. Link: www.simonofstquentin.org
2019 Stephen Pow – József Laszlovszky. Finding Batu’s Hill at Muhi: Liminality between Rebellious Territory and Submissive Territory, Earth and Heaven for a Mongol Prince on the Eve of Battle. Hungarian Historical Review 8:2 (2019): 261-289.
2019 Nationes Que Se Tartaros Appellant: An Exploration of the Historical Problem of the Usage of the Ethnonyms Tatar and Mongol in Medieval Sources. Golden Horde Review 7:3 (2019): 545-567.
2019 Hungary’s Castle Defense Strategy in the Aftermath of the Mongol Invasion (1241-1242). In: Fortifications, defence systems, structures and features in the past, Zbornik Instituta za arheologiju / Serta Instituti Archaeologici, Vol. 13. Eds. Tatjana Tkalčec, Tatjana Sekelj Ivančan, Siniša Krznar, Juraj Belaj. Zagreb: Institut za arheologiju, 2019. 233-244
2019 Climatic and Environmental Limiting Factors in the Mongol Empire’s Westward Expansion: Exploring Causes for the Mongol Withdrawal from Hungary in 1242. In: Socio-Environmental Dynamics along the Historic Silk Road. Eds. L. Yang, H.R. Bork, X. Fang, and S. Mischke. Heidelberg:
Springer, 2019. 301-321.
2018 József Laszlovszky, Stephen Pow, Beatrix F. Romhányi, László Ferenczi, Zsolt Pinke. “Contextualizing the Mongol Invasion of Hungary in 1241–42:
Short- and Long-Term Perspectives.” Hungarian Historical Review 7:3 (2018): 419-450.
2018 Stephen Pow – Jingjing Liao. Subutai: Sorting Fact from Fiction
Surrounding the Mongol Empire’s Greatest General (with Translations of Subutai’s Two Biographies in the Yuan Shi). Journal of Chinese Military History 7:1 (2018): 37-76.
2017 Zsolt Pinke, Laszló Ferenczi, Beatrix Romhányi, József Laszlovszky,
Stephen Pow. Climate of doubt: a re-evaluation of Büntgen and Di Cosmo’s environmental hypothesis for the Mongol withdrawal from Hungary, 1242 CE. Scientific Reports 7, 12695 (2017).
2017 József Laszlovszky, Stephen Pow, Tamás Pusztai. Reconstructing the Battle of Muhi and the Mongol Invasion of Hungary in 1241: New Archaeological and Historical Approaches. Hungarian Archaeology. Winter (2016).
2017 The Last Campaign and Death of Jebe Noyan. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 27:1 (2017): 31-51.
