BROADCASTS.com

From 1313 to 1341, \xd6zbeg Khan oversaw what is normally\xa0 described as the Golden Horde\u2019s Golden age. As our last episode on \xd6zbeg discussed, things were not going quite so golden for old \xd6zbeg. The appellation of golden age belies the troubles which were growing ready to rock the Golden Horde. As our last episode looked at \xd6zbeg and the Golden Horde\u2019s relations south and east, with the other Mongol khanates and the Mamluk Sultanate, today we take you west and north, to see how \xd6zbeg interacted with the powers of Eastern Europe and the Rus\u2019 principalities. I\u2019m your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest.

\xa0

What appears almost shocking at a cursory glance, is that despite so many authors claiming \xd6zbeg\u2019s glory, he also oversaw its first loss of Golden Horde territory. We\u2019ll begin in the Balkans, and work our way north. On his accession, \xd6zbeg had continued the policy of the late Toqta Khan, by keeping the Bulgarian lands a part of the Horde, backed up by Mongol military presence. \xd6zbeg\u2019s support was important for the Bulgarian tsars in this period: the Tsar from 1323 to 1330, Georgi Terter\u2019s son Michael Shishman, relied heavily on Mongol military support and kept one of his sons at \xd6zbeg\u2019s court as a royal hostage. At the battle of Velbuzjd in 1330, a Bulgarian and Mongol army was defeated by the Serbians, in which Tsar Micheal Shishman was killed. The threat of a military response from \xd6zbeg is probably what kept the Serbians from pressing their advantage. The journey of a Bulgarian embassy to Cairo in 1331 resulted in the Mamluk chronicler al-Umar\u012b to report that despite fighting between the Bulgarians and Serbs, both respected \xd6zbeg due to his great power over them. Though it was not comparable to the influence Nogai had once wielded over the region, the presentation of contemporary chronicles is that the Bulgarian lands remained dependent on the Golden Horde; Bulgaria, for example, was the base from which the Mongols launched attacks on Byzantium, rather than seen as a country they passed through. It was the eventual loss of this Mongol backing that would result in Bulgaria\u2019s vulnerability to Ottoman expansion at the end of the century.\xa0

\xa0

Like Toqta, \xd6zbeg too married an illegitimate daughter of the Byzantine Emperor, this time of Andronikos III in 1331. This wife was called by the Mongols Bayalun Khatun, and Ibn Battuta accompanied her when she returned to Constantinople to give birth. The impetus was to dissuade further attacks by \xd6zbeg, for \xd6zbeg had resumed raiding the Byzantine Empire. Annual attacks from 1321 to 1323, the largest coming in 1323 and causing a great deal of damage. Raids at first ceased with the marriage of 1331, but when Bayalun refused to come back to the Horde after returning to Constantinople to give birth, attacks resumed. The last recorded assault came in 1337, advancing as far as the Hellespont. Supposedly in response to the failure of Constantinople to supply its annual tribute, the Horde army spent 50 days plundering Thrace, and in the process defeated a Turkish force sent across the straits by a growing beylik in northwestern Anatolia, the Osmano\u011flu. Though you may know them better as the Ottomans. So ended the last recorded attack by the Golden Horde on the Byzantine Empire. Sometimes this is compared as a symbolic act, the passing of the torch from Mongol to Ottoman, from old conqueror to new, when it came to the main threat to the region. In 1341 a Byzantine embassy was sent to the Horde to mollify \xd6zbeg, but arrived after his death.

\xa0

While in truth \xd6zbeg\u2019s attacks on the Byzantine Empire were raids rather than efforts at conquest, he apparently played them up somewhat in his own court as great victories over Christian powers. Ibn Battuta, during his visit to \xd6zbeg, presents the Khan as a great victor over the enemies of God who undertook jihad against Constantinople. \xd6zbeg, it must be clarified, never showed any attempt at conquering that famous city, and his military actions against Europe all seem considerably minor efforts compared to his wars against the Ilkhanate.

\xa0

Along the borders of the Hungarian Kingdom, troops of the Horde \u2014perhaps not always with \xd6zbeg\u2019s permission\u2014 raided regularly, especially in Transylvania. However these assaults could now be repulsed, as Hungary was rejuvenated under the skillful leadership of a new dynasty, headed by Charles I of Hungary. On occasion Charles led attacks onto dependencies of the Horde or of Bulgaria.\xa0 It is remarkable that most of these raids are known only indirectly; often only from charters, where an individual was rewarded for fighting against the Mongols, rather than through any chronicle mention. \xd6zbeg may have preferred indirect pressure, by supporting the former Hungarian vassal, the voivode of Wallachia, a fellow named Basarab. There is no shortage of debate around Basarab and early Wallachia, and we\u2019ll avoid it here; the exact origins and timeline of the emergence of this principality is very far from agreed upon. Established on the border regions of modern Romania and Moldova, these were lands otherwise under control of the Golden Horde. Basarab himself is a target of many arguments; his name suggests a Turkic, likely Cuman origin, however contemporary sources consistently describe him as a Vlakh, a member of the Romance-language-speaking community which today mainly refers to the Romanians. Depending on how his father\u2019s name is reconstructed, it appears either recognizably Mongol, or even Hungarian. While initially a subject of the Hungarian King, by the end of the 1320s Basarab was at war with the Hungarians, and decisively defeated them at the battle of Posada in 1330. There is indirect indication that Basarab had some military support from the Golden Horde.

\xa0

The independence of Wallachia appears a part of the gradual secession of authority of the Golden Horde over its westernmost border. Most dramatically was this apparent through today\u2019s Ukraine and Belarus, where the influence of Lithuania grew at the expense of the Golden Horde. Early Lithuanian-Mongol contacts over the thirteenth century seem to have consisted of raids in both directions. Several times did Nogai provide armies for Rus\u2019 princes to attack the Lithuanians, while the Lithuanians took advantage of the initial Mongol invasion in the 1240s to raid deep into the Rus\u2019 lands. The transition from the thirteenth to the fourteenth century is one of poor coverage for Lithuanian history; scattered Lithuanians princes of the 1200s appear in the 1300s unified and consolidated under the Grand Dukes of Lithuania, particularly from Duke Gediminas onwards. By the 1320s, Gediminas was in position to influence the succession over Galicia-Volhynia, in today\u2019s western Ukraine and Belarus and at the time subject to the Golden Horde. Between 1321 and 1323, the young princes of Ruthenia died without heir. The King of Poland W\u0142adys\u0142aw I, the Lithuanian Duke Gedminas, and Khan\xa0 \xd6zbeg were all very interested in the succession. While\xa0 \xd6zbeg may have been caught up in his conflicts with the Ilkhanate, at this time the Polish King wrote to the Pope fearing a Mongol attack, and in 1324 Mongol ambassadors were in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius. Threats and diplomacy, rather than open war, was the means by which the three powers came to a conclusion. An acceptable candidate to replace the deceased princes was selected in the form of Yurii II Boleslaw, a fellow of Polish, Ruthenian and Lithaunian background, a Catholic who converted to Orthodox Christianity, and who married a daughter of Duke Gediminas. And what did\xa0 \xd6zbeg get out of it? The continuation of tribute from Galicia-Volhynia.\xa0

\xa0

This willingness for diplomacy with these western neighbours seems surprising, but the sources indicate it was very much\xa0 \xd6zbeg\u2019s preferred order of operations in this theater. In 1331, a brother of Lithuania\u2019s Duke Gediminas was installed in Kyiv, alongside a Mongol basqaq, or tax collector. In what has been termed a Lithuanain-Mongol condominium, it seems the arrangement was that these westernmost Rus\u2019 lands paid tribute and military service both to Lithuania, and the Golden Horde. As noted by historian Darius Baronas, news of this arrangement made it as far as France, where a French poet in the 1330s described Lithuania as paying tribute to the Golden Horde. It seems that\xa0 \xd6zbeg\u2019s calculation was simple;\xa0 \xd6zbeg wanted the income from these western Rus\u2019 principalities, but didn\u2019t desire war over them, intent as he was on focusing his forces on the Ilkhanate. The frontier with Lithuania and Poland was long, the region as a whole rather peripheral. It was cheaper and more convenient to give the administration over to the Lithuanians while still retaining the income. When necessary the threat of the Horde\u2019s horsemen could be levied; in 1333 there was a raid on Briansk, then under Lithuanian control. Meanwhile the Lithuanians could avoid open conflict with the Mongols, allowing them to deal more fully with those troublesome Teutontic Knights. It would not be until the end of\xa0 \xd6zbeg\u2019s life that this arrangement was challenged, but until that point it proved remarkably flexible and workable to all involved, except for those at the bottom of the ladder now\xa0 being taxed twice. But\xa0 \xd6zbeg, however clever he thought he was, had given a foothold for Lithuanian expansion which would soon push right to the Black Sea coastline.\xa0 In 1340 when Yuri Boleslaw of Galicia-Volhynia died, the King of Poland Casimir III invaded, but quickly withdrew as the threat of Mongol retaliation mounted. While border clashes with Poland, and soon Hungary, commenced,\xa0 \xd6zbeg actually engaged in diplomacy even with Pope Benedict XII, notifying his holiness of\xa0 \xd6zbeg\u2019s displeasure. Papa Benedict even offered to make the Kings of Poland and Hungary pay for damages \xd6zbeg incurred because of them. A far cry from the days of the khans demanding the submission of the Popes, but the matter was not resolved before \xd6zbeg\u2019s death in 1341.

\xa0

And what of the Rus\u2019? Here\xa0 \xd6zbeg intervened most forcefully, particularly compared to his predecessors. On\xa0 \xd6zbeg\u2019s enthronement in 1313, the lead prince of the Rus\u2019, Grand Prince Mikhail of Tver\u2019, spent two years cozying up to\xa0 \xd6zbeg in his court, eager to secure his support. In his absence from the Rus\u2019 Principalities, Mikhail\u2019s rivals got to work. His main foe was his cousin, Yurii Daniilovich, the Prince of Moscow. A grandson of the famous Alexander Nevskii, Yurii was a man overflowing with ambition. While Mikhail of Tver\u2019 was with\xa0 \xd6zbeg in his ordu, Yurii of Moscow stormed Novgorod and took it for himself. Mikhail convinced\xa0 \xd6zbeg to give him an army, and in 1315 they retook Novgorod. Yurii of Moscow was summoned to\xa0 \xd6zbeg, ostensibly for punishment. But the silver tongued Yurii managed to work his way into\xa0 \xd6zbeg\u2019s favour, with this one simple trick: convincing\xa0 \xd6zbeg that he would be able to collect more tax revenues than Mikhail. For this, he received a yarliq installing him as Grand Prince of Vladimir, the chief Prince of the Rus\u2019, as well as receiving a sister of\xa0 \xd6zbeg in marriage. Konchaka was her name, and she was baptized a Christian, taking the name of Agatha.

\xa0

Full of confidence and the Khan\u2019s blessing, Yurii then attacked Mikhail of Tver\u2019, and was promptly defeated. Yurii fled the field, while his newly betrothed Konchaka was taken captive by Mikhail. The Prince of Tver\u2019 tried to tread carefully; in the Nikonian Chronicle, \xa0Mikhail treats the captured Mongol generals and troops respectfully, showering them with honours, gifts and releases many of them. His intention was to re-earn \xd6zbeg\u2019s favour, and be reinstalled as the Grand Prince. Unfortunately for him,\xa0 \xd6zbeg\u2019s sister Konchaka then died in Tver\u2019s captivity, in mysterious circumstances. As you might guess, this was not exactly beneficial to any reelection campaign. Mikhail of Tver\u2019 was put on trial on \xd6zbeg\u2019s court, and after several months of deliberation, Mikhail was condemned and executed in 1318. Yurii of Moscow was thus confirmed as Grand Prince by\xa0 \xd6zbeg.

\xa0

The significance of this is twofold. Firstly, the khans had previously confirmed as Grand Prince whoever was presented to them, and thus followed Riurikid tradition. That is, succession as Grand Prince normally went brother-to-brother, before passing onto the next generation.\xa0 \xd6zbeg upended this by choosing the new candidate out-of-order, generationally speaking. Yurii of Moscow, as the son of Nevskii\u2019s third son Daniil of Moscow, was very much out of place in this rota system while the previous generation was still alive. Furthermore, this was the first time that the Princes of Moscow received the title of Grand Prince. Moscow had been a minor settlement before the Mongol invasion. Because of\xa0 \xd6zbeg\u2019s confirmation of the title onto Yurii, Moscow was put onto the steady course to, in time, \u2018gather the lands of the Rus\u2019, and eventually swallow up the remnants of the Golden Horde. But that was still some centuries ahead.

\xa0

Yurii was not to enjoy his position as Grand Prince for long. After being confirmed by\xa0 \xd6zbeg he returned to Rus\u2019 where he was met with angry princes and an angry population. The late Mikhail of Tver\u2019s sons swore bloody vengeance. Unable was Yurii to provide the promised volumes of tax. In 1322\xa0 \xd6zbeg removed Yurii from his post, and by 1325 Yurii was murdered by Dmitri the Terrible-Eyes, a son of Mikhail of Tver\u2019. Dmitri was executed by\xa0 \xd6zbeg the next year, but the Grand Princely title was given to Dmitri\u2019s brother, Alexander of Tver\u2019. Nearly did it seem that Tver\u2019 would monopolize the position; Tver\u2019s wealth was then greater than Moscow\u2019s, their right to rule better recognized internally in Rus\u2019. So it would have stayed, until 1327, when there was an uprising in Tver\u2019 which resulted in the killing of several of \xd6zbeg\u2019s officials. Tver\u2019 was then sacked as punishment and Grand Prince Alexander Mikhailovich fled for his life. And who stepped into the vacant spot of Grand Prince? Well, the brother of Yurii of Moscow, Ivan Daniilovich. Or as he is better known to posterity, Ivan I Kalita; Ivan \u201cthe purse,\u201d or more usually translated as money-bags.

\xa0

Ivan, as you may guess by his sobriquet, proved quite adept at providing \xd6zbeg the much desired tax revenue. Enjoying the position of Grand Prince of Vladimir until his death in the 1340s,\xa0 Ivan Kalita\u2019s lengthy time in the position solidified Moscow\u2019s monopoly over the Grand Princely title, and began in earnest its ascendency. For Kalita greatly enriched the city itself, bringing other holdings to its authority and thereby turned the once minor city into one of the most eminent of the Rus\u2019 principalities. The Metropolitan of the Rus\u2019 Orthodox Church moved to Moscow in the 1320s, which also cemented it as the centre of Rus\u2019 Christianity, politically. On his death he was succeeded by his son Simeon \u2014confirmed of course by\xa0 \xd6zbeg Khan\u2014 as Prince of Moscow and Grand Prince of Vladimir, and so the title remained among their line. Ivan Kalita\u2019s descendents would transform Moscow and the Rus\u2019 principalities into the Tsardom of Russia, and ruled until the sixteenth century, when the extinct Rurikids gave way to the Romanovs.

\xa0

But such dreams of conquest were far off in the mid-fourteenth century. Rus\u2019 history should not be read backwards. The fourteenth century Daniilovichi, the Moscow princely line, were not in a contest for independence against the khan. Far from it. As they had in effect, usurped the succession to the Grand Principality, and had numerous rivals due to it, the Princes of Moscow relied greatly on the khans for their legitimacy. The Grand Prince was the most important tax collector for the khan, and the basis had now been established for the khan to remove him if desired. And\xa0 \xd6zbeg was not above reminding the Rus\u2019 of his might; some ten Rus\u2019 princes were executed on\xa0 \xd6zbeg\u2019s order, more than any of his predecessors had done combined. As long as the Princes of Moscow kept bringing in the revenue that the khan wanted, then \xd6zbeg kept the Daniilovichi propped up against any threat. Without the Golden Horde, there was therefore, no rise of Moscow.

\xa0

When it came to the succession to the Golden Horde itself, as noted in our previous episode \xd6zbeg had violently trimmed the Jochid lineage, hoping to ensure only his sons could succeed him. His favoured heir, Tem\xfcr, predeceased him, leaving \xd6zbeg with two troublesome boys; Tini Beg, and Jani Beg. Tini Beg seems to have been the favourite to succeed \xd6zbeg, and after the death of Qutlugh-Tem\xfcr, Tini Beg became the governor of Khwarezm on behalf of his father. A possible indication of falling out between though, comes from coinage minted near the end of \xd6zbeg\u2019s life. Then, coins begin to be minted bearing the names of \xd6zbeg and Jani Beg, and letters from foreign rulers were addressed to \xd6zbeg and Jani Beg, perhaps suggesting Jani Beg had taken the #2 role in the khanate. Sadly our information on the internal situation on the Jochid court is scant, preventing us from making any proper conclusions or charting its history in this time, particularly as the history of \xd6zbeg\u2019s final years is considerably less detailed.

\xa0

Possible troubles between his sons were not the only issues he faced. In 1339 a coup attempt briefly had \xd6zbeg besieged in his palace in New Sarai before the guards broke it up, captured and killed most of the conspirators. Evidently there had been Christians involved; a letter from Pope Benedict XIII thanked \xd6zbeg for only executing three of the Christian conspirators. As this coincides with the appearance of Jani Beg\u2019s name on the coinage in place of Tini Beg, and Tini Beg apparently showed greater favour to Christians than Jani Beg ever did, we might wonder if Tini Beg had a hand in the coup attempt. How else would conspirators be so brazen as to attack the khan in his own palace? But this is mere speculation, and the origins of the coup are unfortunately lost to history.\xa0

\xa0

For a man of such a lengthy reign, and relatively well covered in the primary sources, \xd6zbeg\u2019s final days are surprisingly unclear. One Mamluk source, a\u0161-\u0160u\u011f\u0101\u2019\u012bs, has \xd6zbeg die while leading an attack on the Chagatai Khanate in 1342, an attempt by \xd6zbeg to take advantage of that khanate\u2019s ongoing political struggles. Another Mamluk writer, al-Asad\u012b, mentions \xd6zbeg dying in New Sarai in 1341. Most sources simply note the fact of his death in late 1341 or 1342, with no additional details. Regardless, \xd6zbeg, Khan of the Golden Horde, died likely late in 1341, after 28 years on the throne. He was likely in his late 50s or 60s, making him one of the longest reigning, and longest living, Mongol khans. Only Khubilai Khaan\u2019s 34 years on the throne was longer, while Chinggis Khan himself had only 21 years as Khan of the Mongol ulus. Wealth and prosperity within the khanate, and the violent removal of rival princes, ensured \xd6zbeg enjoyed the longest reign of any khan in the 1300s, a century when most khans hardly ruled as long as 5 years and generally died in their mid-thirties.\xa0

\xa0

What do we make of \xd6zbeg\u2019s life then? In some respects it certainly was a Golden Age, in terms of the arts, crafts and city-building in the steppe. It\u2019s a period of staggering prosperity in comparison to the anarchy which would soon follow. The internal stability of the Horde in this period alone makes it appear an oasis compared to the years on either side of his life. But \xd6zbeg\u2019s claim to fame, his efforts at islamization, were hollow and never complete, and likely they were never intended to be. In foreign policy \xd6zbeg largely experienced defeats, or inadvertently laid the groundwork for the rapid loss in Mongol authority in certain regions. The Golden Horde likely enjoyed its greatest period of wealth and in some respects, international prestige under \xd6zbeg. But the precedent he had set with horrific princely slaughters would soon reign ruin upon the Jochids, as would an event far outside of any monarch\u2019s control: the Black Death.

\xa0

A final remark can be made regarding the modern Uzbeks. The name is sometimes attributed, even by medieval authors, as coming from \xd6zbeg\u2019s name.\xa0 That is, that in some sense the Uzbeks saw themselves as followers of \xd6zbeg Khan, and thereby named themselves for him. The argument though is rather weak; the Uzbek confederation would not emerge until well after \xd6zbeg Khan\u2019s death, and \xd6zbeg as a name is hardly unique to the Jochid khan, for it dates back to the twelfth century, if not earlier. Much like the attribution of the Nogai Horde to the thirteenth century prince Nogai, it\u2019s an effort to attach a nomadic union to an earlier prominent figure which rests on little or no direct evidence.

\xa0

With \xd6zbeg\u2019s death, it was time for his son Tini Beg to take the throne. But things would not go well for Tini Beg, as the Jochid state was soon to experience a period of anarchy it would never recover from. So be sure to subscribe to the Kings and Generals Podcast to follow. If you enjoyed this and would like to help us continue bringing you great content, consider supporting us on patreon at www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. This episode was researched and written by our series historian, Jack Wilson. I\u2019m your host David, and we\u2019ll catch you on the next one.\xa0