Three Orders

The three orders of the European society between the ninth and and sixteenth centuries were: Christian priests, landowning nobles and peasants. 

The changing relationships between these three groups was an important factor in shaping European history for several centuries.

Sources to understand Medieval European society

1.There is a lot of material in the form of documents,details of landownership, prices and legal cases. Churches yu had kept records of births ,marriages and deaths.

 .The inscriptions in churches give information about traders' associations,and songs and stories give a sense of festivals and community activities. All these can be used to understand economic and
social life.

2.Marc Bloch and his ideas about European feudalism

Marc Bloch(1886-1944) was one of the earliest scholars of France who worked on the concept of feudalism. He argued
that history is not all about political history but also includes international relations and lives of great people. He stressed on the importance of geography in determining human history and the requirement to realise the collective activities or approaches of groups of people.

His book Feudal Society talks about the European society between 900 and 1300 A.D especially of France. It had significant detailed social relations and hierarchies and land related affairs and cultural achievements of that period.

 
Condition of Europe on the eve of rising feudalism. There were some socio-political changes that occurred in Europe between the ninth and and sixteenth centuries.

After the decline of the Roman Empire, several Germanic groups of people of eastern and central Europe captured
areas of Italy,Spain and France. Due to the absence of a single political power, there were regular military clashes in order to gather resources to continue hold on own land. Social institution was therefore revolved around the control of land.

Christianity was the religion of land as it was spread in almost whole Europe. The church was not only a religious institution but also a political power. The church was a major land holder in Europe.

Meaning of feudalism

The term 'feudalism' is derived from a German word 'feud' which means 'a
piece of land'.It refers to the kind of society that developed in Medieval France and later in England and Italy. Feudalism was a system that centred around the principles of land related matters. Historians used the term feudalism to describe the economic , legal,political and social relationships that existed in Europe in the medieval era.

Features of feudalism in Europe

The roots of feudalism can be traced back to the practices that existed in the Roman Empire. Feudalism became an established way of life during the era of French king Charlemagne. It was said to be emerged later and spread in whole Europe later.

Feudalism refers to a kind of an agricultural production which was based on the relationship between the lords and
peasants. The peasants cultivated their own land and worked on the lands of the lords also. In lieu of labour service , peasants received military protection from the lord. The lords also decided the judicial matters of the peasants.Therefore ,that lord was all in all proprietors of lands and peasant's fortunes. Thus ,besides economic aspects, feudalism also began to cover the political and social aspects of life.


History of the name france

There was a province of Roman Empire named ''Gaul' which was had extensive
coastlines,mountain ranges,long rivers,forests and large plain area suited to agriculture. A Germanic tribe named ''the Franks 'gave their name to Gaul and it later came to be known as France. By the sixth century this region was a kingdom under the rule of Christian Frankish or French got strengthened when Charlemagne was given the title of 'Holy Roman Emperor' by
the pope around 800 AD.

The Three Orders

The French priests were of the view that people were part of the one of three 'orders 'according to their occupation. A bishop quoted that,'”Here below some pray,others fight,other still work” .So the three orders of
society were generally the clergy,the nobility and the peasantry.

The First Order:The Clergy

The Christians of Europe were directed by bishops and clerics of church. They made the first order of the feudal society. Above those bishops and clerics was the head of western church,the Pope,who lived in Rome. The Catholic church was the most dominant body which did not depend on the king. The church had its own laws, own land granted by the king collected taxes of own. Almost all villages had church,where people gathered on Sunday pray and
listened to the sermons of the priests. Men who became priest could not marry.

 Serfs, the physically challenged and
women could not became a priest. The Bishops were nobles in religious field. They owned lands like lords, had vast estates and lived in grand palaces.

The church collected one tenth of share from peasants' produce every year called the'tithe'.The church also got money
in the form of donations by the rich for own and their relatives' welfare in the afterlife. 

Several rites and rituals of feudal nobles were copied by church to increase its influence. The act of knelling while praying, with hands clasped and head bowed was identical to knights' act to take vow for their lord. The term 'lord' for God was also a debt from feudal customs.

Monks and Monasteries

There were devout Christians in feudal society known as monks. They opted to live isolated in contrast to the clergy
who lived in towns and villages. They lived in religious communities called abbeys or monasteries away from human settlements. Monks vowed to stay in the abbey for the rest of their life. They spent their time in worship,study and manual labour like farming. Their life was different from priesthood and was quiet open to both men and women and women became nuns. Most of the abbeys were single -sex communities. There were separate abbeys for men and
women. Like priests,monks and nuns did not marry. Two well known monasteries were one established by St. Benedict in Italy in 529 and another of Cluny in Burgundy in 910.


Relation between the Church and Society


Christianity entered Europe and influenced most of the people. But they did not forget old beliefs in magic and folk traditions. Christmas and Easter became important dates from the fourth century. They replaced old pre-Roman festival as which were based on solar calender. The Easter day marked the crucifixion of Christ and his rebirth from the dead and it was celebrates on replaced date of old festival based on lunar calender. On coming of spring ,people used to travel around their village lands on that day. Holiday or holidays were welcomed by over worked peasants as free
days ,They usually spent more time in fun and feasting rather than prayer.

The Second Order:The Nobility

The nobility possessed a central role in the social processes. They had control over lands,which was the result of old custom known as 'vassalage'.The nobles of kings were big land holders and they used to be vassal of the king whereas the peasants were vassals to the land owners. In France the rulers were linked to 'vassalage', similarly the Franks of Gaul also followed the same tradition. In that tradition a noble accepted the king his seigneur or lord in all matters and king had to give a mutual assurance that he would protect the vassals. Under that link both seigneur and the noble had to make vows with the Bible in the church. The vassal received a written charter or a staff or even a clod of earth as
symbol of land granted by his lord. The nobles enjoyed several privileges. They had judicial powers and even right to issue coins. They also had power to raise their army known as feudal levies. A noble was lord of each and every person settled on his land. He possessed huge tracts of land which included his residences ,his personal fields,pastures and the fields of peasant-tenants. The house of noble was known as manor. The peasants cultivated their fields also,worked as cultivators on his fields and as the foot soldiers in time of military need.

The Manorial Estate

A lord house was known as manor-house in feudal society. He would control peasant's villages in the manorial estates either in small number containing few dozen of houses or in large number consisting of around fifty to sixty houses of peasants. The manorial estates were self sufficient economic centres,where each and every requirement of daily life was fulfilled in the estate. The grains were grown in the fields,blacksmiths and carpenters maintained the lords equipments and refurnished the ornaments,whereas stone masons managed their building. The women prepared fabrics and children worked in lord's wine-presses. The estates consisted of woodlands and forests where the lord did hunting.
The estates also contained pastures. The church was part of estate and the castle was there for defence,where knights lived. In England ,the castles were developed as centres of administration and military strength under the feudal
system.

Knights: A Distinctive Group

There were regular localised wars in Europe. The insufficient amateur peasant soldiers and lack of good cavalry
had created problems. This led to the evolution of new section of people in society known as Knight. They were under
the lord,who were subordinates of the king. The knights paid his lord customary fees and pledged to fight for him in war. The lords granted a piece of land called fief,for knights in lieu of their services as their protectorate. The fief of knight could be hereditary and was of any size from 1000 to 2000 acres or more. A knight's fief consisted of a house for him and his family,church settlements of dependent together with water mill and wine press. The peasants cultivated the land of the fief. In exchange , the knight paid his lord a regular fee and promised to fight for him in war. A knight
could serve more than one lord but remained loyal to his own lord.

The Third Order:Peasants,Free and Unfree

The third order consisted of vast majority of people which were mainly cultivators. The cultivators had two categories: free peasants and serfs. The free peasants were those who had own lands but worked as tenants of the land. They had to give military service for least forty days in a year. They had to work on lord's fields for three days generally in a week in the form of labour-rent. Together with this they had to provide unpaid services for works like

digging ditches,gathering firewood, building fence and maintaining roads and buildings. Women and children had to do
several tasks together with work on fields like spinning thread,weaving cloth,making candles and preparing wine from grapes.

 The free peasants had to pay a tax 'taille' to king from which clergy and nobles were exempted. The serfs tilled the land of lord. Most part of the produce was submitted to the lord. They had to work on the lands of lord without wages. They were not allowed to leave the estate without prior permission from the lord. The lord claimed several
monopolies at the cost of his serfs . Serfs could use only lord's flour mill,his oven to bake their bread and his wine-presses to distil wine and beer. The lord decide whom a serf should marry or might give the blessing to the serf's choice but on a payment of a free.

England the land 'Angles'

The Angles and Saxons came from central Europe and got settled in England during sixth century. The name of the country England is a modification of 'Angle-land' as England was inhabited by Angles.

Factors Affecting social and Economic Relations.

There were several processes which were affecting the social and economic relations.

The Environment:

Between fifth and tenth centuries, Europe had undergone an extreme cold climatic change. This shortened growing season for crops and reduced agricultural production. By the eleventh century,Europe entered a warm phase. Increase in temperature had a deep impact on agriculture. Peasants had a longer growing season and soil could be easily ploughed. This resulted in the expansion of agriculture.

 
Land Use:

Agricultural technology used by peasants initially was primitive. They had to use wooden plough drawn by couple of
oxen,which could only scratch the surface of earth instead of drawing full fertility of soil. So,fields needed to be dug by
hand ,regularly once in four years. Agriculture was therefore very labour demanding. An unproductive method of crop rotation was in use ;in which the land was divided in two halves. In one winter wheat was grown in autumn and other
left fallow and vice versa. Rye was grown in other half. This was a system of destroying fertility of soil and caused frequent famines. Chronic malnutrition occurred and life of the poor became more difficult. The lords were apprehensive to increase their income,as it was difficult to increase output from land. So they forced the peasants to work on his manorial estates more than the legal time.

Technological Changes in the Field of Agriculture:

The eleventh century saw several changes in the field of agriculture.
* The heavy iron-tipped ploughs and mould-boards replaced old wooden equipments. These ploughs dug much
deeper and mould -boards turned soil suitable which resulted in better use of nutrients from the soil.

* The shoulder-harness replaced neck-harness of animals that allowed animals to wield great power. Use of iron horseshoes prevented foot decay of horses.

* There was increased use of wind and water energy for agriculture. All over Europe wind and water power mills were established for the purpose of grinding corn and pressing grapes .

 
* There was introduction of three field system for land use in place of older two field system. In that,a peasant could use two out of three fields by sowing one crop in autumn and another crop in spring a year and half late.

They could grow wheat or rye in autumn in one field then in second field they could grow peas,beans and lentils during spring and could grow oats and barley for horses also. The third field was left fallow and by that they could rotate the use of all three fields every year.

 With the improvement in agricultural technology there was instant enhancement in food produced from every unit of land. The greater use of plants like peas and beans meant increase in protein diet of Europeans and better source of fodder for animals. Now cultivator could produce more food from small land. The average
holding of peasant's farm shrank from 100 acres to 20 or 30 acres. Now small holdings reduced the requirement of labour and could be efficiently cultivated which gave time to peasants for other creative
activities.

* During the eleventh century the personal bonds base of feudalism weakened. The lords asked for rents in cash instead of kind,also peasants found it easy to sell their crops to traders. The increased use of money began to influence prices,which became higher in times of poor harvest.

A Fourth Order? New towns and Towns people :
• The advent of new agricultural technology resulted in growth of agriculture which was accompanied by progress in three related areas: population,trade and towns.

• The population of Europe rose from 42 million in 1000 to 62 million around 1200 and 73 million in 1300.Due to better food the lifespan increased. An average European could expect to live 10 years longer in the 13th century than 8th century.

* The growth of population resulted into development of towns in the Roman Empire. Peasant needed a place to
sell their surplus produce and buy tools and cloth. This led to the increase in holding regular fairs and small townships. These townships gradually developed into town with features like town square,a church, streets where merchants built shops and homes, an office where administrators of city could meet. The towns developed along large castles,bishops' estates or large churches.

• Instead of services,people paid taxes to lords who were the owner of the land on which the town stood. Towns offered the prospect of paid work and freedom for young people of peasantry.

• 'Town air makes free' was a saying popular in medieval Europe. Many serfs escaped from their masters and
hid themselves in towns. If they successfully completed one year and a day without being discovered by their
masters ,they could become freemen.

• There was a large number of shopkeepers and merchants,later there was a need of skilled individuals like lawyers and bankers. The bigger towns had population of around 30,000 which might form the fourth order.

• Guilds were the basis of economic organisation in the medieval Europe . Crafter industry was organised into guild. These guilds controlled the quality,price and the sale of the goods. The guild- hall was part of every town where heads of all guilds met. Due to the expansion of trade and commerce also the town merchants became wealthy and powerful and completed with power of the nobility.

Cathedral -towns
:

The large churches were called cathedrals. By 12th century onwards, cathedrals were being built in France. The cathedrals belonged to monasteries. Different people contributed to their construction with their own labour, material or money. A cathedral was made of stone and took several years to complete. The area around the cathedrals became more populated and they became centres of pilgrimage. Small towns developed around them. Cathedrals were designed in a way that voice of the priest could reach all people assembled in the hall. Singing sound of monks and the chiming bells reached greater distance as a call for prayer. Stained glass was used for windows of the cathedrals. These glasses,
during day time ,made the cathedrals radiant for the people who were inside and during the nights ,the light of the candles made them visible for the people outside. The stained glass narrated the stories in the Bible through pictures. So that illiterates could understand those stories.

The Crisis of the Fourteenth Century:

➢ By the early fourteenth century,Europe's economic expansion slowed down.
➢ In 13th century the warm summers of the previous years had given way to bitterly cold summers.
➢ Seasons for growing crops were reduced by a month.
➢ Storms and oceanic flooding destroyed many farmlands that reduced the income in taxes for govts.
➢ Population growth caused shortage of resources and the immediate result was famine.
➢ Trade was hit by a severe shortage of metal money because of the short fall in the output of silver mines in
Austria and Serbia.
➢ The ships came with rats carrying the deadly bubonic plague infection(Black death).
➢ This catastrophe ,combined with the economic crisis, caused immense social disorder.
➢ Serious imbalances were created between agriculture and manufacture.

Social Unrest:
The income of lords was declining rapidly because of fall prices of agriculture products and rise in wages of labourers. In desperation,they tried to give up the money-contracts and revive labour-services. This was fiercely
opposed by all peasants including better-educated and more prosperous one. The peasants revolted in Flanders in
1323,in France in 1358 and in England in 1381.Although the revolts were ruthlessly crushed but one significant thing
was that they occurred with more brutal intensity in the areas which experience economic growth. It was a sign of
peasant's attempt for securing their gains which they had made in previous centuries. The aggression of peasants made it certain that old feudal order would not be reinstalled. Thus the lords were able to crush the rebellions but were not able to reinstitute old feudal privileges.



Political Changes between 15th and 16th century



Development in the political sphere was parallel to the social processes. In the 15th and 16th centuries,emergence of triumphant rulers in Europe was stimulated by the social changes of 13th and 14th centuries as the feudal system weakened. Both the powerful new states and the economic changes that were occurring were significant for Europe.

The historians called these kings' the new monarchs'.The kings like Louis XI in France,Maximilian in Austria,Henry-VII in England and Isabelle and Ferdinand in Spain were absolute monarchs. They started the process of organizing standing armies,a permanent bureaucracy and national taxation and,in Spain and France began to play a role in European expansion overseas.

The monarchs dispensed with the system of feudal levies for their armies and initiated professionally trained infantry equipped with gun and siege artillery directly under their control. The resistance of the nobility collapsed in the face of the military efficiency of the kings.

The centralized power did not establish easily confrontation of aristocracies. The nobility managed a tactical transfer from being opponents to the new regime into loyalists. The king was at the centre of an elaborate courtier society and a network of patron-client relationships. All rulers powerful or weak required the assistance of those who could control power which could be arranged or acquired by way of money. The merchants and bankers acquired an important role because they could solve problem of money for the kings by lending it to them. Therefore,they got easy access to royal court. Kings, thus made way for non-feudal constituents in the state scheme. The later history of France and England was to be shaped by these changes in the power structure.




Key words :

Medieval Era:The term' medieval era' refers to the period in European history between the fifth and the fifteenth centuries.

Abbey : Abbey is derived from the Syriac abba, meaning father. An abbey was governed by an abbot or an abbess.

Monastery :The word 'monastery' is derived from the Greek word 'monos',meaning someone who lives alone.

Doon de mayence:A thirteenth century French poem to be sung recounting adventures of Knights.

The Canterbury Tales:A poem written by Geoffrey Chaucer

Piers Plowman:A poem written by Langland

The Black death: Black death or bubonic plague caused the large scale deaths in Europe. It was brought by the rats that come to Europe ,along with the trading ships.

Fourth Order :The bigger towns had population of around 30,000 .They could be said to have formed a fourth order.

 Nomadic Empire 

Nomadic Empires can be said to be an imperial formation constructed by nomadic groups. The Mongols, under the leadership of Genghis Khan, established a transcontinental empire straddling Europe and Asia during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Sources: 

The steppe dwellers themselves usually produced no literature, so our knowledge of nomadic societies comes mainly from chronicles, travelogues and documents produced by city-based litterateurs. These authors often produced extremely ignorant and biased reports of nomadic life.

The imperial success of the Mongols attracted many travelers. These individuals came from a variety of backgrounds – Buddhist,Confucian, Christian, Turkish and Muslim. Many of them produced sympathetic accounts and others hostile.

The most outstanding sources of Mongols are Igor de Rachewiltz’s ‘The Secret History of Mongol’ and ‘the Travelogues of Marco Polo’.

Rise of Mongol tribe: 

In the early decades of the thirteenth century the great empires of the Euro-Asian continent realised the dangers posed to them by the arrival of a new political power in the steppes of Central Asia: Genghis Khan (d. 1227) had united the Mongol people.

Background:

The Mongols were a diverse body of tribal people, spoke similar languages.

Some of the Mongols were pastoralists while others were hunter-gatherers.The pastoralists tended horses, sheep and cattle, goats and camels.

They lived nomadic life in the steppes of Central Asia in a tract of land in the area of the modern state of Mongolia. This was a majestic landscape with wide horizons, rolling plains, ringed by the snow-capped mountains, Gobi desert and drained by rivers and springs.

Agriculture was possible in the pastoral regions but the Mongols did not take to agriculture. The Mongols lived in tents and travelled with their herds from their winter to summer pasture lands.

These groups were constantly engaged in war with each other.

Mongol society was patriarchal in nature.

Life and Career of Genghis Khan:

Genghis Khan was born in 1162 CE, near the Onon Riverin the north of present-day Mongolia.

His original name was Temujin, he was the son of Yesugei, the chieftain of the Kiyat clan.

His father was murdered by a tribe at an early age and his mother, Oelun-eke, raised Temujin, his brothers and step-brothers in great hardship.

Genghis Khan faced many problems in his childhood. Temujin was captured and enslaved for many years.

Soon after his marriage, his wife, Borte, was kidnapped, and he had to fight to recover her.

During these years of hardship he also managed to make important friends. The young Boghurchu was his first ally and remained a trusted friend; Jamuqa,his blood-brother was another.

Temujin became the dominant personality in the politics of the steppe lands, a position that was recognised at an assembly of Mongol chieftains, where he was proclaimed the ‘Great Khan of the Mongols’ with the title Genghis Khan, the ‘Oceanic Khan’or ‘Universal Ruler’.

His conquests: China, Transoxiana, Khwarazm, Samarqand, Herat, Azerbaijan Russia between 1219 to 1222 CE

The first of his concerns was to conquer China, divided at this time into three realms:the Hsi Hsia dynasty in the north-western provinces,Chin dynasty ruled north China and the Sung dynasty in south China.

By 1209, the Hsi Hsia were defeated, the ‘Great Wall of China’ was breached in 1213 and long drawn-out battles against the Chin continued until 1234 but Genghis Khan was satisfied enough with the progress of his campaigns to return to his Mongolia

 Sultan Muhammad, the ruler of Khwarazm, executed Mongol envoys worried of Mongol invasion. In the campaigns between 1219 and 1221 the great cities – Otrar, Bukhara, Samarqand, Balkh, Gurganj, Merv, Nishapur and Herat – surrendered to the Mongol forces.

 Towns that resisted were devastated by Mongols. A Mongol prince was killed during the siege operation at Nishapur.

Mongol forces in pursuit of Sultan Muhammad pushed into Azerbaijan and defeated Russian forces. Another wing followed the Sultan’s son, Jalaluddin, into Afghanistan and the Sindh province.

Why did Genghis Khan return to Mongolia without touching India?

At the banks of the Indus, Genghis Khan considered returning to Mongolia through North India and Assam, but the heat, the natural habitat and the ill portents reported by his Shaman soothsayer made him change his mind.

Genghis Khan died in 1227.

His Achievements:

His ability to innovate and transform different aspects of steppe combat into extremely effective military strategies was the most important reason behind his astounding success.

Organised the army: He made great efforts to organise the army. Strict discipline was maintained in the army. He improved and restructured the army to blend the typical skills of the tribe with the army. The horse-riding skills of the Mongols and the Turks provided speed and mobility to the army. Their abilities as rapid-shooting archers from horseback were further perfected during regular hunting expeditions which doubled chance of victory over the enemies.

Rigorous training & prepartion:  The steppe cavalry had always travelled light and moved quickly, but now it brought all its knowledge of the terrain. They carried out campaigns in the depths of winter, treating frozen rivers as highways to enemy cities and camps.. He learnt the importance of siege. His engineers prepared light portable equipment, which was used against opponents with devastating effect.

The Mongols after Genghis Khan

The Mongol expansion after Genghis Khan’s death can be divided into two distinct phases –

(i) The first which spanned the years 1236-42 when the major gains were in the Russian steppes, Bulgaria, Poland and Hungary.

(ii) The second phase including the years 1255-1300 led to the conquest of all of China, Iran, Iraq and Syria.

The Mongol military forces met with few reversals in the decades after the 1260s the original impetus of campaigns could not be sustained in the West.

Social, Political and Military Organisation

Social Organisation

Among the Mongols all the able-bodied, adult males of the tribe bore arms: they constituted the armed forces when the occasion demanded.

The unification of the different Mongol tribes and subsequent campaigns against diverse people introduced new members into Genghis Khan’s army. It included groups like theTurks, Chinese and Arabs who had accepted his authority willingly.

The society included groups like the Turkic Uighurs, the defeated people like – the Kereyits. It was a body of heterogeneous mass of people.

Military Organisation

Genghis Khan worked to systematically erase the old tribal identities of the different groups who joined his confederacy. His army was organised according to the old steppe system of decimal units. Any individual who tried to move from his allotted group without permission received harsh punishment.

He divided the army into four units and they were required to serve under his four sons and specially chosen captains of his army units called noyan.

 The soldiers who had served Genghis Khan loyally through grave adversity for many years were publicly honoured some of these individuals as his ‘blood brothers’ and  others were given special ranking as his bondsmen, a title that marked their close relationship with their master.

Political Organisation

The civil system was based on Ulus system. Genghis Khan assigned the responsibility of governing the newly-conquered people to his four sons. These comprised the four ulus.

The eldest son, Jochi, received the Russian steppes and it extended as far west as his horses could roam.

The second son, Chaghatai, was given the Transoxanian steppe and lands north of the Pamir Mountain adjacent to those of his brother.

Genghis Khan had indicated that his third son, Ogodei, would succeed him as the Great Khan and on accession the Prince established his capital at Karakorum.

The youngest son, Toluy, received the ancestral lands of Mongolia. Genghis Khan envisaged that his sons would rule the empire collectively, and to underline this point, military contingents of the individual princes were placed in each ulus.

The sense of a dominion shared by the members of the family was underlined at the assembly of chieftains, quriltais, where all decisions relating to the family or the state for the forthcoming season campaigns, distribution of plunder, pasture lands and succession were collectively taken.

Development in Trade & communication in Mongolia

Yam:  Genghis Khan had already fashioned a rapid courier system called yam that connected the distant areas of his regime.

Qubcur tax: For the maintenance of this communication systemthe Mongol nomads contributed a tenth of their herd – either horses or livestock – as provisions. This was called the qubcur tax, a levy that the nomads paid willingly for the multiple benefits that it brought.

Territory linking: Once the campaigns had settled, Europe and China were territorially linked with Mongolia. Commerce and travel along the Silk Route reached its peak under the Mongols but, the trade route extended up to Mongolia.

Baj tax:  Communication and ease of travel was vital to retain the coherence of the Mongol regime and travellers were given a pass for safe conduct. Traders paid the baj tax for the same purpose, all acknowledging thereby the authority of the Mongol Khan.

Pressure groups: Mongols waged their successful wars against China, Persia, Russia etc there was a strong pressure group within the Mongol leadership that advocated the massacre of all peasantry and the conversion of their fields into pasture lands.

But by the 1270s, Genghis Khan’s grandson, Qubilai Khan appeared as the protector of the peasants and the cities.

The legal code of law – Yasa

Genghis Khan promulgated Yasa (the code of law) at the Assembly of Mongol Chieftains (quriltai) of 1206. It has elaborated on the complex ways in which the memory of the Great Khan was fashioned by his successors.

In its earliest formulation the term was written as yasa which meant ‘law’,‘decree’ or ‘order’. Yasa concern administrative regulations: the organisation of the hunt,the army and the postal system.

By the middle of the thirteenth century the Mongols had emerged as a unified people and just created the largest empire the world had ever seen. They ruled over very sophisticated urban societies, with their respective histories, cultures and laws. Although the Mongols dominated the region politically, they were a numerical minority. The one way in which they could protect their identity and distinctiveness was through a claim to a sacred law given to them by their ancestor. The yasa was in all probability a compilation of the customary traditions of the Mongol tribes but in referring to it as Genghis Khan’s code of law.

Conclusion

For the Mongols, Genghis Khan was the greatest leader of all time: he united the Mongol people. He freed them from interminable tribal wars and Chinese exploitation.He brought them prosperity, fashioned a grand transcontinental empire and restored trade routes and markets that attracted distant travelers and traders.

Genghis Khan ruled the diverse body of people and faiths.  Although the Mongol Khans themselves belonged to a variety of different faiths – Shaman, Buddhist, Christian and eventually Islam, they never let their personal beliefs dictate public policy.

The Mongol administration was a multi-ethnic,multilingual, multi-religious regime that did not feel threatened by its pluralistic constitution.

Today, after decades of Soviet control, the country of Mongolia is recreating its identity as an independent nation. Genghis Khan appeared as an iconic figure for the Mongol People, mobilising memories of a great past in the forging of national identity that can carry the nation into the future.

 Comparison with the Mongol Empire.Mongols provided ideological models for the Mughals of India.Timur, another monarch who aspired to universal dominion, hesitated to declare himself monarch because he was not of Genghis Khan descent.