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Powerful Mongol ruler Kublai Khan, would dispatch Marco Polo on trips in order to help administer the realm.

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Marco Polo (1254-1324) was a Venetian merchant believed to have journeyed across Asia at the height of the Mongol Empire. He first set out at age 17 with his father and uncle, traveling overland along what later became known as the Silk Road. Upon reaching China, Marco Polo entered the court of powerful Mongol ruler Kublai Khan, who dispatched him on trips to help administer the realm. Marco Polo remained abroad for 24 years. Though not the first European to explore China-his father and uncle, among others, had already been there-he became famous for his travels thanks to a popular book he co-authored while languishing in a Genoese prison.

Marco Polo: The Early Years

Marco Polo was born around 1254 into a prosperous merchant family in the Italian city-state of Venice. His father, Niccolò, and his uncle Maffeo had left the year before on a long-term trading expedition. As a result, he was raised by extended relatives following his mother's death at a young age. Niccolò and Maffeo first spent about six years in Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey), which had been under Latin control since the Fourth Crusade of 1204. The two brothers then went to the port city of Soldaia (now Sudak, Ukraine), where they owned a house.

Did you know? Christopher Columbus purportedly sailed to the New World with a copy of Marco Polo's "Travels" in tow. Thinking he would reach Asia and having no idea about the Mongol Empire's collapse, Columbus marked up the book with notes in preparation for a meeting with Kublai Khan's descendent.

The Byzantine re-conquest of Constantinople in 1261, along with upheavals in the Mongol Empire, may have blocked their way home. Niccolò and Maffeo therefore turned east in order to trade in such things as silk, gems, furs and spices. After spending three years in Bukhara in present-day Uzbekistan, they were encouraged by a Mongolian embassy to visit Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, who controlled a huge swath of Asia. Kublai quizzed them on European affairs and decided to send them on a goodwill mission to the pope. In 1269, the two brothers finally made it back to Venice, where Niccolò and Marco Polo met each other for the first time.

Marco Polo's Travels Along the Silk Road

Two years later, Niccolò and Maffeo sailed to Acre in present-day Israel, this time with Marco at their side. At the request of Kublai Khan, they secured some holy oil from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and then backtracked to Acre to pick up gifts, papal documents and two friars from newly elected Pope Gregory X. The friars quickly abandoned the expedition, but the Polos continued on, possibly by camel, to the Persian port city of Hormuz. Failing to find any boats to their liking, they instead took a series of overland traders' routes that, in the 19th century, would become known as the Silk Road. Over the next three years they slowly trekked through deserts, high mountain passes and other rough terrain, meeting people of various religions and cultures along the way. Finally, around 1275, they arrived at Kublai Khan's opulent summer palace at Shangdu, or Xanadu, located about 200 miles northwest of his winter quarters in modern Beijing.

Kublai, who generally relied on foreigners to administer his empire, took Marco Polo into his court, possibly as a tax collector. At one point, the Venetian was sent on official business to the port city of Hangzhou (then called Quinsai), which, like Venice, was built around a series of canals. Marco Polo also purportedly journeyed across inland China and into present-day Myanmar.

After many years of seeking a release from service, the Polos finally secured permission from Kublai to escort a young princess to her intended husband Arghun, the Mongol ruler of Persia. In 1292 the Polos joined a flotilla of 14 boats that set out from Zaitun (now Quanzhou, China), stopped briefly in Sumatra and then landed in Persia 18 months later, only to find out that Arghun was dead. The princess was made to marry Arghun's son. The Polos, meanwhile, stayed on with Arghun's brother for nine months before heading to Venice via Trebizond (now Trabzon, Turkey), Constantinople and Negrepont (now Euboea, Greece). They arrived home in 1295, the year after Kublai's death sent the Mongol Empire into an irrevocable decline.

Marco Polo in Venice

Shortly thereafter, Marco Polo was captured in battle by Venice's archrival Genoa. While in prison he met the Arthurian adventure writer Rustichello of Pisa, with whom he would collaborate on a 1298 manuscript called "Description of the World." It has since become better known as "The Travels of Marco Polo" or simply "The Travels." With the help of notes taken during his adventures, Marco Polo reverently described Kublai Khan and his palaces, along with paper money, coal, postal service, eyeglasses and other innovations that had not yet appeared in Europe. He also told partially erroneous self-aggrandizing tales about warfare, commerce, geography, court intrigues and the sexual practices of the people who lived under Mongol rule.

A Genoese-Venetian peace treaty in 1299 allowed Marco Polo to return home. He probably never left Venetian territory again. The following year, he married Donata Badoer, with whom he would have three daughters. Not much is known about his golden years except that he continued trading and litigated against a cousin. Marco Polo died in January 1324, having helped to inspire a later generation of explorers. Everything we know about him comes from his own text and a few Venetian documents; Asian sources never mentioned him. This lack of hard evidence has caused a small number of skeptics to question whether Marco Polo actually made it to China. They back up their case by pointing to certain inaccuracies in "The Travels," as well as his failure to report such practices as chopstick use and foot binding. Nonetheless, most scholars are convinced by the detailed nature of Marco Polo's account, which, they say, overwhelmingly checks out against available archaeological, historical and geographical records.

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Marco Polo (1254-1324) was a Venetian merchant believed to have journeyed across Asia at the height of the Mongol Empire. He first set out at age 17 with his father and uncle, traveling overland along what later became known as the Silk Road.

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benefits for Western Europe because of the mongols

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benefits for Western Europe because of the mongols

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An enormous variety of new consumer goods, agriculture, weaponry, religion, and medical science became available in Europe. Gunpowders, slaves, spices, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

Russia was unified for the first time by Moscow (The largest capital and city of Russia)

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In 1211, Genghis Khan (1167-1227) and his nomadic armies burst out from Mongolia and swiftly conquered most of Eurasia. The Great Khan died in 1227, but his sons and grandsons continued the expansion of the Mongol Empire across Central Asia, China, the Middle East, and into Europe.

Key Takeaways: Genghis Khan's Impact on Europe

Starting in 1236, Genghis Khan's third son, Ogodei, decided to conquer as much of Europe as he could. By 1240, the Mongols had control of what is now Russia and Ukraine, seizing Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary over the next few years.

The Mongols also tried to capture Poland and Germany, but Ogodei's death in 1241 and the succession struggle that followed distracted them from this mission. In the end, the Mongols' Golden Horde ruled over a vast swath of eastern Europe, and rumors of their approach terrified western Europe, but they went no farther west than Hungary.

At their height, the rulers of the Mongol Empire conquered, occupied, and controlled an area of 9 million square miles. In comparison, the Roman Empire controlled 1.7 million sq mi, and the British Empire 13.7 million sq mi, nearly 1/4 of the world's landmass.﻿﻿

The Mongol Invasion of Europe

Reports of the Mongol attacks terrified Europe. The Mongols increased their empire using swift and decisive attacks with an armed and disciplined cavalry. They wiped out the populations of some entire towns that resisted, as was their usual policy, depopulating some regions and confiscating the crops and livestock from others. This type of total warfare spread panic even among Europeans not directly affected by the Mongol onslaught and sent refugees fleeing westward.

Perhaps even more importantly, the Mongol conquest of central Asia and eastern Europe allowed a deadly disease-the bubonic plague-to travel from its home range in western China and Mongolia to Europe along newly-restored trade routes.

The bubonic plague was endemic to fleas that live on marmots in the steppes of eastern central Asia, and the Mongol hordes inadvertently brought those fleas across the continent, unleashing the plague on Europe. Between 1300 and 1400, the Black Death killed between 25 and 66% of the population in Europe, at least 50 million people. The plague also affected northern African and large parts of Asia.﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿

Positive Effects of the Mongols

Although the Mongol invasion of Europe sparked terror and disease, in the long run, it had enormous positive impacts. The foremost was what historians call the Pax Mongolica, a century of peace (circa 1280-1360) among neighboring peoples who were all under Mongol rule. This peace allowed for the reopening of the Silk Road trading routes between China and Europe, increasing cultural exchange and wealth all along the trade paths.

Central Asia was a region that had always been important to overland trade between China and the West. As the region became stable under the Pax Mongolica, trade became less risky under the various empires, and as cross-cultural interactions became more and more intensive and extensive, more and more goods were traded.

Spread of Technology

Within the Pax Mongolica, the sharing of knowledge, information, and cultural identity was encouraged. Citizens could legally become followers of Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, or anything else-as long as their practice didn't interfere with the political ambitions of the Khan. The Pax Mongolica also allowed monks, missionaries, traders, and explorers to travel along the trade routes. One famous example is the Venetian trader and explorer Marco Polo, who traveled to the court of Genghis Khan's grandson Kublai Khan (Quibilai) at Xanadu in China.

Some of the most fundamental ideas and technologies in the world-papermaking, printing, and gunpowder manufacturing, among many others-made their way across Asia via the Silk Road. Migrants, merchants, explorers, pilgrims, refugees, and soldiers brought along with them their disparate religious and cultural ideas and domesticated animals, plants, flowers, vegetables, and fruit as they joined this gigantic cross-continental exchange. As historian Ma Debin describes it, the Silk Road was the original melting pot, the lifeline of the Eurasian continent.

Effects of the Mongol Conquest

Before the Mongol Empire, Europeans and Chinese were largely unaware of the other's existence. Trade established along the Silk Road in the first centuries B.C.E. had become rare, dangerous, and unpredictable. Long-distance trade, human migration, and imperial expansion actively engaged people in different societies in significant cross-cultural interactions. Afterward, interactions between the two were not only possible but encouraged.

Diplomatic contacts and religious missions were established over vast distances. Islamic merchants helped gain a footing for their faith at the extreme ends of the Eastern Hemisphere, spreading from southeast Asia and west Africa and across northern India and Anatolia.

Alarmed, western Europeans and the Mongol rulers of China sought a diplomatic alliance with one another against the Muslims in southwest Asia. Europeans sought to convert Mongols to Christianity and establish a Christian community in China. The Mongols saw the spread as a threat. Neither of these initiatives was successful, but the opening of political channels made a substantive difference.

Transfer of Scientific Knowledge

The entire overland route of the Silk Road witnessed a vigorous revival under the Pax Mongolica. Its rulers actively worked to ensure the safety of the trade routes, building effective post stations and rest stops, introducing the use of paper money and eliminating artificial trade barriers. By 1257, Chinese raw silk appeared in the silk-producing area of Italy, and in the 1330s, a single merchant sold thousands of pounds of silk in Genoa.﻿﻿

The Mongolians absorbed scientific knowledge from Persia, India, China, and Arabia. Medicine became one of the many areas of life and culture that flourished under Mongol rule. Keeping an army healthy was vital, so they created hospitals and training centers to encourage the exchange and expansion of medical knowledge. As a result, China employed doctors from India and the Middle East, all of which was communicated to European centers. Kublai Khan founded an institution for the study of Western medicine. The Persian historian Rashid al-Din (1247-1318) published the first known book on Chinese medicine outside China in 1313.

Unification of Russia

The Golden Horde's occupation of eastern Europe also unified Russia. Prior to the period of Mongol rule, the Russian people were organized into a series of small self-governing city-states, the most notable being Kiev.

In order to throw off the Mongol yoke, the Russian-speaking peoples of the region had to unite. In 1480, the Russians-led by the Grand Duchy of Moscow (Muscovy)-managed to defeat and expel the Mongols. Although Russia has since been invaded several times by the likes of Napoleon Bonaparte and the German Nazis, it has never again been conquered.

The Beginnings of Modern Fighting Tactics

One final contribution that the Mongols made to Europe is difficult to categorize as good or bad. The Mongols introduced two deadly Chinese inventions-guns and gunpowder -to the West.

The new weaponry sparked a revolution in European fighting tactics, and the many warring states of Europe all strove over the following centuries to improve their firearms technology. It was a constant, multi-sided arms race, which heralded the end of knightly combat and the beginning of modern standing armies.

In the centuries to come, European states would muster their new and improved guns first for piracy, to seize control over parts of the oceangoing silk and spices trade, and then eventually to impose European colonial rule over much of the world.

Ironically, the Russians used their superior firepower in the 19th and 20th centuries to conquer many of the lands that had been part of the Mongol Empire, including outer Mongolia where Genghis Khan was born.

Additional References

Bentley, Jerry H. "Cross-Cultural Interaction and Periodization in World History." The American Historical Review, Vol. 101, No. 3, Oxford University Press, JSTOR, June 1996.

Davis-Kimball, Jeannine. "Asia, Central, Steppes." Encyclopedia of Archaeology, Academic Press, ScienceDirect, 2008.

Di Cosmo, Nicola. "Black Sea Emporia and the Mongol Empire: A Reassessment of the Pax Mongolica." Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Volume 53: Issue 1-2, Brill, January 1, 2009.

Flynn, Dennis O. (Editor). "Pacific Centuries: Pacific and Pacific Rim Economic History since the 16th Century." Routledge Explorations in Economic History, Lionel Frost (Editor), A.J.H. Latham (Editor), 1st Edition, Routledge, February 10, 1999.

Ma, Debin. "The Great Silk Exchange: How the World Was Connected and Developed." CiteSeer, The College of Information Sciences and Technology, The Pennsylvania State University, 2019.

Pederson, Neil. "Pluvials, droughts, the Mongol Empire, and modern Mongolia." Amy E. Hessl, Nachin Baatarbileg, et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, March 25, 2014.

Perdue, Peter C. "Boundaries, Maps, and Movement: Chinese, Russian, and Mongolian Empires in Early Modern Central Eurasia." Volume 20, 1998 - Issue 2, The International History Review, Informa UK Limited, December 1, 2010.

Safavi-Abbasi, S. "The fate of medical knowledge and the neurosciences during the time of Genghis Khan and the Mongolian Empire." Neurosurg Focus, Brasiliense LB, Workman RK, et al., National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2007, Bethesda MD.

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In 1211, Genghis Khan (1167-1227) and his nomadic armies burst out from Mongolia and swiftly conquered most of Eurasia. The Great Khan died in 1227, but his sons and grandsons continued the expansion of the Mongol Empire across Central Asia, China, the Middle East, and into Europe.

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How did the mongols benefit your people to travel (Marco Polo)

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How did the mongols benefit your people to travel (Marco Polo)

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Mongols allowed western Europe to freely travel as far as China in-between the trading borders. Marco Polo a merchant who one of the first journeyed across Asia along the silk road for 24 yrs not yet explored by other europeans.

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The Mongol invasion of Europe in the 13th century occurred from the 1220s into the 1240s. In Eastern Europe, the Mongols destroyed Volga Bulgaria, Cumania, Alania, and the Kievan Rus' federation. In Central Europe, the Mongol armies launched a two-pronged invasion of fragmented Poland, culminating in the Battle of Legnica (9 April 1241), and the Kingdom of Hungary, culminating in the Battle of Mohi (11 April 1241). Invasions also were launched into the Caucasus against the Kingdom of Georgia and the Chechens and Ingush, as well as into the Balkans against Croatia, the Second Bulgarian Empire, and the Latin Empire. The operations were planned by General Subutai (1175-1248) and commanded by Batu Khan ( c. 1207-1255) and Kadan (d. c. 1261). Both men were grandsons of Genghis Khan. Their conquests integrated much of Eastern European territory into the empire of the Golden Horde. Warring European princes realized they had to cooperate in the face of a Mongol invasion, so local wars and conflicts were suspended in parts of central Europe, only to be resumed after the Mongols had withdrawn. After the initial invasions, subsequent raids and punitive expeditions continued into the late 13th century.

Invasions and conquest of Rus' lands

Ögedei Khan ordered Batu Khan to conquer Rus' in 1235. The main force, headed by Jochi's sons, and their cousins, Möngke Khan and Güyük Khan, arrived at Ryazan in December 1237. Ryazan refused to surrender, and the Mongols sacked it and then stormed Suzdalia. Many Rus' armies were defeated; Grand Prince Yuri was killed on the Sit River (March 4, 1238). Major cities such as Vladimir, Torzhok, and Kozelsk were captured.

Afterward, the Mongols turned their attention to the steppe, crushing the Kypchaks and the Alans and sacking Crimea. Batu appeared in Kievan Rus' in 1239, sacking Pereiaslav and Chernihiv. The Mongols sacked Kiev on December 6, 1240, destroyed Sutiejsk and conquered Galich along with Volodymyr-Volynskyi. Batu sent a small detachment to probe the Poles before passing on to Central Europe. One column was routed by the Poles while the other defeated the Polish army and returned.

The attack on Europe was planned and executed by Subutai, who achieved perhaps his most lasting fame with his victories there. Having devastated the various Rus' principalities, he sent spies into Poland and Hungary, and as far as eastern Austria, in preparation for an attack into the heartland of Europe. Having a clear picture of the European kingdoms, he prepared an attack nominally commanded by Batu Khan and two other familial-related princes. Batu Khan, son of Jochi, was the overall leader, but Subutai was the strategist and commander in the field, and as such, was present in both the northern and southern campaigns against Rus' principalities. He also commanded the central column that moved against Hungary. While Kadan's northern force won the Battle of Legnica and Güyük's army triumphed in Transylvania, Subutai was waiting for them on the Hungarian plain. The newly reunited army then withdrew to the Sajó river where they inflicted a decisive defeat on King Béla IV of Hungary at the Battle of Mohi. Again, Subutai masterminded the operation, and it would prove one of his greatest victories.

The Mongols invaded Central Europe with three armies. One army defeated an alliance which included forces from fragmented Poland and their allies, led by Henry II the Pious, Duke of Silesia in the Battle of Legnica. A second army crossed the Carpathian mountains and a third followed the Danube. The armies re-grouped and crushed Hungary in 1241, defeating the Hungarian army at the Battle of Mohi on April 11, 1241. The devastating Mongol invasion killed half of Hungary's population. The armies swept the plains of Hungary over the summer, and in early 1242 regained impetus and extended their control into Dalmatia and Moravia. The Great Khan had, however, died in December 1241, and on hearing the news, all the "Princes of the Blood," against Subotai's recommendation, went back to Mongolia to elect the new Khan.

After sacking Kiev, Batu Khan sent a smaller group of troops to Poland, destroying Lublin and defeating an inferior Polish army. Other elements-not part of the main Mongol force-saw difficulty near the Polish-Galich border.

The Mongols then reached Polaniec on the Czarna Hańcza, where they set up camp. There, the Voivode attacked them with the remaining Cracovian knights, which were few in number, but determined to vanquish the invader or die. Surprise gave the Poles an initial advantage and they managed to kill many Mongol soldiers. When the invaders realized the actual numerical weakness of the Poles, they regrouped, broke through the Polish ranks and defeated them. During the fighting, many Polish prisoners of war found ways to escape and hide in the nearby woods. The Polish defeat was partly influenced by the initially successful Polish knights having been distracted by looting.

After the defeat of the European forces at Legnica, the Mongols then continued pillaging throughout Poland's neighboring kingdoms, particularly Silesia and Moravia. King Wenceslaus I of Bohemia fled back to protect his kingdom after arriving late and discovering the devastation the Mongols caused in those places; gathering reinforcements from Thuringia and Saxony as he retreated. He stationed his troops in the mountainous regions of Bohemia where the Mongols would not be able to utilize their cavalry effectively.

By that time, Mongolian forces had divided into two, one led by Batu and Subutai who were planning to invade Hungary, and another led by Baidar and Kadan who were ravaging their way through Silesia and Moravia. When they arrived to attack Bohemia, the kingdom's defenses discouraged them from attacking and they withdrew to the town of Othmachau. A small force of Mongolians did attack Kłodzko but the Bohemian cavalry under Wenceslaus managed to fend them off. The Mongols then tried to take the town of Olomouc, but Wenceslaus managed to get the aid of Austrian Babenbergs and they repulsed the raid. A Mongol commander was captured in a sortie near Olomouc. Under Wenceslaus' leadership during the Mongol invasion, Bohemia remained one of a few European kingdoms that was never conquered and molested by the Mongols even though most kingdoms around it such as Poland and Moravia were ravaged. Such was his success that chroniclers sent messages to Emperor Frederick II of his "victorious defense". After these failed attempts, Baidar and Kadan continued raiding Moravia before finally going southward to reunite with Batu and Subutai in Hungary.

The Hungarians had first learned about the Mongol threat in 1229, when King Andrew II granted asylum to some fleeing Ruthenian boyars. Some Magyars (Hungarians), left behind during the main migration to the Pannonian basin, still lived on the banks of the upper Volga (it is believed by some[who? ] that the descendants of this group are the modern-day Bashkirs, although this people now speaks a Turkic language, not Magyar). In 1237 a Dominican friar, Julianus, set off on an expedition to lead them back, and was sent back to King Béla with a letter from Batu Khan. In this letter, Batu called upon the Hungarian king to surrender his kingdom unconditionally to the Tatar forces or face complete destruction. Béla did not reply, and two more messages were later delivered to Hungary. The first, in 1239, was sent by the defeated Cuman tribes, who asked for and received asylum in Hungary. The second was sent in February 1241 by the defeated Polish princes.

Only then did King Béla call upon his magnates to join his army in defense of the country. He also asked the papacy and the Western European rulers for help. Foreign help came in the form of a small knight-detachment under the leadership of Frederick II, Duke of Austria, but it was too small to change the outcome of the campaign. The majority of the Hungarian magnates also did not realize the urgency of the matter. Some may have hoped that a defeat of the royal army would force Béla to discontinue his centralization efforts and thus strengthen their own power.

Although the Mongol danger was real and imminent, Hungary was not prepared to deal with it; in the minds of a people who had lived free from nomadic invasions for the last few hundred years, an invasion seemed impossible, and Hungary was no longer a predominantly soldier population. Only rich nobles were trained as heavy-armored cavalry. The Hungarians had long since forgotten the light-cavalry strategy and tactics of their ancestors, which were similar to those now used by the Mongols. The Hungarian army (some 60,000 on the eve of the Battle of Mohi) was made up of individual knights with tactical knowledge, discipline, and talented commanders. Because his army was not experienced in nomadic warfare, King Béla welcomed the Cuman King Kuthen (also known as Kotony) and his fighters. However, the Cuman invitation proved detrimental to the Hungarians because Batu Khan considered this acceptance of a group he considered rebels as justifications for his invasion of Hungary. After rumors began to circulate in Hungary that the Cumans were agents of the Mongols, some hot-headed Hungarians attacked the Cuman camp and killed Kotony. This led the enraged Cumans to ride south, looting, ravaging the countryside, and slaughtering the unsuspecting Magyar population. The Austrian troops retreated to Austria shortly thereafter to gain more western aid. The Hungarians now stood alone in the defense of their country.

The 1241 Mongol invasion first affected Moldavia and Wallachia (situated east and south of the Carpathians). Tens of thousands of Wallachians and Moldavians lost their lives defending their territories from the Golden Horde. Crops and goods plundered from Wallachian settlements seem to have been a primary supply source for the Golden Horde. The invaders killed up to half of the population and burned down most of their settlements, thus destroying much of the cultural and economic records from that period. Neither Wallachians nor the army of Hungary offered much resistance against the Mongols. The swiftness of the invasion took many by surprise and forced them to retreat and hide in forests and the enclosed valleys of the Carpathians. In the end, however, the main target of the invasion was the Kingdom of Hungary.

The Hungarian army arrived and encamped at the Sajó River on April 10, 1241, without having been directly challenged by the Mongols. The Mongols, having largely concealed their positions, began their attack the next night; after heavier-than-expected losses inflicted by Hungarian crossbowmen, the Mongols adjusted their strategy and routed the Hungarian forces rapidly. A major Hungarian loss was imminent, and the Mongols intentionally left a gap in their formation to permit the wavering Hungarian forces to flee and spread out in doing so, leaving them unable to effectively resist the Mongols as they picked off the retreating Hungarian remnants. While the king escaped with the help of his bodyguard, the remaining Hungarian army was mercilessly killed by the Mongols or drowned in the river as they attempted escape. Following their decisive victory, the Mongols now systematically occupied the Great Hungarian Plains, the slopes of the northern Carpathian Mountains, and Transylvania. Where they found local resistance, they ruthlessly killed the population. Where the locale offered no resistance, they forced the men into servitude in the Mongol army. Still, tens of thousands avoided Mongol domination by taking refuge behind the walls of the few existing fortresses or by hiding in the forests or large marshes along the rivers. The Mongols, instead of leaving the defenseless and helpless people and continuing their campaign through Pannonia to Western Europe, spent time securing and pacifying the occupied territories. On Christmas day 1241, the costly siege of Esztergom destroyed the capital and economic center of the Kingdom of Hungary, forcing the capital to be moved to Budapest.

During the winter, contrary to the traditional strategy of nomadic armies which started campaigns only in spring-time, they crossed the Danube and continued their systematic occupation, including Pannonia. They eventually reached the Austrian borders and the Adriatic shores in Dalmatia. The Mongols appointed a darughachi in Hungary and minted coins in the name of Khagan. According to Michael Prawdin, the country of Béla was assigned to Orda by Batu as an appanage. At least 20%-40% of the population died, by slaughter or epidemic. Rogerius of Apulia, an Italian monk and chronicler who witnessed and survived the invasion, pointed out not only the genocidal element of the occupation, but also that the Mongols especially "found pleasure" in humiliating local women. But while the Mongols claimed control of Hungary, they could not occupy fortified cities such as Fehérvár, Veszprém, Tihany, Győr, Pannonhalma, Moson, Sopron, Vasvár, Újhely, Zala, Léka, Pozsony, Nyitra, Komárom, Fülek and Abaújvár. Learning from this lesson, fortresses came to play a significant role in Hungary. King Béla IV rebuilt the country and invested in fortifications. Facing a shortage of money, he welcomed the settlement of Jewish families, investors, and tradesmen, granting them citizenship rights. The King also welcomed tens of thousands of Kun (Cumans) who had fled the country before the invasion. Chinese fire arrows were deployed by Mongols against the city of Buda on December 25, 1241, which they overran.

The Mongolian invasion taught the Magyars a simple lesson: although the Mongols had destroyed the countryside, the forts and fortified cities had survived. To improve their defense capabilities for the future, they had to build forts, not only on the borders but also inside the country. In the siege of Esztergom, the defenses managed to hold off the Mongolians despite the latter having overwhelming numerical superiority and 30 siege machines which they had just used to reduce the wooden towers of the city. During the remaining decades of the 13th century and throughout the 14th century, the kings donated more and more royal land to the magnates with the condition that they build forts and ensure their defenses.

During the Middle Ages, the Kingdom of Croatia was in a personal union with the Kingdom of Hungary, with Béla IV as a king.

When routed on the banks of the Sajó river in 1241 by the Mongols, Béla IV fled to today's Zagreb in Croatia. Batu sent a few tumens (roughly 20,000 men at arms) under Khadan in pursuit of Bela. The major objective was not the conquest but the capture of the Arpad king. The poorly fortified Zagreb was unable to resist the invasion and was destroyed, its cathedral burned by Mongols. In preparation for a second invasion, Gradec was granted a royal charter or Golden Bull of 1242 by King Béla IV, after which citizens of Zagreb engaged in building defensive walls and towers around their settlement.

The Mongols' pursuit of Béla IV continued from Zagreb through Pannonia to Dalmatia. While in pursuit, the Mongols under the leadership of Kadan (Qadan) attacked Klis Fortress in Croatia in March 1242. Due to the strong fortifications of Klis, the Mongols dismounted and climbed over the walls using nearby cliffs. The defenders were able to inflict a number of casualties on the Mongols, which enraged the latter and caused them to fight hand to hand in the streets and gather a sizable amount of loot from houses. As soon as they learned that King Bela was elsewhere, they abandoned the attack and split off to attack Split and Trogir. The Mongols pursued Béla IV from town to town in Dalmatia, while Croatian nobility and Dalmatian towns such as Trogir and Rab helped Béla IV to escape. After being defeated by the Croatian soldiers, the Mongols retreated and Béla IV was awarded Croatian towns and nobility. Only the city of Split did not aid Béla IV in his escape from the Mongols. Some historians claim that the mountainous terrain of Croatian Dalmatia was fatal for the Mongols because of the great losses they suffered from Croat ambushes set up in mountain passes. In any case, though much of Croatia was plundered and destroyed, long-term occupation was unsuccessful.

Saint Margaret (January 27, 1242 - January 18, 1271), a daughter of Béla IV and Maria Laskarina, was born in Klis Fortress during the Mongol invasion of Hungary-Croatia in 1242.

On 9 April 1241, Mongol detachments entered Meissen and Lusatia following a decisive Mongol victory at the Battle of Liegnitz. The Mongol light reconnaissance units, led by Orda Khan, pillaged through Meissen and burned most of the city of Meissen to the ground. The Annales sancti Pantaleonis records these attacks.

The subjugation of Hungary opened a pathway for the Mongol Horde to invade Vienna. Using similar tactics during their campaigns in previous Eastern and Central European countries, the Mongols first launched small squadrons to attack isolated settlements in the outskirts of Vienna in an attempt to instill fear and panic among the populace. In 1241 the Mongols raided Wiener Neustadt and its neighboring districts, located south of Vienna. Wiener Neustadt took the brunt of the attack and, like previous invasions, the Mongols committed horrible atrocities on the relatively unarmed populace. The city of Korneuburg, just north of Vienna, was also pillaged and destroyed. The Duke of Austria, Frederick II, had previously engaged the Mongols in Olomouc and in the initial stages of the Battle of Mohi. Unlike in Hungary however, Vienna under the leadership of Duke Frederick and his knights, together with their foreign allies, managed to rally quicker and annihilate the small Mongolian squadron. After the battle, the Duke estimated that the Mongols lost 300 to upwards of 700 men, while the defending Europeans lost 100. Austrian knights also subsequently defeated the Mongols at the borders of the River March in the district of Theben. After the failed initial raids, the rest of the Mongols retreated after learning of the Great Khan Ögedei's death.

During his withdrawal from Hungary back into Ruthenia, part of Batu Khan's army invaded Bulgaria. A Mongolian force was defeated by the Bulgarian army under Tsar Ivan Asen II. A larger force returned to raid Bulgaria again the same year, though little is known of what happened. According to the Persian historian Rashid-al-Din Hamadani, the Bulgarian capital of Tarnovo was sacked. This is unlikely, but rumor of it spread widely, being repeated in Palestine by Bar Hebraeus. The invasion of Bulgaria is mentioned in other contemporary sources, such as Philippe Mouskès, Thomas of Cantimpré and Ricoldo of Montecroce. Contemporary documents indicate that by 1253, Kaliman I was a tribute-paying vassal of the Mongols, a status he had probably been forced to accept during the invasion of 1242.

The traditional European method of warfare of melee combat between knights ended in catastrophe when it was deployed against the Mongol forces as the Mongols were able to keep a distance and advance with superior numbers. The New Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 29 says that "Employed against the Mongol invaders of Europe, knightly warfare failed even more disastrously for the Poles at the Battle of Legnica and the Hungarians at the Battle of Mohi in 1241. Feudal Europe was saved from sharing the fate of China and Muscovy not by its tactical prowess but by the unexpected death of the Mongols' supreme ruler, Ögedei, and the subsequent eastward retreat of his armies."

However, during the initial Mongol invasion and the subsequent raids afterwards, heavily armored knights and cavalry proved more effective at fighting the Mongols than their light-armored counterparts. During the Battle of Mohi for example, while the Hungarian light cavalry and infantry were decimated by Mongol forces, the heavily armored knights in their employ (such as the Knights Templar) fought significantly better. During the Battle of Legnica, the Knights Templar that numbered between 65-88 during the battle lost only three knights and 2 sergeants. Austrian knights under Duke Frederick also fared better in fighting the Mongol invasion in Vienna.

King Béla IV hired the help of the Knights of St. John, as well as training his own better-armed local knights, in preparation for the Second Mongol invasion of Hungary. In the decades following the Mongolian raids on European settlements, Western armies (particularly Hungary) started to adapt to the Mongol tactics by building better fortifications against siege weapons and improving their heavy cavalry. After the division of the Mongol Empire into four fragments, when the Golden Horde attempted the next invasion of Hungary, Hungary had increased their proportion of knights (led by Ladislaus IV of Hungary) and they quickly defeated the main Golden Horde Army in the hills of western Transylvania.

By this time as well, many Eastern and Central European countries had ended their hostilities with one another and united to finally drive out the remnants of the Golden Horde. Guerrilla warfare and stiff resistance also helped many Europeans, particularly those in Croatia and Dzurdzuketia, in preventing the Mongols from setting a permanent hold and driving them off.

Several sources mention the Mongols deploying firearms and gunpowder weapons against European forces at the Battle of Mohi in various forms, including bombs hurled via catapult. Professor Kenneth Warren Chase credits the Mongols for introducing gunpowder and its associated weaponry into Europe. A later legend arose in Europe about a mysterious Berthold Schwarz who is credited with the invention of gunpowder by 15th- through 19th-century European literature.

During 1241, most of the Mongol forces were resting on the Hungarian Plain. In late March 1242, they began to withdraw. The most common reason given for this withdrawal is the Great Khan Ögedei's death on December 11, 1241. Ögedei Khan died at the age of fifty-six after a binge of drinking during a hunting trip, which forced most of the Mongolian army to retreat back to Mongolia so that the princes of the blood could be present for the election of a new great khan. This is attested to by one primary source: the chronicle of Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, who after visiting the Mongol court, stated that the Mongols withdrew for this reason; he further stated that God had caused the Great Khan's death to protect Latin Christendom. As Stephen Pow pointed out in his analysis of this issue, if we go by Carpini's account, a messenger would have to be able to make the journey from Mongolia to Central Europe in a little over 3 months at a minimum; the messenger would have to arrive in March, meaning he took about 3 months in the middle of winter from the time of the khan's death. Carpini himself accompanied a Mongol party in a much shorter journey (from Kiev to Mongolia) in 1246, where the party "made great speed" in order to reach the election ceremony in time, and made use of several horses per person while riding nearly all day and night. It took five months.

Rashid Al-Din, a historian of the Mongol Ilkhanate, explicitly states in the Ilkhanate's official histories that the Mongols were not even aware of Ogedei's death when they began their withdrawal. Rashid Al-Din, writing under the auspices of the Mongol Empire, had access to the official Mongol chronicle when compiling his history ( Altan Debter). John Andrew Boyle asserts, based on the orthography, that Rashid Al-Din's account of the withdrawal from central Europe was taken verbatim from Mongolian records.

Another theory is that weather data preserved in tree rings points to a series of warm, dry summers in the region until 1242. When temperatures dropped and rainfall increased, the local climate shifted to a wetter and colder environment. That, in turn, caused flooding of the formerly dry grasslands and created a marshy terrain. Those conditions would have been less than ideal for the nomadic Mongol cavalry and their encampments, reducing their mobility and pastureland, curtailing their invasion into Europe west of the Hungarian plain, and hastening their retreat.

The true reasons for the Mongol withdrawal are not fully known, but numerous plausible explanations exist. The Mongol invasion had bogged down into a series of costly and frustrating sieges, where they gained little loot and ran into stiff resistance. They had lost a large number of men despite their victories (see above). Finally, they were stretched thin in the European theater, and were experiencing a rebellion by the Cumans (Batu returned to put it down, and spent roughly a year doing so). Others argue Europe's bad weather had an effect: Hungary has a high water table so it floods easily. An analysis of tree rings there found that Hungary had cold wet weather in early 1242, which likely turned Hungary's central plain into a huge swamp; so, lacking pastures for their horses, the Mongols would have had to fall back to Rus' in search of better grasslands.

Regardless of their reasons, the Mongols had completely withdrawn from Central Europe by mid-1242, though they still launched military operations in the west at this time, most notably the 1241-1243 Mongol invasion of Anatolia. Batu specifically decided against attending the kurultai in favor of staying in Europe, which delayed the ceremony for several years.

The historian Jack Weatherford claims that European survival was due to Mongol unwillingness to fight in the more densely populated German principalities, where the weather affected the glue and sinew of the Mongol bows. However, a counter to this assertion is that the Mongols were willing to fight in the densely populated areas of Song China and India. Furthermore, the Mongols were able to conquer Southern China which is located in a tropical climate zone and would have received far more rainfall and humidity than anywhere in Europe. The territory of Western Europe had more forests and castles than the Mongols were accustomed, and there were opportunities for the European heavy cavalry to counter-attack. Also, despite the steppe tactics of the Avars and early Hungarians, both were defeated by Western states in the 9th and 10th centuries. A significant number of important castles and towns in Hungary had also resisted the formidable and infamous Mongol siege tactics.

Sir John Keegan claimed the Mongols failed against the geographical and weather conditions of Europe:

[The Mongol armies], ferocious though they were, ultimately failed to translate their light cavalry power from the semi-temperate and desert regions where it flourished in to the high-rainfall zone of Western Europe. Whenever [they] encountered ... peoples living by intensive agriculture, accumulating thereby food surpluses which enabled them to sustain campaigns longer than the foraging nomads ever could, and breeding on their rich grasslands horses which outmatched the nomad pony in battle, [they] had to admit defeat. Light cavalry conquerors were in time either forced back into the arid environment where nomadism flourished, as on the borders of Western Europe, or, as in China, corrupted by the softness of agricultural civilization and absorbed by it.

Some historians believe that the reason for Batu's stopping at the Mohi River was that he never intended to advance further. He had made the new Rus' conquests secure for the years to come, and when the Great Khan died and Batu rushed back to Mongolia to put in his claim for power, it ended his westward expansion. Subutai's recall at the same time left the Mongol armies without their spiritual head and primary strategist. Batu Khan was not able to resume his plans for conquest to the "Great Sea" (the Atlantic Ocean) until 1255, after the turmoil after Ögedei's death had finally subsided with the election of Möngke Khan as Great Khan. Though he was capable of invading Western Europe, he was no longer interested.

From 1241 to 1248 a state of almost open warfare existed between Batu, son of Jochi, and Güyük, son of Ögedei. The Mongol Empire was ruled by a regency under Ögedei's widow Töregene Khatun, whose only goal was to secure the Great Khanate for her son, Güyük. There was so much bitterness between the two branches of the family that Güyük died in 1248 on his way to confront Batu to force him to accept his authority. He also had problems in his last years with the Principality of Halych-Volhynia, whose ruler, Danylo of Halych, adopted a policy of confronting the Golden Horde and defeated some Mongol assaults in 1254. He was only defeated in 1259, under the Berke's rule. Batu Khan was unable to turn his army west until 1255, after Möngke had become Great Khan in 1251, and he had repaired his relations with the Great Khanate. However, as he prepared to finish the invasion of Europe, he died. His son did not live long enough to implement his father and Subutai's plan to invade Europe, and with his death, Batu's younger brother Berke became Khan of the Kipchak Khanate. Berke was not interested in invading Europe as much as halting his cousin Hulagu Khan from destroying the Holy Land. Berke had converted to Islam and watched with horror as his cousin destroyed the Abbasid Caliph, the spiritual head of Islam as far as Berke was concerned. The Mamluks of Egypt, learning through spies that Berke was both a Muslim and not fond of his cousin, appealed to him for help and were careful to nourish their ties to him and his Khanate.

Both entities were Turkic in origin. Many of the Mamluks were of Turkic descent and Berke's Khanate was almost totally Turkic also. Jochi, Genghis Khan's oldest son, was of disputed parentage and only received 4,000 Mongol warriors to start his Khanate. His nearly 500,000 warriors were virtually all Turkic people who had submitted to the Mongols. Thus, the Khanate was Turkic in culture and had more in common with their Muslim Turkic Mamluks brothers than with the Mongol shamanist Hulagu and his horde. Thus, when Hulagu Khan began to mass his army for war against the Mamluk-controlled Holy Land, they swiftly appealed to Berke Khan who sent armies against his cousin and forced him to defend his domains in the north.

Hulagu returned to his lands by 1262, but instead of being able to avenge his defeats, had to turn north to face Berke Khan, suffering severe defeat in an attempted invasion north of the Caucasus in 1263, after Berke Khan had lured him north and away from the Holy Land. Thus, the Kipchak Khanate never invaded Europe; keeping watch to the south and east instead. Berke only sent troops into Europe twice, in two relatively light raids in 1259 and 1265, simply to collect booty he needed to pay for his wars against Hulagu from 1262-65.

The Papacy had rejected the pleas of Georgia in favor of launching crusades in Spain and the Middle East, as well as preaching a Crusade against Kievan Rus in 1238 for refusing to join his earlier Balkan Crusade. Meanwhile, Emperor Frederick II, a well-educated ruler, wanted to annex Italy to unite his separated kingdoms of Germany and Sicily. In addition to calling a council to depose the Holy Roman Emperor, Pope Gregory IX and his successor Innocent IV excommunicated Frederick four times and labeled him the Antichrist.

In the 1240s the efforts of Christendom were already divided between five Crusades, only one of which was aimed against the Mongols. Initially, when Bela sent messengers to the Pope to request a Crusade against the Mongols, the Pope tried to convince them to instead join his Crusade against the Holy Roman Emperor. Eventually Pope Gregory did promise a Crusade and the Church finally helped sanction a small Crusade against the Mongols in mid-1241, but it was diverted when he died in August 1241. Instead of fighting the Mongols, the resources gathered by the Crusade was used to fight a Crusade against the Hohenstaufen Dynasty after the German barons revolted against the Holy Roman Emperor's son Conrad in September 1241.

The Golden Horde raids in the 1280s (those in Bulgaria, Hungary, and Poland), were much greater in scale than anything since the 1241-1242 invasion, thanks to the lack of civil war in the Mongol Empire at the time. They have sometimes been collectively referred to as "the second Mongol invasion of Europe", "the second Tatar-Mongol invasion of central and south-eastern Europe", or "the second Mongol invasion of central Europe."

In 1259, eighteen years after the first attack, two tumens (20,000 men) from the Golden Horde, under the leadership of Berke, attacked Poland after raiding Lithuania. This attack was commanded by general Burundai with young princes Nogai and Talabuga. Lublin, Sieradz, Sandomierz, Zawichost, Kraków, and Bytom were ravaged and plundered. Berke had no intention of occupying or conquering Poland. After this raid the Pope Alexander IV tried without success to organize a crusade against the Tatars.

An unsuccessful invasion followed in 1287, led by Talabuga and Nogai Khan. 30,000 men (three tumens) in two columns under Nogai (10,000 Mongol cavalry) and Talabuga (20,000 Mongols and Ruthenians) respectively raided Lesser Poland to plunder the area and meet up north of Kraków. Lublin, Mazovia, and Sieradz were successfully raided, but the Mongols failed to capture Sandomierz and Kraków and were repulsed with heavy casualties when they attempted to assault the cities, although the cities were devastated. Talabuga's main army (the rest of his column having dissolved across the countryside for raiding) was defeated by Duke Leszek II at the Battle of Łagów. After this severe setback, Talabuga linked back up with the raiding parties and fled Poland with the loot that was already taken. Nogai's column, after suffering losses during the assault on Kraków, split up to raid the lands both north and south of the city. One detachment headed towards the town of Stary Sącz, another to Podolínec, and others to the Duchy of Sieradz. The first detachment was surprised and defeated by the Poles and their Hungarian allies in the Battle of Stary Sącz, while the second devastated the area of Podhale while skirmishing with the locals. After the defeat at Stary Sącz, Nogai's whole column retreated into Ruthenia.

During the reign of Berke there was also a raid against Thrace. In the winter of 1265, the Bulgarian czar, Constantine Tych, requested Mongol intervention against the Byzantines in the Balkans. Nogai Khan led a Mongol raid of 20,000 cavalry (two tumens) against the territories of Byzantine eastern Thrace. In early 1265, Michael VIII Palaeologus confronted the Mongols, but his smaller squadron apparently had very low morale and was quickly routed. Most of them were cut down as they fled. Michael was forced to retreat to Constantinople on a Genoese ship while Nogai's army plundered all of Thrace. Following this defeat, the Byzantine emperor made an alliance with the Golden Horde (which was massively beneficial for the latter), giving his daughter Euphrosyne in marriage to Nogai. Michael also sent much valuable fabric to Golden Horde as tribute.

Thrace also suffered raids in 1324 and 1337, during the reign of Uzbeg Khan.

The successors of Tsar Ivan Asen II - the regency of Kaliman Asen I decided to pay tax to the Golden Horde. In 1271 Nogai Khan led a successful raid against the country, which was a vassal of the Golden Horde until the early 14th century. Bulgaria was again raided by the Tatars in 1274, 1280 and 1285. In 1278 and 1279 Tsar Ivailo lead the Bulgarian army and crushed the Mongol raids before being surrounded at Silistra. After a three-month siege, he managed to once again break through the elite Mongol forces, forcing them to retreat north of the Danube. In 1280 a rebellion inspired by Byzantium left Ivailo without much support, and so he fled to Nogai's camp, asking him for help before being killed by the Mongols. Tsar George I, however, became a Mongol vassal before the Mongol threat was finally ended with the reign of Theodore Svetoslav.

In 1285 Nogai Khan led a raid of Hungary alongside Talabuga. Nogai lead an army that ravaged Transylvania with success: Cities like Reghin, Brașov and Bistrița were plundered and ravaged. However Talabuga, who led the main army in Northern Hungary, was stopped by the heavy snow of the Carpathians and the invading force was defeated near Pest by the royal army of Ladislaus IV and ambushed by the Székely in the return. Nogai's own column suffered serious casualties. As with later invasions, it was repelled handily, the Mongols losing much of their invading force. The outcome could not have contrasted more sharply with the 1241 invasion, mostly due to the reforms of Béla IV, which included advances in military tactics and, most importantly, the widespread building of stone castles, both responses to the defeat of the Hungarian Kingdom in 1241. The failed Mongol attack on Hungary greatly reduced the Golden Horde's military power and caused them to stop disputing Hungarian borders.

In 1291 a large Mongol-Bulgarian alliance raided into Serbia, where Serbian king Stefan Uroš II Milutin defeated them. However, the Serbian king acknowledged Nogai's supremacy and sent his son as hostage to prevent further hostility when Nogai threatened to lead a punitive expedition himself.

Contemporary Swiss historian John of Winterthur reports attacks by the Mongols on Hungary, the March of Brandenburg and Prussia during the period of 1340-1341.

By the mid-14th century the grip of the Golden Horde over Central and Eastern Europe had started to weaken. Several European kingdoms started various incursions into Mongol-controlled lands with the aim of reclaiming captured territories as well as add new ones from the Empire itself. The Kingdom of Georgia, under the leadership of King George V the Brilliant, restored Georgian dominance in their own lands and even took the Empire of Trebizond from Mongol hands. Lithuania, taking advantage of internal strifes in the Golden Horde, started an invasion of their own, defeating the Mongols at the Battle at Blue Waters, as well as conquering territories of the Golden Horde such as the Principality of Kiev all the way to the Dnieper River, before being halted after their defeat at the Battle of the Vorskla River. The Duchy of Moscow also started to reclaim many Rus' lands, eventually developing into the Tsardom of Russia. In 1345, the Kingdom of Hungary took the initiative and launched their own invasion force into Mongolian territory, capturing what would become Moldavia.

By this point, some Western European armies also started to meet the Mongols in their conquered territories. In Caffa in Crimea for example, when the Mongols under Janibeg besieged it after a large fight between Christians and Muslims began, a relief force of an Italian army came and defeated the Mongols, killing 15,000 of their troops and destroying their siege engines. A year later, the Italians blockaded Mongol ports in the region, forcing Janibeg to negotiate, and in 1347 the Italians were allowed to reestablish their colony in Tana on the Sea of Azov.

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Atwood, Christopher P. Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire (2004)

Chambers, James. The Devil's Horsemen: The Mongol Invasion of Europe (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1979)

Christian, David. A History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia Vol. 1: Inner Eurasia from Prehistory to the Mongol Empire (Blackwell, 1998)

Cook, David, "Apocalyptic Incidents during the Mongol Invasions", in Brandes, Wolfram / Schmieder, Felicitas (hg), Endzeiten. Eschatologie in den monotheistischen Weltreligionen (Berlin, de Gruyter, 2008) (Millennium-Studien / Millennium Studies / Studien zu Kultur und Geschichte des ersten Jahrtausends n. Chr. / Studies in the Culture and History of the First Millennium C.E., 16), 293-312.

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The Mongol invasion of Europe in the 13th century occurred from the 1220s into the 1240s. In Eastern Europe, the Mongols destroyed Volga Bulgaria, Cumania, Alania, and the Kievan Rus' federation. In Central Europe, the Mongol armies launched a two-pronged invasion of fragmented Poland, culminating in the Battle of Legnica (9 April 1241), and the Kingdom of Hungary, culminating in the Battle of Mohi (11 April 1241).

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How did Europe recover after the fall of the Mongol Empire(Black Death)

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How did Europe recover after the fall of the Mongol Empire(Black Death)

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The Black death led to declines in production and trade all over Europe . Even places unaffected by the epidemic suffered. The positive outcome of the black death that it might've ended feudalism. Also now with fewer people alive workers had more power.

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Learning Objective

Evaluate the impact of the Black Death on European society in the Middle Ages

Key Points

The Black Death resulted in the deaths of an estimated 75-200 million people-approximately 30% of Europe's population.

It spread from central Asia on rat fleas living on the black rats that were regular passengers on merchant ships, and traveled towards Europe as people fled from one area to another.

The Great Famine of 1315-1317 and subsequent malnutrition in the population likely caused weakened immunity and susceptibility to disease.

Medieval doctors thought the plague was created by air corrupted by humid weather, decaying unburied bodies, and fumes produced by poor sanitation.

The aftermath of the plague created a series of religious, social, and economic upheavals, which had profound effects on the course of European history.

As people struggled to understand the causes of the Black Death, renewed religious fervor and fanaticism bloomed in its wake, leading to the widespread persecution of minorities.

Flagellantism, the practice of self-inflicted pain, especially with a whip, became popular as a radical movement during the time of the Black Death, and was eventually deemed heretical by the church.

The great population loss wrought by the plague brought favorable results to the surviving peasants in England and Western Europe, such as wage increases and more access to land, and was one of the factors in the ending of the feudal system.

Terms

bubonic plague

Disease circulating mainly in fleas on small rodents. Without treatment, the bacterial infection kills about two thirds of infected humans within four days.

the Silk Road

Series of trade and cultural routes that were central to cultural interaction through regions of the Asian continent, connecting the West and East from China to the Mediterranean Sea.

Flagellant

Practitioners of an extreme form of mortification of their own flesh by whipping it with various instruments.

In the Late Middle Ages (1340-1400) Europe experienced the most deadly disease outbreak in history when the Black Death, the infamous pandemic of bubonic plague, hit in 1347. The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 75-200 million people and peaking in Europe in the years 1348-1350.

The Black Death is thought to have originated in the arid plains of Central Asia, where it then travelled along the Silk Road, reaching the Crimea by 1346. It was most likely carried by Oriental rat fleas living on the black rats that were regular passengers on merchant ships.

Mongol dominance of Eurasian trade routes enabled safe passage through more secured trade routes. Goods were not the only thing being traded; disease also was passed between cultures. From Central Asia the Black Death was carried east and west along the Silk Road by Mongol armies and traders making use of the opportunities of free passage within the Mongol Empire offered by the Pax Mongolica. The epidemic began in Europe with an attack that Mongols launched on the Italian merchants' last trading station in the region, Caffa in the Crimea. In the autumn of 1346, plague broke out among the besiegers and then penetrated into the town. When spring arrived, the Italian merchants fled on their ships, unknowingly carrying the Black Death. The plague initially spread to humans near the Black Sea and then outwards to the rest of Europe as a result of people fleeing from one area to another.

Spreading throughout the Mediterranean and Europe, the Black Death is estimated to have killed 30-60% of Europe's total population. While Europe was devastated by the disease, the rest of the world fared much better. In India, populations rose from 91 million in 1300, to 97 million in 1400, to 105 million in 1500. Sub-Saharan Africa also remained largely unaffected by the plagues.

The most infamous symptom of bubonic plague is an infection of the lymph glands, which become swollen and painful and are known as buboes. Buboes associated with the bubonic plague are commonly found in the armpits, groin, and neck region. Gangrene of the fingers, toes, lips, and nose is another common symptom.

Medieval doctors thought the plague was created by air corrupted by humid weather, decaying unburied bodies, and fumes produced by poor sanitation. The recommended treatment for the plague was a good diet, rest, and relocating to a non-infected environment so the individual could get access to clean air. This did help, but not for the reasons the doctors of the time thought. In actuality, because they recommended moving away from unsanitary conditions, people were, in effect, getting away from the rodents that harbored the fleas carrying the infection.

Plague doctors advised walking around with flowers in or around the nose to "ward off the stench and perhaps the evil that afflicted them." Some doctors wore a beak-like mask filled with aromatic items. The masks were designed to protect them from putrid air, which was seen as the cause of infection.

Since people didn't have the knowledge to understand the plague, people believed it was a punishment from God. The thought the only way to be rid of the plague was to be forgiven by God. One method was to carve the symbol of the cross onto the front door of a house with the words "Lord have mercy on us" near it.

The aftermath of the plague created a series of religious, social, and economic upheavals, which had profound effects on the course of European history. It took 150 years for Europe's population to recover, and the effects of the plague irrevocably changed the social structure, resulting in widespread persecution of minorities such as Jews, foreigners, beggars, and lepers. The uncertainty of daily survival has been seen as creating a general mood of morbidity, influencing people to "live for the moment."

Because 14th-century healers were at a loss to explain the cause of the plague, Europeans turned to astrological forces, earthquakes, and the poisoning of wells by Jews as possible reasons for the plague's emergence. No one in the 14th century considered rat control a way to ward off the plague, and people began to believe only God's anger could produce such horrific displays. Giovanni Boccaccio, an Italian writer and poet of the 14th century, questioned whether plague was sent by God for human's correction, or if it came through the influence of the heavenly bodies. Christians accused Jews of poisoning public water supplies in an effort to ruin European civilization. The spreading of this rumor led to complete destruction of entire Jewish towns, but it was caused simply by suspicion on the part of the Christians, who noticed that the Jews had lost fewer lives in the Plague due to their hygienic practices. In February 1349, 2,000 Jews were murdered in Strasbourg. In August of the same year, the Jewish communities of Mainz and Cologne were exterminated.

There was a significant impact on religion, as many believed the plague was God's punishment for sinful ways. Church lands and buildings were unaffected, but there were too few priests left to maintain the old schedule of services. Over half the parish priests, who gave the final sacraments to the dying, died themselves. The church moved to recruit replacements, but the process took time. New colleges were opened at established universities, and the training process sped up. The shortage of priests opened new opportunities for lay women to assume more extensive and important service roles in local parishes.

Flagellantism was a 13th and 14th centuries movement involving radicals in the Catholic Church. It began as a militant pilgrimage and was later condemned by the Catholic Church as heretical. The peak of the activity was during the Black Death. Flagellant groups spontaneously arose across Northern and Central Europe in 1349, except in England. The German and Low Countries movement, the Brothers of the Cross, is particularly well documented. They established their camps in fields near towns and held their rituals twice a day. The followers would fall to their knees and scourge themselves, gesturing with their free hands to indicate their sin and striking themselves rhythmically to songs, known as Geisslerlieder, until blood flowed. Sometimes the blood was soaked up by rags and treated as a holy relic. Some towns began to notice that sometimes Flagellants brought plague to towns where it had not yet surfaced. Therefore, later they were denied entry. The flagellants responded with increased physical penance.

The Black Death had a profound impact on art and literature. After 1350, European culture in general turned very morbid. The common mood was one of pessimism, and contemporary art turned dark with representations of death. La Danse Macabre, or the dance of death, was a contemporary allegory, expressed as art, drama, and printed work. Its theme was the universality of death, expressing the common wisdom of the time that no matter one's station in life, the dance of death united all. It consisted of the personified Death leading a row of dancing figures from all walks of life to the grave-typically with an emperor, king, pope, monk, youngster, and beautiful girl, all in skeleton-state. Such works of art were produced under the impact of the Black Death, reminding people of how fragile their lives and how vain the glories of earthly life were.

The great population loss wrought by the plague brought favorable results to the surviving peasants in England and Western Europe. There was increased social mobility, as depopulation further eroded the peasants' already weakened obligations to remain on their traditional holdings. Feudalism never recovered. Land was plentiful, wages high, and serfdom had all but disappeared. It was possible to move about and rise higher in life.

The Black Death encouraged innovation of labor-saving technologies, leading to higher productivity. There was a shift from grain farming to animal husbandry. Grain farming was very labor-intensive, but animal husbandry needed only a shepherd, a few dogs, and pastureland.

Since the plague left vast areas of farmland untended, they were made available for pasture and thus put more meat on the market; the consumption of meat and dairy products went up, as did the export of beef and butter from the Low Countries, Scandinavia, and northern Germany. However, the upper classes often attempted to stop these changes, initially in Western Europe, and more forcefully and successfully in Eastern Europe, by instituting sumptuary laws. These regulated what people (particularly of the peasant class) could wear so that nobles could ensure that peasants did not begin to dress and act as higher class members with their increased wealth. Another tactic was to fix prices and wages so that peasants could not demand more with increasing value. In England, the Statute of Labourers of 1351 was enforced, meaning no peasant could ask for more wages than they had in 1346. This was met with varying success depending on the amount of rebellion it inspired; such a law was one of the causes of the 1381 Peasants' Revolt in England.

Plague brought an eventual end of serfdom in Western Europe. The manorial system was already in trouble, but the Black Death assured its demise throughout much of Western and Central Europe by 1500. Severe depopulation and migration of people from village to cities caused an acute shortage of agricultural laborers. In England, more than 1300 villages were deserted between 1350 and 1500.

Black Death ("Hollaback Girl" by Gwen Stefani). It's hard to find a song to parody for such a gruesome subject. Our apologies to Gwen's fans, but it's for the cause of education!

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Evaluate the impact of the Black Death on European society in the Middle Ages The Black Death resulted in the deaths of an estimated 75-200 million people-approximately 30% of Europe's population. It spread from central Asia on rat fleas living on the black rats that were regular passengers on merchant ships, and traveled towards Europe as people fled from one area to another.

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How did the Mongols benefit Western Europe economically?

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How did the Mongols benefit Western Europe economically?

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The Mongols provided financial banking for caravans. And merchants were able to get tax breaks.
Strayer pg. 171