The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 / Page 551 (Color Image)

0551	The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2

CHAP. XXII. ROSIA AND ITS PEOPLE

489

Russia was overrun with fire and sword as far as Tver and Torshok by Batu Khan (1237-1238), some years before his invasion of Poland and Silesia. Tartar tax-gatherers were established in the Russian cities as.far north as Rostov and Jaroslawl, and for many years Russian princes as far as Novgorod paid homage to the Mongol Khans in their court at Sarai. Their subjection to the Khans was not such a trifle as Polo seems to imply ; and at least a dozen Russian princes met their death at the hands of the Mongol executioner.

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Media val Russian Church. (From Fergusson.)

NOTE 2.—The Lac of this passage appears to be WALLACHIA. Abulfela calls the Wallachs Aulák ; Rubruquis Iliac, which he says is the same word as Blac (the usual European form of those days being Blachi, Blachia), but the Tartars could not pronounce the B (p. 275). Abulghazi says the original inhabitants of Kipchak were the Urús, the Olaks, the Majars, and the Bashkirs.

Rubruquis is wrong in placing Iliac or Wallachs in Asia ; at least the people near the Ural, who he says were so-called by the Tartars, cannot have been Wallachs. Proféssor Bruun, who corrects my error in following Rubruquis, thinks those Asiatic Blac must have been Polovtzi, or Cumanians.

[Mr. R ockhill (Rubruck, p, 13o, note) writes : " A branch of the Volga Bulgars occupied the Moldo-Vallach country in about A.D. 485, but it was not until the first years of the 6th century that a portion of them passed the Danube under the leadership of Asparuk, and established themselves in the present Bulgaria, Friar William's

` Land of Assan.' "—H. C.]

NOTE 3.—Oroech is generally supposed to be a mistake for Noroech, NORWEGE or Norway, which is probable enough. But considering the Asiatic sources of most of our author's information, it is also possible that Oroech represents WAREG. The

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National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

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National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books