Seven

Discordant Harmonies (c.1250–c.1350)

IN THE SHADOW of a great Mongol empire that, for about a century, stretched

from the East China Sea to the Black Sea and from Moscow to the Himalayas,

Europeans were bit players in a great Eurasian system tied together by a combination

of sheer force and open trade routes. Taking advantage of the new opportunities for

commerce and evangelization offered by the mammoth new empire, Europeans

ventured with equal verve into experiments in their own backyards: in government,

thought, and expression. Above all, they sought to harmonize disparate groups, ideas,

and artistic modes. At the same time, unable to force everything into unified and

harmonious wholes and often confronted instead with discord and strife, the directing

classes—both secular and ecclesiastical—tried to purge their society of deviants of

every sort.

The Mongol Hegemony

The Mongols, like the Huns and Seljuks before them, were pastoralists. Occupying

the eastern edge of the great steppes that stretch west to the Hungarian plains, they

herded horses and sheep while honing their skills as hunters and warriors. Believing

in both high deities and slightly lower spirits, the Mongols were also open to other

religious ideas, easily assimilating Buddhism, Islam, and even some forms of

Christianity. Their empire, in its heyday stretching about 4,000 miles from east to

west, was the last to be created by the nomads from the steppes.

THE CONTOURS OF THE MONGOL EMPIRE

The Mongols formed under the leadership of Chinghis (or Genghis) Khan (c.1162–

1227). Fusing together various tribes of mixed ethnic origins and traditions, Chinghis

created a highly disciplined, orderly, and sophisticated army. Impelled out of

Mongolia in part by new climatic conditions that threatened their grasslands, the

Mongols were equally inspired by Chinghis’s vision of world conquest. All of China

came under their rule by 1279; meanwhile, the Mongols were making forays to the

west as well. They took Rus’ in the 1230s, invaded Poland and Hungary in 1241,