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Mongols Called the Tartars: Outsiders Beware

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Mongols Called the Tartars: Outsiders Beware! The Mongols, or as the Western Europeans called them, the Tartars, were a nomadic, militant people that dominated the battlefield during the pre-industrial time period (“Tartars” 7). Over the span of the 13th century, from the Central Asian steppes in the east to the Arabian lands to the west, the Tartars subdued the unfortunate inhabitants and expanded their empire vastly. To the fear and dismay of the Western Europeans, the Tartars desired to triumph over all of Eurasia; therefore, the Western Europeans were to be conquered next. News of the imminent Tartarian attack rapidly spread through West Europe like a wildfire, and the powerful Holy Roman Church contended to prepare a strategy …show more content…

The three issues presented above are all connected by the overarching theme of contact between distinctive civilizations that becomes the catalyst in progressing the world from post-Classical to more globally integrated. While Carpini mentioned many interesting dynamics of the Tartars in his report, his main focus seemed to be on how merciless and brutal they were against foreigners, in spite of how well they treated their own. He first identified how the “Tartars seldom argue to the point of insult [with one another]” (Carpini 50) and juxtaposed that caring behavior to how they insulted foreign ambassadors “as though they were unimportant” (Carpini 66). Moreover, Carpini mentioned that the Tartars “incited [their] men to steal and plunder [when they] went into foreign lands” (Carpini 55), even though there were “no robbers and thieves of valuables” (Carpini 50) in their own society. He cited many other examples of these bigotries, including: forcing conquered slaves to “do all their work” (Carpini 83) while giving them only a little to eat and drink (Carpini 84), beating foreign slaves like donkeys if they offended “[the Tartars] in any way” (Carpini 84), and breaking whatever promise they made to outlanders (Carpini 86). That being the case, Carpini’s agenda behind fixating on this particular aspect of Tartarian culture was probably to invigorate a sense of

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