CHAPTER XI
From the Time of Genghis Khan, to that of Tamerlane.
WHILE the crusaders were fighting in the western parts of Asia, the nations of the more easterly parts were threatened with extermination by Genghis Kahn, the greatest as well as the most sanguinary conqueror that ever existed. The rapidity of his conquests seemed to emulate those of Alexander; but the cruelties he committed were altogether unparalleled. The Moguls, or Monguls, over whom this tyrant assumed the sovereignty, were a people of Eastern Tartary, divided, as at the present day, into various petty governments, but acknowledging a subjection to one sovereign, whom they called Vang-Khan, or the Great Khan. Temujin, afterwards Genghis Khan, one of the minor princes, had been unjustly deprived of his inheritance at the age of thirteen, and could not recover it until twenty-seven years after, A. D. 1201, when he totally reduced the rebels, and caused seventy of their chiefs to be thrown into as many caldrons of boiling water. In 1202 he defeated and killed Vang- Kahn himself (known to Europeans as Prester John of Asia); and possessing himself of his vast dominions, became thenceforward irresistible. In 1206 he was declared king of the Moguls and Tartars, and took upon him the title of Genghis Khan, or the great Khan of Khans. This was followed by the reduction of the kingdom of Hya in China, Tangut, Kitay, Turkestan, Karazim, or the kingdom of Gazna, Great Bukharia, Persia, and part of India; all of which vast regions he conquered in twenty-six years. It is computed that upwards of fourteen millions of human beings were butchered by him during the last twenty-two years of his reign, and that his conquests extended eighteen hundred leagues from east to west, and a thousand from south to north. He died in 1227. One of his sons subdued India; another, after crossing the Wolga, devastated Russia, Hungary, Poland, and Bohemia; while a third advanced into Syria, and conquered all the maritime provinces of the Turkish empire. The caliphate of Bagdad, and the power of the Turks in that quarter, were finally destroyed by this sudden revolution. In the meantime, the Mamelukes, a body of militia formed by the sultan of Cairo, expelled the Turkish conquerors, and seized the throne of Egypt.
The vast empire of Genghis Khan, however, had the fate of all others; being too extensive to be governed by any one of ordinary capacity, it split into a multitude of small kingdoms as before: but they all owned allegiance to the house of Genghis Khan till the time of Timur Bek, or Tamerlane. The Turks at this time, urged forward by the inundation of Tartars who poured in from the East, were forced upon the remains of the Greek empire; and at the time of Tamerlane they had almost confined this once mighty empire within the walls of Constantinople.
We must now again cast our eyes upon the transactions of Europe. After the death of Frederick II. the empire of Germany fell a prey to anarchy. An interregnum took place on the death of the emperor Richard in 1271, which continued two years, and completed the destruction of the imperial domain. The tributary nations, Denmark, Poland and Hungary, absolutely shook off the yoke; each of them taking possession of what lay the most convenient for them; freeing themselves from quitrents and every obligation by which they thought themselves under restraint; and leaving nothing to the emperors but their paternal inheritance. Formerly taxes were paid to the emperor by the imperial cities; from which they endeavored to free themselves, by taking advantage of the anarchy that prevailed at this time, and assumed the title of free cities, to distinguish them from a great number of imperial cities which they admitted into their body; and thus the Hanseatic league was formed. At length they grew tired of anarchy; and Gregory X. having threatened to name an emperor if they did not, they elected Rodolph, count of Hapsburg, the descendant of an old count of Alsace; from which election, humble as it was, the lustre of the House of Austria is derived. The new emperor was seated on a throne with nothing but an empty title to support the dignity; he had neither troops nor money; he was in subjection to the clergy; surrounded by vassals more powerful than himself, and in the midst of an enthusiastic people who were ripe for sedition and anarchy. His first care therefore was to conciliate the affections of the people, and by that means he happily appeased the spirit of faction. He also studied how to increase his dominions, so as to make them respectable; with this view he artfully blended the idea of glory and the rights of the empire with his own interest; and having united the forces of the Germanic body against Ottocar, king of Bohemia, that prince was compelled to yield Austria to the conqueror, who also obtained Suabia; so that he was enabled to leave his son Albert in possession of a rich and powerful state.
From the time of Rodolph of Hapsburg the amazing power of the popes began to decline. The form of government remained the same in Germany; but it was materially altered in England and France, where the middling classes of society had obtained a voice in the assemblies of each nation. The manners of the lower classes of society were still rude and barbarous in the extreme; but those of the nobility exhibited a singular mixture of devotion, gallantry, and valor, in which originated the several orders of knighthood, such as the order of the garter in England, of the golden fleece in Spain, of St. Michael in France, of Christ in Portugal, etc. To this strange combination of religion with war and with love, may be traced the origin of judicial combats, jousts and tournaments, and that spirit of chivalry that pervaded all the upper classes of society. Painting, sculpture, and architecture arose in Italy through the exertions of the fugitive Greeks. The arts of printing and engraving were also enlightening the world: and the science of navigation, and consequently geography, were much advanced by the discovery of the mariner's compass.