Ya Ning The Reception and Management of Gifts in the Imperial Court of the Mongol Great Khan, from the early thirteenth century to 1368 MA Thesis in Late Antique, Medieval and Early Modern Studies Central European University Budapest May 2020 CEU eTD Collection The Reception and Management of Gifts in the Imperial Court of the Mongol Great Khan, from the early thirteenth century to 1368 by Ya Ning (China) Thesis submitted to the Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest, in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Master of Arts degree in Late Antique, Medieval and Early Modern Studies. Accepted in conformance with the standards of the CEU. ____________________________________________ Chair, Examination Committee ____________________________________________ Thesis Supervisor ____________________________________________ Examiner ____________________________________________ Examiner Budapest CEU eTD Collection May 2020 The Reception and Management of Gifts in the Imperial Court of the Mongol Great Khan, from the early thirteenth century to 1368 by Ya Ning (China) Thesis submitted to the Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest, in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Master of Arts degree in Late Antique, Medieval and Early Modern Studies. Accepted in conformance with the standards of the CEU. ____________________________________________ External Reader Budapest CEU eTD Collection May 2020 The Reception and Management of Gifts in the Imperial Court of the Mongol Great Khan, from the early thirteenth century to 1368 by Ya Ning (China) Thesis submitted to the Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest, in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Master of Arts degree in Late Antique, Medieval and Early Modern Studies. Accepted in conformance with the standards of the CEU. ____________________________________________ External Supervisor Budapest May 2020 CEU eTD Collection I, the undersigned, Ya Ning, candidate for the MA degree in Late Antique, Medieval and Early Modern Studies, declare herewith that the present thesis is exclusively my own work, based on my research and only such external information as properly credited in notes and bibliography. I declare that no unidentified and illegitimate use was made of the work of others, and no part of the thesis infringes on any person’s or institution’s copyright. I also declare that no part of the thesis has been submitted in this form to any other institution of higher education for an academic degree. Budapest, 25 May 2020 Signature CEU eTD Collection Abstract This thesis investigates a pivotal aspect of Mongol court culture, the reception and management of gifts. The spatial and temporal framework is set within the imperial court of the great khans residing in Karakorum and Khanbaliq from the early thirteenth century to 1368. Based on the critical analysis of multilingual written primary sources, Chinese and Latin in original, Persian, Mongolian, and others in translations, as well as visual materials, this thesis presents an inner view of the mechanism and performance of gift-giving in the Mongol imperial court. Methodologically, inspired by the concept “social life of things” and “object biography” developed by cultural anthropologists Arjun Appadurai and Igor Kopytoff, this thesis sketches three major stages of the biographies of gifts: 1) from where, by whom and what kinds of gifts were sent to the Mongol imperial court, viz. the network of gifts; 2) under what ritual and spatial context, these gifts were presented in the court; 3) after the reception, in what place and under by whom these gifts were kept, based on what rules they were distributed, and in what way there were consumed, in other words, the afterlives of gifts. In contrast to the traditional scholarship stressing the avarice and excess of the Mongols in demanding gifts, this thesis argues the Mongols practiced a well-set protocol regarding the reception and management of gifts in the imperial court. This protocol was applied in the diplomatic encounters, further embodied in the ritual occasions such as the enthronement of great khan, the birthday celebration of the great khan as well as the New Year’s celebration, and attested in the repository, (re-) distribution, and consumption of gifts. CEU eTD Collection Additionally the Mongol khatuns notably participated in the reception, distribution and consumption of gifts. Overall, the Mongol court practices of give-giving is a continuation of the centuries-long Central Eurasian court traditions, in terms of power mechanisms, essentially no alien to their counterparts. i Acknowledgements My formal study at CEU is going to have its end with this piece of work. I hope this thesis, though not as satisfying as it has been expected, could serve as a landmark for this highly laborious yet fruitful adventure. I would like to thank, first and most, my supervisor Prof. Balázs Nagy, whose considerateness and amicability makes my studies and life at Budapest as smooth as any foreign students could expect. Balázs is the very kind of mentor to whom one can at ease turn for help at any moment. My other supervisor Prof. József Laszlovszky teaches his students the craft of historical research as a master of pedagogy. His general yet insightful comments re-orientated my channels in different stages of writing. My gratitude also goes to Prof. Katalin Szende. Kati shows her kind concerns on my research from the very beginning. She shares her personal research experience without any reservation with students at the thesis seminars. I also thank her for reading my thesis draft and sending me valuable comments and suggestions. I also would like to thank my seminar professors: Prof. Daniel Ziemann for his navigations on the history of Barbarians and the studies of medieval ethnogenesis, Prof. Tijana Krstić and Prof. Tolga U. Esmer for their guiding on the comparative studies of empires, Prof. Gábor Klaniczay and Prof. Balázs Trencsényi for their introduction to the key debates in Central European historiography, and Prof. Anna Somfai for revealing the fabulous world of Latin manuscripts in front of me. These coursework trainings, albeit not all reflected in this thesis, will definitely leave a mark on my future career. CEU eTD Collection To finish the thesis, I also own to Prof. Zsuzsa Reed and Dr. Eszter Timar for their indispensable help on my English academic writing, and owe to the responses and comments from my peer students at courses and thesis writing seminars. Their comments made me reflect my points in a much better way. All errors are of course my own. ii Table of contents Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... i Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................. ii Table of contents .................................................................................................................... iii List of Figures ........................................................................................................................... v Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 1 Studies of Gifts and Gift-giving .................................................................................. 3 Gifts and Gift-giving in the Traditions of Central Eurasian Court Culture .......... 6 Literature Review, Methodology and Sources ........................................................ 11 Chapter 1 – Network of Gifts ................................................................................................ 16 Expansion.................................................................................................................... 17 Consolidation .............................................................................................................. 20 Gifts in Diplomatic Network ..................................................................................... 30 Chapter 2 – Presenting of Gifts: Ritual and Spatial Dimensions ...................................... 39 Enthronement of the Great Khan ............................................................................ 39 Birthday celebration of the Great Khan .................................................................. 51 New Year’s celebration .............................................................................................. 56 Chapter 3 – The Afterlives of Gifts ...................................................................................... 61 CEU eTD Collection Repository ................................................................................................................... 61 (Re-)Distribution ........................................................................................................ 67 Consumption .............................................................................................................. 75 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 83 iii Bibliography ........................................................................................................................... 87 Appendix: Rulers of the Mongol Empire and the Yuan Dynasty ..................................