The Objects of Loyalty in the Early Mongol Empire (Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries)

ABSTRACT The world empire created by the Mongols in the thirteenth century was based upon a system of loyalties to different figures, families and institutions. This article explains some of the key “objects of loyalty” at the heart of the Mongol Empire and at a regional level. These loyalties, when acting in concert, served as the glue which bound the Mongol Empire together, but when they came into conflict, served to weaken and finally collapse the unity of the empire. Disagreements about the legacy and will of Chinggis Khan led to diverging loyalty decisions in succession struggles in the mid-thirteenth century and the breakdown of the empire into smaller khanates. This article will examine the system of loyalty as it functioned in the early thirteenth century and how it broke down in the late thirteenth century.