owed a
bishop to reside there. Mangou gave equal privileges to Christians,
Jews, and Mahomedans.

The dukes and boyards, paying court to the Tartars, gradually adopted
their mode of dressing and, as they became Asiatic in appearance, they
came under the influence of Asiatic thought. They dressed in a long
caftan or flowing robe, wore a sort of turban on the head, swords and
daggers in their belts, and when on horseback, sat in very high
saddles with short stirrups. Dukes and boyards thus became
semi-Asiatic, and drifted away from the people among whom the national
principle was kept alive.

Every succeeding visit to the khan served to increase the intimacy of
the dukes and their Asiatic masters. It was not many years before the
relation with the great khan was severed, but that with the Golden
Horde was kept alive. A writer[7] living at that time, who visited
Sarai during Bati's life, gives the following description: "It (the
court) is crowded and brilliant. His army consists of 600,000 men,
150,000 of whom are Tartars, and 450,000 strangers, Christians as well
as infidels. On Good Friday we were conducted to his tent, between
two fires, because the Tartars believe that a fire purifies (p. 075)
everything, and robs even poison of its danger. _We had to make many
prostrations_, and enter the tent without touching the threshold. Bati
was on his throne with one of his wives; his brothers, his children,
and the Tartar lords were seated on benches; the rest of the assembly
were on the ground, the men on the right, the women on the left....
The khan and the lords of the court emptied from time to time cups of
gold and silver, while the musicians made the air ring with their
melodies. Bati has a bright complexion; he is affable with his men,
but inspires general terror." The same writer visited the court of the
great khan, and in his description dwells upon the fact that it was
not the Tartars who were most terrible, but the Russian dukes and
nobles who accused one another and who sought to destroy their own
countrymen by bribing the favorites. It was thus that Duke Michael of
Tchernigof was murdered in 1246, and Duke Michael of Tver in 1319, by
a Russian hireling of the Grand Duke of Moscow who was present when
the foul deed was committed. Servile submission to the khans, a
haughty demeanor towards their own people, became the characteristics
of the dukes. "The dukes of Moscow," says a Russian author,[8] "took
the h