Cuman–Kipchak Confederation Dasht-i Qipchaq | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10th century–1241 | |||||||||||
_eng.png) Cumania (Dasht-i Qipchaq) c. 1200 | |||||||||||
The Cumans in relation to main Central Asian polities c. 1000 | |||||||||||
| Status | Khanate | ||||||||||
| Capital | Sarai | ||||||||||
| Common languages | Kipchak languages (including Cuman) | ||||||||||
| Religion | Tengrism, Christianity, Islam | ||||||||||
| Demonym(s) | Cuman, Kipchak | ||||||||||
| History | |||||||||||
• Established | 10th century | ||||||||||
• Disestablished | 1241 | ||||||||||
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| History of the Turkic peoples pre–14th century |
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The name Cumania originated as the Latin exonym for the Cuman–Kipchak confederation, which was a tribal confederation in the western part of the Eurasian Steppe, between the 10th and 13th centuries. The confederation was dominated by two Turkic nomadic tribes: the Cumans (also known as the Polovtsians or Folban) and the Kipchaks. Cumania was known in Islamic sources as Dasht-i Qipchaq, which means "Steppe of the Kipchaks" or "Plain of the Kipchaks" in Persian,[1] and al-Qumāniyīn in Arabic.[2][3] Russian sources have referred to Cumania as the "Polovtsian Steppe" (Polovetskaia Step), or the "Polovtsian Plain" (Pole Polovetskoe).[4]
A different, more organized entity that was later known as the Golden Horde was also referred to as "Comania" by Armenian chronicler Hethum (Hayton) of Korykos.[5]: 38 "Cumania" was also the source of names, or alternate names, for several smaller areas – some of them unconnected geographically to the area of the federation – in which Cumans and/or Kipchaks settled, such as the historic region of Kunság in Hungary, and the former Diocese of Cumania (in Romania and Hungary). Hethum of Korykos described Cumania as "wholly flat and with no trees".[5]: 38 Ibn Battuta said of Cumania, "This wilderness is green and grassy with no trees, nor hills, high or low ... there is no means of travelling in this desert except in wagons." Battuta's contemporary, Hamdallah Mustawfi, elaborated,
"This is of the Sixth Clime, its plains bear excellent pasturage ... but there are here few houses or towns or villages. Most of the inhabitants are nomads of the plain ... Most of the lands here are swamps ... The pasturage, however, being excellent, horses and cattle are numerous, and the population for the most part subsists on the produce thereof. The climate is cold, and their water comes from springs and wells."[5]: 40
- ^ Adjiev M. Eskenderovich, The Kipchaks, An Ancient History of the Turkic People and the Great Steppe, Moscow 2002, p.30
- ^ Al-Idrisi (1989). Kitab nuzhat al-mushtaq fi'khtiraq al-'afaq. Beirut. pp. 428–429.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Vásáry. Cumans. p. 5.
- ^ Drobny, Jaroslav (2012), Cumans and Kipchaks: Between Ethnonym and Toponym (PDF), pp. 205–217
- ^ a b c Spinei, Victor (2009). The Romanians and the Turkic Nomads North of the Danube Delta from the Tenth to the Mid-thirteenth Century. Leiden; Boston: Brill Publishers. ISBN 9789004175365. OCLC 1015991131.