Un Empire à cheval ? Aspects de la politique équestre à l’époque de l’expansion mongole (XIIIe siècle)

Dan Ioan Muresan (1)

1 GRHis - Groupe de Recherche d'Histoire

The article deals with the role played by the horse in connecting various medieval civilizations by examining the paradigmatic period of the Mongol conquest, seen as the accelerator of the 13th century “globalization”. Starting with the role of the horse in the pastoral economy of the Eurasian steppes, the article examines the reasons that enabled the Mongols to transform this natural resource into a source of economic, military and political power in order to create the biggest land empire in history. The examination of several documents from the period allows us to infer the existence of a “horse policy” in Genghis Khan’s codification. On this basis, we are able to circumscribe the function of the horse in the Mongol imperial ideology: it was seen as the vehicle of an unstoppable conquest as well as of a revelation destined to make the Great Khan and his descendants the masters of the world.

Keywords: chevaux; Empire mongol; idéologie politique

Domains: History

Dan Ioan Muresan. Un Empire à cheval ? Aspects de la politique équestre à l’époque de l’expansion mongole (XIIIe siècle). Histoire monde, jeux d’échelles et espaces connectés, Actes du 47e congrès de la SHMESP (Société des historiens médiévistes de l’enseignement supérieur public), Arras, 26-29 mai 2016, Éditions de la Sorbonne, p. 53-66., 2017. ⟨hal-02320838⟩