Bad Boys of the Ancient World: The Kipchaks || John Pesebre

Introduction

The name Kipchak does not carry with it a sound of notoriety. Kipchak sounds like a brand, like Flapjack pancakes. But what it has for its name’s cuteness & softness cannot be seen in its notorious history.

How’s this for little trivia? In 14th century Europe, they attacked a walled city by catapulting rotting corpses. This ancient biological warfare contaminated the city with yersinia pestis – the bacteria that started the Black Death. 

The walled city was not your typical clean environment. Scurrying about were rats and the squalor just made things worse.

The Kipchaks were nomads. They usually did not have permanent houses because they lived in yurts (movable tents). 

In the 11th century, they were all over the Europe and Asia but mostly near the areas of present-day China and Turkey. They loved to travel. This is the reason why they were sprawled all over Eurasia during their time.

The Kipchak community had an important role in the flourishing of the Islamic dynasty in Egypt and Syria. The Mamluk dynasty ruled Egypt from 1250-1517 and became very rich. How they came from poor Mamluk slaves to rich Mamluk dynasty is a also a story of notoriety.

Human beings have the capacity to survive. We can change our attitude, our trade and our resolve to face the adversities of life. The story of the Kipchaks although one of notoriety can make us reflect on the importance of overcoming obstacles and the challenges of life.

Claim to Notoriety of Kipchak

The city was called Crimea back then. It was a commercial capital so that traders from as far as Venice travel to trade. The famous Venetian traveler Marco Polo was said to frequent Crimea to trade. Traders from Marco Polo’s hometown of Genoa, Italy also visited Crimea regularly. When the Kipchaks attacked the city, it is believed that the Genoan traders carried the bacteria with them back to inland Europe. This began a series of infestation all over Europe.

Today Crimea is called Ukraine. There is no trace of the Black Death but back then the death was countless. The years 1351-1371 were the two decades where this plague hit. An estimated 200 million people died.

The evil dictator Joseph Stalin is said to have been traced in Kipchak’s ancestry.

A Fighting People

Kipchaks loved to fight. They fought the armies of Byzantines, Kievan Rus, the Hungarians, and the Pechenegs. Sometimes they ally with them. Their toughtes battles were against Genghis Khan and his Mongols who eventually defeated them and made them part of the western front of the Mongols called the Golden Horde.

When the Mongolian dynasty was at its height, many of the Kipchaks became slaves in the Arab Ayubbid Dynasty deposed in Syria and Egypt. Kipchak slaves were called Mamluks. Later on these slaves gained in number and formed an African Mamluk state but only survived until the 19th century.

Today, there is no surviving Kipchak community.