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‘The Pillars of State:’ Some Notes on the Qarachu Begs and the Kešikten in the Īl-Khānate (1256-1335)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 January 2017

MICHAEL HOPE
MICHAEL HOPE*
Affiliation:
Yonsei [email protected]
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Abstract

By the beginning of the fourteenth century the court histories of the Īl-Khānate had begun to lament that ‘qarachu’ (non-royal) commanders dominated the realm. The same histories report that these qarachu were drawn from the families of the khans’ royal guardsmen (kešik). The fact that these kešik families had come to eclipse, and in some cases threaten, the power of their Chinggisid patrons suggests a much broader transformation of the Īl-Khān polity from the patrimonial government of the khan's household, which characterised the early Mongol Empire, to a quasi-feudal state, dominated by a powerful military aristocracy. The present study will elucidate how this new aristocracy supported their authority through the hereditary transmission of armies, property and, offices, which entrenched their position at the summit of Īl-Khān polity.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , April 2017 , pp. 181 - 199
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 2017 

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