Note {2} — Chapter LXXIV

Note 2.—The relics of the Alans were settled on the northern skirts of the Caucasus, where they made a stout resistance to the Mongols, but eventually became subjects of the Khans of Sarai. The name by which they were usually known in Asia in the Middle Ages was Aas, and this name is assigned to them by Carpini, Rubruquis, and Josafat Barbaro, as well as by Ibn Batuta. Mr. Howorth has lately denied the identity of Alans and Aas; but he treats the question as all one with the identity of Alans and Ossethi, which is another matter, as may be seen in Vivien de St. Martin’s elaborate paper on the Alans (N. Ann. des Voyages, 1848, tom. 3, p. 129 seqq.). The Alans are mentioned by the Byzantine historian, Pachymeres, among nations whom the Mongols had assimilated to themselves and adopted into their military service. Gaubil, without being aware of the identity of the Asu (as the name Aas appears to be expressed in the Chinese Annals), beyond the fact that they dwelt somewhere near the Caspian, observes that this people, after they were conquered, furnished many excellent officers to the Mongols; and he mentions also that when the Mongol army was first equipt for the conquest of Southern China, many officers took service therein from among the Uighúrs, Persians, and Arabs, Kincha (people of Kipchak), the Asu and other foreign nations. We find also, at a later period of the Mongol history (1336), letters reaching Pope Benedict XII. from several Christian Alans holding high office at the court of Cambaluc—one of them being a Chingsang or Minister of the First Rank, and another a Fanchang or Minister of the Second Order—in which they conveyed their urgent request for the nomination of an Archbishop in succession to the deceased John of Monte Corvino. John Marignolli speaks of those Alans as “the greatest and noblest nation in the world, the fairest and bravest of men,” and asserts that in his day there were 30,000 of them in the Great Kaan’s service, and all, at least nominally, Christians.[1] Rashiduddin also speaks of the Alans as Christians; though Ibn Batuta certainly mentions the Aas as Mahomedans. We find Alans about the same time (in 1306) fighting well in the service of the Byzantine Emperors (Muntaner, p. 449). All these circumstances render Marco’s story of a corps of Christian Alans in the army of Bayan perfectly consistent with probability. (Carpini, p. 707; Rub., 243; Ramusio, II. 92; I. B. II. 428; Gaubil, 40, 147; Cathay, 314 seqq.)