Post
by Russ Mitchell » Wed Mar 01, 2006 6:08 pm
The Cumans are sort of the "elephant in the room" of medieval history that don't get talked about unless you're discussing Hungarian or Russian stuff. They're also known as Falben in German, Polovtsy in Russian, and are a, maybe THE major branch of the Kipqak Turks west of the Urals. Means "pale people," ... because they were very, very pale. Pretty good chance if you're Romanian that you've got some in your family tree somewhere. The Cumans were the dominant military group in the Balkans (and the absolute undisputed prime movers of Wallachia and Moldova until the rise of Tatar suzerainty) for most of the medieval period after the Pechenegs were done down and dirty -- and, contrary to Byzantine rhetoric, guess who did the job?... their interest was purely as military service to supplement their economy when its underlying animal husbandry base didn't require extensive labor (unlike most medieval armies, they actually preferred to campaign in winter). They can be found on campaign along with the Hungarians as far west as 14th-century Italy (when they were all over the place during the Neopolitan Succession Wars and employed occasionally with the Magna Societas Hungariae, a major merc company), and literally altered the course of history by single-handedly smashing the Fourth Crusade into oblivion at Adrianople in 1205, without which it is unlikely that the Byzantines could ever have recovered from the fall of Constantinople and the partition of the Empire.
In other words, their importance in medieval history is wildly underappreciated.
In terms of archery, you can see examples all over the Illuminated Chronicle, and their bows appear to be either the crab-foot or something like the Crimean Tatar job (which makes sense, since the Tatars were the amalgamation of the remaining Mongols with the Kipqak/Cuman locals). An associate of mine in Budapest has done extensive image analysis that shows, assuming all the standard artistic caveats, that they actually do not seem to have preferred to use the thumb-ring, but rather an adaptation on the "primary draw" with supporting fingers underneath the nock, though variations occur, and the article is not yet published.
(btw, if anybody knows a venue, we're working up an article that will not be solely archery-based, but will include it in some detail)
