Women’s Role and Participation in Warfare in the Mongol Empire

Riders in the Tomb: Women Equestrians in North Chinese Funerary Art (10th–14th Centuries)

“…Morris Rossabi was one of the first to write about the role of women in Mongol society, and Hong Zaixin, with Cao Yiqiang, outlined the important roles the wives of khans played in the politics and administration of the Mongol Empire in their analysis of the painting Khublai Khan Hunting (Rossabi 1979;Hong and Cao 1999, p. 195). More recently, Bruno De Nicola has written extensively about the role of Mongol women in socio-political contexts, especially in the Ilkhanate (De Nicola 2010, 2013, 2017. Johnson and Lin have both written about the roles that elite Liao women played in politics and warfare, focusing especially on Liao Empress Dowagers Yingtian (878-953) and Chengtian (953-1009), who led troops into battle and helped negotiate major treaties after the battles were fought (Shea 2021, p. 39;Johnson 2011, pp.…”

Maria Paleologina and the Il-Khanate of Persia. A Byzantine Princess in an Empire between Islam and Christendom

“…26 The footsteps of this tremendous Christian queen will follow another woman no less obstinate in her deep religious beliefs: Maria Paleologina. 27 The winter of 1265 a new Christian queen came to Persia as part of a diplomatic marriage destined to seal the alliance of the Khan with Michael VIII, which would provide a new wife to fill the bed of the old Hulagu. The Byzantine imperial entourage had left Constantinople towards Tabriz led by the Patriarch of Antioch and Euthymius Theodosius de Villehardouin, abbot of the Monastery of Pantocrator, escorting the very young fiancée and his magnificent imperial baggage that included among others a splendid chapel with curtains embellished with images of Saints and the Holy Cross and enriched with lots of drinks prepared for the celebration of the sacred mysteries.…”