Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages

by Dan Jones

Decades of expansionist campaigning throughout Asia, southern Russia, and the Middle East brought Temür lordship over three of the four old khanates—the Chagatai, Ilkhanate, and Golden Horde; in the end, only the Ming emperors held out against him. Moreover, he fought his way west, deep into Asia Minor, and for a time seemed to be bearing down toward Europe. There, news of his vast conquests worried and excited Christian kings in roughly equal measure. Still in thrall to updated versions of the Prester John fantasy, many wondered whether it was better to tremble at Temür’s name or attempt to convert him to Christianity and enlist him to destroy their mutual enemies—particularly the Ottoman Turks who had risen up to take control of many of the former Byzantine provinces in the eastern Mediterranean.