Судан и Большой Ближний Восток

270 III. Судан и его соседи increasing importance of infantry, including archery, which followed social developments in the West, such as growth of towns. This in turn influenced knightly warfare, including armour improvements. Muslim warfare roughly followed the same direction of archery development and armour improvement. However, something should initiate the above-mentioned technical changes at this particular point. What exactly? The Crusades? But there was nothing new about them in the 13 th C., and anyhow their impact on both Eastern and Western warfare proved to be quite limited. What else? Evidently, the only event that affected both the West and the Middle East in the 13th C., was the arrival of the Mongols. Thus, all those military changes may have something to do with the last great invasion of the Steppes. Unlike all other medieval nomadic invasions in Europe and Muslim East, the Mongols managed to penetrate very far in both directions (in fact, even three: Europe, theMiddle East and China 1 ), and not gradually, in a generations-long penetration, but quite fast, overwhelming their opponents by the best inventions of nomadic warfare. Even more importantly, in the course of the 2nd half of the 13th C., they remained a major threat for both Western knights and Middle Eastern Mamluks of Egypt, thus producing an imperative to learn — as fast as possible — how to cope with this new danger. In the case of the Mamluks it is particularly evident, as for half a century they fought against the Mongols virtually every year, and this permanent war was the main concern of the Mamluk sultans. The same is not less true for Eastern Europe. Russian principalities, especially the principality of Galicia — Volhynia, had to adopt the Mongol military equipment and warfare system, at least partially. Even Western Europe, though not in a direct contact withMongols after the 1241–1242 AD invasion, remained under a permanent threat of a new invasion. This concern is evident from accounts about the “Devil’s horsemen” produced by the horror-stricken Christian chroniclers, as well as from the Papal envoys sent to the Mongol court and their 1 For more details on the exceptional Mongol phenomenon see: Fletcher J. TheMongols: Ecological and Social Perspectives // HJAS. XLVI/1. 1986. P. 11–50; Barfield T. J. The Perilous Frontier. Nomadic Empires and China. Cambridge, Mass., 1989.