Virginity and Society, Page 8 Virgin-O-Logy

During the Mongol invasion of Europe, the grandson of Genghis Khan, Kadan, (also Qadan) led the Mongol diversionary force that attacked Poland. In early 1241, Kadan's forces sacked the Polish towns of Lublin, Zawichost and Sandomierz. Kadan then attacked Masovia, while Baidar burned the evacuated Polish capital, Kraków and then Bytom, and Orda Khan ravaged the southwestern border of Lithuania and the Polish Baltic coast.

The memories of the Mongol invasion are still vivid in Poland. The Heynal (Polish: Hejnał Mariacki, "St. Mary's dawn", pronounced hey-now mah-ryah-tskee), also known as the Cracovian Hymn, is a traditional five-note Polish tune closely tied to the history and traditions of the city of Krakow. It is played by a trumpeter four times consecutively each hour from the highest tower of St. Mary's Church (in Polish, Kościół Mariacki) in Krakow. When Krakow was attacked by Tatars in 1241, the guard watching from the top of Mariacki church saw the enemy and started playing to warn the inhabitants. Then he was shot through his throat by a Tatar archer, and that's why the trumpet tone stops so abruptly.

The three Mongolian leaders were then to attack the Silesian capital Wroclaw. Baidar began to besiege the town, but marched north with Kadan and Orda to Legnica to defeat the forces of the direct descendant of Bolesław I Chrobry (the first King of Poland, see above) - Henry II the Pious, Duke of Silesia. The Christian army was crushed in the ensuing Battle of Legnica at Legnickie Pole of April 9, 1241. Then Baidar and Kadan turned away from Bohemia and Poland and went southward. The Germans who had colonized till that time the primordial West Slavic territories between Elbe and Odra rivers, were saved from devastation. The Mongols never again seriously looked westward for conquest, only raiding for loot. The Mongols successfully raided Poland in 1259 and 1286 and unsuccessfully in 1287. Because these raids were not aimed at conquest, Poland and Hungary were not seriously threatened again after 1241, although the Russian lands to their east remained under the rule of the Golden Horde for the following two centuries.

Mongols were called Tatars in Europe.The name Tatar initially appeared amongst the nomadic Turkic peoples of northeastern Mongolia in the region around Lake Baikal in the beginning of the 5th century. The Chinese term is Dada (韃靼) and is a comparatively specific term for nomads to the north, emerging in the late Tang. Other names include Dadan and Tatan. As various of these nomadic groups became part of Genghis Khan's army in the early 13th century, a fusion of Mongol and Turkic elements took place, and the invaders of Rus and the Pannonian Basin became known to Europeans as Tatars (or Tartars). The original Tatars (Tatarlar/Татарлар) inhabited the north-eastern Gobi in the 5th century and, after subjugation in the 9th century by the Khitans, migrated southward. In the 13th century, they were subjugated by the Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan. Under the leadership of his grandson Batu Khan, they moved westwards, driving with them many stems of the Turkic Ural-Altayans towards the plains of Russia. After the break up of the Mongol Empire, the Tatars became especially identified with the western part of the empire, which included most of European Russia and was known as the Golden Horde. The Mongol subjugation of Russia was brutal and humiliating and contributed greatly to that sense of tragedy that so deeply imbues Russian culture and art.

After Uzbeg (Öz-Beg) mounted the throne in 1313, he adopted Islam as the state religion. He allowed the Genoese to settle in Crimea after his accession. But the Mongols sacked Sudak under the Khan in 1322 when the Christians defied the Muslims in the city. The Genoese merchants in the other towns were not molested. Pope John XXII requested Uzbeg to restore Roman Catholic churches destroyed in the region. Thus, the Khan signed a new trade treaty with the Genoese in 1339 and allowed them to rebuild the walls of Kaffa. In 1332 he had allowed the Venetians to establish a colony at Tanais on the Don. A decree, issued probably by Mengu-Timur, allowing the Franciscans to proselytize, was renewed by Uzbeg in 1314. Under Uzbeg and his successor Janibeg, Islam, which among some of the Turks in Eurasia had deep roots going back into pre-Mongol times, gained general acceptance, though its adherents remained tolerant of other beliefs. In order to successfully expand Islam, he built a mosque and other "elaborate places;" requiring baths—an important element of Muslim culture.

The slave trade flourished due to strengthening ties with the Mamluk Sultanate. The Black Death of the 1340s was a major factor contributing to the Golden Horde's economic downfall. Janibeg abandoned his father's Balkan ambitions, and backed Moscow against Lithuania and Poland. The Polish King, Casimir III the Great, submitted to the Horde and undertook to pay tribute in order to avoid more conflicts. The seven Mongol princes were sent by Janibeg to assist Poland. In the summer of 1470, the last prominent Khan, Ahmed, organized an attack against Moldavia, the Kingdom of Poland, and Lithuania. By August 20, the Moldavian forces under Stephen the Great defeated the Tatars at the battle of Lipnic.The Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (which possessed much of the Ukraine at the time) were attacked in 1487-1491 by the remains of the Golden Horde. They reached as far as Lublin in eastern Poland before being decisively beaten at Zaslavl. The Crimean Khanate became a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire in 1475 and subjugated what remained of the Great Horde. The Crimean Tatars wreaked havoc in southern Russia, Ukraine and even Poland in the course of the 16th and early 17th centuries, but they were not able to defeat Russia or take Moscow. Under Ottoman protection, the Khanate of Crimea continued its precarious existence until Catherine the Great annexed it on April 8, 1783. It was by far the longest-lived of the successor states to the Golden Horde.