Kerman, on the fall of the Beni Buya Dynasty, in the middle of the 11th century, came into the hands of a branch of the Seljukian Turks, who retained it till the conquests of the Kings of Khwarizm, which just preceded the Mongol invasion.  In 1226 the Amir Borak, a Kara Khitaian, who was governor on behalf of Jalaluddin of Khwarizm, became independent under the title of Kutlugh Sultan. [He died in 1234.] The Mongols allowed this family to retain the immediate authority, and at the time when Polo returned from China the representative of the house was a lady known as the Padishah Khatun [who reigned from 1291], the wife successively of the Ilkhans Abaka and Kaikhatu; an ambitious, clever, and masterful woman, who put her own brother Siyurgutmish to death as a rival, and was herself, after the decease of Kaikhatu, put to death by her brother’s widow and daughter [1294].  The Dynasty continued, nominally at least, to the reign of the Ilkhan Khodabanda (1304-13), when it was extinguished. [See Major Sykes’ Persia, chaps, v. and xxiii.]

Kerman was a Nestorian see, under the Metropolitan of Fars. (Ilch. passim; Weil, III. 454; Lequien, II. 1256.)

["There is some confusion with regard to the names of Kerman both as a town and as a province or kingdom.  We have the names Kerman, Kuwashir, Bardshir.  I should say the original name of the whole country was Kerman, the ancient Karamania.  A province of this was called Kureh-i-Ardeshir, which, being contracted, became Kuwashir, and is spoken of as the province in which Ardeshir Babekan, the first Sassanian monarch, resided.  A part of Kureh-i-Ardeshir was called Bardshir, or Bard-i-Ardeshir, now occasionally Bardsir, and the present city of Kerman was situated at its north-eastern corner.  This town, during the Middle Ages, was called Bardshir.  On a coin of Qara Arslan Beg, King of Kerman, of A.H. 462, Mr. Stanley Lane Poole reads Yazdashir instead of Bardshir.  Of Al Idrisi’s Yazdashir I see no mention in histories; Bardshir was the capital and the place where most of the coins were struck.  Yazdashir, if such a place existed, can only have been a place of small importance.  It is, perhaps, a clerical error for Bardshir; without diacritical points, both words are written alike.  Later, the name of the city became Kerman, the name Bardshir reverting to the district lying south-west of it, with its principal place Mashiz.  In a similar manner Mashiz was often, and is so now, called Bardshir.  Another old town sometimes confused with Bardshir was Sirjan or Shirjan, once more important than Bardshir; it is spoken of as the capital of Kerman, of Bardshir, and of Sardsir.  Its name now exists only as that of a district, with principal place S’aidabad.  The history of Kerman, ’Agd-ul-’Ola, plainly says Bardshir is the capital of Kerman, and from the description of Bardshir there is no doubt of its having been the present town Kerman.  It is strange that Marco Polo does not give the name of the city.  In Assemanni’s Bibliotheca Orientalis Kuwashir and Bardashir are mentioned as separate cities, the latter being probably the old Mashiz, which as early as A.H. 582 (A.D. 1186) is spoken of in the History of Kerman as an important town.  The Nestorian bishop of the province Kerman, who stood under the Metropolitan of Fars, resided at Hormuz.” (Houtum-Schindler, l.c. pp. 491-492.)