To certain very great lords also there is given a tablet with gerfalcons on it; this is only to the very greatest of the Kaan’s barons, and it confers on them his own full power and authority; so that if one of those chiefs wishes to send a messenger any whither, he can seize the horses of any man, be he even a king, and any other chattels at his pleasure. [NOTE 4]

NOTE 1.—­So Sanang Setzen relates that Chinghiz, on returning from one of his great campaigns, busied himself in reorganising his forces and bestowing rank and title, according to the deserts of each, on his nine Orlok, or marshals, and all who had done good service.  “He named commandants over hundreds, over thousands, over ten thousands, over hundred thousands, and opened his treasury to the multitude of the people” (p. 91).

NOTE 2.—­We have several times already had mention of these tablets. (See Prologue, ch. viii. and xviii.) The earliest European allusion to them is in Rubruquis:  “And Mangu gave to the Moghul (whom he was going to send to the King of France) a bull of his, that is to say, a golden plate of a palm in breadth and half a cubit in length, on which his orders were inscribed.  Whosoever is the bearer of that may order what he pleases, and his order shall be executed straightway.”

These golden bulls of the Mongol Kaans appear to have been originally tokens of high favour and honour, though afterwards they became more frequent and conventional.  They are often spoken of by the Persian historians of the Mongols under the name of Paizah, and sometimes Paizah Sir-i-Sher, or “Lion’s Head Paizah.”  Thus, in a firman of Ghazan Khan, naming a viceroy to his conquests in Syria, the Khan confers on the latter “the sword, the august standard, the drum, and the Lion’s Head Paizah.”  Most frequently the grant of this honour is coupled with Yarligh; “to such an one were granted Yarligh and Paizah” the former word (which is still applied in Turkey to the Sultan’s rescripts) denoting the written patent which accompanies the grant of the tablet, just as the sovereign’s warrant accompanies the badge of a modern Order.  Of such written patents also Marco speaks in this passage, and as he uttered it, no doubt the familiar words Yarligh u Paizah were in his mind.  The Armenian history of the Orpelians, relating the visit of Prince Sempad, brother of King Hayton, to the court of Mangku Kaan, says:  “They gave him also a P’haiza of gold, i.e. a tablet whereon the name of God is written by the Great Kaan himself; and this constitutes the greatest honour known among the Mongols.  Farther, they drew up for him a sort of patent, which the Mongols call Iarlekh,” etc.  The Latin version of a grant by Uzbek Khan of Kipchak to the Venetian Andrea Zeno, in 1333,[1] ends with the words:  “Dedimus baisa et privilegium cum bullis rubeis,” where the latter words no doubt represent the Yarligh al-tamgha, the warrant with the red seal or stamp,[2] as it may be seen upon the letter of Arghun Khan. (See plate at ch. xvii. of Bk.  IV.).  So also Janibek, the son of Uzbek, in 1344, confers privileges on the Venetians, “eisdem dando baissinum de auro”; and again Bardibeg, son, murderer, and successor of Janibeg, in 1358, writes:  “Avemo dado comandamento [i.e.  Yarlig] cum le bolle rosse, et lo paysam.”