“As to its origin, the Russian linguists generally derive it from nemoi, ‘dumb,’ i.e., unable to speak Slavonic.  To the ancient Byzantine chroniclers the Germans were known under the same name.  Cf. Muralt’s Essai de Chronogr.  Byzant., sub anno 882:  ’Les Slavons maltraites par les guerriers Nemetzi de Swiatopolc’ (King of Great Moravia, 870-894).  Sophocles’ Greek Lexicon of the Roman and Byzantine periods from B.C. 146 to A.D. 1100:  ‘Nemitzi’ Austrians, Germans.  This name is met also in the Mohammedan authors.  According to the Masalak-al-Absar, of the first half of the 14th century (transl. by Quatremere, N. et Ext. XXII. 284), the country of the Kipchaks extended (eastward) to the country of the Nemedj, which separates the Franks from the Russians.  The Turks still call the Germans Niemesi; the Hungarians term them Nemet.”—­H.C.]

[Illustration:  Figure of a Tartar under the feet of Henry II, Duke of Silesia, Cracow, and Poland, from the tomb at Breslau of that Prince, killed in battle with the Tartar host at Liegnitz, 9th April, 1241.]

[1] This doubt arises also where Abulfeda speaks of Majgaria in the
    far north, “the capital of the country of the Madjgars, a Turk race”
    of pagan nomads, by whom he seems to mean the Bashkirs. (Reinaud’s
    Abulf. I. 324.) For it is to the Bashkir country that the Franciscan
    travellers apply the term Great Hungary, showing that they were led to
    believe it the original seat of the Magyars. (Rubr. 274, Plan. 
    Carpin. 747; and in same vol. D’Avezac, p. 491.) Further confusion
    arises from the fact that, besides the Uralian Bashkirs, there were,
    down to the 13th century, Bashkirs recognised as such, and as distinct
    from the Hungarians though akin to them, dwelling in Hungarian
    territory.  Ibn Said, speaking of Sebennico (the cradle of the Polo
    family), says that when the Tartars advanced under its walls (1242?)
    “the Hungarians, the Bashkirs, and the Germans united their forces
    near the city” and gave the invaders a signal defeat. (Reinaud’s
    Abulf. I. 312; see also 294, 295.) One would gladly know what are the
    real names that M. Reinaud refers Hongrois and Allemands.  The
    Christian Bashkirds of Khondemir, on the borders of the Franks, appear
    to be Hungarians. (See J.  As., ser.  IV. tom. xvii. p. 111.)

CHAPTER XXV.

OF THE WAR THAT AROSE BETWEEN ALAU AND BARCA, AND THE BATTLES THAT THEY FOUGHT.

It was in the year 1261 of Christ’s incarnation that there arose a great discord between King Alau the Lord of the Tartars of the Levant, and Barca the King of the Tartars of the Ponent; the occasion whereof was a province that lay on the confines of both.[NOTE 1]