Editing Alans (section)

===Medieval Alania===
{{Main|Alania}}
The Alans who remained in their original area of settlement north of the Caucasus (and for a time east of the [[Caspian Sea]] as well), came into contact and conflict with the [[Bulgars]], the [[Gökturks]], and the [[Khazars]], who drove most of them from the plains and into the mountains.<ref name="EI2">{{cite encyclopedia | title = Alān | first1 = W. | last1 = Barthold | first2 = V. | last2 = Minorsky| encyclopedia = The Encyclopedia of Islam, New Edition, Volume I: A–B | publisher = Brill| location = Leiden and New York | year = 1986 | isbn = 978-90-04-08114-7 | page = 354 | url = http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/alan-SIM_0502}}</ref>

The Alans converted to [[Byzantine Empire|Byzantine]] [[Eastern Orthodoxy|Orthodoxy]] in the first quarter of the 10th century, during the patriarchate of [[Nicholas I Mystikos]]. [[Al-Mas‘udi]] reports that they apostasized in 932, but this seems to have been short-lived. The Alans are collectively mentioned as Byzantine-rite Christians in the 13th century.<ref name="EI2"/> The Caucasian Alans were the ancestors of the modern [[Ossetians]], whose ethnonym derives from the name ''Ās'' (very probably the ancient ''Aorsi''; al-Ma'sudi mentions ''al-Arsiyya'' as guards among the Khazars, and the Rus' called the Alans ''Yasi''), a sister tribe of the Alans. The ''Armenian Geography'' uses the name ''Ashtigor'' for the most westerly located Alans, a name which survives as ''Digor'' and still refers to the western division of the Ossetians. Furthermore, in Ossetian, ''Asi'' refers to the region around [[Mount Elbrus]], where they probably formerly lived.<ref name="EI2"/>

[[Image:Pontic_steppe_region_around_650_AD.png|thumb|right|250px|The [[Pontic steppe]] in c. 650]]
Some of the other Alans remained under the rule of the Huns. Those of the eastern division, though dispersed about the steppes until late [[Middle Ages|medieval]] times, were forced by the [[Mongols]] into the Caucasus, where they remain as the Ossetians. Between the 9th and 12th centuries, they formed a network of tribal alliances that gradually evolved into the Christian kingdom of [[Alania]]. Most Alans submitted to the [[Mongol Empire]] in 1239–1277. They participated in [[Mongol invasion of Europe|Mongol invasions of Europe]] and [[Mongol conquest of the Song dynasty|the Song dynasty in Southern China]], and the [[Battle of Kulikovo]] under [[Mamai]] of the [[Golden Horde]].<ref>Handbuch Der Orientalistik By Agustí Alemany, Denis Sinor, Bertold Spuler, Hartwig Altenmüller, pp. 400–410</ref>{{Better source needed|reason=citation is not referenced properly & work advocates Altaic theory, which is discredited|date=April 2015}}

In 1253, the Franciscan friar [[William of Rubruck]] reported numerous [[Europeans in Medieval China|Europeans in Central Asia]]. It is also known that 30,000 Alans formed the royal guard ([[Asud]]) of the [[Yuan dynasty|Yuan]] court in [[Khanbaliq|Dadu]] (Beijing). [[Marco Polo]] later reported their role in the Yuan dynasty in his book ''[[Il Milione]]''. It is said that those Alans contributed to a modern Mongol clan, [[Asud]]. [[John of Montecorvino]], archbishop of Dadu (Khanbaliq), reportedly [[Roman Catholicism in China|converted many Alans to Roman Catholic Christianity]] in addition to [[Armenians in China]].<ref>Roux, p. 465</ref><ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.luc.edu/publications/medieval/vol2/guzman.html| title = Christian Europe and Mongol Asia: First Medieval Intercultural Contact Between East and West }}</ref> In Poland and Lithuania, Alans were also part of the powerful [[Clan of Ostoja]].

According to the missionary [[Giovanni da Pian del Carpine|Pian de Carpine]], a part of the Alans had successfully resisted a Mongol siege on a mountain for 12 years:<ref>{{Cite conference |last=Tesaev |first=Amin |date=13 November 2020 |title=К личности и борьбе чеченского героя идига (1238–1250 гг.) |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/347758240 |url-access=subscription |language=ru |conference=МАТЕРИАЛЫ ВСЕРОССИЙСКОЙ НАУЧНО-ПРАКТИЧЕСКОЙ КОНФЕРЕНЦИИ МОЛОДЫХ УЧЕНЫХ «НАУКА И МОЛОДЕЖЬ», ПОСВЯЩЕННОЙ ФИЗИКЕ БУДУЩЕГО] |location=Grozny |pages=451–455 |doi=10.36684/30-2020-1-451-454 }} [https://storage.ucomplex.org/files/users/-1/e3044585c4844770.pdf Conference papers online].</ref>

{{Blockquote|text=When they (the Mongols) begin to besiege a fortress, they besiege it for many years, as it happens today with one mountain in the land of the Alans. We believe they have been besieging it for twelve years and they (the Alans) put up courageous resistance and killed many Tatars, including many noble ones.|author=Giovanni da Pian del Carpine|title=|source=report from 1250}}

This twelve-year-long siege is not found in any other report, however the Russian historian A. I. Krasnov connected this battle with two [[Chechen people|Chechen]] folktales he recorded in 1967 that spoke of an old hunter named Idig who with his companions defended the [[Tebulosmta|Dakuoh]] mountain for 12 years against Tatar-Mongols. He also reported to have found several arrowheads and spears from the 13th century near the very mountain the battle took place at:<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Krasnov|first=A.I|title=Копье Тебулос-Мта|journal=Вокруг света|volume=9|pages=29}}</ref>

Against the Alans and the Cumans (Kipchaks), the Mongols used divide-and-conquer tactics by first telling the Cumans to stop allying with the Alans and, after the Cumans followed their suggestion, the Mongols then attacked the Cumans<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Sinor |first1=Denis |title=The Mongols in the West |journal=Journal of Asian History |date=1999 |volume=33 |issue=1 |pages=1–44 |jstor=41933117 }}</ref> after defeating the Alans.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Halperin |first1=Charles J. |title=The Kipchak Connection: The Ilkhans, the Mamluks and Ayn Jalut |journal=Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London |date=2000 |volume=63 |issue=2 |pages=229–245 |doi=10.1017/S0041977X00007205 |jstor=1559539 |s2cid=162439703 }}</ref> Alans were recruited into the Mongol forces with one unit called "Right Alan Guard" which was combined with "recently surrendered" soldiers, Mongols, and Chinese soldiers stationed in the area of the former [[Kingdom of Qocho]] and in Besh Balikh the Mongols established a Chinese military colony led by Chinese general Qi Kongzhi (Ch'i Kung-chih).<ref name="Rossabi1983">{{cite book|first=Morris|last=Rossabi|title=China Among Equals: The Middle Kingdom and Its Neighbors, 10th–14th Centuries|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sNpD5UKmkswC&q=alan+guard+mongols&pg=PA255|year=1983|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-04562-0|pages=255–}}</ref> Alan and Kipchak guards were used by Kublai Khan.<ref name="Nicolle2004">{{cite book|first=David|last=Nicolle|title=The Mongol Warlords: Genghis Khan, Kublai Khan, Hulegu, Tamerlane|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OgQXAQAAIAAJ&q=alan+guard+mongols|date=2004|publisher=Brockhampton Press|isbn=978-1-86019-407-8|page=85}}</ref> In 1368 at the end of the Yuan dynasty in China Toghan Temür was accompanied by his faithful Alan guards.<ref name="Hatto1991">{{cite book|author=Arthur Thomas Hatto|author-link=Arthur Thomas Hatto|title=Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QxRpAAAAMAAJ&q=alan+guard+mongols|year=1991|publisher=Peter de Ridder Press|page=36}}</ref> Mangu enlisted in his bodyguard half the troops of the Alan prince, Arslan, whose younger son Nicholas took a part in the expedition of the Mongols against Karajang (Yunnan). This Alan imperial guard was still in existence in 1272, 1286 and 1309, and it was divided into two corps with headquarters in the Ling pei province (Karakorúm).<ref name="Yule1915">{{cite book|author=Sir Henry Yule|title=Cathay and the Way Thither, Being a Collection of Medieval Notices of China|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rMIWlq6JeccC&q=alan+guard+mongols&pg=PA187|year=1915|publisher=Asian Educational Services|isbn=978-81-206-1966-1|pages=187–}}</ref> The French-Flemish friar and traveler William of Rubruck mentions Alans numerous times in the account of his 1253–1255 journey through [[Eurasia]] to the [[Great Khan]], e.g. Alans living as Mongol subjects in [[Crimea]], [[Xacitarxan|Old Astrakhan]], the Khan's capital [[Karakorum]], and also still as freemen in their Caucasian homeland ("the Alans or Aas, who are Christians and still fight the Tartars").<ref>W. W. Rockhill: The journey of William of Rubruck to the eastern parts of the world, 1253–55, as narrated by himself, with two accounts of the earlier journey of John of Pian de Carpine. tr. from the Latin and ed., with an introductory notice, by William Woodville Rockhill (London: Hakluyt Society, 1900). Acc. to: http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/rubruck.html. Chaps. IX and XXII.</ref> The reason why the earlier Persian word tersa was gradually abandoned by the Mongols in favour of the Syro-Greek word arkon, when speaking of Christians, manifestly is that no specifically Greek Church was ever heard of in China until the Russians had been conquered; besides, there were large bodies of Russian and Alan guards at Peking throughout the last half of the thirteenth and first half of the fourteenth century, and the Catholics there would not be likely to encourage the use of a Persian word which was most probably applicable in the first instance to the Nestorians they found so degenerated.<ref name="Parker1905">{{cite book|author=Edward Harper Parker|title=China and religion|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oP4xuxY0B2QC&q=alan+guard+mongols&pg=PA232|year=1905|publisher=E. P. Dutton|pages=232–|isbn=978-0524009512}}</ref> The Alan guards converted to Catholicism as reported by Odorico.<ref name="Arnold1999">{{cite book|first=Lauren|last=Arnold|title=Princely Gifts and Papal Treasures: The Franciscan Mission to China and Its Influence on the Art of the West, 1250–1350|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IRunTSqY7msC&q=alan+guard+mongols&pg=PA79|year=1999|publisher=Desiderata Press|isbn=978-0-9670628-0-8|pages=79–}}</ref> They were a "Russian guard".<ref name="Makeham2008">{{cite book|first=John|last=Makeham|title=China: The World's Oldest Living Civilization Revealed|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TQ4NAQAAMAAJ&q=russian+guard|year=2008|publisher=Thames & Hudson|isbn=978-0-500-25142-3|page=269}}</ref>
[[File:Cumania-Jazygia-1700s.png|thumb|[[Jászság|Jazygia]], inhabited by the [[Jassic people]], in the 18th century within the [[Kingdom of Hungary]].]]

It is believed that some Alans resettled to the North ([[Barsils]]), merging with [[Volga Bulgars]] and [[Burtas]], eventually transforming to [[Volga Tatars]].<ref>{{in lang|ru}} [http://kitap.net.ru/bayar.php Тайная история татар] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927151902/http://kitap.net.ru/bayar.php |date=27 September 2007 }}</ref>{{unverifiable|date=June 2013}} It is supposed that the Iasi, a group of Alans founded a town in the northeast of Romania (about 1200–1300), near the Prut river, called [[Iași]]. The latter became the capital of [[Moldavia]] in the Middle Ages.<ref>A. Boldur, ''Istoria Basarabiei'', p. 20</ref>

Alan mercenaries were involved in the affair with the [[Catalan Company]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Jessee |first1=Scott |last2=Isaenko |first2=Anatoly |chapter=The Military Effectiveness of Alan Mercenaries in Byzantium, 1301–1306 |pages=107–132 |jstor=10.7722/j.ctt31njvf.9 |editor1-first=Clifford J |editor1-last=Rogers |editor2-first=Kelly |editor2-last=DeVries |editor3-first=John |editor3-last=France |title=Journal of Medieval Military History: Volume XI |date=2013 |publisher=Boydell & Brewer |isbn=978-1-84383-860-9 }}</ref>