Kolodziejczyk Dariusz. The Crimean Khanate and Poland-Lithuania (ENG)
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274 part two—chapter two
by a Lithuanian envoy, without even entering his own name in its
intitulatio.
136
In 1535, a Lithuanian envoy le for the Crimea provided by the Lith-
uanian chancery with a ready formula of a new “donation yarlıq cum
şartname” to be issued by Sahib Giray. e formula’s text was again
based on Bahadır’s instrument from 1517, yet the list of the lands to be
“granted” to Lithuania was extended by one more town, namely Ljubeč,
situated eastwards from the Dnieper. It was the only stronghold from
among those lost to Muscovy by 1503 that had been restored to Lithu-
ania in result of the subsequent war of 1507–1508, hence no wonder
that Vilnius aimed to secure Crimean recognition of this fact. We do
not know whether the khan then fullled the Lithuanian request as no
text of a yarlıq from 1535 is extant. e earliest “donation yarlıq cum
şartname,” issued by Sahib Giray and extant today, origins from 1539.
It is recorded in a corrupt Polish translation and the list of the lands
“granted” to Lithuania is substantially shortened: in comparison to the
earlier “donation yarlıqs,” over thirty place-names are missing. Some
of the ommissions probably resulted from careless copying or the fact
that a number of strongholds and estates, recorded in the past yarlıqs,
lost their importance and sometimes even their location could have
been unknown to contemporaries. It is also hard to explain why Sahib
Giray refused to conrm the restoration of Ljubeč to Lithuania (Ljubeč
is not listed) and simultaneously acknowledged Vilnius’ more exorbi-
tant claims to Smolensk, Putyvl’, and Kozel’sk, which were all in fact
controlled by Muscovy. Yet, at least some of the ommissions visible in
the yarlıq from 1539, namely the absence of lands situated between the
lower Dniester and lower Boh, close to the Black Sea shore, might have
reected the khan’s deliberate policy related to current developments,
as in 1538 these lands had been ocially claimed by Sultan Suleyman
aer his Moldavian campaign. Interestingly, the khan’s instrument
begins with a “collective” sözüm formula that follows the invocation
and is reminiscent of the formula used in Bahadır’s yarlıq from 1517,
even though unlike Bahadır, Sahib Giray was a sovereign khan: “this
is the word of my father, Mengli Giray Khan, and of my elder brother
[i.e., Mehmed Giray-DK], and of us, Sahib Giray.”
In 1541, Sahib Giray again issued a “donation yarlıq cum şartname.”
It is not extant today, but apparently corresponded with the dra, nego-
136
Cf. Document 24 and notes 215–217 in Part I.
the crimean instruments of peace and their typology 275
tiated earlier that year in Cracow between the Polish lords councilors
and the Crimean envoy, Ali Hadji.
137
In 1542, the khan issued another
“donation yarlıq cum şartname.” Its rst part again listed, somewhat
carelessly, the lands “granted” to Lithuania. Apparently the traditional
form of a yarlıq was gradually falling into disuse. e very term yarlıq
does not appear in the document and the formula “our word” is miss-
ing as well (at least in the extant Polish translation). Moreover, the
khan’s “donation” of lands to Lithuania, which formally belongs to the
instrument’s rst section (the “donation yarlıq” proper), is mixed with
the khan’s engagement to assist Vilnius in restoring the lands captured
by Muscovy, which formally belongs to the instrument’s second sec-
tion (the şartname).
In 1552, the new khan Devlet Giray addressed his rst instrument
of peace to the Polish and Lithuanian ruler, Sigismund Augustus. e
document again took shape of a “donation yarlıq cum şartname.” e
list of towns “granted” to Lithuania was partly updated and contained
Ovruč, Žytomyr, Vinnycja, and Kaniv—four Ukrainian castles that
had never before been listed in the yarlıqs, but whose inclusion was
explainable by their rising administrative and military importance. e
instrument contained the proper yarlıq formula: “the word of Devlet
Giray Khan, the great khan of the Great Horde,” although it was not
referred to as yarlıq within the text. As usual, the list of “granted”
lands was followed by specic political clauses and the khan’s solemn
promise to maintain the peace with both Lithuania and Poland.
In 1560, Devlet Giray and Sigismund Augustus reconrmed their
alliance against Muscovy and the khan issued a new “donation yarlıq
cum şartname.” e instrument contained some novelties in its second
section, regarding the conditions of mutual cooperation, but its rst
section, listing the lands “granted” to Lithuania, remained basically
unchanged. Only the “our word” formula, present in 1552, is missing
in the instrument from 1560 or at least in its extant Polish translation.
e document from 1560 was probably the last one that invoked
and reconrmed the then semi-mythical “grant” of numerous lands
to Lithuania once eected by Khan Toktamish.
138
In the subsequent
137
On the dra, corroborated by the Crimean envoy with his oath, see below. e
list of lands to be “donated” by the khan was apparently submitted by the Polish-
Lithuanian side and based on the Lithuanian chancery formula from 1535 as both lists
are identical and even contain the same errors; cf. n. 249 in Part I.
138
Cf. Kolankowski, “Problem Krymu w dziejach jagiellońskich,” p. 297.
276 part two—chapter two
period, letters sent by the khans to the kings were oen referred to
as yarlıqs, but they no longer took the shape of “donation yarlıqs.”
Admittedly, the texts of the subsequent Crimean instruments of peace
sent to Poland-Lithuania in the years 1571(?), 1579, and 1585, are not
extant, so we cannot establish whether they were shaped as “dona-
tion yarlıqs cum şartnames” or simply şartnames, and we are con-
fronted with a gap of over thirty years open to scholarly speculations.
139
What we know for sure is that the earliest Crimean instrument issued
aer 1560 and preserved is the one from 1592, and it is not a “dona-
tion yarlıq.” Nevertheless, is seems likely that the abolition of the old
instrument type took place already by 1569.
e fact that Hadji and Mengli Girays willingly “donated” Pskov
and Velikij Novgorod to Casimir in the time of the heated territo-
rial dispute between Moscow and Vilnius, while their sixteenth-
century successors—Mehmed, Sahib, and Devlet Girays—repeatedly
“donated” Smolensk to the Jagiellonians long aer it had been lost
to Muscovy, explains why the Lithuanian grand dukes accepted and
sometimes even requested to be granted such humiliating documents
as the “donation yarlıqs,” whose tenor depicted them as the khans’
vassals and beneciaries. Mentioning a given town in the khan’s
yarlıq not only guaranteed—at least in theory—its immunity against
Tatar raids, but could be used in territorial disputes with Moscow.
e khans consciously applied the carrot and stick method in their
relations with their two northern neighbors, as it can be seen from a
letter sent by Mehmed Giray to Vasilij III in 1515: as a “punishment”
for Vasilij’s “misbehavior” and his recent conquest of Smolensk (1514)
without the khan’s permission, Mehmed Giray demanded that the
Muscovian ruler not only restore Smolensk to Lithuania, but also cede
eight towns that had once belonged to Lithuania but had later been
“donated” by Mengli Giray to Moscow in the times of the Crimean-
Muscovian friendship.
140
In turn, during the Crimean-Muscovian rap-
139
In 1571, Jurij Bykovskyj, a Lithuanian envoy, was provided by the Lithuanian
chancery with a ready formula, according to which Devlet Giray was to issue a new
instrument of peace and send it to Sigismund Augustus; neither the formula nor the
khan’s instrument, if the latter was issued at all, are extant. Also the texts of the instru-
ments of 1579 and 1585, sent to Stephan Báthory by Mehmed II Giray and Islam II
Giray and brought by the royal envoy Marcin Broniowski, are not preserved. On the
embassies from 1571, 1579, and 1585, cf. Part I.
140
ese were Brjansk, Starodub, Počep, Novhorod-Sivers’kyj, Ryl’sk, Putyvl’,
Karačev, and Radogošč’; cf. n. 152 in Part I.
the crimean instruments of peace and their typology 277
prochement in 1525, Sa‘adet Giray annulled his predecessor’s decision
and promised Vasilij not to raid eight frontier towns (of whom six
were identical with the ones mentioned in 1515), for that time referred
to as “his” [i.e., Vasilij’s] although they had earlier belonged to Lithu-
ania.
141
Studying the Crimean instruments addressed to Vilnius and
Moscow, one gets the impression that the khans sometimes granted
the same territories simultaneously to both neighbors in order to
please the recipients. Admittedly, unlike the Crimean instruments sent
to Vilnius, those addressed to Moscow were not shaped as “donation
yarlıqs” but simply as şartnames, whereas the “grant” of given ter-
ritories was mentioned among other clauses. e reality reected by
Tatar instruments might be regarded today as purely virtual, but the
contemporary rulers in Vilnius and Moscow knew how to use these
“grants” to their benet, even if the form and contents of the received
instruments infringed their prestige as sovereign monarchs. As late
as in 1578, Ivan IV endeavored to obtain Devlet Giray’s formal recog-
nition of his claims to “the whole of Rus’ [including the most recent
conquest of Polack]” and to Livonia, hence corresponding entries
were entered into the Russian project of a new Muscovian-Crimean
treaty.
142
Two closely related factors apparently contributed to the disappear-
ance of a “donation yarlıq” from the Crimean-Lithuanian diplomatic
practice. e rst one was the transfer of Ukrainian territories from
the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to the Polish Crown that occurred in
1569, on the eve of the Union of Lublin. In consequence, the Crimean
aairs were taken in charge by the Crown chancery in Cracow, for
whose clerks an idea to be granted some lands by the Crimean khan
must have appeared awkward. e discontinuity was even reected
in the change of the vernacular used for mutual correspondence.
While the Cyrillic alphabet and Ruthenian language reigned in the
Lithuanian chancery in Vilnius and was commonly understood by
141
ese were Starodub, Počep, Novhorod-Sivers’kyj, Ryl’sk, Putyvl’, Radogošč’,
Černihiv, and Homel’ (takže i tvoix ukrainnyx gorodov Putivlja, Rylska, Novagorodka,
Radogošča, Staroduba, Černigova, Počapa, Gom’ja [. . .] ne voevati); see RGADA, f. 123,
op. 1, no. 6, fol. 87b; published in Malinovskij, “Istoričeskoe sobranie,” p. 416.
142
See Filjuškin, “Proekty russko-krymskogo voennogo sojuza,” pp. 330 and 335–
336; admittedly, Ivan IV did not ask the khan to “grant” him Livonia or Polack but
only to recognize his right to keep them, whereas in the instrument from 1560, sent
to Sigismund Augustus, Devlet Giray explicitly “granted” him Polack and numerous
other lands.
278 part two—chapter two
the Crimean chancery clerks in Baghchasaray, the Polish chancery in
Cracow used predominantly Latin and Polish (the second gradually
gaining importance, especially in domestic matters), although—as it
has been mentioned above—in the correspondence with the Crimea
Ruthenian continued to be used along with Polish until the reign of
Sigismund III. e other factor that contributed to the discontinuity of
the ancient tradition was the extinction of the Jagiellonian dynasty with
the heirless death of Sigismund Augustus in 1572. e new elective
kings, such as the Frenchman Henry Valois, the Hungarian Stephan
Báthory, and the Swede Sigismund III Vasa, were not so attached to
the tradition of the old amity between the Lithuanian grand dukes and
the Tatar khans. On the other hand, they were perfectly aware of the
symbolic meaning of the yarlıqs and hardly enthusiastic about the idea
of becoming the khan’s tributaries.
is change of attitude is best reected in the instruction given
by Sigismund III Vasa to Nikodem Kossakowski, sent in embassy to
Ghazi II Giray in 1598. e king, even though he was a Jagiellonian on
his mother’s side, showed no respect to the old tradition and explic-
itly forbade his envoy to accept any instrument that would include
the customary clause “granting” Kiev and other lands to Lithuania,
because “how could the Tatars donate a thing that had never belonged
to them.”
143
Obviously referring to the “donation yarlıqs,” the royal
instruction stressed that the ancient treaties had been concluded by
Lithuania, and not by the [Polish] Kingdom, and aer the unication
[i.e., the Union of Lublin of 1569] the khan should model his instru-
ment on his predecessors’ treaties concluded with Poland and not with
Lithuania.
144
143
Jakoż tedy mieli to darować, co ich nigdy nie było?; see Skorupa, Stosunki polsko-
tatarskie, p. 79; for the entire text of the instruction, see AGAD, Libri Legationum,
no. 27, fol. 106a–109a.
144
Kossakowski was ordered to request an instrument shaped on the one addressed
by Mengli Giray to Sigismund I as the king of Poland, apparently the one from 1514
(see Document 16). Consequently, the envoy was to reject any instrument similar to
the ones formerly addressed to the Jagiellonians as the grand dukes of Lithuania in
which the khans granted them Ruthenian lands. It is hard to establish which instru-
ment previously sent to Lithuania the royal chancery clerks had in mind. Kossakowski’s
instruction refers to an instrument issued by Mehmed Giray and brought to Lithu-
ania by an envoy named Haraburda (jeśliby [. . .] powiedzieli, że dokończenie być ma
według tego, jako z Mechmetgiereiem czarem przez posła Haraburdę było namówiono,
na to powiedzieć, że Haraburdo [sic] od Lithewskiego Państwa jeździł i stanowił, ale
że potym nastąpiło zjednoczenie Księstwa Wielkiego Lithewskiego z Królestwem Pols-
kim, i z Królestwem teraz ma być stanowienie, słusznie nie według tego, co się działo
the crimean instruments of peace and their typology 279
e şartname, the oath-yarlıq, and the ‘ahdname
From among the Crimean treaty instruments of the eenth and
sixteenth centuries, addressed to the rulers in Moscow, Vilnius, and
Cracow, all but four are extant today only in copies, most typically
recorded in Russian by chancery clerks in Moscow, and in Ruthenian
by chancery clerks in Vilnius. e Crimean chancery of that period is
known to have issued documents in Ruthenian, but its standard lan-
guage was rstly Khwarezmian Turkic, and then a mixture of Crimean
Tatar and Ottoman Turkish. It is hard to determine which of the cop-
ies, preserved today in the Muscovian and Lithuanian chancery books,
are based on the Slavic language originals of the khans’ documents,
and which are merely contemporary translations of the lost Arabic-
script Turkic originals.
145
is question is particularly important when
we try to reconstruct the original terms, by which the Crimean chan-
cery referred to its own instruments. Arguably Slavic language origi-
nals, drawn in the Crimean chancery, would more faithfully reect the
original terminology than translations made in Vilnius and Moscow,
which were probably inuenced and distorted by the notions proper
to the recipients.
Scholars, who work solely on Slavic versions of Crimean instruments
and are unfamiliar with the terms and procedures typical for Islamic
chanceries, are likely to misapprehend the encountered terminology. In
his article, strongly biased against the Crimean Tatars, Mixail Berežkov
stressed the dierence between “donation yarlıqs” (žalovannye jarlyki)
sent by the khans of the Golden Horde to Muscovian rulers in the
times of the Horde’s supremacy, and “oath-letters” (šertnye gramoty)
sent by the Crimean khans to Ivan III and his successors. According to
Berežkov, the Crimean khans, who turned into Ottoman vassals and
hence were no peers to the Muscovian rulers, adopted the new type of
z Lithewskiem Państwem za Mechmetgiereia, ale według tego jako z Królestwem Pols-
kim za Mendligiereia dokończenie się było stało; see AGAD, Libri Legationum, no. 27,
fol. 107a). Yet, Mehmed I Giray issued his instrument for Lithuania in 1520
(Mehmed II Giray reigned aer the Union of Lublin so the instruction cannot refer
to him) while Myxajlo Haraburda (Pol. Michał Haraburda) was sent in embassy
to the Crimea two times in the years 1559–1561 (see Banionis, Lietuvos Didžiosios
Kunigaikštystės pasiuntinybių tarnyba, pp. 202–203) and can be associated with Devlet
Giray’s instrument from 1560 (in fact brought by Skumin Tyškevyč). Hence, the royal
chancery could refer either to the donation yarlıq cum şartname from 1520 (see Docu-
ment 19) or the one from 1560 (Document 33).
145
On the languages used in the Crimean chancery, see Chapter 1.
280 part two—chapter two
instrument in acknowledgement of their inferior status, because the
“oath-letter” embodied a unilateral engagement made by an inferior
partner, who swore his loyalty and obedience towards a superior.
146
Misunderstandings can also be found in more recent studies. For
instance, in her painstaking analysis of the Crimean-Muscovian dip-
lomatic procedures of the late 15th and early 16th centuries, Anna
Xoroškevič aims to dierentiate an agreement, negotiated and con-
cluded between two equal partners, referred to in old-Russian (and old-
Ruthenian) by the term dokončanie,
147
from a unilateral engagement,
undertaken by an inferior partner towards his suzerain, and referred
to in old-Russian by the term prisjažnaja gramota (lit. “oath-letter”).
148
In fact, both Russian terms, also known in Ruthenian, referred to the
very same type of a Crimean document known as şartname, whereas
the word şart derived from Arabic
طﺮﺷ (“condition;” in the Tatar
usage it also denoted “oath”) and the word name from Persian
ﻪﻤ
(“letter” or “writing”). Its most common Russian equivalent was the
already mentioned term šertnaja gramota (“oath-letter”), a calque
which Fedor Laškov proposed to render as kljatvennaja gramota.
149
Yet, both the Muscovian and Lithuanian chanceries also referred to
the Crimean şartnames with the terms prisjažnaja gramota as well as
dokončanie. e above statement is best illustrated by the fact that
the instrument of Khan Mehmed Giray, sent in October 1520 to King
Sigismund, which is preserved in both Kwarezmian Turkic original
and contemporary Ruthenian translation, is referred to as şartname in
the original, and as dokončane in the translation.
150
According to a typology proposed by Usmanov, “agreements and
oath-letters” (dogovory i šertnye gramoty) should be distinguished as a
146
Berežkov, Krymskie šertnye gramoty, pp. 1, 5 and 22.
147
e ancient term dokončanie is equivalent to such modern Russian terms as
dogovor or soglašenie; in eenth-century Russian one encounters also a verb kančivati,
“to make an agreement”; cf. Xoroškevič, Rus’ i Krym, pp. 125 and 290.
148
Ibidem, p. 287.
149
Fedor Laškov, “Krymskija šertnyja gramoty XVI–XVII vv. xranjaščijasja v
Moskovskom Glavnom Arxive Ministerstva Inostrannyx Del,” in: Trudy vos’mago
arxeologičeskago sezda v Moskve 1890. Edited by P. Uvarova and M. Speranskij, vol. 2
(Moscow, 1895): 191–208, esp. p. 192.
150
Cf. Document 20 and its contemporary Ruthenian translation edited as an
appendix. e term şartname appears as many as eight times in the original and is
translated seven times as dokončane (the eigth appearance was considered redundant
by the translator so he did not translate it); in addition, the Ruthenian translation is
provided with a heading Dokončane na Korunu Pol’skuju, “the agreement regarding
the Polish Crown (i.e., the Polish Kingdom).”
the crimean instruments of peace and their typology 281
separate category of the khans’ documents, dierent from yarlıqs. Yet,
the author blurs his own typology by admitting that among “agree-
ments and oath-letters” one can also nd “oath-yarlıqs,” granted by
the khans to the rulers, whom they regarded as their vassals, including
the grand dukes of Muscovy.
151
Usmanov maintains that the Crimean
khans sent oath-yarlıqs to Muscovy because they regarded its rul-
ers as their vassals, and oath-letters (şartnames) to Poland-Lithuania
because they regarded its rulers as equal, sovereign monarchs. Yet,
this argument does not make sense if we remember that the Jagiel-
lonians obtained “donation-yarlıqs,” and in return sent annual gis,
regarded by the khans as tribute. Besides, at least one instrument
sent to a Polish-Lithuanian ruler (the one from 1527) is referred to as
“oath-yarlıq.”
It should be stressed here that in the Tatar and Turkish practice, an
oath could be taken and exchanged between equal as well as unequal
partners, for instance by a vassal towards his suzerain, but also by a
suzerain towards his vassal or even by a ruler towards his subjects.
152
In all the above cases, an instrument referring to such an oath would
be labeled as a şartname.
151
Usmanov proposes to divide the khans’ documents into four categories: 1) genu-
ine yarlıqs addressed to subjects; 2) yarlıqs addressed to vassals, both real and imagi-
nary ones (like the Muscovian grand dukes); 3) letters addressed to the rulers regarded
by the khans as their peers or superiors (these documents, lacking legally binding for-
mulas typical for yarlıqs and şartnames, remain besides the scope of the present study);
4) agreements and oath-letters. Within the last category, he further distinguishes: a)
agreements between equals; b) instruments by which their authors admitted and con-
rmed their obligations towards superior monarchs (pis’ma-objazatel’stva); c) instru-
ments given to real and imaginary vassals, referred to as oath-yarlıqs (šertnye jarlyki);
see idem, “Termin <<jarlyk>>,” pp. 243–244; idem, Žalovannye akty Džučieva ulusa
XIV–XVI vv., pp. 279–281.
152
An interesting document, containing a written oath taken by Khan Mengli Giray
towards his subjects, the inhabitants of Qırq Yer, is published and analized in Vásáry,
“A contract of the Crimean khan,” pp. 290–300. Usmanov, who was familiar with this
document before it was published, regarded the text of the khan’s oath, where Mengli
had declared that he should become an indel and loose his wife if he broke his
promise, as humiliating and reecting the khan’s weak position vis-à-vis his subjects
aer his recent return to power in 1478; see idem, Žalovannye akty Džučieva ulusa
XIV–XVI vv., p. 71. Yet, a similar oath was pronounced by Mengli Giray in 1513 in
the presence of Polish-Lithuanian envoys, when the khan’s position was hardly weak
and it was Sigismund who had asked for peace; hence the oath formula, regarded by
Usmanov as unusual and humiliating for the ruler, seems to have been standard at
that time; cf. Document 20. Also the Ottoman sultan, Mehmed II, is known to have
taken an oath and granted an oath-letter (‘ahdname) to his new subjects, the Italian
inhabitants of Pera, precisely when he was at the apex of his power, aer the recent
conquest of Constantinople in 1453.
282 part two—chapter two
e earliest extant Crimean instrument of peace, which can be ten-
tatively classied as a şartname, is the document by Khan Nur Devlet,
addressed in 1467 to King Casimir. It is preserved in a Latin copy (per-
haps it was originally composed in Latin by an Italian from Caa?),
whose pretentious style diers from the later simpler instruments of
Mengli Giray. Nevertheless, it contains a crucial element, namely the
khan’s reference to his oath (iura commisi) and his engagement to
keep peace with the king.
153
e following instrument, which can be classied as a şartname,
was issued by Mengli Giray in 1480, apparently in Ruthenian. It is
referred to as oath-letter (prysjažnyj lyst) and very short,
154
containing
only the khan’s oath to maintain friendship and alliance with Casi-
mir and the request that the king should send back the Tatar refu-
gees who were allegedly Mengli’s subjects.
155
In 1507, Mengli issued
another oath-letter (prysjažnyj lyst) along with his “donation yarlıq,”
apparently in order to supplement the latter’s contents. Preserved
(perhaps originally composed) in Ruthenian, the instrument refers to
the oaths taken not merely by the khan, but also by his family and reti-
nue members. Having shortly reiterated the “donation” of numerous
lands to Sigismund, already specied in the yarlıq, the khan promised
to prevent his subjects from raiding Lithuania and to send military
assistance against Muscovy, demanding in return the execution of his
archenemy, Sheikh Ahmed, who had found refuge in Lithuania, and a
nancial subsidy from the royal side that would be used for the main-
tenance of the Tatar Dnieper fort of Islamkerman.
156
As it has already been mentioned, in December 1513 Mengli Giray
issued an instrument that combined the caracteristics of a “dona-
tion yarlıq” with that of a şartname. Although referred to as yarlıq
within its text, its extant Ruthenian copy is provided with the heading:
153
See Document 2. e text, preserved in the Jagiellonian Library in Cracow [Bib-
lioteka Jagiellońska; hereaer, Bibl. Jagiell.] in a eenth-century Latin volume, which
belonged to certain Peter from Olkusz, is entered under the heading: Concordia et
pacis confederatio Serenissimi principis Regis Polonie cum Tartharorum Imperatore.
For a possible interpretation of the expression iura commisi as “I engaged” or “I con-
rmed with oath,” cf. Słownik łaciny średniowiecznej w Polsce. Edited by M. Plezia,
vol. 2 (Wrocław etc., 1959–1967), col. 676.
154
Cf. Mengli’s oath-letter (šertnaja gramota) sent to Ivan III in 1474, which is
also very short; it is preserved in a copy and published in Malinovskij, “Istoričeskoe
sobranie,” p. 267.
155
Cf. Document 6.
156
Cf. Document 9.
the crimean instruments of peace and their typology 283
dokon’čan’e. e heading is fully justied since the document refers
to the oaths taken by Mengli Giray along with his family and retinue
members. Promising his military assistance, Mengli Giray specically
engaged to help Sigismund to reconquer the latter’s lands that had
been lost to Muscovy; the khan also declared that he would forget
the past wrongs, expecting the king to do the same, and promised to
send one of his grandsons to Lithuania as an honorary hostage; the
document allowed royal merchants to come and trade in the khan’s
lands, though Mengli expected in return to continually receive royal
gis; curiously, the document did not contain any mention of Sheikh
Ahmed, who still remained in Lithuanian custody.
157
In June 1514, Mengli Giray repeated his oath and issued a new
instrument that reiterated the clauses contained in his document
from December. It contained only minor variations, introduced on
the request of the royal side, such as the right granted to royal mer-
chants to conduct transit trade with Ottoman Caa. Like the previous
instrument, the document can be described as a “donation yarlıq cum
şartname;” in fact both terms: yarlıq and dokončene/dokončane, can be
found in its extant Ruthenian copy.
158
Both “donation yarlıqs cum şartnames,” issued in 1513–1514, only
vaguely refer to a major shi that had recently occurred in the mutual
relations. In result of the prolonged negotiations, conducted in the
years 1509–1512, Sigismund consented to send a yearly gi to the
khan. In expectation of this gi, which in his eyes was equal to tribute,
Mengli Giray agreed to send his grandson, Djalaleddin, as an honorary
hostage to Lithuania, and aer the young prince’s unexpected death
in Vilnius in 1513, to send another Giray prince as a replacement. In
September 1513, Sigismund issued two solemn instruments of peace,
separately as the grand duke of Lithuania (in Ruthenian) and as the
king of Poland (in Latin), engaging to regularly send annual gis to
the Crimea.
159
Yet, as Poland was to share the nancial burden of the
promised gis, the Polish councilors pressed the king to demand that
Mengli should issue a separate instrument of peace for Poland. e
khan, who had already issued two instruments that year, was appar-
ently somewhat irritated by the royal demand to issue yet another
157
Cf. Document 12.
158
Cf. Document 14.
159
Cf. Documents 10–11.