Yassa - Conjectural Laws

Conjectural Laws

Many sources give conjecture as to the actual laws of the Yassa. Much of the Yassa was so influential that other cultures appropriated and adapted them, or reworked them for ends of negative propaganda. (For instance, the number of offenses for which the death penalty was given was famous among contemporaries of the Yassa.) However, as an example, here given is a list of possible laws, from a foreign source (quoted from Harold Lamb's Genghis Khan: The Emperor of All Men, Garden City Publishing, 1927). The examples of the laws were translated by François Pétis de la Croix who was unable to come upon a complete list of the laws. He found these rulings from various sources such as Persian chroniclers, Fras Rubruquis, and Giovanni da Pian del Carpine:

1. "It is ordered to believe that there is only one God, creator of heaven and earth, who alone gives life and death, riches and poverty as pleases Him - and who has over everything an absolute power, a different version states that there was liberty to worship G_d in whatever way suitable, and also I think acknowledges His existence (Plantagenet Somerset Fry).
2. Leaders of a religion, lawyers, physicians, scholars, preachers, monks, persons who are dedicated to religious practice, the Muezzin, physicians and those who bathe the bodies of the dead are to be freed from public charges. Another version says taxes, as far as I have seen.
3. It is forbidden under penalty of death that any one, whoever he be, shall be proclaimed emperor unless he has been elected previously by the princes, khans, officers, and other Mongol nobles in a general council.
4. It is forbidden chieftains of nations and clans subject to the Mongols to hold honorary titles.
5. Forbidden to ever make peace with a monarch, a prince or a people who have not submitted.
6. The ruling that divides men of the army into tens, hundreds, thousands, and ten thousands is to be maintained. This arrangement serves to raise an army in a short time, and to form the units of commands.
7. The moment a campaign begins, each soldier must receive his arms from the hand of the officer who has them in charge. The soldier must keep them in good order, and have them inspected by his officer before a battle. There is a further indication in regard of bringing threads and needles, etc. to be available.
8. Forbidden, under death penalty, to pillage the enemy before the general commanding gives permission; but after this permission is given the soldier must have the same opportunity as the officer, and must be allowed to keep what he has carried off, provided he has paid his share to the receiver for the emperor.
9. Punishable that were to beaten with sticks those who allowed the flight of animals (may appear excluded from some accounts, can be a more restricted Siberian-originating practice, but seems genuine).
10. To keep the men of the army exercised, a great hunt shall be held every winter. On this account, it is forbidden any man of the empire to kill from the month of March to October, deer, bucks, roe-bucks, hares, wild ass and some birds.
11. Forbidden, to cut the throats of animals slain for food; they must be bound, the chest opened and the heart pulled out by the hand of the hunter.
12. It is permitted to eat the blood and entrails of animals-though this was forbidden before now.
13. (A list of privileges and immunities assured the chieftains and officers of the new empire.)
14. Every man who does not go to war must work for the empire, without reward, for a certain time.
15. Men guilty of the theft of a horse or steer or a thing of equal value will be punished by death and their bodies cut into two parts, unless they pay nine horses in return, or give their children, but in the versions where the provisions appear the method of execution is likened to sheep therefore as in accordance it may be presumed with the law for the slaughter of animals For lesser thefts the punishment shall be, according to the value of the thing stolen, a number of blows of a staff-seven, seventeen, twenty-seven, up to seven hundred. But this bodily punishment may be avoided by paying nine times the worth of the thing stolen.
16. No subject of the empire may take a Mongol for servant or slave. Every man, except in rare cases, must join the army.
17. To prevent the flight of alien slaves, it is forbidden to give them asylum, food or clothing, under pain of death. Any man who meets an escaped slave and does not bring him back to his master will be punished in the same manner., "buluur" churning pole and wooden stick with a disk or cross pieces on the end for beating koumiss, referring to dairy work allotted to such captives, "buleglech" to be divided, form groups or sections referring to sedentary captives usually being taken for work to the "dignity of the steppes", "bulen" a blood clot in reference to wounded discovered not yet dead, "bulen" referring apparently to victory games wherein captives were by chance left unscathed, and thus spared, "bulentser" referring to relatives (second cousins in the matrilineal line) thought suitable to spare and thus made captive, "bulerchuu" possibly referring either to overpowerment, or conversely to an overwhelming number of surrendered prisoners at a given time probably close to nightfall, "bulech" to pierce (probably by lance originally), to stab, a reference probably to a captive spared due to type and closeness of injury, "bulech" to beat koumiss, or churn butter, work given to captives, "buleen" warm, lukewarm, fever (of a child) prob. once referring to helpless wounded enemy found in a feverish state, or noticed as still alive by the heat of his coat (caftan) called "deel" in Mongolian, "buleentech"/"bulerech" prob. once referring to a fever developing in a wounded captive (cf. other Far Eastern notions of comforting the dying which may be allied, or their own perhaps morbidly ineffectual but reasonably intended derivative), "buleseech"/"buleesgech"/"buleetgech" to warm up as in the sense of warming up a prisoner with hypothermia due to injury, "buleechen"/"buleetsech" probably concerning the slight warmth in the body of an enemy thought dead, "bul" referring to strength possibly to captives as labour force.
18. The law of marriage stipulates bride price as a marriage requirement(however dowry is also recorded as a custom elsewhere in the Wikipedia, bride price is debatably part of the law having not being mentioned in other sources, it may be there is a dowry reference, but bride price is usually a custom restricted to specific Mongol tribes, but that may have appeared later, there may have been more practicing this earlier, while Chinggis Khan himself had never followed this custom, nor is it much if at all referred to in the Nuvs Tobchaan Mongolyn, bride price might have been considered as a useful deterrent to trade in women, or simply a modernizing experimental inversion from a dowry, however the Tatar neighbours traded in women which was prohibited it is reported by the Yassa) and that marriage between the first and second degrees of kinship is forbidden. A man may marry two sisters, or have several concubines . The women should attend to the care of property, buying and selling at their pleasure, specifically in another version "Os Mongóis" by a Portuguese publisher of summarized histories of culture, the law is quoted as defining trade as their sphere, there is no exclusion from military participation, but this was reported more popular among Tatars as according to Islamic law which was only possible to follow via Sufism. Men should occupy themselves only with hunting and war, it is unclear in the version referred if it is only. Children born of slaves are legitimate as the children of wives. The offspring of the first woman shall be honored above other children and shall inherit everything.
19. Adultery is to be punished by death, and those guilty of it may be slain out of hand. (I think Makrizi refers to both the man and the woman]
20. If two families wish to be united by marriage and have only young children, the marriage of these children is allowed, if one be a boy and the other a girl. If the children are dead, the marriage contract may still be drawn up.
21. It is forbidden to bathe or wash garments in running water during thunder.
22. Spies, false witnesses, all men given to infamous vices, and sorcerers are condemned to death.
23. Officers and chieftains who fail in their duty, or do not come at the summons of the Khan are to be slain, especially in remote districts. If their offense be less grave, they must come in person before the Khan."
24. Sodomy is also punishable by death
25. Urinating in water or ashes is punishable by death.
26. It was forbidden to wash clothing until completely worn out.
27. One may not eat food served to him until the host has tasted the food him or herself. One must invite others in presence to eat if he is eating. No one may eat more than his comrades, and no one may pass over a fire that is being used to cook food.
28. One may not dip their hands into water and must instead use a vessel to draw the water.
29. When the wayfarer passes by a group of people eating, he must eat with them without asking for permission, and they must not forbid him in this.
30. It was forbidden to show preference to a sect, or to put emphasis on a word. When talking to someone, do not speak to them with a title, calling them by their name. This applies to even the Khan himself.
31. At the beginning of each year, all the people must present their daughters to the Khan so he may choose the ones he wishes to wed his children to.

• Also that minors not higher than a cart wheel may not be killed in war.
• Also abduction of women and sexual assault and or abuse of women was forbidden punishable by death.
• Also Vartang reports the enjoinment to "Love thy neighbour as thyself" and to forgive offences completely at the beginning of the Yassa.

Verkhovensky or another of Altaica.com or other site reports the beginning of the Yassa, the exhortation to honour men of all nations based upon their virtues and so forth, this is borne out by the ethnic admixture created by Chinggis Khan in the Mongolian mediaeval army for purpose of unity (Ezent Gueligen Mongolyn) last part of the name I am not sure of, the United Mongol Warriors, their name at the time the name Mongol meaning the "Brave," or it means the members of the Mengwu Shiwei (The Single Soldiers Committees if I have read correctly which is not too important because these did not write correctly necessarily the Chinese Script), from the time of Wang Mang the Peasant Emperor (literally in the respective language means the Peasant Master or Peasant Lord, or Peasant Leader) who may even have been blind but maybe wrong, it can mean the United Fighters of the Single Soldiers Committee, there is also another related and still modern water theory (the recurrent one in certain cases) in an earlier version linked to this name.

• Interference in quarrels between friends are prohibited. Moreover, Chinggis Khan consulted also teachers of religions, such as imáms and probably rabbis and Christian priests in compiling his law codex it is alleged in the book "Os Mongóis" translated from Italian from a series covering cultures.
• Magnification of the innocent, pure and righteous, and the scholars to whichever people they may belong and condemnation of the wicked and men of iniquity