[2] We endeavour to preserve throughout the book the distinction that was made in the age of the Mongol Empire between Khán and Ḳaán (خان and قآان, as written by Arabic and Persian authors). The former may be rendered Lord, and was applied generally to Tartar chiefs whether sovereign or not; it has since become in Persia, and especially in Afghanistan, a sort of “Esq.,” and in India is now a common affix in the names of (Musulman) Hindustanis of all classes; in Turkey alone it has been reserved for the Sultan. Ḳaán, again, appears to be a form of Kháḳán, the Χαγάνος of the Byzantine historians, and was the peculiar title of the supreme sovereign of the Mongols; the Mongol princes of Persia, Chaghatai, etc., were entitled only to the former affix (Khán), though Ḳaán and Ḳhaḳán are sometimes applied to them in adulation. Polo always writes Kaan as applied to the Great Khan, and does not, I think, use Khan in any form, styling the subordinate princes by their name only, as Argon, Alau, etc. Ilkhan was a special title assumed by Huláku and his successors in Persia; it is said to be compounded from a word Il, signifying tribe or nation. The relation between Khán and Khaḳán seems to be probably that the latter signifies “Khán of Kháns,” Lord of Lords. Chinghiz, it is said, did not take the higher title; it was first assumed by his son Okkodai. But there are doubts about this. (See Quatremère’s Rashid, pp. 10 seqq. and Pavet de Courteille, Dict. Turk-Oriental.) The tendency of swelling titles is always to degenerate, and when the value of Khan had sunk, a new form, Khán-khánán, was devised at the Court of Delhi, and applied to one of the high officers of state.
[Mr. Rockhill writes (Rubruck, p. 108, note): “The title Khan, though of very great antiquity, was only used by the Turks after A.D. 560, at which time the use of the word Khatun came in use for the wives of the Khan, who himself was termed Ilkhan. The older title of Shan-yü did not, however, completely disappear among them, for Albiruni says that in his time the chief of the Ghuz Turks, or Turkomans, still bore the title of Jenuyeh, which Sir Henry Rawlinson (Proc. R. G. S., v. 15) takes to be the same word as that transcribed Shan-yü by the Chinese (see Ch’ien Han shu, Bk. 94, and Chou shu, Bk. 50, 2). Although the word Khakhan occurs in Menander’s account of the embassy of Zemarchus, the earliest mention I have found of it in a Western writer is in the Chronicon of Albericus Trium Fontium, where (571), under the year 1239, he uses it in the form Cacanus”—Cf. Terrien de Lacouperie, Khan, Khakan, and other Tartar Titles. Lond., Dec. 1888.—H. C.]
[3] “China is a sea that salts all the rivers that flow into it.”—P. Parrenin in Lett. Édif. XXIV. 58.
[4] E.g. the Russians still call it Khitai. The pair of names, Khitai and Machin, or Cathay and China, is analogous to the other pair, Seres and Sinae. Seres was the name of the great nation in the far East as known by land, Sinae as known by sea; and they were often supposed to be diverse, just as Cathay and China were afterwards.
[5] There has been much doubt about the true form of this name. Iltitmish is that sanctioned by Mr. Blochmann (see Proc. As. Soc. Bengal, 1870, p. 181).
III. The Polo Family. Personal History of the Travellers down to their final Return from the East.
13. In days when History and Genealogy were allowed to draw largely on the imagination for the origines of states and families, Alleged origin of the Polos.it was set down by one Venetian Antiquary that among the companions of King Venetus, or of Prince Antenor of Troy, when they settled on the northern shores of the Adriatic, there was one Lucius Polus, who became the progenitor of our Traveller’s Family;[1] whilst another deduces it from Paolo the first Doge[2] (Paulus Lucas Anafestus of Heraclea, A.D. 696).
More trustworthy traditions, recorded among the Family Histories of Venice, but still no more it is believed than traditions, represent the Family of Polo as having come from Sebenico in Dalmatia, in the 11th century.[3] Before the end of the century they had taken seats in the Great Council of the Republic; for the name of Domenico Polo is said to be subscribed to a grant of 1094, that of Pietro Polo to an act of the time of the Doge Domenico Michiele in 1122, and that of a Domenico Polo to an acquittance granted by the Doge Domenico Morosini and his Council in 1153.[4]
The ascertained genealogy of the Traveller, however, begins only with his grandfather, who lived in the early part of the 13th century.