ABSTRACT
The institution of jarquchi (pl. jarquchin) in the Mongol Empire comprised a small but very powerful group of individuals, who shared the distinction of having been appointed as judges by the Mongol conquerors in order to arbitrate disputes and keep order in their far-flung possessions. Despite their attachment to, and sometime support of, ‘Mongol’ legal practices and punishments, the jarquchin were not necessarily Mongols. A number of them came from peoples who had submitted early to Mongol rule, whose culture was perhaps not too different, or who had time to mingle with the Mongols and learn their ways. The jarquchin were an elite class of official, only twenty or so being known from the Ilkhanate, and no more than forty or so being in office at the same time in the Yuan dynasty. The chapter examines how, of the thousands of military men and officials in the Mongol Empire, a few came to be appointed as jarquchin.
