ABSTRACT
Up to the late eleventh century, Latin and Greek writers applied the terms Turci and Tourkoi to a great range of peoples, but from then on most, William of Tyre included, use terms for “Turks” to refer to one of the Turkic peoples, the Oghuz. The origins of the Oghuz lay in Mongolia, in the area between the Altay and the Sayan mountains. Most scholars have assumed that William was familiar with Arabic, and some that he knew Persian. In an incisive article Mohring has questioned many of the long-held assumptions about the Gesta. At first sight William’s account of the Turks seems to give a reasonably coherent narrative of the formation of Seljuk confederation and the establishment of the Great Seljuk empire up to the second half of the eleventh century. William knows the name of the eponymous ancestor of the dynasty, Seljuk.
