ABSTRACT
Under the Mongolian dominion, China, at length reunited, attained the climax of her significance in the world. Franciscan friars were bishops of Peking; one of them translated the New Testament and the Psalms into Mongolian; the Lamaist hierarchy was built after the Roman Catholic model. The Mongolian demand for amusement brought a new note into Chinese literature, hitherto over-serious; and a number of works of a lighter kind were written. Chinese civilisation, China's thousand-year-old tradition with its elaborate ceremonial, its stereotyped modes of life, and its symbolism, were disastrous to the Mongolian Emperors as soon as, in place of so outstanding a personality as Kublai's, men of average calibre mounted the throne. The thirteen-year-old boy Toghon-Timur, who, four decades after Kublai's death, mounted the throne as his ninth successor, was no more than the victim of the destiny which had reserved for him the role of being the last Emperor of the Yuen Dynasty.
