Between the Chinggisid principle, loyalty, and self-aggrandisement: Jochid elites in the ‘Time of Troubles’ (1359 to <i>circa</i> 1380)

Abstract In the mid-fourteenth century, the Jochid ulus went through a phase of extreme political turbulence. Following the death of the last Batuid khan Berdibek (r. 1357–1359), during the next two decades, circa 1360–1380, a high number of power contenders rose at both the central and the local levels of the ulus . This article aims to map and exemplify those attempts as part of the broader theoretical discussion concerning the scope and depth of the khanate's crisis. It does so by combining an overall, bird's-eye perspective on the political history of the ulus by zooming in on the regional history, as well as through the analysis of both written primary and numismatic sources. None of the multiple patterns of reaction to the dying-out of the Batuid lineage clearly contradicted the idea of the khanate's unity and the overarching ‘Chinggisid principle’. At this point in time, the ulus still followed the centrifugal logic of the Chinggisid rule. At the same time, the crisis of the Jochid ulus of the mid-fourteenth century indeed prepared the very ground for the power division between the still-existing branches of the Jochid family and the break-up of the Jochid power domain of the fifteenth century that followed the last unification attempt of the ulus under Toqtamïsh (r. 1380–1406).