THE SCENE: Belying their reputation for savagery, the passage below demonstrates the Mongol’s commitment to protecting the most vulnerable in their society, particularly the poor and the disabled.
THE TEXT: Let me now tell you how the Great Khan bestows charity on the poor people of Khan-Balik. When he learns that some family of honest and respectable people have been impoverished by some misfortune or disabled from working by illness, so that they have no means of earning their daily bread, he sees to it that such families (which may consist of six to ten persons or more) are given enough to cover their expenses for the whole year. These families, at the time appointed, go to the officials whose task it is to superintend the Great Khan’s expenditures and who live in a palatial building assigned to their office. And each one produces a certificate of the sum paid to him for his subsistence the year before, and provision is made for them at the same rate this year.
This provision includes clothing inasmuch as the Great Khan receives a tithe of all the wool, silk, and hemp used for cloth-making. He has these materials woven into cloth in a specially appointed building in which they are stored. Since all the crafts are under obligate to devote one day a week to working on his behalf, he had this cloth made into garments, which he gives to the poor families in accordance with their needs for winter and for summer wear. He also provides clothing for his armies by having woolen cloth woven in every city as a contribution towards the payment of its tithe.
– Marco Polo, The Travels, 14th Century AD
