The inhabitants were Mongols, Aas (or Alans), Kipchaks, Circassians,
Russians, and Greeks, besides the foreign Moslem merchants, who had a
walled quarter. Another Mahomedan traveller of the same century says the
city itself was not walled, but, "The Khan's Palace was a great edifice
surmounted by a golden crescent weighing two kantars of Egypt, and
encompassed by a wall flanked with towers," etc. Pope John XXII., on the
26th February 1322, defined the limits of the new Bishopric of Kaffa,
which were Sarai to the east and Varna to the west.
Sarai became the seat of both a Latin and a Russian metropolitan, and of
more than one Franciscan convent. It was destroyed by Timur on his second
invasion of Kipchak (1395-6), and extinguished by the Russians a century
later. It is the scene of Chaucer's half-told tale of Cambuscan: -
"At Sarra, in the Londe of Tartarie,
There dwelt a King that werried Russie."
["Mesalek-al-absar (285, 287), says Sarai, meaning 'the Palace,' was
founded by Bereke, brother of Batu. It stood in a salty plain, and was
without walls, though the palace had walls flanked by towers. The town was
large, had markets, madrasas - and baths.
