Mongol invasion of Rus'

Batu’s forces enter Ryazan and demand a tithe from its princes

The demand was specific: one-tenth of everything — property, horses, people and princes.

Early winter, 1237

In the early winter of 1237, Batu's forces entered the Principality of Ryazan and established a camp at the river Nukhla, or Onuza.

The Novgorod First Chronicle says the invaders sent a delegation — a woman the chronicle calls a sorceress, accompanied by two men — to the Ryazan princes, demanding one-tenth of everything, including people, princes and horses.

That description belongs to the chronicle; the annalistic accounts survive in later manuscript compilations and employ conventional or literary details.

Two men named Yuri

Rather than receiving the emissaries at a single capital court, the princes of Ryazan, Murom and Pronsk went out to meet them at Voronezh, and rejected the demand.

The envoys were then allowed to proceed to Yuri Vsevolodovich, the grand prince at Vladimir, while the Ryazan princes requested his military help. He is a different man from Yuri Igorevich of Ryazan.

The chronicle says he neither came nor granted their request.

Five days

Batu's forces began the siege of Ryazan on 16 December. Five days later, on 21 December, they took and sacked the city and killed its prince.

The exact day the envoys arrived is not supplied; December 1237 is the best-supported month because the embassy preceded that securely dated siege.

Kiev was not attacked in this episode; it fell in a later campaign in December 1240.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 5 sources not yet audited Traditional date

How this was checked

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Traditional date. Conventionally dated here; the research places it at 1237-12.

What the sources leave uncertain

The exact day on which the envoys arrived is not supplied. December 1237 is the best-supported month because the embassy preceded the securely dated siege of 16–21 December.
The annalistic accounts survive in later manuscript compilations and employ conventional or literary details; the ‘sorceress’ description should be attributed to the chronicle, not asserted in the narrator’s voice.
The conventional December dates are modern renderings of medieval Rus chronology and should not be silently treated as contemporary Gregorian dates.
No reliable source consulted supports an exact force of 100,000 for the Ryazan embassy-and-invasion episode.