Cuman warriors tribute

Cumans (Byzantine Greek: Κο(υ)μάνοι, Ko(u)manoi;[1] Hungarian: kun / plural kunok;[2] Turkic: kuman / plural kumanlar[3]) were a nomadic Turkic people who inhabited a shifting area north of the Black Sea known as Cumania along the Volga River. They eventually settled to the west of the Black Sea, influencing the politics of Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Moldavia, and Wallachia. Cuman is an exonym for the western Kipchak tribes living in Central Europe and the Balkans. The Cumans were nomadic warriors of the Eurasian steppe who exerted an enduring impact on the medieval Balkans. The basic instrument of Cuman political success was military force, which none of the warring Balkan factions could resist. As a consequence, groups of the Cumans settled and mingled with the local population in various regions of the Balkans. According to some historians Cumans were the founders of three successive Bulgarian dynasties (Asenids, Terterids, and Shishmanids), and the Wallachian dynasty (Basarabids)."[4] However, in the case of the Asenids and Basarab dynasties, all Medieval documents refer to them as Vlach (Romanian) dynasties[5], so most historians attribue a Romanian origin to the dynasties.[6] They also played an active role in Byzantium, Hungary, and Serbia, with Cuman immigrants being integrated into each country's elite. The people known in Turkic as Kipchaks were the same as the Polovtsy of the Russians, the Komanoi of the Byzantines, the Qumani (Cumans) of the Arab geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi, and the Kun (Qoun) of the Hungarians. According to Gadrisi, they originally formed part of the group of Kimak Turks who lived in Siberia along the middle reaches of the Irtysh River, or along the Ob River. The Kimaks and the Oghuz were closely related."[7]