Katun

The katun is the khan’s consort. In the Kül Tegin inscription she stands beside him in the formula of rule: Heaven took my father İlteriš Khan and my mother İlbilge Katun by the crown of the head and raised them up.^[1]^[2] The sentence that makes a khan makes a katun in the same breath.^[3]

Rank and standing

The inscriptions do not define the office, and they show it working. The khan’s mother is named in the account of the rising. The katun is named in the lists of those addressed. A khan going home to bury his katun is enough reason for an army to stand still in the field.^[4]

The Chinese accounts add the outside view. A katun receives envoys and is addressed in her own name. Chang’an treats her as a party worth writing to.^[5]

Katuns from outside

The title also carried the marriage policy of the neighbouring empires. Chinese dynasties sent princesses north to become katun. Each was to bind a khan to the court that sent her. Yicheng went for the Sui, Changle for the Western Wei.^[6]

The arrangement cut both ways. A katun who outlived her dynasty could turn the position against the empire that had created it. Yicheng did.

The limits of the position

The plainest case is the last one. Pofu Katun, daughter of Tonyukuk and widow of Bilge Khan, governed for her young son. The Tang history records the outcome in five words: the people would not submit to her.^[5] The armies were with two cousins of the dead khan. She and the boy moved against one of them, and the other killed them both.^[5]

A katun held the court, the household and the standing of the khan’s line. She did not hold the troops, and in the steppe the troops decided.

Katun and other words for women

The inscriptions have several words for women. The Tariat inscription of the Uyghur Khaganate still names the khan and İlbilge Katun in one line, each with a title.^[2]

The word kunçuy names a woman of the royal house. In the Bilge Khan inscription it names the khan’s sister: “my sister, the kunçuy, we gave”.^[7] The Yenisei epitaphs have the formula “my kunçuy in the camp” for a man’s wife.^[7] The study that sets the two uses side by side allows that the formula may also be a man’s address to his wife as “my princess”.^[7] In the Old Uyghur texts kunçuy stands after the title terken, as in terken kunçuylar, “noble princesses”.^[8]

The same study ranks the words. Katun is the khan’s chief wife, and kunçuy the next rank at court and the first rank in small places.^[9] The inscriptions themselves give no ranked list of women. The study leaves open whether the other words for women, such as yutuz and evçi, name a rank at all.^[9]

In the Talas inscriptions of Kyrgyzstan, katun seems to have become an ordinary word for a wife. A text there says that “her katun was left a widow in grief”.^[7]

Later history

In modern Kazakh the old word for the khan’s wife has become a coarse word for “woman”. The old word beg, “lord”, survives there only in men’s names.^[10]

References

^ Kül Tegin inscription; Tekin 1968, p. 335, 342
^ a b Tokyürek 2013, p. 121
^ Kül Tegin inscription
^ Tonyukuk inscription; Tekin 1968, p. 287, 342
^ a b c Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 194
^ Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84
^ a b c d Tokyürek 2013, p. 123
^ Tokyürek 2013, p. 124
^ a b Tokyürek 2013, p. 127
^ Elmira 2013, p. 238–240

Sources

Kül Tegin inscription
Tonyukuk inscription
Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 194
Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 215 (after Jiu Tangshu)
Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 50
Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84

Literature

Emre-E. Yavuz, The Gokturk Empire: 2nd Edition (2025)
Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
Talât Tekin, A Grammar of Orkhon Turkic (1968)
Hacer Tokyürek, Runik Türk Yazıtlarında ve Eski Uygur Metinlerinde Kadın Hiyerarşisi (2013)
Kaljanova, Elmira, Eski Türk Yazıtları ve Kazakçadaki Ortak Kelimeler (2013)