Last time we talked, William was coming to grips with the nature of his new Armenian monk colleague and taking part in the great inter-religious debate of 1254. Today, we’re going to start in and around that period, covering some of his time with Mongke’s court before turning back west with him to recover some of what he had lost, cross an Alexandrian divide, and consider the future of both the crusades and Latin-Mongol relations.
To See the Mongols 5: The Great Debate
When last we talked, the friar and his companions, Bartholomew, Gosset, and the disappointing translator, had beetled their way across the Black Sea and into the encampment of first one Mongol commander and then another. They’d arrived before Sartaq, son of Batu, to deliver King Louis’ letter, and then to express their doubts as to the validity of Sartaq’s self-professed Christianity, and then they’d been forwarded to Batu himself, the man who’d put Mongke on the throne. Things with Batu had gone well enough - nobody had been slain or banished - but their journey was not at an end. William and his colleague Bartholomew were carrying on to see the emperor, Mongke Khan, and what we didn’t get to last episode, is that they were not to do so together.
To See the Mongols 4: A William Leaves Town
When last we spoke, Mongke Khan was cleaning up after his rise to power. He’d gained the support of the khan in the northwest, Batu the kingmaker, the most senior of the Genghisid royal family still remaining. He’d turned back the attempts, both political and more confrontational, of his cousins in the Chagatai and Ogedei lines. He’d violently disposed of the former regent, who sank beneath the surface of a river wrapped in cloth. And soon he’d be issuing orders for the next phases of the Mongol Empire’s expansion: sending his brothers out, Hulagu into Persia and Kublai further into China.
His counterpart in this story and the focus of this episode had also been busy, but with perhaps less grandiose impact upon the world. He’d been in Cyprus as 1248 turned into 1249. He’d travelled with King Louis IX’s army into Egypt. He’d parted with King Louis IX in Jaffa in 1253, had stopped in Acre, and then preached in crusader-held Constantinople on April the 13th of the same year, receiving a letter of introduction from the Latin Emperor Baldwin to the closest Mongol commander. And from there and then he had departed, to evangelize and to provide comfort and instruction, particularly to a population of German prisoners who were said to be held by the Mongols. Fortunately for us, he wrote a letter to Louis detailing his journey and all that he had learned, more a book really than a letter.
To See the Mongols 2: A New Khan
Last episode, I started to talk about Giovanni Carpine, the 65 year old overweight Franciscan given the mammoth diplomatic task of converting the Mongol khan to Christianity and convincing him not to trouble Latin Christian Europe again, or, failing that, to at least learn something of him and his terrifying people. To that end, Carpine left Lyon in the Spring of 1245 and off he went, travelling overland to Bohemia, north into Poland, and then east, and then rather further east still, meeting with Batu Khan roughly a year after his initial departure.