So far from such alliance taking place, however, it was not long before the ecclesiastical and temporal rulers of Early European envoys to the Mongol capital Christendom conceived the idea of making use of the Tartars to crush Islám, and so end in their favour once and for all the secular struggle of which the Crusades were the chief manifestation. Communications were opened up between Western Europe and the remote and inhospitable Tartar capital of Qaraqorum; letters and envoys began to pass to and fro; and devoted friars like John of Pian de Carpine and William of Rubruck did not shrink from braving the dangers and hardships of that long and dreary road, or the arrogance and exactions of the Mongols, in the discharge of the missions confided to them. The former, bearing a letter from the Pope dated March 9, 1245, returned to Lyons in the autumn of 1247 after an absence of two years and a half, and delivered to the Pope the written answer of the Mongol Emperor Kuyúk Khán. The latter accomplished his journey in the years 1253-5 and spent about eight months (January— August, 1254) at the camp and capital of Mangú Khán, by whom he was several times received in audience. Both have left narratives of their adventurous and arduous journeys which the Hakluyt Society has rendered easily accessible to English readers, * and of which that of Friar

Bátú, the grandson of Chingíz, holds his Court on the Volga
From an old MS. of the
Jámi'u't-Tawáríkh in the
Bibliothèque Nationale
To face p. 8

William of Rubruck especially is of engrossing interest and great value. These give us a very vivid picture of the Tartar Court and its ceremonies, the splendour of the presents offered to the Emperor by the numerous envoys of foreign nations and subject peoples, the gluttonous eating and drinking which prevailed (and which, as we shall see, also characterized the Court of Tímúr 150 years later), and the extraordinary afflux of foreigners, amongst whom were included, besides almost every Asiatic nation, Russians, Georgians, Hungarians, Ruthenians and even Frenchmen. Some of these had spent ten, twenty, or even thirty years amongst the Mongols, were conversant with their language, and were able and willing to inform the missionaries “most fully of all things” without much questioning, and to act as interpreters. * The language question, as affecting the answer to the Pope's letter, presented, however, some difficulties. The Mongols enquired “whether there were any persons with the Lord Pope who understood the written languages of the Ruthenians, or Saracens, or Tartars,” but Friar John advised that the letter should be written in Tartar and carefully translated and explained to them, so that they might make a Latin translation to take back with the original. The Mongol Emperor wished to send envoys of his own to Europe in the company of Friar John, who, however, discountenanced this plan for five reasons, of which the first three were: (1) that he feared lest, seeing the wars and dissensions of the Christians, the Tartars might be further encouraged to attack them; (2) that they might act as spies; (3) that some harm might befall them in Europe “as our people are for the most part arrogant and hasty,” and “it is the custom of the Tartars never to make peace with those who have killed their envoys till they have wreaked vengeance upon them.” So Friar John and his companions came at last to Kieff on their homeward journey, and were there “congratulated as though they had risen from the dead, and so also throughout Russia, Poland and Bohemia.”

The history of the diplomatic missions * which passed between Europe and Tartary in the thirteenth and four- Diplomatic relations of the Mongols with Europe teenth centuries has been admirably illustrated by Abel-Rémusat in his two classical Mémoires sur les Rélations politiques des Princes Chrétiens, et particulièrement les Rois de France, avec les Empereurs Mongols. Fac-similes are here given, with printed texts and in some cases Latin or French translations, of nine Mongol letters conveyed by different envoys at different periods to the French Court. The originals of these, measuring in some cases more than six feet in length, may still be seen in the Archives in Paris. The arrogance of their tone is very noticeable; still more so the occurrence in the Latin version of a letter to the Pope from Bachú Núyán of a very ominous and characteristic phrase which is also noticed by the contemporary Persian historian Juwayní. “Si vultis super terram vestram, aquam et patrimonium sedere,” runs the letter, “oportet ut, tu Papa, in propriâ personâ ad nos venias, et ad eum qui faciem totius terrae continet accedas. Et si tu præceptum Dei stabile et illius qui faciem totius terrae continet non audieris, illud nos nescimus Deus scit.” * So Juwayní says * that, unlike other great rulers and conquerors, they never indulged in violent and wordy threats when demanding submission or surrender, but “as their utmost warning used to write but this much: ‘If they do not submit and obey, what do we know [what may happen]? the Eternal God knows’!” As to what would inevitably happen if the Tartars were resisted (and often even if they were not resisted) men were not long left in doubt. “Wherever there was a king, or local ruler, or city warden who ventured to oppose, him they annihilated, together with his family and his clan, kinsmen and strangers alike, to such a degree that, without exaggeration, not a hundred persons were left where there had been a hundred thousand. The proof of this assertion is the account of the happenings in the various towns, each of which has been duly recorded in its proper time and place.”*

Whether any such letters exist in the records of this country I do not know, but in 1307, shortly after the death of Edward I (to whom they had been accredited), two Mongol ambassadors, whose names are given as Mongol envoys visit Edward II at Northampton in 1307 Mamlakh and Túmán, * came to Northampton and carried back with them an answer from Edward II written in Latin and dated October 16, 1307. The principal object of this and previous missions was to effect an alliance between the Mongols and the European nations against the Mu-hammadans, especially the Egyptians. To attain this end the wily Mongols constantly represented themselves as disposed to embrace the Christian religion, a deceitful pretence which the more readily succeeded because of the belief prevalent in Europe that there existed somewhere in Central or “Prester John” Eastern Asia a great Christian emperor called “Prester John,” generally identified with Úng Khán the ruler of the Karíts (or Kerá'its), a people akin to the Mongols, with whom at the beginning of his career Chingíz Khán stood in close relations, and who had been converted to Christianity by Nestorian missionaries. * But as a matter of fact Islám had been the official religion of the Mongol rulers of Persia for at least ten years before the above-mentioned ambassadors obtained audience of Edward II.

The contemporary Oriental histories of the Mongols are singularly full and good, * and include in Arabic Ibnu Excellence and abundance of materials for Mongol history 'l-Athír's great chronicle, which comes down to the year 628/1231; Shihábu'd-Dín Nasá'í's very full biography of his master Jalálu'd-Dín Mankobirní, the gallant Prince of Khwárazm who maintained so heroic and protracted a struggle against the destroyers of his house and his empire; the Christian Abu'l-Faraj Bar-Hebraeus, whose Arabic history (for he wrote a fuller chronicle in Syriac) comes down to 683/1284, two years before his death; and Yáqút the geographer, most of which have been discussed and quoted in a previous volume. Of the three chief Persian sources, the Ta'ríkh-i-Jahán-gushá of Juwayní, the Ta'ríkh-i-Waṣṣáf, and the Jámi'u't-Tawáríkh, a good deal will be said in the next chapter, but one may be permitted to express regret that the last-mentioned history, one of the most original, extensive and valuable existing in the Persian language, still remains for the most part unpublished and almost inaccessible .*

Of the three best-known European histories of the Mongols, and of the point of view represented by each,

European histories of the Mongols (1) d'Ohsson something must needs be said here. First there is Baron d'Ohsson's admirable Histoire des Mongols, depuis Tchinguiz Khan jusqu'à Timour Bey ou Tamerlan, a monument of clear exposition based on profound research. While recognizing, as every student of the subject must recognize, the immense importance and far-reaching effects of the Mongol conquests, he finds this people utterly detestable: “their government,” he says, “was the triumph of depravity: all that was noble and honourable was abased; while the most corrupt persons, taking service under these ferocious masters, obtained, as the price of their vile devotion, wealth, honours, and the power to oppress their countrymen. The history of the Mongols, stamped by their savagery, presents therefore only hideous pictures; but, closely connected as it is to that of several empires, it is necessary for the proper understanding of the great events of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.”