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Table
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Frank Tabak William of Rubruck
Cyriel Klitsie & Christian Vermorken Marco Polo Kevin ten Haaf & Frank Tabak Prester John Koen van Oers Sources
Kevin ten Haaf & Frank Tabak William
of Rubruck (Born
in 1200 in Rubrouc and died in 1256) In 1249, during Longjumeau's absence, the Saracens defeated Louis. He
sent a further delegation to Karakorum. This was headed by the second of
the great friar travellers of the middle Ages, a 30-year-old Flemish
Franciscan named William of Rubruck. He was to travel as a missionary
rather than an ambassador, although he also carried letters from King
Louis IX of France to the great khan. After a year at Constantinople
preparing for the journey, Rubruck went by sea to the Crimea, landing in
May 1253. From there he set off with four carts, a decision he later
regretted because it doubled the time it would have taken had they
travelled with horses only. With him went another Franciscan,
Bartholomew of Cremona, a dragoman interpreter, a slave boy bought in
Constantinople and some drivers for the carts.
William of Rubruck’s route (www.silk-road.com). Carpini account was purely factual but Rubruck wrote a more lively
account. In A Journey to the Eastern Parts of the World, everything he
wrote about his personal experiences has the ring of truth. He provided
a detailed account of Mongol life and customs. In August, they arrived the court of Sartakh, a powerful Mongol chief who
was reportedly a Christian. The report proved to be false, but Sartakh
later helped Rubruck to the Great khan at Karakorum in Mongolia. There
at the west of the Volga, King Louis' letters were read. In September, a
messenger arrived with orders to take them to Mangu, (another of
Ogadei's sons), who had succeeded Guyuk as Great Khan. The guide warned
it would be a 4-month journey "and the cold so intense that it
splits stones and trees". On September 16, with two packhorses
between the three of them, they set out with their escort towards the
east. From there, they passed the Ural River and the steppes of
Kazakhstan. It was a terrible journey. They were constantly hungry and
thirsty, cold and weary. They were given food only
in the evening; in the morning they had something to drink or millet
gruel, while in the evening they were given meat to eat. Often the meat was nearly raw. For many weeks, there was! No
sight of towns, and at night came the first frosts heralding the onset
of winter.
The friars remained for about 7 months with Mange Khan, the first three
of which were passed in the camp, suffering terribly from the cold. Then
they moved to Karakorum with the Great Khan and stayed there for four
months. During his stay, he was much visited and cross-examined about
the purpose of his journey; he was only to baptise 6 people. He
eventually realised that the great khan was interested in religion but
would not become a convert. At a revealing interview Mangu told the
friar that just as God had created the different fingers on a single
hand, he had given people different beliefs and customs. While in the
camp, Rubruck made the acquaintance of a Tibetan lama from whom he
gathered further facts about China even though he never crossed the
Great Wall and did not reach China himself. He was told about the paper
money in use there, and how the people wrote with a brush, "making
in on! e figure the several letters containing a whole word"; this is the
earliest reference to Chinese writing and paper money in a western world.
Rubruck found Karakorum small not as big as the village of St. Denis (now
a suburb of Paris). Karakorum was the diplomatic centre of the world and
received embassies from the Greek Emperor, the Caliph, the King of Delhi
and the Seljuq Sultan, as well as emirs from the Jezireh and Kurdistan
and princes from Russia. King Heythum I of Little Armenia was expected
daily. At the end of May, Rubruck received permission to return to Europe. Mangu
handed over his letter in reply to King Louis. It reads "Wherever
ears can hear, wherever horses can travel, there let it be heard and
known: these who do not believe, but resist Our Commandments, shall not
be able to see with their eyes, or hold with their hands, or walk with
their feet....If you will obey Us, send your ambassadors, which we may know whether you wish for peace or
war...." Rubruck had to leave Bartholomew who was not fit enough to
make the journey and Mangu khan agreed to keep him at court and looked
after him. In August 18, 1254, Rubruck "parted with tears"
from Bartholomew and set out with his interpreter, his guide and one
servant by a more northerly summer route. It was another difficult
journey and was not until a year later that Rubruck finally reached
Tripoli. There he learned to his regret that King Louis had already
returned to France, and Rubruck, sent to Acre by the Provincial ! of the Franciscans, was never able to deliver the Great Khan's letter in
person. Marco Polo
He couldn’t
understand why rich merchants received paper for their exquisite goods.
The Polo’s felt homesick and asked Kublai Khan to let them go home but
he refused, besides why would they want to leave when they were so rich.
But Marco entered Kublai Khan’s diplomatic service, acting as his
agent on missions to many parts of the empire, and for three years
governor of the Chinese city of Yangzho. His father and
uncle served as military advisers to Kublai Khan. They stayed in China
until 1292, because the King of Persia sent three ambassadors to China
to request Kublai Khan to choose a princess from his court for his wife.
But they were unable to make an overland journey to Persia because of
war in the far south, so they decided that they would return by sea, and
for that they needed skilled sailors and many ships. The Emperor
allowed the Venetians to pilot the fleet of fourteen ships sailed for
India, with provisions for two years. During the voyage six hundred died.
While the Polos
were sailing, Kublai Khan died and they were free to go home. When they
arrived back in Venice, they decided to settle there. But nobody
recognised them because they had been gone for about twenty-four years.
They looked like strangers and their clothes were strange. But to the
people the stories of their travels were stranger. It was hard believe
them. When they showed the jewels to them that were hidden in the lining
of their clothes, everyone believed them.
-6- Prester John
In the twelfth century, a mysterious letter began to circulate around
Europe. It told of a magical kingdom in the East that was in danger of
being overrun by infidels and barbarians. A king known as Prester John
supposedly wrote this letter. Throughout the middle Ages, the legend of Prester John sparked geographic
exploration across Asia and Africa. The letter first surfaced as early
as the 1160s, claiming to be from Prester (a corrupted form of the word
Presbyter or Priest) John surfaced in Europe. There were over one
hundred different versions of the letter published over the next few
centuries. Most often, the letter was addressed to Emanuel I, the
Byzantine Emperor of Rome, though other editions were also often
addressed to the Pope or the King of France. The letters said that Prester John ruled a huge Christian kingdom in the
East, comprising the "three India’s." His letters told of
his crime-free and vice-free peaceful kingdom, where "honey flows
in our land and milk everywhere abound." (Kimble, 130) Prester John
also "wrote" that he was besieged by infidels and barbarians
and he needed the help of Christian European armies. In 1177, Pope
Alexander III sent his friend Master Philip to find Prester John; he
never did. Despite that failed reconnaissance, countless explorations had the goal
of reaching and rescuing Prester John's kingdom that had rivers filled
with gold and was the home of the Fountain of Youth (his letters are the
first recorded mention of such a fountain). By the fourteenth century,
exploration had proved that Prester John's kingdom did not lie in Asia
so subsequent letters (published as a ten-page manuscript in several
languages), wrote that the besieged kingdom was located in Abyssinia (present-day
Ethiopia). When the kingdom moved to Abyssinia after a 1340 edition of the letter,
expeditions and voyages began to head to Africa to rescue the kingdom.
Portugal sent expeditions to find Prester John throughout the fifteenth
century. The legend lived on as cartographers continued to include the
kingdom of Prester John on maps through the seventeenth century. Throughout the centuries, the editions of the letter kept getting better
and more interesting. They told of strange cultures that surrounded the
kingdom and a "salamander" that lived in fire, which actually
turned out to be the mineral substance asbestos. The letter could have
been proven a forgery from the first edition of the letter, which copied
exactly the description of the palace of Saint Thomas, the Apostle. Though some scholars think that the basis for Prester John came from the
great empire of Genghis Khan, others conclude it was merely a fantasy.
Either way, Prester John profoundly affected the geographical knowledge
of Europe by stimulating interest in foreign lands and sparking
expeditions outside of Europe. Sources Christian Vermorken and
Cyriel Klitsie have found their information about William van Rubruck
at: Frank Tabak and Kevin ten
Haaf have found their information about
Marco
Polo at: www.geschiedenis.pagina.nl
and
then took the link to ondekingsreizigers (2),
and then the link Marco Polo. Koen van Oers found his
information about Prester John at: |
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