Born about 1220.—Died after 1293.
The conquests of Genghis Khan and his successors, extending from the
Amoor and the Chinese Wall to the confines of Poland and Hungary, having
excited extraordinary terror in the minds of the Christian princes of
Europe, many of them, and particularly the pope and the King of France,
despatched ambassadors into Tartary, rather as spies to observe the
strength and weakness of the country, and the real character of its
inhabitants, than for any genuine diplomatic purposes. Innocent IV.
commenced those anomalous negotiations, by sending, in 1246 and 1247,
ambassadors into Mongolia to the Great Khan, as well as to his lieutenant
in Persia. These ambassadors, as might be expected, were monks, religious
men being in those times almost the only persons possessing any talent
for observation, or the knowledge necessary to record their observations
for the benefit of those who sent them. The first embassy from the pope
terminated unsuccessfully, as did likewise the maiden effort of St.
Louis; but this pious monarch, whose zeal overpowered his good sense,
still imagined that the conversion of the Great Khan, which formed an
important part of his design, was far from being impracticable; and
upon the idle rumour that one of his nephews had embraced Christianity,
and thus opened a way for the Gospel into his dominions, St. Louis in
1253 despatched a second mission into Tartary, at the head of which was
William de Rubruquis.
This celebrated monk was a native of Brabant, who, having travelled
through France, and several other countries of Europe, had passed
over, perhaps with the army of St. Louis, into Egypt, from whence he
had proceeded to the Holy Land. Of this part of his travels no account
remains. When intrusted, however, with the mission into Tartary, he
repaired to Constantinople, whence, having publicly offered up his
prayers to God in the church of St. Sophia, he departed on the 7th of
May, with his companions, and moving along the southern shore of the
Black Sea, arrived at Sinopia, where he embarked for the Crimea. From an
opinion that any indignities which might be offered to Rubruquis would
compromise the dignity of the king, it had been agreed between Louis and
his agent that, on the way at least, the latter should pretend to no
public character, but feign religious motives, as if he had been urged
by his own private zeal to endeavour the conversion of the khan and his
subjects. Upon reaching Soldaza in the Crimea, however, he discovered
that, secret as their proceedings were supposed to have been, the whole
scheme of the enterprise was perfectly understood; and that, unless as
the envoy of the king, he would not be permitted to continue his journey.
Rubruquis had no sooner entered the dominions of the Tartars than
he imagined himself to be in a new world. The savage aspect of the
people, clad in the most grotesque costume, and eternally on horseback,
together with the strange appearance of the country, the sound of
unknown languages, the practice of unusual customs, and that feeling
of loneliness and desertion which seized upon their minds, caused our
traveller and his companions to credit somewhat too readily the deceptive
testimony of first impressions, which never strictly corresponds with
truth. Travelling in those covered wagons which serve the Tartars for
carriages, tents, and houses, and through immense steppes in which
neither town, village, house, nor any other building, save a few antique
tombs, appeared, they arrived in a few weeks at the camp of Zagatay Khan,
which, from the number of those moving houses there collected, and ranged
in long lines upon the edge of a lake, appeared like an immense city.
Here they remained some days in order to repose themselves, and then
set forward, with guides furnished them by Zagatay, towards the camp
of Sartak, the prince to whom the letters of St. Louis were addressed.
The rude and rapacious manners of the Tartars, rendered somewhat more
insolent than ordinary, perhaps, by the unaccommodating temper of their
guests, appeared so detestable to Rubruquis, that, to use his own
forcible expression, he seemed to be passing through one of the gates of
hell; and his ideas were probably tinged with a more sombre hue by the
hideous features of the people, whose countenances continually kept up in
his mind the notion that he had fallen among a race of demons. As they
approached the Tanais the land rose occasionally into lofty hills, which
were succeeded by plains upon which nothing but the immense tombs of the
Comans, visible at a distance of two leagues, met the eye.
Having crossed the Tanais and entered Asia, they were for several days
compelled to proceed on foot, there being neither horses nor oxen to be
obtained for money. Forests and rivers here diversified the prospect.
The inhabitants, a fierce, uncivilized race, bending beneath the yoke of
pagan superstition, and dwelling in huts scattered through the woods,
were yet hospitable to strangers, and so inaccessible to the feelings
of jealousy that they cared not upon whom their wives bestowed their
favours. Hogs, wax, honey, and furs of various kinds constituted the
whole of their wealth. At length, after a long and a wearisome journey,
which was rendered doubly irksome by their ignorance of the language of
the people, and the stupid and headstrong character of their interpreter,
they arrived on the 1st of July at the camp of Sartak, three days’
journey west of the Volga.
The court of this Tartar prince exhibited that species of magnificence
which may be supposed most congruous with the ideas of barbarians: ample
tents, richly caparisoned horses, and gorgeous apparel.—Rubruquis and
his suit entered the royal tent in solemn procession, with their rich
clerical ornaments, church plate, and illuminated missals borne before
them, holding a splendid copy of the Scriptures in their hands, wearing
their most sumptuous vestments, and thundering forth, as they moved
along, the “Salve Regina!” This pompous movement, which gave the mission
the appearance of being persons of consequence, and thus flattered the
vanity of Sartak, was not altogether impolitic; but it had one evil
consequence; for, although it probably heightened the politeness of their
reception, the sight of their sacred vessels, curious missals, and costly
dresses excited the cupidity of the Nestorian priests, and cost Rubruquis
dearly, many valuable articles being afterward sequestrated when he was
leaving Tartary.
It now appeared that the reports of Sartak’s conversion to Christianity,
which had probably been circulated in Christendom by the vanity of the
Nestorians, were wholly without foundation; and with respect to the other
points touched upon in the letters of the French king, the khan professed
himself unable to make any reply without the counsel of his father
Batou, to whose court, therefore, he directed the ambassadors to proceed.
They accordingly recommenced their journey, and moving towards the east,
crossed the Volga, and traversed the plains of Kipjak, until they arrived
at the camp of this new sovereign, whose mighty name seems never before
to have reached their ears. Rubruquis was singularly astonished, however,
at the sight of this prodigious encampment, which covered the plain for
the space of three or four leagues, the royal tent rising like an immense
dome in the centre, with a vast open space before it on the southern side.
On the morning after their arrival they were presented to the khan. They
found Batou, the description of whose red countenance reminds the reader
of Tacitus’s portrait of Domitian, seated upon a lofty throne glittering
with gold. One of his wives sat near him, and around this lady and the
other wives of Batou, who were all present, his principal courtiers had
taken their station. Rubruquis was now commanded by his conductor to
kneel before the prince. He accordingly bent one knee, and was about to
speak, when his guide informed him by a sign that it was necessary to
bend both. This he did, and then imagining, he says, that he was kneeling
before God, in order to keep up the illusion, he commenced his speech
with an ejaculation. Having prayed that to the earthly gifts which the
Almighty had showered down so abundantly upon the khan, the favour of
Heaven might be added, he proceeded to say, that the spiritual gifts to
which he alluded could be obtained only by becoming a Christian; for
that God himself had said, “He who believeth and is baptized shall be
saved; but he who believeth not shall be damned.” At these words the khan
smiled; but his courtiers, less hospitable and polite, began to clap
their hands, and hoot and mock at the denouncer of celestial vengeance.
The interpreter, who, in all probability, wholly misrepresented the
speeches he attempted to translate, and thus, perhaps, by some
inconceivable blunders excited the derision of the Tartars, now began to
be greatly terrified, as did Rubruquis himself, who probably remembered
that the leader of a former embassy had been menaced with the fate of
St. Bartholomew. Batou, however, who seems to have compassionated his
sufferings, desired him to rise up; and turning the conversation into
another channel, began to make inquiries respecting the French king,
asking what was his name, and whether it was true that he had quitted
his own country for the purpose of carrying on a foreign war. Rubruquis
then endeavoured, but I know not with what success, to explain the
motives of the crusaders, and several other topics upon which Batou
required information. Observing that the ambassador was much dejected,
and apparently filled with terror, the khan commanded him to sit down;
and still more to reassure him and dissipate his apprehensions, ordered
a bowl of mare’s milk, or _koismos_, to be put out before him, which,
as bread and salt among the Arabs, is with them the sacred pledge of
hospitality; but perceiving that even this failed to dispel his gloomy
thoughts, he bade him look up and be of good cheer, giving him clearly to
understand that no injury was designed him.
Notwithstanding the barbaric magnificence of his court, and the terror
with which he had inspired Rubruquis, Batou was but a dependent prince,
who would not for his head have dared to determine good or evil
respecting any ambassador entering Tartary,—every thing in these matters
depending upon the sovereign will of his brother Mangou, the Great
Khan of the Mongols. Batou, in fact, caused so much to be signified to
Rubruquis, informing him, that to obtain a reply to the letters he had
brought, he must repair to the court of the Khe-Khan. When they had been
allowed sufficient time for repose, a Tartar chief was assigned them
as a guide, and being furnished with horses for themselves and their
necessary baggage, the remainder being left behind, and with sheepskin
coats to defend them from the piercing cold, they set forward towards the
camp of Mangou, then pitched near the extreme frontier of Mongolia, at
the distance of four months’ journey.
The privations and fatigue which they endured during this journey were
indescribable. Whenever they changed horses, the wily Tartar impudently
selected the best beast for himself, though Rubruquis was a large heavy
man, and therefore required a powerful animal to support his weight.
If any of their horses flagged on the way, the whip and the stick were
mercilessly plied, to compel him, whether he would or not, to keep pace
with the others, which scoured along over the interminable steppes with
the rapidity of an arrow; and when, as sometimes happened, the beast
totally foundered, the two Franks (for there were now but two, the third
having remained with Sartak) were compelled to mount, the one behind
the other, on the same horse, and thus follow their indefatigable and
unfeeling conductor. Hard riding was not, however, the only hardship
which they had to undergo. Thirst, and hunger, and cold were added
to fatigue; for they were allowed but one meal per day, which they
always ate in the evening, when their day’s journey was over. Their
food, moreover, was not extremely palatable, consisting generally of
the shoulder or ribs of some half-starved sheep, which, to increase
the savouriness of its flavour, was cooked with ox and horse-dung,
and devoured half-raw. As they advanced, their conductor, who at the
commencement regarded them with great contempt, and appears to have
been making the experiment whether hardship would kill them or not,
grew reconciled to his charge, perceiving that they would not die,
and introduced them as they proceeded to various powerful and wealthy
Mongols, who seem to have treated them kindly, offering them, in return
for their prayers, gold, and silver, and costly garments. The Hindoos,
who imagine the East India Company to be an old woman, are a type of
those sagacious Tartars, who, as Rubruquis assures us, supposed that the
pope was an old man whose beard had been blanched by five hundred winters.
On the 31st of October, they turned their horses’ heads towards the
south, and proceeded for eight days through a desert, where they beheld
large droves of wild asses, which, like those seen by the Ten Thousand
in Mesopotamia, were far too swift for the fleetest steeds. During the
seventh day, they perceived on their right the glittering peaks of the
Caucasus towering above the clouds, and arrived on the morrow at Kenkat,
a Mohammedan town, where they tasted of wine, and that delicious liquor
which the orientals extract from rice. At a city which Rubruquis calls
_Egaius_, near Lake Baikal, he found traces of the Persian language; and
shortly afterward entered the country of the Orrighers, an idolatrous, or
at least a pagan race, who worshipped with their faces towards the north,
while the east was at that period the _Kableh_, or praying-point of the
Christians.
Our traveller, though far from being intolerant for his age, had not
attained that pitch of humanity which teaches us to do to others as we
would they should do unto us; for upon entering a temple, which, from his
description, we discover to have been dedicated to Buddha, and finding
the priests engaged in their devotions, he irreverently disturbed them by
asking questions, and endeavouring to enter into conversation with them.
The Buddhists, consistently with the mildness of their religion, rebuked
this intrusion by the most obstinate silence, or by continual repetitions
of the words “Om, Om! hactavi!” which, as he was afterward informed,
signified, “Lord, Lord! thou knowest it!” These priests, like the bonzes
of China, Ava, and Siam, shaved their heads, and wore flowing yellow
garments, probably to show their contempt for the Brahminical race, among
whom yellow is the badge of the most degraded castes. They believed in
one God, and, like their Hindoo forefathers, burned their dead, and
erected pyramids over their ashes.
Continuing their journey with their usual rapidity, they arrived on the
last day of the year at the court of Mangou, who was encamped in a plain
of immeasurable extent, and as level as the sea. Here, notwithstanding
the rigour of the cold, Rubruquis, conformably to the rules of his order,
went to court barefoot,—a piece of affectation for which he afterward
suffered severely. Three or four days’ experience of the cold of Northern
Tartary cured him of this folly, however; so that by the 4th of January,
1254, when he was admitted to an audience of Mangou, he was content to
wear shoes like another person.
On entering the imperial tent, heedless of time and place, Rubruquis
and his companion began to chant the hymn “A Solis Ortu,” which, in all
probability made the khan, who understood not one word of what they said,
and knew the meaning of none of their ceremonies, regard them as madmen.
However, on this point nothing was said; only, before they advanced
into the presence they were carefully searched, lest they should have
concealed knives or daggers under their robes with which they might
assassinate the khan. Even their interpreter was compelled to leave his
belt and kharjar with the porter. Mare’s milk was placed on a low table
near the entrance, close to which they were desired to seat themselves,
upon a kind of long seat, or form, opposite the queen and her ladies. The
floor was covered with cloth of gold, and in the centre of the apartment
was a kind of open stove, in which a fire of thorns, and other dry
sticks, mingled with cow-dung, was burning. The khan, clothed in a robe
of shining fur, something resembling seal-skin, was seated on a small
couch. He was a man of about forty-five, of middling stature, with a
thick flat nose. His queen, a young and beautiful woman, was seated near
him, together with one of his daughters by a former wife, a princess of
marriageable age, and a great number of young children.
The first question put to them by the khan was, what they would drink;
there being upon the table four species of beverage,—wine, cerasine, or
rice-wine, milk, and a sort of metheglin. They replied that they were no
great drinkers, but would readily taste of whatever his majesty might
please to command; upon which the khan directed his cupbearer to place
cerasine before them. The Turcoman interpreter, who was a man of very
different mettle, and perhaps thought it a sin to permit the khan’s
wine to lie idle, had meanwhile conceived a violent affection for the
cupbearer, and had so frequently put his services in requisition, that
whether he was in the imperial tent or in a Frank tavern was to him a
matter of some doubt. Mangou himself had pledged his Christian guests
somewhat too freely; and in order to allow his brain leisure to adjust
itself, and at the same time to excite the wonder of the strangers by
his skill in falconry, commanded various kinds of birds of prey to
be brought, each of which he placed successively upon his hand, and
considered with that steady sagacity which men a little touched with wine
are fond of exhibiting.
Having assiduously regarded the birds long enough to evince his imperial
contempt of politeness, Mangou desired the ambassadors to speak.
Rubruquis obeyed, and delivered an harangue of some length, which,
considering the muddy state of the interpreter’s brain and the extremely
analogous condition of the khan’s, may very safely be supposed to have
been dispersed, like the rejected prayers of the Homeric heroes, in empty
air. In reply, as he wittily observes, Mangou made a speech, from which,
as it was translated to him, the ambassador could infer nothing except
that the interpreter was extremely drunk, and the emperor very little
better. In spite of this cloudy medium, however, he imagined he could
perceive that Mangou intended to express some displeasure at their having
in the first instance repaired to the court of Sartak rather than to his;
but observing that the interpreter’s brain was totally hostile to the
passage of rational ideas, Rubruquis wisely concluded that silence would
be his best friend on the occasion, and he accordingly addressed himself
to that moody and mysterious power, and shortly afterward received
permission to retire.
The ostensible object of Rubruquis was to obtain permission to remain
in Mongolia for the purpose of preaching the Gospel; but whether this
was merely a feint, or that the appearance of the country and people
had cooled his zeal, it is certain that he did not urge the point very
vehemently. However, the khan was easily prevailed upon to allow him to
prolong his stay till the melting of the snows and the warm breezes of
spring should render travelling more agreeable. In the mean while our
ambassador employed himself in acquiring some knowledge of the people and
the country; but the language, without which such knowledge must ever be
superficial, he totally neglected.
About Easter the khan, with his family and smaller tents or pavilions,
quitted the camp, and proceeded towards Karakorum, which might be termed
his capital, for the purpose of examining a marvellous piece of jewelry
in form of a tree, the production of a French goldsmith. This curious
piece of mechanism was set up in the banqueting-hall of his palace, and
from its branches, as from some miraculous fountain, four kinds of wines
and other delicious cordials, gushed forth for the use of the guests.
Rubruquis and his companions followed in the emperor’s train, traversing
a mountainous and steril district, where tempests, bearing snow and
intolerable cold upon their wings, swept and roared around them as they
passed, piercing through their sheep-skins and other coverings to their
very bones.
At Karakorum, a small city, which Rubruquis compares to the town of
St. Denis, near Paris, our ambassador-missionary maintained a public
disputation with certain pagan priests, in the presence of three of
the khan’s secretaries, of whom the first was a Christian, the second
a Mohammedan, and the third a Buddhist. The conduct of the khan was
distinguished by the most perfect toleration, as he commanded under
pain of death that none of the disputants should slander, traduce,
or abuse his adversaries, or endeavour by rumours or insinuations to
excite popular indignation against them; an act of mildness from which
Rubruquis, with the illiberality of a monk, inferred that Mangou was
totally indifferent to all religion. His object, however, seems to have
been to discover the truth; but from the disputes of men who argued with
each other through interpreters wholly ignorant of the subject, and none
of whom could clearly comprehend the doctrines he impugned, no great
instruction was to be derived. Accordingly, the dispute ended, as all
such disputes must, in smoke; and each disputant retired from the field
more fully persuaded than ever of the invulnerable force of his own
system.
At length, perceiving that nothing was to be effected, and having,
indeed, no very definite object to effect, excepting the conversion of
the khan, which to a man who could not even converse with him upon the
most ordinary topic, seemed difficult, Rubruquis took his leave of the
Mongol court, and leaving his companion at Karakorum, turned his face
towards the west. Returning by an easier or more direct route, he reached
the camp of Batou in two months. From thence he proceeded to the city
of Sarai on the Volga, and descending along the course of that river,
entered Danghistan, crossed the Caucasus, and pursued his journey through
Georgia, Armenia, and Asia Minor, to Syria.
Here he discovered that, taught by misfortune or yielding to the force
of circumstances, the French king had relinquished, at least for the
present, his mad project of recovering Palestine. He was therefore
desirous of proceeding to Europe, for the purpose of rendering this
prince an account of his mission; but this being contrary to the wishes
of his superiors, who had assigned him the convent of Acra for his
retreat, he contented himself with drawing up an account of his travels,
which was forwarded, by the first opportunity that occurred, to St. Louis
in France. Rubruquis then retired to his convent, in the gloom of whose
cloisters he thenceforward concealed himself from the eyes of mankind. It
has been ascertained, however, that he was still living in 1293, though
the exact date of his death is unknown.
The work of Rubruquis was originally written in Latin, from which
language a portion of it was translated into English and published by
Hackluyt. Shortly afterward Purchas published a new version of the whole
work in his collection. From this version Bergeron made his translation
into French, with the aid of a Latin manuscript, which Vander Aa and the
“Biographie Universelle” have multiplied into two. In all or any of these
forms, the work may still be read with great pleasure and advantage by
the diligent student of the opinions and manners of mankind.