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The Story of the Mongols Whom We Call the Tartars

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The publisher hasn't seen fit to provide a description of this book's contents, so I shall. Friar Carpini was sent by Pope Innocent IV on an embassy to the Mongols; this is his account of the journey. He met Batu Khan in Russia and then journeyed onward to reach the court of Guyuk Khan. He had been sent to preach Christianity to the Mongols and to offer baptism, but the other important part of his mission was to spy on them, for the Europeans were almost wholly ignorant of the Mongols when they swept acroos Europe. The chapter subheadings are perhaps the best guide to the book's contents:

1. The Tartar Country, its Location and Description and its Weather.

2. The People, their Clothes, Homes, Possessions and Marriages

3. Religion, What the Tartars Believe are Sins; Divination, Absolution and Funeral Rites

4. Their Good and Bad Customs, their Food and their Habits

5. The Founder of the Tartar Empire, its Princes and the Power of the Emperor and his Government

6. War, the Organization of the Tartar Forces, their Arms, their Tactics when Fighting and their Cruelty to Captives, How they Besiege Forts, and their Treachery toward those who Surrender to them

7. How the Tartars Make Peace; the Countries they have Conquered, the Countries which have Resisted them Successfully, and the Despotism the Tartars Exert over their Subjects

8. How to Fight the Tartars and what to Expect; the Arms and Organization of such Forces; How to Meet Tartar Cunning in Battle, and how to Supply Fortresses and Cities, and What should be Done with Captives

9. The Provinces We Passed Through and their Location; the Court of the Emperor of the Tartars and his Government, and the Witnesses who Met us there

Carpini isn't encyclopedic on any of these subjects, but he does manage a decent overview. There are only a couple of illustrations and no maps; the book would be improved if the reader could see where Carpini went, and pictures of what he's talking about. But it's very handy all the same.

A fascinating book! Of interest not only to the expert, but also to everyone seriously interested in history. The following article provides perspective. On August 24, 2000, The Los Angeles Times carried an article headlined "Digging for Romans in China." The article presented evidence for a Roman legion having been stationed in China sometime around the beginning of this era. The Romans apparently stayed a considerable while, and very likely intermarried with the local Chinese.

What? Romans in China? But wasn't Marco Polo the first? No, he was simply the most famous. Sporadic, but unrecorded, contacts quite possibly occurred since the domestication of the horse in prehistoric times. Nor was Marco Polo the first documented contact. Preceding him by some fifty year was Friar Giovanni di Plano Carpini.

In Giovanni's time, about 1250 AD, some 800 years had passed since the devastation caused by the Huns, but these events were by no means forgotten. Reports filtering in regarding the Mongols (also called Tartars) were even more frightening. Europe badly needed information on how to deal with this new threat. Friar Giovanni was sent by the Pope to convert the Mongols to Christianity -- if possible. But the main purpose of his mission was to spy.

Friar Giovanni seems like an unlikely emissary/spy - he was sixty years old and corpulent; but he executed his mission admirably. His slender book is not only an important historical source, but also a most fascinating record of his observations. Compared to other medieval travel accounts (e.g., Polo, Mandeville) Giovanni's is very measured and matter of fact; nor does he pepper his account with numerous fantastic assertions. Yet - and this is the fascinating part - he is not entirely free of these either. He mentions a race of people who have no knees; another race whose women are of human appearance, but whose men have the shape of a dog; another who have only one arm and leg, and who must work in pairs to shoot a bow; yet another have very small mouths and live off the fumes of their cooking; and several more. He also mentions a place where the sun makes such a terrible sound (yes, sound!) that people live underground. Now, he does not actually claim to have seen these wonders. So why does he seemingly cheapen his account by including these? My own explanation is this: the medieval worldview required that such creatures exist. It appears to have been the duty of every writer of travel accounts to confirm this worldview.

But then, have we really gotten very far away? What about recurrent reports of Bigfoot? And what about the strange menagerie populating Star Wars and Star Trek?

The cover of the book is a gem! Taken around 1900, it shows a Mongol warrior in full panoply - he could have stepped right out of the army of Jenghis Khan! Worth getting for the cover alone.

If you are in the process of reading about Mongolia and its domination of world afairs in the 13th century, then this book is a must read. Eric Hildiger's translation makes this work by the Friar flow in a smooth easy readable manner. If you are a student of History then you know the invaluable nature of primary sources. This account reflects the attitudes of Europeans at this time period toward the peoples from the steppe and yet it is surprisingly refreshing in pointing out characteristics that the Europeans might emulate. The Friar's accounts of events has become the main source for many works written about this era . I highly recommend this book as a starting off point for this subject area.

If you are really interested in this subject, then you should get Mission to Asia edited by Christopher Dawson. Mission to Asia contains the Plano Carpini work, but also contains the account of William of Rubruck as well as the narrative of Brother Benedict the Pole, and other documents. For an excellent discussion of this work see the review of Mission to Asia by Mithridates VI of Pontus.

Set in the wastes of central Asia, circa XIII c., our author is is an unlikely spy - an old and arthritic friar, but he does his job well.

His compiled work, presented to the pope upon his return to Italy, was the first real glimpse Europe had into the terrible threat on her eastern borders. It was widely reproduced and sent far and wide to the kings and princes of Europe, and became a kind of handbook for fighting the Mongols.

His occassional embelishments, held as sacred truths when first written, add unintentional comic relief, and help one understand the mysterious worldview the medieaval European held.

I picked this one up for a paper, and was planning to skim through it, but I ended up reading the whole thing. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Author: Giovanni DiPlano Carpini
Title: The Story of the Mongols Whom we Call the Tartars
Time: 1245-1247
Destination: France to Mongolia
Length: 2 years
Type: caravan
Rating: 6/10
The papal spy

The story: A few years after the Mongol attacks on Eastern Europe, the Pope decided to send a cleric to the court of the Khan. That cleric was GDC, and his mission (unlike that of Guillaume de Rubrouck a few years later) was to find out what the Mongols wanted, and how to defend Christianity against them. GDC thus traveled through what was left of the Kievan Rus' and then continued on his way to Karakorum.

This book is rather short and fact-bound, and it is very strictly organized. GDC devised chapters that dealt with various aspects of Mongol life (customs, politics, warfare, etc.) and tried to convey as much information as possible. You will still find one or two mentions of weird creatures here and there (almost like in the account of Odorico da Pordenone), but there is not as much every-day detail as in Guillaume de Rubrouck's travelogue (which makes that one so outstanding).

One thing is funny though, and it's good to know this before reading the book: GDC is equipped with a papal letter demanding peace with the Mongols. Well, apparently in those days, the Mongol word for "peace" was essentially the same as "submission". You can only imagine their confusion when the pope seemed to offer submission without coming in person or sending any of the appropriate gifts with his emissary!

An okay read, but I would have liked more personal detail : 6/10.

This is an account written a long time ago by a pious monk. So "Name of the rose" it aint! What you you get is factual experience mixed with third party mythology. I have to admit that I love this stuff! While witches were being burnt at the stake and "evil doers" were in the stocks, just the sheer romance of a wilder time makes up for the dry style that this is written in, after all, there were no ghostwritters at that time.

This book is a must for schoolas and historians. One of few avaible sourses from European monk who traveled to Mongol Empire. Very interesting.