Rabban Bar Sauma: A Mongol Envoy in Europe (1287–1288)

Rabban Bar Sauma was a Christian monk from Yuan China who, in 1287 and 1288, travelled to Constantinople, Rome, Paris and Gascony as ambassador of the Mongol ruler of Persia. His mission, sent by the Ilkhan Arghun, sought an alliance with Christian Europe against the Mamluk sultanate. He is often described as the first person from China known to have reached western Europe and left an account of it, a reverse image of Marco Polo.

Background: a monk from Khanbaliq

Bar Sauma was born around the 1220s near Zhongdu, the city later rebuilt by Kublai Khan as Khanbaliq, modern Beijing. His family were Christians of the Church of the East, sometimes called the Nestorian church, which had spread across Central Asia and into China centuries earlier. They were probably of Turkic origin, either Uyghur or Öngüd. “Rabban” is a Syriac title meaning “master” or “teacher”.

He became a monk and lived as a hermit in the hills outside the city, where he gained a following. Among his disciples was a younger monk, Markos, from the Öngüd country north of the Yellow River. Around 1275 to 1276 the two set out on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, travelling along the overland routes through Central Asia that the Mongol empire kept open.

In the Ilkhanate

The monks reached the Ilkhanate, the Mongol state in Persia and Iraq, but war between the Ilkhans and the Mamluks of Egypt blocked the road to Jerusalem. In 1281 the patriarch of the Church of the East died, and Markos was unexpectedly elected his successor, taking the name Yahballaha III. His Mongol background made him useful to the Ilkhans.

The Ilkhan Arghun, who came to power in 1284, wanted to drive the Mamluks out of Syria and Palestine. Several Mongol embassies had already gone west. In 1287, on the patriarch’s recommendation, Arghun chose Bar Sauma, a learned Christian who could speak to Christian kings in religious terms, as his envoy.

The embassy to Europe

Bar Sauma travelled by way of the Black Sea to Constantinople, where he was received by the Byzantine emperor Andronikos II and visited Hagia Sophia. He then sailed to Italy. Near Naples in June 1287 he watched a sea battle between the fleets of Aragon and the Angevin kingdom of Naples, part of the War of the Sicilian Vespers.

In Rome he found that Pope Honorius IV had recently died. He met the cardinals, who questioned him closely about his faith, and he visited the great churches of the city. After a stay in Genoa, which had strong commercial ties with the Ilkhanate, he went on to Paris in the autumn of 1287. King Philip IV received him with honour, showed him relics in the Sainte-Chapelle and promised to send an envoy to Arghun.

Bar Sauma then travelled to Gascony in south-western France, then an English possession, where he met King Edward I of England. Edward, who had himself fought in the Holy Land in 1271 to 1272, welcomed the idea of a new crusade. Bar Sauma celebrated the liturgy before the king and his court.

Returning to Rome, he met the newly elected Pope Nicholas IV in early 1288. He celebrated Mass in his own rite during Holy Week, and the pope gave him communion on Palm Sunday. Bar Sauma left with letters and gifts and returned to the Ilkhanate later in 1288.

Key people

• Rabban Bar Sauma (c. 1220s–1294): monk of the Church of the East and Arghun’s ambassador.
• Yahballaha III (1245–1317): Bar Sauma’s former disciple Markos, patriarch of the Church of the East from 1281.
• Arghun (ruled 1284–1291): Ilkhan of Persia who sought an alliance against the Mamluks.
• Philip IV of France and Edward I of England: the two western kings who received the embassy.

Consequences

European rulers responded warmly but did not act. France and England were preparing for their own conflicts, and the papacy was absorbed in Italian politics. Arghun sent further letters, including one to Philip IV in 1289 proposing a joint campaign, but no combined army ever took the field. Arghun died in 1291, the same year the Mamluks captured Acre, ending the crusader states.

Bar Sauma spent his last years in the Ilkhanate, where Arghun built a church for him. He died in Baghdad in 1294.

Timeline

• c. 1220s: Bar Sauma is born near Zhongdu (later Khanbaliq).
• c. 1275–1276: Bar Sauma and Markos set out on pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
• 1281: Markos becomes patriarch Yahballaha III.
• 1287: Arghun sends Bar Sauma to Europe; he visits Constantinople, Naples, Rome, Genoa and Paris.
• Late 1287: Meets Edward I of England in Gascony.
• Spring 1288: Received by Pope Nicholas IV in Rome; returns east.
• 1289: Arghun writes to Philip IV proposing joint action.
• 1294: Bar Sauma dies in Baghdad.

Why it matters

Bar Sauma’s embassy shows how far the Mongol empire had connected the medieval world: a monk born near Beijing could discuss theology with cardinals and give communion to an English king. His account also offers a rare view of 13th-century Europe through Asian eyes.