William of Rubruck's Journey to the Mongol Court (1253-1255)

William of Rubruck’s journey to the Mongol court was a two-year expedition by a Flemish Franciscan friar from Constantinople to the camp of the Great Khan Möngke and the Mongol capital Karakorum, between 1253 and 1255. Rubruck failed to convert anyone of importance, but the long report he wrote for King Louis IX of France is one of the most vivid and reliable European descriptions of the Mongol Empire at its height.

Background: Europe and the Mongols

The Mongol invasions of Russia, Poland and Hungary in 1237-1242 had terrified Latin Europe. Popes and kings wanted to know who the Mongols were, whether they would return and whether they might become Christians or allies against the Muslim powers of the Middle East. In 1245-1247 the Franciscan John of Plano Carpini had already travelled to the court of the Great Khan Güyük on behalf of Pope Innocent IV.

Rubruck, born around 1220 in Rubrouck in Flanders, accompanied Louis IX on the Seventh Crusade. In the Holy Land the king heard reports that the Mongol prince Sartaq, son of Batu, had become a Christian. Rubruck was sent to preach and minister among the Mongols, carrying a letter from Louis but not the formal rank of an ambassador.

The journey east

Rubruck left Constantinople on 7 May 1253 with a fellow friar, Bartholomew of Cremona, a clerk and an interpreter. They crossed the Black Sea to Soldaia (modern Sudak) in Crimea and continued by ox-cart and on horseback across the steppe.

They first reached Sartaq’s camp near the Volga, where Rubruck found that the prince’s Christianity had been exaggerated. Sartaq sent him on to his father Batu, ruler of what later became known as the Golden Horde. Batu in turn decided that only the Great Khan could answer the king’s letter, and the friars were sent thousands of kilometres further east through Central Asia in autumn and winter.

On 27 December 1253 they reached Möngke’s winter camp in Mongolia, and on 4 January 1254 Rubruck was received by the khan. He described Möngke as a flat-nosed man of medium height, about 45 years old, seated on a couch and dressed in a glossy fur. The friar was allowed to stay through the winter, and in early April 1254 the court moved to Karakorum.

Life at Karakorum

Rubruck’s description of Karakorum is the best eyewitness account of the city to survive. He was unimpressed by its size, comparing it unfavourably with the French town of Saint-Denis. It had a mud wall with four gates, one quarter for Muslim traders and another for Chinese craftsmen, twelve temples of various faiths, two mosques and a Nestorian Christian church.

The most famous object he described was a silver tree at the entrance to the khan’s palace. Made by Guillaume Boucher, a goldsmith from Paris who had been captured in Hungary, it had pipes that delivered mare’s milk, wine, rice wine and mead to the guests at court. Rubruck also met other Europeans living in Mongolia, including a woman from Metz called Paquette.

He observed Mongol daily life closely: felt tents carried on carts, the making of koumiss (fermented mare’s milk), marriage and burial customs, and the roles of women, who managed the households and herds. He noted that the people of Cathay (northern China) wrote with a brush and used paper money.

The debate of religions

Möngke tolerated all religions and liked to have them compete for his favour. On 30 May 1254 Rubruck took part in a formal debate at court between Latin and Nestorian Christians, Muslims and Buddhists. According to his own account, he argued for one God against the Buddhists, and the Muslims declined to dispute with the Christians.

The debate ended, as Mongol gatherings often did, with drinking rather than conversions. Shortly afterwards Möngke told Rubruck that the Mongols believed in one God but that God had given different ways to different peoples. The khan gave him a letter for Louis IX demanding that the king submit to Mongol rule.

Return and report

Rubruck left Karakorum in July 1254, leaving Bartholomew behind because he was too weak to travel. He returned by a more northerly route past Batu’s camp, then crossed the Caucasus and Anatolia, and reached Tripoli in the County of Tripoli in August 1255.

Louis IX had already gone home to France. Rubruck’s superiors told him to remain in Acre as a teacher, so he wrote his report as a long letter to the king in Latin, usually called the Itinerarium. It survives in five manuscripts, the best of them at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

Legacy

The English scholar Roger Bacon met Rubruck in France and drew on his information in the Opus Majus. Otherwise the report was little read in the Middle Ages, and it was overshadowed by the far more popular book of Marco Polo. Richard Hakluyt printed part of it in 1598-1600, and it became widely known only in modern times.

Historians value it for its precision. Rubruck correctly stated that the Caspian Sea was enclosed by land rather than an arm of the ocean, identified Cathay with the ancient land of silk, and distinguished carefully between what he saw and what he was told.

Timeline

• 1253, 7 May: Rubruck sails from Constantinople across the Black Sea.
• 1253, summer: He visits Sartaq and then Batu near the Volga.
• 1253, 27 December: He reaches Möngke Khan’s winter camp in Mongolia.
• 1254, 4 January: First audience with Möngke.
• 1254, April: The court moves to Karakorum, and Rubruck with it.
• 1254, 30 May: Debate between Christians, Muslims and Buddhists at court.
• 1254, July: Rubruck leaves Karakorum with Möngke’s letter to Louis IX.
• 1255, August: He arrives in Tripoli and later writes his report in Acre.

Why it matters

Rubruck’s report is one of the earliest close European portraits of a great Asian empire. It shows a cosmopolitan Mongol court where Europeans, Muslims, Chinese and Buddhists lived side by side, and it remains a key source for Karakorum and for Mongol society under Möngke.