Guillaume de Rubrouck

Guillaume de Rubrouck (or of Rubroeck), known as Rubruquis (1215 - 1295), born with Rubrouck, is a Flemish Franciscain, of Latin language , subject and close friend of Saint Louis. It goes in Mongolia in 1253 - 1254, for évangéliser the Mongolian , thus preceding Marco Polo. He visits Karakorum, the capital of the Empire of which he will give some descriptions. Not being able, with its return, to join the king, he writes a long letter to him reporting his voyage in the Mongolian Empire, essential source and large literary work, but which will never know the popularity of the book of Marco Polo.

First contacts of Christendom with the Mongols

Geopolitical context in the middle of the 13th century

The Mongolian of Ögödei, the son of Gengis Khan, seized Moscow in 1238, then of Kiev, in 1240. They invaded the Poland, threatened Vienna, occupied Zagreb, not far from the Adriatique. It was the news of died of Ögödeï which caused the withdrawal of the Mongolian chiefs who went themselves from there to regulate their problems of succession in the middle of the Central Asia. All the Occident had trembled but, however, the possibilities of agreement seemed larger with the people of the steppes than with the Islamic world which remained the enemy designated since the 11th century. The Mongolian hordes had not been integrated yet into the Islamic world and one knew that they counted in their center of the Christians, going down from the disciples of Nestorius. This last, dissident died in Egypt at the 5th century, had been a certain success in Perse. It is from there that had radiated until the Tibet and in China, a completely cut Church of the catholic Pape of Rome.

The mission of Jean de Plan Carpin (1244)

At the end of 1244, the pope Innocent IV sent towards the Orient, with the meeting of the Grand Khan, the Franciscain Jean de Plan Carpin and a Dominicain of the name of Ascelin de Crémone. Started from Lyon towards the the East, they were carrying letters rejecting the massacres and the destruction of the Mongolian and inviting their chiefs to return in the right way.

New the Large Khan, Güyük, wire of Ögödei, that Plan Carpin ends up joining meadows of Karakoroum, was shown some extremely irritated. The “oceanic Khan of the large entire people” answered Innocent IV that it precisely did not intend to subject to any temporal or spiritual authority. At most wanted he to recognize well the chief of the Christians like his Vassal.

The mission of Ascelin near the chief of the Mongolian armies in Perse more badly failed to still turn. Baïju returned the Dominicain, but flanked of two ambassadors charged to give to the Pape a letter which evoked the possibility of an alliance between the Francs and the Mongolian. Innocent IV answered it with eagerness. It was in November 1245. A few months later, Altigidaï, Mongolian police chief in Transcaucasia, proposed with Louis IX a common military action. Our Saint-Louis was then installed with Cyprus, from where it directed the Seventh crusade. According to the plan considered, the franques armies were to retain the Sultan Cairo in the south, while the Mongolian would attack the Califat Baghdad in north.

The mission of Andre de Longjumeau

Following its contacts with the Mongolian police chief Altigidaï, Saint-Louis had sent in Mongolia, in 1249, a delegation led by the Dominicain André de Longjumeau. When it arrived at the court, Güyük had just died. Its widow, the regent Oghul Qaïmish with satisfaction accepted the gifts offered by Saint-Louis, among which appeared of the relics of the Vraie Cross. She gave itself from there to the French envoys for their sovereign. But by the haughty declarations accompanied them, and an invitation with Saint-Louis to regard itself as its Vassal.

One had made no progress since the mission Plan Carpin. Andre de Longjumeau, however, had reported useful information, as well on rigorous religious matter neutrality of the Mongolian as on the presence of Christians Nestoriens in the important administration and until the accesses of the throne. He had also met quantity of off-set Christians: Géorgiens, Hungarian, Coumans, Alains…

Saint-Louis decided to send in Mongolia a new embassy. It was said that the mother and several of the women of the emperor Mongku were Christian? One also said it of Sartach, a great-grandson of Gengis Khan, which ordered on behalf of the emperor between the Don and the the Volga. All occurred as if all the aristocracy of the steppes were close rocking of with dimensions of the Chrétiens.

The mission of Guillaume de Rubrouck

The departure of Guillaume (1253)

Guillaume brother, who will remain in the posterity like Guillaume de Rubrouck, because it was originating in Rubrouck, a village of the French Flanders, is the minor brother Franciscain which was selected for this mission to which Saint-Louis, scalded by the recent experiments, preferred not to give a too official character. The letters which the king gave to Guillaume contained some courtesies for the Tartar prince and requested it to authorize the carrier and his/her companion, brother Barthélémy of Casement bolt, to remain in the regions which it controlled “to teach there the word of God”. Saint-Louis had also required of Guillaume to submit a report/ratio to him on all that it could learn from the Tatars: Forwarding thus covered to a character at the same time missionary and geographical.

The account left by Guillaume de Rubrouck (Voyage in the Mongolian empire, National library, 1997) is, with that of Plan Carpin, one of the rare sources which one has on the Mongolian life at the 13th century.

After having studied the geographers Solinus and Isidore of Seville, both franciscains leave Constantinople the May 7th 1253. Guillaume is a robust Fleming whereas Barthélémy, the Italian , is more malingre, with weaknesses of the digestive system which give him a greenish dye. Guillaume supports the difficulties of the voyage well better than his companion, always about to weaken of tiredness, discomfort, cold, hunger or nauseas, with a stomach unable to adapt to exotic foods.

The discovery of the world of the Tartars

When it crosses the isthmus of Pérékop and the mounts of Tauride, Guillaume discovers the Tatars and it with the impression which “the doors of the hell have been just closed again behind him”. By discovering the steppe, it describes a world “without forest, mountains, without stones, cover of a splendid grass”. It must accept to eat the food of these “demons” and to drink milk a cup of mare, “Cosmos”. In fact, he accustoms himself rather quickly with the manners of living Mongols, which enables him to be shown in the continuation of the rather benevolent account in their connection.

The first horde which he discovers, on Eastern bank of the the Volga close to its mouth, is that of Batou, a grandson of Gengis Khan. The horde is a Mongolian word which means military camp. The residence of the chief is in the middle of the camp, and each one more or less installs its tent far from the center according to its place in the hierarchy. Governed by pressing rules, the horde is also the theater of incredible grouillement of various people and herds of animals of all kinds.

The first meeting with Batou proceeds before all the court. This one is held sitted on a long high gilded seat of three steps above the ground. A troop of senior officials and courtiers surround it. The entry of Guillaume and Barthélémy makes silence. They are assisted by their Abdallah interpreter. Guillaume begins the debates by declaring “That which will believe and will be baptized will be saved, but that which will not believe will be condemned. ” And he still insists on the eternal sorrows which that would incur ineluctably which would push back the true faith. The verbal sparring match which follows turns more or less to the rout of the two Western monks, undoubtedly because the court which attends the spectacle is not really impartial, but Batou remains benevolent with regard to its visitors, it offers to them milk in a cut decorated with invaluable stones, which is a mark of great favor. This history told by Guillaume is recut by an account of the king of Arménie, Héythoum Ier, with another monk of the name of Jacques Iseo.

In any case, Batou is not the supreme leader of the Mongolian , and the relations with the king of France exceed his competence. Only the emperor Mongku is qualified to answer it. It is necessary to go to find it with Karakoroum, in the north of the Gobi Desert . Led by a Mongolian commercial rich person, Guillaume and Barthélémy, now equipped with furs, with a Tartar bonnet and felt boots, leave the the Volga the September 16th 1253. According to the account, they put only two months and half to arrive at Karakoroum, with more 3 000 kilometers. It is very little, even if the voyage their is facilitated by the postal service of the Mongolian empire, because they must nevertheless cross the collars of the Tarbagataï, which is not a small matter in full winter.

The meeting with the emperor Mongku (January 3rd 1254)

Guillaume and Barthélémy meet the horde of Mongku before arriving at Karakoroum. Mongku (or Mangou), 46 years, is the grandson of Gengis Khan. Before succeeding Güyük, in 1248, it took part in the Mongolian campaigns in Russia. With Kiev, he would have sought to save massacre of the Byzantine richnesses. Once gone up on the throne, after having ventilated a plot, it launched out in a bloody repression during which the widow of the emperor is bent and choked in a bag.

Guillaume and Barthélémy are received by Mongku in the palate of his preferred daughter, Cirina, a Christian woman. Rice alcohol is offered to them. Everyone drinks much, especially the interpreter and the emperor, environment is euphoric, but from this first contact, the two travellers nevertheless obtain the permission to remain at the court for two months or to go to Karakorum, at ten days of walk. In fact, they will remain close to the emperor who they came évangéliser.

The horde of Mongku is a gathering Tower of Babel, in addition to the Mongols, of the populations, prisoners or not, coming from all the areas of the Empire.

The stay with Karakoroum (1254)

Meanwhile, the horde of Mongku, got under way for Karakorum. It arrives there the April 5th 1254. It is the first time that Western Christian ambassadors penetrate in the city. They are accommodated there solemnly by the Nestoriens of the city, come in procession ahead of of them.

Guillaume compares Karakorum so that he knows: that “is not worth Saint-Denis”, says it; and the palate of the Khan “does not represent half of the monastery of this city”. On the other hand, it is struck by the district of the Sarrasins, grouillant markets, bazaars, tradesmen of any species, attended by the ambassadors and the elegant ones of the court; by the district Chinese, poorer, inhabited by marvellous craftsmen; by the exterior markets installed with the four doors of the city where arrive each day 500 carriages of vivres and of immense and noisy herds for the food of all this world.

As of their arrival, Pâquette makes known to him a goldsmith named Guillaume Buchier. It had held shop in Paris on the Pont with the Exchange. The Mongols had done it captive with Belgrade, and later, Mongku, informed of its talents, had made it work for its account and had made of him a kind of Minister for the Art schools. The goldsmith organizes in the honor of the travellers a small evening where everyone speaks French: its wife, a Lorraine born in Hungary, as well as the son of an English, born in Hungary also.

Guillaume brother, however, does not forget his mission. He notes that Karakorum shelters two Mosquée S Moslem, a church nestorienne, twelve temples Buddhist and all these religions officiate in the most perfect tolerance.

In the entourage of the emperor, Guillaume and Barthélémy discover the world of the Nestoriens, well in court since they exert the functions of interpreters, civils servant, ministers, tutors of the royal children. One also finds them in the offices of the chancelleries and the courses of the courts. They have an execrable reputation. According to the account of Guillaume, they a little more covetous, are corrupted and dépravés that the average. He notes the presence of bishops who order all the male children “even those which were with the cradle… of kind, writes it, that at the Nestoriens, almost all the men were priests. ”

Sergius, old Tisserand which said Armenian monk, had succeeded in being made pass for the healer of one of the women of Mongku named Cotta. It had ordered a episcopal throne, gloves, a miter in feathers of peacock, decorated of a gold cross, had made decorate a banner with painted crosses, which it walked in procession through the camp, attached to a kind of surmounted lance of a cross. It was shown of an amazing brutality with the Sarrasins which it treated of dogs and overpowered of whiplashes. Called near a Nestorien dying, this Sergius had trampled it with rage, leaving it died, and being then praised to have made it die, by its prayers, like enemy of the true faith. Such impostors, run of all the corners of the world, swarmed in the horde with Mongku. II a certain discredit upon Christianity was flashed back by it.

Prisoners Catholic S, originating in the Occident, come to confess themselves to Guillaume: some flew of the Masters who do not give them what to nourish themselves and dress themselves. Frère Guillaume alleviates them. “You did not sin, in conscience; you can take on the good of your Masters what is necessary to live. ” Of others are soldiers. With these, it prohibits to fight against the Chrétiens.

The meetings between Guillaume and the Chrétiens of Karakorum are public and Mongku, which is informed by it, does not prevail. It decides to organize a controversy between Musulman S, Idolâtre S, Bouddhiste S and Catholique S. It is held with the day before of the Pentecost. The controversists must promise not to make use of “unpleasant or abusive words for their contradictors, nor to cause a tumult which can prevent this conference, under penalty of death. ”

Rubrouck tells that the Nestoriens charged it with speaking in their place. It meets outset a Buddhist representative, one of the celebrities of the China. He so quickly tells to have carried it on the point of the unit and the absolute power of God that the Sarrasins burst to laugh, but he notes however that this success of eloquence does not start any conversion. Nestoriens and the Moslems sing together, the Buddhists keep silent themselves, and to finish all drink “copiously”. As will write it Bernard de Vaulx, “With sadness, the Franciscain saw to disappear its dreams of Apôtre. ”

The shortly after the controversy, Guillaume is received by Mongku at the same time as his Buddhist adversary. He brings back thus the remarks of Mongku: “Us, Mongolian, we believe that there is one God by whom we live and by which we die, and we have for him a right heart… Just as God gave to the hand several fingers, in the same way It gave to the men several ways. God made known to you the Scriptures, and you others, Chrétiens, you do not observe them… To us, It gave soothsayers. We do what they say and we live in peace…” Finally, Mongku closes the debate and means with the two monks that it is time for them to set out again. He asks Guillaume to transmit his words and his letters in Occident. Guillaume agrees, but refuses any present. Mongku ensures it that it will be again welcome if its king charged it with another mission.

Epilog

Of return to Midsummer's Day d' Acre, Guillaume forwards to his king his handwritten notes which are an extraordinary testimony on the crossed regions and the adventure that represented for a Western monk.

The alliance so often discussed and hoped between the Christian of Mongolian Occident and the was however not concluded. In 1260, when the Mongolian ordered by the general Hülegü undertook a forwarding against the Musulmans of the Califat of the Abbassides to which they took Damas, a frank knight, Julien de Sidon, wanted to benefit from it to plunder the territory of the city. But the Mongolian there had already settled and took that for an aggression. The prosecutor, they besieged his town of Sidon and devastated its grounds. Ruined, Julien de Sidon had to resell its county with the Templiers during the year 1260.

Guillaume de Rubrouck lived old, until in 1295 at least.

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