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Updated: June 6, 2025
The first, in p. 24, is the journal of John de Plano Carpini, an Italian minorite, who, accompanied by friar Benedict, a Polander, went in 1246 by the north of the Caspian sea, to the residence of Batu-khan, and thence to Kajuk- khan, whom he calls Cuyne, the chief or Emperor of all the Mongols.
The person here alluded to was a monk named Andrew Luciumel, who had been sent ambassador, by the pope, to the emperor of the Mongals, in 1247 or 1248, with the same views as in the missions of Carpini and Asceline at the same period; but of his journey we have no account remaining.
Carpini completes his sketch of the Tartar character by adding that they eat all kinds of animals, dogs, wolves, foxes, horses, and even sometimes their fellow-creatures. Their principal beverage is the milk of the mare, sheep, goat, cow, and camel.
He visited Derbend, and went thence by Nakshivan, Erzeroum, Sivas, Cæsarea, and Iconium, to the port of Kertch, whence he embarked for his own country. His route was much the same as that of Carpini, but his narrative is less interesting, and the Belgian does not seem to have been gifted with the spirit of observation which characterized the Italian monk.
VIII. Travels of John de Piano Carpini, in 1246 IX. Travels of W. de Rubruquis, about 1253 X. Travels of Haitho, Prince of Armenia, in 1254 XI. Travels of Marco Polo into China and the East; from A.D. 1260 to 1295 XII. Travels of Oderic of Portenau, in 1318 XIII. Travels of Sir John Mandeville, in 1322 XIV. Itinerary of Pegoletti, between Asof and China, in 1355
Carpini turned this leisure time to account by studying the habits of the people; he has given much interesting information on the subject in his account of his travels. The country seemed to him to be principally very hilly and the soil sandy, with but little vegetation. There is scarce any wood; but all classes are content with dung for fuel. Though the country is so bare, sheep seem to do well.
Carpini was the first European to approach the borders of China, or Cathay, as it was then called, and the story he told about that mysterious empire of the East, gathered from the Tartars, was of much interest, and, so far as it went, of considerable accuracy.
With Carpini and Rubruquis closes the list of celebrated travellers of the thirteenth century, but we have the brilliant career of Marco Polo now before us, whose travels extended over part of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
Pope Innocent IV. sent an ambassador to the Tartars, but he was treated with arrogance; at the same time he sent other ambassadors to the Tartars living in North-Eastern Tartary, in the hope of stopping the Mongolian invasion, and as chief in this mission, the Franciscan Carpini was chosen, being known to be a clever and intelligent diplomatist.
From which I have inserted such things, in the following relation, as were wanting in the accounts given me by Friar Simon. Of the Situation and Quality of the Land of the Tartars, from Carpini.
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