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Updated: June 6, 2025
Carpini, a Franciscan friar, sent by pope Innocent in 1245 to convert the Mongols of Persia, says, that Ocoday, one of the sons of Ghengis Khan of Tartary, marched with an army against the Christians of Grand India. The king of that country, who was called Prester John, came to their succor.
Anyhow there existed for some time quite an expectation in the West that the whole of Asia would one day acknowledge the spiritual rule of Rome. Pope Innocent, therefore, fully convinced of the friendly disposition of the Mongols, despatched two embassies to them. One was composed of John of Piano Carpini, a friend of St. Francis of Assisi, and three other Franciscans.
Next in order of succession we come to the name of Jean du Plan de Carpin, or as some authors render it simply, Carpini. He was a Franciscan or Grey Friar, born in 1182, at Perugia in Italy. It is well known what inroads the Mongolians had made under Gengis-Khan, and in 1206 this chieftain had made Karakorum, an ancient Turkish town, his capital. This town was a little north of China.
Carpini was travelling from Easter till Ascension-Day through the land of the Kangites, and thence he came into the Biserium country, or what we call Turkestan in the present day; on all sides the eye rested on towns and villages in ruins.
The governor allowed us horses, and a guide to another town, of which one Micheas, a most malicious person, was governor; who, gained by our presents, conducted us to the first station of the Tartars. The journal of Carpini begins here, that of Asceline never appears.
The other ambassadors were Asceline, with Friars Alexander, Albert, and Simon de St Quintin: who went by the south of the Caspian, through Syria, Persia, and Chorassan, to the court of Baiju-Nojan, or as they call him Bajothnoy: but of the particulars of this journey very little has been preserved by Vincentius, so that in fact, the travels here published belong almost exclusively to Carpini.
The Scandinavians in the North, Iceland and Greenland Benjamin of Tudela visits Marseilles, Rome, Constantinople, the Archipelago, Palestine, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Damascus, Baalbec, Nineveh, Baghdad, Babylon, Bassorah, Ispahan, Shiraz, Samarcand, Thibet, Malabar, Ceylon, the Red Sea, Egypt, Sicily, Italy, Germany, and France Carpini explores Turkestan Manners and customs of the Tartars Rubruquis and the Sea of Azov, the Volga, Karakorum, Astrakhan, and Derbend.
Among the earliest and most observant were a succession of Franciscan friars, sent after 1245 on missionary journeys to the court of the ruler of the great Tartar Empire, which was then so rapidly overspreading Asia and eastern Europe. The first of these was John de Piano Carpini, a native of Naples, who belonged to a Franciscan house near Perugia.
We entered the tent barefooted and with our heads uncovered, forming a strange spectacle in their eyes; for though Friar John de Plano Carpini had been there before me, yet being a messenger from the Pope, he had changed his habit that he might not be despised. We were brought forward into the middle of the tent, without being required to bow the knee, as is the case with other messengers.
It was only one of many books of that age describing the countries of the Orient, for Marco Polo was only the most famous of the travelers of his time. Diplomatic agents, such as Carpini, the legate of Innocent IV, or William de Rubruquis, the ambassador of St.
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