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William of Rubruck: a review article
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
The appearance of a new translation of the Itinerarium of William of Rubruck (1253–55) furnishes an opportunity to review the work done on this, possibly the most valuable of Western sources on the Mongols. By comparison with the mission of his fellow-Franciscan John of Plano Carpini some eight years before, that of Rubruck to the court of the Great Khan Möngke has been singularly unfortunate. An account of the earlier mission (the so-called “Tartar Relation”) was being drawn up in Poland even before Carpini had rejoined Innocent IV at Lyons, and at least two other variant recensions are known to exist, over and above the numerous manuscripts of the standard version. Rubruck's report, on the other hand, couched in the form of a long letter to St. Louis, languished for three and a half centuries before it was rescued around 1600 by Hakluyt; and there are only five manuscripts.
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1 Guillaume de Rubrouck, envoyé de Saint Louis. Voyage dans l'empire mongol (1253–1255), trans.Claude, and Kappler, René, Paris: Payot, 1985.Google Scholar
2 The Vinland map and the Tartar relation, ed. and trans. Painter, George D., Marston, T. E. and Skelton, R. A., New Haven, Conn., and London, 1965;Google Scholar a better text edited by Önnerfors, Alf, Hystoria Tartarorum C. De Bridia monachi, Berlin, 1967.Google Scholar
3 Sinor, Denis, “John of Plano Carpini's return from the Mongols: new light from a Luxemburg manuscript,” JRAS, 1957, pp. 193–206;Google ScholarClément Schmitt, O.F.M., “Une version abrégée de l'“Historia Mongalorum”Google Scholar. Metz, Bibliothèque Municipale, ms. 651,” Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, LXV, 1972, pp. 368–88.Google Scholar Carpini himself tells us that incomplete versions of his report were being produced in Poland, Bohemia, Germany and N.E. France: Ystoria Mongalorum, ed. A. van den Wyngaert, O. F. M., in Sinica Franciscana, I. Itinera et relationes fratrum minorum saeculi XIII et XIV, Quaracchi-Florence, 1929, p. 130.Google Scholar
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7 Rubruck, , Itinerarium ed. Wyngaert, van den, in Sinica Franciscana, I, p. 329.Google Scholar
8 Opus Majus, ed. Bridges, J., Oxford, 1897–1900, I, p. 305.Google Scholar
9 Van den Wyngaert, pp. 311–12.
10 Ibid., p. 203.
11 The two embassies appear to be confused again in n.3 at p. 140. It was the report of Andrew's first mission (1245–7) that was abstracted by Matthew Paris: on this, see Pelliot, , “Les Mongols et la papauté, part II, Revue de l'Orient Chrétien, XXIV, 1924, pp. 250–62,Google Scholar and part III, ibid., XXVIII, 1931–2, pp. 6–12.
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13 The Mongol mission. Narratives and letters of the Franciscan missionaries in Mongolia and China in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, London: Sheed and Ward, 1955Google Scholar (repr. New York as Mission to Asia, 1966, 1979).Google Scholar
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16 “Voyage en Orient du Frère Guillaume de Rubruc,” ed. Fr. Michel and Th. Wright, in Recueil de voyages et de mémoires, ed. d'Avezac-Macaya, M.A.P., IV. Paris. 1839, pp. 205–396.Google Scholar
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18 E.g., regarding the onager or wild ass (Turkish and Mongol qulan—Rubruck's culam), of which Rockhill says (p. 134, n. 2): “I have often chased them on horseback, but even when wounded they could get away from the best pony I have ever seen.”
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20 Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1973. The divisions are: (I) “En marge de Jean du Plan Carpin” (pp. 3–74);Google Scholar (II) “Guillaume de Rubrouck” (pp. 77–235);Google Scholar (III) “Màr Ya(h)bhallàhâ, Rabban Sàumâ et les princes Öngüt Chrétiens” (pp. 239–88).Google Scholar The section devoted to Rubruck is thus by far the most lengthy.
21 “Mélanges sur l'époque des croisades. III. Sur quatre passages de Guillaume de Rubrouck.” Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, XLIV, Paris, 1951, pp. 48–72.Google Scholar
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24 Cambridge, Mass., 1982: Harvard University Press.
25 In Papers in Far Eastern History, IV. 09 1971,Google Scholaret seq. The volume containing Cleaves's commentary has yet to appear. For a comparison of the two translations, see the review of Cleaves by Morgan, D. O., in JRAS, 1984, pp. 179–80.Google Scholar
26 Meng-ta Pei-lu und Hei-ta Shih-lüeh: Chinesische Gesandtenberichte über die frühen Mongolen, trans. Olbricht, P. and Pinks, E., Wiesbaden, 1980:Google ScholarHarrassowitz, (Asiatische Forschungen, LVI).Google Scholar
27 Abramowski, Waltraut, “Die chinesischen Annalen von Ögödei und Güyük,” Zentralasiatische Studien, X, 1976, pp. 117–67;Google Scholareadem, “Die chinesischen Annalen des Möngke,” ibid., XIII, 1979, pp. 7–71.
28 Das mongolische Weltreich: Al-'Umarī's Darstellung der mongolischen Reiche in seinem Werke Masālik al-abṣār fī mamālik al-amṣār, ed. and trans. Lech, Klaus, Wiesbaden, 1968:Google Scholar Harrassowitz (Asiatische Forschungen, XXII).
29 “Kirakos of Ganjak on the Mongols,” Central Asiatic Journal, VIII, 1963, pp. 199–214;Google Scholar “The journey of Het˛um I, king of Little Armenia, to the court of the Great Khan Möngke,” ibid., IX, 1964, pp. 175–89. There is also now an excellent Russian translation of Kirakos by Khanlaryan, L. A., Istoriya Armenii, Moscow, 1976Google Scholar (Pamyatniki pis'mennosti Vostoka, LIII). For the friar's hopes and his failure to meet up with Het˛um, see van den Wyngaert, pp. 289, 313 (and on the latter passage, cf. Pelliot, , Recherches, pp. 214–5).Google Scholar
30 Van den Wyngaert, pp. 213, 215, 244, 250.
31 Ibid., p. 243.
32 Ibid., pp. 204, 215, 250, 292–3; and cf. also p. 326. Richard, Jean, “Sur les pas de Plancarpin et de Rubrouck: la lettre de saint Louis à Sartaq,” Journal des Savants, 1977, p. 57Google Scholar and n.19; idem, La papauté et les missions d'Orient au moyen âge (XIIIe–XVe siècles), Rome, 1977Google Scholar (Collection de l'École Française, 33), pp. 78–80.
33 Schollmeyer, Chrysologus, O.F.M., , “Die missionarische Sendung des Fraters Wilhelm von Rubruk,” Ostkirchliche Studien, IV, 1955, pp. 142–6.Google Scholar
34 E.g., Hambis, , “Saint Louis et les Mongols,” p. 31:Google Scholar “…il [Saint Louis] décida d'envoyer comme é'missaire auprès de Sartaq.…” The title of the Kapplers' own translation (n. 1 above) is of course misleading, as is the statement, for example, that Rubruck advises Louis to send no more friars or mere monks (p. 60). What Rubruck says, in fact, is quod amplius vadat aliquis frater ad Tartaros, sicut ego ivi…, non videtur michi expedire.
35 Van den Wyngaert, p. 289: Theutonici, pro quibus illuc pro magna parte ivi.
36 Ibid., pp. 196, 222, 246, 291, 292, 299–300.
37 Ibid., pp. 224–5, for the Germans; p. 312, for the baptisms.
38 Ibid., p. 164.