On January 4, 1254, a French monk named William of Rubruck had his first audience with the great Khan Mongke at the Khan camp in Mongolia. Rubruck later wrote to King Louis IX of France (also known as Saint Louis) that, when he left the tent, the secretaries and interpreters of Khan asked him “many questions about the Kingdom of France: if it contained a lot of sheep, cattle and horses – as if they were to move and make every effort.”
This year marks the 60th anniversary of modern diplomatic relations Between France and Mongolia, but Rubruck’s account reminds us that their links are in fact much older.
Today, the relationship between France and Mongolia includes many areas, from trade to counter-terrorism. Their cooperation is based on common principles and interests. But the situation was quite different 800 years ago. The French and the Mongols met for the first time because the two had expansionist ambitions: the French, with their Christian allies, sought to conquer Jerusalem and the surrounding lands through the crusade, while the Mongol conquests reached the Middle East and Central Europe.
The French crusaders in Egypt were among the first Europeans to hear about Mongols in 1221. They received scrambled relationships which claimed that Chinggis Khan was a Christian Lord named “King David” who came to help the Crusaders. From the start, the Mongols woke up European hopes for Asian alliances.
When Mongols invaded Europe in the late 1230s, little in Europe knew who they were or what they wanted. To answer these questions, the kings of France, popes and other European leaders have collected as much information on Mongols as possible. The result was the “Mongolian archives”: the collection of documents produced or accommodated in Europe which described or referred to the Mongols.
Forgetting the past hopes of an alliance, the Europeans feared that the Mongols are allies of the devil or the antechrist which announced the apocalypse. He fell to the Catholic Church, whose clergy included educated, multilingual and experienced diplomats, to discover the truth about Mongols.
The first reports of the monks Jean de Plano Carpini (an Italian), Simon de Saint-Quentin (a French) and Rubruck describe everything, from the Mongolian law and from religion to dressed tactics and battle. These documents are among the most important sources we have on the medieval Mongolian company. After Europeans realized that Mongols were not monsters but people with a very different culture, they tried to convert them to Christianity and make them allies against Islam.
One of the best documented conversion attempts was that of King Louis IX. In 1249, he sent a tent in the form of a chapel, relics and other devotion objects to the Great Khan Guyuk. However, Guyuk died before the Embassy arrived. His widow, Oghul Qamish, sent an imperative response to Louis demanding more homage. A columnist tells us that the king regretted greatly regretted having sent the embassy.
Despite these failures, the French interest in the Mongols has endured. In 1291, the last bastion of the crusaders in the Middle East was captured by Muslim forces. Over the next 40 years, many treaties have been written advocating an alliance with the Mongols against the Islamic kingdoms for the recovery of the Holy Land. Many of these treaties have been written or held by the kings and the nobility of France.
In addition, in 1298, Marco Polo finished his book “The Description of the World”, which was the first European text to provide an in-depth description of the Far East. He wrote in a French dialect because he wanted an international public. The French monarchy and the nobility ordered some of the most beautiful copies of the Polo book.
In 1307, Hayton de Corycus, member of the Armenian royal family who fought on the side of the Mongols in Persia and the Middle East, wrote to them a history in French while remaining in Poitiers. His text has become another major reference on Mongols.
An illustration, based on the imagination of an author of the 15th century, of the polos kneeling in front of Kublai Khan and presenting him a cross and a Bible. Image via the National Library of France.
The French fascination for Mongols continued in the 14th century despite significant crises. In 1335, the Mongolian Khanate in Persia collapsed; In the 1330s and 1340s, the plague swept the Eurasia; And in 1368, the Mongolian kingdom in China, known as the Empire of the Yuan, fell. Even if the contact between France and Mongols was interrupted for decades, the French continued to read Jean de Plano Carpini, Marco Polo, Hayton, and the story of the Oodoric of the Pordenone, an Italian monk who had traveled through Asia in the 1320s.
In the 1350s, an enterprising writer who called Sir John Mandeville, and who claimed to be a pilgrim and a global mercenary, wrote a fictitious story of his trips in French. He has registered strongly on Plano Carpini, Hayton, Odoric and other sources on Mongols for his description of a fabulously rich and incredibly powerful Mongolian kingdom in the Far East. “Sir John Mandeville’s book” became the most popular source of Mongols in medieval Europe at the end and made sure they were not forgotten.
The last official contact between France and the Mongolian world in the Middle Ages occurred in 1403, when Archbishop Jean de Sultaniyeh went to Paris. John said that he came on behalf of Tamerlan, who had defeated the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid the previous year. If it seems unlikely that Tamerlan has approved the embassy, John’s visit is nevertheless significant because he composed a biography of Tamerlan in French.
John insisted that Tamerlan was a Mongoli, not a Turkish, and could therefore be an ally of France and Christianity. John thus relied on the long tradition of hope for the alliance with the Mongols. However, Tamerlan died in 1405 and, for the following century, the French – distracted by war and internal conflicts – were mainly concerned about internal and European affairs.
Although most of Europe has lost contact with Mongols in the 15th century, the European dream of renewing relations has lived for generations. Christopher Columbus was one of the many explorers who sought the rich Mongolian kingdoms described by Marco Polo and who hoped to convert Mongols to Christianity. In France, cartographers and navigators continued to read the polo shirt and other Mongolian texts until the 16th century. The medieval Mongolian archives had a deep influence on French maps and exploration, in particular because it led the French to believe that the colony in Canada would provide a direct path to the mythical riches of the Far East.
Mongols introduced medieval Europeans to an unknown Asia of their intellectual traditions. William of Rubruck wrote that when he met the Mongols for the first time, he felt like he was entering another world. While France and Mongolia celebrate 60 years of diplomatic relations, it is important to recall their deeper history, which was marked by fear, suspicion, curiosity, admiration and wonder.
The Franco-Mongolia relationship testifies to the advantages of dialogue, learning and openness among nations. He has enriched the two societies for centuries. May he continue to do so.