Thirty thousand Christian Alans at the Khan's court
Editorial contextAmong the Khan's great men, Marignolli counts more than thirty thousand Alans, a people from the Caucasus whom the Mongols had taken into their service, who were Christians 'in fact or in name' and called themselves the Pope's slaves. He also explains that the peoples of the East called all Western Europeans 'Franks'. The passage shows how mixed in religion and origin the Tartar empire's elite was.
The highest princes of the whole empire, more than thirty thousand, who are called Alans … are Christians, in fact or in name, and they call themselves the Pope's slaves, ready to die for the Franks; for so they call us, not from France but from 'Franquia'.
Working translation
Original wording
Summi eciam principes … Imperii tocius, plus quam triginta millia, qui vocantur Alani, … sunt Christiani, re vel nomine, & dicunt se Sclavos Pape, parati mori pro franquis, sic enim vocant nos, non a francia, sed a franquia.
About Alans serving the Tartar (Yuan) emperor
Keep in mind
The number is Marignolli's estimate, and he is keen to show the East as friendly to the Pope.
Baptisms at Kamul, on a promise of no church taxes
Editorial contextIn an aside on church tithes, Marignolli recalls that at Kamul (Hami), where there were 'many Tartars and other nations', converts refused baptism until the friars swore they would never demand anything worldly from them afterwards. Once the friars promised, and even helped the poor from their own funds, crowds of men and women were baptised. He uses the story to argue against forcing tithes on new converts.
where at first the converts would not be baptised until we swore that we would extract nothing worldly from them after baptism, but would rather provide for the needy from our own; which we did, and so a multitude of the city, of both sexes, received baptism most willingly.
Working translation
Original wording
ubi primo conversi nolebant baptizari, donec juravimus, nihil temporale post baptismum extorquere ab eis, ymo de nostro indigentibus providere, quod & fecimus, sic multitudo civitatis utriusque sexus baptismum libentissime receperunt.
About Tartars and other peoples of Kamul
Keep in mind
The mention of Tartars at Kamul is on the previous page (n144); conversion numbers are the missionary's own claim.
To Tartars, Latin Christians looked like idol-worshippers
Editorial contextIn a chapter on how idols began, Marignolli admits an uncomfortable fact he learned abroad: Jews, Tartars and Saracens, and even some Eastern Christians, think Western Christians are the worst idolaters. Eastern Christians honour painted images but loathe the carved faces and frightening sculptures found in Latin churches, such as those on Saint Adalbert's tomb in Prague.
Yet Jews, Tartars and Saracens judge us the worst of idolaters, and not only the heathen but even some Christians. For although those Christians venerate paintings, they abhor masks, faces and horrible sculptures such as there are in our churches, as can be seen at the tomb of Saint Adalbert in Prague.
Working translation
Original wording
Judei tamen, Tartari, & Sarraceni iudicant nos pessimos ydololatras, & non solum gentiles, sed eciam Christiani quidam. Nam licet illi Christiani venerentur picturas, abhominantur tamen larvas, facies, & horrendas sculpturas, sicut sunt in Ecclesiis: patet in sepulcro sancti Adalberti in Praga.
About Tartars (Mongols), alongside Jews and Muslims
Robes 'in the Tartar fashion'
Editorial contextRetelling the old legend of Queen Semiramis, who disguised herself as her son, Marignolli explains her disguise with clothing he had seen on his travels: robes 'in the Tartar fashion', wrapped over across the chest, with long sleeves, long skirts covering the feet and trousers for riding. The legend is classical; the comparison to Tartar dress is his own.
she devised for herself clothes made in the Tartar fashion, folded over across the chest so that her breasts would not show, with long sleeves so that a woman's hands would not be seen, long robes to cover the feet, and trousers for when she mounted a horse; and she ordered in her son's name that everyone should wear such clothing
Working translation
Original wording
ipsa invenit sibi vestes thartarico modo formatas, ante pectus replicatas, ne mamille apparerent, longas manicas, ne mulieris manus viderentur, longas vestes, ad cooperiendum pedes, bracas, quando equum ascendebat, & precepit nomine filii, quod omnes tali veste uterentur
About Tartars (Mongols), as a model for a dress style
Keep in mind
A legend about ancient Assyria; only the description of the 'Tartar fashion' reflects what he saw.
Lord of half the eastern world
Editorial contextMarignolli opens his travel memories by describing the ruler he was sent to: the Great Khan at Khanbaliq, 'supreme emperor of all the Tartars'. For this Florentine friar the Tartar ruler was not a tent chief but the master of countless cities, languages and peoples. The Khan was Toghon Temur, last Yuan emperor of China.
I was sent with apostolic letters and gifts as envoy and legate to the Khan, supreme emperor of all the Tartars, who holds lordship over almost half of the eastern world, whose power and wealth in cities, lands, languages, riches and rule over countless peoples is beyond all telling.
Working translation
Original wording
missus fui cum Apostolicis literis & donis nuncius & legatus ad Kaam, summum omnium Thartarorum Imperatorem, qui tenet quasi dominium medietatis orbis orientalis, cujus potestas & copia civitatum, terrarum, linguarum, diviciarum, & regiminis infinitorum quodammodo populorum excedit omnem narracionem.
About Tartars (the Mongol Yuan emperor and his empire)
Keep in mind
The printed text dates the departure 1334; the mission is otherwise dated to 1338, when Benedict XII answered the Khan's embassy.
Chinggis Khan hires the Alans to punish the world
Editorial contextIn his world history after Noah, Marignolli derives the Alans from Elam, son of Shem, calls them the noblest nation on earth, and says the Tartars won the Empire of the East only with their help. Chinggis Khan, 'first king of the Tartars', hired 72 of their princes when he set out, by God's command, to chastise the world. The Tartars are fitted into Bible history as God's scourge.
from whom [Elam] the noble race of the Alans in the East is said to have sprung; and it is today the greatest and noblest nation in the world, the handsomest and strongest men, with whose help the Tartars won the Empire of the East, and without whom they never won a glorious victory. For Chinggis Khan, first king of the Tartars, hired seventy-two of their princes when he wished, at God's command, to chastise the world.
Working translation
Original wording
a quo nobilis generacio Alanorum in oriente dicitur exorta, & est hodie maior & nobilior nacio mundi, & homines pulcriores, & forciores, quorum auxilio Tartari optinuerunt Imperium orientis, & sine quibus nunquam habuerunt victoriam gloriosam. Conduxit enim Cingwis Caam primus Thartarorum Rex de eis LXXII. principes, quando voluit precepto Dei castigare mundum.
About Tartars (Mongols) under Chinggis Khan, and the Alans
Keep in mind
Biblical genealogy plus praise of the Alans, who were in fact conquered by the Mongols in the 1220s and 1230s rather than hired by Chinggis.
The Tartars crossed the 'impassable' torrid zone
Editorial contextEast of Almaliq the legates reached wind-built 'mountains of sand' beyond which, Marignolli says, nobody before the Tartars believed there was habitable land. The Tartars crossed them into a vast plain that philosophers called the Torrid Zone and thought impassable; on the next page he adds that he crossed it twice himself. He is mixing a real desert crossing with the old scholarly theory of uninhabitable climate zones.
we came to the Cyollos Kagon, that is, to mountains of sand made by the winds, beyond which, before the Tartars, nobody thought there was habitable land, nor was it believed that any land lay beyond. But the Tartars, by God's will and with marvellous skill, crossed them and came into a vast plain, the place called the Torrid Zone, held by the philosophers to be impassable
Working translation
Original wording
pervenimus ad Cyollos Kagon, id est, ad montes arene, quos faciunt venti, ultra quos ante Tartaros nullus putavit terram habitabilem, nec putabatur ultra aliquam terram esse. Tartari autem voluntate Dei mirabili industria transierunt, & fuerunt in campo maximo, ubi dicitur Torrida Zona, & inpertransibilis a Philosophis
About Tartars (Mongols)
Keep in mind
The 'Torrid Zone' is a label from medieval theory, not a real description of a Central Asian desert.
A martyr's prophecy against the Tartars of Sarai
Editorial contextMarignolli names the Franciscans killed at Almaliq the year before he arrived and credits one of them, Pascal the Spaniard, with visions and prophecies: that the Tartars of Sarai on the Volga would be destroyed by a flood, that Almaliq would perish, and that the ruler would be killed three days after the martyrdom. He presents the dead friars as holy martyrs 'shining with miracles'.
Brother Pascal the Spaniard, who was a prophet, saw heaven opened and foretold martyrdom for himself and his companions, and that the Tartars of Sarai would be destroyed by a flood, that Almaliq would perish because of their martyrdom, and that that emperor would be killed on the third day after their martyrdom
Working translation
Original wording
frater Paschalis Hyspanus, qui fuit Propheta, & vidit celum apertum, & predixit sibi, & Sociis suis martirium, & Thartaros de Saray destruendos diluvio, Armalec perituram, propter ipsorum martirium, Imperatorem illum tercio die occidendum post ipsorum martirium
About Tartars of Sarai (Golden Horde) and of Almaliq (Chagatai khanate)
Keep in mind
Pious report: Marignolli arrived after the killings and repeats what the local friars remembered.
An editor moves Almaliq and Sarai to Japan
Editorial contextFaced with unfamiliar names, the Prague editor Gelasius Dobner trusted a Franciscan martyrology that placed the martyrs 'in Japan' and concluded that Almaliq and Sarai were Japanese islands, Sarai being 'Sayrock Xymo' (probably Kyushu, which Jesuit writers called 'Saicoku' or 'Ximo'). In fact Almaliq lay in the Ili valley of Central Asia and Sarai on the lower Volga. By the eighteenth century the geography of the medieval Tartar empires had become hazy even for scholars.
And since the Martyrology of Saint Francis says they suffered in Japan, Almaliq was most probably one of the islands of Japan, just as Sarai, named just above, is most probably the present-day island of Sayrock Xymo, one of the three chief islands of Japan in the eastern Ocean.
Working translation
Original wording
Et cum Martyrologium S. Francisci Seraphici dicat eos passos in Japonia, verosimillime Armalec una ex insulis fuit Japonie, quemadmodum mox supra nominata Saray verosimillime est hodierna insula Sayrock Xymo una inter tres precipuas Japonie insulas in Oceano orientali.
About Editor's note on the Tartar cities of Almaliq and Sarai
Keep in mind
The editor's error, not Marignolli's.