Overview

The devastation of Hungary and Poland by the Mongols in 1241-2 prompted Pope Innocent IV to dispatch embassies to the invaders, remonstrating with them and urging them to accept Christianity. The papal envoys were Friars – members of the two recently founded Mendicant Orders, the Franciscans and Dominicans, who were beginning frequently to serve as instruments of papal policy. Their reports represent the first detailed and largely accurate testimony produced by European Christians about a people, hitherto virtually unknown in the West, who had become masters of much of Asia. Early Missions to the Mongols (1245-1248) thus focuses on a watershed period in the relations of the Christian West with this new and formidable pagan power. It comprises translations of Pope Innocent’s letters, together with the limited information available to the papacy prior to 1245; the menacing replies brought back by the Friars; and their reports, which include narratives of their journeys and accounts of the Mongols and their vast empire. The translations are accompanied by introductory material setting the documents in their historical context and by a full commentary. The volume will be of interest not only to students and scholars working on the history of the Mongol empire, but also to those concerned with the early development of the Mendicant Orders, papal policy towards the non-Christian world, the relations between sedentary and nomadic societies in the Middle Ages, and the discovery by the Christian West of distant and extensive regions previously shrouded in myth and fantasy.

Full Product Details

Author:   Peter Jackson (Keele University, UK)
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint:   Routledge
Weight:   0.820kg
ISBN:  

9781032839745

ISBN 10:   1032839740
Pages:   342
Publication Date:   26 February 2026
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

General Introduction: The Rise of the Mongols and their Westward Campaigns of 1241-4 Section I: Intelligence Available to the Papal Curia by March 1245 Introduction 1. The Dominican Friar Julian to the Papal Legate in Hungary (1237/8) 2. King Béla IV of Hungary to Pope Gregory IX (18 May 1241) 3. A Hungarian bishop’s account of his interrogation of two Mongol scouts (c. 1239) 4. King Béla IV to the Curia (19 Jan. 1242) 5. The nobility, clergy and people of Hungary to the Curia (2 Feb. 1242) 6. Tractatus de ortu Tartarorum: the interrogation of the Russian ‘Archbishop’ Peter (1244/5) Section II: The Initiatives of Pope Innocent IV Introduction 7. Pope Innocent IV to the Patriarch of Aquileia (21 July 1243) 8. Excerpt from Niccolò da Calvi, Vita Innocentii IV 9. Pope Innocent IV to the king and nation of the Mongols: Dei patris immensa (5 March 1245) 10. Pope Innocent IV to the king and nation of the Mongols: Cum non solum (13 March 1245) Section III: The Papal Missions Introduction 11. The Hystoria Tartarorum of C. de Bridia (the ‘Tartar Relation’) 12. The Ystoria Mongalorum of John of Plano Carpini 13. Benedict the Pole, Relatio 14. Salimbene’s encounters with Carpini 15. Abstract of the report of André de Longjumeau 16(a). Excerpts from Vincent de Beauvais, Speculum Historiale 16(b). Excerpts by Vincent de Beauvais from the Historia Tartarorum of Simon de Saint Quentin Section IV: Responses and Aftermath Introduction 17. al-Manṣūr Ibrāhīm, prince of Ḥimṣ, to Pope Innocent IV ([22-31] December [1245]) 18. Ultimatum of the Qaghan Güyüg to Pope Innocent IV (November 1246) 19. The Nestorian cleric Simeon Rabban Ata to Pope Innocent IV (1247/8) 20. Pope Innocent IV to Baiju Noyan (22 November 1248)

Reviews

Author Information

Peter Jackson read History at St. John’s College, Cambridge, and obtained his BA in 1971 and his PhD in 1977. Following a Junior Research Fellowship at Churchill College, Cambridge, 1975-1979, he was appointed Lecturer in History at Keele University, retiring as Professor of Medieval History in 2011. He has published on the Crusades, on the Mongol empire and on its relations with Christian Western Europe, and was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2012.

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Countries Available

All regions