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| Subtitle | Narratives and Letters of the Franciscan Missionaries in Mongolia and China in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries |
| Editor | Charles Dawson |
| First Written | 1245 |
| Genre | Travel |
| Origin | Mongolia |
| Publisher | Harper & Row |
| My Copy | First paperback edition |
| First Read | February 07, 2010 |
| Collections |
Mission to Asia
So I read this mostly to read "The Journey of Friar William of Rubrick", a French priest who traveled to the Mongol court in 1253-3. Turns out it's a fun read. William writes an honest travelogue addressed to Louis King of France, and sneakingly funny in that thirteenth-century way. He makes his way across the known world to the Mongol territories, and along the way he: - suffers extreme cold, hunger and thirst, - discovers his translator is making things up instead of translating, - goes toe-to-toe with border ruffians - breezes by the edge of Prester John's kingdom, - refuses gifts of gold and silver at every stop, and - develops a taste for fermented horse milk. In short, adds himself to my list of travel heroes.
Noted on February 16, 2010
At the entrance to this palace, seeing it would have been unseemly to put skins of milk and other drinks there, Master William of Paris has made for him a large silver tree, at the foot of which are four silver lions each having a pipe and all belching forth white mares milk. Inside the trunk four pipes lead up to the top of the tree and the ends of the pipes are bent downwards and over each of them is a giided serpent, the tail of which twines round the trunk of the tree. One of these pipes pours out wine, another caracosmos, that is the refined milk of mares, another boal, which is a honey drink, and another rice mead, which is called terracina. Each of these has its silver basin ready to receive it at the foot of the tree between the other four pipes.
At the very top he fashioned an angel holding a trumpet; underneath the tree he made a crypt in which a man can be secreted, and a pipe goes up to the angel through the middle of the heart of the tree. At first he had made bellows but they did not give enough wind. Outside the palace there is a chamber in which the drinks are stored, and servants stand there ready to pour them out when they hear the angel sounding the trumpet. The tree has branches, leaves and fruit of silver.
And so when the drinks are getting low the chief butler calls out to the angel to sound his trumpet. Then, hearing this, the man who is hidden in the crypt blows the pipe going up to the angel with all his strength, and the angel, placing the trumpet to his mouth, sounds it very loudly. When the servants in the chamber hear this each one of them pours out his drink into its proper pipe, and the pipes pour them out from above and below into the basins prepared for this, and then the cup-bearers draw the drinks and carry them round the palace to the men and women.
Quoted on April 30, 2025
[ Prester John shows up ]
... this Nestorian set himself up as king and the Nestorians called him King John, and they used to tell of him ten times more than the truth.
Quoted on April 30, 2025
[ Love it when you can't trust your interpreters]
But the thing which annoyed me above all else was that when I wished to speak to them some words of edification, my interpreter would say: "Don't make me preach for I don't know how to say such words." And he spoke the truth, for later when I began to understand the language somewhat, I realized that when I said one thing he would say something completely different, according to whatever came into his mind.
Quoted on April 30, 2025
It is written of the Wise Man of Ecclisiasticus: "He shall pass into strange countries, he shall try good and evil in all things." This I have fulfilled, my Lord King, but would that it were as a wise man and not a fool.
Quoted on April 30, 2025
... our guide gave us cosmos [fermented mare's milk] to drink, and as I drank it I sweated all over from fright and the novelty of it, for I had never before drunk of it. However it struck me as being very tasty, as in truth it is.
Quoted on February 16, 2010
When we arrived among those barbarians, it seemed to me, as I have already said, as if I were stepping into another world.
Quoted on February 16, 2010