RUBRUQUIS, WILLIAM DE, made a journey in A.D. 1253-1256 to Kara-korum, in the reign of Louis ix. of Fra.nce, and of Mangu Khan, the grandson of Chengiz Khan.
While St. Louis of France was engaged in the seventh crusade, A.D.,1218-50, and the lieutenants of Octai or Okkadai Khan were at the same time attacking the Saracens from the side of Persia, the Tartars and the Crusaders became united in a common interest. To c6rent their connection, the general who commanded the Tartar forces in Persia sent an embassy to the French king, ex pressing the respect he felt for Christianity, and recommending that they should make cormion cause against their Saracen enemies. A French embassy was at once sent into Persia ; and at the same time the pious St. Louis, anxious to lose no opportunity, sent the Minorite yriar William de Rubruquis to the Tartar chief Sartakh, whose territories bordered on the Black Sea. From Constantinople, Rubruquis sailed to Soldaia in the Crimea, one of the entrepots at that time of the Black Sea trade in Russian furs, and Indian spices, drugs, and silks, through Constantinople, with the rest of Europe ; and thence he journeyed northward through the region of Comania,.until he came to the camp of Sartakh, by whom he was sent on to the court of his father Batou at Sara. or Sarai. Here he was furnished with a guide to the court of Mangu, who had succeeded his cousin Kuyuk as Khakan or Great Khan at Kara-korum, on the verge of the great Mongolian desert. From
the Mongol capital he returned to the court of Baton on the Volga, and thence to Europe, not by the Crimea, but over the Caucasus, through the country of the Lesgi (Lesghis) and Gurgi (Georgians), Armenia, and Iconium, where he had an interview with the Ottoman Sultan, and by the Cilician port of Ayas to Cyprus, where, at Nicosia, he found his provincial.
Rubruquis described Turkey (i.e. the kingdom of Iconium) at this time as having 'no treasure, few warriors, and many enemies.' He also strongly deprecated the systern of sending poor friars like himself as ambassadors to the Great Khan, with out office, presents, or any of the things that command the favour and respect of the profane. From his report, Nestorian Christians abounded at . the courts and in the territories, as well of Batou Khan as of his superior Mangu Khan ; that they had great influence with many at court, especially with the wives and daughters of these and other chiefs. Rubruquis relates that the reply of Mangu Khan to the letter of king Louis was written in the Mongolian language, but in the character of the Jugures or Chakars, which had been intro duced by Nestorian Christians, and was derived from the Syrian, but written in lines down the page, commencing from the left. Mongolian is so written at the present day. —Prinsep's Tibet, Tar tary, and Mongolia.