Abstract
Research objectives: To provide an analysis of the relations between the Jochids and the French monarch, Louis IX. Particular attention is dedicated to the channels used by the Tatars to obtain information about the political conditions in Western Europe. Research materials: Contemporary Western sources including the report of the Franciscan traveler, William of Rubruck, and German chronicles in which Berke’s embassy to the French king in 1260 has been recorded. Results and novelty of the study: The Tatar view of Medieval Europe is an insufficiently researched topic. In the decades that followed the Mongol invasion of Central Europe in 1241–1242, the accounts of Western travelers and chroniclers remain the sole material from which glimpses of the Jochid perspective of the Western world may be discerned. Nonetheless, fragmentary sources at our disposal reveal that the Jochids used Western travelers and envoys to learn more about the Christendom. In this way, the image of Louis IX as the leader of the Christian world was firmly entrenched among the Jochids by the early second half of the thirteenth century. It is attested by Berke’s mission sent to Paris in 1260, and also by testimony of William of Rubruck, recorded several years earlier. According to the Flemish Franciscan author, Batu’s son Sartak, who regarded Louis IX to be “the chief ruler among the Franks”, had heard about the French king from an earlier envoy from Constantinople, Baldwin of Hainaut. The report of Rubruck and other sources at our disposal indicate the importance of the rather neglected Jochid relations with the Latin empire of Constantinople as a channel through which the Tatars gathered valuable reports about the political conditions in the West.
Highlights
It was the unique attempt of the Jochids to force Louis IX into submission, and the only recorded instance of their mutual contacts, the Tatars in the Pontic steppes learned about the king of France and his prestige a long time before the Berke’s embassy took place
Considering the role of the Nestorian dignitaries in the previous contacts of the French king with the Mongol leadership in Persia, and their presence in the Sartak’s camp, it would be logical to assume that the reputation of Louis IX among the Jochids owed much to their efforts
He died on December 13, 1250, and his possessions in Germany and Southern Italy, as well as the titular crown of Jerusalem, passed to his son, Conrad IV (1250–1254). Due to his bitter struggle with the pope, Conrad IV was not able to assume the imperial crown, and technically, the throne remained vacant. Whether this fact was known to Sartak could be only guessed, but it may be argued that the Jochid prince, who insisted that the Louis IX was the “chief ruler among the Franks”, was more concerned with the practical disposition of power than with the formal Christian ruling hierarchy in which the emperor stood above kings, while Rubruck had obviously the latter in mind
Summary
It was the unique attempt of the Jochids to force Louis IX into submission, and the only recorded instance of their mutual contacts, the Tatars in the Pontic steppes learned about the king of France and his prestige a long time before the Berke’s embassy took place.
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