[Sidenote: Innocent IV's missions.]
To Innocent, however, is due the credit of inaugurating a new method of approaching Eastern nations. It was well known that Christians were to be found in the Mongolian armies; and the tolerant treatment accorded to them was construed as a favourable feeling towards Christianity itself. The truth was that for the purpose of reconciling all nations to their rule the Mongols tolerated all religions among their subjects. Already Mohammedanism and Buddhism competed with the Christianity of the Nestorians for the favour of the Tartar Princes. Their own religion has been characterised as a vague monotheism. Its lack of definiteness led the early missionaries in their enthusiasm to hope that its followers were in a state of mind to be easily persuaded of the superior claims of the Catholic faith. Anyhow there existed for some time quite an expectation in the West that the whole of Asia would one day acknowledge the spiritual rule of Rome. Pope Innocent, therefore, fully convinced of the friendly disposition of the Mongols, despatched two embassies to them. One was composed of John of Piano Carpini, a friend of St. Francis of Assisi, and three other Franciscans. From the Khan of Kipchak at the Golden Horde on the Volga they were passed on to the Great Khan, who ruled now from the old capital of the Karaïtes at Karakorum. Here they were received in friendly fashion by the newly elected Kuyuk, grandson of Ghenghiz. The other embassy, composed of four Dominicans, visited Persia; but they showed so much want of tact that their lives were endangered, and they returned with letters written in the name of the Great Khan, in which all princes of the earth were bidden to come and pay their homage. Immediately, then, these visits were without result; but they had opened the way for further communications.
[Sidenote: Louis IX's missions.]
It was known in the East that Louis IX of France was preparing to set out on crusade; so that when he halted with his army in Cyprus he was visited by an envoy purporting to come from Kuyuk and seeking an alliance against Mohammedans. Louis sent two Dominicans to a Christian monarch, as he supposed, armed with suitable presents; but Kuyuk was dead, and the presents were treated as tribute. Perhaps in consequence of this failure Louis turned his army against Egypt instead of Syria; but the envoys returned to find him after the disastrous Egyptian campaign in Palestine, where he spent four years. In consequence of their report he sent to Kuyuk's successor, Mangu, a Franciscan, William of Ruysbroek or Rubruquis. It was afterwards reported to the Pope that Mangu and another Tartar Prince had been converted. Such fabricated stories were only too common. Rubruquis has left us much information about the Tartar Court; but his public discussions before the Khan with Nestorians, Mohammedans and Buddhists led to no practical result.
[Sidenote: Tartars and Mohammedans.]
On the death of Mangu (1257) his dominions were divided between his two brothers. Hulagu, who became Khan of Persia, overthrew the Caliphate of Bagdad; but the further progress of the Mongol armies was stayed by the Mohammedan General, Bibars who, as a consequence of his success, shortly became Sultan of Egypt. Henceforth the Mongols of Persia constantly sought an alliance with the Christians of the West against the Mohammedans as represented by Egypt, the one Mohammedan power which as yet had opposed them with success. Thus in 1274, at the second Council of Lyons, two Persian envoys invited the cooperation of Christendom, and, perhaps by way of raising the expectations of such contact, submitted to baptism; but the hostility of Greeks and Latins and the selfish projects of Charles of Anjou prevented any response. The long anarchy in Egypt which followed the death of Bibars (1277) was too good an opportunity for the Mongols to lose; but Kelaun secured the power in Egypt in time to repeat the exploits of Bibars. But the remaining Latin princes in Syria had veered between the Mohammedans and Mongols, and Kelaun determined to complete the destruction of such an alien element. By 1291 the kingdom of Jerusalem was wiped out. Europe watched with comparative indifference the easy triumph of Mohammedanism. Not so the Mongols. Arghun, who became Khan of Persia in 1284, made three definite efforts towards an alliance which would mean a new crusade. In 1287 the Vicar of the Nestorian Patriarch of China brought letters to the Pope and visited the Kings of France and England; in 1289 a Genoese resident in Persia brought the news of Arghun's intended invasion of Syria and his professed desire for baptism; in 1290, to a yet more pressing call the Pope returned a somewhat hopeful answer. But it was too late. Arghun died in 1291, and although his eldest son, Ghazan, ultimately took up his father's projects and even decisively defeated the Egyptian army in Syria (1299), his losses forced him to return to Persia. It was reported that he had died a Christian and in the Franciscan habit, but there is no proof of this.
[Sidenote: Chinese missions.]
The more purely missionary efforts which were being made contemporaneously with the events just related, were directed chiefly to China which, on the death of Mangu, had fallen to the lot of Kublai Khan. The opportunity for these was opened out by the relations already established with the Mongolians on other grounds. The first missionaries found Nestorian Christians who were subjects and others who were captives acting as clerks, artisans and merchants at the Tartar Court. Besides these, others in search of fortune or adventure occasionally found their way from the West. Such were two Venetians, Nicolo and Maffeo Polo, who, having traded with the Tartars of the Golden Horde (1260), were led by force of circumstances further into Asia, until they reached China. Kublai sent them back to Europe with a request to the Pope for at least a hundred well-instructed persons who should initiate his subjects in Western lore. They returned practically alone; but Nicolo's son Marco accompanied them. They remained for seventeen years in the service of the Khan (1275-93), and Marco Polo has left a very celebrated account of his travels. This establishment of friendly feeling was followed by a definite mission of Franciscans, headed by John of Monte Corvino, who had already organised the missions in Persia. He was welcomed by Kublai's successor, and was allowed to preach. Despite the violent opposition of the Nestorians he made converts and built churches. In 1307 he became the first Archbishop of Cambaluc or Peking, while subsequently no less than ten suffragans were grouped under him. Scarcely less remarkable was the organisation in Persia of the archbishopric at Sultanyeh and six subordinate sees. But this development belongs almost entirely to the following period.