It was not for three months after this, in November, that the Emperor dismissed them with a letter to the Pope written in Latin, Arabic, and Mongolian, but containing only a brief imperious assertion that the Khan of the Tartars was the scourge of God for Christianity, and that he must fulfill his mission. Then sad at heart, the ambassadors began their homeward journey in the midst of the winter. Their sufferings can be better imagined than described, but Friar John who does not dwell on them much tells enough of them to make their realization comparatively easy. They reached Kiev seven months later, in June, and were welcomed there by the Slavonic Christians as though arisen from the dead. From thence they continued their journey to Lyons where they delivered the Khan's letter to the Pope.
Friar John embodied the information that he had obtained in this journey in a book that has been called Liber Tartarorum (the Book of the Tartars or according to another manuscript, History of the Mongols whom we call Tartars). Col. Yule notes that like most of the other medieval monks' itineraries, it shows an entire absence of that characteristic traveler's egotism with which we have become abundantly familiar in more recent years, and contains very little personal narrative. We know that John was a stout man and this in addition to his age when he went on the mission, cannot but make us realize the thoroughly unselfish spirit with which he followed the call of Holy Obedience, to undertake a work that seemed sure to prove fatal and that would inevitably bring in its train suffering of the severest kind. Of the critical historical value of his work a good idea can be obtained from the fact, that half a century ago an educated Mongol, Galsang Gombeyev, in the Historical and Philological Bulletin of the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg, reviewed the book and bore testimony to the great accuracy of its statements, to the care with which its details had been verified, and the evident personal character of all its observations.
Friar John's book attracted the attention of compilers of information with regard to distant countries very soon after it was issued, and an abridgment of it is to be found in the Encyclopedia of Vincent of Beauvais, which was written shortly [{403}] after the middle of the Thirteenth Century. At the end of the Sixteenth Century Hakluyt published portions of the original work, as did Borgeron at the beginning of the Seventeenth Century. The Geographical Society of Paris published a fine edition of the work about the middle of the Nineteenth Century, and at the same time a brief narrative taken down from the lips of John's companion. Friar Benedict the Pole, which is somewhat more personal in its character and fully substantiates all that Friar John had written.
As can readily be understood the curiosity of his contemporaries was deeply aroused and Friar John had to tell his story many times after his return. Hence the necessity he found himself under of committing it to paper, so as to save himself from the bother of telling it all over again, and in order that his brother Franciscans throughout the world might have the opportunity to read it.
Col. Yule says "The book must have been prepared immediately after the return of the traveler, for the Friar Salimbene, who met him in France in the very year of his return (1247) gives us these interesting particulars: 'He was a clever and conversable man, well lettered, a great discourser, and full of diversity of experience. He wrote a big book about the Tartars (sic), and about other marvels that he had seen and whenever he felt weary of telling about the Tartars, he would cause this book of his to be read, as I have often heard and seen. (Chron. Fr. Salembene Parmensis in Monum. Histor. ad Provinceam Placent: Pertinentia, Parma 1857).'"
Another important traveler of the Thirteenth Century whose work has been the theme of praise and extensive annotation in modern times was William of Rubruk, usually known under the name of Rubruquis, a Franciscan friar, thought, as the result of recent investigations, probably to owe his cognomen to his birth in the little town of Rubruk in Brabant, who was the author of a remarkable narrative of Asiatic travel during the Thirteenth Century, and whose death seems to have taken place about 1298. The name Rubruquis has been commonly used to designate him because it is found in the Latin original of his work, which was printed by Hayluyt in his collection of Voyages at the end of the [{404}] Sixteenth Century. Friar William was sent partly as an ambassador and partly as an explorer by Louis IX. of France into Tartary. At that time the descendants of Jenghis Khan ruled over an immense Empire in the Orient and King Louis was deeply interested in introducing Christianity into the East and if possible making their rulers Christians. About the middle of the Thirteenth Century a rumor spread throughout Europe that one of the nephews of the great Khan had embraced Christianity. St. Louis thought this a favorable opportunity for getting in touch with the Eastern Potentate and so he dispatched at least two missions into Tartary at the head of the second of which was William of Rubruk.
His accounts of his travels proved most interesting reading to his own and to many subsequent generations, perhaps to none more than our own. The Encyclopedia Britannica (ninth edition) says that the narrative of his journey is everywhere full of life and interest, and some details of his travels will show the reasons for this. Rubruk and his party landed on the Crimean Coast at Sudak or Soldaia, a port which formed the chief seat of communication between the Mediterranean countries and what is now Southern Russia. The Friar succeeded in making his way from here to the Great Khan's Court which was then held not far from Karakorum. This journey was one of several thousand miles. The route taken has been worked out by laborious study and the key to it is the description given of the country intervening between the basin of the Talas and Lake Ala-Kul. This enables the whole geography of the region, including the passage of the River Ili, the plain south of the Bal Cash, and the Ala-Kul itself, to be identified beyond all reasonable doubt.
The return journey was made during the summertime, and the route lay much farther to the north. The travelers traversed the Jabkan Valley and passed north of the River Bal Cash, following a rather direct course which led them to the mouth of the Volga. From here they traveled south past Derbend and Shamakii to the Uraxes, and on through Iconium to the coast of Cilicia, and finally to the port of Ayas, where they embarked for Cyprus. All during his travels Friar William made observations on men and cities, and rivers and mountains, and [{405}] languages and customs, implements and utensils, and most of these modern criticism has accepted as representing the actual state of things as they would appear to a medieval sightseer. Occasionally during the period intervening between his time and our own, scholars who thought that they knew better, have been conceited enough to believe themselves in a position to point out glaring errors in Rubruquis' accounts of what he saw. Subsequent investigation and discovery have, as a rule, proved the accuracy of the earlier observations rather than the modern scholar's corrections. An excellent example of this is quoted in the Encyclopedia Britannica article on Rubruquis already referred to.