Caprine conqueror3/25/2023 His formal election in a great Kurultai, or diet of the tribes, took place while the friars were at Sira Orda, which entailed the gathering of 3000 to 4000 envoys and deputies from all parts of Asia and eastern Europe, bearing homage, tribute and presents. Since the death of Ögedei Khan, the imperial authority was in interregnum and Güyük, Ögedei's eldest son, was designated to the throne. Giovanni and his companions rode an estimated 3000 miles in 106 days. Then they went along the shores of the Dzungarian lakes until, on the feast of St Mary Magdalene (22 July), they reached the imperial camp called Sira Orda (i.e., Yellow Pavilion), near Karakorum and the Orkhon River. Their bodies were tightly bandaged so they could endure the excessive fatigue of this enormous ride, which took them across the Jaec or Ural River, and north of the Caspian Sea and the Aral to the Jaxartes or Syr Darya ( quidam fluvius magnus cujus nomen ignoramus, "a big river whose name we do not know"), and the Muslim cities that then stood on its banks. They were "so ill", writes the legate, "that we could scarcely sit a horse and throughout all that Lent our food had been nought but millet with salt and water, and with only snow melted in a kettle for drink". On Easter day once more (8 April 1246), they started on the second and most formidable part of their journey. ĭrawing of Giovanni da Pian del Carpine meeting with The Great Khan of the Mongol Empireīatu ordered them to proceed to the court of the supreme Khan in Mongolia. Here the envoys, with their presents, had to pass between two fires to remove possible injurious thoughts and poisons, before being presented to the prince (beginning of April 1246). He was one of the most senior princes of the house of Genghis Khan. On the Volga stood the Ordu, or camp, of Batu, the famous conqueror of eastern Europe and supreme Mongol commander on the western frontiers of the empire. Giovanni is the first Westerner to give us the modern names for these rivers. The route passed by Kyiv, entered the Tatar posts at Kaniv, and then ran across the Nepere to the Don and Volga. After seeking counsel of an old friend, Wenceslaus, king of Bohemia, Giovanni was joined at Wrocław by another Franciscan, Benedykt Polak, appointed to act as interpreter. "At the age of sixty-three Carpini embarked from Lyon," where the Pope then resided, on Easter day (16 April 1245), accompanied by another friar, Stephen of Bohemia, who broke down at Kaniv near Kyiv and was left behind. As a papal legate, he bore a letter from the Pope to the Great Khan, Cum non solum. Pope Innocent IV chose Giovanni to head this mission, and apparently was in charge of nearly everything in the mission. The missionaries were sent partly in protest at the Mongol invasion of Christendom and partly to gain information regarding the Khan's intentions and military strength. In Europe, dread of the " Tatars" (Mongols) was still widespread four years later, when Pope Innocent IV decided to dispatch the first formal Catholic mission to the Mongols. The defeat of European forces at Legnica almost led to Ögedei, Khan of the Mongol Empire, controlling most of Eastern Europe. Giovanni was a provincial of Germany at the time of the great Mongol invasion of eastern Europe and the Battle of Legnica (modern Legnickie Pole) on 9 April 1241. He may also have held positions in Barbary and Cologne, and been provincial of Spain. Highly esteemed within the Franciscan order, Giovanni had a prominent role in the propagation of its teachings in northern Europe, holding in succession the offices of warden ( custos) in Saxony and provincial ( minister) of Germany. He was one of the companions and disciples of his near-contemporary and countryman Saint Francis of Assisi. His surname was derived from Pian del Carpine (literally " Hornbeam Plain"), an area known later as Magione, between Perugia and Cortona. Giovanni appears to have been a native of Umbria, in central Italy. He was the Primate of Serbia, based in Antivari, from 1247 to 1252. He is the author of the earliest important Western account of northern and Central Asia, Rus, and other regions of the Mongol dominion. Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, variously rendered in English as John of Pian de Carpine, John of Plano Carpini or Joannes de Plano (c. 1185 – 1 August 1252), was a medieval Italian diplomat, archbishop and explorer and one of the first Europeans to enter the court of the Great Khan of the Mongol Empire. His route is indicated, railroad track style, in dark blue John of Plano Carpini's great journey to the East.
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