The Journey of William of Rubruck to the Eastern Parts of the World, 1253-55

As Narrated by Himself. With Two Accounts of the Earlier Journey of John of Pian de Carpine

William Woodville Rockhill, William Woodville Rockhill

• Publisher: Hakluyt Society
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317026587
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire antique

The texts of Willem van Ruusbroec and Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, translated from the Latin and edited, with an Introductory Notice. See also Second Series 173. This is a new print-on-demand hardback edition of the volume first published in 1900.

THE
JOURNEY TO THE
EASTERN PARTS OF THE WORLD,
OF
FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK,
OF THE ORDER OF MINOR FRIARS,
IN THE YEAR OF GRACE MCCLIII

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(213)

TO the most excellent lord and most Christian Louis, by the grace of God illustrious King of the French, from Friar William of Rubruck, the meanest in the order of Minor Friars, greetings, and may he always triumph in Christ. It is written in Ecclesiasticus of the Wise man: “He shall go through the land of foreign peoples, and shall try the good and evil in all things.”¹ This, my lord King, have I done, and may it have been as a wise man and not as a fool; for many do what the wise man doth, though not wisely, but most foolishly; of this number I fear I may be. Nevertheless in whatever way (214) I may have done, since you commanded me when I took my leave of you that I should write you whatever I should see among the Tartars, and you did also admonish me not to fear writing a long letter, so I do what you enjoined on me, with fear, however, and diffidence, for the proper words that I should write to so great a monarch do not suggest themselves to me.

Be it known then to your Sacred Majesty that in the year of our Lord one thousand CCLIII, on the nones of May (7th May), I entered the Sea of Pontus, which is commonly called Mare Majus, or the Greater Sea,¹ and it is one thousand CCCC miles in length,² as I learnt from merchants, and is divided as it were into two parts. For about the middle of it there are two points of land, the one in the north and the other in the south. That which is in the south is called Sinopolis, and is a fortress and a port of the Soldan of Turkia; while that which is in the north is a certain province now called by the Latins Gazaria,¹ but by the Greeks who inhabit along its sea coast it is called Cassaria, which is Cesaria. And there are certain promontories projecting out into the sea to the south toward Sinopolis; and there are three hundred miles between Sinopolis and Cassaria, and so there are seven hundred miles from these points to Constantinople in length and breadth, and seven hundred to the east, which is Hyberia, that is to say, the province of Georgia.

So we made sail for the province of Gazaria, or Cassaria, which is about triangular in shape, having on its west side a city called Kersona,² where Saint Clement was martyred. And as we were sailing past it we saw (215) an island on which is a temple said to have been built by angelic hands.¹ In the middle, at the summit of the triangle as it were, on the south side, is a city called Soldaia,² which looketh across towards Sinopolis; and thither come all the merchants arriving from Turkia who wish to go to the northern countries, and likewise those coming from Roscia and the northern countries who wish to pass into Turkia. The latter carry vaire and minever, and other costly furs;¹ the others (the former) carry cloths of cotton or bombax,² silk stuffs and sweet-smelling spices.³ To the east of this province is a city called Matrica,⁴ where the river Tanais falls into the sea of Pontus, through an opening xii miles wide. For this river, before it enters the sea of Pontus, forms a kind of sea to the north which has a width and breadth of seven hundred miles, with nowhere a depth of over six paces,¹ so large vessels do not enter it, but the merchants of Constantinople who visit the said city of Matrica send their barks as far as the River Tanais² to buy dried fish, such as sturgeon, barbel and tench,³ and other fishes in infinite varieties. The said province of Cassaria is therefore encompassed by the sea on three sides: to wit, on the west, where is Kersona, the city of Clement, and to the south where is the city of Soldaia, to which we were steering, and (216) which makes the apex of the province, and to the east by the sea of Tanais. Beyond this opening is Zikuia,⁴ which does not obey the Tartars, and to the east (of that) are the Suevi¹ and Hiberi,² who do not obey the Tartars. After that, to the south, is Trapesund, which hath its own lord, Guido by name, who is of the family of the emperors of Constantinople, and he obeyeth the Tartars.³ After that is the country of Vastacius, whose son is called Ascar after his maternal grandfather,¹ and who is not subject (to them). From the opening (of the sea) of Tanais to the west as far as the Danube all is theirs (i.e., the Tartars’), even beyond the Danube towards Constantinople, Blakia,² which is the land of Assan,³ and minor Bulgaria as far as Sclavonia, all pay them tribute; and besides the regular tribute, they have taken in the past few years from each house one axe and all the iron which they found unwrought.⁴

We arrived then in Soldaia on the 12th of the calends of June (May 2ist), and there had preceded us certain merchants of Constantinople, who had said that envoys from the Holy Land were coming who (217) wished to go to Sartach.¹ I had, however, publicly preached on Palm Sunday (April 12th) in Saint Sophia that I was not an envoy, neither yours nor anyone’s, but that I was going among these unbelievers according to the rule of our order. So when I arrived these said merchants cautioned me to speak guardedly, for they had said that I was an envoy, and if I said I was not an envoy I would not be allowed to pass. So I spoke in the following way to the captains of the city, or rather to the substitutes of the captains, for the captains had gone to Baatu during the winter bearing the tribute, and had not yet returned: “We have heard say in the Holy Land that your Lord Sartach is a Christian,² and greatly were the Christians rejoiced thereat, and chiefly so the most Christian lord the King of the French, who has come thither on a pilgrimage and is fighting against the Saracens³ to wrench the holy places from out their hands: it is for this I wish to go to Sartach, and carry to him the letters of the lord king, in which he admonisheth him of the weal of all Christendom.” And they received us right favourably, and gave us lodgings in the episcopal church. And the bishop of this church had been to Sartach, and he told me much good of Sartach, which I later on did not discover myself.

Then they gave us the choice whether we would have carts with oxen to carry our effects, or sumpter horses. (218) And the merchants of Constantinople advised me to take carts, and that I should buy the regular covered carts such as the Ruthenians carry their furs in,¹ and in these I could put such of our things as I would not wish to unload every day; should I take horses it would be necessary to unload them at each stopping-place and to load other horses; and furthermore I should be able to ride more slowly following the gait of the oxen. Then I accepted their advice, unfortunately, however, for I was two months on the way to Sartach, which I might have travelled in one had I gone with horses.

I had brought with me from Constantinople, on the advice of merchants, fruits, muscadel wine and dainty biscuits to present to the first captains (of the Tartars), so that my way might be made easier, for among them no one is looked upon in a proper way who comes with empty hands. All these things I put in one of the carts, since I had not found the captains of the city, and I was told they would be most acceptable to Sartach if I could carry them to him that far. We set out on our journey about the calends of June (1st June) with our four covered carts and two others which were lent us by them and in which was carried bedding to sleep on at night. And they gave us also five horses to ride, for us five persons, myself, and my companion Friar Bartholomew of Cremona, and Gosset the bearer (219) of the presents, and Homo Dei the dragoman,¹ and the boy Nicholas whom I had bought at Constantinople by means of your charity.² They gave us also two men who drove the carts and looked after the oxen and horses.

Now from Kersona all the way to the mouth of the Tanais there are high promontories along the sea, and there are forty hamlets between Kersona and Soldaia, nearly every one of which has its own language; among them were many Goths, whose language is Teutonic.¹

Beyond these mountains to the north is a most beautiful orest,² in a plain full of springs and rivulets, and beyond this forest is a mighty plain which stretches out for five days to the border of this province to the north, where it contracts, having the sea to the east and the west, so that there is a great ditch from one sea to the other.³ In this plain used to live Comans⁴ before the Tartars came, and they forced the cities referred to and the forts to pay them tribute; but when the Tartars came¹ such a multitude of Comans entered this province, all of whom fled to the shore of the sea, that they ate one another, the living the dying, as was told me by a certain merchant who saw it, the living devouring and tearing with their teeth the raw flesh of the dead, as dogs do corpses. Toward the end of this province are many and large lakes, on whose shores are brine springs, the water of which as soon as it enters the lake is turned into salt as hard as ice. And from these brine springs Baatu and Sartach derive great revenues, for from all Ruscia they come thither for salt, and for each cartload they give two pieces of cotton worth half an yperpera. There come there also by sea many ships for salt, and all contribute according to the (220) quantity (they take).²

After having left Soldaia we came on the third day across the Tartars, and when I found myself among them it seemed to me of a truth that I had been transported into another century. I will describe to you as well as I can their mode of living and manners.

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NOWHERE have they fixed dwelling-places, nor do they know where their next will be. They have divided among themselves Cithia,¹ which extendeth from the Danube to the rising of the sun; and every captain, according as he hath more or less men under him, knows the limits of his pasture lands and where to graze in winter and summer, spring and autumn. For in winter they go down to warmer regions in the south: in summer they go up to cooler towards the north. The pasture lands without water they graze over in winter when there is snow there, for the snow serveth them as water.² They set up the dwelling in which they sleep on a circular frame of interlaced sticks converging into a little round hoop on the top, from which projects above a collar as a chimney, and this (framework) they cover over with white felt. Frequently they coat the felt with chalk, or white clay, or powdered bone, to make it appear whiter, and sometimes also (they make the felt) black. The felt around this collar on top they decorate with various pretty designs. Before the entry they also suspend felt (221) ornamented with various embroidered designs in color. For they embroider the felt, colored or otherwise, making vines and trees, birds and beasts.¹

And they make these houses so large that they are sometimes thirty feet in width. I myself once measured the width between the wheel-tracks of a cart xx feet, and when the house was on the cart it projected beyond the wheels on either side v feet at least. I have myself counted to one cart xxii oxen drawing one house, eleven abreast across the width of the cart, and the other eleven before them. The axle of the cart was as large as the mast of a ship, and one man stood in the entry of the house on the cart driving the oxen.¹

Furthermore they weave light twigs into squares of the size of a large chest, and over it from one end to the other they put a turtle-back also of twigs, and in the front end they make a little doorway; and then they cover this coffer or little house with black felt coated with tallow or ewe’s milk, so that the rain cannot penetrate it, and they decorate it likewise with embroidery work. And in such coffers they put all their bedding and valuables, and they tie them tightly on high carts drawn by camels, so that they can cross rivers (without getting wet). Such...