William of Rubruck (Dutch:Willem van Rubroeck;Latin:Gulielmus de Rubruquis;fl. 1248–1255) orGuillaume de Rubrouck was a FlemishFranciscan missionary and explorer.
He is best known for his travels to various parts of the Middle East and Central Asia in the 13th century, including theMongol Empire. His account of his travels is one of the masterpieces of medievaltravel literature, comparable to those ofMarco Polo andIbn Battuta.
William was born inRubrouck,Flanders.[a] In 1248, he accompanied KingLouis IX of France on theSeventh Crusade. On 7 May 1253, on Louis' orders, he set out on a missionary journey to convert theTatars to Christianity.[1] He first stopped inConstantinople to confer withBaldwin of Hainaut, who had recently returned from a trip toKarakorum, the capital of theMongol Empire, on behalf ofBaldwin II, Latin Emperor.[citation needed] There, William received letters to some of the Tatar chiefs from the emperor.[2]
William then followed the route of the first journey of the HungarianFriar Julian, and in Asia that of the Italian FriarGiovanni da Pian del Carpine. With William's party were Bartolomeo da Cremona, an attendant called Gosset, and an interpreter named in William's report asHomo Dei, meaning "man of God", perhaps representing the ArabicAbdullah, "servant of God".[citation needed] William's was the fourth European mission to the Mongols: previous ones had been led by Giovanni da Pian del Carpine andAscelin of Lombardia in 1245 andAndré de Longjumeau in 1249. The King had been encouraged to send another mission by reports of the presence of Nestorian Christians at the Mongolian court, but because of an earlier rebuff he declined to send a formal mission.[2]
After reaching theCrimean town ofSudak, William continued his trek withoxen and carts. Nine days after crossing theDon, he metSartaq Khan, next ruler of theKipchak Khanate. The Khan sent William on to his father,Batu Khan, atSarai near theVolga River. Five weeks later, after the departure from Sudak, he reached the encampment of Batu Khan, Mongol ruler of the Kipchak Khanate and Volga River region. William is said to have taken an aggressive approach with Batu, promising him eternal damnation and everlasting fire should he not convert.[3] Batu was offended by William's preaching and reportedly saw it as a threat.[3] Batu refused conversion but sent the ambassadors on to theGreat Khan of the Mongols,Möngke Khan.
William and his travelling companions set off on horseback on 16 September 1253 on a 9,000-kilometre (5,600 mi) journey to the court of the Great Khan atKarakorum in modern-dayMongolia. Arriving in late December they were received courteously, and he was given an audience on 4 January 1254.[4] William's account provided an extensive description of the city's walls, markets and temples, and the separate quarters for Muslim and Chinese craftsmen among a surprisingly cosmopolitan population. He also visited the court of the Vastacius (Empire of Nicaea) during the feast day ofFelicitas and met Nicaean envoys during his travels. Among the Europeans he encountered were the nephew of an English bishop, a woman from Lorraine who cooked William's Easter dinner, andGuillaume Boucher, a French silversmith who was making ornaments for the Khan's women and altars for theNestorian Christians.[5][6] William is highly critical of Nestorians in his accounts, believing them to be heretical.[3]
William's party stayed at the Khan's camp until 10 July 1254, when they began their long journey back home. After spending two weeks in late September with Batu Khan, and Christmas atNakhchivan in present-dayAzerbaijan, he and his companions reached theCounty of Tripoli on 15 August 1255.[2]
On his return, William presented to King Louis IX a very clear and precise report, entitledItinerarium fratris Willielmi de Rubruquis de ordine fratrum Minorum, Galli, Anno gratiae 1253 ad partes Orientales. William's report is divided into 40 chapters. Chapters 1–10 relate general observations about the Mongols and their customs, while chapters 11–40 give an account of the course and the events of William's voyage.
In the report, he described the peculiarities of the Mongol Empire as well as many geographical observations. There were also anthropological observations, such as his surprise at the presence ofIslam inInner Asia.[9] William was critical of the Hellenic traditions he encountered among the Christians of the formerByzantine Empire, including the Nicaean celebration of a feast day for Felicitas, which he reports was known toJohn III Doukas Vatatzes through the alleged possession of the second half ofOvid's incompleteBook of Days.[10]
William also answered a long-standing question in demonstrating by his passage north of theCaspian Sea that it was an inland sea and did not flow into theArctic Ocean; although earlier Scandinavian explorers likeIngvar the Far-Travelled had extensive knowledge of the region, William was the first to answer the question in written form.
William's report is one of the great masterpieces of medieval geographical literature, comparable to that ofMarco Polo, although they are very different. William was a good observer and an excellent writer. He asked many questions along the way and did not take folk tales and fables as literal truth.[citation needed] He showed a great facility with language, noting the similarities between those he encountered and those European languages he already knew.[11]
In May 1254, during his stay among the Mongols, William entered into a famous competition at the Mongol court, as the khan encouraged a formal theological debate between the Christians, Buddhists, and Muslims, in order to determine which faith was correct, as determined by three judges, one from each faith.[12] A Chinese person participated with William in the competition.[13]
Roger Bacon, William's contemporary and fellow-Franciscan, cited the traveller copiously in hisOpus Majus, and described him as "Brother William through whom the lord King of France sent a message to the Tartars in 1253 AD ...who traveled to regions in the east and north and attached himself to the midst of these places, and wrote of the above to the illustrious king; which book I carefully read and with his permission expounded on".[b] After Bacon, however, William's narrative seems to have dropped out of sight untilRichard Hakluyt's 1599 publication.[11]
Russian poetNikolay Zabolotskiy wrote in 1958 the long poem "Rubruck in Mongolia" ("Рубрук в Монголии").
The Latin text of an incomplete manuscript containing only the first 26 chapters, together with an English translation by Richard Hakluyt, was published in 1599.[14] Acritical edition of the complete Latin text prepared by the French historianFrancisque Michel and the English antiquarianThomas Wright was published in 1839.[15] An English translation byWilliam Woodville Rockhill,The Journey of William of Rubruk to the Eastern Parts, was published by theHakluyt Society in 1900,[16] and an updated translation byPeter Jackson in 1990.[17]
| Manuscript[c] | Date | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | Corpus Christi, Cambridge, MS 181, pp. 321–398[19] | Last quarter of the 13th century | Oldest and the basis of Van den Wyngaert's 1929 critical edition. |
| B | Corpus Christi, Cambridge, MS 66A, ff. 67r–110r[7] | First third of 14th century | Contains ahistoriated initial at the beginning of the text and includes some chapter titles in the margins. |
| C | Corpus Christi, Cambridge, MS 407, ff. 37r–66r[20] | Beginning of 15th century | Ends after Chapter 26 paragraph 8. |
| D | British Library, MS Royal 14 C XIII ff. 255r–236r[21] | 15th century | Ends after Chapter 26 paragraph 8. Used by Richard Hakluyt for his 1599 translation. |
| E | Yale University Library, New Haven, Beinecke MS 406 ff. 93r–142v[22] | 15th century |
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Yule, Henry;Beazley, Charles Raymond (1911). "Rubruquis, William of". InChisholm, Hugh (ed.).Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 23 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 810–812.
