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Ruy González de Clavijo (died 2 April 1412) was aCastilian traveler and writer. In 1403–05 Clavijo was the ambassador ofHenry III of Castile to the court ofTimur, founder and ruler of theTimurid Empire.[1] A diary of the journey, perhaps based on detailed notes kept while traveling, was later published in Spanish in 1582 (Embajada a Tamorlán [es]) and in English in 1859 (Narrative of the Embassy of Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo to the Court of Timour at Samarcand AD 1403–6).[2]
Clavijo, a nobleman ofMadrid and chamberlain to the king, set sail fromCadiz on 21 May 1403 in the company of Timur's ambassador, Muhammed al-Kazi, a Dominican friar, Alfonso Páez de Santa María, one of the king's guards, Gómez de Salazar, and other unnamed Castilians. Clavijo sailed through the Mediterranean, passingMajorca,Sicily andRhodes toConstantinople. To use the modern names for the countries through which Clavijo passed, he sailed along theBlack Sea coast ofAnatolia toTrebizond and then overland throughArmenia andIran toTurkestan. He visitedTehran in 1404. The original intention was to meet with Timur at his winter pasturage in theKingdom of Georgia, but due to foul weather conditions and a shipwreck, the embassy was forced to return to Constantinople and spend the winter of 1403–1404 there.
After setting sail from Constantinople across the Black Sea, the entourage spent the following months following in the wake of Timur's army, but were unable to catch up to the rapidly moving, mountedhorde. It is for this reason that the Castilian delegation continued all the way to Timur's capital atSamarkand, in modern Uzbekistan, arriving there on 8 September 1404, occasioning the most detailed contemporary description of Timur's court by a westerner. Clavijo found the city in a constant cycle of construction and rebuilding, in search of perfection:
TheMosque which Timur had caused to be built to the memory of the mother of his wife... seemed to us to be the noblest of all we visited in the city of Samarkand, but no sooner had it been completed than he began to find fault with its entrance gateway, which he now said was much too low and must be pulled down.[3]
Clavijo's long-sought first audience with Timur was in "a great orchard with a palace therein", theparadise garden of Iranian tradition, where Clavijo gave detailed descriptions of the trained and painted elephants he saw, and the tent-pavilions of jewel- and pearl-encrusted silks with tassels and banners that fluttered in the wind. The embassy spent several months in Samarkand, during which time the Castilians attended celebrations for Timur'srecent victory at Ankara in July 1402 over the Turkish sultan,Bayezid I, whom he captured, relieving Western fears ofOttoman expansion in Hungary and spurring the desire for diplomatic connections on the part ofCharles VI of France as well as Henry of Castile. Unable to procure a letter from Timur for their king, Henry, due to Timur's ill health (Timur's final illness), the Castilians were forced to depart Samarkand on 21 November 1404, due to Timur's impending death.