Envoyez en qualité de légats apostoliques et d'ambassadeurs de la part du Pape Innocent IV vers les Tartares et autres peuples orientaux: avec ordre exprès de décrire de bonne foi ce qui regarde les Tartares, comme la situation tant de leur pays que de leurs affaires; leur vêtement, boire et manger, leur gouvernement politique et civil, culte de religion, discipline militaire, enterremens, et autres points les plus remarquables; dont l'observation était le sujet de leur ambassade. Le tout raporté fidèlement par ces religieux. Avec des notes, tables, observations, une carte trèsexacte de ces voyages et de très-belles figures pour l'explication des choses,

In 1725, this narrative was published by Bernard, at Amsterdam, in vol. vii of "Recueil des Voyages au Nord."

Relation du voyage de Jean du Plan Carpin en Tartarie. In the Recueil des Voyages au Nord, t. vii. Printed in the Voyages de Benjamin de Tudèle. Paris, 1830, 4to.

Finally, a critical and most elaborate edition appeared under the title

Relation des Mongols ou Tartares, par le Frère Jean du Plan de Carpin, de l'ordre des Frères Mineurs, legat du Saint Siége Apostolique, Nonce en Tartarie pendant les années 1245, 1246, 1247, et Archévêque d'Antivari. Première édition complète, publiée d'après les manuscrits de Leyde, de Paris, et de Londres, et précédée d'une notice sur les anciens Voyages en Tartarie en général, et sur celui du Plan de Carpin en particulier, par M. d'Avezac. Paris, 1838; 4to. This important work forms the fourth volume of the Recueil de Voyages et de Mémoires publiés par la Société de Géographie de Paris, p. 399-779.

Russian. Moscow, 1795; 8vo. :-also, by Jasykow. St. Petersburg, 1825; 8vo.

Dutch. Seer aanmerkelyke Reysebeschryvingen van Johan du Plan Carpin en Br. Ascelin, beyde als legaten van den H. Apostolischen stoel, en voor gesanten van den Paus Innocentius de iv afgesonden na Tartaryen en andere oosterche volkeren. Nu aldereest getrouwelijk na het egte handschrift vertaald door Salomon Bor predikant tot Zeyst. Leyden, 1706, 8vo.

This forms the first part of the first volume of a collection of Dutch translations of remarkable travels, which the well known bookseller Van der Aa published in 1706, under the title of: "Naaukerige versameling der gedenkwaardigste zee en land Reysen na Ost en West Indien."

Respecting the travels of Plano Carpini, see Sprengel's “Gesch. d. geogr. Entdeck.", p. 278-288, where the same are accompanied by many learned explanations, as also Murray's "Discoveries in Asia", vol. i, pp. 84-109.

(6.)

ASCELIN. 1245.

Nicolas Ascelin, a Dominican, was despatched by Pope Innocent IV to the Mongolians, at the same time that Plano Carpini was sent by way of Poland and Russia to the court of the Khan. He was accompanied by the monks Alexander, Albert, and Simon de St. Quentin. His entire journey lasted only for a short time; and as he speaks chiefly in his narrative of his reception in the camp of Bajothnoi (Bajunovian?), he gives but few disclosures respecting the countries he travelled through. His route seems to

have been by the south of the Caspian Sea, through Syria, Persia, and Khorasan. Ascelin's narrative,

moreover, has not reached us entire; we know of it only from the accounts received by Vincent de Beauvais from Ascelin's companion, Simon de St. Quentin.

The account of Ascelin's journey will be found in the following works, as already more fully described.

Speculum historiale Vincentii Bellovacensis. Venetiis, 1499, fol. L. 31, C. 40, et seq.

Opera dilettevole ad intendere la qual si contiene dei Itinerarii in Tartaria. Venezia, 1537, 4to.

Voyage du P. Ascelin. In Bergeron, Voyages, éd. de P. van der Aa; vol. i. Together with the Travels of P. Carpino.

In Murray's Discoveries and Travels in Asia, vol. i, p. 75-84.

Voyage du Frère Ascelin. Printed in Voyage de Benjamin de Tudèle, etc. Par. 1830, 4to.

Russian: In Jasykow, as alluded to in the notice of Plano Carpini.

(7.)

SIMON DE SAINT QUENTIN. 1245.

Simon de St. Quentin, a Dominican monk, accompanied the embassy sent to Tartary by Pope Innocent IV, and prepared an account of this journey in Latin. The complete original of the journey has not been found; the dominican Vincent de Beauvais, Simon's contemporary, gives, however, in his "Speculum Historiale", in book XXVII, a great part, viz., nineteen chapters, of the "Itinerarium Fratris Si

monis"; and from this source Reinerus Reineccius has received it into his " Historia Orientalis".

This portion of the "Itinerarium" is also found in MS. No. 686, in the Royal Library of Paris, which bears the title

Itineraria in Tartariam Fr. Joannes de Plano Carpino, ord. Minorum, et Fr. Simonis de S. Quintino ord. prædicatorum, etc.

These extracts are also found in Hakluyt's "Collection", vol. i, p. 25-29: "Libellus Historicus", etc., but where Simon's travels are mixed up with Plano Carpini's narrative.

They are also found in Italian, in the now very rare work entitled

Opera dilettevole da intendere, etc.

Venez., 1537, 8vo.,

and again in Ramusio Raccolta di Viaggi, vol. ii of the edition of 1574, under the title, Due Viaggi in Tartaria.

Wilhelm von Ruysbroeck, Rusbrock, or Rubruk, commonly known by the Frenchified name of De Rubruquis, was a friar of the minorite order. He was sent to the Mongolians by the French king Louis IX, 1253, then in his crusade against the Saracens, when the rumour had spread in Europe that the Mongolian chief, Mangu Khan, had embraced the Christian religion. In the year just mentioned, he set out on his journey, with a fellow traveller, Bartholomæus of Cremona, went to Constan

tinople, over the Black Sea, through the Crimea,1 and finally arrived after many difficulties in the district of the city of the Caraci, in the Gobi desert, where Mangu Khan was then residing. His accounts of the countries he passed through are more circumstantial than those of his predecessors, which were unknown to him. He introduces, however, a number of cities under names which cannot yet be identified. We have to thank him, among other things, for the first accounts collected from personal experience respecting China, which he derived from a Chinese ambassador in the Mongolian camp. Rubruquis tarried five months in the neighbourhood of Mangu Khan, and passed then by Sarai, Astrachan, and Derbent, through Georgia, Armenia, and Turcomania, across the Mediterranean to Cyprus, Antioch, and Tripoli, from which latter place he transmitted the narrative of his travels to the King of France. From this latter circumstance he is sometimes called William of Tripoli.

Sprengel says of these travels:-" Rubruquis, by his journal, certainly widely extended the knowledge of the period with respect to northern Asia and the countries around the Caspian and Black Seas; and it is the more valuable inasmuch as he has conveniently inserted all manner of useful observations,

'The following observation is made by Adelung in a note:Ruysbroeck spoke first of Goths in the Crimea, and Barbaro and Busbeck confirmed his accounts. It is known that no remains of them are to be found there at the present day, as Pallas informed me in 1810, in reply to my request for information thereupon."