438 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
spread concerning this mysterious personage who was said to combine the offices of king and priest. According to Otto of Freisingen, a certain bishop of Gabala in 1145 had brought Eugenius III. the information that he was a Nestorian Chris tian, was descended from one of the three Wise Men, and had defeated the Mohammedans in a great battle.1 A letter, purporting to come from this ruler and addressed to the Emperor Manuel of Constantinople, related that John re ceived tribute from seventy kings, and had among his sub jects the ten tribes of Israel, entertained at his table daily twelve archbishops and twenty bishops, and that his kingdom was overflowing with milk and honey.2 Gradually his do minions were reported to extend to Abyssinia and India.
To put themselves into communication with this wonder ful personage and bring him into subjection to Rome engaged the serious attention of several popes. Alexander III., in 1177, sent his physician Philip with commission to inform the king of the faith of Western Christendom. He also addressed him in a letter as his "most dear son in Christ, John, king of the Indies and most holy of priests." The illusion abated as serious efforts to find the kingdom were made. Rubruquis wrote back to Europe from the region where John was reported to have ruled that few could be found who knew anything about Prester-John and that the stories which had been told were greatly exaggerated. He added that a certain ruler, Coirchan, had been followed by a Nestorian shepherd, called John. It has been conjectured by Oppert that the word " Coirchan," through the Syrian Juchanan, became known as John in Europe. A prince of that name whom the Chinese call Tuliu Tasha fled from China westwards, and established a kingdom in Central Asia. Nestorians were among his subjects. Chinese tradition has it that
1 Chronicon, VII. 33. Otto also reports the bishop of Gabala as declaring that out of respect for his ancestors, the Magians, who had worshipped at the cradle of the Redeemer, John had started with an army to relieve Jerusalem, but for want of boats got no further than the Tigris.
2 The letter must have had an extensive circulation, as it exists in more than 100 MSS., 13 in Paris, 15 in Munich, 8 in the British Museum, etc.
§ 76. MISSIONS AMONG THE MONGOLS. 439
the prince was a Buddhist. Thus dwindles away a legend which, to use Gibbon's language, "long amused the credu lity of Europe."
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Asia witnessed the establishment of the vast Mongol empire. Scarcely ever has military genius among uncivilized peoples had more wonderful display than in its founders, Zenghis Khan and his successors, especially Kublai and Mangu.1 The empire stretched from the Chinese Sea to the Dnieper, and from Bagdad to the Arctic. Their armies were the terror of Europe. What the Mohammedans had accomplished in Spain it was feared the Mongols would do for the whole continent. They destroyed Moscow and advanced as far as Cracow in Poland, and Buda Pesth in Hungary, 1241. The empire rapidly disintegrated, and was divided into four main sections : the empire of the Great Khan, including China and Thibet ; the empire of Central Asia ; Persia, extending to the Caucasus, and the loose kingdom of the Golden Horde in Rus sia and Siberia.2 The first council of Lyons, in 1245, had as one of its objects to provide a defence against the imminent menace of these Tartars,3 as they were called, and a delega tion of sixteen of them appeared at the second council of Lyons, 1274, in the hope of forming an alliance against the Saracens.
The Church sent forth several deputations of missionaries to these tribes, some of whom were received at the court of the Great Khan. The most fearless and adventuresome of
1 It was at Kublai's court that Marco Polo (about 1324) spent many years. The origin of the Mongols is lost in legend. The Mongol historian Sanang Setzen traces it back to a blue wolf. Zenghis Khan, 1162-1227, is known among the Chinese as Ching-sze, perfect warrior. The word " Mongol " comes from mong, meaning brave.
2 Hulagu, one of Mangu's brothers, overthrew the Caliphate of Bagdad, 1258, and established the Mongol empire of Persia. He took in marriage a daughter of the Byzantine emperor, Michael Palseologus.
3 See Hefele, V. 1096, 1114. A provincial synod at Erfurt, a few years before, 1241, had considered measures for defence against the Tartars. Hefele, V. 1084. For some of the papal bulls bearing on missions among the Mongols, see Potthast, 7429, 7490, 7537, 7550, 9130, 9139, 9141, 10350, 10421.