Benedict the Pole (ca. 1200-ca. 1280)

by Caroline Stone (see Chinese translation)

Almost nothing is known of the life of the Franciscan Friar Benedict the Pole (see alternative names) except in relation to his participation in the mission of John of Plano Carpini (q.v.) to the Mongols in 1246-1247, of which he wrote a brief account entitled De Itinere Fratrum Minorum ad Tartaros (On the travel of Franciscan friars to the Tatars). One particularly important contribution in his report is the letter of the Great Khan to the Pope.

Benedict joined John of Plano Carpini, at Breslau (Wroclaw), or possibly Bratislava, "to be his companion in his labours and tribulations, and his interpreter." It has been suggested that Benedict may have learned some Mongol when he was captured after Batu Khan’s invasion of 1241, and may have spoken that language in addition to various European tongues. On the Friars' return, when they stopped at Cologne, Benedict read aloud notes that he had prepared on their journey and on "the origins and rites and other matters concerning the Tartars". A further mention of Benedict the Pole shows that in 1252 he was Guardian of the Franciscan monastery at Krakow and served as a witness to a miracle recorded as part of the canonization process of St Stanislaus.

The Embassy

In 1241, the Mongol army of Batu Khan, under the great general Sübedei, invaded Poland and Hungary and inflicted a series of disastrous defeats on the European defenders, especially at Liegnitz on 9th April of that year. The total invasion of Europe was only averted by the sudden departure of the Mongol armies on the death of the Great Khan, Ȫgodei, as they returned to their home lands to elect a new ruler.

All Europe had been shocked and terrified by the suddenness and violence of the Mongol attack, which had brought their armies to the borders of Friuli, thus threatening what is now Italy. Pope Innocent IV, aware of the danger, decided to send an ambassadorial mission to the Mongol ruler, to protest the invasion of Christendom, but above all to find out as much as possible about these new enemies and ascertain whether they would be a possible ally against the Muslims – the other major threat to Europe at the time – and also whether they might be disposed to convert to Christianity.

Knowing the extreme difficulty of the journey and the probability of the emissaries not reaching their destination, he seems to have intended to send four separate missions, headed by the recently founded orders of Franciscans and Dominicans.

The first should have been led by a Franciscan, a certain Lawrence of Portugal, setting out from the Levant, however, there is no further news of the embassy and it may never have left. The second was also Franciscan, led by of John of Plan Carpini, in which Benedict the Pole took part.

Little is known of the third, led by the Dominican, André of Longjumeau, which set out in March or April, 1245; he was to return to Mongolia in 1249-51.

The fourth was led by another Dominican, Ascelin of Cremona, a difficult and abrasive man; this mission was even less successful than the others. Among his companions were a fellow Dominican, Guichard of Cremona,who had spent five years in Tiflis (Tbilisi) and Simon of St Quentin, who wrote an account: Historia Tartarorum.

Benedict joined John of Plano Carpini’s mission, probably at Breslau (Wroclaw), continuing through Polish Galicia to Krakow and entering Mongol territory at Kanev. There, they crossed the Dneiper, then the Don, finally reaching the camp of Batu, commander of the Western Mongol Empire, which stood on the Volga. At this point, the travellers must have learned of the death of Ȫgödei and there the Pope’s letters were translated into Persian, the diplomatic language of the region, and thence into Mongolian. Batu then ordered the friars to proceed to the ordu – or encampment - of Ȫgödei, the Supreme Khan, in Mongolia.

The travellers set out again on Easter Day, 8th April, 1246, crossing the Ural River and taking a route that lay North of the Caspian and the Aral Seas (classical Maeotian Marshes) to the Syr Darya (classical Jaxartes). From there, they rode along the shores of the Dzungarian Lakes (in present-day Northern Xinjiang), until they reached the camp of the “Yellow Pavilion” – Sira Ordu – near Karakorum in the Orkhon Valley (present-day Mongolia).

After the death of Ögödei Khan, there had been an interregnum and the Friars arrived in time to witness the quraltai - council of the tribes - called to elect a new Great Khan, at which between 3000 and 4000 envoys and shamans were present. On August 24th, 1245, the formal enthronement of Ögödei's successor, Güyük, took place. It was not until November, however, that the European contingent was allowed to leave and as a result they had a terrible journey home through the steppe winter.

The Friars reached Kiev on 9th June, 1247 and Lyon on 18th November. At Cologne, Benedict read his notes – or perhaps his text had already been set down in the form we have it. They brought with them a letter to the Pope in Mongol, Arabic, and Latin, which did little more than assert arrogantly that the Great Khan should be considered as a scourge sent by God and order the Western powers to come and pay him homage.

Benedict the Pole’s account, much less detailed than John of Plano Carpini’s, attempts to map their route. As was very common in medieval accounts, he navigates time and space with references to the Church calendar and distances are indicated by the amount of time needed to cross them. He also tries to identify places according to the traditional classical canon, confusing the Volga with Thanais (in fact the Don), and so on. He also mentions strange peoples who normally populated the borders of medieval maps, such as the Cynocephali – dog-headed People – locating them on the outer edges of his journey.

His chronicle De Itinere Fratrum Minorum ad Tartaros was published only in the 1839 in France (and a year later in Poland), and a longer work Historia Tartarorum (The History of the Tatars) was discovered and published only in 1965 by academics at Yale University.

De Itinere Fratrum Minorum ad Tartaros is included in Dawson's book on Carpini and Rubruck, and in the Primary Sources section of the Carpini module.