Simon of Saint-Quentin (fl. 1246-1247)

by Caroline Stone (See Chinese translation)

Simon of Saint-Quentin (alternative names) was a Dominican friar who is thought to have been based at a monastery at Acre or in Cyprus. Hence he had some knowledge of oriental languages. He was chosen to accompany Friar Ascelin of Cremona on one of several missions to the Mongols sent out by Pope Innocent IV in 1246-7. This one was particularly unsuccessful, whether because of the mind-set of the Dominican Order of Preachers, which differed from that of the Franciscans, Ascelin’s personal intransigence, or the message that the Pope had entrusted them to deliver, is uncertain.

In 1241, Poland and Hungary were invaded by the army of Batu Khan, under the great general Sübedei, with unprecedented slaughter and destruction. The Mongols inflicted a series of disastrous defeats on the European defenders, especially at Liegnitz on 9th April. Europe seemed about to be totally overrun and this fate was only averted by the sudden departure of the Mongols. The event was hailed as a miracle, but the true reason was the death of the Great Khan, Ögödei, which caused the Mongols to return 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 a series of ambassadorial missions to the Mongol ruler – in the hope that at least one would arrive. They were 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.

The mission headed by Ascelin was on the road for three years, from spring 1245, until the autumn of 1248. From May 1247 the friars spent one year at the camp of Khan Baiju somewhere in Greater Armenia (very roughly, present-day eastern Turkey and North-Western Iran). Another member of the group, the Dominican Guiscard of Cremona, had spent seven years in Georgia -- the speed with which the two new religious Orders had spread in under fifty years is a very striking aspect of these accounts -- and he must have known something of the local languages and customs.

Nevertheless, Ascelin repeatedly offended his hosts and refused to continue to the main ordu at Karakorum. In spite of this, it was he who, on his return journey, was accompanied by two Mongol legates -- an offer also made to John of Plano Carpini, who refused it for a number of reasons.

Simon of Saint-Quentin wrote an account of his travels, the Historia Tartarorum, which has not survived as an independent text. However, it is quoted at length in the great Speculum Historiale of Vincent of Beauvais.

It is interesting to compare Simon of Saint-Quentin’s account with that of John of Plano Carpini (q.v.). Simon’s is much more negative in tone – perhaps reflecting the attitude of his leader – and, as Sardelić has pointed out, he chose to interpret what he saw in the light of current Western preconceptions, rather than seeking reasons for certain patterns of behaviour. For example, as regards the Mongols’ (who had not as yet generally converted to Islam) habit of eating dead or dying animals, Simon attributes this to a mixture of parsimony and barbarism, whereas John of Plano Carpini makes reference to a very recent famine, as a result of which it had been made punishable to waste food in any form.

Judging by the number of surviving manuscripts, John of Plano Carpini’s account was very much the more popular of the two. This is interesting, given that Simon’s views of a violent and vicious people would surely have accorded with European sentiment at the time.

From "Simon of Saint-Quentin: History of the Tartars, A Digital Humanities Annotated Translation":

In 1247, the space between the Aras River and Lake Sevan became the site of a meeting between representatives of the Christian West and the powerful Mongol hordes from East Asia. The mid-thirteenth century saw the Caucasus region as the focal point of a Eurasia-wide clash of civilizations, religions, ways of life, and ideologies. The Armenian heartland was playing host to a cross-cultural contact of global historical importance with the famous meeting between a small group of Dominican friars, acting as emissaries of the pope, and the great Mongol military leader, Baiju, and his troops charged with the conquest of Western Asia. One of the Dominican emissaries, Simon of Saint-Quentin, left a report called the "History of the Tartars" -- Historia Tartarorum -- of this political face-to-face meeting that went disastrously wrong. For the first time, we present it here translated into English with the original Latin side by side.

- Simon of Saint-Quentin: History of the Tartars, A Digital Humanities Annotated Translation, Sponsored by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 2019; Pow, Stephen, Tamás Kiss, Anna Romsics, Flora Ghazaryan. Simon of Saint-Quentin: History of the Tartars. XXX, 69. Accessed at: http://www.simonofstquentin.org

A more detailed account of the interaction between Friar Ascelin and Baiju, including numerous quotations from Simon's work, is given in the Feature article on Simon's account in the module on Friar Ascelin.