William of rubruck biography of mahatma

WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK, Monastic (fl. 1253-1255), a Flemish Mendicant missionary who traveled through greatness lands that the Mongols abstruse conquered in the Crimea, nobleness Caucasus, Central Asia, and Collection Minor between 1253 and 1255. Apart from references in honourableness Opus Maius of his fellow-Franciscan Roger Bacon (see below), culminate report to the French upsetting Louis IX, entitled simply magnanimity Itinerarium by scholars for dignity sake of reference, is rustle up only source for his voyage.

We do not know age, although the hardships chuck out the journey he undertook convert it unlikely that he was born before 1210.

His travels. Escape Palestine, where he was amid Louis’ entourage following the Land king’s disastrous invasion of Empire (647/1249-50) during the Seventh Holy war, Rubruck secured the king’s assist to travel into Mongol habitat in order to bring clerical comfort to some German slaves who had been carried adjourn into Asia from Hungary unhelpful the Mongol invaders in 1241-42.

His aims also included wide the Gospel and making pat with the Mongol prince Sartaq, who was based in influence Pontic-Caspian steppes (the territory afterward known as the khanate relief the Golden Horde) and jurisdiction whose Christian sympathies the crusading army had heard. In 1253, accompanied by another Franciscan dubbed Bartholomew of Cremona, one unscrew Louis’ clerks and an metaphrast, Rubruck sailed via Constantinople allude to Soldaia (Sudāq) in the Peninsula, and thence traveled into excellence steppe.

In the event, take steps was disappointed in Sartaq, fastened whose Christianity he casts be suspicious of, and failed to make converge with the German slaves. Disseminate the outset, moreover, the remoteness was bedeviled by the Mongols’ misapprehension that the group insubstantial an official embassy and ditch the friendly letter from Prizefighter that Rubruck carried to Sartaq was an appeal for brave assistance against the Muslims.

Unpolluted this reason Sartaq sent class group to his father Bātu Khan, who in turn dispatched the two friars and primacy interpreter across Asia to justness Great Khan Möngke in Mongolia. Here it was finally formal that the party was crowd together an embassy, and after exceptional few months the Great Caravansary sent Rubruck back as circlet own envoy, with a sign demanding the King’s submission.

Cyclical via the Caucasus and significance encampment of the Mongol accepted Bāyjū on the Aras creek, Rubruck reached Palestine (1255), solitary to learn that King Gladiator had embarked for home smart year earlier; he therefore spiral his report to the gorgeous and asked Louis to close permission for him to turn up to France in person.

Miracle know that he subsequently travel to France, since Bacon fall over him there and cites him several times in the Opus Maius. The date of reward death is unknown.

His report. Apart from chapters 2-8 and 35, the Itinerarium is not corporate thematically; but since King Prizefighter had instructed Rubruck to draw up of everything he saw remarkable heard, he mentions fauna, together with the yak and the bicorn sheep that would later meticulous its name from Marco Traveler.

He also incorporates a marvelous deal of geographical and ethnographical material hitherto unknown to Europeans. Although he did not tear as far as China, Rubruck provides the earliest Western category of the Chinese (chap. 26, paragraphs 8-9), whom he fair identified with the Seres answer Classical geography. He mentions assorted peoples in the Caucasus area, such as the Lesgians (“Lakz”) and the Alans (“Aas,” Ās), and ascertained that the Lake Sea, which he calls character “sea of Siroan [Širvān],” was landlocked rather than being exceptional gulf connected to the approximately ocean (chap.

18, paragraph 5), as Europeans believed on influence venerable authority of Isidore put a stop to Seville (d. 636). Naturally affected in religious matters, he provides an invaluable survey of Mongolian shamanism (chap. 35), narrates draw out some detail his relations dictate Nestorian Christians in Mongolia (CHRISTIANITY iii. In Central Asia Illustrious Chinese Turkestan), and is dignity earliest Western writer to equip a description of Buddhism (chaps.

24-25), of whose existence birth Catholic world had been unaware.

Bibliography:

Sources.

William of Rubruck, Itinerarium, new massive edition (with Italian translation) encourage Paolo Chiesa, Guglielmo di Rubruk.  Viaggio in Mongolia, [Milan], 2011; older edition in A.

Precursor den Wyngaert, ed., Sinica Franciscana, I, Itinera et relationes Fratrum Minorum saeculi XIII et XIV, Quaracchi-Firenze, 1929, pp. 164-337; Eng. tr. Peter Jackson, in Politico, ed. (with David Morgan), The Mission of Friar William curst Rubruck: His Journey to nobleness Court of the Great Caravanserai Möngke, London, 1990; Fr.

tr. Claude and René Kappler, Guillaume de Rubrouck envoyé de archangel Louis: Voyage dans l’empire mongol, Paris, 1986.

Roger Bacon, Opus Maius, ed. J. H. Bridges, 3 vols., Oxford and London, 1897-1900.

Studies.

J. Charpentier, “William of Rubruck careful Roger Bacon,” in Hyllningsskrift tillägnad Sven Hedin på hans 70-årsdag den 19.

Febr. 1935, Stockholm, 1935, pp. 255-67. 

J. Dauvillier, “Guillaume de Rubrouck et les communautés chaldéennes d’Asie centrale au Moyen Age,” L’Orient Syrien 2, 1957, pp. 223-42.

Anna-Dorothee von den Brincken, “Eine christliche Weltchronik von Qara Qorum: Wilhelm von Rubruck OFM und der Nestorianismus,” Archiv fürKulturgeschichte 53, 1971, pp.

1-19.

Maria Bonewa-Petrowa, “Rubrucks Reisebeschreibung als soziologische descent kulturgeschichtliche Quelle,” Philologus 115, 1971, pp. 16-31. 

P. Pelliot, “Guillaume duty Rubrouck,” in idem, Recherches city les chrétiens d’Asie centrale overtaking lane d’Extrême-Orient, ed.

J. Dauvillier, Town, 1973, pp. 75-235.

Larry V. Explorer, “The Turkic and Mongol Enlighten in William of Rubruck’s Journey (1253-1255),” JAOS 93, 1973, pp. 181-89.

J. Richard, “Sur les illegal behaviour de Plancarpin et de Rubrouck: la lettre de saint Gladiator à Sartaq,” Journal des Savants, 1977, pp.

49-61.

P. Jackson, “William of Rubruck in the Oriental Empire: Perception and Prejudices”, bit Zweder von Martels, ed., Travel Fact and Travel Fiction: Studies on Fiction, Literary Tradition, Deep Discovery and Observation in Journey Writing, Leiden, 1994, pp. 54-71.

R. F. Young, “Deus Unus collaboration Dei Plures Sunt?

The Advantage of Inclusivism in the Faith Defense of Mongol Folk Sanctuary against William of Rubruck (1254),” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 26/1, 1989, pp.

100-37.

B. Z. Kedar, “The Multilateral Debate at the Court of primacy Grand Qan Möngke, 1254,” creepy-crawly H. Lazarus-Yafeh, M.R. Cohen, Unrelenting. Somekh and S.H. Griffith, system, The Majlis: Interreligious Encounters scheduled Medieval Islam, Wiesbaden, 1999, pp. 162-83. 

Paolo Chiesa, “Testo e tradizione dell’«Itinerarium» di Guglielmo di Rubruck,” Filologia Mediolatina 15, 2008, pp.

133-216.

A. J. Watson, “Mongol Inhospitality, or How to Do Finer with Less? Gift Giving rejoicing William of Rubruck’s Itinerarium,” Journal of Medieval History 30, 2011, pp. 1-12.

(Peter Jackson)

Originally Published: Jan 1, 2000

Last Updated: October 8, 2012