Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, or John of Plano Carpini or John of Pian de Carpine or Joannes de Plano (ca. 1182 - August 1, 1252) was one of the first Europeans to enter the court of the Great Khan of the Mongol Empire. He is the author of the earliest important Western account of northern and central Asia, Rus, and other regions of the Mongol dominion. He was the Serbian Primate and Archbishop of Antivari from 1247 to 1252.
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He appears to have been a native of Umbria, in modern-day Italy, where a place formerly called Pian del Carpine, but now Magione, stands near Perugia, on the road to Cortona. He was one of the companions and disciples of his countryman Saint Francis of Assisi, and from sundry indications can hardly have been younger than the latter. Joannes bore a high repute in the Franciscan order, and took a foremost part in the propagation of its teaching in northern Europe, holding successively the offices of warden (custos) in Saxony, and of provincial (minister) of Germany, and afterwards of Spain, perhaps of Barbary, and of Cologne.
He was in the last post at the time of the great Mongol invasion of eastern Europe and of the disastrous Battle of Legnica (9 April 1241), which threatened to cast European Christendom under the leadership of the Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, Ögedei Khan. The dread of the Tatars was, however, still on people's mind four years later, when Pope Innocent IV dispatched the first formal Catholic mission to the Mongols, partly to protest against the latter's invasion of Christian lands, partly to gain trustworthy information regarding Mongol armies and their purposes. Behind these there may have lurked the beginnings of a policy much developed later—of opening diplomatic intercourse with a power whose alliance might be valuable against Islam.
Pope Innocent IV chose Friar Joannes to head this mission. Joannes was around sixty-five at the time, and apparently was in charge of nearly everything in the mission. As a papal legate, he bore a letter from the Pope to the Great Khan, Cum non solum. Joannes started from Lyon, where the Pope then resided, on Easter day (16 April 1245), accompanied by another friar, Stephen of Bohemia, who broke down at Kaniv near Kiev and was left behind. After seeking counsel of an old friend, Wenceslaus, king of Bohemia, Joannes was joined at Wrocław by another Minorite, Benedykt Polak, appointed to act as interpreter.
The route passed by Kiev, entered the Tatar posts at Kaniv, and then ran across the Nepere to the Don and Volga. Joannes is the first Westerner to give us the modern names for these rivers. On the Volga stood the Ordu, or camp, of Batu, the famous conqueror of eastern Europe and supreme Mongol commander on the western frontiers of the empire. He was one of the most senior princes of the house of Genghis Khan. Here the envoys, with their presents, had to pass between two fires to remove possible injurious thoughts and poisons (section X), before being presented to the prince (beginning of April 1246).
Batu ordered them to proceed to the court of the supreme Khan in Mongolia. On Easter day once more (8 April 1246), they started on the second and most formidable part of their journey. They were so ill, writes the legate, that we could scarcely sit a horse; and throughout all that Lent our food had been nought but millet with salt and water, and with only snow melted in a kettle for drink. Their bodies were tightly bandaged so they could endure the excessive fatigue of this enormous ride, which took them across the Jaec or Ural River, and north of the Caspian Sea and the Aral to the Jaxartes or Syr Darya (quidam fluvius magnus cujus nomen ignoramus, "a big river whose name we do not know"), and the Muslim cities that then stood on its banks. Then they went along the shores of the Dzungarian lakes until, on the feast of St Mary Magdalene (22 July), they reached the imperial camp called Sira Orda (i.e., Yellow Pavilion), near Karakorum and the Orkhon River. Joannes and his companions rode an estimated 3000 miles in 106 days.
Since the death of Ögedei Khan, the imperial authority was in interregnum and Güyük, Ögedei's eldest son, was designated to the throne. His formal election in a great Kurultai, or diet of the tribes, took place while the friars were at Sira Orda, along with 3000 to 4000 envoys and deputies from all parts of Asia and eastern Europe, bearing homage, tribute and presents. On the 24th of August, they witnessed the formal enthronement at another camp in the vicinity called the Golden Ordu, after which they were presented to the emperor.
The great Khan, Güyük, refused the invitation to become Christian, and demanded that the Pope and rulers of Europe should come to him and swear allegiance to him. The Khan did not dismiss the expedition until November. He gave them a letter to the Pope—written in Mongol, Arabic, and Latin—that was a brief imperious assertion of the Khan's office as the scourge of God. They began a long winter journey home. Often they had to lie on the bare snow, or on ground scraped bare of snow with a foot. They reached Kiev on 10 June 1247. There, and on their further journey, the Slavonic Christians welcomed them as risen from the dead, with festive hospitality. Crossing the Rhine at Cologne, they found the Pope still at Lyon, and delivered their report and the Khan's letter.
Not long afterward, Friar Joannes was rewarded with the archbishopric of Antivari in Dalmatia, and was sent as legate to Louis IX. He lived only five years following the hardships of his journey. He died, according to the Franciscan Martyrology and other authorities, on 1 August 1252.
Ystoria Mongalorum is the report compiled by Carpine, of his trip to the Mongol Empire. Written in the 1240s, it is the oldest European account of the Mongols. Carpine was the first European to try to chronicle Mongol history. Two versions of the Ystoria Mongalorum are known to exist: Carpine's own and another, usually referred to as the Tartar Relation.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.