The Christian Nobles at the Court of Great Khan, as Described in Mediaeval European Sources

Abstract

Research objectives: “Moreover, the chief princes of his whole empire, more than thirty thousand in number, who are called Alans, and govern the whole Orient, are Christians either in fact or in name, calling themselves the Pope’s slaves, and ready to die for the Franks.” With these words John of Marignola, a notable traveller to the Far East in the fourteenth century and a legate to the Great Khan of Cathay, attested in his Cronica Boemorum the presence of certain Christian nobles of the Alan race in the service of the Mongol-Chinese emperor. The immediate impetus for Marignola’s mission was that in 1336 the Great Khan Ukhaghatu Toghon-Temür sent a delegation of sixteen “Franks” (Franquis), as the Mongols called Europeans, ad Papam, Dominum Christianorum in Franchiam. They brought two letters to the pope: one purporting to be from the Great Khan himself, and the other from certain princes of the Christian Alans in his service. By the coming of the Mongolian legation in Avignon in 1338, we are informed, among others, that the successor of John of Montecorvino, the first archbishop in Khanbalik, had never reached his destination, as well as the other succeeding archbishops to Khanbalik. Research materials: Marignola’s mission was important not only with its spiritual message, but rather with an excellent choice of gift for the Great Khan. Western messengers brought with them, among the gifts from the Pope in Rome, a singularly auspicious present: a magnificent black horse with white hind hooves. Marignola, in his Cronica Boemorum, identifies the Christian dignitaries at the court of the Great Khan as the Alans. We know of them from earlier sources, but mostly under the generic name “Christians” or “Nestorian Christians”. John of Montecorvino reportedly converted many Alans (he did not mention their name) to Roman Catholic Christianity in addition to Armenians in China. According to the Annals of the Yuan Dynasty, in 1229 and 1241, when army of Ögedei Khan reached the Country of the Aas (Alans), their chief submitted at once and a body of one thousand Alans was kept for the private guard of the Great Khan. Möngke Khan enlisted in his bodyguard half of the troops of Arslan, an Alan prince, whose younger son Nicholas took a part in the expedition of the Mongols against Qaraǰang (Yunnan). Marco Polo mentions Alania among the countries conquered by the Mongols, and devotes a whole chapter to an account of the slaughter of certain Alans who were Christians and formed a corps in Kublai’s army. The number and influence of Christians in China at the end of the thirteenth century may be gathered from the letter of John of Montecorvino, and in the first part of the following century from the report of the Archbishop of Soltania, who describes them as more than thirty thousand in number, and passing rich people. That Christians continued to rise in influence during the short remainder of the Mongol reign appears probable from the position which we find the Christian Alans to occupy in the empire at the time of the visit of John of Marignola. Also Odoric of Pordenone several times mentioned “great barons” (magni barones aspicientes solum ad personam regis) at the court of the Great Khan. Interesting is Odoric’s pleasant anecdote concerning his presentation of apples to Yesün Temür Khan which reveals the easy acceptance of the Latin Christians by the emperor and his top generals – the hereditary Alan guards that protected Kublai’s descendants. Results and novelty of the research: What happened to the multitude of converts that John of Montecorvino and others claimed for Rome, when the Ming dynasty took control in 1368? A recent study suggests that Christian worship, instead of dying out under this pressure, simply became more circumspect in its visible forms of worship. Some fifteenth-century Christians migrated from the coast or other cities to smaller communities, in order to worship quietly as they wished.