The Travel Account of Benedict the Pole

In the year of the Lord 1245, Brother John of the Order of Friars Minor, called de Plano Carpini, was sent by the Pope to the Tartars along with another friar of the same Order. Departing from Lyon in Gaul—where the Pope resided—at Easter, they traveled into Poland and took up a third brother of their Order in Wrocław: Benedict, a native Pole, to serve as their companion in hardship and interpreter. With the aid of Conrad, Duke of the Poles, they reached Kyiv, a city of Rus’ then under Tartar dominion. The city’s leaders provided them an escort for a six-day journey to the first Tartar outpost near the edge of Comania.

When the commanders of that outpost learned they were papal envoys, they demanded and received gifts. The two brothers, John and Benedict—the third having fallen ill—were then conducted onward on Tartar horses, leaving their own mounts and attendants behind as ordered. Their baggage was safeguarded as they traveled from post to post, changing horses at each.

On the third day, they reached a commander leading eight thousand armed men. His officers, after taking gifts, brought them to their superior, Corenza. He questioned their purpose and, upon understanding it, assigned them three Tartar escorts from his own men. These guides were to provide horses and provisions as they traveled from camp to camp until they reached the leader Batu, one of the great Tartar commanders who had devastated Hungary.

Midway through their journey, they crossed the Dnieper and Don rivers. The travel took over five weeks—from the Sunday of Invocavit until Maundy Thursday—when they arrived at Batu’s camp beside the great river Volga (called Ethil by the Rus’ and believed by some to be the ancient Tanais).

Batu’s officials received their gifts: forty beaver pelts and eighty lynx pelts. The gifts were carried between two sacred fires, and the brothers were compelled to follow, as the Tartars purify envoys and offerings this way. Beyond the fires stood a cart bearing a golden idol of the Emperor, which they customarily venerated. The brothers refused to worship it but were forced to bow their heads. After hearing their embassy and scrutinizing it, Batu sent them five days later (on the Tuesday after Easter) with his sealed letter and their Tartar guides to the great Emperor’s son, Güyük, in the Tartars’ homeland.

Dismissed by Batu, they rode for two weeks through Comania, where they found vast plains of wormwood—a land once called Pontus, as Ovid wrote: “Bitter wormwoods stand on the vast plains.” To their right lay the lands of the Saxons (whom they took for Goths), the Christian Alans, the Christian Gazari (whose city Ornam was flooded by the Tartars), the Christian Circassians, and finally the Christian Georgians.

In Rus’, to their left, they first encountered the pagan Mordvins, who shaved the backs of their heads; then the pagan Byleri; the Bascardi, ancient Hungarians; the dog-headed Cynocephali; and the Parocitae, who had tiny mouths and lived on liquid food and meat vapors.

At Comania’s edge, they crossed the Iarach River, entering Kangitae territory. For twenty days, they traversed marshy, saline lands (likely the Maeotian marshes), then eight days through a barren desert. Beyond Kangitae, they reached Turkia, passing the great city of Iankynt. After ten days in Turkia (where Islamic law prevailed), they entered Karakitai (“Black Cathay”), a pagan land with no cities, skirting a sea they took for the Caspian. Next came the Naiman lands, once rulers of the Tartars, now devoid of settlements. They arrived in Tartar territory on the Feast of Mary Magdalene, finding the Emperor at his great tent, Syra Orda, where they stayed four months and witnessed Güyük’s election.

Brother Benedict later recounted that five thousand nobles, robed in gold, assembled for the election. On the first day (in gold) and the second (in white samite), no agreement was reached; on the third (in red), consensus was achieved. Three thousand envoys from across the world attended, bearing tribute and gifts. The brothers, wearing gold cloth over their habits as required, were among them—for no envoy could see the Emperor unless properly attired.

Admitted to Syra Orda, they saw the crowned Emperor seated on a gilded platform with four stairways: the central one for him alone, two flanking ones for nobles, and a rear one for his family. The tent had three gates: the grand central one, reserved for the Emperor (any other entering it faced death), and two guarded side gates for others.

On the third day, the Pope’s message was carefully translated. The brothers were then sent to the Emperor’s mother, who received them kindly in her own splendid tent before returning them to her son. Among the Tartars, they met Georgians—respected for their valor—who invoked St. George in battle, used Greek scriptures, and displayed crosses on their carts, maintaining their Christian rites.

Mission completed, the brothers returned west with letters from the Emperor for the Pope. After fifteen days with envoys of the “Sultan of Babylon” (who turned south), they crossed the Rhine at Cologne and reached Lyon, delivering the Tartar Emperor’s letter.

“By the strength of God, Ruler of all men, to the great Pope: True letters.
You have sent envoys seeking peace, as your letters state. If you desire peace, come to us without delay—you, the Pope, and all kings—to hear our will. You bid us be baptized; we do not understand why. You marvel at the slaughter of men, especially Poles, Moravians, and Hungarians. We reply: They disobeyed God’s word and our command, killing our envoys. God destroyed them through us. Had He not, what could man do? You Westerners think only you are Christians, but who can know God’s grace? By His strength, we have conquered lands from east to west. Accept peace, surrender your forts, and come to us. If you ignore our command, we will know you seek war. What follows, God alone knows.
Chinggis Khan, first Emperor. Ögedei, second. Güyük, third.”