The Swinging Bridge across the Abyss

Image: The Chinese envoys at the ger of Chinggis Khan

Courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Djengiz_Kh%C3%A2n_et_les_envoy%C3%A9s_chinois.jpeg 

The fear of a new Mongol onslaught stirred the search for a novel route to make a contact with a dangerous enemy.

Pope Innocent IV undertook a range of diplomatic overtures with the Great Khan. His clerical envoys managed to cross a bridge across the abyss separating the Latin Christendom and the steppe barbarians. The response that they had brought was very uncomforting. The Tartar emperor demanded unconditional submission, citing the divine mandate which raised him above all the other political authorities across the globe.

This is the topic of my new chapter on the relations between the Latin West and the bizarre East. I offer you to read an extract:

"The only European power which dared to take on the Mongol bully was the Apostolic See. Devoid of a mighty army to oppose the enemy, the newly-elected pontiff possessed the reliable weapon of mass destruction: a quill and vellum. 

In his heart, Pope Innocent IV treated the Tartars as the foes of the entire Christendom, referring to them as impious people and marauders, whose past atrocities foreshadowed a forthcoming assault against the faithful to the cross. As a far-sighted leader, he apprehended the imminence of the Mongol renewed incursion.

Unlike the pope, secular leaders were stricken with panic. The contemporary correspondence exposes West European dignitaries seized by the lack of hope. An English clerical chronicler acknowledges with a sigh that the steppe warriors “struck great fear and terror into all Christendom.” (1) Frederick, one the most powerful military commanders and statesmen of the time, buys rumors about the invincibility and numerical superiority of the Tartar host: “they… hope to destroy the rest of the human race and are endeavoring to rule and lord it alone, trusting to their immense power and unlimited numbers.” (2)

Juvayni explains that the Mongols deserved their international “bad press” through the repeated pattern of ultimate destruction of conquered territories and total annihilation of the settled population: “with one stroke a world which billowed with fertility was laid desolate… The regions thereof became a desert… the greater part of the living dead, and their skins and bones crumbling dust.” (3)  

The ecumenical council convened at Lyons in 1245 blasted the Mongols for defying the Gospel’s craving since their ultimate goal seemed to subjugate or even destroy the Latin West. Since the second nomadic invasion looked imminent, the rulers of the frontier states had to take urgent preventive measures, such as placing outposts on roads, constructing fortified places, and early announcing of the enemy’s advance. Pope Innocent promised to compensate the lords for all expenses, establishing a special fund to which every European power would contribute. (4)  

Even sixteen years later, the Tartar menace appeared real as the papal bulla, Clamat in auribus, issued by Pope Alexander IV shared the same anticipation of a broad Mongol onslaught: “they may yet attempt a hostile entrance into Europe with a mighty orgy of the massacre.” The pontiff suggests convoking a general council of ecclesiastic and lay authorities to consider a crusade against a new outburst of invaders and cautions against clinching a deal with the aggressors since “they observe no pact or pledge of faith, which in fact the infidels cannot make.” (5)

Pope Innocent’s main concern was to win the time by sending embassies to the leading Mongol commanders to check their stance and lure them into tiresome negotiations. Due to great urgency, the Apostolic See had dispatched his envoys even before the onset of the First Council of Lyons, where the Tartar menace figured out as one of the main topics on the agenda. The most celebrated of these delegations was headed by an Italian Franciscan John (Giovanni) of Plano Carpini, the first European envoy who won an audience with the Great Khan.