cent IV.
despatched the first formal Catholic mission to the Mongols (1245),
partly to protest against the latter's invasion of Christian lands,
partly to gain trustworthy information regarding the hordes and their
purposes; behind there may have lurked the beginnings of a policy much
developed in after-time--that of opening diplomatic intercourse with a
power whose alliance might be invaluable against Islam.

At the head of this mission the pope placed Friar Joannes, at this time
certainly not far from sixty-five years of age; and to his discretion
nearly everything in the accomplishment of the mission seems to have
been left. The legate started from Lyons, where the pope then resided,
on Easter day (April 16, 1245), accompanied by another friar, one
Stephen of Bohemia, who broke down at Kanev near Kiev, and was left
behind. After seeking counsel of an old friend, Wenceslaus, king of
Bohemia, Carpini was joined at Breslau by another Minorite, Benedict the
Pole, appointed to act as interpreter. The onward journey lay by Kiev;
the Tatar posts were entered at Kanev; and thence the route ran across
the Dnieper (_Neper, Nepere_, in Carpini and Benedict) to the Don and
Volga (_Ethil_ in Benedict; Carpini is the first Western to give us the
modern name). Upon the last-named stood the _Ordu_ or camp of Batu, the
famous conqueror of eastern Europe, and the supreme Mongol commander on
the western frontiers of the empire, as well as one of the most senior
princes of the house of Jenghiz. Here the envoys, with their presents,
had to pass between two fires, before being presented to the prince
(beginning of April 1246). Batu ordered them to proceed onward to the
court of the supreme khan in Mongolia; and on Easter day once more
(April 8, 1246) they started on the second and most formidable part of
their journey--"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 to enable them to endure the
excessive fatigue of this enormous ride, which led them across the
_Jaec_ or Ural river, and north of the Caspian and the Aral to the
Jaxartes or Syr Daria (_quidam fluvius magnus cujus nomen ignoramus_),
and the Mahommedan cities which then stood on its banks; then along the
shores of the Dzungarian lakes; and so forward, till, on the feast of St
Mary Magdalene