d man when he
went cheerfully upon this mission, but was, as we know from accidental
evidence in the annals of his order, a fat and heavy man (_vir gravis et
corpulentus_), insomuch that during his preachings in Germany he was
fain, contrary to Franciscan precedent, to ride a donkey. Yet not a word
approaching more nearly to complaint than those which we have quoted
above appears in his narrative. His book, both as to personal and
geographical detail, is inferior to that written a few years later by a
younger brother of the same Order, Louis IX.'s most noteworthy envoy to
the Mongols, William of Rubrouck or Rubruquis. But in spite of these
defects, due partly to his conception of his task, and in spite of the
credulity with which he incorporates the Oriental tales, sometimes of
childish absurdity, from which Rubruquis is so free, Friar Joannes'
_Historia_ is in many ways the chief literary memorial of European
overland expansion before Marco Polo. It first revealed the Mongol world
to Catholic Christendom; its account of Tatar manners, customs and
history is perhaps the best treatment of the subject by any Christian
writer of the middle ages. We may especially notice, moreover, its four
name-lists:--of the nations conquered by the Mongols; of the nations
which had up to this time (1245-1247) successfully resisted; of the
Mongol princes; and of the witnesses to the truth of his narrative,
including various merchants trading in Kiev whom he had met. All these
catalogues, unrivalled in Western medieval literature, are of the utmost
historical value. To the accuracy of Carpini's statements upon Mongol
life, a modern educated Mongol, Galsang Gomboyev, has borne detailed and
interesting testimony (see _Melanges asiat. tires du Bullet. Hist.
Philol. de l'Acad. Imp. de St Petersbourg_, ii. p. 650, 1856).

The book must have been prepared immediately after the return of the
traveller, for the Friar Salimbeni, who met him in France in the year of
his return (1247), gives us these interesting particulars:--"He was a
clever and conversable man, well lettered, a great discourser, and full
of a diversity of experience.... He wrote a big book about the Tattars
(sic), and about other marvels that he had seen, and whenever he felt
weary of telling about the Tattars, he would cause that book of his to
be read, as I have often heard and seen" ("Chron. Fr. Salimbeni
Parmensis" in _Monum. Histor. ad Prov. et Placent. pertinentia_, Parma,
18