Giovanni da Pian del Carpine

[4] Highly esteemed within the Franciscan order, Giovanni had a prominent role in the propagation of its teachings in northern Europe, holding in succession the offices of warden (custos) in Saxony and provincial (minister) of Germany.

[5] Giovanni was a provincial of Germany at the time of the great Mongol invasion of eastern Europe and the Battle of Legnica (modern Legnickie Pole) on 9 April 1241.

"At the age of sixty-three Carpini embarked from Lyon,"[6] where the Pope then resided, on Easter day (16 April 1245), accompanied by another friar, Stephen of Bohemia, who broke down at Kaniv near Kiev and was left behind.

After seeking counsel of an old friend, Wenceslaus, king of Bohemia, Giovanni was joined at Wrocław by another Franciscan, Benedykt Polak, who was appointed to act as interpreter.

On the Volga stood the Ordu, or camp, of Batu, the famous conqueror of eastern Europe and supreme Mongol commander on the western frontiers of the empire.

They were "so ill", wrote 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".

Then they went along the shores of the lakes of Dzungaria until, on the feast of St Mary Magdalene (22 July), they reached the imperial camp called Sira Orda (Yellow Pavilion), near Karakorum and the Orkhon River.

His formal election in a great Kurultai, or diet of the tribes, took place while the friars were at Sira Orda, which entailed the gathering of 3000 to 4000 envoys and deputies from all parts of Asia and eastern Europe, bearing homage, tribute and presents.

He gave them a letter to the Pope written in Mongol and copied into Persian and Latin [8] that was a brief imperious assertion of the Khan's office as the scourge of God.