Ystoria Mongalorum is a report, compiled by Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, of his trip to the Mongol Empire.
The first eight describe the Tartar's country, climate, manners, religion, character, history, policy, and tactics, and on the best way to oppose them.
In fact, the author points out that Mongols were quite offended by such a label: they vanquished Tatars in several campaigns around 1206, after which the Tartars ceased to exist as an independent ethnic group.
For a long time the work was but partially known, and that chiefly through an abridgment in the compilation of Vincent of Beauvais (Speculum Historiale) made in the generation following the traveller's own, and printed first in 1473.
[1] Another similar book was written by a younger brother of the same order, William of Rubruck or Rubruquis—who was Louis IX's most noteworthy envoy to the Mongols.
Nevertheless, Friar Giovanni's Ystoria is, in many ways, the chief literary memorial of European overland expansion before Marco Polo.