Rabban Bar Sauma

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Rabban Bar Sauma (fl. 1280 - 1288), was a Nestorian traveller and diplomat, who was born at Beijing about the middle of the 13th century. Accoriding to Gregory Barhebraeus he was of Uyghur origin. Chinese accounts describe his heritage as Wanggu/Ongud, a tribe of Turkish origin classified as part of the Mongol Caste in Yuan Dynasty.

While still young, he started on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, travelling by way of the former Tangut country, Khotan, Kashgar, Talas in the Syr Dana valley, Khorasan, Maragha and Mosul, arrived at Ani in Armenia. Warnings of danger on the routes to southern Syria turned him from his purpose; his friend and fellow-pilgrim, Rabban Marcos, who became Nestorian patriarch Mar Yaballaha III in 1281, recommended Bar Sauma to the ruler of the Ilkhanate or Mongol-Persian realm, Arghun Khan, for an embassy to Europe.

The purpose of this mission was to conclude an alliance with the chief states of Christendom against their mutual Middle Eastern Muslim enemies, specifically the Mamluk sultans. Bar Sauma's mission started out in 1287, with Arghun's letters to the Byzantine emperor, the Pope and the Kings of France and England. In Constantinople, he had an audience with Andronicus II Palaeologus; he gives an enthusiastic description of Hagia Sophia. He next travelled to Rome, where he visited St Peter's, and had prolonged negotiations with the cardinals. Unfortunately for his mission, the papacy was then vacant and a definite reply to his proposals for an alliance was postponed. Bar Sauma then passed on to Paris, where he had an audience with the king of France, Philip the Fair.

In Gascony he met the king of England Edward I at St Sever, which he speaks of as the capitol of Alanguitar (Aquitaine?). On returning to Rome, he was cordially received by the newly elected Pope Nicholas IV, who gave him communion on Palm Sunday, 1288, allowed him to celebrate his own Eucharist in the capital of Latin Christianity, commissioned him to visit the Christians of the East, and entrusted to him the tiara which he presented to Mar Yaballaha.

His narrative is of unique interest as giving a picture of medieval Europe at the close of the Crusading period, painted by a keenly intelligent, broadminded and statesmanlike observer. His travels came just prior to those of Marco Polo and give a reverse viewpoint of the East looking to the West.

[edit] References

J. B. Chabot's translation and edition of the Histoire du Patriarche Mar Jabalaha III. et dumoine Rabban Cauma (from the Syriac) in Revue de l'Orient latin, 1893, pp. 566-610; 1894, pp. 73-143, 235-300
Odericus Raynaldus, Annales Ecclesiastici (continuation of Baronius), AD 1288, fxxxv.xxxvi.; 1289, lxi
Luke Wadding, Annales Minorum, v. 169, 196, 170-173
C. R. Beazley, Dawn of Modern Geography, ii. 15, 352; iii. 12, 189-190, 539-541.
Records of the Wardrobe and Household, 1286-89, ed. Byerly and Byerly (HMSO, 1986), nos. 543, 1082 (for the meeting with Edward I at St Sever).

Rabban Bar Sauma's travel narrative has been translated into English twice:

James A. Montgomery, History of Yaballaha III, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1927)
E. A. Wallis Budge, The Monks of Kublai Khan, (London: Religious Tract Society, 1928).