THE CHRISTIAN NOBLES AT THE COURT OF GREAT KHAN, AS DESCRIBED IN MEDIAEVAL EUROPEAN SOURCES

Research objectives: “Moreover, the chief princes of his whole empire, more than thirty thousand in number, who are called Alans, and govern the whole Orient, are Christians either in fact or in name, calling themselves the Pope’s slaves, and ready to die for the Franks.” With these words John of Marignola, a notable traveller to the Far East in the fourteenth century and a legate to the Great Khan of Cathay, attested in his Cronica Boemorum the presence of certain Christian nobles of the Alan race in the service of the Mongol-Chinese emperor. The immediate impetus for Marignola’s mission was that in 1336 the Great Khan Ukhaghatu Toghon-Temür sent a delegation of sixteen “Franks” (Franquis), as the Mongols called Europeans, ad Papam, Dominum Christianorum in Franchiam. They brought two letters to the pope: one purporting to be from the Great Khan himself, and the other from certain princes of the Christian Alans in his service. By the coming of the Mongolian legation in Avignon in 1338, we are informed, among others, that the successor of John of Montecorvino, the first archbishop in Khanbalik, had never reached his destination, as well as the other succeeding archbishops to Khanbalik. Research materials: Marignola’s mission was important not only with its spiritual message, but rather with an excellent choice of gift for the Great Khan. Western messengers brought with them, among the gifts from the Pope in Rome, a singularly auspicious present: a magnificent black horse with white hind hooves. Marignola, in his Cronica Boemorum, identifies the Christian dignitaries at the court of the Great Khan as the Alans. We know of them from earlier sources, but mostly under the generic name “Christians” or “Nestorian Christians”. John of Montecorvino reportedly converted many Alans (he did not mention their name) to Roman Catholic Christianity in addition to Armenians in China. According to the Annals of the Yuan Dynasty, in 1229 and 1241, when army of Ögedei Khan reached the Country of the Aas (Alans), their chief submitted at once and a body of one thousand Alans was kept for the private guard of the Great Khan. Möngke Khan enlisted in his bodyguard half of the troops of Arslan, an Alan prince, whose younger son Nicholas took a part in the expedition of the Mongols against Qaraǰang (Yunnan). Marco Polo mentions Alania among the countries conquered by the Mongols, and devotes a whole chapter to an account of the slaughter of certain Alans who were Christians and formed a corps in Kublai’s army. The number and influence of Christians in China at the end of the thirteenth century may be gathered from the letter of John of Montecorvino, and in the first part of the following century from the report of the Archbishop of Soltania, who describes them as more than thirty thousand in number, and passing rich people. That Christians continued to rise in influence during the short remainder of the Mongol reign appears probable from the position which we find the Christian Alans to occupy in the empire at the time of the visit of John of Marignola. Also Odoric of Pordenone several times mentioned “great barons” (magni barones aspicientes solum ad personam regis) at the court of the Great Khan. Interesting is Odoric’s pleasant

With these words John of Marignola (Iohannes a Sancto Laurentio, Iohannes de Florentia, Giovanni de' Marignolli, b. before 1290, fl. 1338-1353), a notable traveller to the Far East in the fourteenth century and a legate to the Great Khan of Cathay, attested in his Cronica Boemorum the presence of certain Christian nobles of the Alan race in the service of the Mongol-Chinese emperor. In other part of his text also mentions: 2 "We set out from Avignon in the month of December, came to Naples in the beginning of Lent, and stopped there till Easter (which fell at the end of March), waiting for a ship of Genoa, which was coming with the Tartar envoys whom the Kaan had sent from his great city of Cambalec to the Pope, to request the latter to despatch an embassy to his court, whereby communication might be established, and a treaty of alliance struck between him and the Christians; for he greatly loves and honours our faith. Moreover, the chief princes of his whole empire, more than thirty thousand in number, who are called Alans, and govern the whole Orient, are Christians either in fact or in name, calling themselves the Pope's slaves, and ready to die for the Franks. For so they term us, not indeed from France, but from Frank-land. Their  other rarities from the sun-setting. Written in Cambalec, in the year of the Rat, in the sixth month, on the third day of the Moon" -Transl. by Henry Yule in [26, p. 181]. -The "Seven Seas" is a figurative term that can be traced back to ancient times referring to all the seas and oceans of the world. The Seven Seas was part of the vernacular of several nations long before some of the oceans named were known to the inhabitants of Europe and Asia. The Seven Seas are referred to in the literature of the ancient Hindus, Chinese, Persians, Romans and other nations. In each case, the term simply referred to different bodies of water. Sometimes it even referred to mythical seas. To the Persians, the Seven Seas were the streams forming the Oxus River; the Hindus used the term for the bodies of water in the Punjab. There is a group of saltwater lagoons near Venice, Italy, that the Romans called septem maria. 6  As regards the embassy of 1338 from the Great Khan, we find that it was graciously received by the Pope Benedict XII, one mark of his favour being to create one of the Tartar envoys sergeant-at-arms to himself [2, p. 242] 8 ; that in due time the Pope delivered answers to the letters from Cathay, and that shortly afterwards he appointed legates to proceed on his own part to the court of Khanbalik, with a charge which combined the reciprocation of the Khan's courtesies with the promotion of missionary objects [26, p. 188 14 .
This extraordinary gift to the emperor and his artistic representation were recorded by the scholar Ouyang Xuan (歐陽玄 Ōuyáng Xuán, 1283-1357) in his Ode on the Heavenly Horse (天馬頌 Tiānmǎ song or 天馬賦 Tiānmǎ fù) 15 .
But return back to the Christians at the Mongolian-Chinese court. Marignola, in his Cronica Boemorum, identifies the Christian dignitaries at the court of the Great Khan as the Alans. We know of them from earlier sources, but mostly under the generic name "Christians" or "Nestorian Christians" 16 .
Who were these Alans? The Alans (or Alani) were an Iranian nomadic pastoral people of antiquity. The first mentions of names that historians link with the Alani appear at almost the same time in Greco-Roman geography and in the Chinese dynastic chronicles. From Chinese early sources (The Later Han Dynasty annals, 後漢書 Hòu Hàn shū), covering the period of 25-220 AD, we know them under name of 阿蘭聊 Ālánliáo [13]. Their migrations, first to Central Asia in the first century AD and then, during the fourth and fifth centuries AD, to the West Europe and North Africa, are best known.
As the Alans, whose original area of settlement was north of the Caucasus, converted to Byzantine Orthodoxy in the first quarter of the tenth century, they were collectively mentioned as Byzantine-rite Christians in the thirteenth century. In the Northern Caucasus, roughly in the location of latter-day Circassia and modern North Ossetia-Alania, existed from the eighth or ninth century until its destruction by the Mongol invasion in 1238-1239, a medieval kingdom of Alania.  [14; 15]. It is also known that 30,000 Alans formed the royal guard (asud) 17 18 .
As The number and influence of Christians in China at the end of the thirteenth century may be gathered from the letter of John of Montecorvino [27, p. 46 seqq.], and in the first part of the following century from the report of the Archbishop of Soltania, who describes them as more than thirty thousand in number, and passing rich people [28, p. 102]. Probably there was a considerable increase in their numbers about this time, because Odoric of Pordenone (also known as Odoric of Udine, Odoric of Friuli etc.; ca. 1280/1286-1331), in about 1324, found (three) Nestorian churches in the city of Yangzhou (揚州 Yángzhōu) 21 , where Marco would probably have mentioned them had they existed in his time. That Christians continued to rise in influence during the short remainder of the Mongol reign appears probable from the position which we find the Christian Alans to occupy in the empire at the time of the visit of John of Marignola [29, p. 119].
Odoric several times mentioned "great barons" (magni barones aspicientes solum ad personam regis) at the court of the Great Khan, for example: " one of whom was a bishop, met the Great Khan on his way from Shangdu and saluted him by singing the hymn VENI CREATOR SPIRITUS 24 . In this episode we know again on "four barons who go beside him" (quatuor barones qui erant iuxta eum), i.e. Christian Alan guards in the service of the Great Khan. What happened to the multitude of converts that John of Montecorvino and others claimed for Rome, when the Ming dynasty took control in 1368? As Lauren Arnold writes in her Princely Gifts and Papal Treasures, no huge cataclysm took place in terms of Chinese Christianity during the change from the Yuan to the Ming dynasty, but the Christian communities founded by the Franciscans probably became very discreet in the outward manifestations of their faith. This was a period of intense anti-foreign feeling, when non-Chinese graveyards were despoiled and their stones incorporated into city walls, as they were in Yangzhou (揚州 Yángzhōu) and Quanzhou (泉州 Quánzhōu) [1, p. 143-144].
A recent study suggests that Christian worship, instead of dying out under this pressure, simply became more circumspect in its visible forms of worship. Bernward H. Willeke uncovered evidence that some fifteenth-century Christians migrated from the coast or other cities to smaller communities, in order to worship quietly as they wished [24, p. 64-70]. Latin Christianity in the beginning of the Ming dynasty might have hidden discreetly in the coastal cities and elsewhere, well into the early sixteenth century. It was slowly contracting from attrition, and suffering from lack of renewal. Very likely Latin Christians persisted in ever-smaller groups, as Nestorian enclaves did, until an official persecution caused by Muslim unrest (ca. 1543) violently ended all foreign-based religions in China [1, p. 145].