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So, reading through Paris (see post below), I keep finding references to the French king sending envoys to the Mongol king and vice versa asking for an alliance against the Saracens [Muslims].  Which is interesting, considering the mongols, to the europeans, were uncivilized, bloodthirsty barbarians who knew neither language nor religion.  There’s even a transcription of a letter which states that the king of the Tartars [mongols] has coverted to Christianity and in which he extolls all Christians to acknowledge that all the different sects are the same and everyone should get along (OR ELSE).

So, here we have three things:

1. The mongols are bloodthirsty savages who are out to kill us all
2. The mongols are now christian AND
3. we’re going to try to make an alliance with them

As evidenced from this, europeans at the time (1240’s) were incredibly ignorant of anything happening outside their own castles.  By this time there wasn’t really a Mongol “empire”- after Genghis Khan’s death in 1227 it didn’t take long for the empire to break up into several factions: the Ilkhanate in central Asia, the Golden Horde in Russia, the Yuan dynasty in China, and et cetera.  The europeans, however, were under the impression that there was ONE “king of the Tartars”, and herein lies the confusion. In reality there were several khans spread over a wide area, and each one claimed to be “THE” khan. (”khan” is just a mongol word denotinga leader, “great khan” would be the ruler of all the mongols, but there can be numerous lesser “khans”.)

So anyway, going back to the attempted alliance with France: I’m still trying to figure out which khan they’re talking about here.  basically, from around 1240 to maybe around 1260 France and one of the Khans were trying to from an alliance against the Muslims.  What we run into here is a difference in culture-  to the mongols, and alliance was just cooperating with someone you would conquer at a later date- there’s no illusions of cooperating for the grater good here- they just needed help fighting the Muslims.  Anyway, there’s disagreement as to what actually happened (if there was actually an alliance or not) but we do know for sure that the two entities were in friendly contact.

I know we’re discouraged from relying on Wikipedia for much of anything, but this article is an interesting read.   Here’s the good bits:

” There was also some confusion within Europe, as to the differences between the Mongols of the Ilkhanate in the Holy Land, and the Mongols of the Golden Horde, who were making attacks on Eastern Europe, in Hungary and Poland. Within the Mongol Empire, the Ilkhanids and the Golden Horde considered each other enemies, but it took some time for Western observers to be able to distinguish between the different parts of the Mongol Empire.

Historians note that in hindsight an alliance between the Mongols and the “Franks” (European Crusaders) often appears a logical choice.^[1][2][3] The Mongols were already very sympathetic to Christianity as many Mongols were Nestorian Christians. The Europeans were open to the idea of assistance coming from the East, due to the longrunning legend of a mythical Prester John, an Eastern king in a magical kingdom who many believed would arrive someday to help with the fight in the Holy Land. The Mongols and the Franks also shared a common enemy in the Muslims.

Jackson also points out that the court historians of Mongol Iran made no mention whatsoever of the communications between the Ilkhans and the Christian West, and barely mentioned the Franks at all. The communications were evidently not seen as important by the Mongols, and Jackson argues that the communications may have even been seen as embarrassing, especially when the Mongol leader Ghazan, a Muslim, could be seen as trying to gain the assistance of infidels, against his fellow Muslims in Egypt. Also, when the Mongol historians did make notes of foreign territories, they were usually categorized as either “enemies”, “conquered,” or “in rebellion.” The Franks, in that context, were listed in the same category as the Egyptians, in that they were enemies to be conquered. The idea of “ally” was foreign to the Mongols.”

Obviously, this complicates my research.  If I wanted to do this topic justice, I think i’d need a whole lot more than four pages in which to do it.  I guess I have more refining to do.