page_title: Franco-Mongol alliance
section_title: Arghun (1284–1291)
hierarchical_section_title: Franco-Mongol alliance / Relations with the Ilkhanate / Arghun (1284–1291)
caption_attribution_description: Arghun Letter To Philippe Le Bel, in Mongolian language and script, Extract, 1289 ink on parchmentmedium QS:P186,Q127418;P186,Q226697,P518,Q861259 185 × 25 cm (72.8 × 9.8 in) Transliteration: "Monkh Tengeriin khuchin dor. Khaanii suu dor. Argun ug maani. Ired Faransaa. Nodnin chi Mar Bar Sawma sagura terguuten elchineer ochij ilgeeruun: Ilkhanii tserguud Misiriin zug morilvoos bid beer endees morilj khamsay khemen ochij ilgeesniig chin zovshooj Tengeriig zalbirch bars jil ovliin etses sard morilj khavryn terguun saryn arvan tavnaa Dimisq buuya khemeev. Edugee unen ugtee khuren, tserguudee bolzol dor ilgeej, tengert mor ogtoj, ted irge avbaas Orislimiig tanaa ogiye. Khem bolzol khojdoj tserguudiig nemuulbees yu zokhikh? Khoino beer genevees yakhan tus aa? Bas ali beer khelen nemen elchineeree jiguur aguulgan Ferenkuudiin gazryn tansguud, shonkhod, eldev ongoton goroos ogch ilgeevees kher ba soyorkhokhiig Tengeriin khuchin Khaany suu medtugei, khemeen Muskeril khorchiig ilgeev. Bichig maani ukher jil zuny terguun saryn zurgaan khuuchdad Khondlonoo bukhui dor bichvei." Translation: "Under the power of the Eternal Heaven. Under the majesty of the Khan (Kublai Khan). Arghun our word. To the Rey da France (King of France). Last year you sent your ambassadors led by Mar Bar Sawma telling us: "if the soldiers of the Il-Khan ride in the direction of Misir (Egypt) we ourselves will ride from here and join you", which words we have approved and said (in reply) "praying to Tengri (Heaven) we will ride on the last month of winter on the year of the Tiger and descend on Dimisq (Damascus) on the 15th of the first month of spring." Now, if, being true to your words, you send your soldiers at the appointed time and, worshipping Heaven, we conquer those citizens (of Damascus together), we will give you Orislim (Jerusalem). How can it be appropriate if you were to start amassing your soldiers later than the appointed time and appointment? What would be the use of regretting afterwards? Also, if, adding any additional messages, you let your ambassadors fly (to us) on wings, sending us luxuries, falcons, whatever precious articles and beasts there are from the land of the Franks, the Power of Tengri and the Majesty of the Khan only knows how we will treat you favorably. With these words we have send Muskeril (Buscarello) the Khorchi. Our writing was written while we were at Khondlon on the sixth khuuchid of the first month of summer on the year of the Ox." Red seal imprints with the same six seal script Chinese characters: 輔國安民之寶 Fǔguó ānmín zhībǎo ("Precious seal of the upholder of the State and the purveyor of peace to the People").
context_page_description: Several attempts at a Franco-Mongol alliance against the Islamic caliphates, their common enemy, were made by various leaders among the Frankish Crusaders and the Mongol Empire in the 13th century. Such an alliance might have seemed an obvious choice: the Mongols were already sympathetic to Christianity, given the presence of many influential Nestorian Christians in the Mongol court. The Franks were open to the idea of support from the East, in part owing to the long-running legend of the mythical Prester John, an Eastern king in an Eastern kingdom who many believed would one day come to the assistance of the Crusaders in the Holy Land. The Franks and Mongols also shared a common enemy in the Muslims. However, despite many messages, gifts, and emissaries over the course of several decades, the often-proposed alliance never came to fruition.
  Contact between Europeans and Mongols began around 1220, with occasional messages from the papacy and European monarchs to Mongol leaders such as the Great Khan, and subsequently to the Ilkhans in Mongol-conquered Persia.
context_section_description: Abaqa died in 1282 and was briefly replaced by his brother Tekuder, who had converted to Islam. Tekuder reversed Abaqa's policy of seeking an alliance with the Franks, offering instead an alliance to the Mamluk Sultan Qalawun, who continued his own advance, capturing the Hospitaller fortress of Margat in 1285, Lattakia in 1287, and the County of Tripoli in 1289. However, Tekuder's pro-Muslim stance was not popular, and in 1284, Abaqa's Buddhist son Arghun, with the support of the Great Khan Kublai, led a revolt and had Tekuder executed. Arghun then revived the idea of an alliance with the West, and sent multiple envoys to Europe.
  The first of Arghun's embassies was led by Isa Kelemechi, a Christian Assyrian interpreter who had been head of Kublai Khan's Office of Western Astronomy and sent to Greater Iran at the order of the Great Khan. The embassy was sent because the Great Khan Kublai (Qubilai) ordered Arghun to free Holy Land and protect Christians. Kelemechi met with Pope Honorius IV in 1285, offering to "remove" the Saracens (Muslims) and divide "the land of Sham, namely Egypt" with the Franks. The second embassy, and probably the most famous, was that of the elderly cleric Rabban Bar Sauma, who had been visiting the Ilkhanate during a remarkable pilgrimage from China to Jerusalem.
  Through Bar Sauma and other later envoys, such as Buscarello de Ghizolfi, Arghun promised the European leaders that if Jerusalem were conquered, he would have himself baptized and would return Jerusalem to the Christians. Bar Sauma was greeted warmly by the European monarchs, but Western Europe was no longer as interested in the Crusades, and the mission to form an alliance was ultimately fruitless. England did respond by sending a representative, Geoffrey of Langley, who had been a member of Edward I's Crusade 20 years earlier, and was sent to the Mongol court as an ambassador in 1291.
caption: 1289 letter of Arghun to Philip IV of France, in the Mongolian script, with detail of the introduction. The letter was conveyed to the French king by Buscarel of Gisolfe.[102]
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