page_title: Europeans in Medieval China
section_title: Byzantine Empire
hierarchical_section_title: Europeans in Medieval China / Background / Byzantine Empire
caption_attribution_description: English: Tang Emperor Taizong gives an audience to Gar Tongtsen Yulsung, the ambassador of Tibet 中文: 唐太宗在宮內接見松贊乾布派來的吐蕃使臣祿東讚的情景。李世民端坐在由六名宮女抬著的坐榻（又稱步輦，本圖即以此為名）上，另有三個宮女分別在前後掌扇和持華蓋。唐太宗面前站立三人：最右者，身穿大紅袍，是這次儀式的引見官員；中間是吐蕃的使臣祿東贊，拱手而立，髮型和服飾與中原地區不同；最左為一穿白袍的內官。
context_page_description: Given textual and archaeological evidence, it is thought that thousands of Europeans lived in Imperial China during the period of Mongol rule. These were people from countries traditionally belonging to the lands of Christendom during the High to Late Middle Ages who visited, traded, performed Christian missionary work, or lived in China. This occurred primarily during the second half of the 13th century and the first half of the 14th century, coinciding with the rule of the Mongol Empire, which ruled over a large part of Eurasia and connected Europe with their Chinese dominion of the Yuan dynasty. Whereas the Byzantine Empire centered in Greece and Anatolia maintained rare incidences of correspondence with the Tang, Song and Ming dynasties of China, the Roman papacy sent several missionaries and embassies to the early Mongol Empire as well as to Khanbaliq, the capital of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. These contacts with the West were only preceded by rare interactions between the Han-period Chinese and Hellenistic Greeks and Romans.
context_section_description: Byzantine Greek historian Procopius stated that two Nestorian Christian monks eventually uncovered how silk was made. From this revelation, monks were sent by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian (ruled 527–565) as spies on the Silk Road from Constantinople to China and back to steal the silkworm eggs. This resulted in silk production in the Mediterranean, particularly in Thrace, in northern Greece, and giving the Byzantine Empire a monopoly on silk production in medieval Europe until the loss of its territories in Southern Italy. The Byzantine historian Theophylact Simocatta, writing during the reign of Heraclius (r. 610–641), relayed information about China's geography, its capital city Khubdan (Old Turkic: Khumdan, i.e. Chang'an), its current ruler Taisson whose name meant "Son of Heaven" (Chinese: 天子 Tianzi, although this could be derived from the name of Emperor Taizong of Tang), and correctly pointed to its reunification by the Sui dynasty (581–618) as occurring during the reign of Maurice, noting that China had previously been divided politically along the Yangzi River by two warring nations.
  The Chinese Old Book of Tang and New Book of Tang mention several embassies made by Fu lin (拂菻; i.e. Byzantium), which they equated with Daqin (i.e. the Roman Empire), beginning in 643 with an embassy sent by the king Boduoli (波多力, i.e. Constans II Pogonatos) to Emperor Taizong of Tang, bearing gifts such as red glass. These histories also provided cursory descriptions of Constantinople, its walls, and how it was besieged by Da shi (大食; the Arabs of the Umayyad Caliphate) and their commander "Mo-yi" (摩拽; i.e. Muawiyah I, governor of Syria before becoming caliph), who forced them to pay tribute. From Chinese records it is known that Michael VII Doukas (Mie li sha ling kai sa 滅力沙靈改撒) of Fu lin dispatched a diplomatic mission to China's Song dynasty that arrived in 1081, during the reign of Emperor Shenzong of Song. Some Chinese during the Song period showed interest in countries to the west, such as the early 13th-century Quanzhou customs inspector Zhao Rugua, who described the ancient Lighthouse of Alexandria in his Zhu fan zhi.
caption: Emperor Taizong of Tang (r. 626–649) giving an audience to Gar Tongtsen Yulsung, ambassador of the Tibetan Empire, in a painting by Yan Liben (600–673 AD)
exif: {}