Europeans In Medieval China

Given textual and archaeological evidence, it is thought that thousands of Europeans lived in Imperial China during the Yuan dynasty.Roux (1993), p. 465 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 Holy See sent several missionaries and embassies to the early Mongol Empire as well as to Khanbaliq (modern Beijing), the capital of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty of China. These contacts with the West were preceded by rare interactions between the Han dynasty and Hellenistic Greeks and Romans.

Mainly located in places such as the Yuan capital of Karakorum, European missionaries and merchants traveled around various parts of the Yuan dynasty and other Mongol-ruled khanates during a period of time referred to by historians as the "Pax Mongolica". Perhaps the most important political consequence of this movement of peoples and intensified trade was the Franco-Mongol alliance, although the latter never fully materialized, at least not in a consistent manner. The establishment of the Ming dynasty in 1368 and reestablishment of ethnic Han rule led to the cessation of European merchants and Roman Catholic missionaries living in China. Direct contact with Europeans was not renewed until Portuguese explorers and Jesuit missionaries arrived on Ming China's southern shores in the 1510s, during the Age of Discovery.

The Italian merchant Marco Polo, preceded by his father and uncle Niccolò and Maffeo Polo, traveled to China during the Yuan dynasty. Marco Polo wrote a famous account of his travels there, as did the Franciscan friar Odoric of Pordenone and the merchant Francesco Balducci Pegolotti. The author John Mandeville also wrote about his travels to China, but he may have based these on preexisting accounts. In Khanbaliq, the Roman archdiocese was established by John of Montecorvino, who was later succeeded by Giovanni de Marignolli. Other Europeans such as André de Longjumeau managed to reach the eastern borderlands of China in their diplomatic travels to the Yuan imperial court, while others such as Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, Benedykt Polak, and William of Rubruck traveled instead to Outer Mongolia. The Turkic Chinese Nestorian Christian Rabban Bar Sauma was the first diplomat from China to reach the royal courts of the Christendom in the West.

Background

Hellenistic Greeks

Before the 13th century AD, instances of Europeans going to China or of Chinese going to Europe were very rare. Euthydemus I, Hellenistic ruler of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom in Central Asia during the 3rd century BC, led an expedition into the Tarim Basin (modern Xinjiang, China) in search of precious metals.W.W. Tarn (1966), ''The Greeks in Bactria and India'', reprint edition, London & New York: Cambridge University Press, pp 109–111. Greek influence as far east as the Tarim Basin at this time also seems to be confirmed by the discovery of the Sampul tapestry, a woolen wall hanging with the painting of a blue-eyed soldier, possibly a Greek, and a prancing centaur, a common Hellenistic motif from Greek mythology.Christopoulos, Lucas (August 2012), "Hellenes and Romans in Ancient China (240 BC – 1398 AD)," in Victor H. Mair (ed), ''Sino-Platonic Papers'', No. 230, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, University of Pennsylvania Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, pp 15–16, ISSN 2157-9687. However, it is known that other Indo-European peoples such as the Yuezhi, Saka, and TochariansXavier Tremblay (2007), "The Spread of Buddhism in Serindia: Buddhism Among Iranians, Tocharians and Turks before the 13th Century," in Ann Heirman and Stephan Peter Bumbacker (eds), ''The Spread of Buddhism'', Leiden & Boston: Koninklijke Brill, p. 77, . inhabited the Tarim Basin before and after it was brought under Han Chinese influence during the reign of Emperor Wu of Han (r. 141–87 BC). Emperor Wu's diplomat Zhang Qian (d. 113 BC) was sent to forge an alliance with the Yuezhi, a mission that was unsuccessful, but he brought back eyewitness reports of legacies of Hellenistic Greek civilization with his travels to "Dayuan

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases