Chapter XXIII: Section II

_Of the first Mission of Friars Predicants and Minorites to the Tartars_.

At the same period, Pope Innocent IV. sent Friar Asceline of the order of friars predicants, with three other friars from different convents, with apostolical letters to the army of the Tartars, exhorting them to desist from slaughtering mankind, and to adopt the true Christian faith; and from one of these lately returned, Friar Simon de St Quintin, of the minorite order, I have received the relations concerning the transactions of the Tartars, which are here set down. At the same period, Friar, John de Plano Carpini of the order of minorites, with some others, was sent to the Tartars, and remained travelling among them for sixteen months. This Friar John hath written a little history, which is come to our hands, of what he saw among the Tartars, or learnt from divers persons living in captivity. From which I have inserted such things, in the following relation, as were wanting in the accounts given me by Friar Simon.