LETTER BY THE GREAT KHAN GÜYÜK
TO POPE INNOCENT IV
s.l. 1246 November 3rd-11th
Paper, 1012x200 mm., in a good state of preservation; the document is made up of two separate parts, then joined together in one. The double red ink stamp serves as a seal.
ASV, A.A., Arm. I‑XVIII, 1802 (2)
With this letter, the Mongolian Great Khan Güyük answers, point by point, to some requests and comments about his behaviour, set forth by Pope Innocent IV in a previous message. Amongst other things, Khan Güyük says that he does not understand the pope’s desire for him to be baptized; he underlines he is not willing to retreat from the Majar territories he conquered and he reaffirms more than once that he does not place faith in the pope’s will concerning peaceful relationships between the two authorities, at least until when the Pope himself, Innocent IV and the Christian princes go to his court to pay the due tribute to him. The letter is written in Persian, the preamble in Turkish and the date in Arabic.
The Great Khan’s document was delivered to the papal court by the Franciscan Giovanni di Pian del Carmine, who left Lyon on the 16th of April 1245 and returned to Rome at the end of 1247.
