Wilhelm von Rubruk

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wilhelm von Rubruk (* between 1215 and 1220 in Rubrouck , near Cassel , French Flanders ; † around 1270) was a Franciscan and explorer who was one of the first Europeans to study the culture of the Mongols .

Complete course of the route of Wilhelm von Rubruks

Name variants

The name has been handed down in different spellings, which are due to transcriptions into different languages:

Wilhelm von Rubruk, Wilhelm von Ruysbroeck, Wilhelm von Ruysbroek, Guilelmus de Ruysbroek, William Rubruquis, Willem van Ruysbroek, Willelmus de Rubruk, William von Roebruk, William of Rubruck, William Rubruquis, Guilelmus de Rubruc, Wilhelm von Rubruck, Willem van Ruysbroeck, Guillaume de Rubrouck, Gulielmus de Rubruquis, Guillaume de Rubruquis, Willem van Ruusbroec.

Early life

The Flemish joined the Franciscan Friars Minor at a young age, studied in Paris and traveled in 1248 with King Louis IX's entourage . to the Holy Land , where he stayed in Acre for four years .

On a mission to the Great Khan

Part of the route of Wilhelm von Rubruks (green)

In 1252 he finally stepped on behalf of King Louis IX. (France) are planning a trip to the Far East . Rubruk first traveled to Constantinople , from where he set off for Central Asia on May 7, 1253, together with friar Bartholomew of Cremona , an interpreter and a servant . Other embassies had been sent to the Mongols before him, for example Johannes de Plano Carpini in 1245 and André de Longjumeau in 1249. Wilhelm von Rubruk prepared for his trip with reports from traders and envoys, such as the travel report from André de Longjumeau, whom he also met personally.

In Karakoram

After an adventurous journey, they reached the Mongolian capital Karakorum on December 27, 1253 (according to other sources in April 1254) . With the permission of the then Great Khan Möngke Khan (Mangu) they were allowed to stay at his court for about six months. This third successor to Genghis Khan received them in audience on January 4, 1254 .

From a religious, political and diplomatic point of view, Wilhelm’s trip was a great disappointment, because contrary to the expectations of Ludwig IX. The Great Khan, with its tolerant attitude towards other religions and cultures, had no interest in supporting Western Christianity in the fight against Islam and in the attempt to reconquer the Holy Land after the Kingdom of Jerusalem fell to the Muslims in the Battle of Hattin in 1187 was. With regard to the Pope's expectations, Wilhelm and his fellow believer met Christians living in the area of ​​influence of the Mongol Empire, but they did not see any further proselytizing of the Mongols as promising. He himself used the stay for interreligious discussions with Buddhists , Muslims and Nestorians .

Return journey

In the spring of 1255 Wilhelm von Rubruk left Karakorum, returned to Cyprus in 1255 , where he no longer met the French king due to his previous departure, and then arrived on August 15, 1255 in Tripoli near Beirut . There, his superiors did not let him travel on to his clients in Rome or France, but entrusted him with the task of a theology lecturer in Acre . In Acre he dictated his travelogue Itinerarium Willelmi de Rubruc in the form of a letter to the French king and had it delivered to him by Gosset, one of his companions. In research it counts as the first European description that essentially contains reliable information from the Mongol Empire.

Around 1257 Wilhelm was back in Paris, no further dates are known.

In the middle of the 14th century, Jean de Mandeville used, among other things, reports by Wilhelm von Rubruk for his fictional “journeys”.

Critical edition

  • Wilhelmus Rubruquensis: Itinerarium ad partes orientales. In: Anastasius van den Wyngaert (Ed.): Sinica Franciscana. Volume 1: Itinera et relationes Fratrum Minorum saeculi XIII and XIV. Apud Collegium S. Bonaventurae, Firenze 1929, pp. 164-332.

German translations

  • The report of the Franciscan Wilhelm von Rubruk about his journey into the interior of Asia in the years 1253/1255. First complete translation from Latin. Edited and edited by Hermann Herbst , Griffel-Verlag, Leipzig 1925.
  • Wilhelm von Rubruk: Journey to the Mongols 1253–1255. translated and explained by Friedrich Risch. (= Publications of the Research Institute for Comparative Religious History at the University of Leipzig. Series 2, Issue 13). Deichertsche Verlag-Buchhandlung, Leipzig 1934.
  • Wilhelm von Rubruk: Journeys to the Great Khan of the Mongols: from Constantinople to Karakorum 1253–1255 . Revised and edited by Hans Dieter Leicht . Edition Erdmann, Wiesbaden 2012, ISBN 978-3-86539-833-8 .
  • Hans D. Leicht (Ed.), Wilhelm von Rubruk: At the Grosskhan of the Mongols. 1253–1255 (= old adventurous travel reports. ). Erdmann, Lenningen 2003, ISBN 3-86503-003-3 .

See also

literature

Specialist literature

  • C. Raymond Beazley, Richard Hakluyt (Eds.): The texts and versions of John de Plano Carpini and William de Rubruquis: as printed for the first time by Hakluyt in 1598, together with some shorter pieces (= Extra series. (Hakluyt Society ) Vol. 13). Printed for the Hakluyt Society, London 1903; Reprint 1967.
  • Maria Bonewa-Petrowa: Rubruck's travel description as a sociological and cultural-historical source. In: Philologus. No. 115 (1971), pp. 16-31.
  • Guillaume de Rubrouck: Voyage dans l'empire mongol . Payot, Paris 1985, ISBN 2-228-13670-0 .
  • Marina Münkler: Experience of the foreign. The description of East Asia in the eyewitness accounts of the 13th and 14th centuries . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-05-003529-3 , ( excerpts from Google-book )
  • Solange Marin: Rubrouck ou Rubroek Guillaume de (1215 env.-apr. 1295). In: Encyclopédia Universalis . Société d'édition Encyclopædia Universalis, Paris 2001, excerpts online in French .
  • Peter Bruns : "But because of the honor of the cross we stood together ..." Eastern Christianity in the itinerary of Wilhelm von Rubruk (1253–1255). In: Journal for Church History , Volume 113, 2002, Issue 2, pp. 147–171.

Novels

  • Peter Berling wrote Wilhelm von Rubruk (under the name William von Roebruk ) and his travelogue for his pentalogy about the "Children of the Grail" ( The Children of the Grail , The Blood of Kings , The Crown of the World , The Black Chalice , The Kelim of the Princess ).

Biographies

Web links

French language links

Links in English

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans Dieter Leicht (ed.), Wilhelm von Rubruk: At the Great Khan of the Mongols. 1253 - 1255. Lenningen 2003, p. 24 in the foreword; S. 99 of the statement that he had known him personally must: Because Brother Andreas had told them .. .
  2. ↑ Hans Dieter Leicht (ed.), Wilhelm von Rubruk: At the Great Khan of the Mongols. 1253 - 1255. Lenningen 2003, p. 39.
personal data
SURNAME Wilhelm von Rubruk
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Willem van Ruysbroeck
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Franciscan and explorer
DATE OF BIRTH between 1215 and 1220
PLACE OF BIRTH Cassel , now France
DATE OF DEATH around 1270