Letter of Abaqa to Pope Clement IV (Latin)

Mongolic monuments › Letters and edicts of the Ilkhans › Letter of Abaqa to Pope Clement IV (Latin)

• Date	1268, summer (Tabriz)
  Ilkhan	Abaqa
  Addressee	Pope Clement IV
  Type	letter
  Script and language	Latin text (according to Aigle 2005, the letter was written in Mongolian and Latin; a Latin copy is preserved)
  Material	copy in the papal register
  Kept	Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Reg. Vat. 62, fol. 138v–139r
  Discovery and first edition	edition in Lupprian 1981, Nr. 43; the text is also in Tisserant 1946 (as referred to by Aigle 2005)

  Contents

  Abaqa acknowledges the Pope's letter, explains that last year he could send only a Mongolian letter because his Latin scribe was absent, and announces that he has sent his brother Ajai with an army to join the promised crusade and, together with the King of Aragon and the Byzantine emperor, destroy the Mamluks; envoys Solomon and Nekpei are sent to negotiate.

  Literature (3)

  • Tisserant E. (1946). Une lettre de l'ilkhan de Perse Abaga adressée en 1268 au pape Clément IV. Le Muséon 59 (1946), 547–556, Louvain
  • Lupprian K.-E. (1981). Die Beziehungen der Päpste zu islamischen und mongolischen Herrschern im 13. Jahrhundert anhand ihres Briefwechsels. Studi e testi, Città del Vaticano PDF · 7.8 MB
  • Aigle D. (2005). The Letters of Eljigidei, Hülegü, and Abaqa: Mongol Overtures or Christian Ventriloquism? Inner Asia 7:2 (2005), 143–162, Leiden PDF · 1.9 MB

  Source of the data: Lupprian 1981: 223–225 (Nr. 43); Aigle 2005: 150; Tanase 2008: 345

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