Meeting with Mongol Envoys

Date: December 20, 1248 • Location: Paris, France

Attempting to form an alliance with the Mongol Empire, Louis IX of France met with two of their envoys while en route to the Seventh Crusade.

Several attempts at a military alliance between the Frankish Crusaders and the Mongol Empire against the Islamic caliphates, their common enemy, were made by various leaders among them during the 13th century. Such an alliance might have seemed an obvious choice: the Mongols were already sympathetic to Christianity, given the presence of many influential Nestorian Christians in the Mongol court. The Franks in both Western Europe and the Levantine Crusader states were open to the idea of support from the East, in part owing to the long-running legend of Prester John, an Eastern king in an Eastern kingdom who many believed would one day come to the assistance of the Crusaders in the Holy Land. The Franks and Mongols also shared a common enemy in the caliphates. However, despite many messages, gifts, and emissaries over the course of several decades, the often-proposed alliance never came to fruition.