Arghun Khan seeks Christian alliance against Mamluks

1286

The Mongol Ilkhan of Persia dispatched the Nestorian monk Rabban Bar Sauma to Rome, Paris, and Bordeaux, proposing a joint Mongol-Christian campaign to retake Jerusalem from the Mamluks. The European kings were polite but noncommittal. The last realistic chance for a Mongol-Crusader alliance against Islam evaporated in diplomatic pleasantries. Bar Sauma's account of his journey is a rare eastern perspective on medieval European courts.