Rubruck

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A thirteenth-century Flemish Franciscan friar who travelled to the Mongol court and wrote an account of his journey
2. A medieval Flemish missionary and traveller famed for his report on visiting the Great Khan's realm in Mongolia
3. The Franciscan monk from Flanders whose travel narrative describes his mission among the Mongols in the 1250s

Etymology: The name comes from a village, not from a word. William of Rubruck, a Franciscan friar, took his name from Rubrouck, a small place in French Flanders, now in northern France near the Belgian border. In Latin records he appears as Guillelmus de Rubruquis, and English writers have kept the place-based form. In 1253 Louis IX of France sent him east, reportedly as a diplomat rather than a formal envoy, to seek an alliance with the Mongols against Islamic powers. He reached the court of Möngke Khan in Karakorum in 1254 and stayed until 1255. His report to the king, usually called his "Itinerarium," is one of the most detailed European accounts of the Mongol Empire from that era. He described the court, the customs, and a fermented mare's milk drink he called "cosmos," which is a careful early European description of kumis. Rubruck's account was not widely read in Europe for centuries, and English readers reached it mainly through later travel anthologies. The name survives mostly in historical writing about the Mongols and early European contact with Asia.