On the Beginnings of Diplomatic Relations with Persia in the Fifteenth Century in the Context of Resistance to the Growing Power of the Ottoman Empire:

The Visit of the Dominican John III of Sulṭāniyya, Bischofe von Persya, Envoy of Tīmūr and Mīrān Shāh to the Teutonic Court in 1407

Abstract

The reign of Tīmūr (c. 1370–1405), particularly from the late 1390s, marked a period of intensified contact between Western Europe and his vast empire. Several factors drove these diplomatic exchanges between the West and Tīmūr, one of which was their shared interest in curbing the rising power of the Ottoman state. Among Tīmūr’s envoys was the Dominican friar John, probably Italian or born into an Italian family settled in Kastamonu in Paphlagonia on the Black Sea. From around 1390 he served as bishop of Nakhchivān and was likely already in contact with Tīmūr at that time. In 1398–1399 he undertook his first mission to the West, recorded in the sources, receiving in Rome his appointment as Archbishop of Sulṭāniyya in July 1398. On his next mission, beginning in 1402, he remained in Europe until at least 1412, presenting himself as an envoy of Tīmūr and his son Mīrān Shāh and acting as an informant on the precarious state of the missions in Persia and further east. At the same time, he sought to win cooperation with the Tīmūrids by cultivating a favourable image of them among Western rulers. John was styled by papal cardinals Archiepiscopus Soltaniensis seu Orientis (“Archbishop of Sulṭāniyya or of the East”), and from 1410 also served as administrator of the archidioecesis Cambaliensis (Peking). A particularly noteworthy episode of his European sojourn was his visit to the Teutonic Order’s court in Malbork in 1407. Referred to by the Teutonic Knights as the bischofe von Persya (“bishop of Persia”) and titled by Grand Master Konrad von Jungingen Soltaniensis sive totius Orientis primas (“Archbishop of Sulṭāniyya or primate of the whole East”), he likely persuaded the Grand Master to issue a new series of letters – to the King of Cyprus (styled also as ruler of Armenia), to Timur and Mīrān Shāh, to the Byzantine emperor, and to the legendary Prester John of Ethiopia or Abkhazia – in support of his mission in Europe. Archbishop John saw himself both as a missionary and as an instrument of anti-Ottoman policy, mediating in the creation of an alliance between Tīmūr and the rulers of Western Europe, with the aim of strengthening the position of Christianity in Persia and more broadly in Asia. His trace disappears after 1412, when he was last recorded in Lviv. There is also a hypothesis that Archbishop John was a forger and that at least some of the letters addressed to Western European rulers – purportedly written by Tīmūr himself – were in fact fabrications composed by the Dominican friar. Exploiting the confusion that followed the Battle of Ankara and the general ignorance of Europeans regarding the East, he allegedly sought to present himself as Tīmūr’s trusted adviser, thereby constructing the myth of a “Christian Tīmūr”. In doing so, he gained access to European courts and secured financial support for his activities. The trail of Archbishop John ends in 1412 in Lviv, from where he never returned to Persia, perhaps fearing exposure at the courts of Tīmūr’s and Mīrān Shāh’s successors.