Talk:André de Longjumeau

Caspian Sea

From the text: "...Their route led them through Persia, along the southern and eastern shores of the Caspian (whose inland character, unconnected with the outer ocean, their journey helped to demonstrate)"

It is inconceivable to me that inhabitants of Persia were unaware of the geography of the Caspian Sea, and thus in need of a Frenchman traveling its border to know that there is no connection to any "Surrounding Ocean", whichever that ocean might be. In fact I would guess they were pretty much aware of the inland nature of the Caspian Sea much before then. The statement above is at best a misguided Eurocentric garbage, the author being "unaware" of people living in the middle east before the european "discoverers" came, and at worst a direct insult to intelligence and culture of the inhabitants of these regions. I think we have a right to expect better from Wikipedia.70.175.29.87 03:07, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps their journey demonstrated the Caspian's inland nature to Europeans (as opposed to the people who already lived there)? Otherwise, I agree that the statement would be Eurocentric.--MorrisGregorian 07:08, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Igor de Rachewiltz in his Papal Envoys to the Great Khans (Stanford University Press, 1971) credits not Andrew of Longjumeau but William of Rubruck with explaining the geography of the Caspian Sea to Europeans (p. 129). I have removed this statement. Aramgar (talk) 17:19, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

The Mongol "reconnaissance in force" under Subutai and Jebe into Georgia and Russia had already demonstrated this; it is very probable that the Mongols already knew of this from their Turkic subjects.104.169.16.173 (talk) 07:11, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

Cleanup

This is a fascinating article, but very poorly written. For example: "...He found Christian prisoners, from Germany in the heart of "Tartary" (at Talas), and was compelled to observe the ceremony of passing between two fires, as a bringer of gifts to a dead Khan, gifts which were of course treated by the Mongols as evidence of submission. This insulting behaviour, and the language of the letter with which Andrew reappeared, marked the mission a failure: King Louis, says Joinville, "se repenti fort" ("felt very sorry")."

This passage is really confusing. What the heck is "the ceremony of passing between two fires"? I had to read this article four times over to make sense of its confusing syntax. I would suggest tagging this article for cleanup. 210.17.23.103 09:46, 16 February 2007 (UTC) Chairman Roberto

This is a delightful and strange article, full of anachronisms and non-sequiturs, badly in need of cleanup. It reminds me of a Lord Dunsany short story. Olompali 18:50, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

maybe we should refrain from cleaning it up, for its Ecoesque qualities :) dab (𒁳) 14:27, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one article was rated and this bot brought all the other ratings up to at least that level. BetacommandBot 02:17, 27 August 2007 (UTC)