Lawrence of Portugal explained

Lawrence of Portugal was a Franciscan friar and an envoy sent by Pope Innocent IV to the Mongols in 1245.

A letter survives in the Register of Innocent IV, dating Lawrence's departure from Lyon to 5 March 1245. The letter, published in Monumenta Germaniae Historica and usually referred to as Dei patris immensa, suggests that his mission was primarily religious in character.^[1] Lawrence was to have approached the Mongols from the Levant.^[2] Nothing is known of his fate, and the possibility remains that he never left.^[3]

A second Franciscan mission, led by Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, left Lyon on 16 April 1245 and arrived in the Mongol capital of Karakorum more than a year later.

See also

• André de Longjumeau
• Ascelin of Lombardia
• Simon of St Quentin

Notes and References

1. Monumenta Germaniae Historica; Epistolae Saeculi XIII: E Regestis Pontificum Romanorum, ed. Karl Rodenberg (Berlin, 1887), Vol. 2, No. 102, p. 72. http://www.mgh.de/dmgh/resolving/MGH_Epp._saec._XIII_2_S._72
2. Igor de Rachewiltz, Papal Envoys to the Great Khans (Stanford University Press, 1971), p. 87.
3. Gregory G. Guzman, "Simon of Saint-Quentin and the Dominican Mission to the Mongol Baiju: A Reappraisal" Speculum, Vol. 46, No. 2. (April., 1971), p. 234.