Page:Notes upon Russia (volume 1, 1851).djvu/53

Rh monis”; and from this source Reinerus Reineccius has received it into his “Historia Orientalis”.

This portion of the “Itinerarium” is also found in MS. No. 686, in the Royal Library of Paris, which bears the title—

These extracts are also found in Hakluyt’s “Collection”, vol. i, p. 25-29: “Libellus Historicus”, etc., but where Simon’s travels are mixed up with Plano Carpini’s narrative.

They are also found in Italian, in the now very rare work entitled—

Wilhelm von Ruysbroeck, Rusbrock, or Rubruk, commonly known by the Frenchified name of De Rubruquis, was a friar of the minorite order. He was sent to the Mongolians by the French king Louis IX, 1253, then in his crusade against the Saracens, when the rumour had spread in Europe that the Mongolian chief, Mangu Khan, had embraced the Christian religion. In the year just mentioned, he set out on his journey, with a fellow traveller, Bartholomæus of Cremona, went to Constan-