The Tartar Khan's Englishman

by Gabriel Ronay

Book Overview

"A splendid biography...it is gripping reading."--Economist. "No writer of historical fiction or Hollywood extravaganza could invent action half as exciting as are the rare adventures and painful... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 184212210X
• ISBN13: 9781842122105
• Release Date: June 2001
• Publisher: Orion Publishing Group
• Length: 249 Pages
• Weight: 0.82 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Astounding piece of forgotten history

This is the astounding tale of a long forgotten Englishman and his role in the Mongol invasion of Europe that came within an ace of wiping the fledging nations and cultures of western Europe - not to mention eastern Europe and the middle east - off the face of the earth. In fact our not so distant ancestors were only saved from being slaughtered by sheer luck: at the next to last moment the Great Khan died, and the generals in charge of his unstoppable armies raced back to the far east to stake their claims to his vacant throne. As his armies turned back a small reconnaissance force of 10,000 men was defeated in Poland (a battle still celebrated in Poland to this day as a great victory), the bickering, disorganised and ineffectual Europeans unable to comprehend that the Mongol armies they faced were so overwhelmingly large that to them 10,000 men merely constituted a small force. And amongst the few captured Mongols was one of the Khans most important diplomats... an Englishman. Gabriel Ronay unearths this long forgotten Englishman's incredible story in an extremely readable piece of historical research that will have you gripped from first to last. How this mysterious, long forgotten Englishman came to serve the great Khan is an incredible story in itself, but combine this with the equally little known story of how the Venetians, acting as the Khan's bankers, not only would have watched as Europe was annihilated in an unprecedented bloodbath but were actively aiding the Mongols in return for exclusive trading rights (which will have your blood boiling by the end of the book) - and then add the Mongol's chillingly thorough and calculated preparations for the invasion, compared and contrasted with the bickering Europeans' pathetic attempts to either a) ignore all the signs of the coming holocaust, or b) to make feeble attempts to turn it to their advantage in petty disputes against their neighbours, and you'll realise how close the modern world we know came to dying stillborn in a horrific and completely one sided bloodbath 700 years ago. This is an incredible book. And I don't say that lightly. Highly recommended.

Fascinating Detective Work!

Whether or not you ultimately agree with Ronay's conclusion, it is one of the most fascinating works of historical detection I have ever read! There is no hard evidence to prove or disprove his theory; however, in his detective work, he introduces the reader to more intimate details of the Magna Carta rebellion, the 5th crusade, the role of the Templars in the contemporary history; and--most interesting to me--the role of Yeliu Chut'sai's Mongolian chancellory, the administrative arm of the Mongol government, and how it worked. Ronay's work opened up an entire new viewpoint to explore in my academic wanderings. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Star Wars? Lord of the Rings? A better tale and a true one!

This is one of the most exciting and interesting books I've ever read. Where are Steven Spielberg or George Lucas when we need them? If this book were made into a film or a series of films, it would rock Hollywood. And the tale of how Ronay pieced together the evidence for this amazing life should be a PBS documentary, all in itself. Very few historians share his tenacity and skill in digging away at obsucrities and bringing them to life. A must read for the adventure, for the history and for the pure delight of a time trip back into the thirteenth century! Wow!

Saved from oblivion. One mans extraordinary story

Gabriel Ronay is one of the few people qualified to write this account. Born in Transylvania he graduated from Edinburgh and Budapest universities where he read history and studied Russian, German, Romance Languages and Finno-Ugrrian philology. He continued his medieval researches while working for the Times and BBC in London.While studying the annals of Matthew Paris, the learned St Albans chronicler of thirteenth century events, he chanced upon a report, dated 1243, on the capture of the Tartar Khans chief diplomat, together with a group of Tartar officers participating in the siege of Wiener Neustadt in Austria. Astonishingly the envoy was a "native of England".This chance discovery led Mr Ronay on a 3 year quest to discover the identity of this mysterious Englishman and how he got to be in such an unlikely place.Based on his extensive research Mr Ronay has uncovered reports on three men, all English, all with the same name and all related to the church. It is Mr Ronays hypothesis that these three men are in fact the same person. The evidence is of course sketchy and would not stand up in a court of law but for at leat one of the cases it seems convincing.If you believe Mr Ronays evidence then this story recounts an extraordinary life. The Englishman was present at Runnymede for the signing of the Magna Carta as the personal chaplin of Robert Fitz Walter the leader of the rebellious Barrons. He was excommunicated from the chiurch and banished from England for his part in the rebellion. He became a Templar traveled to the Holy land on the 5th Crusade and was present at the siege of Damietta in Egypt. He was expelled from the crusade by the Templars for gambling and wandered through the middle east ending up in Iraq where he was adopted by Monguls in need of literate men with multilungual skills for thier diplomatic core.He rose through the Mogul diplomatic core and became the great Khans envoy for the European Invasion. Even if you do not accept Mr Ronays evidence you will learn a great deal about Europe between 1200 and 1240. From the destruction of greater Hungary to the complicity of the Venetians in the Mogul invasion.All in all a superb book that stretches the limits of professional historical analysis without breaking them.

One of my favorite books

A fascinating collection of chronicles and accounts of a mysterious Englisman turned Templar who was an envoy, spy, and diplomat, for Batu Khan's invasion of Europe. All of this occurred a generation before Marco Polo and a dozen years before the papal envoys made their visits to Karakorum.