David of Ashby
Encyclopedia
David of Ashby was an English-born Dominican
Dominican Order
The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...

 friar who was sent by the Holy Land
Holy Land
The Holy Land is a term which in Judaism refers to the Kingdom of Israel as defined in the Tanakh. For Jews, the Land's identifiction of being Holy is defined in Judaism by its differentiation from other lands by virtue of the practice of Judaism often possible only in the Land of Israel...

 city of Acre
Acre, Israel
Acre , is a city in the Western Galilee region of northern Israel at the northern extremity of Haifa Bay. Acre is one of the oldest continuously inhabited sites in the country....

 to the Mongol ruler Hulagu in 1260, by the Papal legate Thomas Agni de Lentino. He stayed around 15 years among the Mongols, and only returned from Iran in 1274.

David of Ashby was a member of the Mongol embassy to the Second Council of Lyon
Second Council of Lyon
The Second Council of Lyon was the fourteenth ecumenical council of the Catholic Church, convoked on 31 March 1272 and convened in Lyon, France, in 1274. Pope Gregory X presided over the council, called to act on a pledge by Byzantine emperor Michael VIII to reunite the Eastern church with the West...

 in 1274, sent by Abaqa. The embassy arrived on 4 July 1274. David was accompanied by the clerk Rychaldus
Rychaldus
Rychaldus, Richaldus or Richardus was a clerk and translator for the Mongol Ilkhanate rulers Hulagu Khan, and then Hulagu's son Abaqa Khan...

, in the service of the Mongols, and 14 Mongol dignitaries. The leader of the Mongols underwent baptism on this occasion, on 16 July.

David of Ashby wrote a book Les fais des Tatars
Tatars
Tatars are a Turkic speaking ethnic group , numbering roughly 7 million.The majority of Tatars live in the Russian Federation, with a population of around 5.5 million, about 2 million of which in the republic of Tatarstan.Significant minority populations are found in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan,...

("The facts about the Tartars") describing the culture of the Tatars and their remarkable military organization and discipline.
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