History of the Mongols (Ystoria Mongalorum)

Rockhill translates only the closing narrative of the journey, told in the first person and dated by the feasts of the church calendar. The rest of the work, a description of the Mongols and their customs, he quotes in his notes.

He was an eyewitness of what he reports from the camp, and he says where he depends on others, such as the Russians and Hungarians at court who knew Latin or French. He spoke through interpreters. Rockhill prints after it a second, shorter account taken down from John’s companion Benedict the Pole, from which he supplies in brackets a few details that John omits, among them the date of the departure from Lyon. See Franciscan Envoys to the Mongols and the Church of Khanbaliq.