ABSTRACT
Since the middle of the thirteenth century, the Franciscans and the Dominicans belonged to the religious-intellectual elite of the Catholic Church. In the Middle Ages, the two mendicant orders carried out missionary work and executed diplomatic functions outside the borders of Western Christendom. The Franciscans succeeded in taking over the Mongol mission and managed to keep it in their control for the entire thirteenth century. By the beginning of the thirteenth century, the Islamic world had separated Europe and Asia from each other for hundreds of years, and in the Latin West, knowledge of Asia, for instance China and India, was received mainly through the authors of classical antiquity and biblical history. The Mongols were a central theme in the First General Council of Lyons convoked by Pope Innocent IV in the summer of 1245.
