Page:Notes upon Russia (volume 1, 1851).djvu/72

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INTRODUCTION.

of Armenia, he retired in 1305, in fulfilment of a vow which he had formerly made, to Piscopia in Cyprus, where he entered a convent of Premonstrants. He subsequently came to Poitiers in France, and there, by the desire of Pope Clement V, dictated to Niccolò Salconi, in the French language, the history of the East, from the time of the appearance of the Mongolians; which the latter translated in 1307, into Latin, under the title, “Liber Historiarum partium Orientis.”

Haitho’s work consists—1, of accounts of the Tatars, from Jenghis Khan to Mango Khan; 2, of narrations from Haitho I, king of Armenia, respecting his life and travels; 3, of the monk Haitho’s narrative of the events of his own time.

Haitho was not a traveller; but deserves mention here, inasmuch as in his work he frequently touches on northern Asia, and several countries pertaining to modern Russia.

Haitho’s work is found both in Latin and French, in manuscript, in the Imperial Library of Vienna, viz.—

Haithon, la flor des Histoires de l’Orient, par Nicolas Faucon, in 4to., Hist. prof., No. 39.

Haitoni flos Historiarum Orientis. Fol., Hist. prof., No. 73.

Likewise, in the celebrated manuscript of Marco Polo, at Bern; and in the Bibliothèque Royale of Paris, No. 7500 and 8392.

The printed editions of this work are the following—