Born in 1230, he devoted himself early to the church, and during the Fourth Crusade went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. His real name was Ruysbroek, but, according to the unpatriotic fashion of the times, he Latinized it into Rubruquis. S. Louis, King of France, eager for the Christian alliance which the supposed Prester John would be able to enter into with him, had once already sent an embassy of monks to seek him; but they had failed to perform a sixth part of the journey set down for them, and had heard no tidings of a monarch answering to the description. The king, nothing daunted, determined to send another embassy on a voyage of discovery Vague news of a Christian Tartar chief, by name Sartach, had come to him; probably the toleration extended by the Tartars to Christians--a contrast to the behavior of most Saracenic chiefs--led to this obstinate belief in a remote Christian empire of the East. William de Rubruquis, Bartholomew of Cremona, and a companion named Andrew, all Franciscan friars, were chosen for this new expedition. On the 7th of May, 1253 (says his narrative, though it has since been calculated that, as S. Louis was a captive at the time, the date 1255 is more likely to be correct), the travellers, having crossed the Black Sea from Constantinople, landed at Soldaia, near Cherson. The king, somewhat unwisely as it proved, had told his envoy to represent himself as a private individual travelling on his own account. But the Tartars were acute and jealous of foreigners; they knew that travelling entailed too much fatigue and danger to be undertaken simply for pleasure, and they had small regard for any stranger, unless the representative of a prince. They guessed his mission, and taxed him with it, till he was obliged to acknowledge that he was the bearer of letters from the Christian King of France to the mighty khan, Sartach. But though the people do not seem to have taken him for a private person, they were puzzled by the poverty of his dress and the scantiness of the presents he offered them. Even small dignitaries expected to be royally propitiated. He explained his vow of poverty to them, but this did not impress the Tartars as favorably as he wished. Still, he met with nothing but civility and hospitality. Rubruquis says that Soldaia was a great mart for furs, which the Russians exchanged with the merchants of Constantinople for silks, cotton, spices, etc. The third day after his departure he met a wandering tribe, “among whom being entered,” he says, “methought I was come into a new world.” He goes on to describe their houses on wheels, no despicable or narrow habitations, even according to modern ideas: