Gigantic present from the grateful emperor

One of the most famous forgeries of the Dark Ages was the manuscript called the Donation of Constantine. This fake Roman imperial edict was evidently devised in the second part of the 8th century for the Pope of Rome Stephen II.

The Donation of Constantine t was used by Catholic church for centuries as the support for its territorial claims. It believed blindly in the authenticity of the famous manuscript. Only in the second part of the fifteenth century, with the revival of Classical scholarship and textual critique, the Church had begun to realize that the document could not possibly be genuine.

In the forgery Roman emperor Constantine allegedly grants to the Popes of Rome dominion over lands in Judea, Greece, Asia, Thrace, Africa, the city of Rome and the entire Western Roman Empire. The manuscript tells that all these territories are presented a gift of the first Christian emperor to the pope Sylvester. All these named lands were a one gigantic "present" from the grateful emperor to the pope for instructing him in the Christian faith, baptizing him, and even miraculously curing Constantine of leprosy.

Pope Stephen II was a shrewd diplomat. He successfully used the forgery to create the foundation of the Papal States. He crossed into Gaul with this manuscript and presented a copy to the new king of Franks Pepin the Short. Pope managed to gain king’s support against Lombards who occupied former Byzantine territories in Italy and threatened to push the Pope out of Rome. In 756 Pepin and his Frankish army forced the Lombards to surrender their conquests to the pope of Rome. These lands would become the Papal States and would be the basis of the Papacy’s secular power for the next eleven centuries.

Great hardships

During the second part of the journey Friar and his companions experienced great hardships. excessive fatigue and even hunger. They were constantly ill and had to tightly bandage their bodies to survive the enormous ride. Monks passed Ural and Syr Darya rivers and reached the imperial camp in Karakorum on the Mongol river Orhon after covering some three thousand miles in hundred days!

Naturally, the Great Khan did not convert to Christianity but demanded for all Christian kings and the Pope to swear allegiance to him. He sent them back with a letter to the Pope written in Mongol, Arabic and Latin with the same context.

Miraculously, Friar Joannes and his companions survived the journey back and reached Kiev in 1247. Those who knew them thought that they were risen from the dead. Soon after, stoic monks got to Pope and delivered him the Great Khan’s letter. Friar Joannes was made an archbishop and sent as papal legate to French king Louis IX. At those barbaric times, after all hardships of his journey, Joannes managed to live five years more and died in the age of seventy two.

He left Europeans a great book describing Mongols and Tartars, their rulers, countries, climate, manners and traditions, religion, policy and even military tactics. His works proved invaluable to many other travelers who followed his steps. The contemporary sources state that Friar Joannes was a fat and heavy man, but one won’t find a single word of complaint in his works or in any related manuscripts.

Extremely brave and courageous man

Travels of famous Marco Polo come to our mind whenever we think of first Europeans who visited Mongol rulers of the East. But, in fact, there were other Western travelers who visited Great Khan long before Marco Polo.

According to historical accounts that we know of, the first European who went with the mission to the East was Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, one of the companions and disciples of his countryman Saint Francis. Marco Polo was not even born when Pope of Rome sent Giovanni or, as he was called Friar Joannes, with the first formal Catholic mission to the Mongols in 1245.

Friar Joannes was probably an extremely brave and courageous man - he was not a young man at the time, reaching the age of sixty five. He was provided with a letter from the Pope to the Great Khan, and a couple of monks who accompanied him.

At the time Mongols were at the hight of their power. Friar completed the first part of his journey, passing city of Kiev, rivers Don and Volga and at last arrived to the Ordu which was the camp of Batu, the famous conqueror of Eastern Europe. Batu permitted Friar Joannes to proceed onward to the court of the supreme Khan in Mongolia.

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Series of moral essays

In Hollywood movie adaptations of the novel somehow Robinson Crusoe is a cast away somewhere new African continent, this Friday is of African origin. But in the book Robinson Crusoe was most certainly based in the Caribbean. Since author mentions that the Crusoe's island was almost in the mouth of the river Orinoco, it was probably the island of Tobago, since that island is near the mouth of the river Orinoco, and in sight of the island of Trinidad.

And this is what modern public most definitely don't know. Daniel Defoe wrote a sequel to the first book which had another long title: "THE FARTHER ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE; Being the Second and Last Part OF HIS LIFE, And of the Strange Surprizing Accounts of his Travels Round three Parts of the Globe. Written by Himself".

But wait! Here is more ... There is even the third book written by Daniel Defoe with the title "Serious Reflections of Robinson Crusoe". That book had really nothing with the adventures of Robinson as the first two books. It represents a series of moral essays. What has that got to do with Robinson, you may ask? Well Daniel Defoe just attached the name Crusoe to increase sales of this book and to attract the attention of the readers.

There are several historical facts

Everybody knows a novel by Daniel Dafoe that is known as Robinson Crusoe. This book had been all-time bestseller at the times when there was no such word as "bestseller" itself. In fact, by the end of the 19th century, no book in the history of Western literature had spawned more editions, spin-offs, and translations than Robinson Crusoe. There had been more than seven hundred such alternative versions, including children's versions with mainly pictures and no text. Hundreds of adaptations in dozens of languages, had been published - from The Swiss Family Robinson to Luis Bunue'’s film adaptation.

But there are several historical facts unknown to general public. First of all the full title of the book was not Robinson Crusoe. When the novel was published in April 25, 1719 it had the following title: "The Life and strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely delive'’d by Pyrates. Written by Himself."

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Eight editions

At the age of 50 he decided to retire from business. As an aftermath, he wrote a book about himself. In this book he complained about his wife, politicians, clergy, and the like. He called his work "A Pickle for the Knowing Ones or Plain Truth in a Homespun Dress", and it contained almost 9 thousand words and 34 thousands letters. But there was not a single punctuation mark in the whole book! So what do you think happened?

You are right, his book became a bestseller of those times. Following the success of his book, the second edition was immediately published, where Dexter added only one additional page of punctuation marks. His advice to readers was to use these punctuation marks at any place of the book, as they please. Overall, there were eight editions of his book published one after another.

It all was just pure luck

It seemed that Dexter always lucked out. Any other businessmen would end with financial disaster in the ventures similar to his. It all was just pure luck. Judge for yourself. Some people gave Timothy a bad advice trying to ruin him completely. They advised him to send his ships to sell coal in English city of Newcastle, that had rich coal mines of its own! And he did accordingly and amassed a fortune after his cargo arrived during a miners' strike which had crippled local production. Thus, a popular English idiom "Selling coal to Newcastle" was born.

Any venture that Timothy undertook would bring him unimaginable profits. He would come out with huge money each time when, for example he sold bibles to India or stray cats to Caribbean islands. Once by mistake he stored a lot of whalebone and still got huge profits by selling it as the support material for female corsets.

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