ADAM, GUILLAUME, 14th-century traveler. A member of the Dominican order, he came originally from the south of France (he studied at Condom in 1302). Ca. 1312 he was sent to the Mongol khanate of Iran; he traveled from Tabrīz to Hormoz, continuing on to India and by sea to Ethiopia. Upon his return he wrote for Cardinal Raymond de Farges the treatise De modo Serracenos extirpandi; in it he proposed a crusade which would blockade Mamluk Egypt from both the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, follow up the earlier overture of the Il-khan Arḡūn to the West, and support the Mongols of Iran against the Golden Horde. He undoubtedly inspired the papal bull Redemptor of 1 April 1318, which instituted an archbishopric for Solṭānīya. Adam himself was consecrated bishop as suffragan for its archbishop. He may have been sent the same year to Little Armenia together with another Dominican, Raymond Etienne, but he apparently did not return to Iran. He was associated with Martin Zaccaria, who warred against the Turks in Asia Minor, and was bishop of Smyrna at the time when the pope created an archbishopric of Ephesus (25 June 1322). On 6 October 1322 John XXII appointed him as second archbishop of Solṭānīya, but Adam does not appear to have reached his seat. He was at Avignon in 1323 and on 26 October 1324 obtained transfer to the see of Antivari in Dalmatia. He resided there only occasionally; he died between 1338 and the end of 1341.
To Adam has been attributed, by C. Kohler (see bibliog.), the Directorium ad passagium faciendum of Pseudo-Brocardus. This is a plan for a crusade written ca. 1331, and its author had, like Adam, traveled in Iran, India, and Ethiopia and known Zaccaria. Other historians attribute this work to Etienne.
Bibliography:
Ed. of De modo and Directorium in Receuil des historiens des Croisades. Documents Arméniens II, 1906 (by C. Kohler, with important intro.).
C. Kohler, “Documents relatifs à Guillaume Adam, archevêque de Sultanieh,” in Mélanges pour servir à l’histoire de l’Orient latin, 1906, II, pp. 476-515.
Idem, “Quel est l’auteur du Directorium ad passagium faciendum?” Revue de l’Orient latin 12, 1911, pp. 104-11.
For the opposing position see R. Loenertz, La Société des Frères Pérégrinants, 1937, p. 63.
(J. Richard)
Originally Published: December 15, 1983
Last Updated: July 22, 2011
This article is available in print.
Vol. I, Fasc. 4, pp. 447-448
J. Richard, “ADAM, GUILLAUME,” Encyclopædia Iranica, I/4, pp. 447-448; an updated version is available online at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/adam-guillaume-14th-century-traveler (accessed on 7 February 2014).
