[
    {
        "id": 204397,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1962",
        "page_number": 29,
        "title": "RAS-1962",
        "content_text": "20 \n\nF. S. DRAKE \n\nof prime importance for information upon the Mongols and Central Asia in Mediaeval times.1 \n\nHalf a century later a solitary and apparently illiterate Friar from a Franciscan house in Italy, Odoric of Pordenone, set out on his own charges as a traveller for 'Jesus Christ' and performed one of the most remarkable of the journeys of his time. Travelling via India to China he landed at Ch'üan-chou on the Fukien coast, where two houses of Franciscans were already established, and proceeded to Kambaluc (Peking), where he remained for three years. On the return journey he travelled first to what he called mistakenly 'Prester John's country', but which can be identified with the region north of the Yellow River bend, the home of the Christian Onguts, and then by Tibet, which he names and describes briefly and accurately, but he gives no further identifiable details for the remainder of the journey home in 1330 after an absence of twelve years. \n\n* \n\n18 \n\nThese travellers all make mention of the Nestorians—priests, laymen, members of the nobility, and even of the Royal House, whom they came across in their journeys through Central Asia or in China. Sometimes it was a solitary priest with a shrine near the Royal tent, sometimes a group officiating at a Royal procession, sometimes a Nestorian village in the wilds of Mongolia, sometimes a Nestorian church in a Chinese city, as at Yangchou on the Yangtse; these all testify to the widespread character of their mission. William of Rubruck gives the fullest details, combining with them sharp criticism of the conduct of the Nestorians and disapproval of their methods, which suggest considerable deterioration in their religious life during their sojourn in Central Asia; unless indeed his criticism is sometimes prompted by ecclesiastical rivalry. It has already been pointed out that some of the ladies of the Royal House were Nestorian Christians; and there were even hopes of an Imperial convert. \n\nBut of chief interest for our present purpose is Odoric's mention of the Christian Mongol tribe settled at the northern bend of the Yellow River, for this is the region from which our Bronze Crosses come. John of Montecorvino, the Franciscan Bishop who resided in China from 1288 to 1329, and who became the first Catholic Archbishop of China, also speaks of this \n\n15 Rockhill, op. cit. \n\n16 Yule, Cathay and the Way Thither, revised Cordier, Hakluyt Society (4 vols.), 1914.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 205947,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1970",
        "page_number": 27,
        "title": "RAS-1970",
        "content_text": "22\n\nL. CARRINGTON GOODRICH\n\nLibrary of Peiping reported on its copy of the local history of Shao-hsing-fu, Chekiang (YLTT ch. 7963). One must also mention the excellent use made by Professor Jao Tsung-i of chüan 11,907 (preserved in Peking) in his article on \"Some place-names in the South Seas in the Yung-lo ta-tien.\"8 Finally, because everyone is interested in Marco Polo and the authenticity of his record of travel, let us mention the discovery in chüan 19,418 of the YLTT by two Chinese scholars of the names of the three envoys from the Mongol court of Persia who were dispatched in 1290 to Kubilai in Cambaluc to convey the Lady Kukachin (Marco's Cocachin) to Tabriz to become the bride of Argon. Their names, rendered in Chinese transcription, correspond fairly closely with those preserved in Marco's account. His name and the names of his father and uncle, unfortunately, were not considered of sufficient importance to receive mention. Hopefully we may expect more enlightenment on China's past as these rare volumes are further explored.\n\nNOTES\n\n1 For example, Leonard Aurousseau in Bull. de l'Ecole Française d'Extrême-Orient XII: 9 (1912), and both Walter Swingle and Arthur W. Hummel in Reports of the Library of Congress, 1922-23, 1935-36, 1940, etc.\n\n2 Wang Chung-min1 has recently identified 246 of these individuals, including the three principals, in an article entitled \"Yung-lo ta-tien tsuan-hsiu jen k'ao,”†^#, Wên-shih★★ 4 (June 1965), 17 ff. (Mrs. Lienche Tu Fang kindly drew this to my attention.)\n\n3 Bull. de l'Ecole Française d'Extrême-Orient IX (1909), 828, n.3.\n\n4 Communication to the author, dated 15th Oct., 1969, from the curator, D. Zichy.\n\n5 I owe this to Mrs. Delano Young (née Yang Chin-yi) who received the information from a member of the staff of the Library.\n\n6 Extracts of books were distributed under different tone groups.\n\n7 A Study of Chiang-su and Che-chiang gazetteers of the Ming Dynasty (Canberra 1969), p. 5.\n\n8 Symposium on Historical, Archaeological and Linguistic Studies of Southern China, South-east Asia, and the Hong Kong Region (Hong Kong 1967), 191-7.\n\n9 Yang Chih-chiu and Ho Yung-chi, \"Marco Polo quits China,\" Harvard Jo. of Asiatic Studies IX (1945), 51. See also Yule-Cordier, The Book of Ser Marco Polo (London 1903), I, p. 32.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241",
        "rank": 0
    }
]