170 REPORTS OF MISSIONARY FRIARS.
preaching among the heathen in Asia ; and the reports which he made at the Papal Court of John's great devotion and success probably led to the creation of the metropolitan see of Cambalec in the latter's favour.
This seems to have taken place in the spring of 1307,1 and was accompanied or immediately followed by the appointment of seven other Franciscans to be suffragan Bishops under the new metropolitan. The powers conferred on the Archbishop were unusually ample, empowering him to rule like a Patriarch over all bishops and prelates of those parts, subject only to his recognition of the superiority of the Roman see, and to the reception of the pallium from it by himself and his successors.
The suffragan bishops thus nominated for Cathay were Gerard, Peregrine of Castello, Andrew of Perugia, Reader in Theology, Nicholas of Bantra or of Apulia, Minister (in the order) of the Province of St. Francis, Andrutius of Assisi, Ulrich Sayfustordt,
flesh ; the others on fish. All used sour milk. They never shaved any part of the body, so many of them looked like absolute satyrs (compare in Photii Bibliotheca the notice from the Embassies of Nonnosus of a remote island in the Indian Sea inhabited by black hairy dwarfs who lived on fish and shell-fish). They had no houses, but lived in caves and holes. Their only art was that of weaving a coarse camlet of goat's hair. They cultivated a few palms and kept flocks ; had no money, no writing, kept count of their flocks by bags of stones. Each family had a cave in which they deposited their dead without covering the bodies. They often put themselves to death when old or sick or vanquished. They had no remedies for disease except the aloe. When rain failed they selected a victim by lot and placing him within a circle addressed their prayers to the moon, and if without success they cut off the poor wretch's hands. They had many who practised sorcery, and being very shy of communication with strangers, shut themselves out from better knowledge. The women were all called Maria, which the author regarded as one of the relics of their Christianity. The mountains abounded in wild hogs, wild asses, and partridges. The whole account is very curious. (Anciennes Relations, etc., of Renaudot, p. 113 ; Jaube•t's Edrisi, i, 47 ;D1 aif ei, .Hist. Indic., lib. iii; Ludolf, Comment., p. 268; Quétif, Scriptores Ord. Freed., p. 573; Livro de Duarte Barbosa, p. 252; Marco Polo, ii, 34; India in the Fifteenth Century, Conti, p. 20 ; Viaggio all' Inclie Orientals del P. F. Vincenzo Maria, etc., Roma, 1672, pp. 132 and 442.)
1 Only a fragment without date remains of the bull of appointment. But the letter nominating William de Villa Nova to be one of the Suffragans is dated from Poitiers, 1st May, 1307. (Wadding, vi, pp. 93, 147.)
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