192 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [N.S., XIX, 
Unaccountable as the story is, it would be worth while to 
trace it back to its origin. The story would be too foolish for 
words, had it originated from India in Portuguese times. It 
must go back to medieval times. Not before 1606 did a 
Nunnery, St. Monica’s, one of Augustinian Nuns, get established 
at Goa. As for Dominican Nuns, there was a convent at Tara- 
pur in the beginning of the 17th rey another at Daman, 
both places being on the Bombay side.' In pre-Portuguese 
times there were, however, in Malabar pe: communities of 
pious women, leading a life of chastity, but not as the cloistered 
nuns of our days,* and nuns were not unknown among yor 
A bya states the Armenians, Copts, Jacobites, and Nesto 
rians 
whe we have to speak of Prester John we can only 
stammer: yet, Razzius’ 60 Christian kingdoms 7m partibus 
Indiae seem to be echoes of Prester John tales. The expres- 
sion ‘India Orientalis’ in de Balinghem, and ‘Jndia’ in 
Razzius, may have been used loosely fot any parts of Asia 
east of Asia Minor. In medieval writers it is applicable even 
o Armenia or Ethiopia. However, as in the 13th and 14th 
— like Bishop Jordanus of Severac and ‘Nichelas of Pistoia, 
ound their way to Malabar and Mylapore, we should expect 
that their es had preciser notions about India than 
their brethren in Europe. About 1360, the United Brethren 
of St. Gregory the [lluminator, Armenian Dominicans, had 50 
monasteries and 11 of the United Brethren.* That was pre- 
cisely the time when Europe was still full of die wed 
Sores about Prester John. First he had been found in India; 
xt in Tartary; next, if not simultaneously, in Ethiopia. 
Sani hold that the first notion abont Prester John was derived 


tion is reserved by the Bollandists to December 21, which means that 
as they have reached only the beginning of October, we shall not, with 
the present rate of progress, be al eged i1 our lifetime to see their 
i d 
conclusions. nder Dezember 21, they will also discuss the question of 
Denis and of Pelagia, daughter of the fe of Sandaruk. 
I have discovered nothing as yet about any of the writers racers 
above: de (van 7) onary Praha Marchesius and Rlanconius. 
bias erty oa they w 
O Heraldo, Goa. 2) July, 1917 ag monja de Tarapur), and The 
Eien Bombay, January 6, 1917 Dominican Nun at Damaun). 
= pres are “el “Antonio Francisco Moniz of Daman. 
2 Letter of Fr. Bernard of St. Thomas, T.0.C.D., Mangalore, 30.30. 
1921. 
5 Cf. A. Fortescue, The lesser Eastern Churches, s.v., Nuns. 
* Cf. Cath. Encyclopedia, New York, XII, 368. The article is silent 
about Dominican Nuns in the East at that time. 
