Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/405

393 DEATH OF JOHN DE MONTE COKVINO. 393 Dominicans assembled in chapter at Venice, not to allow so many persons to devote themselves to the preaching of the gospel ; to admit to the apostolic ministry those only who should have special letters from their superiors ; to choose from amongst them the most learned and best qualified, and to send the others back to their convents; this wise injunction was obeyed. At a later period, subsequent to a general as- sembly of the Dominicans held at Dijon, it was decreed, that, to facilitate the work of the missions, the vicar- general of the society of " Travellers for Christ" should introduce the study of the Oriental languages into the principal houses over which he presided. Two convents were specially appropriated to this study, one at Pera, the other at Caffa the capital of the Crimea, which was for a long time under the dominion of the Tartars. * John XXII. had erected Caffa into an episcopal see, and sent thither Bishop Jerome, who, having been a suffragan of the archbishopric of Khanbalik, was per- fectly acquainted with the language and manners of the Tartars. Towards this period, the mission of Khanbalik was plunged into deep sorrow ; for the illustrious apostle of the Tartars and Chinese, John de Monte Corvino, whose struggles and triumphs we have already related, had just died, to the great sorrow of this nourishing com- munity of Christians. He had converted more than thirty thousand infidels, during his long and laborious mission. William Adam, the successor of Franco de Perouse in the archbishopric of Soultaniye, was then at Khanbalik ; he received the last sigh of John de
 * Fontana, "Monumenta Dominicana, Ann. 1331."