Jordanus
Encyclopedia
Jordanus or Jordan Catalani (f. 1321-1330) was a French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 Dominican
Dominican Order
The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...

 missionary
Missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...

 and explorer in Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

 known for his Mirabilia describing the marvels of the East.

Travels

He was perhaps born at Sévérac-le-Château
Sévérac-le-Château
Sévérac-le-Château is a commune in the Aveyron department in southern France.The Château de Sévérac is a 13th-century castle that dominates the town. It is open to the public.-Population:-References:*...

 in Aveyron
Aveyron
Aveyron is a département in southern France named after the Aveyron River.- History :Aveyron is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790....

, north-east of Toulouse
Toulouse
Toulouse is a city in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern FranceIt lies on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea...

. In 1302 he may have accompanied the famous Thomas of Tolentino, via Negropont, to the East; but it is only in 1321 that we definitely discover him in western India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, in the company of the same Thomas and certain other Franciscan missionaries on their way to China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

. Ill-luck detained them at Tana in Salsette Island
Salsette Island
Salsette Island is an island in Maharashtra state on India's west coast. The metropolis of Mumbai and the city of Thane lie on this island, making it the 14th most populous island and the fourth most densely populated island in the world, after Migingo Island in Kenya, Ap Lei Chau in Hong Kong,...

, near Bombay; and here Jordanus' companions (the four martyrs of Tana) were killed on April 7, 1321.

Jordanus, escaping, worked some time at Baruch
Baruch
Baruch has been a given name among Jews from Biblical times up to the present, on some occasions also used as surname. It is also found, though more rarely, among Christians—particularly among Protestants who use Old Testament names....

 in Gujarat, near the Nerbudda estuary, and at Suali (?) near Surat
Surat
Surat , also known as Suryapur, is the commercial capital city of the Indian state of Gujarat. Surat is India's Eighth most populous city and Ninth-most populous urban agglomeration. It is also administrative capital of Surat district and one of the fastest growing cities in India. The city proper...

; to his fellow-Dominicans in north Persia he wrote two letters - the first from Gogo in Gujarat (12 October 1321), the second from Tana (24 January 1323/4) describing the progress of this new mission. From these letters we learn that Roman attention had already been directed, not only to the Bombay region, but also to the extreme south of the Indian peninsula, especially to Columbum, Quilon
Quilon
Quilon may refer to,* Venad, a former state on Malabar Coast, India* Kollam , Kerala state, India* Kollam district, Kerala state...

, or Kulam
Kollam
Kollam , often anglicized as ', is a city in the Indian state of Kerala. The city lies on the banks of Ashtamudi Lake on the Arabian sea coast and is situated about north of the state capital, Thiruvananthapuram...

 in Travancore
Travancore
Kingdom of Travancore was a former Hindu feudal kingdom and Indian Princely State with its capital at Padmanabhapuram or Trivandrum ruled by the Travancore Royal Family. The Kingdom of Travancore comprised most of modern day southern Kerala, Kanyakumari district, and the southernmost parts of...

; Jordanus' words may imply that he had already started a mission there before October 1321.

From Catholic traders he had learnt that Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

 (i.e. Abyssinia and Nubia
Nubia
Nubia is a region along the Nile river, which is located in northern Sudan and southern Egypt.There were a number of small Nubian kingdoms throughout the Middle Ages, the last of which collapsed in 1504, when Nubia became divided between Egypt and the Sennar sultanate resulting in the Arabization...

) was accessible to Western Europeans; at this very time, as we know from other sources, the earliest Latin missionaries penetrated thither. Finally, the Epistles of Jordanus, like the contemporary Secreta of Marino Sanuto
Marino Sanuto the Elder
Marino Sanuto or Sanudo the Elder of Torcello was a Venetian statesman and geographer.He is best known for his life-long attempts to revive the crusading spirit and movement; with this object he wrote his great work, the Secreta Fidelium Crucis, otherwise called Historia Hierosolymitana, Liber de...

 (1306–1321), urge the pope to establish a Christian fleet upon the Indian seas.

Jordanus, between 1324 and 1328 (if not earlier), probably visited Kulam and selected it as the best centre for his future work; it would also appear that he revisited Europe about 1328, passing through Persia, and perhaps touching at the great Crimean port of Soidaia or Sudak
Sudak
Sudak or Sudaq is a small historic town located in Crimea, Ukraine situated to the west of Feodosiya and to the east of Simferopol, the capital of Crimea...

. He was appointed a bishop in 1328 and nominated by Pope John XXII
Pope John XXII
Pope John XXII , born Jacques Duèze , was pope from 1316 to 1334. He was the second Pope of the Avignon Papacy , elected by a conclave in Lyon assembled by Philip V of France...

 in his bull Venerabili Fratri Jordano to the see of Columbum or Kulam (Quilon
Diocese of Quilon
The Diocese of Quilon or Kollam is the first Catholic diocese in India in the state of Kerala. First erected on August 9, 1329 and re-erected on September 1, 1886, it covers an area of 1,950 km². , and contains a population of 4,879,553 - 235,922 of which are Catholic.It belongs to the...

) on 21 August 1329. This diocese was the first Roman Catholic one in the whole of the Indies
Indies
The Indies is a term that has been used to describe the lands of South and Southeast Asia, occupying all of the present India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and also Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Brunei, Singapore, the Philippines, East Timor, Malaysia and...

, with juristriction over modern India, Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

, Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

, Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...

, Burma, and Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...

. It was created on August 9 by the decree Romanus Pontifix. Together with the new bishop of Samarkand
Samarkand
Although a Persian-speaking region, it was not united politically with Iran most of the times between the disintegration of the Seleucid Empire and the Arab conquest . In the 6th century it was within the domain of the Turkic kingdom of the Göktürks.At the start of the 8th century Samarkand came...

, Thomas of Mancasola
Thomas of Mancasola
Thomas of Mancasola, or Thomas of Mancasol , was a Dominican cleric in the Chagatai Khanate who became bishop of Samarkand.Prior to his appointment Thomas had served as a cleric in Mongol-ruled Turkestan...

, Jordanus was commissioned to take the pall to John de Cora, archbishop of Sultaniyah ir Persia, within whose province Kulam was reckoned; he was also commended to the Christians of south India, both east and west of Cape Comorin, by Pope John.

Mirabilia

Either before going out to Malabar as bishop, or during a later visit to the west, Jordanus probably wrote his Mirabilia, which from internal evidence can only be fixed within the period 1329-1338; in this work he furnished the best account of Indian regions, products, climate, manners, customs, fauna and flori given by any European in the Middle Ages - superior even to Marco Polo
Marco Polo
Marco Polo was a Venetian merchant traveler from the Venetian Republic whose travels are recorded in Il Milione, a book which did much to introduce Europeans to Central Asia and China. He learned about trading whilst his father and uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo, travelled through Asia and apparently...

's. In his triple division of the Indies, India Major comprises the shorelands from Malabar to Cochin China; while India Minor stretches from Sind
History of Sindh
Sindh is one of the provinces of Pakistan. Sindh was home to one of the world's oldest civilizations, the Indus Valley civilization.-Paleolithic and Mesolithic era:...

 (or perhaps from Baluchistan
Balochistan (region)
Balochistan or Baluchistan is an arid, mountainous region in the Iranian plateau in Southwest Asia; it includes part of southeastern Iran, western Pakistan, and southwestern Afghanistan. The area is named after the numerous Baloch tribes, Iranian peoples who moved into the area from the west...

) to Malabar; and India Tertia (evidently dominated by African conceptions in his mind) includes a vast undefined coast-region west of Baluchistan, reaching into the neighborhood of, but not including, Ethiopia and Prester John
Prester John
The legends of Prester John were popular in Europe from the 12th through the 17th centuries, and told of a Christian patriarch and king said to rule over a Christian nation lost amidst the Muslims and pagans in the Orient. Written accounts of this kingdom are variegated collections of medieval...

's domain. Jordanus' Mirabilia contains the earliest clear African identification of Prester John, and what is perhaps the first notice of the Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...

 under that name; it refers to the author's residence in India Major and especially at Kulam, as well as to his travels in Armenia
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...

, north-west Persia, the Lake Van
Lake Van
Lake Van is the largest lake in Turkey, located in the far east of the country in Van district. It is a saline and soda lake, receiving water from numerous small streams that descend from the surrounding mountains. Lake Van is one of the world's largest endorheic lakes . The original outlet from...

 region, and Chaldaea; and it supplies excellent descriptions of Parsee doctrines and burial customs, of Hindu ox-worship, idol-ritual, and suttee, and of Indian fruits, birds, animals and insects. After the 8th of April 1330 we have no more knowledge of Bishop Jordanus I.

Primary sources

Of Jordanus' Epistles there is only one MS., viz. Paris, National Library, 5006 Lat., fol. 182, r. and v.; of the Mirabilia also one MS. only, viz. London, British Museum, Additional MSS., 19,513, fols. 3, r.f 2 r.
  • The text of the Epistles is in Quétif
    Jacques Quétif
    Jacques Quétif was a French Dominican and noted bibliographer. His major work Scriptores ordinis praedicatorum was completed by his fellow Dominican Jacques Échard....

    Échard
    Jacques Échard
    Jacques Échard was a French Dominican and historian of the order.As the son of a wealthy official of the king he received a thorough classical and secular education. He entered the Dominican Order at Paris and distinguished himself for his assiduity in study...

    , Scriptores ordinis praedicatorum, i. 549-550 (Epistle I.)
  • and in Wadding
    Wadding
    Wadding is a disc of material used in guns to seal gas behind a projectile or to separate powder from shot.Wadding can be crucial to a gun's efficiency, since any gas that leaks past a projectile as it is being fired is wasted. A harder or more carefully designed item which serves this purpose is...

    , Annales minorum, vi. 359-361 (Epistle II.)
  • the text of the Mirabilia in the Paris Geog. Soc. 's Recueil de voyages, iv. i68 (1839).
  • The Papal letters referring to Jordanus are in Odericus Raynaldus, Annales ecclesiastici
    Annales ecclesiastici
    Annales Ecclesiastici , consisting of twelve folio volumes, is a history of the first 12 centuries of the Christian Church, written by Cardinal Caesar Baronius...

    , 1330, f lv. and lvii (April 8; Feb. 14).

Secondary sources

  • Sir Henry Yule
    Henry Yule
    Sir Henry Yule was a Scottish Orientalist.He was born at Inveresk, Scotland, near Edinburgh, the son of Major William Yule , translator of the Apothegms of Ali. Henry Yule was educated at Edinburgh, Addiscombe, and Chatham, and joined the Bengal Engineers in 1840...

    's Jordanus, a version of the Mirabilia with a commentary (Hakluyt Society
    Hakluyt Society
    Founded in 1846, the Hakluyt Society is a registered charity based in London, England, which seeks to advance knowledge and education by the publication of scholarly editions of primary records of voyages, travels and other geographical material...

    , 1863) and the same editor's Cathay, giving a version of the Epistles, with a commentary, &c. (Hakluyt Society, 1866) pp. 184–185, 192-196, 225-230
  • F. Kunstmann, Die Mission in Meliapor und Tana und die Mission in Columbo in the Historisch-politische Blätter of Phillips and Görres, xxxvii. 2538, 135-152 (Munich, 1856), &c.
  • C. R. Beazley, Dawn of Modern Geography, iii. 215-235.
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