as a missionary some time previous to 1328, in which year he was
at home; [on the 21st of August, 1329, he] was nominated Bishop of the See
of Kaulam, Latinised as _Columbum_ or _Columbus_ [created by John XXII. on
the 9th of August of the same year--H.C.]. Twenty years later John
Marignolli visited "the very noble city of Columbum, where the whole
world's pepper is produced," and found there a Latin church of St. George,
probably founded by Jordanus.[2] Kaulam or Coilon continued to be an
important place to the beginning of the 16th century, when Varthema speaks
of it as a fine port, and Barbosa as "a very great city," with a very good
haven, and with many great merchants, Moors and Gentoos, whose ships traded
to all the Eastern ports as far as Bengal, Pegu, and the Archipelago. But
after this its decay must have been rapid, and in the following century it
had sunk into entire insignificance. Throughout the Middle Ages it appears
to have been one of the chief seats of the St. Thomas Christians. Indeed
both it and Kayal were two out of the seven ancient churches which Indo
Syrian tradition ascribed to St. Thomas himself.[3]

[Illustration: Ancient Christian Church at Parur on the Malabar coast.
(After Claudius Buchanan.)]

I have been desirous to give some illustration of the churches of that
interesting body, certain of which must date from a very remote period, but
I have found unlooked for difficulties in procuring such illustration.
Several are given in the Life of Dr. Claudius Buchanan from his own
sketches, and a few others in the Life of Bishop D. Wilson. But nearly all
represent the churches as they were perverted in the 17th century and
since, by a coarse imitation of a style of architecture bad enough in its
genuine form. I give, after Buchanan, the old church at Parur, not far from
Cranganore, which had escaped masquerade, with one from Bishop Wilson's
Life, showing the quasi Jesuit deformation alluded to, and an interior also
from the latter work, which appears to have some trace of genuine
character. Parur church is probably _Palur_, or _Pazhur_, which is one of
those ascribed to St. Thomas, for Dr. Buchanan says it bears the name of
the Apostle, and "is supposed to be the oldest in Malabar." (_Christ. Res._
p. 113.)

[Quilon is "one of the oldest towns on the coast, from whose re-foundation
in 1019 A.D., Travancore reckons its era." (_Hunter_, _Gaz._, XI., p.
339.)--H.C.]

_How_ Polo comes to mention Co