se called
"Cathari." Muratori has much on the origin of the name Patarini, and
mentions a monument, which still exists, in the Piazza de' Mercanti at
Milan, in honour of Oldrado Podesta of that city in 1233, and which thus,
with more pith than grammar, celebrates his meritorious acts:--

"Qui solium struxit Catharos _ut debuit_ UXIT."

Other cities were as piously Catholic. A Mantuan chronicler records under
1276: "Captum fuit Sermionum seu redditum fuit Ecclesiae, et capti fuerunt
cercha CL Patarini contra fidem, inter masculos et feminas; qui omnes
ducti fuerunt Veronam, et ibi incarcerati, _et pro magna parte_ COMBUSTI."
(_Murat. Dissert._ III. 238; _Archiv. Stor. Ital._ N.S. I. 49.)

NOTE 17.--Marsden, followed by Pauthier, supposes these unorthodox
ascetics to be Hindu Sanyasis, and the latter editor supposes even the
name _Sensi_ or _Sensin_ to represent that denomination. Such wanderers do
occasionally find their way to Tartary; Gerbillon mentions having
encountered five of them at Kuku Khotan (supra, p. 286), and I think John
Bell speaks of meeting one still further north. But what is said of the
great and numerous idols of the _Sensin_ is inconsistent with such a
notion, as is indeed, it seems to me, the whole scope of the passage.
Evidently no occasional vagabonds from a far country, but some indigenous
sectaries, are in question. Nor would bran and hot water be a Hindu
regimen. The staple diet of the Tibetans is _Chamba_, the meal of toasted
barley, mixed sometimes with warm water, but more frequently with hot tea,
and I think it is probable that these were the elements of the ascetic
diet rather than the mere _bran_ which Polo speaks of. Semedo indeed says
that some of the Buddhist devotees professed never to take any food but
tea; knowing people said they mixed with it pellets of sun-dried beef. The
determination of the sect intended in the text is, I conceive, to be
sought in the history of Chinese or Tibetan Buddhism and their rivals.

Both Baldelli and Neumann have indicated a general opinion that the
_Taosse_ or some branch of that sect is meant, but they have entered into
no particulars except in a reference by the former to _Shien-sien_, a
title of perfection affected by that sect, as the origin of Polo's term
_Sensin_. In the substance of this I think they are right. But I believe
that in the text this Chinese sect are, rightly or wrongly, identified
with the ancient Tibetan sect of _Bon-po_, and