Missionaries, Scholars, Diplomats and Explorers: Knowledge exchange and the documentation of the "Nestorian" Church of the East in North China

This article examines the extent to which the source documentation and dissemination of material heritage of the Church of the East in North China by western missionaries contributed to knowledge exchange with East Asian scholars. It focusses primarily on the involvement of missionaries of CICM (Congregatio Immaculati Cordis Mariae) and SVD (Societas Verbi Divini) in Hebei and Inner Mongolia before 1949. It finds that the missionaries who exchanged documentation with eminent and pioneering Chinese and Japanese scholars were frequently affiliated with the Fu Jen Catholic University or its seminal publication Monumenta Serica. As such, documentation by the missionaries resulted in knowledge exchange on a person-to-person level. The article also concludes there is still much unpub-lished and under-researched primary source documentation available in European and Asian collections.