The Account
Of His Travels, Together With His Life, Are To Be Found:
In Bolandi Actis
Sanctorum, 14to Januarii; in which he is honoured with the title of Saint.
Oderic died at Udina in 1331.
In 1737, Basilio Asquini, an Italian
Barnabite of Udina, published La Vita e Viaggi del Beato Qderico da
Udihe, probably an Italian translation from the Latin of Bolandi. The
account of these travels in the collection of Hakluyt, is called "The
Journal of Friar Odericus, concerning the strange things which he sawe
among the Tartars of the East;" and was probably transcribed and translated
from Bolandi, in which these travels are entitled De mirabilibus Mundi,
or the Wonders of the World. They have very much the air of an ignorant
compilation, fabricated in the name of Oderic, perhaps upon some slight
foundation, and stuffed with ill-assorted stories and descriptions from
Marco Polo, and other, writers, interspersed with a few ridiculous
miracles, for the honour or disgrace of the minorite order. Mr Pinkerton
asserts, that Oderic was not canonized until 1753. But the Acts of the
Saints is a publication of considerable antiquity, and he is called
Beatus in the work of Asquini, already mentioned as having been published
in 1787.
[1] Hakluyt, II. 142, for the Latin; II. 158, for the old English
translation. - Forst. Voy. and Disc. 147.
SECTION I.
The Commencement of the Travels of Oderic.
Many things are related by various authors, concerning the customs,
fashions, and conditions of this world: Yet, as I, friar Oderic of Portenau
in the Friul, have travelled among the remote nations of the unbelievers,
where I saw and heard many great and wonderful things, I have thought fit
to relate all these things truly. Having crossed over the great sea[1] from
Pera, close by Constantinople, I came to Trebizond, in the country called
Pontus by the ancients. This land is commodiously situated as a medium of
intercourse for the Persians and Medes, and other nations beyond the Great
Sea, with Constantinople, and the countries of the west. In this island I
beheld a strange spectacle with great delight; a man, who led about with
him more than 4000 partridges. This person walked on the ground, while his
partridges flew about him in the air, and they followed him wherever he
went; and they were so tame, that when he lay down to rest, they all came
flocking about him, like so many chickens. From a certain castle called
Zauena, three days journey from Trebizond, he led his partridges in this
manner to the palace of the emperor in that city. And when the servants of
the emperor had taken such a number of the partridges as they thought
proper, he led back the rest in the same manner, to the place from whence
he came.
From this city of Trebizond, where the body of St Athanasius is preserved
over one of the gates, I journeyed into the Greater Armenia, to a city
named Azaron, which was rich and flourishing in former times, but the
Tartars have nearly laid it entirely waste; yet it still has abundance of
bread and flesh, and victuals of all sorts, excepting wine and fruits.
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