Chapter CXVII: Introduction

Oderic of Portenau, a minorite friar, travelled into the eastern countries in the year 1318, accompanied by several other monks, and penetrated as far as China. After his return, he dictated, in 1330, the account of what he had seen during his journey to friar William de Solona, or Solangna, at Padua, but without order or arrangement, just as it occurred to his memory. This traveller has been named by different editors, Oderic, Oderisius, and Oldericus de Foro Julii, de Udina, Utinensis, or de Porto Vahonis, or rather Nahonis. Porto-Nahonis, or Portenau, is the _Mutatio ad nonum_, a station or stage which is mentioned in the Itinerarium Hierosolymitanum, or description of the various routes to Jerusalem, a work compiled for the use of pilgrims; and its name is apparently derived from the Kymerian language, apparently a Celtic dialect, in which _port_ signifies a stage, station, or resting-place, and _nav_ or _naou_ signifies nine; _Port-nav_, Latinized into Portus naonis, and Frenchified into Portenau, implies, therefore, the ninth station, and is at present named Pordanone in the Friul. 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.