Odoric of Pordenone (fl. 1316-1330)

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by Caroline Stone with contributions from Zhao Luyang 赵鲁阳
(See Chinese translation)

Odoric of Pordenone (Odorico Matiussi, Odorico da Pordenone) was born at Villanova di Sotto outside Pordenone (Italy) into a Czech family, presumably of Bohemian descent. The date of his birth is uncertain: 1265 is usually given, but that would have made him 66 at the time of his death; the medical examination of his partly mummified body carried out in 2002 suggests that he was around 50. This would put the year of his birth around 1281. Some historians identify him as Austrian, Slovenian or Friulian (Friuli was a region in Northern Italy).

He apparently entered the Franciscan Order young, certainly by 1296, when there seem to be references to him in various documents. In that year he was sent as a missionary to the Balkans and then to the Mongols – the Kipchak Khanate in southern Russia. Judging by other legal documents, Odoric rose in the Order and had important contacts.

Because of the disastrous invasions of Poland and Hungary by Subutai in the period 1236-1241, which threatened the whole of Europe, both the Pope and secular leaders were extremely anxious to make contact with the Mongols. The hope was to negotiate a peace, to learn as much as possible about them and to see whether they might become converts to Christianity, or at least serve as allies against the Muslims. For this reason, a number of missions were sent east, among them William of Rubruck and Andrew of Lonjumel (Longjumeau), and it is probable, although not explicitly stated, that Odoric’s journey was connected with this endeavour.

The Papacy was at that time very concerned with the missions – the Franciscan Order had been establishing itself across the east at great speed – and with the related study of Oriental languages, for which purpose schools were set up at Bologna, Paris, Salamanca and Oxford. Odoric was apparently involved in that movement, which again helps to explain his travels.

Odoric set out at Easter 1318 and, as was customary with his Order, travelled with a companion, James of Ireland, about whom very little is known. They sailed from Venice, heading for Trebizond and the Black Sea and then overland to Hormuz to embark for the Indian Ocean (see his Itinerary). In his travel account, called his Itinerarium, he rarely gives dates or a detailed chronology of his route. However, some idea of the timings can be worked out from his references to Church feasts. He also gives an idea of how long it took to get from one point to the next, no doubt for the benefit of future travellers. There is a brief description of each place, to which he adds notes on its religious, cultural and economic characteristics.

Odoric and his companion landed in India at Thane (Tana), north-east of Mumbai (Bombay), where he learned of the recent (April 1321) martyrdom there of four brothers of his Order, who were accused of blasphemy by the Muslim community. Among those killed was the widely travelled St Thomas of Tolentino. Not surprisingly, Odoric describes the events at some length, including how he managed to rescue St Thomas’ bones, as well as those of Giacomo da Padua and Demetrius of Tiflis, although he failed with the fourth martyr Pietro da Siena. He took the relics with him to Guangzhou (Canton), where he left them at the Franciscan monastery, apart from the head of St Thomas, which he eventually delivered to the Order at Tolentino.

The two men continued down the Malabar Coast, mentioning, among other places, Quilon (Kollam) and Cranganore (Kodungallur), where, according to tradition, St Thomas the Apostle first landed in India. Both were major centers of trade. They continued along the coast, reaching Puri, where they witnessed one of the Festivals honouring Jagannath, perhaps the Ratha Yatra, which Odoric describes in some detail. They then continued along to the coast of Coromandel to Chennai (Madras), stopping to visit the tomb of St Thomas the Apostle at Mylapur.

After leaving India, Odoric’s itinerary becomes less clear. He reached Java, Sumatra, Borneo and possibly the Philippines, as well as Sri Lanka (Ceylon), passing through the Andaman Islands and the Nicobars. He was the first European to record information about Sumatra and Borneo in Southeast Asia, and also seems to have visited Champa – roughly modern Vietnam.

He then returned to the mainland at Guangzhou, and from there his itinerary north is much clearer. In Guangzhou, he met Andrea da Perugia, missionary and Bishop of Zayton, who confirmed in a letter that Odoric transferred the Franciscan friars’ bones to Guangzhou for burial.

From there he journeyed north to the capital of Yesün Temür, Great Khan in (1323-1328) at Khanbaliq (Beijing), travelling part of the way on the Chinese system of waterways. Everywhere along the way he was amazed at the size of the cities, their large populations and wealth. His route took him via Fuzhou (Foo-chow), Hangzhou (Hangchow), Nanjing (Nanking), Yangzhou (Yangchou) and other cities, some of which are hard to identify, partly because of his rendering of their names.

It is not exactly clear when Odoric reached the capital – probably around 1322-1325. Khanbaliq was the seat of the Archbishop, John of Montecorvino, a Franciscan who had set out from Rieti (in Lazio, central Italy) in 1289 and had been made Metropolitan of the East by Pope Clement V in 1307. It is also not clear whether Odoric actually met John of Montecorvino. He does not mention the Archbishop in his Itinerarium, which suggests that he did not. Montecorvino died in 1328 at a very advanced age, which may explain their not meeting – although it remains surprising that such an important member of the Order is not mentioned.

Odoric tells us that he remained three years in Khanbaliq. He pursued both diplomatic and proselytising goals while he was there. He met the Great Khan Yesün Temür, and includes an account of this encounter in his Itinerarium. He also visited the imperial court and witnessed the power of the Great Khan. He wrote about the court in two chapters: “De reverentio magni Chanis” (On Reverence for the Great Khan) and “De potential magni Chanis” (On the power of the Great Khan). He was especially interested in the religious composition of the court, and the fact that some of its members had converted to Christianity.

The return journey followed what is known as the Silk Road, via the Pamirs, Persia and the Black Sea, probably ending up at Venice. The account of the route back is far less detailed than that of the outward journey and much of the information given would already have been known in the West. Odoric seems to have made a detour via Tibet and may even have visited Lhasa.

He tells of the legendary kingdom of Prester John, whom it was long hoped would protect Europe against incursions both from the Steppe and by Muslim aggressors. He also mentions the “Assassins” or Ismailis of Alamut, whose leader Hassan al-Sabah, “The Old Man of the Mountain”, had died a little more than a century before. On the way, he mentions a valley with terrible faces cut in the rock – it has been suggested that the place was Bamiyan – and also writes of mysterious music, possibly the singing sands on the fringes of the Gobi, that have been noted by a number of travellers.

Odoric reached Italy some time in 1329-30 and in May 1330 he was in Padua, where the account of his travels – Peregrinationes per Asiam – was set down. It was dictated in the St. Antonius Monastery (convent di Sant’ Antonio) to a member of his Order, Guglielmo da Solagna (William of Solange), who wrote a “very rough and uneducated Latin”. It is probable, although documentation is lacking, that this was the report of what was essentially seen as an unofficial mission of reconnaissance, taken on behalf of the Curia.

In the winter of 1330-1331, Odorico intended to visit the Pope in Avignon to obtain permission for another mission to China. He was setting off for the Papal Court at Avignon, when he was suddenly taken ill at Pisa and, returning to Udine, died there on 14th January 1331, probably from a heart attack brought on by respiratory problems, according to the autopsy performed in 2002.

Odoric’s holiness was quickly established. Even the year of his death, the Patriarch of Aquileia had already begun gathering evidence of his miracles. He was eventually beatified by Pope John XXII in 1755, over 400 years later, but by then his cult had spread beyond Friuli, especially to the Veneto, Carinthia and Istria regions. Church feasts have been held and offerings made in his memory since 1392.

A fine tomb was built for him in Udine and his chapel was frescoed with scenes taken from his travels, as well as his miracles. The latter were described in various hagiographic works and Odoric continued to be one of the best known figures among the missionaries to East Asia. Because of his extensive missionary activities there, Odorico was known in the 20th century as the “Apostle of China”. After his death, various wonders were recorded as occurring near his tomb, and he came to be regarded as holy by his contemporaries. In the account of his funeral on the 15th of January 1331, he was called blessed. As a result, there have been proposals for his canonization in 1931 and 1965/66, but these have not yet been followed through.

Odoric’s travel account was a valuable addition to Western knowledge of Asia at the time. It describes cultural, religious, social and commercial aspects of the places he visited. Some details had not been recorded previously, even in Marco Polo’s Il Millione, such as foot-binding in China, the use of cormorants for fishing, growing finger nails to a great length, Tibetan funerary practices, and so forth. He was clearly very observant, although there are the usual “wonders” present in all medieval accounts. A number of his more curious statements may be the result of misunderstandings, either lost in translation in the East or scribal errors when the account was set down: for example, the lambs found inside melons or the women with boars’ tusks in Tibet. Since its composition, over 130 manuscripts of the Itinerarium have been identified. It was even an important source for the famous Catalan Atlas. It was printed multiple times, after 1513, and has also been translated from the original Latin into other languages, including French, Italian, German, Spanish, Welsh and Dutch.

It is striking that William’s manuscript is written in the first person from Odorico’s point of view, thus resembling an autobiography. The sinologist Giorgio Melis detected two different writing styles in the Itinerarium, calling the description of the journey from Europe to Canton “fantastic and naive”, and that of his experiences in Cathay (China) “sober and rational”. Other investigations reveal that the current versions of the Itinerarium were written by at least three authors – passages that Odorico directly dictated to William of Solange, passages by William himself, and passages by another friar, named Marchesino of Bassano – and some researchers have posited up to six.

At the beginning and end of the Itinerarium, Odorico attests to the truth of his account. It begins with the Latin words quoe possum veraciter enarrare (what I can truthfully tell) and ends with this inscription: “I, friar Odorico, swear and testify to the revered friar Guidotto, minister of St. Antonio province, whom I am obliged to obey, that everything that is written has been seen with my own eyes or heard from reliable witnesses.” In general, historians do not doubt the authenticity of Odorico’s account, though some of his descriptions may be exaggerated.

The accusations of mendacity levelled against him can largely be attributed to The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, which first appeared in 1357. There is no evidence that Mandeville was a real person and his adventures are largely plagiarised from Marco Polo, Odoric, Hethum of Armenia, John of Plano Carpini and other travellers, spiced up with improbable marvels and horrors of the kind immensely popular at the time. It was a best seller. Unfortunately, however, it gave the impression that Odoric had been Mandeville’s travelling companion and had appropriated part of Mandeville’s text, rather than vice-versa.

There has been speculation as to why Odoric’s account of his return journey is so much less detailed than the outward one. Since it was much more recent, it should have been clearer in his mind, even if notes he might have taken were missing. Perhaps it was because the areas were already well known; he may have felt that they were not worth describing. Or he may have been pressed for time in the need to leave for Avignon. Or he may have already been unwell. In fact, there is no way of knowing why it was so sketchy.

In all, Odorico travelled for at least twelve years in Asia, visiting what is now Turkey, Iraq, Iran, India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, China and probably Tibet. It is believed that he baptised more than 20,000 people in Asia during this period.