Note 15 — John Pory to the Earl of Southampton[1]

Odoric of Pordenone (c. 1286-1331, formally beatified in the eighteenth century) was a Franciscan friar and missionary who traveled widely in the Far East. The story of his travels became popular in the fourteenth century, but fell from favor as it gained a reputation for embroidery. The phenomenon to which Pory refers occurred at a place described as “Moumoran” in the printed version with which Pory was probably familiar, that in Hakluyt, Principal Navigations (1599), II, 57.