' is a travelogue published in 1611 by

Thomas Coryat Thomas Coryat (also Coryate) (c. 15771617) was an English traveller and writer of the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean age. He is principally remembered for two volumes of writings he left regarding his travels, often on foot, through E ...

(sometimes also spelled "Coryate" or "Coriat") of

Odcombe Odcombe is a village and civil parish in south Somerset, England, west of the town of Yeovil, with a population of 759 in 2011. The upper part of the village, Higher Odcombe, sits on the crest of the hill, while the lower part, Lower Odcombe, ...

, an English traveller and mild

eccentric Eccentricity or eccentric may refer to: * Eccentricity (behavior), odd behavior on the part of a person, as opposed to being "normal" Mathematics, science and technology Mathematics * Off- center, in geometry * Eccentricity (graph theory) of a ...

History

The book is an account of a journey undertaken, much of it on foot, in 1608 through France, Italy, Germany, and other European countries. Coryat conceived of the 1,975-mile (3,175 km) voyage to

Venice Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...

and back in order to write the subsequent travelogue dedicated to Henry, Prince of Wales, at whose court he was regarded as somewhat of a buffoon and jester, rather than the

wit Wit is a form of intelligent humour—the ability to say or write things that are clever and typically funny. Someone witty, also known as a wit, is a person skilled at wit, making spontaneous one-line or single-phrase jokes. Forms of wit incl ...

and intellectual he considered himself. The extent to which Coryat invited such ridicule in pursuit of patronage and court favour is unclear. The year 1608, when Coryat made his journey, was a period of relative peace in France following the end of both the

French Wars of Religion The French Wars of Religion were a series of civil wars between French Catholic Church, Catholics and Protestantism, Protestants (called Huguenots) from 1562 to 1598. Between two and four million people died from violence, famine or disease di ...

(1562–1598), and the

Franco-Spanish War (1595–1598) The French Wars of Religion were a series of civil wars between French Catholic Church, Catholics and Protestantism, Protestants (called Huguenots) from 1562 to 1598. Between two and four million people died from violence, famine or disease di ...

in northern France. Coryat's anecdotes of how the Spanish took Calais in 1596, and Amiens with a bag of walnuts in 1597, were recent events in 1608. Among other things, Coryat's book introduced the use of the

fork In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from 'pitchfork') is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tines with which one can spear foods either to h ...

to England and, in its support of continental travel, helped to popularize the idea of the Grand Tour that rose in popularity later in the century. The book also included what is likely the earliest English rendering of the legend of

William Tell William Tell (, ; ; ; ) is a legendary folk hero of Switzerland. He is known for shooting an apple off his son's head. According to the legend, Tell was an expert mountain climber and marksman with a crossbow who assassinated Albrecht Gessler, ...

. The work is particularly important to music historians for giving extraordinary details of the activities of the Venetian School, one of the most famous and progressive contemporary musical movements in Europe. The work includes an elaborate description of the festivities at the church of San Rocco in

, with

polychoral An antiphon (Greek ἀντίφωνον, ἀντί "opposite" and φωνή "voice") is a short chant in Christian ritual, sung as a refrain. The texts of antiphons are usually taken from the Psalms or Scripture, but may also be freely composed. T ...

and instrumental music by

Giovanni Gabrieli Giovanni Gabrieli (/1557 – 12 August 1612) was an Italian composer and organist. He was one of the most influential musicians of his time, and represents the culmination of the style of the Venetian School (music), Venetian School, at the t ...

Bartolomeo Barbarino Bartolomeo Barbarino (known as "il Pesarino") (c. 1568c. 1617 or later) was an Italian composer and singer of the early Baroque era. He was a virtuoso falsettist, and one of the most enthusiastic composers of the new style of monody. Life Nothing ...

, and others. The book appeared with engravings by William Hole, and the author received a pension. ''Crudities'' was only twice reprinted at the time, so the first edition is quite rare today. Later, "modern" facsimiles were put out, in 1776 and 1905, which included the later trip to Persia & India.

"Commendatory" verses

A custom of Renaissance humanists was to contribute

commendatory verse The epideictic oratory, also called ceremonial oratory or praise-and-blame rhetoric, is one of the three branches, or "species" (eidē), of rhetoric, as outlined in Aristotle's ''Rhetoric'', to be used to praise or blame, during ceremonies. Orig ...

s that would preface the works of their friends. In the case of this book, a playful inversion of this habit led to a poetic collection that firstly refused to take the author seriously; and then took on a life of its own. Prince Henry as Coryat's patron controlled the situation; and willy-nilly Coryat had to accept the publication with his book of some crudely or ingeniously false

panegyric A panegyric ( or ) is a formal public speech or written verse, delivered in high praise of a person or thing. The original panegyrics were speeches delivered at public events in ancient Athens. Etymology The word originated as a compound of - ' ...

s from 55 contemporary wits and poets of his acquaintance, including

John Donne John Donne ( ; 1571 or 1572 – 31 March 1631) was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born into a recusant family, who later became a clergy, cleric in the Church of England. Under Royal Patronage, he was made Dean of St Paul's, D ...

Ben Jonson Benjamin Jonson ( 11 June 1572 – ) was an English playwright, poet and actor. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence on English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for the satire, satirical ...

Inigo Jones Inigo Jones (15 July 1573 – 21 June 1652) was an English architect who was the first significant Architecture of England, architect in England in the early modern era and the first to employ Vitruvius, Vitruvian rules of proportion and symmet ...

, and

Thomas Roe Sir Thomas Roe ( 1581 – 6 November 1644) was an English diplomat of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. Roe's voyages ranged from Central America to India; as ambassador, he represented England in the Mughal Empire, the Ottoman Empir ...

. Further, the book was loaded with another work, Henry Peacham's ''Sights and Exhibitions of England'', complete with a description of a

perpetual motion machine Perpetual motion is the motion of bodies that continues forever in an unperturbed system. A perpetual motion machine is a hypothetical machine that can do work indefinitely without an external energy source. This kind of machine is impossible ...

Cornelis Drebbel Cornelis Jacobszoon Drebbel (; 1572 – 7 November 1633) was a Dutch engineer and inventor. He was the builder of the first operational submarine in 1620 and an innovator who contributed to the development of measurement and control systems, opti ...

. There were poems in seven languages. Donne wrote in an English/French/Italian/Latin/Spanish

macaronic language Macaronic language is any expression using a mixture of languages, particularly bilingual puns or situations in which the languages are otherwise used in the same context (rather than simply discrete segments of a text being in different langua ...

. Peacham's was in what he called "Utopian", which was partly

gibberish Gibberish, also known as jibber-jabber or gobbledygook, is speech that is (or appears to be) nonsense: ranging across speech sounds that are not actual words, pseudowords, language games and specialized jargon that seems nonsensical to outsid ...

, and the pseudonymous Glareanus Vadianus (tentatively John Sanford) wrote something close to

literary nonsense Literary nonsense (or nonsense literature) is a broad categorization of literature that balances elements that make sense with some that do not, with the effect of subverting language conventions or logical reasoning. Even though the most well-k ...

. The contribution of John Hoskyns is called by

Noel Malcolm Sir Noel Robert Malcolm, (born 26 December 1956) is an English political journalist, historian and academic who is a senior research fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. A King's Scholar at Eton College, Malcolm read history at Peterhouse, Camb ...

"the first specimen of full-blown literary English

nonsense poetry Nonsense verse is a form of nonsense literature usually employing strong prosodic elements like rhythm and rhyme. It is often whimsical and humorous in tone and employs some of the techniques of nonsense literature. Limericks are probably th ...

in the seventeenth century". In the same year that the book was published, a pirate version of the verses appeared, published by

Thomas Thorpe Thomas Thorpe ( 1569 – 1625) was an English publisher, most famous for publishing Shakespeare's sonnets and several works by Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson. His publication of the sonnets has long been controversial. Nineteenth-century ...

, under the title ''The Odcombian Banquet'' (1611).

Modern analogues

British travel writer and humourist Tim Moore retraced the steps of Coryat's tour of Europe, as recounted in his 2001 book ''Continental Drifter''.

Notes

References

* {{cite book , last=Coryat , first=Thomas , author-link=Thomas Coryat , year=1611 , title=Coryat's Crudities , location=London , publisher=W.S. (William Stansby)

External links