CORYATE, THOMAS (1577?-1617), English traveller and writer, was born at Odcombe, Somersetshire, where his father, the Rev. George Coryate, prebendary of York cathedral, was rector. Educated at Westminster school and at Oxford, he became a kind of court fool, eventually entering the household of Prince Henry, the eldest son of James I. In itai he published an account of a prolonged walking tour undertaken in 1608, under the title of Coryate's Crudities hastily gobbled up in Five Months' Travels in France, Italy, etc.
At the command of Prince Henry, verses in mock praise of the author were added to the volume. These commendatory verses, written in a number of languages, and some in a mixture of languages, by Ben Jonson, Donne, Chapman, Drayton and others, were afterwards published (16i 1) by themselves as the Odcom bian Banquet. The book is now very rare, and the copy in the Chetham Library, Manchester, is said to be the only perfect one. In the same year was published a second volume of a similar kind, Coryats Crambe, or his Coleworte twice Sodden. In 1612 he set out on another journey, which also was mostly performed on foot. He visited Greece, the Holy Land, Persia and India; from Agra and Ajmir he sent home an account of his adventures.
Some of his letters were published in 1616 under the title of Letters from Asmere, the Court of the Great Mogul, to several Persons of Quality in England, and some fragments of his writings were included in Purchas his Pilgrimes in 1625. Coryate acquired a knowledge of Turkish, Persian and Hindustani in the course of his travels, and on being presented by the English ambassador, Sir Thomas Roe, to the Great Mogul, he delivered a speech in Persian. He says that he spent only 13 between Aleppo and Agra, and often lived "competently" for a penny a day. Coryate died at Surat in. 1617.