Acq. franc.
4516 (Barrois, 185), were part formerly of one volume copied in 1371 by
Raoulet of Orleans and given in the same year to King Charles V. by his
physician Gervaise Crestien, viz. one year before the death of the
so-called Mandeville; one of these manuscripts - now separate - contains the
Book of Jehan de Mandeville, the other one, a treatise of "la preservacion
de epidimie, minucion ou curacion d'icelle faite de maistre Jehan de
Bourgoigne, autrement dit a la Barbe, professeur en medicine et cytoien du
Liege," in 1365. This bringing together is certainly not fortuitous.
Sir Henry Yule traces thus the sources of the spurious work: "Even in that
part of the book which may be admitted with probability to represent some
genuine experience, there are distinct traces that another work has been
made use of, more or less, as an aid in the compilation, we might almost
say, as a framework to fill up. This is the itinerary of the German knight
William of Boldensele, written in 1336 at the desire of Cardinal
Talleyrand de Perigord. A cursory comparison of this with Mandeville
leaves no doubt of the fact that the latter has followed its thread, using
its suggestions, and on many subjects its expressions, though digressing
and expanding on every side, and too often eliminating the singular good
sense of the German traveller. After such a comparison we may indicate as
examples Boldensele's account of Cyprus (Mandeville, Halliwell's ed.
1866, p. 28, and p. 10), of Tyre and the coast of Palestine (Mandeville,
29, 30, 33, 34), of the journey from Gaza to Egypt (34), passages about
Babylon of Egypt (40), about Mecca (42), the general account of Egypt
(45), the pyramids (52), some of the particular wonders of Cairo, such as
the slave-market, the chicken-hatching stoves, and the apples of Paradise,
i.e. plantains (49), the Red Sea (57), the convent on Sinai (58, 60),
the account of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (74-76), etc."
He adds:
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 1083 of 1350
Words from 290590 to 290933
of 370046
