Lv, In Civitate Leodiensi, Et Paulo Post In Eadem Civitate Translatus In Hanc Formam Latinam." (P. 33 Of The Relation Des Mongols Ou Tartars Par Le Frere Jean Du Plan De Carpin, Paris, 1838).

D'Avezac long ago was inclined to believe in an unique French version.

The British Museum, English MS. (Cott., Titus. C. xvi.), on the other hand, has in the Prologue (cf. ed. 1725, p. 6): "And zee schulle undirstonde, that I have put this Boke out of Latyn into Frensche, and translated it azen out of Frensche into Englyssche, that every Man of my Nacioun may undirstonde it...."[18]

But we shall see that - without taking into account the important passage in French quoted above, and probably misunderstood by the English translator - the English version, a sentence of which, not to be found in the Latin manuscripts, has just been given, is certainly posterior to the French text, and therefore that the abstract of Titus C. xvi, has but a slight value. There can be some doubt only for the French and the Latin texts.

Dr. Carl Schoenborn[19] and Herr Eduard Maetzner,[20] "respectively seem to have been the first to show that the current Latin and English texts cannot possibly have been made by Mandeville himself. Dr. J. Vogels states the same of unprinted Latin versions which he has discovered in the British Museum, and he has proved it as regards the Italian version."[21]

"In Latin, as Dr. Vogels has shown, there are five independent versions. Four of them, which apparently originated in England (one manuscript, now at Leyden, being dated in 1390) have no special interest; the fifth, or vulgate Latin text, was no doubt made at Liege, and has an important bearing on the author's identity. It is found in twelve manuscripts, all of the 15th century, and is the only Latin version as yet printed."[22]

The universal use of the French language at the time would be an argument in favour of the original text being in this tongue, if corrupt proper names, abbreviations in the Latin text, etc., did not make the fact still more probable.

The story of the English version, as it is told by Messrs. Nicholson and Warner, is highly interesting: The English version was made from a "mutilated archetype," in French (Warner, p. x.) of the beginning of the 15th century, and was used for all the known English manuscripts, with the exception of the Cotton and Egerton volumes - and also for all the printed editions until 1725. Mr. Nicholson[23] pointed out that it is defective in the passage extending from p. 36, l. 7: "And there were to ben 5 Soudans," to p. 62, l. 25: "the Monkes of the Abbeye of ten tyme," in Halliwell's edition (1839) from Titus C. xvi, which corresponds to Mr. Warner's Egerton text, p. 18, l. 21: "for the Sowdan," and p. 32, l. 16, "synges oft tyme." It is this bad text which, until 1725,[24] has been printed as we just said, with numerous variants, including the poor edition of Mr. Ashton[25] who has given the text of East instead of the Cotton text under the pretext that the latter was not legible.[26]

Two revisions of the English version were made during the first quarter of the 15th century; one is represented by the British Museum Egerton MS. 1982 and the abbreviated Bodleian MS. e. Mus. 116; the other by the Cotton MS. Titus C. xvi. This last one gives the text of the edition of 1725 often reprinted till Halliwell's (1839 and 1866).[27] The Egerton MS. 1982 has been reproduced in a magnificent volume edited in 1889 for the Roxburghe Club par Mr. G.F. Warner, of the British Museum;[28] this edition includes also the French text from the Harley MS. 4383 which, being defective from the middle of chap. xxii. has been completed with the Royal MS. 20 B.X. Indeed the Egerton MS. 1982 is the only complete English manuscript of the British Museum,[29] as, besides seven copies of the defective text, three leaves are missing in the Cotton MS. after f. 53, the text of the edition of 1725 having been completed with the Royal MS. 17 B.[30]

Notwithstanding its great popularity, Mandeville's Book could not fail to strike with its similarity with other books of travels, with Friar Odoric's among others. This similarity has been the cause that occasionally the Franciscan Friar was given as a companion to the Knight of St. Albans, for instance, in the manuscripts of Mayence and Wolfenbuettel.[31] Some Commentators have gone too far in their appreciation and the Udine monk has been treated either as a plagiary or a liar! Old Samuel Purchas, in his address to the Reader printed at the beginning of Marco Polo's text (p. 65), calls his countryman! Mandeville the greatest Asian traveller next (if next) to Marco Polo, and he leaves us to understand that the worthy knight has been pillaged by some priest![32] Astley uses strong language; he calls Odoric a great liar![33]

Others are fair in their judgment, Malte-Brun, for instance, marked what Mandeville borrowed from Odoric, and La Renaudiere is also very just in the Biographie Universelle. But what Malte-Brun and La Renaudiere showed in a general manner, other learned men, such as Dr. S. Bormans, Sir Henry Yule, Mr. E.W.B. Nicholson,[34] Dr. J. Vogels,[35] M. Leopold Delisle, Herr A. Bovenschen,[36] and last, not least, Dr. G.F. Warner, have in our days proved that not only has the book bearing Mandeville's name been compiled from the works of Vincent of Beauvais, Jacques of Vitry, Boldensel, Carpini, Odoric, etc., but that it was written neither by a Knight of St. Albans, by an Englishman, or by a Sir John Mandeville, but very likely by the physician John of Burgundy or John a Beard.

In a repertory of La Librairie de la Collegiale de Saint Paul a Liege au XV'e. Siecle, published by Dr. Stanislas Bormans, in the Bibliophile Belge, Brussels, 1866, p. 236, is catalogued under No.

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