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. 240: Legenda de
Joseph et Asseneth ejus uxore, in papiro. In eodem itinerarium Johannis de
Mandevilla militis, apud guilhelmitanos Leodienses sepulti.
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