Which Holy Death Was Signified
Unto The Foresaid Supreme Pontiff, Under The Hand Of A Public Notary, In
The Following Words:
"On the 14th of January, in the year of our Lord 1331, the blessed Oderic,
a friar of the minorite order, deceased in Christ; at whose prayers God
shewed many and sundry miracles, which I, Guetelus, public notary of Udina,
son of Dora.
Damiano de Portu Gruario, at the command and direction of the
noble lord Conradus, of the borough of Gastaldion, one of the council of
Udina, have written down with good faith to the best of my abilities; and I
have delivered a copy of the same to the friars minors: Yet not of the
whole, because they are innumerable, and too difficult for, me to write."
[1] This pope reigned from about 1317 to 1334, so that the original editor,
or fabricator of these travels, has so for been fortunate in his
chronology. - E.
CHAP. XIII.
Travels of Sir John Mandeville into the East, in 1322[1].
The travels of Sir John Mandevil, or Mandeville, are to be found in Latin
in Haklyuts collection. An edition of this strange performance was
published in 8vo. at London in 1727, by Mr Le Neve, from a MS. in the
Cotton Library. This old English version is said to have been made by the
author from his own original composition in Latin. It is a singular mixture
of real or fictitious travels, and compilation from the works of others
without acknowledgement, containing many things copied from the travels of
Oderic, and much of it is culled, in a similar manner, from the writings of
the ancients. Though, from these circumstances, it is a work of no
authenticity and unworthy of credit, it has been judged indispensable to
give some account of its nature and contents.
Mandeville affirms that he was descended of an ancient and noble family,
and was born at St Albans. After receiving the rudiments of a liberal
education, he says that he studied mathematics, physic, and divinity, and
wrote books on all these sciences; and became expert in all the exercises
then befitting a gentleman. Having a desire to travel, he crossed the sea
in 1322, or 1332, for different manuscripts give both dates, and set out on
a journey through France towards the Holy Land, a description of which
country, replete with monkish tales, and filled with the most absurd holy
fables, occupies half of his ridiculous book. In the very outset he
pretends to have visited India, and the Indian islands, and other
countries; all of which appears to be fabulous, or interpolation. Before
proceeding to the Holy Land, perhaps the sole country which he really
visited, he gives various routes or itineraries to and from Constantinople,
containing no personal adventures, or any other circumstances that give the
stamp of veracity; but abundance of nonsensical fables about the cross and
crown of our Saviour, at the imperial city.
He pretends to have served in the army of the sultan of Egypt, whom he
calls Mandybron, who must have been Malek el Naser Mohammed, who reigned
from 1310 to 1341, and states a war against the Bedouins, or Arabs of the
desert, as the scene of his own exploits. Yet he seems to have been
entirely unacquainted with Egypt, and gives only a slight mention of Cairo.
He represents the sultan as residing in Bablyon, and blunders into pedantic
confusion between Babylon in Egypt, and Babylon in Chaldea, all of which is
probably an injudicious complement from books common at the time.
About the middle of the book he gives some account of the ideas of the
Saracens concerning Christ; and then falls into a roaming description of
various countries, obviously compiled without consideration of time or
changes of people and names; deriving most of his materials from ancient
authors, particularly from Pliny, and describing Mesopotamia, Chaldea,
Albania, Hircania, Bactria, Iberia, and others, as if such had actually
existed in the geography of the fourteenth century. Where any thing like
modern appears, it is some childish fable, as that the ark of Noah was
still visible on mount Ararat. He even gives the ancient fable of the
Amazons, whom he represents as an existing female nation.
He next makes a transition to India, without any notice of his journey
thither; arid gravely asserts that he has often experienced, that if
diamonds be wetted with May-dew, they will grow to a great size in a course
of years. This probably is an improvement upon the Arabian philosophy or
the production of pearls by the oysters catching that superlative seminal
influence. The following singular article of intelligence respecting India,
may be copied as a specimen of the work: "In that countree growen many
strong vynes: and the women drynken wyn, and men not: and the women shaven
hire berdes, and the men not." From India he proceeds to the island of
Lamary, the Lambri of Marco Polo; and by using the Italian term "the star
transmontane," at once betrays the source of his plagiarism. His
descriptions seem disguised extracts from Polo, with ridiculous
exaggerations and additions; as of snail shells so large as to hold many
persons. His account of the pretended varieties of the human race, as of
nations of Hermaphrodites, and others equally ridiculous, which he places
in separate islands of the Indian ocean, are mere transcripts from Pliny.
His accounts of Mangi and Kathay, or southern and northern China, are most
inaccurately stolen from Marco Polo, and disguised or rather disfigured to
conceal the theft. "The city with twelve thousand bridges, has twelve
principal gates, and in advance from each of these a detached town, or
great city, extends for three or four miles." Though he pretends to have
resided three years in Cambalu, he does not seem to have known the name of
the khan, whom he served for fifteen months against the king of Mangi.
Leaving Cathay he goes into Tharsis, Turquescen, Corasine, and Kommania, in
which he seems to have transcribed from Oderic; and makes Prester John
emperor of India, a country divided into many islands by the great torrents
which descend from Paradise!
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