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.
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