This was really great to get a true medieval world view. This book has been rather unfairly characterised as a "book of lies" whereas the author actually researched his material to the best of his ability at the time, and it's only the framing (that Sir John Mandeville actually travelled to these places) that is an outright lie. Though there are some wild claims, these were generally thought to be true, and as the editor notes, readers might not take the book seriously if they weren't included.

It was also interesting to see the "wild tales" presented right next to things that were actually true. The narrative might talk about hippopotami and giraffes one moment, dog-headed men and trees that that produce wooly animals as fruit the next. The takeaway being that ALL these things would have been equally as strange and unbelievable to the contemporary European reader. We are so lucky to be living in an era where it's easy to prove one and disprove the other, but I don't think there's anything intrinsically more sensible about a river horse that is known to pursue and devour people (hippopotamus) as opposed to a dragon, for example.

Beyond just the facts, it is noted that there are some rather subversive themes in the book. The author remarks on the beliefs of other cultures without condemning them, even when they conflict with the Christian orthodoxy of Europe at the time, and sometimes compares European society unfavourably to those he supposedly encounters on his travels, enough that some republishers over the years chose to edit him to make him MORE bigoted. ( )

This 14th century travel guide to the Holy Land and Far East was included in the libraries of Leonard di Vinci, Christopher Columbus and many others. The book obviously contains much that is fantastical and totally fictitious . Nevertheless, it was still fun reading it and speculating about where there were grains of truth in Mandeville's guide. Even more interesting were Mandeville's not so hidden criticism of European culture when he, for example, quotes the Sultan's criticism of Europeans of not being very Christian. His description of sexual practices in the lands he visited probably provided titillations for his readers in the Middle Ages. Finally, he provides a long explanation about why the Earth is a sphere and why a circumnavigation of the globe should be possible. This disproves the common fiction that people in the Middle Ages thought that the world was flat and ships would fall off the edge.

This book was mentioned in a book I recently finished, The Cheese and the Worms, and was citied as one of the books that led to the miller's heretical thoughts.

This Penguin edition provides a very readable version based upon the wide variety of extant texts and provides some useful footnotes to translate place names to their modern equivalents. The edition also has a very useful introduction and end notes. ( )

This is a travel guide written to help pilgrims journey to Jerusalem. For a while its pretty boring but after reaching Jerusalem the author starts describing whats further east in places he has obviously never been too.
Thats when it goes nuts much like the tales or Walter Raleigh or Marco Polo. There are demons, area's cursed with eternal darkness, descriptions of ethiopians who apparently only have one giant leg each etc.
Its bizarre stuff and interesting to see what people actually believed back then. ( )

I finally finished this one yesterday. For a short book it took me very long, as I had to check google often to fill my curiosity. The truth is that I would never had attempted, and probably not finished it if I did come across it, if I was not participating in a discussion of [b:The Novel: A Biography|18770233|The Novel A Biography|Michael E.C. Schmidt|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1384016860s/18770233.jpg|26673094] by [a:Michael E.C. Schmidt|660409|Michael E.C. Schmidt|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_50x66-3fbaf32fc1fc48e6ffaf3f63a026f0ff.png].

Most other readers seem to enjoy the last half better - the more fantastic and incredible part of the book - than the first or more grounded in “reality”, even if convoluted and muddling of so many biblical stories and characters. But this was what I did enjoy about this book. Blame it on 4 years of Catholic catechism, but I got caught in the narrative, and found myself even engaged at times. It felt like a biblical stream of consciousness.

I am copying here part of a comment I posted while discussing this book: … I am actually finding the mingling of the whole book of Genesis around one place amusing. The way he goes about saying things like: “Jesus died here, and in this same hill that Adam’s skull was found – after Noah’s flood, of course – and this is where Abraham made the sacrifice to God. Oh, and by the way, Abraham’s house was just around there… and there was this ark, and it they found the 10 commandants tablet and the stick that Moses used to part the Red Sea (…) I do find it very intriguing the necessity to reaffirm the Bible mythology by “wrongfully” interpreting archeological sites as proofs of their Christian belief logic.

I do wish that I had read a version with footnotes and maps instead of the popular domain version I got. I could say that I may go back to it one day and do just that, but who would I be kidding? It was somewhat fun at times, but I gave it a shot and now I am moving on…
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In the fourteenth century, John Mandeville (a man who did not exist) sat down to write a Book of Marvels and Travels (about places he'd never been to.) Although many other reviewers on this site have referred to this book as either a novel or a travel memoir, it's neither. Instead, it's a glimpse at what people in medieval western Europe thought lay beyond the horizon, from the fantastical to the mundane. I read this in Anthony Bale's OUP edition, which provides an excellent modern translation from the Middle English, preserving much of the syntax while avoiding archaising confusion. Very good for use in the classroom. ( )

So, clearly "John Mandeville" did not go everywhere he claims, since he saw wooly chickens and people with no heads and so on and so forth.

Parts of this book were entertaining, especially the chapters on Cathay and those on what is now south/southeast Asia in general. But this is very frustrating to read, and not just because of the old fashioned language. Chapters and chapters devoted to every tiny biblical location detail. Total lack of directional sense, or a map (though clearly it would be hard to put headless people, and people with a huge foot they each use as their shade, and the Amazons on any sort of useful map).

I am sure that for scholars of literature of the 14th century, this may be especially interesting, especially when compared to the bible and other sources/stories. But for a layperson just reading it, it is not so exciting. ( )

Om John Mandeville är följande känt: han var en lågadelsman som skänkte änkedrottningen Isabella av Frankrike ett par hjortar vid jul 1357. Han var dock vid det tillfället inte riddare, och om han har något som helst samband med den uppgivna författaren till John Mandevilles resor ( här med titeln The Book of Marvels and Travels) är högst tveksamt: i likhet med det mesta som har med denna reseskildring att göra är det svårt att få ett säkert grepp om några sanningar utöver det mest grundläggande. Den uppgivne författaren säger sig själv vara, förutom världsresenär, en riddare bördig från St Albans, men forskare har hittat alla möjliga kandidater, bland dem ovan nämnde John Mandeville.

Boken föreligger i en ohygglig mängd varianter, men troligen skrevs den på engelsk franska och översattes snart till engelska (liksom en hel massa andra språk; det var en av medeltidens allra mest populära texter), varvid material lades till, ströks, ändrades eller omformulerades; att arbeta med den är antingen en filologs mörkaste mardröm eller högsta önskan. Innehållet är dock i alla fall någorlunda enkelt att beskriva: det är i första halvan huvudsakligen en medeltida reseguide för pilgrimmer till Heliga landet, och i andra halvan en skildring av en rundresa i Asien, med stopp på såväl Java som i Cathay och prästerkungen Johannes rike.

För den som roas av diverse uppfunna, underliga folk och seder är i alla fall andra halvan en guldgruva (även första halvan har sina stunder, även om den redan vid nedtecknandet något föråldrade skildringen av Jerusalem med omnejd är aningen seg): man får såväl sådana klassiker som enfotingar och människor med hundhuvuden, som en lätt omstöpt version av Den gamle på berget med sina assassiner (för den som inte är bekant med historien: han skall ha skapat en paradisisk trädgård, befolkat den med vackra unga jungfrur, drogat unga män och visat dem trädgården, utlovat dem jungfrurna som himmelsk belöning om de föll i strid, och sedan tussat dem på sina fiender. Förutom förundran över att detta alls framstod som trovärdigt är den största gåtan att jungfrurna skulle förbli detta även efter det att sagda unga män gjort det unga män plägar göra med unga kvinnor).

Dessutom besöker man öar där fri kärlek utövas och all egendom är kommunal. Detta tycks den överlag vidsynte författaren inte haft mycket att invända mot (seder som tillåter män att ha många sexualpartners är en lite väl vanlig komponent i de kulturer han skildrar för att man inte skall ana att han tyckta att detta verkade mycket klokt), för det enda han har att anföra mot dem i moraliskt hänseende är deras kannibalism – vilket ju dock får sägas vara en tämligen ful plump. Annars är Mandeville ivrig att ständigt peka på dygdigheten hos diverse främmande folk, och man får närmast intrycket att missionerande och dop enbart skulle vara formaliteter. Ett undantag gives dock: judarna, som ständigt tycks vara ute efter sätt att förgifta kristenheten.

Den största humbugen med resorna är dock att de alls skall ha utförts: förutom det att materialet är så opålitligt (vad som förefaller vara korrekta upplysningar har ofta smygit sig in bland de rena påhitten) så är det också hämtat utifrån andra källor. Huruvida dessa är såpass lättsmälta som Mandevilles bok låter jag dock vara osagt. ( )

I have to be honest and say that I had never heard of this work, at least so far as I can recall, until I found a used copy of it in the bookshelves of my local Goodwill. But I'm very happy that I found it! The text is fascinating in its own right as it presents us with the perspective of an Englishman of the 14th century looking at, examining, and perhaps actually exploring the wider world around him, including a great diversity of cultures and geographic locations. This makes it interesting as both a historical work -- a real firsthand perspective that touches on these interesting topics -- and also a study in psychology and sociology, as we view his views of these various cultures. The work is, as I learned through the introduction and notes which accompany this addition, also important for the effect it had on European thought in the years leading up to and somewhat after the discovery of the Americas by Europeans. I recommend this book to those with a love for history and culture. ( )

I just finished a new edition of The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, edited by E.C. Coleman (Nonsuch Publishing, 2006), so I thought I'd say a few words about it. The equivalent of a "bestseller" in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, this semi-fanciful account of Mandeville's three-plus-decade romp across the Middle East, Africa and Asia not only makes for interesting reading, but also offers some very keen commentary on interaction between people of different faiths and ethnic groups.

The first portion of Mandeville's book is basically a road map to the Holy Land, with descriptions of the various routes that can be taken from Europe, how long each leg of the journey will take, etc. He continues by describing many of the holy sites in and around Jerusalem, Galilee and Bethelehem - descriptions which were very accurate even by today's standards. I visited the region three years ago and was struck by how vividly Mandeville was able to capture some of the holy sites (and how little they've changed in the last seven hundred years).

From Palestine, Mandeville's travels proceed through Egypt and Persia, east to India and the Malaysian islands, and up into what we'd now call China. While things get a little cloudier here in terms of accuracy, many of his descriptions contain at least a grain of truth (while others are just outright amusing). He writes about the people and their customs, manner of dress and dispositions, the means of government and their religion. He describes strange animals and plants which must have fascinated his European readers, and concludes from his astronomical observations that the world absolutely must be round.

Coleman's version of the text, which has been modernized slightly by necessity, is complemented nicely by woodcuts drawn from fourteenth and fifteenth-century editions of the work. This is a well-edited version of Mandeville's great work, and I quite recommend it to anyone who enjoys early travel literature or just a great trip around the medieval world.

http://philobiblos.blogspot.com/2006/10/book-review-travels-of-sir-john.html ( )

Cotton version ( )

teaching for the first time this Spring. this will have to do for a review at least until tomorrow. ( )