Sir John Mandeville
flourished 14th century
purported author of a collection of travelers’
tales from around the world, The Voyage and
Travels of Sir John Mandeville, Knight,
generally known as The Travels of Sir John
Mandeville. The tales are selections from the
narratives of genuine travelers, embellished
with Mandeville’s additions and described as his
own adventures.
The actual author of the tales remains as
uncertain as the existence of the English knight
Sir John Mandeville himself. The book originated
in French about 1356–57 and was soon translated
into many languages, an English version
appearing about 1375. The narrator Mandeville
identifies himself as a knight of St. Albans.
Incapacitated by arthritic gout, he has
undertaken to stave off boredom by writing of
his travels, which began on Michaelmas Day
(September 29) 1322, and from which he returned
in 1356. The 14th-century chronicler Jean
d’Outremeuse of Liège claimed that he knew the
book’s true author, a local physician named Jean
de Bourgogne, and scholars afterward speculated
that d’Outremeuse himself wrote the book. Modern
historical research debunked the d’Outremeuse
tradition but has yielded few more positive
conclusions, and the actual author of the
Travels remains unknown.
It is
not certain whether the book’s true author ever
traveled at all, since he selected his materials
almost entirely from the encyclopaedias and
travel books available to him, including those
by William of Boldensele and Friar Odoric of
Pordenone. The author enriched these itineraries
with accounts of the history, customs,
religions, and legends of the regions visited,
culled from his remarkably wide reading,
transforming and enlivening the originals by his
literary skill and genuine creative imagination.
The lands that he describes include the realm of
Prester John, the land of darkness, and the
abode of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, all
legendary. Although in his time “Mandeville” was
famous as the greatest traveler of the Middle
Ages, in the ensuing age of exploration he lost
his reputation as a truthful narrator. His book,
notwithstanding, has always been popular and
remains extremely readable.
