He adds: “It is curious that no passage in Mandeville can be plausibly traced to Marco Polo, with one exception. This is (Halliwell’s ed., p. 163) where he states that at Ormus the people, during the great heat, lie in water,—a circumstance mentioned by Polo, though not by Odoric. We should suppose it most likely that this fact had been interpolated in the copy of Odoric used by Mandeville; for, if he had borrowed it direct from Polo, he would have borrowed more.” (Encyclopædia Britannica, p. 474.)
“Leaving this question, there remains the more complex one whether the book contains, in any measure, facts and knowledge acquired by actual travels and residence in the East. We believe that it may, but only as a small portion of the whole, and that confined entirely to the section of the work which treats of the Holy Land, and of the different ways of getting thither, as well as of Egypt, and in general of what we understand by the Levant.” (Ibid. p. 473.)
Dr. Warner deals the final blow in the National Biography: “The alphabets which he gives have won him some credit as a linguist, but only the Greek and the Hebrew (which were readily accessible) are what they pretend to be, and that which he calls Saracen actually comes from the Cosmographia of Æthicus! His knowledge of Mohammedanism and its Arabic formulæ impressed even Yule. He was, however, wholly indebted for that information to the Liber de Statu Saracenorum of William of Tripoli (circa 1270), as he was to the Historiæ Orientis of Hetoum, the Armenian (1307), for much of what he wrote about Egypt. In the last case, indeed, he shows a rare sign of independence, for he does not, with Hetoum, end his history of the sultanate about 1300, but carries it onto the death of En-Násir (1341), and names two of his successors. Although his statements about them are not historically accurate, this fact and a few other details suggest that he may really have been in Egypt, if not at Jerusalem, but the proportion of original matter is so very far short of what might be expected that even this is extremely doubtful.”
With this final quotation, we may take leave of John of Mandeville, aliàs John a Beard.H. C.
[1] “The raphia, here called the ‘Devil’s date,’ is celebrated as having the largest leaf in the vegetable Kingdom,” etc. In his translation of Lacerda’s journey he calls it Raphia vinifera.
[2] Mandeville, Jehan de [By Edward Byron Nicholson, M.A., and Colonel Henry Yule, C.B.] Ext. from the Encyclopæd. Britan. 9th ed., xv. 1883, ppt. 4to., pp. 4.
[3] Encyclop. Brit. xv. p. 473.
[4] British Museum, Harley, 4383, f. 1 verso.
[5] Les Voyages en Asie au XIVe siècle du Bienheureux frère Odoric de Pordenone. Paris, 1891, p. cxvi.
[6] Bibliographische Untersuchungen über die Reise-Beschreibung des Sir John Maundeville.—Dem Herrn Samuel Gottfried Reiche, Rector und Professor des Gymnasiums zu St. Elisabet in Breslau und Vice-Präses der Schlesischen Gesellschaft für Vaterländische Cultur, Ritter des rothen Adlerordens, zur Feier Seines Amts-Jubelfestes am 30. October 1840 im Namen des Gymnasiums zu St. Maria Magdalena gewidmet von Dr. Carl. Schönborn, Director, Rector und Professor.—Breslau, gedruckt bei Grass, Barth und Comp., ppt. 4to. pp. 24.