Even before his death the Liége physician seems to have confessed to a share in the composition of the work. In the common Latin abridged version of it, at the end of c. vii., the author says that when stopping in the sultan’s court at Cairo he met a venerable and expert physician of “our” parts, that they rarely came into conversation because their duties were of a different kind, but that long afterwards at Liége he composed this treatise at the exhortation and with the help (hortatu et adiutorio) of the same venerable man, as he will narrate at the end of it. And in the last chapter he says that in 1355, in returning home, he came to Liége, and being laid up with old age and arthritic gout in the street called Bassesauenyr, i.e. Basse Savenir, consulted the physicians. That one came in who was more venerable than the others by reason of his age and white hairs, was evidently expert in his art, and was commonly called Magister Iohannes ad Barbam. That a chance remark of the latter caused the renewal of their old Cairo acquaintance, and that Ad Barbam, after showing his medical skill on Mandeville, urgently begged him to write his travels; “and so at length, by his advice and help, monitu et adiutorio, was composed this treatise, of which I had certainly proposed to write nothing until at least I had reached my own parts in England.” He goes on to speak of himself as being now lodged in Liége, “which is only two days distant from the sea of England”; and it is stated in the colophon (and in the MSS.) that the book was first published in French by Mandeville, its author, in 1355, at Liége, and soon after in the same city translated into “the said” Latin form. Moreover, a MS. of the French text extant at Liége about 1860[3] contained a similar statement, and added that the author lodged at a hostel called “al hoste Henkin Levo”: this MS. gave the physician’s name as “Johains de Bourgogne dit ale barbe,” which doubtless conveys its local form.
There is no contemporary English mention of any English knight named Jehan de Mandeville, nor are the arms said to have been on the Liége tomb like any known Mandeville arms. But Dr G. F. Warner has ingeniously suggested that de Bourgogne may be a certain Johan de Bourgoyne, who was pardoned by parliament on the 20th of August 1321 for having taken part in the attack on the Despensers, but whose pardon was revoked in May 1322, the year in which “Mandeville” professes to have left England. And it should now be added that among the persons similarly pardoned on the recommendation of the same nobleman was a Johan Mangevilayn, whose name appears closely related to that of “de Mandeville”[4]—which is merely a later form of “de Magneville.”
Mangeuilain occurs in Yorkshire as early as 16 Hen. I. (Pipe Roll Soc., xv. 40), but is very rare, and (failing evidence of any place named Mangeville) seems to be merely a variant spelling of Magnevillain. The meaning may be simply “of Magneville,” de Magneville; but the family of a 14th century bishop of Nevers were called both “Mandevilain” and “de Mandevilain”—where Mandevilain seems a derivative place-name, meaning the Magneville or Mandeville district. In any case it is clear that the name “de Mandeville” might be suggested to de Bourgogne by that of his fellow-culprit Mangevilayn, and it is even possible that the two fled to England together, were in Egypt together, met again at Liége, and shared in the compilation of the Travels.
Whether after the appearance of the Travels either de Bourgogne or “Mangevilayn” visited England is very doubtful. St Albans Abbey had a sapphire ring, and Canterbury a crystal orb, said to have been given by Mandeville; but these might have been sent from Liége, and it will appear later that the Liége physician possessed and wrote about precious stones. St Albans also had a legend that a ruined marble tomb of Mandeville (represented cross-legged and in armour, with sword and shield) once stood in the abbey; this may be true of “Mangevilayn” or it may be a mere myth.
It is a little curious that the name preceding Mangevilayn in the list of persons pardoned is “Johan le Barber.” Did this suggest to de Bourgogne the alias “à le Barbe,” or was that only a Liége nickname? Note also that the arms on Mandeville’s tomb were borne by the Tyrrells of Hertfordshire (the county in which St Albans lies); for of course the crescent on the lion’s breast is only the “difference” indicating a second son.
Leaving this question, there remains the equally complex one whether the book contains any facts and knowledge acquired by actual travels and residence in the East. Possibly it may, but only as a small portion of the section which treats of the Holy Land and the ways of getting thither, of Egypt, and in general of the Levant. The prologue, indeed, points almost exclusively to the Holy Land as the subject of the work. The mention of more distant regions comes in only towards the end of this prologue, and (in a manner) as an afterthought.
By far the greater part of these more distant travels, extending in fact from Trebizond to Hormuz, India, the Malay Archipelago, and China, and back again to western Asia, has been appropriated from the narrative of Friar Odoric (written in 1330). These passages, as served up by Mandeville, are almost always, indeed, swollen with interpolated particulars, usually of an extravagant kind, whilst in no few cases the writer has failed to understand the passages which he adopts from Odoric and professes to give as his own experiences. Thus (p. 209),[5] where Odoric has given a most curious and veracious account of the Chinese custom of employing tame cormorants to catch fish, the cormorants are converted by Mandeville into “little beasts called loyres (layre, B), which are taught to go into the water” (the word loyre being apparently used here for “otter,” lutra, for which the Provençal is luria or loiria).
At a very early date the coincidence of Mandeville’s stories with those of Odoric was recognized, insomuch that a MS. of Odoric which is or was in the chapter library at Mainz begins with the words: Incipit Itinerarius fidelis fratris Odorici socii Militis Mendavil per Indian; licet hic [read ille] prius el alter posterius peregrinationem suam descripsit. At a later day Sir T. Herbert calls Odoric “travelling companion of our Sir John”; and Purchas, with most perverse injustice, whilst calling Mandeville, next to Polo, “if next ... the greatest Asian traveller that ever the world had,” insinuates that Odoric’s story was stolen from Mandeville’s. Mandeville himself is crafty enough, at least in one passage, to anticipate criticism by suggesting the probability of his having travelled with Odoric (see p. 282 and below).
Much, again, of Mandeville’s matter, particularly in Asiatic geography and history, is taken bodily from the Historiae Orientis of Hetoum, an Armenian of princely family, who became a monk of the Praemonstrant order, and in 1307 dictated this work on the East, in the French tongue at Poitiers, out of his own extraordinary acquaintance with Asia and its history in his own time.
It is curious that no passage in Mandeville can be plausibly traced to Marco Polo, with one exception. This is (p. 163) where he states that at Hormuz 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.