A good deal about the manners and customs of the Tatars is demonstrably derived from the famous work of the Franciscan Ioannes de Plano Carpini, who went as the pope’s ambassador to the Tatars in 1245-1247; but Dr Warner considers that the immediate source for Mandeville was the Speculum historiale of Vincent de Beauvais. Though the passages in question are all to be found in Plano Carpini more or less exactly, the expression is condensed and the order changed. For examples compare Mandeville, p. 250, on the tasks done by Tatar women, with Plano Carpini, p. 643;[6] Mandeville, p. 250, on Tatar habits of eating, with Plano Carpini, pp. 639-640; Mandeville, p. 231, on the titles borne on the seals of the Great Khan, with Plano Carpini, p. 715, &c.
The account of Prester John is taken from the famous Epistle of that imaginary potentate, which was so widely diffused in the 13th century, and created that renown which made it incumbent on every traveller in Asia to find some new tale to tell of him. Many fabulous stories, again, of monsters, such as cyclopes, sciapodes, hippopodes, monoscelides, anthropophagi, and men whose heads did grow beneath their shoulders, of the phoenix and the weeping crocodile, such as Pliny has collected, are introduced here and there, derived no doubt from him, Solinus, the bestiaries, or the Speculum naturale of Vincent de Beauvais. And interspersed, especially in the chapters about the Levant, are the stories and legends that were retailed to every pilgrim, such as the legend of Seth and the grains of paradise from which grew the wood of the cross, that of the shooting of old Cain by Lamech, that of the castle of the sparrow-hawk (which appears in the tale of Melusina), those of the origin of the balsam plants at Maṭarīya, of the dragon of Cos, of the river Sabbation, &c.
Even in that part of the book which might be supposed to represent some genuine experience there are the plainest traces that another work has been made use of, more or less—we might almost say as a framework to fill up. This is the itinerary of the German knight Wilhelm von Boldensele, written in 1336 at the desire of Cardinal Talleyrand de Perigord.[7] A cursory comparison of this with Mandeville leaves no doubt that the latter has followed its thread, though digressing on every side, and too often eliminating the singular good sense of the German traveller. We may indicate as examples Boldensele’s account of Cyprus (Mandeville, p. 28 and p. 10), of Tyre and the coast of Palestine (Mandeville, 29, 30, 33, 34), of the journey from Gaza to Egypt (34), passages about Babylon of Egypt (40), about Mecca (42), the general account of Egypt (45), the pyramids (52), some of the wonders of Cairo, such as the slave-market, the chicken-hatching stoves, and the apples of paradise, i.e. plantains (49), the Red Sea (57), the convent on Sinai (58, 60), the account of the church of the Holy Sepulchre (74-76), &c. There is, indeed, only a small residuum of the book to which genuine character, as containing the experiences of the author, can possibly be attributed. Yet, as has been intimated, the borrowed stories are frequently claimed as such experiences. In addition to those already mentioned, he alleges that he had witnessed the curious exhibition of the garden of transmigrated souls (described by Odoric) at Cansay, i.e. Hangchow-fu (211). He and his fellows with their valets had remained fifteen months in service with the emperor of Cathay in his wars against the king of Manzi—Manzi, or Southern China, having ceased to be a separate kingdom some seventy years before the time referred to. But the most notable of these false statements occurs in his adoption from Odoric of the story of the Valley Perilous (282). This is, in its original form, apparently founded on real experiences of Odoric viewed through a haze of excitement and superstition. Mandeville, whilst swelling the wonders of the tale with a variety of extravagant touches, appears to safeguard himself from the reader’s possible discovery that it was stolen by the interpolation: “And some of our fellows accorded to enter, and some not. So there were with us two worthy men, Friars Minor, that were of Lombardy, who said that if any man would enter they would go in with us. And when they had said so, upon the gracious trust of God and of them, we caused mass to be sung, and made every man to be shriven and houselled; and then we entered, fourteen persons; but at our going out we were but nine,” &c.
In referring to this passage it is only fair to recognize that the description (though the suggestion of the greatest part exists in Odoric) displays a good deal of imaginative power; and there is much in the account of Christian’s passage through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, in Bunyan’s famous allegory, which indicates a possibility that John Bunyan may have read and remembered this episode either in Mandeville or in Hakluyt’s Odoric.
Nor does it follow that the whole work is borrowed or fictitious. Even the great Moorish traveller Ibn Batuta, accurate and veracious in the main, seems—in one part at least of his narrative—to invent experiences; and in such works as those of Jan van Hees and Arnold von Harff we have examples of pilgrims to the Holy Land whose narratives begin apparently in sober truth, and gradually pass into flourishes of fiction and extravagance. So in Mandeville also we find particulars not yet traced to other writers, and which may therefore be provisionally assigned either to the writer’s own experience or to knowledge acquired by colloquial intercourse in the East.
It is difficult to decide on the character of his statements as to recent Egyptian history. In his account of that country (pp. 37, 38) though the series of the Comanian (i.e. of the Bahri Mameluke) sultans is borrowed from Hetoum down to the accession of Melechnasser, i.e. Malik al-Nāṣir (Nāṣir ud-din Mahommed), who came first to the throne in 1293, Mandeville appears to speak from his own knowledge when he adds that this “Melechnasser reigned long and governed wisely.” In fact, though twice displaced in the early part of his life, Malik Nāṣir reigned till 1341, a duration unparalleled in Mahommedan Egypt, whilst we are told that during the last thirty years of his reign Egypt rose to a high pitch of wealth and prosperity. Mandeville, however, then goes on to say that his eldest son, Melechemader, was chosen to succeed; but this prince was caused privily to be slain by his brother, who took the kingdom under the name of Melechmadabron. “And he was Soldan when I departed from those countries.” Now Malik Nāṣir Mahommed was followed in succession by no less than eight of his sons in thirteen years, the first three of whom reigned in aggregate only a few months. The names mentioned by Mandeville appear to represent those of the fourth and sixth of the eight, viz. Ṣaliḥ ‘Imād ud-din Ismā’īl, and Moẓaffar (Saif ud-din Ḥajjī); and these the statements of Mandeville do not fit.
On several occasions Arabic words are given, but are not always recognizable, owing perhaps to the carelessness of copyists in such matters. Thus, we find (p. 50) the names (not satisfactorily identified) of the wood, fruit and sap of the balsam plant; (p. 99) of bitumen, “alkatran” (al-Kāṭrān); (p. 168) of the three different kinds of pepper (long pepper, black pepper and white pepper) as sorbotin, fulful and bano or bauo (fulful is the common Arabic word for pepper; the others have not been satisfactorily explained). But these, and the particulars of his narrative for which no literary sources have yet been found, are too few to constitute a proof of personal experience.
Mandeville, again, in some passages shows a correct idea of the form of the earth, and of position in latitude ascertained by observation of the pole star; he knows that there are antipodes, and that if ships were sent on voyages of discovery they might sail round the world. And he tells a curious story, which he had heard in his youth, how a worthy man did travel ever eastward until he came to his own country again (p. 183). But he repeatedly asserts the old belief that Jerusalem was in the centre of the world (79, 183), and maintains in proof of this that at the equinox a spear planted erect in Jerusalem casts no shadow at noon, which, if true, would equally consist with the sphericity of the earth, provided that the city were on the equator.
The sources of the book, which include various authors besides those whom we have specified, have been laboriously investigated by Dr Albert Bovenschen[8] and Dr G. F. Warner,[9] and to them the reader must be referred for more detailed information on the subject.
The oldest known MS. of the original—once Barrois’s, afterwards the earl of Ashburnham’s, now Nouv. Acq. Franç. 4515 in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris—is dated 1371, but is nevertheless very inaccurate in proper names. An early printed Latin translation made from the French has been already quoted, but four others, unprinted, have been discovered by Dr J. Vogels.[10] They exist in eight MSS., of which seven are in Great Britain, while the eighth was copied by a monk of Abingdon; probably, therefore, all these unprinted translations were executed in this country. From one of them, according to Dr Vogels,[11] an English version was made which has never been printed and is now extant only in free abbreviations, contained in two 15th century MSS. in the Bodleian Library, Oxford—MS. e Museo 116, and MS. Rawlinson D. 99: the former, which is the better, is in Midland dialect, and may possibly have belonged to the Augustinian priory of St Osyth in Essex, while the latter is in Southern dialect.