The first English translation direct from the French was made (at least as early as the beginning of the 15th century) from a MS. of which many pages were lost.[12] Writing of the name Califfes (Khalif), the author says (Roxburghe Club ed., p. 18) that it is tant a dire come roi(s). Il y soleit auoir v. soudans—“as much as to say king. There used to be 5 sultans.” In the defective French MS. a page ended with Il y so; then came a gap, and the next page went on with part of the description of Mount Sinai, Et est celle vallee mult froide (ibid. p. 32). Consequently the corresponding English version has “That ys to say amonge hem Roys Ils and this vale ys ful colde”! All English printed texts before 1725, and Ashton’s 1887 edition, follow these defective copies, and in only two known MSS. has the lacuna been detected and filled up.
One of them is the British Museum MS. Egerton 1982 (Northern dialect, about 1410-1420?), in which, according to Dr Vogels, the corresponding portion has been borrowed from that English version which had already been made from the Latin. The other is in the British Museum MS. Cotton Titus C. xvi. (Midland dialect, about 1410-1420?), representing a text completed, and revised throughout, from the French, though not by a competent hand. The Egerton text, edited by Dr G. F. Warner, has been printed by the Roxburghe Club, while the Cotton text, first printed in 1725 and 1727, is in modern reprints the current English version.
That none of the forms of the English version can be from the same hand which wrote the original is made patent by their glaring errors of translation, but the Cotton text asserts in the preface that it was made by Mandeville himself, and this assertion was till lately taken on trust by almost all modern historians of English literature. The words of the original “je eusse cest livret mis en latin ... mais ... je l’ay mis en rōmant” were mistranslated as if “je eusse” meant “I had” instead of “I should have,” and then (whether of fraudulent intent or by the error of a copyist thinking to supply an accidental omission) the words were added “and translated it agen out of Frensche into Englyssche.” Mātzner (Altenglische Sprachproben, I., ii., 154-155) seems to have been the first to show that the current English text cannot possibly have been made by Mandeville himself. Of the original French there is no satisfactory edition, but Dr Vogels has undertaken a critical text, and Dr Warner has added to his Egerton English text the French of a British Museum MS. with variants from three others.
It remains to mention certain other works bearing the name of Mandeville or de Bourgogne.
MS. Add. C. 280 in the Bodleian appends to the “Travels” a short French life of St Alban of Germany, the author of which calls himself Johan Mandivill[e], knight, formerly of the town of St Alban, and says he writes to correct an impression prevalent among his countrymen that there was no other saint of the name: this life is followed by part of a French herbal.
To Mandeville (by whom de Bourgogne is clearly meant) d’Oultremouse[13] ascribes a Latin “lappidaire selon l’oppinion des Indois,” from which he quotes twelve passages, stating that the author (whom he calls knight, lord of Montfort, of Castelperouse, and of the isle of Campdi) had been “baillez en Alexandrie” seven years, and had been presented by a Saracen friend with some fine jewels which had passed into d’Oultremouse’s own possession: of this Lapidaire, a French version, which seems to have been completed after 1479, has been several times printed.[14] A MS. of Mandeville’s travels offered for sale in 1862[15] is said to have been divided into five books: (1) the travels, (2) de là forme de la terre et comment et par quelle manière elle fut faite, (3) de la forme del ciel, (4) des herbes selon les yndois et les philosophes par de là, and (5) ly lapidaire—while the cataloguer supposed Mandeville to have been the author of a concluding piece entitled La Venianche de nostre Signeur Ihesu-Crist fayte par Vespasian fil del empereur de Romme et comment Iozeph daramathye fu deliures de la prizon. From the treatise on herbs a passage is quoted asserting it to have been composed in 1357 in honour of the author’s natural lord, Edward, king of England. This date is corroborated by the title of king of Scotland given to Edward, who had received from Baliol the surrender of the crown and kingly dignity on the 20th of January 1356, but on the 3rd of October 1357 released King David and made peace with Scotland: unfortunately we are not told whether the treatise contains the author’s name, and, if so, what name. Tanner (Bibliotheca) alleges that Mandeville wrote several books on medicine, and among the Ashmolean MSS. in the Bodleian are a medical receipt by John de Magna Villa (No. 1479), an alchemical receipt by him (No. 1407), and another alchemical receipt by Johannes de Villa Magna (No. 1441).
Finally, de Bourgogne wrote under his own name a treatise on the plague,[16] extant in Latin, French and English texts, and in Latin and English abridgments. Herein he describes himself as Johannes de Burgundia, otherwise called cum Barba, citizen of Liége and professor of the art of medicine; says that he had practised forty years and had been in Liége in the plague of 1365; and adds that he had previously written a treatise on the cause of the plague, according to the indications of astrology (beginning Deus deorum), and another on distinguishing pestilential diseases (beginning Cum nimium propter instans tempus epidimiale). “Burgundia” is sometimes corrupted into “Burdegalia,” and in English translations of the abridgment almost always appears as “Burdews” (Bordeaux) or the like. MS. Rawlinson D. 251 (15th century) in the Bodleian also contains a large number of English medical receipts, headed “Practica phisicalia Magistri Johannis de Burgundia.”
See further Dr G. F. Warner’s article in the Dictionary of National Biography for a comprehensive account, and for bibliographical references; Ulysse Chevalier’s Répertoire des sources historiques du moyen age for references generally; and the Zeitschr. f. celt. Philologie II., i. 126, for an edition and translation, by Dr Whitley Stokes, of Fingin O’Mahony’s Irish version of the Travels.
(E. W. B. N.; H. Y.)