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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

602   MARCO POLO   APP. L,

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which, being defective from the middle of chap. xxii. has been completed with the Royal MS. 20 B. X. Indeed the Egerton MS. 1982 is the only complete English manuscript of the British Museum,* as, besides seven copies of the defective text, three leaves are missing in the Cotton MS. after f. 53, the text of the edition of 1725 having been completed with the Royal MS. 17 B.t

Notwithstanding its great popularity, Mandeville's Book could not fail to strike with its similarity with other books cf travels, with Friar Odoric's among others. This similarity has been the cause that occasionally the Franciscan Friar was given as a companion to the Knight of St. Albans, for instance, in the manuscripts of Mayence and Wolfenbiittel.+ Some Commentators have gone too far in their appreciation and the Udine monk has been treated either as a plagiary or a liar ! Old Samuel Purchas, in his address to the Reader printed at the beginning of Marco Polo's text (p. 65), calls his countryman ! Mandeville the greatest Asian traveller next (if next) to Marco Polo, and he leaves us to understand that the worthy knight has been pillaged by some priest ! § Astley uses strong language ; he calls Odoric a great liar! II

Others are fair in their judgment, Malte-Brun, for instance, marked what Mandeville borrowed from Odoric, and La Renaudière is also very just in the Biographie Universelle. But what Malte-Brun and La Renaudière showed in a general manner, other learned men, such as Dr. S. Bormans, Sir Henry Yule, Mr. E. W. B. Nicholson,¶ Dr. J. Vogels,** M. Léopold Delisle, Herr A. Bovenschen,tt and last, not least, Dr. G. F. Warner, have in our days proved that not only has the book bearing

Mandeville's name   compiled from the works of Vincent of Beauvais, Jacques of
Vitry, Boldensel, Carpini, Odoric, etc., but that it was written neither by a Knight of St. Albans, by an Englishman, or by a Sir John Mandeville, but very likely by the physician John of Burgundy or John a Beard.

In a repertory of La Librairie de la Collégiale de Saint Faul a Liège au X Ve. Siècle, published by Dr. Stanislas Bormans, in the Bibliophile Belge, Brussels, 1866, p. 236, is catalogued under No. 24o : Legenda de Joseph et Asseneth ejus uxore, in papiro. In eodem itinerarium Johannis de Mandevilla militis, apuci guilhelnaitanos Leodienses sepulti.

Dr. S. Bormans has added the following note : " Jean Mandeville, ou Manduith, théologien et mathématicien, était né á St. Alban en Angleterre d'une famille noble.

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* There are in the British Museum twenty-nine DISS. of Mandeville, of which ten are French, nine English, six Latin, three German, and one Irish. Cf. learner, p. x.

t Cf. Warner, p. 61.

t Mayence, Chapter's Library : " Incipit Itinerarius fidelis Fratris ODERICI, socii Militis Mendavil, per Indiam."—Wolfenbiittel, Ducal Library, No. 4o, Weissemburg : " Incipit itinerarius fratris ODERICI socii militis Mandauil per Indiam."—HENRI CORDIER, Odoric de Pordeszone, p. lxxii. and p. lxxv.

§ Purchas, His Pilgrimes, 3rd Pt., London, 1625 : " and, O that it were possible to doe as much for our Countriman Mandeuil, who next (if next) was the greatest AsianTraueller that euer the World had, & hauing faine amongst theeues, neither Priest, nor Leuite can know him, neither haue we hope of a Samaritan to releeue him."

II Astley (iv. p. 620) : " The next Traveller we meet with into Tarta;y, and the Eastern Countries, after Marco Polo, is Friar Odoric, of Udin in Friuli, a Cordelier; who set-about the Year 1318, and at his Return the Relation of it was drawn-up, from his own Mouth, by Friar JJ"z/iiam of Solanga, in 1330. Rarnusio has inserted it in Italian, in the second Volume of his Collection ; as Hakluyt, in his Navigations, has done the Latin, with an English Translation. This is a most superficial Relation, and full of Lies ; such as People with the Heads of Beasts, and Valleys haunted with Spirits : In one of which he pretends to have entered, protected by the Sign of the Cross ; yet fled for Fear, at the Sight of a Face that grinned at him. In short, though he relates some Things on the Tartars and Manci (as he writes Manji) which agree with Polo's Account ; yet it seems plain, from the Names of Places and other Circumstances, that he never was in those Countries, but imposed on the Public the few Informations he had from others, mixed with the many Fictions of his own. He set out again for the East in 1331 ; but warned, it seems, by an Apparition a few Miles from Padua, he returned thither, and died." And a final blow in the index : " Oderic, Friar, Travels of, iv. 620 a. A great liar !!"

If E. B. Nicholson.—Letters to the Academy, 11th November, 1876 ; 12th February, 1881. E. B. N. and Henry Yule, MANDEVILLE, in Encycloj5crdia Britannica, 9th ed., 1883, pp. 472-475.

** Die ungedruckten Lateinischen Versionen Mandeville's.   (Beilage zum Programm des
Gymnasiums zu Crefeld.) 1886.

tt Untersuchungen über Johan von Mandeville and die Quellen seiner Reisebeschreibung. Von Albert Bovenschen. (Zeitschrift d. Ges. fzîr Erdkunde zu Berlin, XXIII. Bd., 3 u. 4 Hft. No, 135, 136, pp. 177-306.)

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