"There are many different kinds of people in these isles. In one, there is a race of great stature, like giants, foul and horrible to look at; they have one eye only, in the middle of their foreheads. They eat raw flesh and raw fish. In another part, there are ugly folk without heads, who have eyes in each shoulder; their mouths are round, like a horseshoe, and in the middle of their chest. In yet another part there are headless men whose eyes and mouths are on their backs. And there are in another place folk with flat faces, without noses or eyes; but they have two small holes instead of eyes, and a flat lipless mouth. In another isle there are ugly fellows whose upper lip is so big that when they sleep in the sun they cover all their faces with it. In another there are people of small stature, like dwarfs, a little bigger than pygmies. They have no mouth, but instead a little hole, and so when they must eat they suck their food through a reed or pipe. They have no tongues, and hiss and make signs as monks do, to each other, and each of them understands what the other means..."
And it goes on - we hear of many other strange peoples, hermaphrodites, etc. With chapter titles like "Of the head of the Devil in the Vale Perilous" and "Of Saint John the Evangelist; and of Hippocrates' daughter, turned into the shape of a dragon," Mandeville's Travels is a strong contender for Weirdest Book at the 2024 Book Awards, giving The Beetle by Richard Marsh a run for its money. If you long to hear about Amazons, cannibals, and men with heads like dogs; if you are curious to know the true purpose of the pyramids of Egypt; if you need a recipe for lemon ointment to repel the snakes that carpet the great pepper forests of India - Mandeville is your man.
Sir John Mandeville (or "Mandy," as my daughter calls him) was purportedly an English knight from St. Albans who travelled across the Holy Land, Egypt, the Levant, India, and China in the early 14th century - though he may not have been a real person at all. Mandeville's Travels is largely dependent on other sources, in the form of other medieval travel books and legends, and there is no definitive evidence to substantiate his existence.
Well, there is this portrait:
Whether its authorial persona was invented or not, the book was widely popular from the later Middle Ages through the early modern period, even being consulted by Christopher Columbus. Why did this book achieve such popularity? What did travel literature offer medieval and early modern readers? While some may have prepared for actual journeys, and a (insert Severus Snape voice here) select few were sponsored by Kings and Queens for transatlantic voyages, the majority of its readers were not charting courses for the Orient or inquiring about the price of hiring camels in Cairo. Is "armchair travel" sufficient explanation for the book's popularity, or is there something more to it in a medieval context?
Intrigued by these questions and this strange book, my research led me to an excellent article by Dr. Charles Moseley of Cambridge University entitled "The Travels of Sir John Mandeville and the ‘Moral Geography’ of the Medieval World." I want to touch on two of the topics raised in Dr. Moseley's article: the practice of pilgrimage, and the medieval conception of space and geography.
Mandeville's book describes a journey through the Holy Land and Egypt, giving special attention to sites and places of interest to Christian pilgrims. Pilgrim itineraries were a type of literature available in the Middle Ages, and these sections of Mandeville's work has something in common with these. While some people did make a physical pilgrimage, other readers used these itineraries as a type of devotional literature - a spiritual pilgrimage of sorts.
Dr. Moseley says that Mandeville's work is a 'geographical' encyclopedia cast in the form of a personal narrative. His subsequent discussion of the medieval conception of space and geography is fascinating. "Their mental maps are not spatial, as ours might be, but narrative, mnemonic and ideological," he writes. We moderns think of "maps" and "geography," and we picture our post-Enlightenment charts with their grids of latitude and longitude and accuracy of scale. Medieval sea charts were working towards this modern factual accuracy, but other maps and narrative geographies are operating on a different set of principles: "map(s) of moral history, where space becomes symbol." Jerusalem is the symbolic center of the world; distance is not so much a matter of spatial perspective as a falling away from the moral center.
While these symbolic conventions of medieval cosmology form the background of his work, Mandy is innovative. He has praise for other cultures and beliefs, including the Eastern Church and Islam, even sometimes using them to draw attention to the shortcomings of Western European Christians. He asserts that the same laws of Nature operate the world over, and believes in rational explanations for the apparently marvelous. He is in many ways a bridge between medieval cosmology and early modern thought.
And yet... he tells you stories of phoenixes and cups made of griffon talons and dog-headed men. The book fascinates. This fantastical book stimulates the imagination, and can be experienced on many levels, with many layers: spiritual pilgrimage, moral geography, and imaginative exploration. It has inspired me to learn more about medieval travel, both literal and symbolic - I've found a great list of resources here.
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| Oh, MandyWell, you came and you gave without takingBut I sent you awayOh, MandyWell, you kissed me and stopped me from shakingAnd I need you todayOh, Mandy |
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