Re: John de Mandeville (was: Re: Gothic...)

On Mon, 6 Sep 1999, JOEL MATTHEW PEARSON wrote:

> On Sun, 5 Sep 1999, Boudewijn Rempt wrote:
>
> I've never heard of John de Mandeville, but I assume from your
> comments that his travelogue is a hoax, and that the scripts are
> invented.  Any idea what he used as his source material?  Or did
> he make everything up from scratch?  Did he also include information on
> the languages he supposedly encountered?  If so, that would make him a
> very early example of a conlanger, I guess.
>
> Int'resting stuff...
>
> Matt.
>
Sir John de Mandeville used (I quote from the preface to the penguin
edition):

Albert of Aix: Historia Hierosolomitanae Expeditionis
Jacopo de Voragine: Legenda Aurea
William von Boldenseele: Itinerarius
Jacques de Vitry: Historia Hierosolomitana
Haiton of Armenia: Fleurs des Histors d'Orient
William of Tripoli: De Statu Saracenorum
Odoric of Pordenone: Itinerarius
pseudo-Odoric: De Terra Sancta
Caesarius of Heisterbach: Dialogus Miraculorum
Pilgim's manuals (probably like Etheria's peregrinatio, I think)
The Letter of Prester John
Alexander Romances, including Alexander's letter to Aristotle
Vincent de Beauvais: Speculum Historiale & Speculum Naturale
possibly extracts of John of Plana de Carpini, Pliny and Solinus
possibly Burchard of Mount Sian: Descriptio Terrae Sanctae
possibly John of Sacrobosco: De Sphaera
possibly Brunetto Latini: Livre dou Tresor

As for the scripts, the Penguin edition reproduces the Egerton MS,
which gives forms that appear to be more corrupt than those given in
the Paris text of 1371. According to Letts, the Greek is genuine,
the Egyptian corrupted Coptic, the Hebrew accurate in names but
corrupt in forms, and the Persian and Chaldean doublets based on
Nestorian-Syrian.

Apart from occasionally giving a handy sentence in one of the
strange languages, the names of the letters or the occasional
gloss Mandeville does not write about languages.

I wouldn't really call it a hoax, more like a literary travelogue
based on a wide variety of sources. It's great fun to read, much
better than Marco Polo, I think. I don't know whether it is still
in print, but the ISBN of my edition is: 0-14-044435-1.

Boudewijn Rempt  | http://denden.conlang.org/~bsarempt