Posted on Friday 9 March 2007 to unknown

Sir John Mandeville was an Early-Renaissance writer of travel tales, similar in style and content to his near-contemporary, Marco Polo.
But history has judged the two quite differently: whereas Marco Polo has become a household word, synonymous with bold explorations, Mandeville has been largely forgotten. It was not always so.

During his lifetime, and for a couple of centuries afterwards, Mandeville was the more famous of the two. A copy of Mandeville - but not Polo - was in the possession of Leonardo da Vinci. More telling, about 300 manuscripts (hand-written copies) of Mandeville survive, compared to only about 70 of Polo.

So what accounts for these reversals of fortune?" Mandeville wrote his book about 1356, or shortly thereafter. Its original tile was "The Voyages and Travels of Sir John Mandeville, Knight," but is now generally known as "Travels of Sir John Mandeville." Polo's book, originally titled, "Descriptions of the World," came out about 1300. Whereas Mandeville wrote his book himself, Polo used the services of a professional writer, Rusticello, who based the book on Polo's notebooks. (Mandeville is the better written.) Standards of what constitutes a historical/geographic work have greatly changed since Polo/Mandeville's time. Both books ? but especially Mandeville ? contain a fascinating pastiche of facts (often distorted), impressions, opinions - and utterly fantastic claims. Reading these today, one is left with the bewildering impression of a farrago of National Geographic and supermarket tabloids.

You can read his entire book online. In this excerpt, he describes some of the weirdos that you'd be likely to meet if you sailed to the islands of Indonesia.

The king of this isle is a full great lord and a mighty, and hath under him fifty-four great isles that give tribute to him. And in everych of these isles is a king crowned; and all be obeissant to that king. And he hath in those isles many diverse folk. In one of these isles be folk of great stature, as giants. And they be hideous for to look upon. And they have but one eye, and that is in the middle of the front. And they eat nothing but raw flesh and raw fish.

And in another isle toward the south dwell folk of foul stature and of cursed kind that have no heads. And their eyen be in their shoulders.

And in another isle be folk that have the face all flat, all plain, without nose and without mouth. But they have two small holes, all round, instead of their eyes, and their mouth is plat also without lips.

And in another isle be folk of foul fashion and shape that have the lip above the mouth so great, that when they sleep in the sun they cover all the face with that lip.

And in another isle there be little folk, as dwarfs. And they be two so much as the pigmies. And they have no mouth; but instead of their mouth they have a little round hole, and when they shall eat or drink, they take through a pipe or a pen or such a thing, and suck it in, for they have no tongue; and therefore they speak not, but they make a manner of hissing as an adder doth, and they make signs one to another as monks do, by the which every of them understandeth other.

And in another isle be folk that have great ears and long, that hang down to their knees.

And in another isle be folk that have horses' feet. And they be strong and mighty, and swift runners; for they take wild beasts with running, and eat them.

And in another isle be folk that go upon their hands and their feet as beasts. And they be all skinned and feathered, and they will leap as lightly into trees, and from tree to tree, as it were squirrels or apes.

And in another isle be folk that be both man and woman, and they have kind; of that one and of that other. And they have but one pap on the one side, and on that other none. And they have members of generation of man and woman, and they use both when they list, once that one, and another time that other. And they get children, when they use the member of man; and they bear children, when they use the member of woman.

And in another isle be folk that go always upon their knees full marvellously. And at every pace that they go, it seemeth that they would fall. And they have in every foot eight toes.

Many other diverse folk of diverse natures be there in other isles about, of the which it were too long to tell, and therefore I pass over shortly.

And after, go men to Belgrade, and enter into the land of Bougiers; and there pass men a bridge of stone that is upon the river of Marrok. And men pass through the land of Pyncemartz and come to Greece to the city of Nye, and to the city of Fynepape, and after to the city of Dandrenoble, and after to Constantinople, that was wont to be clept Bezanzon. And there dwelleth commonly the Emperor of Greece. And there is the most fair church and the most noble of all the world; and it is of Saint Sophie. And before that church is the image of Justinian the emperor, covered with gold, and he sitteth upon an horse y-crowned. And he was wont to hold a round apple of gold in his hand: but it is fallen out thereof. And men say there, that it is a token that the emperor hath lost a great part of his lands and of his lordships; for he was wont to be Emperor of Roumania and of Greece, of all Asia the less, and of the land of Syria, of the land of Judea in the which is Jerusalem, and of the land of Egypt, of Persia, and of Arabia. But he hath lost all but Greece; and that land he holds all only. And men would many times put the apple into the image's hand again, but it will not hold it. This apple betokeneth the lordship that he had over all the world, that is round. And the tother hand he lifteth up against the East, in token to menace the misdoers. This image stands upon a pillar of marble at Constantinople.

The central scene shows a Bible story from the Old Testament: Caleb and Joshua are bringing grapes back to Moses from the 'Promised Land' - a sign that there was a rich, fertile land awaiting the Hebrew tribes that had fled from Egypt. The couple are flanked on either side by strange figures known as blemyahs.