Mandeville's Thought of the Limit: The Discourse of Similarity and Difference in "The Travels
of Sir John Mandeville"
Author(s): Sebastian I. Sobecki
Source: The Review of English Studies, New Series, Vol. 53, No. 211 (Aug., 2002), pp. 329-343
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3070642 .
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MANDEVIITTE'S THOUGHT
OF THE LIMIT:
THE DISCOURSE OF SIMILARITY AND
DIFFERENCE IN THE TRAVELS OF
SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE
BY SEBASTIAN I. SOBECKI
Although the sympathetic depiction of Otherness in The Travels of Sir John
Mandeville is acknowledged to be indicative of the writer's celebrated tolerance,
few critics have ventured to explore how Mandeville creates it. Yet his
presentation of the Other is as much a product of his cultural openness as it
is the result of a conscious process of careful psychological negotiation of
difference in which the text engages with the reader via the medium of the
Mandeville persona. The Other is imagined so convincingly by this fourteenthcentury writer that he endows it with a complex existence of its own which
transcends what Ian Macleod Higgins calls a 'self-critical mirror'. Foucault's
notion of 'transgression' proves instrumental in elucidating the way in which
Mandeville constructs and presents the Other. This article shows how
Mandeville erects his image of the Other and then, by employing a number
of examples, how the text and the language of The Travels convey this
'transgression'. The second part of the article evaluates Mandeville's categories
of perception by comparing them with the cognitive paradigmsexpressed by his
sources and some of his contemporaries.
la conscience accede au reel non par son developpement interne, mais par la decouverte
radicale de l'autre que soi.
Mais qu'est concretement cette ideologie non critiquee sinon tout simplement les
mythes "familiers", "bien connus" et transparents dans lesquels se reconnait (et non
pas: se connait) une societe ou un siecle? le miroir ofu elle se reflechit pour se
reconnaitre, ce miroir qu'il lui faudrait precisement briser pour se connaitre?l
To a cultural sceptic such as Foucault, the 'useless and transgressive field we
call literature'2 was merely a part, although a sophisticated one, of that 'great
system of constraint by which the West compelled the everyday to bring itself
into discourse'.3 Without wishing to enter the debate whether literature is a
'useless' instrument of cultural constraint, I shall centre my argument on two
I am grateful to C. W. R. D. Moseley for giving me access to his unpublished book on
Mandeville's Travels.
1 L. Althusser, Pour Marx (Paris, 1965), 144.
2 M. Foucault, Histoire de lafolie d l'dge classique,2nd edn. (Paris, 1972), 581.
3 Interview with Lucette Finas in M. Morris and P. Patton (edd.), Michel Foucault, Power,
Truth,Strategy (Sydney, 1979), 91.
The Review of English Studies, New Series, Vol. 53, No. 211 (2002)
? Oxford University Press 2002
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330
SEBASTIAN I. SOBECKI
key terms Foucault refers to here, 'transgression' and 'discourse'. 'Transgression' denotes the movement of crossing the limit between that which is
known or familiarto us, the Same, and that which is unknown or does not want
to be known, the Other. Literatureassumes the challenging task of transcending the boundaries between the constructed security of tangible reality on the
one side and the immaterial realm of fiction on the other. By definition,
transgressionleads to the direct confrontation of the Same with the Other.
Travelling is transgression. A travel narrative, even if it portrays a purely
imaginary voyage, is the verbalizationand textualization of transgression, of
the crossing of borders and limits. In The Travelsof Sir John Mandeville4the
Mandeville persona travels along the frontiers of the world known to medieval
Christendom and traversesthe terra incognita outside his culture's experience
where imagination, myth, and fear blend into each other-'beyond the
Euphrates is the realm of legend'.5 In other words, the text moves between
Europeanmicrospacewhich, accordingto Dick Harrison, reflects the information available about the known world, and its antithesis, macrospace, which
designates the sum of all beliefs and stereotypes about the unknown Other.6
To a large extent, the mode of transgressiontraceablein literaturehinges on
the epistemological paradigms current at a given time. Our epistemological
of TheTravelsremainsJ. W. Bennett,TheRediscovery
4 The mostseminalmodernreassessment
of Sir JohnMandeville(New York,1954).Bennett'sportrayalof Mandevilleas a writerwhose
workshouldbe judgedon the groundsof its literarymeritandnot its truthcontentreleasedThe
Travelsfrom the century-oldspell of being a 'plagiarizedtravelbook'.Bennettalso stresses
Mandeville's tolerance towards other cultures. In The Matter ofAraby in Medieval England(New
Haven, Conn. and London, 1977), Dorothee Metlitzki revives the question of whether
Mandevillehad travelledat all, arguingthat he had been to the Near East. ChristianeDeluz
claims, in her important book Le Livre de Jehan de Mandeville: Une 'geographie'au XIV siecle,
Textes, Etudes,Congres8 (Louvain-la-Neuve,1988),that Mandevillewas a youngnobleman
educatedin the liberalartsand spentsome time overseas.
Otherness in The Travelsis dealt with in M. B. Campbell, The Witnessand the Other World
(Ithaca,NY and London,1988),and, most recently,in I. MacleodHiggins, WritingEast: The
'Travelsof SirJohnMandeville'(Philadelphia,
Pa., 1997).CampbellseesMandeville's'emotional
and intellectuallucidity'as a productof 'the climateand conditionsof his moment'(p. 161),
TheTravels'subtletyin its treatment
whereasMacleodHigginsgoesa longwayin acknowledging
Othernessas a 'Self-criticalmirror'
of the Other,but maintainsthatMandevilleinstrumentalizes
as 'the text movesfarthereast'(p. 80).
The textualhistoryof The Travelsis highlycomplicatedand is discussedat greatlengthin
Bennett, The Rediscoveryof Sir John Mandeville, 89-218 and 263-420. As the basis for my
BritishLibrary,CottonMS,
quotationsI have chosen the most reliableEnglishtranslations:
Titus C xvi (henceforthCotton MS), printedin Mandeville'sTravels,ed. M. C. Seymour
(Oxford,1967),and BritishLibrary,EgertonMS 1982 (henceforthEgertonMS) printedin
Mandeville's Travels: Texts and Translations,2 vols., ed. M. Letts (London, 1953), vol. i. Since
both manuscriptsbelong to the Insularbranchof The Travels'manuscripttradition,I have
decidedto verifyeachquotationby comparingit withthe respectivepassagein a manuscriptfrom
the Continentalgroup.Despitesomeof its shortcomings
(noneof whichsignificantlyaffectsthe
passagesmy argumentis concernedwith),I havesettledfor the oldestextantmanuscriptof The
Travels:Paris,BibliothequeNationale,MS nouv. acq. 4515 (henceforthBN MS), printedin
Mandeville'sTravels,ed. Letts, vol. ii. At the sametime, I hope thatthe inclusionof a French
manuscriptwill reducesomeof the semanticproblemsarisingfromworkingwith translations.
5 C. W. R. D. Moseley,in a so far unpublishedstudyof Mandeville.
6 D. Harrison, Medieval Space: The Extent of MicrospatialKnowledgein WesternEuropeDuring
theMiddleAges,Lund Studiesin International
History34 (Lund, 1996),passim.
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THE TRAVELS OF SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE
331
categories are predominantly individualistic and miscellaneous in that they
cross-refer to a range of moral and ethical systems often only loosely connected
with each other. Concepts such as 'practical ethics' and subjectivism have
replaced the convenient hegemony of a centralizedand shared morality. There
are good reasons to believe that this was not the case in the fourteenth century
(and much earlier, too) where a Christian framework aspired to establish a
universal morality which provided a system of reference outside of which no
discourse was possible (this does not mean that all people were equally
committed in their beliefs nor that Christianity's pretension to supremacy
was uncontested by individual thinkers). Therefore medieval writers' categories of perception frequently reflect group values and group tendencies to
assert auctoritasfor themselves. Their so-called 'lack of originality' and their
routine invocation of past masters are expressions of their own 'anxiety of
influence', to borrow Harold Bloom's memorable phrase. 'Originality', the
unorthodox, the new, the dangerous-all those are names for the Other, which
poses a permanent threat to cultures still in the process of consolidating their
identity. These cultures will tend towards associating the Other with danger,
hostility, and inferiority, provided they are organized by a superstructural
ideology such as religion, whereas stable groups with a more developed sense
of identity tend towards a demythologized perception of the Other.7
Any discussion of transgression must therefore begin with what Foucault
calls a 'thought of the limit'. Clare O'Farrell summarizes Foucault's understanding of this concept: 'If instead of looking at totalities, the "edge" (limit)
which separates the Same from the Other could be analysed and described,
perhaps an insight into the reality or truth of the Same and Other could be
gained.'8 So what is Mandeville's 'thought of the limit'? The imaginary
journey of transgression is paralleled by the process of reading through
which the reader confronts the Other. Reading becomes the psychological
medium for the complex encounter with one's macrospatialworld view. The
discrepancies that emerge between the reader's world view and that of The
Travelsare resolved in the conflict of the narrator'sdiscourse with the Other
which introduces the readerto Mandeville's concept of the limit: the narrative
persona experiences the Other representatively for the reader. A good indicator for Mandeville's notion of transgressionis the use of his sources, where,
in his account of the Holy Land, which can be firmly placed as lying at the
frontiers of medieval macrospace,he predominantlyrelies on factual information provided by the pilgrim William of Boldensele,9but he increasinglydraws
on mythopoeic and fantastical writings such as The Wondersof the East and
Alexander's meeting with the Brahmins the deeper he penetrates into the
7 Evidence for this theory can be found in M. Mulder and A. Stemerding, 'Threat, Attraction to
Group, and the Need for Strong Leadership', Human Relations, 16 (1963).
8 C. O'Farrell, Foucault: Historian or Philosopher?(London, 1989), 32.
9 Mandeville mainly follows William of Boldensele's Itinerarius,but he also uses, although not
firsthand, Haiton of Armenia's Fleurs des Histors d'Orientand other accounts.
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332
SEBASTIAN I. SOBECKI
realm of his civilization's macrospace.'0 The limit which the first-person
narratorencourageshis readerto cross-acting as an agent provocateurwithin
the text-is the rather blurred demarcation between Western microspatial
knowledge and macrospatialspeculation. This notion of the limit appearsto be
constructed in such a way that it confronts the Same through an ingenious
delineation of the Other which integrates the narrator'snear-radicalopenness
towards difference with a critical reflection of medieval Christendom's selfconsciousness.
For instance, when Mandeville talks about the letters sent to the Greeks in
which Pope John XXII calls for the reunification of the Christian faith under
the Western Pontiff, he also provides the reader with the Greek response,
which is surprisingly left without comment. The psychological pattern of
Mandeville's relation of the Greeks is highly controlled and its analysis reveals
the crafty mechanism through which Mandeville harmonizes his and his
reader'smacrospatialconceptions without neglecting the reader'ssensitivities.
First, he establishes the divide between the Eastern and the Western Church,
in which he astutely states his religious allegiance: 'And yif alle it so be that
men of Grece ben Cristene, yit thei varien from oure feith."' The use of the
first-person plural pronoun in the possessive form allows him to simultaneously stress his group identity and integrate the readerwith his group. Once
this is accomplished, he swiftly proceeds to juxtaposing the Patriarchand the
Pope. Bearing in mind that The Travelswere composed during the Babylonish
captivity when the papacy's market value prefigured the adventurous inflation
of the Italianlira, the claim that the 'patriarkhath as meche power ouer the see
as the Pope hath on this syde the see'12 reads like a sarcasticcomment on the
dwindling authority of the Pope. Consequently, the medieval reader, having
been assured of Mandeville's credibility and loyalty on the grounds of his
group affiliation ('oure feith', 'our Pope'13),shifts his sympathy to the Greeks
as Mandeville proceeds:
AndtherforePopeIohnthe XXII sendelettersto hem,howCristenefeithscholdeben
obedyentto the Pope that is Goddesvic[a]rieon erthe,to whomGod yaf his pleyn
powerefor to byndeand to assoille,and therforethei scholdeben obedyentto him.
And thei senten ayen dyuerse answeres,and amonges othere thei seyden thus:
tuamsummam
Potenciam
tuamsummam
circatuossubiectos
Superbiam
firmitercredimus.
Auariciamtuamsummam
saciarenonintendimus.
Dominustecum
tolerarenonpossumus.
nobiscum
est.Thatis to seye,Weetrowewel thatthi poweris gretvponthi
quiadominus
subgettes.Wee may not suffrethin high pryde.Wee ben not in purposto fulfillethi
travelsOdoric
10 It mustbeaddedhere,thatMandeville
usesasthemainsourceforhisfurther
a 'real'traveller,
of Pordenone
but whohimselfrelied
whowas,likeWilliamof Boldensele,
accountsof the East,justas Polo,relatinghis yearsin Cathay,hadto
heavilyon fantastical
marvelshe hadnotseenas lyingbeyondthebordersof the Cathayhe
includethetraditional
knew.
11 CottonMS,p. 13;Egerton
MS, p. 13;BN MS,p. 237.
12 CottonMS,p. 13;Egerton
MS,p. 13;BN MS,pp.237-8.
13 'OurPope'is neitherin CottonMS norin BN MS.
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THE TRAVELS OF SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE
333
gretcouetyse.Lordbe withthe, forourelordis withvs. Farewelle.Andotheranswere
mygthehe not haueof hem.'4
The papal demands appear ridiculous in the light of the harsh facts of the
Babylonish captivity, and the reader can safely trust in Mandeville's accurate
delineation of the Greeks-it is much easier to listen to one of us ratherthan to
someone whose attitude to our group is not made explicit. The result is the
gradualstimulation of a moderatelytolerant psychologicalresponse on the part
of the reader, whose own religious affiliation is ironically deconstructed to
enable an unbiased discourse with the Other. What follows, then, is a careful
act of balancing 'them' against 'us' as Mandeville introduces the reader to a
series of differences in religious practice without overtly defending the party to
which he and his reader belong.
The same technique of subtle psychological negotiation of difference is
employed in the account of the Juggernaut. First, Mandeville establishes
common ground among himself, his reader, and the citizens of Calamy, where
the tomb of St Thomas the Apostle is said to rest. The inhabitantsare quickly
drawn into the orbit of a universal Christian morality:
In thatkyngdomlith the bodyof SeyntThomasthe Apostlein fleschandbon in a faire
tombein the cytee of Calamye,for there he was martyredand buryed.But men of
Assiriebeerenhis body into Mesopataymeinto the cytee of Edisse,and afterhe was
broughtthiderayen.
Andthe armandthe hondthathe puttein ourelordessydewhanHe apperedto him
afterHis resurrexioun
andseydeto him,Noli esseincredulus
is yit lyggynge
sedfidelis,'5
in a vessellewithoutenthe tombe.Andbe thathondthei makenallehereiuggementes
in the contree,whosohathrightor wrong.16
Once Mandeville has set up similarity, he can safely venture to unfold the idol
worship of the inhabitants of Calamy whose reckless devotion knows no
bounds:
And summeof hem fallendoun vnderthe whelesof the chareand lat the charegon
ouerhem so that thei ben dede anon.And summehan herearmesor here lymesalle
tobroken,and sommethe sydes. And alle this don thei for loue of hire god in gret
deuocoun.And hem thinkeththatthe morepeyneand the moretribulacounthat thei
suffrenfor loue of here god, the moreioye thei schullehauein anotherworld.'7
Via the bridge of shared moral tenets similarity between microspatialEurope
and macrospatial Calamy is established, and, although the fanatic worship
creates Otherness, the narratordoes not allow the readerto get carriedaway by
the shocking differences as he bitingly compares the Calamians' surplus
devotion with the dramatic deficit at home:
14 CottonMS, p. 13;EgertonMS, p. 13;BN MS, p. 238.
15 'Be not faithless,but believing':John 20: 27.
16 CottonMS, p. 127;EgertonMS, pp. 123-4;BN MS, p. 327.
17 CottonMS, p. 129;EgertonMS, p. 125;BN MS, pp. 328-9.
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334
SEBASTIAN I. SOBECKI
for
And, schortlyto seye you, thei suffrenso gretepeynesand so hardemartyrdomes
loue of hereydolethata Cristeneman,I trowe,durstnot takenvpon him the tenthe
partthe peynefor loue of ourelord IhesuCrist.18
In The Travels,the secret limit at the heart of transgression is permeable
from both sides of the divide. With astonishing ease, Mandeville presents the
limit not as a border between the mutually exclusive 'us' and 'them', but as a
point at which cultural exchange is possible. This cultural dialogue is
grounded in Mandeville's enormous talent for empathy with the heavily
stereotyped and even imagined Other, and it appears as if his approach to
the limit indeed coincided with Foucault's above-quoted 'thought of the limit'.
Some critics have described the cultures that Mandeville claims to have
encountered on his travels as 'mirror societies'. The term is quite problematic in the context of The Travels, for 'mirror society' more accurately
denotes an inversion of one's own society. In literature, the distorted
portrayal of Islam in the Chanson de Roland is precisely such a mirror
society. The Holy Trinity is parodied by the anti-Trinity of MahometApollo-Termagaunt: 'Pleignet lur deus, Tervagan e Mahum I E Apollin,
dunt il mie n'en unt',19 and the unyielding dialectics of 'paien unt tort e
chrestiens unt dreit'20shape the reversed Doppelgangernature of Islam in the
Chanson de Roland, reducing the religion of the Other to a Mr Hyde of
Christianity. In medieval macrospace, the terra australisincognitareflects the
archetypal mirror society nicely encapsulated in the name of its inhabitants,
the Antipodeans, who live on the opposite side of the globe and wander the
earth upside-down. Besides, everything they allegedly do, they do 'backwards', as if they deliberately attempted to imitate and almost mock
European habits. These mirror societies are nothing but 'counter-societies'
conceived by Eurocentric macrospatial imagination. Mandeville's societies
are not mere inversions of medieval Europe. They are by far more complex
in structure and purpose, and they illustrate a whole range of theological and
moral concerns immediate to Mandeville's contemporaries rather than
simply mirroring Western Christendom.
Mandeville's brief conversationwith the Sultan of Egypt-almost certainly
based on Caesarius of Heisterbach's Dialogus Miraculorum-provides a good
template from which to gain insight into the construction of the Other in The
Travels. Islam is represented fairly accurately and without the hostile
condemnation characteristicof the period. Before the actual dialogue begins,
Mandeville provides his reader with a list of theological comparisonsin which
he maps out some underlying similarities between the two faiths:
and gladlywill they speakof the VirginMary
Also the Saracenstrowthe incarnation,
and say that she was learned by the angel, and that the angel Gabriel said to her that she
18 CottonMS, p. 129;EgertonMS, p. 125;BN MS, p. 329.
19 La Chanson
de Roland,ed. G. Brault(Oxford,1984),11.2696-7.
20 Ibid., 1. 1015.
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THE TRAVELS OF SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE
335
was chosenof God beforethe beginningof the worldfor to conceiveJesusChristand
for to bearhim, whomshe bearandshe [was]maidenafteras she wasbefore;andthis
witnesseswell the bookof Alkaron.... And, whenthey mayget the Gospelswritten,
they do greatworshipto themandnamelythe Gospelof Missusest,whichGospelthey
thatareletteredamongthemkisswith greatdevotionandsayit oft-timesamongtheir
prayers.21
The text conceives an image of Islam which is inspired by its theological
similarities with Christianity and, in points where it diverges from the latter,
the text discreetly places the emphasis on the similar philosophical tenets of
two logocentric systems of belief embodied in the centrality of a written law:
'And this wot not Christian men; and therefore they say they are not right
believing, when they trow that Jesu Christ was done on the cross. All this
points are contained in the book of Alkaron.'22And again in this passage:'Also,
when men speaks to them of the Trinity, they say they are three persons, but
not a [one] God. For their book of Alkaronspeaks not of Trinity ... They say
also that Christ was God's word; and so says their Alkaron.'23This first
segment of Mandeville's account of Islam draws a sympathetic picture of the
Other with whom dialogue is possible. The second segment, the actual
exchange between the Sultan of Egypt and the narrator,is a shrewd manoeuvre
by Mandeville: having credited Islam with a certain sense of rationality,he can
deliver his criticism of Christianity without having to fear that it might fall on
deaf ears or, even worse, trigger a hostile reaction in his reader. The ingenuity
of Mandeville's technique cannot be overemphasized:
as
'Ye should',he said,'be simple,meekandsoothfast,andalmousgerne[charitable],
Christwas in whomye say ye trow.But it is all otherwise.For Christianmen are so
proud,so envious,so greatgluttons,and so lecherous,andtheretoso full of covetise,
that for a little silver they will sell their daughters,their sisters,yea, and their own
wives,to let men lie by them.And ilk one takesotherwife,andnoneholdshis faithtil
other;and so the law thatChristgaveyou, wickedlyand ill ye despiseand breakit.24
The rhetorical structure of this passage is that of a sermon,25with its heavy
employment of the second person plural, and its emphatically moralistic and
21 EgertonMS, pp. 94-5; CottonMS, pp. 96-8; BN MS, pp. 302-3.
22 EgertonMS, p. 95; CottonMS, p. 98, followsBN MS, pp. 303-4, in omittingthe reference
to the Koran.
23 EgertonMS, p. 96; CottonMS, p. 99; BN MS, pp. 304-5.
24 EgertonMS, p. 98; CottonMS, pp. 100-1;BN MS, p. 306.
to SermonManuscripts
25 G. R. Owst, Preachingin MedievalEngland:An Introduction
of the
Periodc.1350-1450 (Cambridge,1926), remainsan excellent study of English sermons in
Mandeville'speriod.The most recentdiscussionsof medievalsermonsare foundin N. Beriou
about
and David L. D'Avray,with P. Cole,J. Riley-Smith,and M. Tausche,ModernQuestions
MedievalSermons:Essayson Marriage,Death,History,and Sanctity,Bibliotecadi Medioevo
andJews:Reflections
Latino11 (Spoleto,1994);J. Y. Gregg(ed.), Devils,Women,
of the Otherin
MedievalSermonStories(Albany,NY, 1997);and J. Hamesse(ed.), MedievalSermonsand
of International
Symposiaat KalamazooandNew
Society:Cloister,City, University.Proceedings
York,Textes et Etudesdu MoyenAge 9 (Louvain-la-Neuve,1998).
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336
SEBASTIAN I. SOBECKI
accusatory tone ('in whom ye say ye trow').26 But most illustrative of a
medieval sermon is the characteristicinstrumentalizationof sin: 'And certainly
for your sin ye have lost all this land, the which we have and hold.'27 Its
rationale is virtually indistinguishable from that used at medieval (and much
later) pulpits, where zealous clerics struggling to find an apt explanation for
the plague drew on the universal appeal of sin. The Sultan then tells
Mandeville about the prophecies which talk of the future reconquest of the
Holy Land by Christians once they have truly mastered their superior law:
'And that knowe we wel be oure prophecyes that Cristene men schulle wynnen
ayen this lond out of oure hondes whan thei seruen God more deuoutely.'28At
this stage the sermon turns into a visionary monologue, and the accurate
observations about Western Christendom coupled with the openness and
frankness of the Sultan trigger in the Mandeville persona, and probably in
many medieval readers too, feelings of shame: 'And then methought great
shame that Saracens, which have nowhere right belief ne perfect law, should
thus reprove us of our imperfectness and keep their vain law better than we do
the law of Jesu Christ.'29
Mandeville even goes a step further as he asserts the truthfulness of the
Sultan's rather general observations:'And therefore it is no wonder if they call
us sinful and wicked, for it is sooth.'30The potentially subversive side-effect of
this line often escapes the attention of the reader, maybe even deliberatelyso,
as Mandeville grants the Saracens the right to call Christians 'sinful and
wicked'. Surely the attentive medieval reader will think twice before he refers
to the Saracens as 'wicked' or 'sinful' after having read or listened to this
passage. Everything, it seems to Mandeville, depends on the angle from which
it is viewed. This principle of parallaxalso informs the next, and possibly most
remarkable,fragment of this 'conversation':
Forthe Sarazinsben godeandfeythfulle,fortheikepenentierlythe commandement
of
the holybookAlkaronthatGod sentehembe His messagerMachomet,to the whiche,
as thei seyn, seynt Gabriellethe aungeloften tyme tolde the wille of God.31
It would have sufficed in support of Mandeville's moralistic point to leave
off the talk with the Sultan after having admitted to shame in the face of the
string of accusations. It becomes evident that to Mandeville the Other is not
just a means of criticizing ill practices and moral disintegration at home, but
has an existence of its own, not independent yet autonomous from the Same. It
26 Cotton MS, p. 101, and BN MS, p. 306, have, respectively, 'in whom thei trowe' and 'en
quoy il croient'.
27 Egerton MS, p. 98; Cotton MS, p. 101; BN MS, p. 306.
28 Cotton MS, p. 101; Egerton MS, p. 98; BN MS, p. 306.
29 Egerton MS, p. 99, and Cotton MS, p. 101. BN MS, pp. 306-7, adds 'grant dommages' to
'grant escandes'.
30 Egerton MS, p. 99; Cotton MS, p. 102; BN MS, p. 307.
31 Cotton MS, p. 102; Egerton MS, p. 99; BN MS, p. 307.
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THE TRAVELS OF SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE
337
serves not merely to reveal ourweaknesses,but also to illustrate theirstrengths.
This separate existence of the Other outside the narrow medieval concept of
the Same becomes more clearly discernible in the ensuing account of
Mohammed's life and Muslim practice. Once Mandeville has established
the virtuous Saracen, he breathes life into his presentation of practical Islam:
'And therefore Sarrazines that ben deuout drynken neuere no wyn. But
summe drynken it preuyly, for yif thei dronken it openly thei scholde ben
repreued.'32This passage does more for the credibility of the Other than
anything Mandeville has said about the Saracens up to this point. His account
of Islam is so positive that he can afford to point out some of its failings
without compromising its integrity. He even establishes a sympathetic likeness
between the Saracens and the Europeans, who both show traits of a shared
human nature that transcends narrow cultural parameters.It is precisely this
act, on the part of someone who knows Scripture well enough to cite it in
defence or pursuit of whatevercause he chooses, of not passing judgement on a
human weakness that must be read like a display of a certain nobility of mind
and a generosity that suggest a principle of universalitybeyond morality which
governs human behaviour.
In approachingthe Other, Mandeville uses certain key words. One of those
is 'deuocioun' or 'deuotement' (sometimes also 'lamour de Dieu') in BN MS.
It is used to describe the faith of virtuous Saracens (see above), and it is
awarded to any pagan who displays a maximum of worship not only to the
Juggernaut:'And than he [the Great Khan] kneleth to the cros. And than the
prelate of the religiouse men seyth before him certeyn orisiouns and yeueth
him a blessynge with the cros and he enclyneth to blessinge fulle deuoutely.'33
This account of the Great Khan bowing 'fulle deuoutely' to the Cross serves to
prove that many pagans show an abundance of respect to the Christian Cross
or to their own idols in clear opposition to European Christians, who do not
qualify to be called 'devout'. Even Christians who 'haue not alle the articles of
oure feyth' show at times more devotion and true faith than Mandeville will
grant his European contemporaries:'This emperour Prestre Iohn is Cristene
and a gret partie of his contree also, but yif thei haue not alle the articles of
oure feyth as wee hauen. Thei beleuen wel in the Fader, in the Sone and in the
Holy Gost. And thei ben fulle deuoute and right trewe on to another.'34But
'devotion' for Mandeville is also something more. It is a sparklingfreshness of
enthusiasm, a kind of euphoric creativity35which sets afire the narrator's
religious imagination as he presumes divine motives behind what his source
32 Cotton MS, p. 103; Egerton MS, pp. 100-1; BN MS, p. 308.
33 Cotton MS, p. 176; BN MS, p. 367. This passage is slightly modified in Egerton MS, p. 169.
34 Cotton MS, p 197; Egerton MS, p. 189; BN MS, p. 384.
35 The MED defines 'devocioun' as follows: '1. the profound religious emotion of awe,
reverence, adoration;also devoutness, piety; 2. the religious ceremony of worship, or an instance
of it, a service or prayer; 3. earnestness, devotedness; desire (to do sth.); affection, interest,
delight'.
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338
SEBASTIAN I. SOBECKI
Odoric perceived as merely unusual: even the inhabitants of the sea express
their literal 'deuocioun' to a higher cause as if driven by faith itself:
I knowenot the resounwhi it is, but God knoweth.But this, me semeth,is the moste
merueyllethateuereI saugh.For this mervaylleis ayenstkyndeand not with kynde,
thatthe fisshesthathan fredomto envirounallethe costesof the see at hereownelist
of man.
comentof hireownewilleto profrenhemto the dethwithoutenconstreynynge
And therforeI am sykerthatthis maynot ben withoutena gret tokene.36
Everything in Mandeville's textual mappa mundi37is held together by the
fabric of 'deuocioun'. It is one of the key tools which enforces Mandeville's
brilliant stratagem of inverting the roles of reader and text. As the narrator
closes in on the devotion of the Other, the reader quickly discovers that this
display of exemplary worship and religious sincerity provokes a more
fundamental questioning of the Same, that is of oneself in relation to one's
culture. The result is a lateralshift in the experience of reading the text. From
'I read the text' Mandeville takes his reader to 'the text reads me'. This
transition from reader-as-readerto reader-as-textforms part of the reversalof
the subject (similarity) and the object (difference) of the intricate grammarof
The Travels'epistemological discourse.
Correspondingly, Mandeville's language of reinventing the Other is
reflected in his rhetorical patterns, in which he successfully manages to blur
the limit between Eurocentric perception and the way other cultures see one's
own:
The folk that live in thatcountryarecalledNumidians,and they arechristened.But
theyareblackof colour;andthattheyholda greatbeauty,andayethe blackertheyare
the fairerthem thinkthem. And they say that and they shouldpaintan angeland a
fiend,they wouldpaintthe angelblackand the fiend white.38
Black angels and white devils must appear shocking to the medieval reader
familiarwith iconographicdepictions found in stained glass windows and wall
paintings. But the logic is compelling: if the Numidians consider blackness
beautiful, it must follow that their idea of beauty cannot stop at angels. They
too must be black. Even the most disgusted medieval reader will admit that
this makes sense if viewed from the perspective of the Other. And that is the
whole point: everything makes sense once it is viewed from the right angle.
Mandeville cannot go too far in stressing this. Talking of suttee, the bizarre
custom of burning widows, he finishes his account with a startling and comic
claim: 'and the wommen schauen hire berdes and men not'.39If Europeans are
36 Cotton MS, p. 142; Egerton MS, p. 136; BN MS, p. 339.
37 In his hitherto unpublished study of Mandeville, C. W. R. D. Moseley argues for The Travels
to be read along the imaginesmundiof the Middle Ages.
38 Egerton MS, p. 33. The much shorter passage in Cotton MS, p. 33, follows BN MS, p. 252:
'Et sont les Nubiens Crestiens, mais il sont noirs comme meure pour la grant chaleur de soleil'.
39 Cotton MS, p. 126; Egerton MS, p. 123; BN MS, p. 327. Mandeville wittily amends Odoric's
'women also have their forehead shaven' to 'wommen schauen hire berdes.'
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THE TRAVELS OF SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE
339
white and Numidians are black, then, mutatismutandis,should Indian women
not have the right to shave? Indeed, Mandeville's tolerance takes him even
where nature does not dare to tread.
In describing new phenomena he largely relies on similarity. For example,
instead of calling bananas 'yalow frutes' (or employing the words 'iaune' and
'fruit' in the French), which are part of his vocabulary,he describes them as
follows:
Also in thatcontreeandin otherealsomen fyndenlongeapplesto sellein hirecesoun,
and men clepenhem applesof Paradys.And thei ben rightsweteand of gode savour,
and thogh yee kutte hem in neuer so many gobettes or parities ouerthwartor
endlonges,euermoreyee schullefyndenin the myddesthe figureof the holy cros of
oure lord Ihesu.40
Two things become evident in this extract: first, Mandeville's language is
insufficient to deal with this new object; and second, everything is permeated
by devotion. When troubled by a lack of words he instinctively looks for
similarities, not for differences. Being familiarwith berries, pears, and apples,
he was surely able to abstract from these entities the concept of a 'fruit', but
nevertheless he decides to sacrifice some of the differences for the sake of
similarity. Once the bananais opened, Mandeville gives us a surprisinginsight
into his epistemological categories rather than into the inside of the banana,as
his religious cast of mind runs so deep that he sees tokens of devotion in the
way a fruit is peeled or sliced. It has been argued that the idea of the pilgrimage
fades from The Travelsthe further Mandeville wanders, but, as this passage
shows, the narrator continually perceives the world with all its curiosities
through the prism of a mind bent on discovering faith beneath the surface.
Mandeville's language is filled with words like 'devocioun', 'gode', 'cursed',
and 'feythfulle', but there is a virtually complete absence of comparativessuch
as 'better' or 'worse'. Final judgements or 'domes' are carefully avoided.41
Only when it comes to the issue of the Crucifixion does Mandeville allow
himself to make one unmistakableassertion: 'And in this article thei seyn that
wee faylen and that the gret rightwisness of God ne myghte not suffre so gret a
wrong. And in this fayleth here feyth.'42 The only time when Mandeville
explains why he avoids comparativejudgements he utters a sentence of (for his
time) almost unsurpassed tolerance:
And the angel replied,QuodDeusmundavit,tu ne immundum
dixeris,that is to say,
'Callthou not uncleanthat whichGod has cleansed'.This was done as a tokenthat
men shoulddespiseno men for the differenceof theirlaws.For we knownot whom
God loves nor whomHe hates;and thereforewhen I prayfor the dead and say my
40 Cotton MS, p. 35; Egerton MS, p. 35; BN MS, p. 254.
41 This observation coincides with the discussion in Campbell, The Witnessand the Other World,
122-61.
42 Cotton MS, p. 98; BN MS, p. 304. Egerton MS, p. 95, shifts the emphasis from 'fayleth here
feyth' to 'in that err they'.
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340
SEBASTIAN I. SOBECKI
De Profundis,I say it for all Christiansouls and also for all the souls who need
prayingfor.43
Quod Deus mundavit is not just a mere utterance. Mandeville's use of it
contrasts sharply with the official view of the Church expressed in Clement
VI's bull Nulla salus extra ecclesiam. The theological implications of
Mandeville's comment are far-reachingand demand a separate study, but as
far as my argument is concerned it suffices to point out that, according to
Mandeville, nature is ordainedby God, and everything found in nature comes
from God. All laws and customs, irrespective of the place of their origin, are
ultimately derived from God and render all criticism mere human impertinence. This passionate vision of an all-permeating Divinity points to the
central epistemeof The Travels, curiositas,44most forcibly articulated in the
search for similarityon the grounds of a shared creation. Mandeville is looking
for a central morality to make it the basis for his tolerance. Morality itself is a
sign of having received a divinely inspired law, and that is sufficient evidence
for him to view the Creation as something inclusive ratherthan exclusive and,
therefore, to reinsert the Monsters of Men (who are 'subtle of wit') into the
Family of Adam.
But his contemporaries had a different notion of the Other. The best
starting point, it seems to me, is Mandeville's sources. Caesarius of
Heisterbach's Dialogus Miraculorum displays the unreflected hostility so
characteristic of medieval churchmen. In spite of some glimpses of fairness
in Caesarius, the dialogues that deal with Saracens or make mention of them
treat them as fodder for Christianarmies collecting redemption points on their
journey to salvation:'Against this treacherousrace we the have seen three great
expeditions of believers.'45The abbot of Heisterbach is little concerned with a
fair and balanced representationof the Other; instead, he prefers to go along
with the vogue for armed pilgrimages, and fuels the ignorance of those calling
for another crusade against the 'enemies of Christ':46 'They [the Saracens]
threw a rope around the neck of the crucifix in order to pour confusion upon
our faith, and drew that sacred image along all the streets of the city, with
many other insults, while the crowd cheered and clapped their hands,
ascribing victory to their God.'47 Caesarius wrote from the serenity of his
43 EgertonMS, p. 207. CottonMS, pp. 214-15, followsBN MS, pp. 400-1, in statingthatthe
ChristianscollectivelypraytheirDe Profundis:
'Et si dy auecles Crestienscommunement,Pro
omnium
animabus
proquibussit exorandum.'
defunctorum
44 The medievalLatinmeaningof curiositas
doesnot merelymirrorthe modernword'curiosity',
butalsocontainsthe notionsof anxiety,care,refinement,elaboration,
andcuriousenquiry.It was
seenas a potentialthreatto orthodoxyandthereforereceivedwithsuspicionandhostilityby the
Church.A detaileddiscussionof curiositas
canbe foundin C. K. Zacher,Curiosity
andPilgrimage
(Baltimore,Md. 1976),passim.
45 TheDialogueonMiraclesbyCaesarius
trans.H. vonE. ScottandC. C. Swinton
ofHeisterbach,
Bland,2 vols. (London,1929),ii: bk. X, ch. 47, p. 210.
46 Ibid.,bk. XI, ch. 23, pp. 258-9.
47 Ibid.,bk. VII, ch. 27, pp. 27-8.
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THE TRAVELS OF SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE
341
sheltered Wiirttemberg abbey, but Odoric of Pordenone, one of Mandeville's
chief sources, could not hide behind a lack of firsthand encounters with the
Other. His experience of the East was immediate. Cruel and aggressive,
Odoric's Saracens are notoriously irrational:
Then the Cadiseeinghimselfthusput to confusionby them[a groupof friars],before
the whole people, began to call out with a loud voice: 'But what sayest thou of
Machomet?Whatsayestthouof Machomet?'Forsuchis the wontof the Saracens,that
whentheycannotmaintaintheircausewitharguments,theytaketo maintainingit with
swordsand fists.48
And he does not trouble himself to make a distinction between Christians and
pagans: 'Here there be fifteen houses of Christians, that is to say Nestorians,
who are schismatics and heretics'.49Friar Odoric vents his undiluted feeling of
superiority as he brands his harsh and bigoted judgements on the peoples of
the East ('It is an evil and a pestilent generation'50and 'I rebuked these people
sharply for so acting'51).The celebrationof Christian martyrsrankstop on his
agenda: 'Then incontinently four Saracens laid violently hands on FriarJames
of Padua in order to cast him into the fire; but he said to them, "Suffer me and
I will of my own free will cast myself in."'52 Orthodox Catholicism is the
universal yardstick which he rigorously applies to anybody, irrespective of
whether he has come into contact with the Roman Church or not. Sentiments
ranging from latent antipathy to deep-running mistrust and open condemnation are not a monopoly of the clergy. Even the much-travelled Marco Polo
habitually censures Otherness. And although he shows some regard for the
Brahmins, his contempt for idolatry overrides his moderation:
The peopleare grossidolaters,and much addictedto sorceryand divination.When
they areaboutto makea purchaseof goods,theyimmediatelyobservethe shadowcast
by theirown bodiesin the sunshine;andif the shadowbe as largeas it shouldbe, they
makethe purchasethat day.53
The inhabitantsof Turkomania do not receive much good notice from Marco
Polo either: 'The Turkomans, who reverence Mahomet and follow his law, are
a rude people, and dull of intellect.'54It is hard to find a degree of tolerance
similar to that displayed by The Travelsin the writing of the period. Among
the more open-minded thinkers were certainly Dante, Langland, the Pearlpoet, the early Ramon Lull, the logician Peter Abelard, and Peter the
Venerable, and, in varying degrees, they were all part of the ambitious
theological battle for the salvation of the just pagan which was less driven
by responses to direct experience of the Other than inspired by theoretical
48 Cathayandthe WayThither:Beinga Collection
of MedievalNoticesof China,ed. and trans.
H. Yule, vol. ii (London,1913),119.
49 Ibid.117.
50 Ibid.148.
51 Ibid.175.
52 Ibid.121.
53 TheTravelsof MarcoPolo,introd.John Masefield(London,1907),370.
54 Ibid. 32.
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342
SEBASTIAN I. SOBECKI
considerations.Mandeville shows no such interest in converting the peoples he
'encounters'. He observes, compares, and, unlike so many travellers, listens.
The secular material that has survived is ill informed or heavily biased
against the Other, and often both. Guiot de Dijon's song Chanteraipour mon
coraige,remarkableas it is for the employment of a female narrator,has a most
typical chorus for the period:
Diex! quantcrieroit'Outree',
Sire aidiesau pelerin
Pourqui sui espaventee
Carfelon sont Sarrasin.55
Despite ongoing debates concerning the legitimacy and feasibility of crusades
(John Gower's unease about religious wars in ConfessioAmantis,III. 2488-96,
is one example), there was little firsthand experience to draw on. And in this
light, the generosity of Mandeville's fictional narrativetowardsthe Other must
appear even more untypical for his period.56
Instead of propagatingdifference Mandeville stresses similarity. He draws a
map of our limitations as every encounter with the Other generously contributes to more clarity on the mappamundiof medieval epistemology. The accent
on similarity and inclusion indicates the epistemological shift that lies at the
heart of The Travels.This shift from the episteme of difference, which reduced
the Other to a simple mirror society (the Chansonde Roland)or to a dangerous
threat (Caesariusof Heisterbach), to the new and more self-confident episteme
of curiositas,which does not attempt to explain away the Other as a menace to
religious and political stability, underlies Mandeville's astonishing encounters
with foreign cultures. Curiositasurges the travellerto explore the limits and to
engage willingly with the Unknown. It provides a wealth of inspiration for
seeking out challenges that call into question the accepted world view. There is
no development which might suggest that this new episteme grows from the
discourse of difference. In accordance with Foucault's principle of discontinuity,57its appearancemarksa turning-point in the writing of our history. It is
55 Jerusalem:Visionof Peace,ed. C. Page(Moretonhampstead,
Devon, 1998),p. v.
56 MacleodHiggins,Writing
calls
to
attention
Mandeville's
negativeportrayalof the
East,80-1,
Jewsandcomparesit to the sympatheticdepictionof the Saracens,but theJewsbelong,at least
froma geographical
perspective,to Mandeville'smicrospace(howfartheJewishcommunitiesin
medievalEurope were actuallyintegratedand 'demythologized'is an altogetherdifferent
question),and for the purposeof my discussionMandeville'sJews arenot, strictlyspeaking,a
partof the Othernessencounteredon his 'journey'.
However,twoobservations
concerningMandeville'sportrayalof theJewsareworthnotingfor
a differentreason:first,theJewsin TheTravelsareeithermythicalor biblical(MacleodHiggins
observesthatthey 'inhabitonly the pastand the future':WritingEast,42); second,Mandeville
doesnot give any seriousindicationof a personalexperiencehe mighthavehadwith theJewish
people(includingthe clearlyfabricatedpoisoningepisodewhichhe allegedlyheardfroma Jew).
This strangeabsenceof realJewsfrom TheTravelscouldsuggestthatthe writerwasindeedan
Englishmanwho wrote a centuryafter the expulsionof the Jews from England,and hence
possessedno firsthandexperience.
57 'Thereis a sort of myth of Historyfor philosophers. a kindof greatand vastcontinuity
where the liberty of individualsand economicor social determinationsare all tangledup
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THE TRAVELS OF SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE
343
the gradual but irreversible shift from the accumulated fears of the medieval
world which was obsessed with the image of being besieged by the Other
circling in from the West and the East, to the new self-confident and visionary
curiositasso vital for many discoveries of the Renaissance whose foundation
Mandeville helped to lay: 'And yif I hadde had companye and schippynge for
to go more beyonde, I trowe wel in certeyn that wee scholde haue seen alle the
roundness of the firmament alle aboute.'58Though of course, as Columbus's
intention to link up in alliance with PresterJohn againstthe perceived threat of
Islam documents, this was not the exclusive driving force of Renaissance
voyagers.59In fact, the role The Travelsplayed in the voyages of discovery is a
vast territory still to be explored.
St John's CollegeCambridge
together': M. Foucault, 'Foucault r6pond a Sartre', La QuinzaineLittiraire, 1 Mar. 1968, p. 21 (a
radio interview with Jean-Pierre Elkabbach edited for publication).
58 Cotton MS, p. 133; Egerton MS, p. 129; BN MS, p. 332.
59 I am grateful to the anonymous reader of this article for this information.
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