The Book of John Mandeville

✍ Scribed by Tamarah Kohanski, C. David Benson

• Publisher: Medieval Institute Publications
• Year: 2007
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 190
• Series: TEAMS Middle English Texts Series
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

The Book of John Mandeville has tended to be neglected by modern teachers and scholars, yet this intriguing and copious work has much to offer the student of medieval literature, history, and culture. [It] was a contemporary bestseller, providing readers with exotic information about locales from Constantinople to China and about the social and religious practices of peoples such as the Greeks, Muslims, and Brahmins. The Book first appeared in the middle of the fourteenth century and by the next century could be found in an extraordinary range of European languages: not only Latin, French, German, English, and Italian, but also Czech, Danish, and Irish. Its wide readership is also attested by the two hundred fifty to three hundred medieval manuscripts that still survive today. Chaucer borrowed from it, as did the Gawain-poet in the Middle English Cleanness, and its popularity continued long after the Middle Ages.

✦ Table of Contents

Title page
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
The Book Of John Mandeville
Preface
Prologue
1. A Way to Jerusalem
2. Ageyn to the Way
3. A Wey by the See to Jerusalem
4. The Way to Babylon
5. A Wey to Jerusalem
6. Jerusalem
7. [Environs of Jerusalem]
8. A Way fro Galilé to Jerusalem thorgh Damas
9. The Shortest Way to Jerusalem
10. Another Way to Jerusalem
11. A Wey All by Lond to Jerusalem
12. Truthe of Sarasyns
13. Dyverseteis of Peple and of Contreis
14, The Land of Mancy
15. The Londe of the Gret Cane of Catay
16. Why He Is Y-cleped the Great Cane
17. Aray of the Court of the Gret Cane
18. The Lond of Pers
19. The Kyndom of Caldee
20. The Lond of Prester John
21. Aray of the Court of Prester John
22. Why He Is Y-cliped Prester John
Explanatory Notes
Textual Notes
Appendix: Sources
Bibliography
Glossary
Indexed Glossary of Proper Names
Middle English Text Series