The Travels of Sir John Mandeville appeared in French in the mid-1300s and became one of the most widely read books of the late Middle Ages. Its narrator claims to have served the Sultan of Egypt and the Great Khan, but scholars have long shown that most of the Asian material is borrowed, especially from Friar Odoric and Carpini, and no real traveller behind it has been proved. This corpus copy is A. W. Pollard's 1900 modern-spelling edition of the English Cotton manuscript, with three narratives from Hakluyt appended: Carpini, Rubruck and Odoric. The Tartar chapters cover Genghis Khan's rise, Tartar customs and the Khan's court.
How they knew
Compiled from others
Who “Tartar” means here
The Mongols of the Great Khan of Cathay and their subject peoples. 'Tartary' is the whole Mongol-ruled north of Asia, 'holden of the great Caan of Cathay'.
Why read it
It shows what most late-medieval Europeans actually 'knew' about the Tartars: real details copied from friars, woven together with Bible genealogy, marvels and hearsay.
Watch out
Treat nothing here as eyewitness. Compare each passage with the friars it was taken from (Odoric and Carpini are in this batch). The appended Hakluyt texts are separate works and should be cited under their own authors.
Editorial contextMandeville describes the Great Khan's capital: beside an old city of Cathay the Tartars built a new one, Caydon, with twelve gates and a palace with a tree-covered hill, lakes and a bridge. This is almost word for word Friar Odoric's 'Taydo' (Dadu, Beijing), and makes a good exercise in spotting a borrowed passage.
After go men yet to another old city toward the east. And it is in the province of Cathay. And beside that city the men of Tartary have let make another city that is clept Caydon. And it hath twelve gates, and between the two gates there is always a great mile
'Sir John Mandeville' (Cotton manuscript, modern spelling ed. A. W. Pollard, 1900)
An emperor buried in his tent with a mare and foal
Editorial contextWhen a Tartar emperor dies he is seated in his tent with a table of meat and a cup of mare's milk, a mare with her foal and a saddled horse, then buried in a great pit, tent and all, so he will have a house, horses and milk in the next world. Mandeville adds that graves were sometimes hidden under replaced turf. The details match Carpini's report, which Mandeville used.
And when the emperor dieth, men set him in a chair in midst the place of his tent. And men set a table before him clean, covered with a cloth, and thereupon flesh and diverse viands and a cup full of mare's milk. And men put a mare beside him with her foal, and an horse saddled and bridled.
'Sir John Mandeville' (Cotton manuscript, modern spelling ed. A. W. Pollard, 1900)
Editorial contextMandeville explains the title 'Chan' by making the Tartars descendants of Noah's cursed son Cham (Ham). He says that only about 160 years earlier the Tartars were subject herdsmen, and that of their seven 'lineages' the noblest was called Tartar. He then tells how a poor old man, Changuys (Genghis), was chosen emperor after a vision of a white knight.
Natheles, the sooth is this ; that Tartars and they that dwell in the great Asia, they came of Cham ; but the Emperor of Cathay clepeth him not Cham, but Can, and I shall tell you how. It is but little more but eight score year that all Tartary was in subjection and in servage to other nations about.
'Sir John Mandeville' (Cotton manuscript, modern spelling ed. A. W. Pollard, 1900)
'Of that fruit I have eaten': the lamb that grows in a gourd
Editorial contextMandeville improves on Odoric's melon-lamb: in Caldilhe gourds are cut open to reveal a little beast of flesh, bone and blood, and he claims to have eaten it. He then swaps marvels with his hosts, telling them of the barnacle trees of Britain whose fruit turns into birds. The next page places the enclosed peoples of Gog and Magog in the Caspian mountains of the same region.
And there groweth a manner of fruit, as though it were gourds. And when they be ripe, men cut them a-two, and men find within a little beast, in flesh, in bone, and blood, as though it were a little lamb without wool. And men eat both the fruit and the beast. And that is a great marvel. Of that fruit I have eaten
'Sir John Mandeville' (Cotton manuscript, modern spelling ed. A. W. Pollard, 1900)
Odoric only heard the story; Mandeville turns it into a personal tasting. The editor's index tentatively places Caldilhe in Korea, but the tale is the Volga 'Tartar lamb' legend.
The fine print
How we know
claimed or disputed Authorship, date or authenticity is claimed or contested.
Claimed travel / literary compilation
Research notes
Firsthand status is unestablished; authorship, borrowings and manuscript variants must be tested. Accessed 1900 edition.
Why it matters
Retains extraordinary geographical and cultural claims for examination.