Who Was Sir John Mandeville? A Fresh ClueAuthor(s): Isaac JacksonSource: The Modern Language Review, Vol. 23, No. 4 (Oct., 1928), pp. 466-468Published by: Modern Humanities Research AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3714462 .

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MISCELLANEOUS NOTES

WHO WAS SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE?

A FRESH CLUE.

Mandeville's Travels used to be taken as genuine, but modern research has exposed this gentleman as one of those travellers whose 'tales' make the term a byword. Full-dress enquiries into his genuineness are those of Sir George Warner and Professor Hamelius1.

Mandeville himself says he was living in Liege when he wrote the Travels, and his tomb in the church of the Guillemins there was inspected by four independent witnesses. The late Professor Hamelius fixes on 1366 as the date of the writing of the Travels. It is the earlier part of his life that is wrapt in mystery.

Sir John and his like are satirised severely by his contemporary, Piers Plowman (Prologue 46/52), a condemnation which he certainly invited:

Pilgrymes and palmers pli3ted hem togidere To seke seynt Iames and seyntes in rome. Thei went forth in here wey with many wise tales, And hadden leue to lye al here lyf after, I seigh somme that seiden pei had ysou3t seyntes: To eche a tale pat pei tolde here tonge was tempred to lye, More pan to sey soth it semed bi here speche.

There is, however, another explanation of this Mandeville legend, which would show that he had a good reason for his fabrications. We are told that Mandeville made a death-bed confession saying that he had murdered a Count and therefore had to fly from his native land. Who was the nobleman? Warner makes enquiry, but is not satisfied with his answer. Mandeville states boldly that he is Sir John Mandeville of St Albans; though the coat-of-arms recorded as blazoned on his tomb does not agree with the arms of the English Mandevilles. I have not been able to find any record of the arms of the Irish Mandevilles. It would appear that this statement of Sir John is an attempt to establish an alibi.

It is certain that the Mandevilles of Twescard, North Antrim, mur- dered their lord, William de Burgh, Earl of Ulster, in 1333 atthe Ford where Belfast now stands2. The contemporary Grace3 says that it was

1 Mandeville, Travels, ed. by Sir George Warner, London, 1889 (Roxburghe Club); by P. Hamelius, Early Engl. Text Soc., 1923. Also article in the Quarterly Review, April 1917.

2 Ulster Journal of Archaeology, I (1853), p. 229. 3 Grace, Annals of Ireland, ed. Butler, Dublin, 1842.

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Miscellaneous Notes

Sir John Mandeville of Donnahir or Donnegore who struck the fatal blow. Donnegore is the hill overlooking the town of Antrim. Sir John had been summoned to the Irish Parliament in 1309 by the Viceroy, Richard Earl of Ulster; and on the death of this earl, Sir John was

appointed sheriff of County Down (Cal. Rot. Pat.). Henry Mandeville as seneschal of Ulster made a truce with Robert Bruce, King of Scotland in 13271.

Sir John and Lord William de Burgh were captured by Edward Bruce in 1315 and sent prisoners to Scotland. After they had been released from captivity Lord William was imprisoned by his namesake the Earl of Ulster, and died in Green Castle as a result of this imprisonment. This fatal result caused the wife of Sir John to urge her husband to revenge the death of this brother of hers. Thus came about the murder of 1333, when Sir John struck down his relative. The Countess of Ulster fled to

England in terror. The Viceroy took measures, and the chroniclers say vaguely that he

killed many of the Mandevilles. The inference seems to be that the actual murderer was not caught. He would therefore have to lie low, and the best way of doing that would be to take refuge among the Irish. The Mandevilles as a family or clan changed their name somewhere about this time-another significant fact-to MacUighlinn (now written Mac- Quillin)2. This is not really Irish, but means 'the descendants of little

Hugh,' that is Hugh de Mandeville who held the Twescard lands in 1272. The MacUighlinns are not Irish. The Irish equivalent to Hugh is Aedh, which would not give the form MacUighlinn.

Evidently Sir John Mandeville got away ultimately from Ireland, because he was living in Liege when he wrote his romance. The murderers of the Earl of Ulster however were specifically excepted from general pardons for many years, so that he must have got away secretly. Did he go disguised as a pilgrim to the Holy Land? He says in his Travels that there were two Franciscan friars along with him when they came to a certain valley. One of his manuscripts says he set out to the Holy Land in 1322-the usual date; but another says 1332. Now 1322 is the date when Odoric de Pordenone set out, and Mandeville borrowed wholesale from him. Also the Franciscans Simon Semeonis and Hugh de Hibernia went in that year from Ireland. Why should Sir John fix

upon that date for his romance? Was it not that he might plead an alibi if anyone accused him of the murder of ten years later? That is

Cal. Doc. relating to Scotland, in, p. 167. 2 Orpen, Ireland under the Normans, Oxford, 1920, p. 123.

467

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Mliscellaneous Notes Mliscellaneous Notes

probably the reason too why he says boldly that he belonged to St Albans, although Warner cannot trace any such Mandeville of St Albans.

The danger was evidently real enough to the Mandevilles, as they were specially excepted from the general pardons of that generation. In 1338 Edward III granted to Hugh Byset certain lands in Glynairne in Ireland forfeited by Richard de Mandeville1. We also discover from a document in Rymer2 further confirmation. This is an order from the

King in 1347 to John Darcy, Constable of the Tower of London, about the custody of 'Walter de Mandeville de Hibernia, chivaler, in exercitu nostro ante villam de caleys certis de causis captum....'

The latest editor of Mandeville, Hamelius, demonstrates from the Latin text that the Travels were written about 1366, because the author

speaks of the Treaty of Bretigny, 1360, by inference, 'Now, thirty-three years after my departure... the enmity of the two kings of England and France has been settled.' This exposes the 'lie' of the traveller who set out in 1322 (sic); or demonstrates that the date 1332 of his setting out for the Holy Land, in Sir John's other MS., is accurate, though his reference to the Treaty is not so careful; and it clinches the matter about the murder of the Earl of Ulster as being the real reason for this fiction about the date, for 1333 plus 33 years gives exactly the date fixed by Hamelius. Mandeville, then, gives himself away.

Sir John is said to have claimed on his death-bed that he was the Count de Montfort. He was descended from the FitzPiers (Mandeville) Earls of Essex, and was therefore related to the de Burghs who inherited the lands in Ireland that had been in the possession of FitzPiers (Man- deville)3.

ISAAC JACKSON. WEST KILBRIDE.

THE 'VOYAGE A L'AVENTUBE' IN THE 'TRISTAN' OF THOMAS.

In his Avant-propos, and in chapter vnI of his Introduction, M. Bedier has clearly stated the principles which govern his reconstruction of Thomas4. This restitution, he says, works automatically whenever two or more of the five texts5 agree against the others, provided that these

1 Cal. Doc. Scotland, rI, p. 232. 2 Rymtr, Foedera, II, pt i, London, 1825, p. 112. 3 Dugdale, Baronage, I (1675), pp. 206, 392. 4 Le Roman de Tristan par Thomas, poeme du xiie siecle, publie par Joseph Bedier

(S.A.T.F.), J, Texte, 1902; iI, Introduction, Paris, 1905. 5 The Norwegian Tri.staln-,Saqa, Gottfried von Strassburg, Sir Tristrem, the Oxford Folie

'ri.lta(t, and the 7Tacola Ritonda.

probably the reason too why he says boldly that he belonged to St Albans, although Warner cannot trace any such Mandeville of St Albans.

The danger was evidently real enough to the Mandevilles, as they were specially excepted from the general pardons of that generation. In 1338 Edward III granted to Hugh Byset certain lands in Glynairne in Ireland forfeited by Richard de Mandeville1. We also discover from a document in Rymer2 further confirmation. This is an order from the

King in 1347 to John Darcy, Constable of the Tower of London, about the custody of 'Walter de Mandeville de Hibernia, chivaler, in exercitu nostro ante villam de caleys certis de causis captum....'

The latest editor of Mandeville, Hamelius, demonstrates from the Latin text that the Travels were written about 1366, because the author

speaks of the Treaty of Bretigny, 1360, by inference, 'Now, thirty-three years after my departure... the enmity of the two kings of England and France has been settled.' This exposes the 'lie' of the traveller who set out in 1322 (sic); or demonstrates that the date 1332 of his setting out for the Holy Land, in Sir John's other MS., is accurate, though his reference to the Treaty is not so careful; and it clinches the matter about the murder of the Earl of Ulster as being the real reason for this fiction about the date, for 1333 plus 33 years gives exactly the date fixed by Hamelius. Mandeville, then, gives himself away.

Sir John is said to have claimed on his death-bed that he was the Count de Montfort. He was descended from the FitzPiers (Mandeville) Earls of Essex, and was therefore related to the de Burghs who inherited the lands in Ireland that had been in the possession of FitzPiers (Man- deville)3.

ISAAC JACKSON. WEST KILBRIDE.

THE 'VOYAGE A L'AVENTUBE' IN THE 'TRISTAN' OF THOMAS.

In his Avant-propos, and in chapter vnI of his Introduction, M. Bedier has clearly stated the principles which govern his reconstruction of Thomas4. This restitution, he says, works automatically whenever two or more of the five texts5 agree against the others, provided that these

1 Cal. Doc. Scotland, rI, p. 232. 2 Rymtr, Foedera, II, pt i, London, 1825, p. 112. 3 Dugdale, Baronage, I (1675), pp. 206, 392. 4 Le Roman de Tristan par Thomas, poeme du xiie siecle, publie par Joseph Bedier

(S.A.T.F.), J, Texte, 1902; iI, Introduction, Paris, 1905. 5 The Norwegian Tri.staln-,Saqa, Gottfried von Strassburg, Sir Tristrem, the Oxford Folie

'ri.lta(t, and the 7Tacola Ritonda.

468 468

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