Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 36.djvu/32

 with some of his fellows, he succeeded in passing through, after being shriven by two Friars Minor of Lombardy, who were with them. Evidently he here alludes to Odoric himself, so as to forestall a charge of plagiarism by covertly suggesting that they travelled together. This theory was in fact put forward as early as the fifteenth century, to account for the agreement between the two works, and it was even asserted that Mandeville wrote first. Such, however, was certainly not the case, and all the evidence goes to prove that his book is not only a mere compilation, but a deliberate imposture.

There are strong grounds, too, for the belief that his name is as fictitious as his travels. Mandeville is mentioned, indeed, as a famous traveller in Burton's ‘Chronicle of Meaux Abbey,’ written between 1388 and 1396 (Rolls ed., 1868, iii. 158), and again, about 1400, in a list of local celebrities appended to Amundesham's ‘Annals of St. Albans’ (Rolls ed., 1871, ii. 306). These notices, however, and others later, are plainly based on his own statements; and the fact that a sapphire ring at St. Albans (ib. p. 331) and a crystal orb at Canterbury (, Comment., 1709, p. 368) were exhibited among relics as his gifts only attests the fame of his book. No other kind of trace of him can be found in England, for the legend of his burial at St. Albans was of late growth. Although in the fourteenth century the Mandevilles were no longer earls of Essex, the name was not uncommon. One family bearing it was seated at Black Notley in Essex, and another was of Marshwood in Dorset, holding lands also in Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, Devonshire, and elsewhere. At least two members of the latter were called John between 1300 and 1360, and other contemporary Mandevilles of the same name are also known (Roxb. ed. p. xxx). Two more have recently been found by Mr. Edward Scott as witnesses to a charter, now at Westminster Abbey, relating to Edmonton, Middlesex, and dated in 1312–13. Nothing, however, is recorded of any one of them that makes his identity with the traveller at all probable.

On the other hand, there is abundant proof that the tomb of the author of the ‘Travels’ was to be seen in the church of the Guillemins or Guillelmites at Liège down to the demolition of the building in 1798. The fact of his burial there, with the date of his death, 17 Nov. 1372, was published by Bale in 1548 (Summarium, f. 149 b), and was confirmed independently by Jacob Meyer (Annales rerum Flandric., 1561, p. 165) and Lud. Guicciardini (Paesi Bassi, 1567, p. 281). Ortelius (Itinerarium, 1584, p. 16) is more explicit, and gives the epitaph in full. As corrected by other copies, notably one sent by Edmund Lewknor, an English priest at Liège, to John Pits (De Ill. Angl. Scriptt. 1619, p. 511), it ran: ‘Hic jacet vir nobilis Dom. Joannes de Mandeville, alias dictus ad Barbam, Miles, Dominus de Campdi, natus de Anglia, medicinæ professor, devotissimus orator, et bonorum suorum largissimus pauperibus erogator, qui, toto quasi orbe lustrato, Leodii diem vitæ suæ clausit extremum, A.D. ., mensis Nov. die xvii.’ Ortelius adds that it was on a stone whereon was also carved an armed man with forked beard trampling on a lion, with a hand blessing him from above, together with the words: ‘Vos ki paseis sor mi por lamour deix (de Dieu) proies por mi.’ The shield when he saw it was bare, but he was told it once contained, on a brass plate, the arms azure, a lion argent with a crescent on his breast gules, within a bordure engrailed or. These were not the arms of any branch of Mandeville, but, except the crescent (which may have marked a difference for a second son), they appear to have been borne by Tyrrell and Lamont (, Ordinary, 1874, p. 118). Another description of them in German verse, with a somewhat faulty copy of the epitaph, was given by Jacob Püterich in his ‘Ehrenbrief,’ written in 1462, the poet stating that he went twelve miles out of his way to visit the tomb (, Zeitschrift, 1848, vi. 56). It is not very intelligible, but it mentions the lion, and adds that the helm was surmounted by an ape (Mörkhacz). Of about the same date is a notice of Mandeville, based on the epitaph, in the ‘Chronicle’ (1230–1461) of Cornelis Zantfliet, who was a monk of St. Jacques at Liège; and earlier still Radulphus de Rivo (d. 1403), dean of Tongres, some ten miles from Liège, has an interesting passage on him in his ‘Gesta Pontificum Leodiensium.’ He says not only that he was buried among the Guillemins, but that he wrote his ‘Travels’ in three languages. By an obvious misreading of the date on the tomb (v for x) he places his death in 1367.

But the most important piece of evidence for the author's identity was made known in 1866 (, in Bibliophile Belge, p. 236), though it was not appreciated until 1884 (, in Academy, xxv. 261). This is an extract made by the Liège herald, Louis Abry (1643–1720), from the fourth book, now lost, of the ‘Myreur des Histors,’ or ‘General Chronicle,’ of Jean des Preis or d'Outremeuse (1338–1399). It is to this effect: ‘In 1372 died at Liège,