The Travels of Sir John Mandeville and the Moral Geography of the Medieval World

Abstract

Mandeville’s Travels was, for more than two centuries after its appearance in  c.1356, of enormous influence and popularity in many fields of European culture. This paper discusses first its unprecedented generic eclecticism and its casting into the form of a first person narrative, and then proceeds to explore concepts of space and how a journey narrative may be articulated. Finally, it moves to consideration of the journey and what the traveller reports as having encountered on it as a moral exploration of a world seen as symbol as well as material.