Giles Milton. In Search of Sir John Mandeville.

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Giles Milton - The Riddle and the Knight. In Search of Sir John Mandeville

Le livre de Jean de Mandeville (1356). Is a French Google title. de Mandeville is supposed to have been born in 1300, and died in the 1360s; before printing, before the Americas, before potatoes.
His book seems to have been written in French; then it was widely translated. It is described as a 'best seller' and in similar phrases, one of the most influential books of the Middle Ages. But William Caxton, who seems to have imported a printing press or print works in 1476, suggests English printed copies were not available for more than a century. And Giles Milton comments on copies (literally)—four times as many as copies of Marco Polo, in, I presume, Cathedrals. Other libraries seem to have generally not survived, or been very private.

Milton's book was first published in 1996, by Alison & Busby. This was a publishing house set up rather precariously by a male publicist and a 'black female' who I think did English at Oxbridge in the 1960s. The name was taken over and managed by a succession of (presumably) entrepreneurial types who liked unimportant books. (I remember a self-publisher agonising with me over the fact that his book, I think on some corner of the antique world, had been included in a publisher's seasonal list, just once of course).

Giles Milton is described in the book as a travel writer contributing to (((British))) newspapers. He's also stated to be an 'expert on Western Christianity'. He travelled in the Middle East, but I think was commissioned as the (((newspapers))) required. Some of his source material comes from mediaeval libraries. ('Library Histories' is a newish specialisation).

In 1995, Frances Wood's Did Marco Polo go to China? was published. A paperback cover says 'Now a Major TV Documentary', though I could find no trace of this upon Googling. In one of these entertaining but inconclusive academic wrangles, Igor de Rachewiltz, later translator of the book on Genghis Khan/Chinggis Khan Secret History of the Mongols published a 'complete refutation' of Wood's work, one of his pieces of evidence being that Europeans in the Chinese imperial court, if that's the right word, were enthralled to be there, whereas the Chinese mandarins barely noticed them. Incidentally Secret History of the Mongols seems likely to have a slow influence on perceptions of human history, probably revealing 'Jews' as the world's premier procurers of violent fanatics.
My guess is that Milton switched to Mandeville as his topic, influenced by Wood, though I may be wrong—his acknowledgements list says nothing about the total length of his research time.

Mandeville is credited (I don't know how reliably) with suggesting that there is a route all around the world. This is in the northern hemisphere; most of the earth's land mass being in the northern hemisphere.
Mandeville's book is in two parts, the first in Europe; the second further east, and full of oddities. It's difficult not to regard it as propagandist: perhaps for sensationalism, perhaps to deter people from travel
His untitled book was known as The Travels. I'm not sure if it was written in English, Mandeville being regarded many years ago as a rival to Chaucer as 'Father of English Literature', or in medieval French, or both
Mandeville is assumed (there's a quotation from Isaac D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature) to have suggested that circumnavigation of the globe was possible. With modern telecomms, or a digital watch, it would be easy enough to measure how far (say) Constantinople was from England around the globe. Less than Columbus thought—they had no idea the Americas were there.
It's often said that sailors were terrified by the thought they might fall off the edge of the world; I wonder if this could be true, since sailors, wherever they are, are always on top of their world, and presumably had some idea of gravity.

The book's structure alternates geographical descriptions (Constantinople, Cyprus, Syria, Jerusalem, the Sinai Desert) with documentary and heraldic burrowings. The very first chapter partly deals with St Albans cathedral, allegedly with very a faded wall commemoration of Mandeville. The final chapters—Onward to China, and Epilogue—I'd guess owe more to Allison & Busby's budgetary restrictions than anything else. The chapters on geography and buildings are much longer than the burrowings—very likely Milton's happier with his travelogues.
Constantinople. Largely concerned with the Greek Orthodox Church, which Mandevielle would have known when Istanbul was Constantinople.
Cyprus. Greek Cypriots and Greek Orthodoxy; and Turkey's invasion in 1974, no doubt connected with Kissinger. In Mandeville's day Cyprus was 'one of the richest kingdoms on earth'. Mount Didymos and the Lusignan dynasty; the Abbey of Bellapais; St Sophia converted to Selimiye Mosque; siege of Famagusta...
Error by Mandeville about the Pope (who was in Avignon). Jean d'Outremeuse and his influential errors. Rolls of Medieval England.
Syria. Damascus. Palmyra. Nestorian church. Aramaic. All this must be outdated by bombings of Israel and its puppet USA.. And Samuel Purchas on Mandeville.
Jerusalem. A 'Jew' assists our traveller. Chaotic material. It must be dishonest—but they want to sell the book.
Sinai Desert. Travelogue, main focus being what came to be known as St Catherine's Greek Orthodox monastery. Hasn't changed much...?
Onward to China Well, not really. Finishes with Giles Milton's assessment of Mandeville (and phone call to the only Mandeville in St Albans. Another famous-ish Mandeville is Bernard, who puzzled people with his Fable of the Bees on the necessity of luxuries.)

The Travels was indeed a riddle—an allegorical attack on western Christendom—...[which] relies on the reader identifying with the pious pilgrim in the first half. ... [Then] Sir John ... describes these savages as far more pious than any Christian pilgrim could ever be. Milton's example is (claimed) burial rituals in Tibet, which he compares to Holy Communion (Mass, surely?) back at home. this sounds to me unlikely, not that I've seen a translation; the interpretation sounds like a specimen of Jewish 20th century anti-Christianity.

From about page 200, Milton looks at 'tall tales', including giant snails (tortoises?), and Prester John (apparently a forged letter received in 1177 by Pope Alexander III persuaded almost everyone that Prester John existed). Milton seems a bit naive about Marco Polo, who might have been trying to stimulate trade, or get explorers to look at China, or raise fears, or promote paper money, or advertise riches.
Mandeville on China '.. borrows heavily from Friar Odoric and John of Plano Carpini, but also from other books ... Haiton's Fleur des Histoires de l'Orient ... [and Vincent of Beauvais' encyclopedic Speculum Mundi.

From p. 214 Milton writes his tentative portrait of Mandeville: Holy Land, as it is still called, very likely; the Far East, very unlikely; 34 years away from Britain, probably in France. Then after many years in eclipse, the search for the historical Mandeville, around (say) the 18th century, somewhat like Shakespeare explorers.

The whole book has a feeling about it, which is quite common with historical accounts of remote times; it has a similar feeling to Umberto Eco's Bardolini, published around 2000, which is an insecure, shifting sand background, a spurious continuism in which nobody plans and everything appears as a procession, with striking events picked out and looked at. The abbeys and religious buildings have immediacy, as do wars and sieges and sackings. Some of Milton's monks are from Texas, or Wimbledon; the appearance of continuity is false. There's no sense of dwellings of families, or replacement of families. The planning that must confer legal rights to such things as tithes are ignored; the concealed moneyed roots of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, do not appear. The valuable old scriptures—in assorted eastern Mediterranean languages, typically on vellum or parchment—are taken at Jewish valuation, rather than analysed as more antique junk, but with hidden messages.

Let me mention a few errors: aristocracts (124), Screech of breaks (132), Jane Austin (180), manuscript 'fully transcripted' (182), aquaducts (185). Cobalt blue—in the Eleventh Century?