The Travels of Sir John Mandeville

An important element of The Travels of Sir John Mandeville is its depiction of the Other. Mandeville spends almost the entire narrative interacting with and describing societies culturally and geographically removed from Western Europe and the Roman Catholic culture that defined it at the time. Contemporary conceptions of race were not yet prevalent at the time Mandeville was writing; in the absence of modern nation-states, even ethnicity was less well-defined. Nevertheless, Mandeville’s depictions of the Middle East, Africa, and Asia feature some of the hallmarks of the racial and cultural discourse that would develop in the age of European imperialism.

When discussing the Other, Mandeville is keen to present himself as an objective observer. He rarely passes explicit moral judgments, and when he does it is generally in reference to specific cultural practices instead of entire groups. Mandeville frames himself as a dispassionate and truthful narrator concerned with giving his audience a useful impression of the world. He reinforces this image by challenging the reader to go and see the areas he has described, which will confirm the truth of everything he has said. By taking this approach, Mandeville can frame the moral stances he does take as objective fact instead of opinion. This process is clear in his description of Islam: He does not condemn Islamic beliefs, but when he gives a “factual” biography of Muhammad, he presents him as easily duped and as having epilepsy and an alcohol use disorder, all of which would undercut the credibility of his religious claims (epilepsy can induce apparent spiritual visions). The same method of framing critique within observation appears throughout Mandeville’s descriptions of foreign cultures, which serve as a vehicle to affirm Western superiority by way of contrast. It is this mindset of a supposed objective superiority that inspired colonial “civilizing” missions.

Mandeville relies on several recurring tropes to underscore the differences between Western Christendom and other cultures. Among these tropes are fantastical variations on human anatomy, idol worship, unimaginable wealth, and societies that invert Western European cultural norms. Such constructions of the Other again define Western identity via contrast. For example, a society’s “Otherness” may manifest as polyamory or polygamy, implying that Western Europeans are defined by their monogamy. Mandeville’s self-presentation as a factual reporter lends “objective” weight to his creation of a community of Western Europeans—a group that at this time would have had relatively little sense of communal identity. The more outlandish of Mandeville’s depictions (e.g., peoples who have only one foot or one eye) also exemplify the mystique that would surround the Other in the age of imperialism, though portrayals grew less overtly supernatural as contact with actual civilizations increased.

Besides serving as the basis for defining a Western Christian community, Mandeville’s depiction of the Other would also have increased the popular appeal of his book. The foreign societies he describes are often “exotic” yet recognizable, piquing readers’ curiosity without entirely alienating them. Mandeville’s method for ranking foreign rulers is demonstrative of this. Several rulers are said to control numerous kingdoms, and the khan and Prester John each control kingdoms that themselves control more kingdoms. Kingship would have been a familiar construct for Western European readers; in fact, the hierarchy Mandeville describes resembles the medieval European feudal system. In Mandeville’s imagined societies, however, it is not lords but kings themselves who owe allegiance to a higher ruler—an “exotic” twist on the familiar.