HISTORY 135E

SPRING QUARTER, 2006
Department of History
University of California, Irvine
 Instructor:    Dr. Barbara J. Becker

 

Week 2.  Vitality

excerpt from
The Boke of Iohn Maunduyle (c. 1366)
by "Sir John Mandeville," likely a pseudonym
for Liège physician:  Johains à le Barbe (Jehan à la Barbe, Jean de Bourgogne)
trans. (1496) Anonymous

 

Nowe have I saide & spoken of many on this side of the great kingdom of Chatay [Cathay] of Whom many ar obeysaunt to the greate chane [Khan]. 

Nowe shall I say of som londes & countres & Iles that ar beyonde the londe of Chatay, who so goth fro chatay to ynde [India] the hyghe & the lowe he shal go thorough a kingdom that men call caldilhe [Kuldja? (a town and its region on the Silk Road; modern day city, Yining, located in China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region near the Kazakhstan border)] that is a great londe, there groweth a maner of frute as it were goordes, and whan it is rype men shere asonder and they fynde therin a best [beast] as it were of flesshe of bone and blode as it were a lytel lambe withoute wolle [wool] and men ete the best and the frute also & that is a great marueyle [marvel].  

The Barnacle Goose (Bernace) depicted in a medieval bestiary (c. 1230-1240), British Library, Harley MS 4751, Folio 36r.  

Neuerthelesse I sayde them that I helde that for no marueyle.  For I sayde in my countre ar trees that bere frute that becom birdes fleynge & they ar gode to ete and they that falleth in water lyueth and they that fallethe on the erth dyethe & they had greate maruayle of this.

 
Go to:
Readings for Week
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Lecture Notes for
4-4
4-11
4-18
4-25
5-2
5-9
5-16
5-23
5-30
6-6
4-6
4-13
4-20
4-27
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5-11
5-18
5-25
6-1
6-8