text:
Elizabethan
Jacobean
Sir Thomas Lodge
Lord Mayor of London
grocer
Merchant Taylors' School
Trinity College, Oxford
Lincoln's Inn
Inns of Court
Stephen Gosson
John Payne Collier
Philip Henslowe
Terceira
Canaries
Thomas Cavendish
Brazil
Straits of Magellan
Shakespeare
As You Like It
Geoffrey Chaucer
euphuistic
Robert the Devil
Athens
Lyly
Catholic
Wood
Paris
below
Robert Greene
A Looking Glass for London and England
The Wounds of Civil War
Queen's Men
King Leir
Groatsworth of Wit
Venus and Adonis
Edmund Spenser
sonnet
Michael Drayton
Josephus
Seneca
Du Bartas
Plague
Francis Walsingham
Alice Walker

categories: British male poets,1625 deaths,1550s births,British male dramatists and playwrights,17th-century English writers,British medical writers,English Renaissance dramatists,English dramatists and playwrights,17th-century male writers,17th-century deaths from plague (disease),People educated at Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood,People from West Ham,16th-century dramatists and playwrights,University Wits,Alumni of Trinity College, Oxford,16th-century English poets,16th-century English novelists,People of the Tudor period

paragraph: Thomas Lodge

paragraph: Thomas Lodge (c. 1558 – September 1625) was an English physician and author during the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods.

paragraph: Section::::Biography.

paragraph: Thomas Lodge, born about 1558 in west Ham, was the second son of Sir Thomas Lodge, Lord Mayor of London, and his third wife Anne (1528–1579), daughter of Henry Luddington (died 1531) a grocer in London. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School and Trinity College, Oxford; taking his BA in 1577 and MA in 1581. In 1578 he entered Lincoln's Inn, where, as in the other Inns of Court, a love of letters and a crop of debts were common.

paragraph: Lodge, disregarding the wishes of his family, took up literature. When the penitent Stephen Gosson had (in 1579) published his "Schoole of Abuse", Lodge responded with "Defence of Poetry, Music and Stage Plays" (1579 or 1580), which shows a certain restraint, though both forceful and learned. The pamphlet was banned, but appears to have been circulated privately. It was answered by Gosson in his "Playes Confuted in Five Actions"; and Lodge retorted with his "Alarum Against Usurers" (1584)—a "tract for the times" which may have resulted from personal experience. In the same year he produced the first tale written by him on his own account in prose and verse, "The Delectable History of Forbonius and Prisceria", both published and reprinted with the "Alarum".

paragraph: From 1587 onwards he seems to have made a series of attempts at play writing, though most of those attributed to him are mainly conjectural. He probably never became an actor, and John Payne Collier's conclusion to that effect rested on the two assumptions that the "Lodge" of Philip Henslowe's manuscript was a player and that his name was Thomas, neither of which is supported by the text.

paragraph: Having been to sea with Captain Clarke in his expedition to Terceira and the Canaries, Lodge in 1591 made a voyage with Thomas Cavendish to Brazil and the Straits of Magellan, returning home by 1593. During the Canaries expedition (circa 1586), to beguile the tedium of his voyage, he composed his prose tale of "Rosalynde, Euphues Golden Legacie", which, printed in 1590, afterwards furnished the story of Shakespeare's "As You Like It". The novel, which in its turn owes some, though no very considerable, debt to the medieval "Tale of Gamelyn" (unwarrantably appended to the fragmentary Cookes Tale in certain manuscripts of Geoffrey Chaucer's works), is written in the euphuistic manner, but decidedly attractive both by its plot and by the situations arising from it. It has been frequently reprinted. Before starting on his second expedition he had published a historical romance, "The History of Robert, Second Duke of Normandy, surnamed Robert the Devil"; and he left behind him for publication "Catharos Diogenes in his Singularity", a discourse on the immorality of Athens (London). Both appeared in 1591. Another romance in the manner of Lyly, "Euphues Shadow, the Battaile of the Sences" (1592), appeared while Lodge was still on his travels.

paragraph: In the latter part of his life—possibly about 1596, when he published his "Wits Miserie and the World's Madnesse", which is dated from Low Leyton in Essex, and the religious tract "Prosopopeia" (if, as seems probable, it was his), in which he repents him of his "lewd lines" of other days—he became a Catholic and engaged in the practice of medicine, for which Wood says he qualified himself by a degree at Avignon in 1600. Two years afterwards he received the degree of M.D. from Oxford University.

paragraph: Early in 1606 he seems to have left England, to escape the persecution then directed against the Catholics; and a letter from him dated 1610 thanks the English ambassador in Paris for enabling him to return in safety. He was abroad on urgent private affairs of one kind and another in 1616. From this time to his death nothing further concerning him remains to be noted.

paragraph: Lodge while practising medicine in London lived first in Warwick Lane, afterwards in Lambert Hill, and finally in Old Fish Street in the parish of St. Mary Magdalen. He died in Old Fish Street in 1625, apparently in the Roman Catholic communion (see below).

paragraph: Section::::Dramatic works.

paragraph: Lodge's known dramatic work is small in quantity. In conjunction with Robert Greene he, probably in 1590, produced in a popular vein the odd but far from feeble play, "A Looking Glass for London and England" (published 1594). He had already written "The Wounds of Civil War" (produced perhaps as early as 1587, and published in 1594), a good second-rate piece in the half-chronicle fashion of its age.

paragraph: Fleay saw grounds for assigning to Lodge "Mucedorus and Amadine", played by the Queen's Men about 1588, a share with Robert Greene in "George a Greene, the Pinner of Wakefield", and in Shakespeare's 2nd part of "Henry VI"; he also regards him as at least part-author of "The True Chronicle of King Leir and his three Daughters" (1594); and "The Troublesome Raigne of John, King of England" (c. 1588); in the case of two other plays he allowed the assignation to Lodge to be purely conjectural.

paragraph: That Lodge is the "Young Juvenal" of Greene's "Groatsworth of Wit" is no longer a generally accepted hypothesis.

paragraph: Section::::Poetry and Prose.

paragraph: His second historical romance, the "Life and Death of William Longbeard" (1593), was more successful than the first. Lodge also brought back with him from the new world "A Margarite of America" (published 1596), a romance of the same description interspersed with many lyrics. Already in 1589 Lodge had given to the world a volume of poems bearing the title of the chief among them, "Scillaes Metamorphosis, Enterlaced with the Unfortunate Love of Glaucus", more briefly known as "Glaucus and Scilla". To this tale Shakespeare was possibly indebted for the idea of Venus and Adonis. In a lost work, the "Sailor's Kalendar", he must in one way or another have recounted his sea adventures.

paragraph: If Lodge, as has been supposed, was the Alcon in "Colin Clout's Come Home Again", it may have been the influence of Edmund Spenser which led to the composition of "Phillis", a volume of sonnets, in which the voice of nature seems only now and then to become audible, published with the narrative poem, "The Complaynte of Elsired", in 1593. "A Fig for Momus", on the strength of which he has been called the earliest English satirist, and which contains eclogues addressed to Daniel and others, an epistle addressed to Michael Drayton, and other pieces, appeared in 1595.

paragraph: Section::::Academic works.

paragraph: After Lodge received his M.D. from Oxford University, his works from then on take on a more serious note, comprising translations of Josephus (1602), of Seneca (1614), a "Learned Summary of Du Bartas's Divine Sepmaine" (1625 and 1637), besides a "Treatise of the Plague" (1603), and a popular manual, which remained unpublished, on "Domestic Medicine".

paragraph: Section::::Family.

paragraph: Lodge seems to have married his first wife Joan in or before 1583, when, "impressed with the uncertainty of human life", he made a will. That his family viewed his conduct at the time with disfavour may be inferred from the absence of his name from his father's will in 1583. Lodge and Joan had a daughter Mary. He married secondly Jane, widow of Solomon Aldred, at one time a Roman Catholic agent of Francis Walsingham in Rome.

paragraph: Section::::References.

paragraph: Attribution

paragraph: Section::::Further reading.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Life of Thomas Lodge, by Alice Walker, 1933

description: English dramatist and writer

enwikiquote_title: Thomas Lodge

wikidata_label: Thomas Lodge

wikipedia_title: Thomas Lodge


text: logician

text: computational neuroscience

text: cognitive sciences

text: psychology

text: philosophy

text: neuroscience

text: computer science

text: artificial neural network

text: cybernetic

text: artificial intelligence

text: generative science

text: Warren McCulloch

text: neural network

text: McCulloch–Pitts neuron

text: Touring Machine

text: Detroit

text: Michigan

text: autodidact

text: logic

text: mathematics

text: Greek

text: Latin

text: Principia Mathematica

text: Bertrand Russell

text: United Kingdom

text: Cambridge University

text: University of Chicago

text: Jerome Lettvin

text: pre-medical

text: Rudolf Carnap

text: Nicolas Rashevsky

text: mathematical biophysics

text: Alston Householder

text: Warren McCulloch

text: Gottfried Leibniz

text: neural network

text: Associate of Arts

text: Norbert Wiener

text: MIT

text: ergodic theorem

text: physics

text: electrical engineering

text: Kellex Corporation

text: Vitro Corporation

text: Atomic Energy Project

text: Macy conferences

text: Jerome Wiesner

text: Pat Wall

text: socially isolated

text: Humberto Maturana

text: olfaction

text: esophageal varices

text: cirrhosis

text: alcoholism

text: Bulletin of Mathematical Biology

text: Warren McCulloch

text: Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics

text: Humberto Maturana

text: Cognitive science

text: Warren McCulloch

text: Jerome Lettvin

text: "Walter Pitts and 'A Logical Calculus'"

text: Centenary College of Louisiana

text: Shreveport, Louisiana

text: "Walter Pitts"

text: Cabinet

text: Piccinini, Gualtiero

text: Kluwer Academic Publishers

text: "Walter Pitts"

categories: American logicians,Guggenheim Fellows,Cognitive neuroscientists,1969 deaths,1923 births,Cognitive scientists,History of artificial intelligence,American psychologists

paragraph: Walter Pitts

paragraph: Walter Harry Pitts, Jr. (23 April 1923 – 14 May 1969) was a logician who worked in the field of computational neuroscience. He proposed landmark theoretical formulations of neural activity and generative processes that influenced diverse fields such as cognitive sciences and psychology, philosophy, neurosciences, computer science, artificial neural networks, cybernetics and artificial intelligence, together with what has come to be known as the generative sciences. He is best remembered for having written along with Warren McCulloch, a seminal paper entitled "A Logical Calculus of Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity" (1943). This paper proposed the first mathematical model of a neural network. The unit of this model, a simple formalized neuron, is still the standard of reference in the field of neural networks. It is often called a McCulloch–Pitts neuron. Prior to that paper, he formalized his ideas regarding the fundamental steps to building a Touring Machine in the "The Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics" in an essay titled "Some observations on the simple neuron circuit"

paragraph: Section::::Early life.

paragraph: Walter Pitts was born in Detroit, Michigan on April 23, 1923, the son of Walter and Marie (née Welsia). He was an autodidact who taught himself logic and mathematics and was able to read several languages including Greek and Latin. He is widely remembered for having spent three days in a library, at the age of 12, reading "Principia Mathematica" and sent a letter to Bertrand Russell pointing out what he considered serious problems with the first half of the first volume. Russell was appreciative and invited him to study in the United Kingdom. Although Bertrand Russell invited him to Cambridge University at age 12, the offer was not taken up although Pitts did decide to become a logician.

paragraph: Section::::Academic career.

paragraph: Pitts probably continued to correspond with Bertrand Russell; and at the age of 15 he attended Russell's lectures at the University of Chicago. He stayed there, without registering as a student. While there, in 1938 he met Jerome Lettvin, a pre-medical student, and the two became close friends. Bertrand Russell was a visiting professor at the University of Chicago in the fall of 1938, and he directed Pitts to go study there with the logician Rudolf Carnap. Pitts met Carnap at Chicago by walking into his office during office hours, and presenting him with an annotated version of Carnap's recent book on logic, "The Logical Syntax of Language". Since Pitts did not introduce himself, Carnap spent months searching for him, and, when he found him, he obtained for him a menial job at the university and had Pitts study with him. Pitts at the time was homeless and without income. He mastered Carnap's abstract logic, then met with and was intrigued by the work of the Ukrainian mathematical physicist Nicolas Rashevsky, who was also at Chicago and was the founder of mathematical biophysics, remodeling biology on the structure of the physical sciences and mathematical logic. Pitts also worked closely with the mathematician Alston Householder, who was a member of Rashevsky's group.

paragraph: Later Warren McCulloch also arrived at the University of Chicago, and in early 1942 invited Pitts, who was still homeless, together with Lettvin to live with his family. In the evenings McCulloch and Pitts collaborated. Pitts was familiar with the work of Gottfried Leibniz on computing and they considered the question of whether the nervous system could be considered a kind of universal computing device as described by Leibniz. This led to their seminal neural networks paper "A Logical Calculus of Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity". After five years of unofficial studies, the University of Chicago awarded Pitts an Associate of Arts (his only earned degree) for his work on the paper.

paragraph: In 1943, Lettvin introduced Pitts to Norbert Wiener at MIT, who had recently lost his "right-hand man". Their first meeting, where they discussed Wiener's proof of the ergodic theorem, went so well that Pitts moved to Boston to work with Wiener. While Pitts was an unofficial student under the aegis of Wiener at MIT until their acrimonious parting in 1952, he formally enrolled as a graduate student in the physics department during the 1943-1944 academic year and in the electrical engineering-computer science department from 1956-1958.

paragraph: In 1944, Pitts was hired by Kellex Corporation (later acquired in 1950 by Vitro Corporation) in New York City, part of the Atomic Energy Project.

paragraph: From 1946, Pitts was a core member and involved with the Macy conferences, whose principal purpose was to set the foundations for a general science of the workings of the human mind.

paragraph: Section::::Emotional trauma and decline.

paragraph: In 1951, Wiener convinced Jerome Wiesner to hire some physiologists of the nervous system. A group was established with Pitts, Lettvin, McCulloch, and Pat Wall. Pitts wrote a large dissertation on the properties of neural nets connected in three dimensions. Lettvin described him as "in no uncertain sense the genius of the group … when you asked him a question, you would get back a whole textbook". Pitts was also described as an eccentric, refusing to allow his name to be made publicly available. He continued to refuse all offers of advanced degrees or positions of authority at MIT, in part as he would have to sign his name.

paragraph: In 1952, Wiener suddenly turned against McCulloch—his wife, Margaret Wiener, hated McCulloch—and broke off relations with anyone connected to him, including Pitts.

paragraph: Although he remained employed as a research associate in the Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT "as little more than a technicality" for the rest of his life, Pitts became increasingly socially isolated. In 1959, the paradigmatic "What the Frog’s Eye Tells the Frog’s Brain" (credited to Humberto Maturana, Lettvin, McCulloch and Pitts) conclusively demonstrated that "analog processes in the eye were doing at least part of the interpretive work" in image processing as opposed to "the brain computing information digital neuron by digital neuron using the exacting implement of mathematical logic", leading Pitts to burn his unpublished doctoral dissertation on probablistic three dimensional neural networks and years of unpublished research. He took little further interest in work, excepting only a collaboration with Lettvin and Robert Gesteland which produced a paper on olfaction in 1965.

paragraph: Pitts died in 1969 of bleeding esophageal varices, a condition usually associated with cirrhosis and alcoholism.

paragraph: Section::::Publications.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Walter Pitts, "Some observations on the simple neuron circuit", "Bulletin of Mathematical Biology", Volume 4, Number 3, 121–129, 1942.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts, "A Logical Calculus of Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity", 1943, "Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics" 5:115–133.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts, "On how we know universals: The perception of auditory and visual forms", 1947, "Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics" 9:127–147.

paragraph: BULLET::::- R. Howland, Jerome Lettvin, Warren McCulloch, Walter Pitts, and P. D. Wall, "Reflex inhibition by dorsal root interaction", 1955, "Journal of Neurophysiology" 18:1–17.

paragraph: BULLET::::- P. D. Wall, Warren McCulloch, Jerome Lettvin and Walter Pitts, "Effects of strychnine with special reference to spinal afferent fibres", 1955, "Epilepsia Series" 3, 4:29–40.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Jerome Lettvin, Humberto Maturana, Warren McCulloch, and Walter Pitts, "What the Frog's Eye Tells the Frog's Brain", 1959, "Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers" 47: 1940–1951.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Humberto Maturana, Jerome Lettvin, Warren McCulloch, and Walter Pitts, "Anatomy and physiology of vision in the frog", 1960, "Journal of General Physiology", 43:129—175.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Robert Gesteland, Jerome Lettvin and Walter Pitts, "Chemical Transmission in the Nose of the Frog", 1965, "J.Physiol". 181, 525–529.

paragraph: Section::::See also.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Cognitive science

paragraph: BULLET::::- Warren McCulloch

paragraph: BULLET::::- Jerome Lettvin

paragraph: Section::::Further reading.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Aizawa, Kenneth, "Connectionism and artificial intelligence: history and philosophical interpretation", "Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence", Volume 4, Issue 4, 1992, pages 295–313

paragraph: BULLET::::- Aizawa, Kenneth; Schlatter, Mark, "Walter Pitts and 'A Logical Calculus'", "Synthese" (2008) 162:235–250.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Aizawa, Kenneth; Schlatter, Mark, "Another Look at McCulloch and Pitts's 'Logical Calculus'", Centenary College of Louisiana, Shreveport, Louisiana

paragraph: BULLET::::- Anderson, James A.; Rosenfeld, Edward (editors), "Talking Nets: An Oral History of Neural Networks", 1998. The interview with Jerome Lettvin discusses Walter Pitts.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Conway, Flo; Siegelman, Jim, "Dark hero of the information age: in search of Norbert Wiener, the father of Cybernetics", Basic Books, 2005. Cf. p.138 & various.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Easterling, Keller, "Walter Pitts", "Cabinet", Issue 5 Winter 2001/02

paragraph: BULLET::::- Piccinini, Gualtiero, "The First Computational Theory of Mind and Brain: A Close Look at McCulloch and Pitts's 'Logical Calculus of Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity'", "Synthese" 141: 175–215, 2004. Kluwer Academic Publishers A. Gefter 2016, “The Man Who Tried to Redeem the World with Logic.” The Best American Science and Nature Writing

paragraph: Section::::External links.

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Walter Pitts", website of Professor Charles Wallis, Department of Cognitive Science, California State University at Long Beach, accessed 30 Jan. 2009 (archived 2009)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "The Man who Tried to Redeem the World with Logic", "Nautilus Magazine" issue 21, 5 February 2015

alias:
Walter J. Pitts
Walter Harry Pitts, Jr.

description: American logician and computational neuroscientist

wikidata_label: Walter Pitts

wikipedia_title: Walter Pitts


text: English

text: Lollard

text: Henry V

text: heresy

text: Tower of London

text: William Shakespeare

text: John Falstaff

text: Almeley

text: Herefordshire

text: Richard II

text: advowson

text: Lord Grey of Codnor

text: Scotland

text: Henry IV of England

text: Owain Glyndŵr

text: Builth Castle

text: Brecknockshire

text: Kidwelly

text: Herefordshire

text: knight of the shire

text: justice of the peace

text: High Sheriff of Herefordshire

text: Joan

text: Cobham

text: Kent

text: Norfolk

text: Northamptonshire

text: Wiltshire

text: Cooling Castle

text: Henry V

text: Burgundian

text: Armagnac-Burgundian Civil War

text: Lollard

text: Herefordshire

text: Henry IV

text: heresy

text: King Henry V

text: Paternoster Row

text: Windsor Castle

text: castle

text: Cooling

text: archbishop

text: sacraments

text: penance

text: idolatry

text: heretic

text: King Henry V

text: Smithfield

text: Twelfth-night

text: mumming

text: Eltham

text: commonwealth

text: St Giles's Fields

text: Herefordshire

text: Southampton Plot

text: Welsh Marches

text: Edward Charleton, 5th Baron Cherleton

text: Olchon Valley

text: Black Mountains, Wales

text: Edward Charleton, 5th Baron Cherleton

text: Sir Gruffudd Vychan

text: St Giles's Fields

text: burnt alive

text: Henry V

text: The Famous Victories of Henry V

text: Henry IV, Part 1

text: Falstaff

text: John Fastolf

text: Lord Cobham

text: Henry IV, Part 2

text: Sir John Oldcastle

text: Fasciculi Zizaniorum

text: Rolls series

text: David Wilkins

text: Walsingham

text: John Foxe

text: John Bale

text: James Hamilton Wylie

text: Richard James

text: Chetham Society

text: Grosart

text: W. Barske

categories: Executed British people,Executed people from Herefordshire,Battles and military actions in London,Medieval English knights,1417 deaths,People executed by the Kingdom of England by burning,People executed under the Lancastrians,English politicians convicted of crimes,English escapees,People executed for heresy,Year of birth unknown,14th-century English people,Prisoners in the Tower of London,15th-century Protestant martyrs,15th-century English MPs,High Sheriffs of Herefordshire

paragraph: John Oldcastle

paragraph: Sir John Oldcastle (died 14 December 1417) was an English Lollard leader. Being a friend of Henry V, he long escaped prosecution for heresy. When convicted, he escaped from the Tower of London and then led a rebellion against the King. Eventually, he was captured and executed in London. He formed the basis for William Shakespeare's character John Falstaff, who was originally called John Oldcastle.

paragraph: Section::::Family.

paragraph: Oldcastle's date of birth is unknown, although dubious and possibly apocryphal sources place it variously at 1360 or 1378. His father was Richard Oldcastle of Almeley in northwest Herefordshire. His grandfather, also called John Oldcastle, was Herefordshire's MP during the latter part of the reign of King Richard II.

paragraph: Section::::Early life.

paragraph: Oldcastle is first mentioned in two separate documents in 1400, first as a plaintiff in a suit regarding the advowson of Almeley church, and again as serving as a knight under Lord Grey of Codnor in a military expedition to Scotland. In the next few years Oldcastle held notable positions in the Welsh campaigns of King Henry IV of England against Owain Glyndŵr, including captaincy first over Builth Castle in Brecknockshire and then over Kidwelly.

paragraph: Oldcastle represented Herefordshire as a "knight of the shire" in the parliament of 1404, later serving as a justice of the peace, and was High Sheriff of Herefordshire in 1406–07.

paragraph: In 1408 he married Joan, the heiress of Cobham — his third marriage, and her fourth. This resulted in a significant improvement of his fortune and status, as the Cobhams were "one of the most notable families of Kent". The marriage brought Oldcastle a number of manors in Kent, Norfolk, Northamptonshire and Wiltshire, as well as Cooling Castle, and from 1409 until his accusation in 1413 he was summoned to parliament as Lord Cobham.

paragraph: At some point in his military career Oldcastle became a trusted supporter of Henry, Prince of Wales, later to become King Henry V, who regarded Sir John as "one of his most trustworthy soldiers". Oldcastle was a member of the expedition which the young Henry sent to France in 1411 in a successful campaign to assist the Burgundians in the Armagnac-Burgundian Civil War.

paragraph: Section::::Lollardy.

paragraph: Lollardy had many supporters in Herefordshire, and Oldcastle himself had adopted Lollard doctrines before 1410, when the churches on his wife's estates in Kent were laid under interdict for unlicensed preaching. In the convocation which met in March 1413, shortly before the death of Henry IV, Oldcastle was at once accused of heresy.

paragraph: But his friendship with the new King Henry V prevented any decisive action until convincing evidence was found in one of Oldcastle's books, which was discovered in a shop in Paternoster Row, London. The matter was brought before the King, who desired that nothing should be done until he had tried his personal influence. Oldcastle declared his readiness to submit to the king "all his fortune in this world" but was firm in his religious beliefs.

paragraph: When Oldcastle fled from Windsor Castle to his own castle at Cooling, Henry at last consented to a prosecution. Oldcastle refused to obey the archbishop's repeated citations, and it was only under a Royal Writ that he at last appeared before the ecclesiastical court on 23 September 1413.

paragraph: In a confession of his faith he declared his belief in the sacraments and the necessity of penance and true confession, but he would not assent to the orthodox doctrine of the sacrament as stated by the Bishops, nor admit the necessity of confession to a priest. He also said the veneration of images was "the great sin of idolatry". On 25 September he was convicted as a heretic.

paragraph: King Henry V was still anxious to find a way of escape for his old comrade, and granted a respite of forty days. Before that time had expired, Oldcastle escaped from the Tower by the help of one William Fisher, a parchment-maker of Smithfield.

paragraph: Section::::Open rebellion.

paragraph: Oldcastle now put himself at the head of a widespread Lollard conspiracy, which assumed a definite political character. The plan was to seize the King and his brothers during a Twelfth-night mumming at Eltham, and establish some sort of commonwealth. Oldcastle was to be Regent, the king, nobility and clergy placed under restraint, and the abbeys dissolved and their riches shared out. King Henry, forewarned of their intention by a spy, moved to London, and when the Lollards assembled in force in St Giles's Fields on 10 January they were easily dispersed by the king and his forces.

paragraph: Oldcastle himself escaped into deepest northwest Herefordshire, and for nearly four years avoided capture.

paragraph: Apparently he was privy to the Southampton Plot in July 1415, when he stirred some movement in the Welsh Marches. On the failure of the scheme he went again into hiding. Oldcastle was no doubt the instigator of the abortive Lollard plots of 1416, and appears to have intrigued with the Scots also.

paragraph: Section::::Capture and death.

paragraph: In November 1417 his hiding-place was at last discovered and he was captured by Edward Charleton, 5th Baron Cherleton. Some historians believed he was captured in the upland Olchon Valley of western Herefordshire adjacent to the Black Mountains, Wales, not far from the village of Oldcastle itself in his family's old heartlands. Modern historians believe that he was hiding with some Lollard friends at a glade on Pant-mawr farm in Broniarth, Wales called Cobham's Garden. The principal agents in the capture were four of the tenants of Edward Charleton, 5th Baron Cherleton, Ieuan and Sir Gruffudd Vychan, sons of Gruffudd ap Ieuan, being two of them. Oldcastle who was "sore wounded ere he would be taken", was brought to London in a horse-litter. The reward for his capture was awarded to Baron Cherleton, but he died before receiving it, though a portion was paid to his widow in 1422.

paragraph: On 14 December he was formally condemned, on the record of his previous conviction, and that same day was hanged in St Giles's Fields, and burnt "gallows and all". It is not clear whether he was burnt alive.

paragraph: Section::::Literary portrayals.

paragraph: His heretical opinions and early friendship with Henry V created a traditional scandal which long continued. In the old play "The Famous Victories of Henry V", written before 1588, Oldcastle figures as the Prince's boon companion. When Shakespeare adapted that play in "Henry IV, Part 1", Oldcastle still appeared, but when the play was printed in 1598, the name was changed to Falstaff (modelled after John Fastolf), in deference to one of Oldcastle's descendants, Lord Cobham. Though the fat knight still remains "my old lad of the Castle", the stage character has nothing to do with the Lollard leader. In "Henry IV, Part 2" an epilogue emphasises that Falstaff is not Oldcastle: "Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already a' be killed with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man." In 1599, another play, "Sir John Oldcastle", presented Oldcastle in a more kindly light.

paragraph: Section::::Bibliography.

paragraph: The record of Oldcastle's trial is printed in "Fasciculi Zizaniorum" (Rolls series) and in David Wilkins's "Concilia", iii. 351–357. The chief contemporary notices of his later career are given in "Gesta Henrici Quinti" ("Eng. Hist. Soc.") and in Walsingham's "Historia Anglicana". There have been many lives of Oldcastle, mainly based on "The Actes and Monuments" of John Foxe, who in his turn followed the "Briefe Chronycle" of John Bale, first published in 1544.

paragraph: For notes on Oldcastle's early career, consult James Hamilton Wylie, "History of England under Henry IV". For literary history see the Introductions to Richard James's "Iter Lancastrense" (Chetham Society, 1845) and to Grosart's edition of the "Poems of Richard James" (1880). See also W. Barske, "Oldcastle-Falstaff in der englischen Literatur bis zu Shakespeare" ("Palaestra", 1. Berlin, 1905).

paragraph: Section::::References.

paragraph: BULLET::::- .

paragraph: BULLET::::- Desmond Sweard, "Henry V as Warlord", London: Sidgwick & Jacskon, 1987.

paragraph: Section::::External links.

paragraph: BULLET::::- A rough translation of much of the Latin trial record.

alias:
John de Cobham
Sir John Oldcastle

description: English politician

wikidata_label: John Oldcastle

wikipedia_title: John Oldcastle


text: Christopher Columbus

text: Marco Polo

text: Travels

text: St Albans

text: Ypres

text: Saint-Omer

text: Calais

text: Turkey

text: Asia Minor

text: Cilicia

text: Tartary

text: Persia

text: Syria

text: Arabia

text: Egypt

text: Libya

text: Ethiopia

text: Chaldea

text: Amazonia

text: India

text: Romance languages

text: Latin

text: Edward III

text: Myreur des Hystors

text: Johans des Preis

text: philosopher

text: astrologer

text: Latin

text: gout

text: colophon

text: Hugh the younger

text: Hugh the elder

text: Henry I (England)

text: Magneville

text: bishop of Nevers

text: St Albans Abbey

text: Canterbury

text: John Norden

text: Speculum Britanniae

text: the Levant

text: Trebizond

text: Hormuz

text: India

text: Malay Archipelago

text: China

text: cormorant

text: to catch fish

text: otter

text: Provençal

text: Mainz

text: Sir Thomas Herbert

text: Samuel Purchas

text: Hetoum

text: Praemonstrant

text: Premonstratensian

text: Poitiers

text: Marco Polo

text: Tatars

text: Giovanni da Pian del Carpine

text: Vincent de Beauvais

text: Great Khan

text: Prester John

text: cyclopes

text: sciapodes

text: hippopodes

text: anthropophagi

text: phoenix

text: weeping crocodile

text: Pliny

text: Solinus

text: Levant

text: Seth

text: cross

text: Cain

text: Lamech

text: Melusine

text: dragon

text: Sambation

text: Wilhelm von Boldensele

text: Hélie de Talleyrand-Périgord

text: Cyprus

text: Tyre

text: Palestine

text: Gaza

text: Egypt

text: Babylon of Egypt

text: Mecca

text: pyramids

text: Cairo

text: chicken

text: plantain

text: Red Sea

text: Sinai

text: church of the Holy Sepulchre

text: Pharaoh's Granaries

text: Joseph's Granaries

text: transmigrated souls

text: Hangchow

text: the emperor

text: Cathay

text: Manzi

text: having ceased to be a separate kingdom

text: Lombardy

text: housel

text: Valley of the Shadow of Death

text: John Bunyan

text: Hakluyt

text: Moorish

text: Ibn Battuta

text: Arnold von Harff

text: Egyptian history

text: Comanian

text: Bahri dynasty

text: Al-Nasir Muhammad

text: Muslim Egypt

text: Arabic

text: Himalayan Balsam

text: long pepper

text: black pepper

text: white pepper

text: form of the earth

text: antipodes

text: sail round the world

text: Jerusalem

text: equinox

text: Bibliothèque nationale de France

text: Abingdon

text: Bodleian Library

text: Rawlinson

text: East Midlands English

text: Augustinian priory of St Osyth

text: Essex

text: Mount Sinai

text: lacuna

text: Northern dialect

text: British Museum

text: Cotton Titus

text: Bersted

text: Kent

text: Jean d'Outremeuse

text: Saracen

text: Vespasian

text: Edward III

text: Baliol

text: King David

text: Bodleian Library

text: plague

text: Liège

text: Bordeaux

text: Menocchio

text: Dictionary of National Biography

text: above

text: Ulysse Chevalier

text: Dr Whitley Stokes

text: url

text: Internet Archive

text: The Travels of Sir John Mandeville

text: Anthony Bale

text: Mandeville's Travels

text: Paul Hamelius

text: Early English Text Society

text: University of Michigan

text: The Mapping Mandeville Digital Project

paragraph: John Mandeville

paragraph: Sir John Mandeville is the supposed author of "The Travels of Sir John Mandeville", a travel memoir which first circulated between 1357 and 1371. The earliest surviving text is in French.

paragraph: By aid of translations into many other languages, the work acquired extraordinary popularity. Despite the extremely unreliable and often fantastical nature of the travels it describes, it was used as a work of reference—Christopher Columbus, for example, was heavily influenced by both this work and Marco Polo's earlier "Travels".

paragraph: Section::::Identity.

paragraph: In his preface, the compiler calls himself a knight, and states that he was born and bred in England, in the town of St Albans. Although the book is real, it is widely believed that "Sir John Mandeville" himself was not. Common theories point to a Frenchman by the name of Jehan a la Barbe (or other possibilities discussed below).

paragraph: Some recent scholars have suggested that "The Travels of Sir John Mandeville" was most likely written by "Jan de Langhe, a Fleming who wrote in Latin under the name Johannes Longus and in French as ". Jan de Langhe was born in Ypres early in the 1300s and by 1334 had become a Benedictine monk at the abbey of Saint-Bertin in Saint-Omer which was about 20 miles from Calais. After studying law at the University of Paris, Langhe returned to the abbey and was elected abbot in 1365. He was a prolific writer and avid collector of travelogues, right up to his death in 1383.

paragraph: Section::::Identity.:Travel.

paragraph: John de Mandeville crossed the sea in 1322; had traversed by way of Turkey (Asia Minor and Cilicia), Tartary, Persia, Syria, Arabia, Egypt upper and lower, Libya, the great part of Ethiopia, Chaldea, Amazonia, India the Less, the Greater and the Middle, and many countries about India; had often been to Jerusalem, and had written in Romance languages as more generally understood than Latin.

paragraph: Section::::Identity.:Contemporary corroboration.

paragraph: At least part of the personal history of Mandeville is mere invention. No contemporary corroboration of the existence of such a Jehan de Mandeville is known. Some French manuscripts, not contemporary, give a Latin letter of presentation from him to Edward III, but so vague that it might have been penned by any writer on any subject. It is in fact beyond reasonable doubt that the travels were in large part compiled by a Liége physician, known as Johains à le Barbe or Jehan à la Barbe, otherwise Jehan de Bourgogne.

paragraph: The evidence of this is in a modernized extract quoted by the Liège herald, Louis Abry (1643–1720), from the lost fourth book of the "Myreur des Hystors" of Johans des Preis, styled d'Oultremouse. In this "Jean de Bourgogne, dit a la Barbe", is said to have revealed himself on his deathbed to d'Oultremouse, whom he made his executor, and to have described himself in his will as "messire Jean de Mandeville, chevalier, comte de Montfort en Angleterre et seigneur de l'isle de Campdi et du château Pérouse (Lord Jean de Mandeville, knight, Count de Montfort in England and lord of the Isle of Campdi and the castle Pérouse)".

paragraph: It is added that, having had the misfortune to kill an unnamed count in his own country, he engaged himself to travel through the three parts of the world, arrived at Liège in 1343, was a great naturalist, profound philosopher and astrologer, and had a remarkable knowledge of physics. The identification is confirmed by the fact that in the now destroyed church of the Guillemins was a tombstone of Mandeville, with a Latin inscription stating that he was otherwise named "ad Barbam", was a professor of medicine, and died at Liège on November 17, 1372: this inscription is quoted as far back as 1462.

paragraph: Even before his death, the Liège physician seems to have confessed to a share in the circulation of, and additions to, the work. In the common Latin abridged version of it, at the end of c. vii., the author says that when stopping in the sultan's court at Cairo he met a venerable and expert physician of "our" parts, but that they rarely came into conversation because their duties were of a different kind, but that long afterwards at Liège he composed this treatise at the exhortation and with the help ("Jiortatu et adiutorio") of the same venerable man, as he will narrate at the end of it.

paragraph: And in the last chapter, he says that in 1355, on returning home, he came to Liège, and being laid up with old age and arthritic gout in the street called Bassesavenyr, i.e. Basse-Sauvenière, consulted the physicians. That one came in who was more venerable than the others by reason of his age and white hairs, was evidently expert in his art, and was commonly called Magister Iohannes ad Barbam. That a chance remark of the latter caused the renewal of their old Cairo acquaintance, and that Ad Barbam, after showing his medical skill on Mandeville, urgently begged him to write his travels; "and so at length, by his advice and help, "monitu et adiutorio", was composed this treatise, of which I had certainly proposed to write nothing until at least I had reached my own parts in England". He goes on to speak of himself as being now lodged in Liège, "which is only two days distant from the sea of England"; and it is stated in the colophon (and in the manuscripts) that the book was first published in French by Mandeville, its author, in 1355, at Liège, and soon after in the same city translated into "said" Latin form. Moreover, a manuscript of the French text extant at Liège about 1860 contained a similar statement, and added that the author lodged at a hostel called "al hoste Henkin Levo": this manuscript gave the physician's name as "Johains de Bourgogne dit ale barbe", which doubtless conveys its local form.

paragraph: Section::::Identity.:Contemporary mention.

paragraph: There is no contemporary English mention of any English knight named Jehan de Mandeville, nor are the arms said to have been on the Liège tomb like any known Mandeville arms. However George F. Warner has suggested that de Bourgogne may be a certain Johan de Bourgoyne, who was pardoned by parliament on 20 August 1321 for having taken part in the attack on the Despensers (Hugh the younger and Hugh the elder), but whose pardon was revoked in May 1322, the year in which "Mandeville" professes to have left England. Among the persons similarly pardoned on the recommendation of the same nobleman was a Johan Mangevilayn, whose name appears related to that of "de Mandeville", which is a later form of "de Magneville".

paragraph: The name Mangevilain occurs in Yorkshire as early as the 16th year of the reign of Henry I (England), but is very rare, and (failing evidence of any place named Mangeville) seems to be merely a variant spelling of Magnevillain. The meaning may be simply "of Magneville", de Magneville; but the family of a 14th-century bishop of Nevers were called both "Mandevilain" and "de Mandevilain", where Mandevilain seems a derivative place-name, meaning the Magneville or Mandeville district. The name "de Mandeville "might be suggested to de Bourgogne by that of his fellow-culprit Mangevilayn, and it is even possible that the two fled to England together, were in Egypt together, met again at Liège, and shared in the compilation of the "Travels".

paragraph: Whether after the appearance of the "Travels" either de Bourgogne or "Mangevilayn" visited England is very doubtful. St Albans Abbey had a sapphire ring, and Canterbury a crystal orb, said to have been given by Mandeville; but these might have been sent from Liège, and it will appear later that the Liège physician possessed and wrote about precious stones. St Albans also had a legend, recorded in John Norden's "Speculum Britanniae" (1596) that a ruined marble tomb of Mandeville (represented cross-legged and in armour, with sword and shield) once stood in the abbey; this may be true of "Mangevilayn" or it may be apocryphal. There is also an inscription near the entrance of St Albans Abbey, which reads as follows:

paragraph: Section::::Analyzing the work.

paragraph: The book may contain facts and knowledge acquired by actual travels and residence in the East, at least in the section which treats of the Holy Land and the ways of getting thither, of Egypt, and in general of the Levant. The prologue points almost exclusively to the Holy Land as the subject of the work. The mention of more distant regions comes in only towards the end of this prologue, and (in a manner) as an afterthought. However, this is commensurate with Mandeville's emphasis on 'curiositas'—wandering—rather than Christian 'scientia' (knowledge).

paragraph: Section::::Analyzing the work.:Odoric of Pordenone.

paragraph: The greater part of these more distant travels, extending from Trebizond to Hormuz, India, the Malay Archipelago, and China, and back to western Asia, has been appropriated from the narrative of Friar Odoric (1330). These passages are almost always swollen with interpolated particulars, usually of an extravagant kind. However, in a number of cases the writer has failed to understand those passages which he adopts from Odoric and professes to give as his own experiences. Thus, where Odoric has given a most curious and veracious account of the Chinese custom of employing tame cormorants to catch fish, the cormorants are converted by Mandeville into "little beasts called loyres which are taught to go into the water" (the word "loyre" being apparently used here for "otter", "lutra", for which the Provençal is "luria" or "loiria").

paragraph: At a very early date the coincidence of Mandeville's stories with those of Odoric was recognized, insomuch that a manuscript of Odoric which is or was in the chapter library at Mainz begins with the words: ""Incipit Itinerarius fidelis fratris Odorici socii Militis Mendavil per Indian; licet hic ille prius et alter posterius peregrinationem suam descripsit"". At a later day Sir Thomas Herbert calls Odoric "travelling companion of our Sir John"; and Samuel Purchas, most unfairly, whilst calling Mandeville, next to Polo, "if next ... the greatest Asian traveller that ever the world had", insinuates that Odoric's story was stolen from Mandeville's. Mandeville himself is crafty enough, at least in one passage, to anticipate criticism by suggesting the probability of his having travelled with Odoric.

paragraph: Section::::Analyzing the work.:Hetoum.

paragraph: Much of Mandeville's matter, particularly in Asiatic geography and history, is taken from the "La Flor des Estoires d'Orient" of Hetoum, an Armenian of princely family, who became a monk of the Praemonstrant or Premonstratensian order, and in 1307 dictated this work on the East, in the French tongue at Poitiers, out of his own extraordinary acquaintance with Asia and its history in his own time. A story of the fortress at Corycus, or the Castle Sparrowhawk, appears in Mandeville's Book.

paragraph: Section::::Analyzing the work.:Marco Polo.

paragraph: No passage in Mandeville can be plausibly traced to Marco Polo, with one exception. This is where he states that at Hormuz the people during the great heat lie in water – a circumstance mentioned by Polo, though not by Odoric. It is most likely that this fact had been interpolated in the copy of Odoric used by Mandeville, for if he had borrowed it directly from Polo he could have borrowed more.

paragraph: Section::::Analyzing the work.:Giovanni da Pian del Carpine and Vincent de Beauvais.

paragraph: A good deal about the manners and customs of the Tatars is demonstrably derived from the work of the Franciscan Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, who went as the pope's ambassador to the Tatars in 1245–1247; but Dr. Warner considers that the immediate source for Mandeville was the "Speculum historiale" of Vincent de Beauvais. Though the passages in question are all to be found in Carpine more or less exactly, the expression is condensed and the order changed. For examples compare Mandeville, p. 250, on the tasks done by Tatar women, with Carpine, p. 643; Mandeville. p. 250, on Tatar habits of eating, with Carpine, pp. 639–640; Mandeville, p. 231, on the titles borne on the seals of the Great Khan, with Carpine, p. 715, etc.

paragraph: The account of Prester John is taken from the famous "Epistle" of that imaginary potentate, which was widely diffused in the 13th century. Many fabulous stories, again, of monsters, such as cyclopes, sciapodes, hippopodes, anthropophagi, monoscelides, and men whose heads did grow beneath their shoulders; of the phoenix and the weeping crocodile, such as Pliny has collected, are introduced here and there, derived no doubt from him, Solinus, the bestiaries, or the "Speculum naturale" of Vincent de Beauvais. And interspersed, especially in the chapters about the Levant, are the stories and legends that were retailed to every pilgrim, such as the legend of Seth and the grains of paradise from which grew the wood of the cross, that of the shooting of old Cain by Lamech, that of the castle of the sparrow-hawk (which appears in the tale of Melusine), those of the origin of the balsam plants at Masariya, of the dragon of Cos, of the river Sambation, etc.

paragraph: Section::::Analyzing the work.:Representation of some genuine experience.

paragraph: Even in that part of the book which might be supposed to represent some genuine experience, there are the plainest traces that another work has been made use of, more or less—we might almost say as a framework to fill up. This is the itinerary of the German knight Wilhelm von Boldensele, written in 1336 at the desire of Cardinal Hélie de Talleyrand-Périgord. A cursory comparison of this with Mandeville leaves no doubt that the latter has followed its thread, though digressing on every side, and too often eliminating the singular good sense of the German traveler. We may indicate as examples Boidensele's account of Cyprus, of Tyre and the coast of Palestine, of the journey from Gaza to Egypt, passages about Babylon of Egypt, about Mecca, the general account of Egypt, the pyramids, some of the wonders of Cairo, such as the slave-market, the chicken-hatching stoves, and the apples of paradise, i.e. plantains, the Red Sea, the convent on Sinai, the account of the church of the Holy Sepulchre, etc.

paragraph: As an example, when discussing the pyramids, Boldensele wrote that "the people of the country call them Pharaoh's Granaries. But this cannot be true at all, for no place for putting in the wheat can be found there". Mandeville then completely reverses it in favor of the received medieval opinion: "Some say that they are tombs of the great lords of antiquity, but that is not true, for the common word through the whole country near and far is that they are Joseph's Granaries ... [for] if they were tombs, they would not be empty inside".

paragraph: There is, indeed, only a small residuum of the book to which genuine character, as containing the experiences of the author, can possibly be attributed. Yet, as has been intimated, the borrowed stories are frequently claimed as such experiences. In addition to those already mentioned, he alleges that he had witnessed the curious exhibition of the garden of transmigrated souls (described by Odoric) at Cansay, i.e. Hangchow. He and his fellows with their valets had remained fifteen months in service with the emperor of Cathay in his wars against the king of Manzi – Manzi, or Southern China, having ceased to be a separate kingdom some seventy years before the time referred to. But the most notable of these false statements occurs in his adoption from Odoric of the story of the "Valley Perilous". This is, in its original form, apparently founded on real experiences of Odoric viewed through a haze of excitement and superstition. Mandeville, whilst swelling the wonders of the tale with a variety of extravagant touches, appears to safeguard himself from the reader's possible discovery that it was stolen by the interpolation: "And some of our fellows accorded to enter, and some not. So there were with us two worthy men, Friars Minor, that were of Lombardy, who said that if any man would enter they would go in with us. And when they had said so, upon the gracious trust of God and of them, we caused mass to be sung, and made every man to be shriven and houselled; and then we entered fourteen persons; but at our going out we were but nine", etc.

paragraph: In referring to this passage, it is only fair to recognize that the description (though the suggestion of the greatest part exists in Odoric) displays a good deal of imaginative power; and there is much in the account of Christian's passage through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, in John Bunyan's famous allegory, which indicates a possibility that Bunyan may have read and remembered this episode either in Mandeville or in Hakluyt's "Odoric".

paragraph: Nor does it follow that the whole work is borrowed or fictitious. Even the great Moorish traveller Ibn Battuta, accurate and veracious in the main, seems—in one part at least of his narrative—to invent experiences; and, in such works as those of Jan van Hees and Arnold von Harff, we have examples of pilgrims to the Holy Land whose narratives begin apparently in sober truth, and gradually pass into flourishes of fiction and extravagance. So in Mandeville also we find particulars not yet traced to other writers, and which may therefore be provisionally assigned either to the writer's own experience or to knowledge acquired by colloquial intercourse in the East.

paragraph: Whether Mandeville actually traveled or not, he would not necessarily be intentionally making the story up. All travel narratives from this time used the same sources, taken from each other or from the earlier traditions of the Greeks. This tradition was an integral part of such narratives to make them believable (or at least acceptable) to the readers. Columbus was to make use of some of the same monsters in "India" that Mandeville did with the intention of winning the support of the king.

paragraph: Section::::Analyzing the work.:On Egypt.

paragraph: It is difficult to decide on the character of his statements as to recent Egyptian history. In his account of that country, though the series of the Comanian (of the Bahri dynasty) sultans is borrowed from Hetoum down to the accession of Mel echnasser (Al-Nasir Muhammad), who came first to the throne in 1293, Mandeville appears to speak from his own knowledge when he adds that this "Melechnasser reigned long and governed wisely". In fact, though twice displaced in the early part of his life, Al-Nasir Muhammad reigned till 1341, a duration unparalleled in Muslim Egypt, whilst we are told that during the last thirty years of his reign, Egypt rose to a high pitch of wealth and prosperity.

paragraph: Mandeville, however, then goes on to say that his eldest son, Melechemader, was chosen to succeed; but this prince was caused privily to be slain by his brother, who took the kingdom under the name of Meleclimadabron. "And he was Soldan when I departed from those countries". Now Al-Nasir Muhammad was followed in succession by no less than eight of his sons in thirteen years, the first three of whom reigned in aggregate only a few months. The names mentioned by Mandeville appear to represent those of the fourth and sixth of the eight, viz. al-Salih Ismail, and al-Muzzafar Hajji]; and these the statements of Mandeville do not fit.

paragraph: Section::::Analyzing the work.:Words.

paragraph: On several occasions, Arabic words are given, but are not always recognizable, owing perhaps to the carelessness of copyists in such matters. Thus, we find the names (not satisfactorily identified) of the wood, fruit and sap of the Himalayan Balsam; of bitumen, "alkatran" ("al-Kāṭrān"); of the three different kinds of pepper (long pepper, black pepper and white pepper) as "sorbotin, fulful" and "bano" or "bauo" ("fulful" is the common Arabic word for pepper; the others have not been satisfactorily explained). But these, and the particulars of his narrative for which no literary sources have yet been found, are too few to constitute a proof of personal experience.

paragraph: Section::::Analyzing the work.:Geographic.

paragraph: Mandeville, again, in some passages shows a correct idea of the form of the earth, and of position in latitude ascertained by observation of the pole star; he knows that there are antipodes, and that if ships were sent on voyages of discovery they might sail round the world. And he tells a curious story, which he had heard in his youth, how a worthy man did travel ever eastward until he came to his own country again. But he repeatedly asserts the old belief that Jerusalem was in the centre of the world, and maintains in proof of this that at the equinox a spear planted erect in Jerusalem casts no shadow at noon, which, if true, would equally consist with the sphericity of the earth, provided that the city were on the equator.

paragraph: Section::::Analyzing the work.:Manuscripts.

paragraph: The sources of the book, which include various authors besides those included in this article specified, have been laboriously investigated by Albert Bovenschen and George F. Warner. The oldest known manuscript of the original—once Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Barrois's, afterwards Bertram Ashburnham, 4th Earl of Ashburnham's, now "Nouv. Acq. Franc. 1515" in the Bibliothèque nationale de France—is dated 1371, but is nevertheless very inaccurate in proper names. An early printed Latin translation made from the French has been already quoted, but four others, unprinted, have been discovered by Dr Johann Vogels. They exist in eight manuscripts, of which seven are in Great Britain, while the eighth was copied by a monk of Abingdon; probably, therefore, all these unprinted translations were executed in Great Britain.

paragraph: From one of them, according to Dr Vogels, an English version was made which has never been printed and is now extant only in free abbreviations, contained in two 15th-century manuscripts in the Bodleian Library—manuscript "e Museo 116", and manuscript "Rawlinson D.99": the former, which is the better, is in East Midlands English, and may possibly have belonged to the Augustinian priory of St Osyth in Essex, while the latter is in Southern Middle English.

paragraph: The first English translation direct from the French was made (at least as early as the beginning of the 15th century) from a manuscript of which many pages were lost. Writing of the name 'Califfes', the author says that it is "taut a dire come rol (s). II y soleit auoir V. soudans" "as much as to say king. There used to be 5 sultans". In the defective French manuscript a page ended with "Il y so"; then came a gap, and the next page went on with part of the description of Mount Sinai, "Et est celle vallee mult froide". Consequently, the corresponding English version has "That ys to say amonge hem "Roys Ils" and this vale ys ful colde"! All English printed texts before 1725, and Ashton's 1887 edition, follow these defective copies, and in only two known manuscripts has the lacuna been detected and filled up.

paragraph: One of them is the British Museum manuscript "Egerton 1982" (Northern dialect, about 1410–1420 ?), in which, according to Vogels, the corresponding portion has been borrowed from that English version which had already been made from the Latin. The other is in the British Museum manuscript "Cotton Titus xvi." (Midland dialect, about 1410–1420?), representing a text completed, and revised throughout, from the French, though not by a competent hand. The "Egerton text", edited by George Warner, has been printed by the Roxburghe Club, while the Cotton text, first printed in 1725-27, is in modern reprints the current English version.

paragraph: That none of the forms of the English version can be from the same hand which wrote the original is made patent by their glaring errors of translation, but the Cotton text asserts in the preface that it was made by Mandeville himself, and this assertion was till lately taken on trust by almost all modern historians of English literature. The words of the original "je eusse cest livret mis en latin ... mais ... je l'ay mis en rōmant" were mistranslated as if "je eusse" meant "I had" instead of "I should have", and then (whether of fraudulent intent or by the error of a copyist thinking to supply an accidental omission) the words were added "and translated it aȝen out of Frensche into Englyssche." Mätzner seems to have been the first to show that the current English text cannot possibly have been made by Mandeville himself. Of the original French there is no satisfactory edition, but Vogels has undertaken a critical text, and Warner has added to his Egerton English text the French of a British Museum MS. with variants from three others.

paragraph: An illuminated Middle English copy c. 1440, possibly from Bersted, Kent, fetched £289,250 at a London auction in June 2011.

paragraph: Section::::Further information.

paragraph: It remains to mention certain other works bearing the name of Mandeville or de Bourgogne.

paragraph: MS. Add. C. 280 in the Bodleian appends to the "Travels" a short French life of St Alban of Germany, the author of which calls himself Johan Mandivill[e], knight, formerly of the town of St Alban, and says he writes to correct an impression prevalent among his countrymen that there was no other saint of the name: this life is followed by part of a French herbal.

paragraph: To Mandeville (by whom de Bourgogne is clearly meant) Jean d'Outremeuse ascribes a Latin "lappidaire selon l'oppinion des Indois", from which he quotes twelve passages, stating that the author (whom he calls knight, lord of Montfort, of Castelperouse, and of the isle of Campdi) had been "baillez en Alexandrie" seven years, and had been presented by a Saracen friend with some fine jewels which had passed into d'Outremeuse's own possession: of this Lapidaire, a French version, which seems to have been completed after 1479, has been several times printed. A manuscript of Mandeville's travels offered for sale in 1862 is said to have been divided into five books:

paragraph: BULLET::::1. The travels

paragraph: BULLET::::2. "De là forme de la terre et comment et par quelle manière elle fut faite"

paragraph: BULLET::::3. "De la forme del ciel"

paragraph: BULLET::::4. "Des herbes selon les yndois et les phulosophes par de là"

paragraph: BULLET::::5. "Ly lapidaire"

paragraph: while the cataloguer supposed Mandeville to have been the author of a concluding piece entitled "La Venianche de nostre Signeur Jhesu-Crist fayle par Vespasian fit del empereur de Romme et commeet lozeph daramathye fu deliures de la prizon". From the treatise on herbs a passage is quoted asserting it to have been composed in 1357 in honour of the author's natural lord, Edward III, king of England. This date is corroborated by the title of king of Scotland given to Edward, who had received from Baliol the surrender of the crown and kingly dignity on 20 January 1356, but on 3 October 1357 released King David and made peace with Scotland: unfortunately it is not recorded whether the treatise contains the author's name, and, if so, what name.

paragraph: Tanner ("Bibliotheca") alleges that Mandeville wrote several books on medicine, and among the "Ashmolean manuscripts" in the Bodleian Library are a medical receipt by John de Magna Villa (No. 2479), an aichemical receipt by him (No. 1407), and another alchemical receipt by johannes de Villa Magna (No. 1441).

paragraph: Finally, de Bourgogne wrote under his own name a treatise on the plague, extant in Latin, French and English texts, and in Latin and English abridgments. Herein he describes himself as Johannes de Burgundia, otherwise called cum Barba, citizen of Liège and professor of the art of medicine; says that he had practised forty years and had been in Liège in the plague of 1365; and adds that he had previously written a treatise on the cause of the plague, according to the indications of astrology (beginning "Deus deorum"), and another on distinguishing pestilential diseases (beginning "Cum nimium propter instans tempus epidimiate"). "Burgundia" is sometimes corrupted into "Burdegalia", and in English translations of the abridgment almost always appears as "Burdews" (Bordeaux, France) or the like manuscript "Rawlinson D. 251" (15th century) in the Bodleian Library also contains a large number of English medical receipts, headed "Practica phisicalia Magistri Johannis de Burgundia".

paragraph: Section::::See also.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Menocchio

paragraph: Section::::References.

paragraph: Attribution

paragraph: BULLET::::- This article cites:

paragraph: BULLET::::- G.F. Warner's article in the Dictionary of National Biography for a comprehensive account, and for bibliographical references (see above)

paragraph: BULLET::::- Ulysse Chevalier's "Repertoire des sources historiques du moyen âge" for references generally; and the "Zeitschr. f. celt. Philologie II.", i. 126, for an edition and translation, by Dr Whitley Stokes, of Fingin O'Mahony's Irish version of the "Travels".

paragraph: BULLET::::- —which dates probably from the early part of the 15th century.

paragraph: Section::::Further reading.

paragraph: BULLET::::- — with links (urls) to eight other editions at the Internet Archive.

paragraph: Section::::External links.

paragraph: BULLET::::- The Travels of Sir John Mandeville

paragraph: BULLET::::- Podcast, discussion with Anthony Bale, at  New Books in History, on a new edition and translation of Mandeville's Book.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Mandeville's Travels, a digitization of Paul Hamelius's edition for the Early English Text Society (1919, 1923), available from the University of Michigan.

paragraph: BULLET::::- I IOHN MAUNDEVYLL KNIGHT, essay on Sir John Mandeville's veracity.

paragraph: BULLET::::- The Mapping Mandeville Digital Project, ed. John Wyatt Greenlee: The Travels of Sir John Mandeville plotted onto the Hereford Mappa Mundi.

alias:
Jehan de Mandeville
Mandeville
John Maundeville
Jean de Mandeville
John de Mandeville
Sir John Mandeville

description: writer

enwikiquote_title: John Mandeville

wikidata_label: John Mandeville

wikipedia_title: John Mandeville


text: Swedish

text: comic creator

text: Mandel Karlsson

categories: Swedish cartoonists,1970 deaths,Swedish comics artists,1896 births

paragraph: Rudolf Petersson

paragraph: Rudolf Petersson (June 17, 1896 – April 17, 1970) was a Swedish comic creator and the father of one of the most popular Swedish comics of all time: "".

paragraph: Section::::See also.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Mandel Karlsson

paragraph: Section::::External links.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Rudolf Petersson info from the Lambiek Comiclopedia of Artists

description: Swedish comic creator

wikidata_label: Rudolf Petersson

wikipedia_title: Rudolf Petersson