“the Monkes of the Abbeye of ten tyme,” in Halliwell’s edition (1839) from Titus C. xvi, which corresponds to Mr. Warner’s Egerton text, p. 18, l. 21:  “for the Sowdan,” and p. 32, l. 16, “synges oft tyme.”  It is this bad text which, until 1725,[24] has been printed as we just said, with numerous variants, including the poor edition of Mr. Ashton[25] who has given the text of East instead of the Cotton text under the pretext that the latter was not legible.[26]

Two revisions of the English version were made during the first quarter of the 15th century; one is represented by the British Museum Egerton MS. 1982 and the abbreviated Bodleian MS. e.  Mus. 116; the other by the Cotton MS. Titus C. xvi.  This last one gives the text of the edition of 1725 often reprinted till Halliwell’s (1839 and 1866).[27] The Egerton MS. 1982 has been reproduced in a magnificent volume edited in 1889 for the Roxburghe Club par Mr. G.F.  Warner, of the British Museum;[28] this edition includes also the French text from the Harley MS. 4383 which, being defective from the middle of chap. xxii. has been completed with the Royal MS. 20 B.X.  Indeed the Egerton MS. 1982 is the only complete English manuscript of the British Museum,[29] as, besides seven copies of the defective text, three leaves are missing in the Cotton MS. after f. 53, the text of the edition of 1725 having been completed with the Royal MS. 17 B.[30]

Notwithstanding its great popularity, Mandeville’s Book could not fail to strike with its similarity with other books of travels, with Friar Odoric’s among others.  This similarity has been the cause that occasionally the Franciscan Friar was given as a companion to the Knight of St. Albans, for instance, in the manuscripts of Mayence and Wolfenbuettel.[31] Some Commentators have gone too far in their appreciation and the Udine monk has been treated either as a plagiary or a liar!  Old Samuel Purchas, in his address to the Reader printed at the beginning of Marco Polo’s text (p. 65), calls his countryman!  Mandeville the greatest Asian traveller next (if next) to Marco Polo, and he leaves us to understand that the worthy knight has been pillaged by some priest![32] Astley uses strong language; he calls Odoric a great liar![33]

Others are fair in their judgment, Malte-Brun, for instance, marked what Mandeville borrowed from Odoric, and La Renaudiere is also very just in the Biographie Universelle.  But what Malte-Brun and La Renaudiere showed in a general manner, other learned men, such as Dr. S. Bormans, Sir Henry Yule, Mr. E.W.B.  Nicholson,[34] Dr. J. Vogels,[35] M. Leopold Delisle, Herr A. Bovenschen,[36] and last, not least, Dr. G.F.  Warner, have in our days proved that not only has the book bearing Mandeville’s name been compiled from the works of Vincent of Beauvais, Jacques of Vitry, Boldensel, Carpini, Odoric, etc., but that it was written neither by a Knight of St. Albans, by an Englishman, or by a Sir John Mandeville, but very likely by the physician John of Burgundy or John a Beard.