Cynocephali

Episode 17 Fictional Travels and Monstrous Races

The Middle Ages Around the World

Dr Joyce E Salisbury

Film Review

During the Middle Ages, fictional travel accounts were far more popular than genuine travel diaries . Dr Salisbury specifically singles out The Travels of Sir John Manderville, which was was totally fabricated. Written in Norman French in the 14th century, it was mostly  copied from the works of other travellers and historians. Translated into every existing European language by 1400, 300 copies of the manuscripts survive (in contrat to 135 copies of The Travel of Marco Polo’). Until quite recently, Manderville’s book was taken as totally factual and was used as a guide book by Columbus and other explorers.

Among other false claims in the manuscript are

• assertions that Manderville visited the Holy Land (which never happened) and saw the desert cave where Adam and Eve lived. as well as spots of Mary’s breast milk on a pink rock.
• assertions that he visited Turkish and Persian lands (including the area described in Greek legend ruled by Amazon women, who expelled all men from their territory).*
• a description of a healing well that cured illness and made people young again (which sent Ponce de Leon searching for the fountain of youth in Florida)
• a description of Spice Islands rulers living in palaces of gold.**
• a visit to China (which never happened) to observe the immense opulence of the Yuan dynasty (which he copied from Marco Polo), despite the state of serious decline of the Yuan dynasty 1356.
• a visit to India (which never happened), where he claimed to have encountered a Christian king named Prester John.

According to Salisbury, Manderville’s most damaging claims concerned fantastic half-human creatures he allegedly during his voyages. This helped to popularize the notion that foreign lands harbored exotic subhuman people ripe for murder and exploitation

Manderville copied most off these accounts from the Roman historian Pliny the Elder, who first introduced the concept of race – with what are now called “Plinian races” or “monstrous races.” Examples include

• Blemmyae – human beings lacking heads or necks who had faces on their chests

• Aeomi – apple smellers who derived nutrition from smells and died if exposed to foul odors.
• Scropods – who had only a single large leg.
• Paditi – who had ears so long they could wrap their body in them.
• Cynocephali – human creature with dog heads

Catholic monks also compiled bestiaries, which alo included centaurs, manticors (had four legs with the face of a man, leading to a big debate whether such monsters were human or not. It was generally believed that refusing to wear clothes and eating human flesh were a sign of non-humanity.

*Strongly influenced by Manderville’s book, 16th century Spanish explorer Francisco Oriano named the Amazon River after women warriors he encountered in South America.

**Which inspired Columbus to sail across the Atlantic seeking gold in what he believed were the Spice Isands.

Film can be viewed with a library card on Kanopy.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/13172786/13172823