Sir John Mandeville writes extensively on Jerusalem, or the Holy City. He describes it’s geographical nature in the first few paragraphs; how it is “well situated amongst the hills” (39) and how it isn’t near any kind of natural water source. He notes the city’s surroundings very briefly. The kingdom of Arabia borders Jerusalem to the east. Egypt is in the south. The Mediterranean Sea is in the west. The Kingdom of Syria and the Cypress Sea are both in the north. These are very basic geographical landmarks so that a reader will be able to know roughly where Jerusalem is; much like someone from Havertown, PA would say they are “outside of Philly.” It’s interesting how this sort of tactic is used back then just as we do now, so that people know generally where things are. All of these things are very quickly mentioned right at the beginning of this Jerusalem notation. However, I would say that his main focus throughout the narrative is the importance of Jerusalem as an iconic state, especially religiously. He talks about how the city has been in the hands of many peoples from different faiths.

Mandeville has a tendency to provide a lot of historical background to cities like Jerusalem. These little facts are interspersed throughout his telling of the cities. For Jerusalem, he talks about how it used to be called “Jebus” and then later “Salem,” until Solomon came around and combined the two names to make “Jerusalem.”  Everything has to do with Christianity when it comes to Mandeville’s accounts of most of the places he notes, but especially in Jerusalem. It is, after all, the Holy City. He constantly notes places at Jesus Christ had been to, and the legends and shrines that surround them. One particularly interesting description of one of these places is the Valley of Jehoshaphat, which is outside of the city walls during his time. “Our Lord entered through that gate on Palm Sunday, riding on an ass, and the gate opened for Him when He wished to go to the Temple.” (43) Just in this phrase, you can see how important these religious events are to him through his tone, such as the way he addresses Jesus Christ as “Our Lord.” He also is clearly writing for a mainly Christian audience and assumes that people will care about these religious factoids just the same as he does. This is fitting, however, since he is a French man and everybody in France during his time was Christian in some way. There is a religious significance outlined in every single place he goes to.

At the beginning of Chapter Five, Mandeville explains that pilgrims to Jerusalem can pass through Babylon and obtain permission from the Sultan to visit Mt. Sinai before continuing their pilgrimage (19). He relates Babylon to several biblical stories and religious figures from different points in time, explaining the city’s relationship to the Virgin Mary, St. Barbara, Joseph (Exodus, not Mary’s husband), Nebuchadnezzar and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (I found it surprising that he did not mention Daniel, who was taken to Babylon with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and is arguably an even more notable figure than his three companions). By mentioning all of these figures in the first full paragraph about Babylon, Mandeville emphasizes the city’s religious heritage.

Mandeville then proceeds to describe the history of the area and how it came under Muslim rule, followed by an extended genealogy of the sultans up to his present day. This section emphasizes violence in the election process (20), perhaps as an attempt to ‘other’ a culture different than his own and paint them in a negative light; the majority of the sultans are described as having been murdered, poisoned, driven into exile, or imprisoned, so that someone else could take the throne. This violence stops with the most recent Sultan, who reigned for a long time, and governed with such great wisdom” [21]. Following this genealogy, Mandeville describes some of the Sultan’s customs, giving details about the army, the Sultan’s wives, and how foreigners should behave at court (22).

Mandeville then clarifies that he is not talking about the “Great Babylon where the confusion of tongues was made, when the Tower of Babel existed,” but about a different Babylon which is “forty days travel” away (22-23). He explains that the Great Babylon is under the rule of the Great Khan, whom Mandeville describes as “incomparably greater and stronger than the Sultan” (23). This description complements Marco Polo’s account of Kubilai Khan and the Mongol Empire, and I found that reading these two texts simultaneously provided me with a useful context in this moment!

It seems to me that Mandeville’s purpose in writing about Babylon in the way he does is to provide other travelers with a guide to what they might find there, or to help people plan out their routes and know what to expect. He repeats several times that pilgrims should travel through Babylon to Mt. Sinai and then on to Jerusalem; the religious significance of the area is extremely important to him and he gives it notable space. He is also concerned with the history of the area, which I find interesting. Generally, I would assume people do not need to know the ruling class’ family tree to travel through an area, but Mandeville spends a large amount of time explaining the history of the city and how the current Sultan came to power. The effect I see from this is to ‘other’ the Muslim rulers by focusing on the violence in the process of electing a new Sultan, which works hand-in-hand with his emphasis on Christian stories and tradition to lift Christianity above other religions. Mandeville’s text is extremely centered on Christian pilgrims (especially in the Prologue, where he explicitly states his purpose) and while the Prologue is clearly anti-Semitic, this section seems to illustrate his prejudice against Islam as well.

(pp. 19-35)