Sir John Mandeville ends his account with the tale of the land of Prester John. He claims Prester John is regarded as \u201cthe Emperor of India\u201d, and that his land, called \u201cthe isle of Pentixoire\u201d, is composed of many kingdoms of Christians. It is exceedingly clear that Mandeville has never been to India, as he begins by describing it as being composed of islands because of \u201cgreat floods flowing in from Paradise\u201d. Here, the author of Sir John Mandeville\u2019s narrative really takes advantage of being able to describe the land as he wishes, with no contradictions from other travelers; he describes an idealistic and fanciful land full of riches and beauty, where good rules over all and the Christians are in power. He justifies the small amount of visitors by explaining that merchants find what they need in the isles of Cathay, which are closer and a much less dangerous trip than the journey to the lands of Prester John. However, Mandeville assures his readers that the lands of Prester John are nevertheless exceedingly wealthy.<\/p>\n
John Mandeville concentrates mostly on describing the faith and piety of Prester John and the wealth and beauty his land possesses. He describes Prester John and his people as being devout Christians who believe wholeheartedly in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and who are loyal to one another and their faith. Even in battle, they are led by three gold crosses, who are protected by hundreds of thousands of guards. This is possible because, according to Mandeville, Prester John possesses an army composed of \u201cinnumerable men\u201d to bring with him into battle. When not riding into battle, he carries a plain wooden cross with him, which seems to be a sign of humbleness, piety, and respect for the way his Lord died. However, despite the fact that Mandeville claims the people of Prester John\u2019s kingdoms \u201cset no store by material possessions\u201d, he reports that Prester John also carries with him a vessel \u201cfull of gold and jewels, gems like rubies, sapphires, emeralds, topaz, irachite, chrysolites, and various other gems\u201d as a symbol of his lordship and power. Sir John Mandeville then goes on to describe Prester John\u2019s city, palace, and lands to be overflowing with exactly the type of material possession that he claims the people put no stock in. Mandeville seems to find it very important to emphasize the wealth and riches owned by the Prester John and his people. His descriptions of the gems and jewels that he apparently finds around every corner in Pentixoire seem intended to produce an awed and impressed reaction from his audience, rather than an accurate or realistic description of what a pious and humble Christian man might possess. In fact, most of Mandeville\u2019s descriptions seem targeted towards producing a reaction rather than composing what might seem like a real world; he describes nearly everything as being either good and beautiful or evil and malevolent and therefore fought against by Prester John, and he finishes by reenforcing Prester John\u2019s Christianity and the piousness of his people, even claiming that the kings under Prester John are all bishops, abbots, and other members of Christian clergy. Sir John Mandeville\u2019s account of the lands of Prester John were designed to produce and amazed and dazzled reaction from his audience and connect that reaction to the idea of the greatness of Christianity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sir John Mandeville ends his account with the tale of the land of Prester John. He claims Prester John is regarded as \u201cthe Emperor of India\u201d, and that his land, called \u201cthe isle of Pentixoire\u201d, is composed of many kingdoms of Christians. It is exceedingly clear that Mandeville has never been to India, as he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3778,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[143615],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-john-mandeville","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3778"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}