Presents to Princes: A Bestiary of Strange and Wondrous Beasts, Once Known, for a Time Forgotten, and Rediscovered
By Helmut Nickel, for Metropolitan Museum Journal (1991)
For starters, how cool would it be to have a name like “Helmut Nickel”? I wonder if the department/my thesis committee would let me adopt a really amazing nom de plume for my thesis (if I ever finish the f-cking thing).
Okay, so this article is a discussion of some iconic creatures that persisted in the Middle Ages, appearing as heraldic beasts, features in bestiaries, pets of (and gifts to) people of rank, and through various other cultural conduits. The article is full of absolutely gorgeous illustrations, and I only wish I could see them in colour. I wish someone would make a picture book of medieval beasts. Maybe someone already has. Time to tackle AbeBooks…
I will keep my tongue between my clenched teeth and ignore the disparaging remarks that Nickel makes about Mandeville. Nickel discusses Mandeville briefly in terms of his “colourful account of the Great Khan’s court” (135), and the red skins that hang on the walls, from animals that Mandeville calls the “panters” (variously translated as “panthers” and “pandas”). Nickel notes a level of detail in Mandeville’s description of the skins that surpasses “the sources happily exploited by Sir John to flesh out his own stories” (135). As Nickel comments, this may be taken as an indication that “Sir John was not just a bald-faced liar but had some traveling experience of his own” (135). An unnecessary and unscholarly dig, and a pointless inclusion given that the extra details could just as easily be attributed to pure invention and imagination.
Okay, I didn’t keep quiet, so I might as well just say it: Nickel, I liked your article, but I think you should leave Mandeville alone. Human storytelling around the world is built on a rich foundation of loving plagiarism. Mandeville’s popularity attests to his incredible power as a storyteller. Don’t be jealous!
Monday, December 6, 2010
Friday, December 3, 2010
Botanical Source Areas for some Oriental Spices (article)
Botanical Source-Areas for some Oriental Spices
By Robert M. Newcomb, for Economic Botany (1963)
This article is of only tangential interest to me in my research. It contains notes on the origins of a selection of spices, some of which are present in Mandeville’s travel narrative.
Newcomb speaks to a vagueness on the origin of many spices, which he argues is intentional, mostly to protect trade interests in the East. This leads to an interesting point on how merchants contributed to the obscurity around source areas:
“Tall tales and legends were promulgated as part of the camouflaging effort. Fire-breathing monsters, great carnivorous birds, perils and hardships of the sea, as well as strange and cruel tribes were supposed to isolate and guard the spice groves. Protection from the searching newcomer was thereby assured, assuming that he were not possessed of particular charms, incantations, route maps or commercial knowledge so vital for surmounting such obstacles” (127).
So, the invention (or popularization) or marvels was, served, among other things, to protect the interests of merchants in the East. This might bear in interesting ways on Mandeville’s discussion of pepper, the beasts that beset visitors to the pepper groves, and the charms (such as lemons) that will protect people who wish to harvest.
Beyond this, Newcomb maps three botanical regions as source areas for spices in Asia: India, Malaysia and South China (128). He also makes note of sources for the following spices, some of which occur in the Travels:
Anise (131)
Betel (130)
Cardamom (130)
Cassia (130)
Cinnamon (130)
Clove (130)
Cubeb (130)
Curryleaf tree (130)
Ginger (131)
Nutmeg (130)
Pepper, black (130)
Pepper, long (130)
Turmeric (131)
Zedoary (130)
By Robert M. Newcomb, for Economic Botany (1963)
This article is of only tangential interest to me in my research. It contains notes on the origins of a selection of spices, some of which are present in Mandeville’s travel narrative.
Newcomb speaks to a vagueness on the origin of many spices, which he argues is intentional, mostly to protect trade interests in the East. This leads to an interesting point on how merchants contributed to the obscurity around source areas:
“Tall tales and legends were promulgated as part of the camouflaging effort. Fire-breathing monsters, great carnivorous birds, perils and hardships of the sea, as well as strange and cruel tribes were supposed to isolate and guard the spice groves. Protection from the searching newcomer was thereby assured, assuming that he were not possessed of particular charms, incantations, route maps or commercial knowledge so vital for surmounting such obstacles” (127).
So, the invention (or popularization) or marvels was, served, among other things, to protect the interests of merchants in the East. This might bear in interesting ways on Mandeville’s discussion of pepper, the beasts that beset visitors to the pepper groves, and the charms (such as lemons) that will protect people who wish to harvest.
Beyond this, Newcomb maps three botanical regions as source areas for spices in Asia: India, Malaysia and South China (128). He also makes note of sources for the following spices, some of which occur in the Travels:
Anise (131)
Betel (130)
Cardamom (130)
Cassia (130)
Cinnamon (130)
Clove (130)
Cubeb (130)
Curryleaf tree (130)
Ginger (131)
Nutmeg (130)
Pepper, black (130)
Pepper, long (130)
Turmeric (131)
Zedoary (130)
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Some Fabulous Beasts (article)
Some Fabulous Beasts
By Margaret Robinson, for Folklore (1965)
In this article, Robinson examines the folkloric origins of some of the fantastical beasts that stand as examples of the medieval imagination. These origins she divides into categories:
“…we find that as far as written sources go we can divide them into roughly three categories: myths and legends, perpetuated in poetry and allegory; chronicles and travellers’ tales; and scientific works in natural history, botany and medicine” (275)
The interesting thing to my mind is that all three of these categories are present, to some extent, in Mandeville’s Travels. Because Mandeville adopts stray bits of whimsy, fact and invention from a diverse assemblage of sources, there are threads of science, history and literature woven into his narrative. You could call this troubling (it might, for example, make it hard to clearly discuss specific examples within the Mandeville text). However, I think it’s perfect. What appeals to me about the Travels is not the information they contain, per se. It’s how they speak to the imagination and storytelling impulses of the cultural moment they capture.
Some of Robinson’s passages seem to speak very clearly to author-personas like Mandeville, for example when she writes (of a specific kind of author)
“These writers are putting down what they believe to be true; what they have heard or read is true; or sometimes what they have heard or read but cannot quite believe to be true: there are of course a few exceptions who have crossed over the lines between credulity, wishful thinking, and downright fabrication” (277).
In other passages, there is no mystery, and she mentions Mandeville by name, for example as the final sample in a historical sequence of texts that speak of griffins and a certain type of giant ant:
“Mandeville’s ‘Travels’ collates all the evidence and concludes that it is in summer that the heat drives them underground, so that men can come and pick up the gold, but that in winter they are on the prowl in the daytime, so that the trick of the empty containers must be used. Mandeville puts this story in Taprobane, or Ceylon: his griffins are in Bachary, and can carry off to their nests a horse and its rider, or two oxen yoked together” (283).
Robinson also mentions both the barnacle goose (279) and the Tartary lamb (286) at different points in her article. Unfortunately, I did not find (as I’d hoped and expected) that she carried her thoughts to any interesting conclusions about what, in European culture, made a zoophytic hybrid like the barnacle goose or vegetable lamb seem plausible. But I suppose that every piece of scholarship I find that ignores this question deepens and widens a void that will make my discussion of it more compelling!
By Margaret Robinson, for Folklore (1965)
In this article, Robinson examines the folkloric origins of some of the fantastical beasts that stand as examples of the medieval imagination. These origins she divides into categories:
“…we find that as far as written sources go we can divide them into roughly three categories: myths and legends, perpetuated in poetry and allegory; chronicles and travellers’ tales; and scientific works in natural history, botany and medicine” (275)
The interesting thing to my mind is that all three of these categories are present, to some extent, in Mandeville’s Travels. Because Mandeville adopts stray bits of whimsy, fact and invention from a diverse assemblage of sources, there are threads of science, history and literature woven into his narrative. You could call this troubling (it might, for example, make it hard to clearly discuss specific examples within the Mandeville text). However, I think it’s perfect. What appeals to me about the Travels is not the information they contain, per se. It’s how they speak to the imagination and storytelling impulses of the cultural moment they capture.
Some of Robinson’s passages seem to speak very clearly to author-personas like Mandeville, for example when she writes (of a specific kind of author)
“These writers are putting down what they believe to be true; what they have heard or read is true; or sometimes what they have heard or read but cannot quite believe to be true: there are of course a few exceptions who have crossed over the lines between credulity, wishful thinking, and downright fabrication” (277).
In other passages, there is no mystery, and she mentions Mandeville by name, for example as the final sample in a historical sequence of texts that speak of griffins and a certain type of giant ant:
“Mandeville’s ‘Travels’ collates all the evidence and concludes that it is in summer that the heat drives them underground, so that men can come and pick up the gold, but that in winter they are on the prowl in the daytime, so that the trick of the empty containers must be used. Mandeville puts this story in Taprobane, or Ceylon: his griffins are in Bachary, and can carry off to their nests a horse and its rider, or two oxen yoked together” (283).
Robinson also mentions both the barnacle goose (279) and the Tartary lamb (286) at different points in her article. Unfortunately, I did not find (as I’d hoped and expected) that she carried her thoughts to any interesting conclusions about what, in European culture, made a zoophytic hybrid like the barnacle goose or vegetable lamb seem plausible. But I suppose that every piece of scholarship I find that ignores this question deepens and widens a void that will make my discussion of it more compelling!
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