ABSTRACT
Sir John Mandeville's use of history conforms to several medieval traditions, although his historical references are scattered throughout the Book rather than comprising a definite chronology of events in a specific area of the work. Mandeville's use of history provides the equivalent to the text on a mappa mundi, legends placed where necessary to complete the picture and help the viewer to understand what he sees. Paradise itself is described only at the end of the Book, the first home of man being the most inaccessible, both physically and spiritually. In his use of history both as exemplum and simply as interesting fact, Mandeville introduces events and persons from the ancient world whose stories would have been as familiar to his audiences as those of the Bible. His use of biblical history was ignored in both the Metrical and the Vulgate Latin Versions -although the latter gives the Book a more systematically historical slant.
