[MOC] The Marvellous Medieval Travels of Sir John Mandeville

[Menapian]

I love the wild and surreal imagination of medieval writing and illustration, and it doesn't get any wilder than Sir John Mandeville's fourteenth-century Book of Marvels and Travels, which is packed full of dog-headed men, phoenixes, headless people with faces on their chests, and lambs growing from trees. In this MOC, I've tried to recreate some of these supposed wonders in the style of medieval illustrationss - you can see some of the images that inspired me at the end of the Flickr album.

The author of Mandeville's Travels claimed to be an English knight who had travelled to the Holy Land in the 1320s, and then on to China and the mythical kingdom of the African Christian king Prester John. In fact, most of the text was stitched together from other travel accounts and classical texts, and 'John Mandeville' himself may well have been an invention of the real anonymous author. Still, the book was a huge sensation and became of the most widely-read and circulated manuscripts of the Middle Ages - more copies of Mandeville have survived than of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and centuries later travellers in the Age of Exploration still relied on his work.

In this MOC, I've recreated:

- a wonky medieval lion (possibly drawn by someone who had never seen the real thing).

 

- a blemmye, one of a race of headless men with faces on their chest. Mandeville described them as "ugly folk without heads, who have eyes in each shoulder". This one seems pretty friendly, though.

 

- the King of the Cynocephali, the dog-headed people who lived on a remote island and worshipped an ox. Mandeville described this king as "a very faithful and righteous man" whose kingdom was safe and justly-ruled. Definitely a good boy.

 

- a phoenix, described by Mandeville as a colourful and long-lived bird with a comb like a peacock, which returned to a certain temple in Egypt every 500 years to be ritually burned on the altar before reviving after three days in the ashes.

 

- the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary, a legendary plant which was said to grow living sheep as its fruit. (This may have been a misinterpretation based on hearing rumours about cotton plants.)

 

- ...and finally, a little vignette of 'Mandeville' himself bragging about his unlikely travels to a rather bewildered audience.

 

I hope you enjoy it!

[Siroco]

Amazing! or should I say marvellous 

I do believe Umberto Eco "Baudolino" was somewhat inspired by this.

Excelent work! thanks for sharing! 

 

[Menapian]

14 hours ago, Siroco said:

Amazing! or should I say marvellous 

I do believe Umberto Eco "Baudolino" was somewhat inspired by this.

Excelent work! thanks for sharing! 

 

Thanks, you're very kind! I read Baudolino years ago and remember enjoying how surreal it became as he wandered off the edge of the map. Maybe time for a reread!

[Feuer Zug]

Quite the wonderful designs. NPU all around to create the flattened medieval look.

[Captain Braunsfeld]

Amazing creation. I've never seen something like this before 

[GeoBrick]

First thing that popped up in my mind when seeing this was "Ah, a medieval Picasso!".

[LEGO Train 12 Volts]

I like the last picture where Sir John Mandeville has a face that doesn't reveal whether he's telling the truth or lying a little

The phoenix is very cool!

[idlemarvel]

The most imaginative thing I've seen in Lego for many a year. Very well thought out and executed. Thanks for sharing. 

[_TLG_]

Interesting idea, nice build!

[Menapian]

Thanks for the kind feedback, everyone. I'm glad that so many of you have enjoyed the build and found the subject original and engaging!

I'd encourage anyone who's interested to look into Mandeville's Travels - it's a fascinating book which shaped European ideas about the world for centuries. On his voyage in 1492, Columbus wrote back to Spain noting that he hadn't encountered any Mandeville-style monsters yet, but he was sure there might be some on the next island over...