WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
The Voiage and Travayle of Sir John Maundeville Knight / Which treateth of the way towards Hierusalem and of marvayles of Inde with other ilands and countreys cover

The Voiage and Travayle of Sir John Maundeville Knight / Which treateth of the way towards Hierusalem and of marvayles of Inde with other ilands and countreys

Chapter 85: CAP. LXXVII.
By Sir John Mandeville
Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

History - Medieval/Middle AgesReligion/SpiritualityTravel Writing

About This Book

The narrator offers a medieval travelogue that traces routes toward Jerusalem and across regions of Asia, Africa, and India, blending eyewitness-style observations, borrowed reports, and fantastic tales. It catalogs cities, landscapes, animals, plants, trade goods, and unfamiliar customs, alternating itinerary notes with moral and religious commentary. Frequent digressions present marvels and monstrous races alongside practical details about pilgrim routes, local rites, and fortifications, producing a text that shifts between guidebook information and imaginative storytelling. The structure mixes descriptive chapters with episodic anecdotes, inviting readers to weigh veracity while encountering the era's geographical knowledge, commerce, and popular curiosities.

CAP. LXXVII.

How the Emperour is brought unto his grave when he is dead.

AND when the Emperour is dead, they set him into a carte1 in the middes of his tente, and they set before him a table covered with a cloth, & there upon they set flesh and other meat & a cup full of milke of a mare, and they set a mare with a colte by him, & a horse sadled & bridled, and they lay upon the horse golde & silver, and all about him they make a greate grave, and with all the things they put him therein, as the tente, hors, golde & silver, and all that is aboute him & they say, when he cometh in to another worlde he shall not be without an house, nor hors, ne silver nor gold, and the mare shall give him milke & bringe forth more horses till he be well stored in the other worlde, & one of his chamberlaines or servants is put with him in the earth for to doe him service in the other worlde, for they belieue that when hee is dead he shall go to another world, and be a greater lord there than here; & when that he is laid in the earth no man shal be so hardy2 for to speake of him before his frendes.

1:  Other editions say a chair.

2:  I.e., his name is never mentioned.