L’ailleurs dans les Voyages de Mandeville (XIVe siècle) : entre rêverie populaire et réflexion savante

Abstract

Mandeville’s Travels, a fourteenth-century narrative, questions the link between learned and popular culture in medieval travel books. Indeed, the large amount of sources which the author used to depict the world reveals his encyclopedic ambitions. Moreover, Mandeville takes part in the intellectual and scientific reflections of his time. Nevertheless, his narrative is also characterized by a taste for the marvelous, for the pleasures of telling stories and staging sensual pleasures. Now these themes are usually associated with popular culture. A certain tension seems to exist within the book between learned and popular cultures. The unity of the book is nonetheless achieved through a criticism of medieval Christendom which aims at stirring consciences in all levels of society.