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Mandeville's Intolerance: The Contest For Souls And Sacred Sites In The Travels Of Sir John Mandeville, Robert Patterson
Mandeville's Intolerance: The Contest For Souls And Sacred Sites In The Travels Of Sir John Mandeville, Robert Patterson
All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)
As the first medieval text to combine the matter of the East with the matter of the Holy Land, The Travels circulated widely in over 300 manuscripts, making it an important text when studying medieval Christian attitudes toward non-Christians. Although many scholars point to The Travels as a tolerant text ahead of its time, a historicized approach reveals that Mandeville's project is better understood in terms of his intolerant universalism. I argue that in casting non-Christians as proto-Christians who stand as evidence of Christianity's global spiritual hegemony, the author appropriates and consumes them in service of his universalist agenda. I …