.

The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, thus appealing to the popular heart,
were most widely read in the monasteries and repeated among the people.
Innumerable copies were made in manuscript, and finally in print, and so
the old myths received a new life.(432)

(432) For Fulk of Chartres and crusading travellers generally, see
Bongars' Gesta Dei and the French Recueil; also Histories of the
Crusades by Wilken, Sybel, Kugler, and others; see also Robinson,
Biblical Researches, vol. ii, p. 109, and Tobler, Bibliographia
Geographica Palestinae, 1867, p. 12. For Benjamin of Tudela's statement,
see Wright's Collection of Travels in Palestine, p. 84, and Asher's
edition of Benjamin of Tudela's travels, vol. i, pp. 71, 72; also
Charton, vol. i, p. 180. For Borchard or Burchard, see full text in the
Reyssbuch dess Heyligen Landes; also Grynaeus, Nov. Orbis, Basil, 1532,
fol. 298, 329. For Ernoul, see his L'Estat de la Cite de Hierusalem, in
Michelant and Reynaud, Itineraires Francaises au 12me et 13me Siecles.
For Petrus Diaconus, see his book De Locis Sanctis, edited by Gamurrini,
Rome, 1887, pp. 126, 127. For Mandeville I have compared several
editions, especially those in the Reyssbuch, in Canisius, and in Wright,
with Halliwell's reprint and with the rare Strasburg edition of 1484
in the Cornell University Library: the whole statement regarding the
experiment with iron and feathers is given differently in different
copies. The statement that he saw the feathers sink and the iron swim
is made in the Reyssbuch edition, Frankfort, 1584. The story, like the
saints' legends, evidently grew as time went on, but is none the less
interesting as showing the general credulity. Since writing the above, I
have been glad to find my view of Mandeville's honesty confirmed by the
Rev. Dr. Robinson, and by Mr. Gage in his edition of Ritter's Palestine.

In the fifteenth century wonders increased. In 1418 we have the Lord of
Caumont, who makes a pilgrimage and gives us a statement which is
the result of the theological reasoning of centuries, and especially
interesting as a typical example of the theological method in contrast
with the scientific. He could not understand how the blessed waters of
the Jordan could be allowed to mingle with the accursed waters of the
Dead Sea. In spite, then, of the eye of sense, he beheld the water with
the eye of faith, and calmly announced that the Jordan water passes
through the sea, but that th