Past Perfect: A Knight in Bethlehem?

Home > Magazines > BAR > November/December 2009

The prologue of The Travels of Sir John Mandeville begins in old-fashioned English, “I, John Mandeville, Knight, albeit I be not worthy, that was born in England, in the town of St. Albans, and passed the sea in the year of our Lord Jesu[s] Christ, 1322, in the day of St. Michael.” Although it has been widely read ever since its publication around 1360, modern scholars believe that the book was not actually an account of Mandeville’s own travels through the Holy Land, Turkey, Armenia, Persia, Syria, Arabia, Egypt, Africa and India; nor do they believe he was a […]

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Footnotes

The Innocents were the male children under two years old in and around Bethlehem who were killed by Herod following the birth of Jesus, according to Matthew 2:16–18.

Jacob’s 12 sons were born by four women: his wives, Leah and Rachel, and their maidservants Bilhah and Zilpah. Rachel was the mother of Joseph and Benjamin (Genesis 35:22–26).