Career
The author set out on a journey that took him first to Egypt where he participated as mercenary in the sultan's wars against the Bedouins. He next visited Palestine, then, by way of India, also the interior of Asia and China, and served for fifteen months in the army of the Great Khan of Mongolia. After an absence of thirty-four years he returned in 1356, and at the instance and with the help of a physician, whose acquaintance he had made in Egypt at the court of the sultan, he wrote in Lüttich an account of his experiences and observations. In the manuscripts 1372 is given as the year of his death. Later investigation, however, made it clear that the real author was Jean de Bourgoigne, or à la Barbe, a physician from Lüttich, to whom several Medical works are also attributed. He really lived for some time in Egypt, and during his sojourn may have conceived the idea of describing a journey to the Orient. Having visited no foreign country except Egypt, he was compelled to make use of the descriptions of others and to publish his compilation under a pseudonym. He discloses, in the situations borrowed often word for word from various authors, an extraordinarily wide range of reading, and he understood how to present his matter so attractively that the work in manuscript and print had a wonderful popularity.
