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How is the name Mandeville linked to the 2012 London Olympics? Any link with the Middle Age travel writer Mandeville?

Question #152105. Asked by chabenao1.
Last updated May 22 2025.
Originally posted May 20 2025 10:20 AM.

Philip_Eno
Answer has 4 votes
Currently Best Answer
Philip_Eno
17 year member
150 replies

Answer has 4 votes.

Currently voted the best answer.
It is at the Stoke Mandeville hospital in Buckinghamshire, UK, where neurologist Sir Ludwig Guttmann established the Stoke Mandeville Games, a sporting event for people with disabilities, that evolved into the Paralympics.

link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Guttmann#Stoke_Mandeville_and_Paralympic_Games

link https://www.buckinghamshire.gov.uk/culture-and-tourism/theatres/paralympic-heritage/

May 20 2025, 11:05 AM
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sportsherald star
Answer has 2 votes
sportsherald star
14 year member
711 replies avatar

Answer has 2 votes.
Regarding any link with the Middle Ages travel writer Sir John Mandeville, I'd say yes and no. It is generally thought that the writings assigned to that name were collected from several sources, possibly added to some first-hand experiences, and there is much uncertainty as to who that author really was. As a pseudonym, the name de Mandeville had an aristocratic air due to Geoffrey de Mandeville acquiring English estates after the Norman Conquest. One of these estates included a village named Stoke, which then was relabelled Stoke Mandeville, much later to be the site of the hospital that pioneered the Paralympics. So, the famous Mandevilles who gave their name to the village of Stoke Mandeville (and subsequently its hospital) may have inspired the name used by the (possibly fictional) travelling knight Sir John Mandeville.
The village was originally recorded as Stoches in the Domesday Book of 1086, from the Old English word stoc meaning an outlying farm or hamlet. The suffix Mandeville was first recorded in 1284 when the manor was listed as being in the hands of the powerful Norman de Mandeville family.
link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoke_Mandeville
Sir John Mandeville (flourished 14th century) was the purported author of a collection of travelers' tales from around the world, The Voyage and Travels of Sir John Mandeville, Knight, generally known as The Travels of Sir John Mandeville. The tales are selections from the narratives of genuine travelers, embellished with Mandeville's additions and described as his own adventures.

The actual author of the tales remains as uncertain as the existence of the English knight Sir John Mandeville himself. The book originated in French about 1356-57 and was soon translated into many languages, an English version appearing about 1375. The narrator Mandeville identifies himself as a knight of St. Albans.
link https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Mandeville

See link https://celtic2realms-medievalnews.blogspot.com/2018/01/origin-and-early-history-of-mandeville.html for more on the Mandeville families, many of whom confusingly were named Geoffrey.

May 22 2025, 6:22 PM
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