Prester John

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"Preste" enthroned on a map of East Africa in an atlas prepared for Queen Mary, 1558. (British Library)

The legends of Prester John (also Presbyter John), popular in Europe from the 12th through the 17th centuries, told of a Christian patriarch and king said to rule over a Christian nation lost amidst the Muslims and pagans in the Orient. As these legends became more popular, written accounts of Prester John's fabled kingdom became variegated collections of medieval popular fantasy.

Reportedly a descendant of one of the Three Magi, Prester John was said to be a generous ruler and a virtuous man, presiding over a realm full of riches and strange creatures, in which the Patriarch of Saint Thomas resided. His kingdom was thought to contain such marvels as the Gates of Alexander and the Fountain of Youth, and was even understood to border the Earthly Paradise. Among his treasures was a mirror through which every province could be seen, the fabled original from which the "mirror literature" of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance was derived.[1]

At first, Prester John was imagined to be in India, with tales of the "Nestorian" Christians and of Thomas the Apostle's subcontinental travels (as described in the Acts of Thomas) providing the first seeds of the legend. After the coming of the Mongols to the Western world, accounts placed Prester John in Central Asia, and eventually Portuguese explorers convinced themselves they had found him in Ethiopia.

The search for Prester John's fabled kingdom was the goal of numerous religious and secular quests, firing the imaginations of generations of adventurers, but remaining out of reach. He was a symbol to European Christians of the Church's universality, transcending culture and geography to encompass all humanity, in a time when ethnic and inter-religious tension made such a vision seem remote.

Origin of the legend

The legend of Prester John owes its genesis to the confluence of numerous hagiographies, legends, and travel accounts, all of which combined in the public imagination of Africa/Asia in the Middle Ages. One point of origin for these popular beliefs was the hagiography of Saint Thomas, with its various tales of proselytizing in India, which date back to at least the 3rd century. Also relevant to this development were the distorted reports of the Assyrian Church's establishment throughout Asia. This sect, called "Nestorianism" by Europeans (who mistook it for an adherence to the teachings of Nestorius), gained a wide following in the Eastern nations and engaged the Western imagination as an assemblage both exotic and familiarly Christian.[2] Additionally, a kernel of the tradition may have been drawn from the preaching of Saint Irenaeus, as recorded by the ecclesiastical historian and bishop Eusebius,[3] on the shadowy early Christian figure John the Presbyter of Syria, supposedly the author of two of the Epistles of John.[4] The martyr bishop Papias had been Irenaeus' teacher; Papias, in turn, had supposedly received his apostolic tradition from John the Presbyter. However, little links this figure to the Prester John legend beyond the name.[5] Finally, recent scholarship suggests that source material for the Christian legend was also provided by medieval Jewish beliefs surrounding the continued thriving of the Lost Tribes of Israel in Africa and Asia, especially as described in Eldad ha-Dani's mythical travelogue.[6]

Whatever its influences, the legend began to be propagated in earnest in the early 12th century with two reports of visits of an Archbishop of India to Constantinople and of a Patriarch of India to Rome, both during the reign of Pope Callixtus II (1119 – 1124).[7] These visits, apparently sponsored by the Saint Thomas Christians of India, cannot be confirmed, evidence of both being secondhand reports. Later in the century, the first instance of a more developed form of the legend can be found in the Chronicon (1145) of German chronicler Otto of Freising, where he reports a fascinating conversation between Hugh, bishop of Jabala in Syria, and Pope Eugene III.[8][9] Hugh was an emissary of Prince Raymond of Antioch seeking Western aid against the Saracens after the Siege of Edessa, and his counsel incited Eugene to call for the commencement of the Second Crusade. In making his case, he told Otto, in the presence of the pope, that Prester John, a Nestorian Christian who served in the dual position of priest and king, had regained the city of Ecbatana from the brother monarchs of Media and Persia, the Samiardi, in a great battle "not many years ago". Further, Hugh alleged that Prester John, following this victory, set out for Jerusalem to rescue the Holy Land, but that "the swollen waters of the Tigris compelled him to return to his own country."[10] Even in this early form, the mythical monarch's holiness was attributed to his descent from the Biblical Magi.[11]

Intriguingly, Otto's story appears to have a legitimate (though muddled) origin in actual events. In 1141, the Kara-Khitan Khanate under Yelü Dashi defeated the Seljuk Turks near Samarkand. The Seljuks ruled over Persia at the time and were the most powerful force in the Muslim world, and the defeat at Samarkand weakened them substantially. The Kara-Khitan were not Christians, however, and there is no reason to suppose Yelü Dashi was ever called Prester John. However, several vassals of the Kara-Khitan practiced Nestorian Christianity, which may have contributed to the legend.[12] This realization of the historical basis for Otto's account was introduced into the academic mainstream by Lev Gumilev in his popular book about Prester John, "Searches for an Imaginary Kingdom" (1970).

Regardless of whether Gumilev's contention is accurate, the defeat of the Seljuk's provided undeniable encouragement to the Crusaders and inspired a notion of Christian deliverance arising from the East. For this reason, it is possible Otto recorded Hugh's confused report to prevent complacency in the Crusade's European backers; as, according to his account, no help could be expected from a powerful Eastern king.[13][14]

Letter of Prester John

Though little written evidence of the legend can be traced to the following two decades (1145-1165), the continued prevalence of the tale is attested to by the subsequent explosion of the Letter of Prester John, a document that transmitted the lore of the Oriental Christian monarch throughout Europe. As Michael Uebel notes, "the Letter of Prester John, existing in over 250 Latin and vernacular manuscripts, was a medieval bestseller."[15] An epistolary wonder tale with parallels suggesting its author knew the Romance of Alexander and the above-mentioned Acts of Thomas, the Letter was supposedly written to the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Comnenus (1143 – 1180) by Prester John, descendant of one of the Three Magi and King of India.[16]

The plethora of worldly riches and miraculous wonders it described captured the imagination of Europeans, and it was translated into numerous languages. The reports were so far believed that Pope Alexander III sent a letter to Prester John via his emissary Philip, his physician, on September 27, 1177. Of Philip, nothing more is recorded, but it is most probable he did not return with word from Prester John.[17] As for the Letter, it continued to circulate, accruing more embellishments with each copy. The invention of printing perpetuated the letter's popularity, such that it was still current in popular culture during the period of European exploration. Regardless of the various elaborations, all versions centered around a lost kingdom of Nestorian Christians that existed (and in fact thrived) in the vastnesses of Africa or Asia. A later example of these tales of wonder and excess can be found in the writings of John Mandeville:

[Prester John] dwelleth commonly in the city of Susa. And there is his principal palace, that is so rich and so noble, that no man will trow it by estimation, but he had seen it. And above the chief tower of the palace be two round pommels of gold, and in everych of them be two carbuncles great and large, that shine full bright upon the night. And the principal gates of his palace be of precious stone that men clepe sardonyx, and the border and the bars be of ivory. And the windows of the halls and chambers be of crystal. And the tables whereon men eat, some be of emeralds, some of amethyst, and some of gold, full of precious stones; and the pillars that bear up the tables be of the same precious stones. And the degrees to go up to his throne, where he sitteth at the meat, one is of onyx, another is of crystal, and another of jasper green, another of amethyst, another of sardine, another of cornelian, and the seventh, that he setteth on his feet, is of chrysolite. And all these degrees be bordered with fine gold, with the tother precious stones, set with great pearls orient. And the sides of the siege of his throne be of emeralds, and bordered with gold full nobly, and dubbed with other precious stones and great pearls. And all the pillars in his chamber be of fine gold with precious stones, and with many carbuncles, that give great light upon the night to all people. And albeit that the carbuncles give light right enough, natheles, at all times burneth a vessel of crystal full of balm, for to give good smell and odour to the emperor, and to void away all wicked airs and corruptions. And the form of his bed is of fine sapphires, bended with gold, for to make him sleep well and to refrain him from lechery; for he will not lie with his wives, but four sithes in the year, after the four seasons, and that is only for to engender children.[18]

In modern times, textual analysis of the letter's variant Hebrew versions have suggested an origin among the Jews of northern Italy or Languedoc: several Italian words remained in the Hebrew texts.[19] At any rate, the Letter’s author was most likely a Westerner, though his or her purpose remains unclear.[20]

Mongol Empire

Prester John from Hartmann Schedel's Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493

In 1221, Jacques de Vitry, Bishop of Acre, returned from the disastrous Fifth Crusade with good news: King David of India, the son or grandson of Prester John, had mobilized his armies against the Saracens. He had already conquered Persia, then under the Khwarezmian Empire's control, and was moving on towards Baghdad as well. This descendent of the great king who had defeated the Seljuks in 1141 planned to reconquer and rebuild Jerusalem.[21][22]

Much to the surprise of Christian Europe, this "King David" was no benevolent Nestorian monarch nor even a Christian, but Genghis Khan! However, instead of destroying the mythic complex surrounding Prester John, it merely caused it to develop in a new direction. The Mongol Empire's rise gave Western Christians the opportunity to visit lands they had never seen before, and they set out in large numbers along the Empire's secure roads. The belief that a lost Nestorian kingdom existed in the east, or at least that the Crusader states' salvation depended on an alliance with an Eastern monarch, explains the numerous Christian ambassadors and missionaries sent to the Mongols, such as the Franciscan explorers Giovanni da Pian del Carpine in 1245 and William of Rubruck in 1253.[23]

More specifically, this period saw the mythic link between Prester John and Genghis Khan becoming elaborated upon, as the Prester came to be identified with Genghis' foster father, Toghrul, king of the Keraits (given the Jin Dynasty (1115–1234) title "Wang Khan Toghrul"). Chroniclers and explorers whose writings were generally seen as authoritative, such as Marco Polo,[24] Crusader-historian Jean de Joinville,[25] and the Franciscan voyager Odoric of Pordenone[26] stripped Prester John of much of his otherworldly veneer, portraying him more realistically as a powerful (though utterly human) monarch. For instance, Joinville's chronicle describes him as the strongest enemy of the Mongols, until a "wise man" united all the Tartar tribes and led them to victory against him.[25] William of Rubruck build upon these these with various elaborations concerning the relationship between the Prester and the Asian conquerors. In his account, he suggests that a certain "Vut", lord of the Keraits and brother to the Nestorian King John, was defeated by the Mongols under Genghis. Genghis made off with Vut's daughter and married her to his son, and their union produced Möngke, the Khan at the time William wrote.[27] According to Marco Polo, the war between the Prester and Genghis started when Genghis, new ruler of the rebellious Tartars, asked for the hand of Prester John's daughter in marriage. Angered that his lowly vassal would make such a request, Prester John denied him in no uncertain terms. In the war that followed, Genghis triumphed and Prester John perished.[28]

The major characteristic of Prester John tales from this period is that the king is portrayed not as an invincible hero, but merely one of many rulers defeated by the unassailable advance of the Mongols. However, as the Mongol Empire collapsed, Europeans began to shift away from the idea that Prester John had ever really been a Central Asian king.[29] Further, they had little hope of finding him there in the post-Mongolian period, as travel through the region became dangerous without the security the Empire had provided. In works such as The Travels of Sir John Mandeville[30][31] and Historia Trium Regum by John of Hildesheim,[32] Prester John's domain tends to regain its fantastic aspects and finds itself located not on the steppes of Central Asia, but back in India proper, or some other exotic locale (often Ethiopia).

As one example of these newly decontextualized depictions of the Holy Ruler, we can turn to Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, which tied the history of Prester John to the Holy Grail legend by suggesting that the Prester is the son of the Grail maiden and the (converted) Saracen knight, Feirefiz.[33][34] In this way, the legend managed to survive both the rise and fall of the Mongols, despite early identifications between their titular hero and the Central Asian conquerors.

Ethiopia

A map of Prester John's kingdom as Ethiopia

Though Prester John had been considered the ruler of India since the legend's beginnings, "India" was a vague concept to the Europeans. Writers often spoke of the "Three Indias", and lacking any real knowledge of the Indian Ocean, they sometimes considered Ethiopia one of the three. Westerners knew Ethiopia was a mighty Christian nation, but contact had been sporadic since the rise of Islam. Since no Prester John was to be found in Asia, European imagination moved him around the blurry frontiers of "India" until they found an appropriately powerful kingdom for him in Ethiopia.[35]

Marco Polo had discussed Ethiopia as a magnificent Christian land[36] and Orthodox Christians had a legend that the nation would one day rise up and invade Arabia,[37] but they did not place Prester John there. All of this changed in in 1306, when the mythic imagination of the Europe was inflamed by the arrival of thirty Ethiopian ambassadors from Emperor Wedem Arad—especially as Prester John was mentioned as the patriarch of their church in a record of their visit.[38] Building upon this, the first clear description of an African Prester John emerged twenty three years later, in the Mirabilia Descripta of Dominican missionary Jordanus (1329).[39] In discussing the "Third India", Jordanus records a number of fanciful stories about the land and its king, whom he says Europeans call Prester John. Following the propagation of this account, an African location became increasingly popular home for the legendary Hero King; by the time Ethiopian emperor Lebna Dengel and the Portuguese had established diplomatic contact with each other in 1520, Prester John was the name by which Europeans knew the Emperor of Ethiopia (despite the fact that this term was unfamiliar to the Ethiopians themselves).[40]

This trend in nomenclature (with respect to Ethiopian royalty) was also evidenced elsewhere Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. When ambassadors from Emperor Zara Yaqob attended the Council of Florence in 1441, they were confused when council prelates insisted on referring to their monarch as Prester John. They tried to explain that nowhere in Zara Yaqob's list of regnal names did that title occur. "No matter," says Robert Silverberg, author of The Realm of Prester John, "Prester John was what Europe wanted to call the King of Ethiopia, and Prester John is what Europe called him."[41] Some writers who used the title did understand it was not an indigenous honorific; for instance Friar Jordanus seems to use it simply because his readers would have been familiar with it, not because he thought it authentic.[42]

It should be noted that while Ethiopia has been argued as the genesis of the Prester John legend for many years, most experts today believe the legend was simply adapted to fit that nation in the same fashion it had been projected upon Wang Khan and Central Asia during the 13th century. Modern scholars find nothing about the Prester or his country in the early material that would make Ethiopia a more suitable identification than any place else, and furthermore, specialists in Ethiopian history have effectively demonstrated the story was not widely known there until well after European contact.[43] When the Czech Franciscan Remedius Prutky asked Emperor Iyasus II about this identification in 1751, Prutky states the man was "astonished, and told me that the kings of Abyssinia had never been accustomed to call themselves by this name."[44] In a footnote to this passage, Richard Pankhurst opines that this is apparently the first recorded statement by an Ethiopian monarch about this tale, and they were likely ignorant of the title until Prutky's inquiry.[45]

End of the legend

When the newly developed (or discovered) principles of scientific investigation came to be applied to historiography in the 17th century, as by academics like the German Orientalist Hiob Ludolf, it was conclusively proved that there was no actual native connection between Prester John and the Ethiopian monarchs.[46] With this, the fabled king (and his Utopian kingdom) was stricken from the maps. Despite its eventual demise, the legend was a notable historical force, as it affected several hundred years of European and world history (both directly and indirectly) by encouraging the far-ranging exploits of European explorers, missionaries, scholars and treasure hunters.

Notes

  1. ↑ See Speculum in medieval titles like the Speculum maius of Vincent de Beauvais, the Mirrour of the Blessed Lyf of Iesu Christ (about 1400) and A Mirror for Magistrates (1559), and other works.
  2. ↑ Silverberg, p. 20
  3. ↑ Eusebius. Historia Ecclesiastica, book III, xxxix, 4.
  4. ↑ According to the 5th century Decretum Gelasianum.
  5. ↑ Silverberg, pp. 35–39.
  6. ↑ Abraham Gross, "The expulsion and the search for the Ten Tribes," Judaism 41 (Spr 1992), p 130-147. 132-133.
  7. ↑ Silverberg, pp. 29–34. See also: Alois Stockmann, Catholic Encyclopedia - "Prester John," who notes (in keeping with the content of the previous paragraph) that these isolated events certainly would not have been sufficient grounding for the emergence of the legend. Retrieved June 14, 2007.
  8. ↑ Halsall, Paul (1997). "Otto of Freising: The Legend of Prester John". Internet Medieval Sourcebook. Retrieved June 20, 2005.
  9. ↑ Silverberg, pp. 3–7
  10. ↑ Alois Stockmann, Catholic Encyclopedia - "Prester John." Retrieved June 14, 2007.
  11. ↑ C. F. Beckingham, "The Achievements of Prester John," in Prester John, the Mongols, and the Ten Lost Tribes, (1996).
  12. ↑ Silverberg, pp. 12–13
  13. ↑ Silverberg, p. 8
  14. ↑ Alois Stockmann, Catholic Encyclopedia - "Prester John." Retrieved June 14, 2007.
  15. ↑ Uebel, "The Pathogenesis of Medieval History", Texas Studies in Languages and Literature Vol 44(1) (Spring 2002), 47-65. 55.
  16. ↑ The contents of this missive are described in Karl F. Helleiner's "Prester John's Letter: A Mediaeval Utopia," Phoenix Vol. 13(2) (Summer, 1959), pp. 47-57. See also: Silverberg, pp. 40–73.
  17. ↑ Silverberg, pp. 58–60
  18. ↑ "Sir John Mandeville" (author unknown) (ca. 1366), referenced online in Medieval Sourcebook: Mandeville on Prester John, retrieved June 14, 2007.
  19. ↑ Bar-Ilan, Meir (1995). "Prester John: Fiction and History". In History of European Ideas, volume 20 (1-3), pp. 291-298. Retrieved June 20, 2005.
  20. ↑ This hypothesis is summarized in Charles E. Nowell's "The Historical Prester John," Speculum Vol. 28(3) (July 1953), 435-445. Specifically, he notes that "Olschki [one of the exponents of the "Prester John as European allegory" theory] believes that the Prester John of the famous letter had no historical prototype and that it is useless to seek his kingdom in terms of geography. He considers the letter a utopian document whose author, surely a priest of the Western Church, though neither of history nor of geography but meant only to describe an ideal society, frankly imaginary yet not utterly beyond the power of mankind to achieve" (437).
  21. ↑ Jacques de Vitry; Huygens, R. B. C. (Ed.) (1970). Lettres de Jacques de Vitry. Leiden.
  22. ↑ Silverberg, pp. 71–73.
  23. ↑ Stockmann, Catholic Encyclopedia - "Prester John." Retrieved June 14, 2007. See also: Silverberg, p. 86.
  24. ↑ Marco Polo, The Travels, translated by Ronald Latham (translator), (New York: Penguin Books, 1958). ISBN 0-14-044057-7. 93–96.
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 Jean de Joinville, Chronicles of the Crusades, translated by Geffroy de Villehardouin and Margaret R. B. Shaw, (New York: Penguin, 1963). ISBN 0-14-044124-7.
  26. ↑ Odoric of Pordenone, The Travels of Friar Odoric, translated by Henry Yule and with an introduction by Paolo Chiesa, (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2001). ISBN 0-8028-4963-6.
  27. ↑ William of Rubruck; Jackson, Peter; Ruysbroeck, Willem van; Morgan, David (editors) (1990). The Mission of Friar William of Rubruck. London: Hakluyt Society. ISBN 0-904180-29-8.
  28. ↑ Marco Polo, pp. 93–96.
  29. ↑ Silverberg, p. 139.
  30. ↑ Halsall, Paul (March 1996). "Mandeville on Prester John". Internet Medieval Sourcebook. Retrieved June 20, 2005.
  31. ↑ Mosely, C. W. R. D. (1983). The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, pp. 167–171. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-044435-1.
  32. ↑ John of Hildesheim (1997). The Story of the Three Kings. Neumann Press. ISBN 0-911845-68-2.
  33. ↑ Wolfram von Eschenbach; Hatto, A. T. (1980). Parzival, p. 408. New York: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-044361-4.
  34. ↑ Hilda Swinburne, "Gahmuret and Feirefiz in Wolfram's 'Parzival,'" The Modern Language Review, Vol. 51(2) (April 1956), 195-202. 201.
  35. ↑ Nowell, 438; Silverberg, 163–164.
  36. ↑ Marco Polo, 303–307.
  37. ↑ Silverberg, pp. 176–177.
  38. ↑ Silverberg, pp. 164–165.
  39. ↑ Jordanus, Mirabilia, chapter VI (2).
  40. ↑ Silverberg, pp. 188–189. The relationship between the legendary Prester (and his utopian Christian kingdom) and the Portugese impetus towards world-spanning navigation is explored at length in Francis M. Rogers's The Quest for Eastern Christians: Travels and Rumor in the Age of Discovery, (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1962).
  41. ↑ Silverberg, p. 189. See also Stockmann, Catholic Encyclopedia for a list of locales associated with Prester John.
  42. ↑ Silverberg, p. 166–167.
  43. ↑ See, for example, Nowell (passim) and Elaine Sanceau, The Land of Prester John: A chronicle of Portuguese exploration, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1944).
  44. ↑ Arrowsmith-Brown, p. 115.
  45. ↑ Arrowsmith-Brown, p. 115 n 24.
  46. ↑ Ludolf, Hiob (1681). Historia Aethiopica.

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Arrowsmith-Brown, J. H. (translator). Prutky's travels to Ethiopia and other countries. London: Hakluyt Society, 1991. ISBN 0904180301.
  • Baum, Wilhelm. Die Verwandlungen des Mythos vom Reich des Priesterkönigs Johannes. Klagenfurt, 1999. ISBN 3902005025.
  • Beckingham, Charles and Hamilton, Bernard (editors). Prester John, the Mongols and the Ten Lost Tribes. Aldershot, UK: Variorum, 1996. ISBN 0-86078-553-X.
  • Eco, Umberto. Baudolino. Translated from the Italian by William Weaver. New York: Harcourt, 2002. ISBN 0151006903
  • Jubber, Nicholas. The Prester Quest. Doubleday, 2005. ISBN 0-385-60702-4
  • Polo, Marco. The Travels of Marco Polo. Translated by Ronald Latham (translator). New York: Penguin Books, 1958. ISBN 0-14-044057-7.
  • Silverberg, Robert. The Realm of Prester John. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1996. ISBN 1-84212-409-9
  • Thorndike, Lynn. A History of Magic and Experimental Science: During the First Thirteen Centuries of Our Era. (Volume II). New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1923. ISBN 0-231-08795-0
  • Uebel, Michael. Ecstatic Transformation: On the Uses of Alterity in the Middle Ages. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. ISBN 1-4039-6524-2.
  • Vitale, Robert Anthony. Edition and study of the "Letter of Prester John to the Emperor Manuel of Constantinople": The Anglo-Norman rhymed version. (Ph.D. diss., University of Maryland, 1975).

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