Alternative Forms of Prester John
1 2015-07-16T12:48:06-07:00 Christopher Taylor // christopher.eric.taylor@gmail.com 946e2cf6115688379f338b70e5b6f6c039f8ba6f 5281 5 plain 2021-07-03T10:29:48-07:00 Christopher Taylor // christopher.eric.taylor@gmail.com 946e2cf6115688379f338b70e5b6f6c039f8ba6fAlternate Titles: King David, King George, King of the Abexi, King of Tangut, Kofar al-Turak, Keeper of the Grail, King Voddomaradeg, Senapo, King Ogané, Christien de Sentour
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2015-05-15T13:53:07-07:00
The Letter of Prester John
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Letter Description
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2021-06-11T14:18:58-07:00
Some twenty years after Otto's anecdote began to inspire belief in an eastern Christian king, a letter began to circulate (c. 1165) purportedly sent from a king who called himself Prester John (Presbyter Iohannes). In what came to be known as the "Letter of Prester John," the whispers from twenty years prior grow into the boastful musings a devout Christian king of an immense, militarily powerful kingdom who promises to help fight the enemies of Christendom. While this letter greatly expands on Otto’s account of the Eastern prince, it does not very much increase its audience’s knowledge of the elusive figure to which both accounts seem to allude. Readers learn little of the actual location of John's lands and even less about his intentions. Instead, the Letter borrows from an impressive array of travel lore, especially as concerns the territory understood in the Middle Ages as India.In other words, the anonymous "Letter of Prester John" fleshes out the rumors of the eastern priest king not with plausible detail, but with imaginative flourish. Throughout the short document an attentive reader encounters echoes of biblical lore, the Alexander legends, the Sefer Eldad tradition, bestiaries, lapidaries, and other classical and medieval geographical texts.The letter begins with an invitation to visit John's kingdom and a promise to fight the enemies of Christendom. The tone is unequivocally boastful. Such diplomacy makes up only a small fraction of the document, however. The majority of the letter is dedicated to a description of the eastern territory over which Prester John reigns. Within the letter, John models a form of rule that domesticates even the most heterogeneous lands. This eastern warrior priest-king possesses the richest kingdom on earth, replete not only with a vast store of jewels, spices, and Christian soldiers, but also home to Muslims, pagans, the ten lost tribes of Israel, along with fantastic creatures such as phoenixes, satyrs, dog-headed men, one-eyed men, giants, and more. All who recognize John's sovereignty are welcome to his realm.Although the Letter was addressed to the Greek Emperor Manuel Comnenus, its twelfth-century circulation was confined exclusively to the territories of Latin Europe. No Greek “original” has ever been discovered or mentioned by contemporaries, prompting an almost near-consensus among scholars that the Letter was always intended for a Latin Christian audience, and was likely created to suit a political purpose.
Read the interpolated Latin letter.
Read an abridged translation of the English translation of the Letter. -
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2015-07-21T09:03:22-07:00
Qara Khitai
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2021-06-03T15:57:27-07:00
The Historia de duabus civitatibus spawned centuries of expectations regarding an Eastern potentate capable of uniting all of Christendom, modern historians have determined that this anecdote refers not to utopic Christians at all, but to the Qara Khitai, a nomadic Chinese tribe descending from Manchuria.
In 1141, Yeh-lu Tashi of the Qara Khitai defeats Persian army of Seljuk king Sanjar at the Battle of Qatwan near Samarkand. Given the timing and location of this event, combined with the fact that the Qara Khitai were nominally Nestorian, it is reasonable to conclude that this event provided historians with a possible explanation for the beginning of the Prester John legend.
As Michael Brooks (77) explains, traces of this historical battle also appear in Benjamin of Tudela's account of Kofar al-Turak, another early influence on the legend of Prester John. According to Brooks:"Of interest to the discussion of the legend of Prester John is a passage in which Benjamin described a powerful king in the East. According to the narrative, the king’s name was Kofar-al-Turak, and this Asian king successfully destroyed the king of Persia. Benjamin claimed that Kofar-al-Turak’s forces 'slew many of the Persian army, and the king of Persia fled with only a few followers to his own country.' The account seems contemporaneous with the 1141 defeat by the Kara-Khitai of the Kara-Khanids, who were nominally vassals of the Seljuks. The idea that the forces of Islam could be defeated by conquerors from the East – especially if they were fellow Christians – no doubt was welcome news in Europe. The series of twelfth and thirteenth century papal and royal embassies to the Turkic nomads known collectively as the Mongols was in part due to the credence placed in the account of Benjamin of Tudela." -
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2015-07-30T04:07:26-07:00
Travels into Diverse Parts of Europe and Asia
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Voyage en divers etats d'Europe et d'Asie, entrepris pour découvrir un nouveau chemin à la Chine (1693)
Published in 1693, Philippe Avril's Travels document Avril's missionary travels to China with his fellow Jesuits. In the text, Avril refutes the current European narrative of Prester John -- that he had been found in Ethiopia -- and argues instead identifies Preste-Jean with the Dalai Lama.
Avril posits that it is “more natural to acknowledge him in this Country of Asia, where he has always been, then to seek him out in Habyssinia, where he never was.”Although the linking of Prester John and the Dalai Lama appears to be unique to Avril, his larger narrative surrounding the priest-king parallels Guerreiro's Relations in its eagerness to dismiss Portuguese claims to have discovered and locate Prester John.
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2015-07-29T17:20:17-07:00
Orlando Furioso
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2021-06-20T11:21:37-07:00
In Orlando Furioso, first printed in Ferrara in 1516, Ariosto features an Ethiopian priest-king called Senapo who rules over an immensely wealthy kingdom and controls the flow of the Nile River—the very river that dashed crusader hopes during the Fifth Crusade.
Its story of the English Knight Astolfo (a potential avatar of Mandeville, according to Niayesh) and his journey on a hippogriff across North Africa from west to east and thence to Ethiopia appeared at the appropriate moment to sustain interest in this imaginary land. In Canto XXXIII, Astolpho rescues Senapo, who has been rendered blind after trying to discover the Earthly Paradise by seeking out the source of the Nile River.
Although Ariosto’s is a highly satirical text, his inclusion of the legend shows how, even in the sixteenth century, writers were still attempting to create a plausible backstory to unite the imaginative interest in the legend with a history from which he may have emerged.An excerpt from the William Stewart Rose translation of the expanded version, first published in 1532, follows:In Aethiopia’s realm Senapus reigns,
Whose sceptre is the cross; of cities brave,
Of men, of gold possest, and broad domains,
Which the Red Sea’s extremest waters lave.
A faith well nigh like ours that king maintains,
Which man from his primaeval doom may save.
Here, save I err in what their rites require,
The swarthy people are baptized with fire.
Ariosto offers a description of the castle and explains the situation:
The soldan, king of the Egyptian land,
Pays tribute to this sovereign, as his head,
They say, since having Nile at his command
He may divert the stream to other bed.
Hence, with its district upon either hand,
Forthwith might Cairo lack its daily bread.
Senapus him his Nubian tribes proclaim;
We Priest and Prester John the sovereign name.
Rogers (pp. 106-107), on Senapo and his connection to Prester John:[The story's] astonishing accuracy in detail can only be explained by the supposition of meticulous study on the part of its author. For Astolfo’s route and for the name ‘Senapo,’ Ariosto followed a fourteenth-century Genoese tradition. Senapo, as such competent scholars as Cerulli and Crawford affirm, is a deformation of the regnal name of an emperor whose reign extended from 1314 to 1344: ‘Amda Seyon I. His regnal name of Gabra Masqal (in Arabic ‘Abd al-salib) meant ‘slave of the cross.’ The Arabic version appeared as ‘Senap’ on the Angelino Dulcert world map of 1339. Years after publication of Ariosto’s poem, Tasso in the Gerusalemme Liberata (Jerusalem Delivered) reintroduced Senapo, and Alexander Cunningham Robertson thus presented him to English readers:
Senapo once filled Ethiopia’s throne,
And still, perhaps, endures his prosperous reign:
This potentate the laws of Mary’s Son
Observes, and these observe the swarthy men
He rules…E-text at Sacred Texts.
- 1 media/Screen Shot 2021-07-03 at 11.36.54 AM.png 2021-07-03T09:40:54-07:00 History of the Popes 5 image_header 2021-07-03T10:43:15-07:00 Published in seven volumes, Archibald Bower's History of the Popes (1748-1766) unsurprisingly touches on the Prester John legend. Here, Prester John is referred to as the King of Tangut (inhabitants of Western Xia in China), called Lassa [Lhasa] by its inhabitants.
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2015-05-15T09:56:09-07:00
Who is Prester John?
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Who is Prester John?
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2021-06-10T12:07:23-07:00
Prester John (Latin: Presbyter Johannes) was a legendary Christian patriarch and king popular in European chronicles and tradition from the 12th through the 17th century. He was said to rule over a Nestorian Christian nation lost amid the Muslims and pagans of the global East, in which the Patriarch of the Saint Thomas Christians resided. The accounts are variegated collections of medieval popular fantasy, depicting Prester John as a descendant of the Three Magi, ruling a kingdom full of riches, marvels, and strange creatures.
While this priest king claims no actual historical existence, scholars have debated the historical origins of the idea of Prester John. - 1 media/Screen Shot 2021-06-30 at 2.48.22 PM.png 2021-06-30T13:33:29-07:00 Chaldaica Grammatica 3 image_header 2021-06-30T13:49:16-07:00 Written by Pierre Guarin in 1726, the Chaldaica Grammatica situates "Prester Cohan" in southern India, which is to say in Africa.