The International Prester John Project: How A Global Legend Was Created Across Six Centuries Main Menu Orientation to Project Path One: 1122-1235 Path Two: 1236-1310 AD Path Three : 1311-1460 AD Path Four : 1461-1520 AD Path Five: 1521-1699 AD Path Six: 1700-1800 AD Global Middle Ages

Map 1.1 : Author Origins and Travels; Textual Imaginings

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Map 1.1 plots the beginnings of the legend of Prester John. This first era is defined as the period that begins the legend through the events of the Fifth Crusade, an event which solidified the real historical repercussions engendered by the belief in the western arrival of Prester John.

Even within the first fifty years of the legend one can see the beginnings of a global phenomenon. Although a product of German political tensions, the legend spread within Europe and into the Levant by the first quarter of the thirteenth century. 



On this page, readers are encouraged to explore the beginnings of the Prester John legend. By clicking on the points on the map, the reader can learn more about that particular author or text. For an overview of how to use the maps, click here. 

Below is a list of all authors and texts featured on this map. 

Click to learn more about an author or click on any text read relevant excerpts and to learn more about how these narratives contribute to the legend of Prester John.
  • Anonymous 
  • De adventu patriarchae Indorum ad Urbem sub Calixto papa secundo [On the Arrival of the Partriarch of the Indians to Rome under Pope Calixtus II]
  • Odo of Rheims 
  • Letter to "Count Thomas" [Domni Oddonis Abbatis S. Remigii Epistola ad Thomam comitem de quodam miraculo S. Thomae Apostoli]
  • Benjamin of Tudela 
  • The Travels of Benjamin of Tudela [Masa'ot Binyamin] [1164-73]
  • Otto of Freising 
  • The Two Cities, A Chronicle of Universal History to 1146 (1146)
  • Pope Alexander III 
  • Letter to Prester John (1177)
  • Wolfram von  Eschenbach 
  • Parzival (1197-1215)
  • Jacques de Vitry 
  • History of the deeds of David, King of the Indies [Historia Gestorum David regis Indorum] (1220)

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This page has paths:

  1. PATH ONE: 1122-1220 AD Christopher Taylor // christopher.eric.taylor@gmail.com