Path Two: 1220-1310 AD
European Contact with the Mongol Empire
It would be reasonable to assume that interest in a historical Prester John would diminish after the disappointing ending of the Fifth Crusade. This was not the case, however. In fact, belief in the eastern priest-king flourished.Not surprisingly, the appearance of the Letter led to dozens of Eastern incursions motivated, in part, by the prospect of an immense Christian kingdom. Although these travelers occasionally discovered small Christians communities (which were sometimes taken as traces of Prester John’s Eastern influence), they found neither John nor any of the splendor promised in his Letter. Instead of casting Islam as the producer of antichrist, authors began to argue that the two faiths shared affinities indicated a prospective ease of conversion.
Moreover, by the mid-thirteenth century, eastbound travelers returned to the Latin West with even more first-hand intelligence about a new group of others: Mongols.
