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The International Prester John Project: How A Global Legend Was Created Across Six Centuries

Joseph Scaliger

French-Italian historian and philologist Joseph Scaliger (1540-1609) claims in his De emendatione temporum (1583) that the Ethiopian people were merely Mongols expelled to that land by Ghengis Khan.

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Peter Heylyn's Cosmographie Cosmographie in foure Bookes Contayning the Chrographie & Historie of the whole World and all the Principall Kingdomes, Provinces, Seas, and Isles, Thereof (1652)

Published in 1652, Peter Heylyn's Cosmographie presents readers with a universal geography in four books, one of which touches on the Prester John legend. His work was based on classical authors like Ptolemy and Pliny but also more contemporary English geographical work like that of George Abbot. The text went through several editions, with the sixth edition (1682) considered, according to Brooks (p. 205) as "highly regarded." The Cosmography was considered a standard work of European geogaphy into the eighteenth century.

Heylyn's text contains maps, including one of Prester John's empire by Dutch cartogropher Nicolas Visscher.

Most significantly, Cosmographie doubts Prester John's dual function as priest and king, which may not be surprising given the anti-Catholic sentiments of its author. Brewer (p. 239) also notes that Heylyn dismisses a circulating notion (proposed by Joseph Scaliger) that Ethiopians originally descended from Asia. Heylyn instead offers an account of an Asian Prester John and reasons that the Portuguese identification of John with Ethiopia resulted merely from linguistic misunderstanding.

Brooks (p. 167-8) excerpts Heylyn's description of the nature of Prester John's name and title:
And yet I more incline to those, who finding that the word Prestegan signifieth an Apostle, in the Persian tongue, and Prestigani, and Apostolical man: do thereupon inferr that the title of Padescha Prestigiani, and Apostolick King, was given unto him for the Orthodoxie of his belief, which not being understood by some, instead of Preste-gian, they have made Priest-John, in Latine Presbyter Johannes; as by a like mistake, one Pregent (or Prægian as the French pronounce it) commander of some Gallies under Lewis the 12, was by the English of those times called Prior John.
De Emendatione Temporum Written by Joseph Scaliger (1540-1609) and published in 1583, De Emendatione Temporum ("Of the Correction of Times") is described by Elizabeth Ott of the Chapel Hill Rare Book Blog as an attempt to "formalize the science of chronology," drawing on "Persian, Arab, Greek, Roman, and other ancient traditions, identifying and correcting the errors of his predecessors to synchronize various cultures’ accounts of history."

Under these ambitious auspices, Scaliger authors an influential account of the Prester John legend. Attempting to reconcile the earlier theories of an Asian Prester John with the more contemporary theories of Prester John as Ethiopian negus, Scaliger proposes that Prester John led an exiled group of Mongols in Ethiopia. This group, Scaliger proposes, were sent to Africa in defeat at the hands of Ghengis Khan.

As edited in Brewer (p. 225):
In our recollection, there were in Italy certain churches of the Christian Ethiopians, who they call Abassins or Abissins... Indeed, by the navigations of the Portuguese, and by the splendid book of the journey of the Portuguese priest Francisco Alvarez, who penetrated into the inmost Ethiopia, one may learn many things about those men and their rites. Once, all Africa from the Nile's final mouth, to the Gaditan straits [i.e. the Straits of Gibraltar], and likewise from the Tyrrhenian Sea to beyond the Equinox towards the south, was full of Christian churches and cities, and this great tract of lands was obedient to the one Bishop of Alexandria. But if there are any churches remaining today in those parts, they recognise that patriarch alone, like these Ethiopians, being discussed now, and whom the lonely deserts and difficult routes defend from the general wasteland of Africa... Before the arrival of the Portuguese in Ethiopia, the name of the Ethiopian Christians alone was scarcely known to us, and their falsely named emperor Prestegiani; since that name does not belong to he who reigned in Ethiopia, but he who reigned in Asia three hundred years previously, a long way distant... they falsely call him Prestegiani, and [to say] that this Ethiopian is the same as that Asian man out of the itinerary of Paul the Venetian [i.e. Marco Polo] because they are both Christian is utter nonsense. It is indeed correct that three hundred years previously, certain Ethiopian kings ruled far and wide in Asia, especially in Drangiana, at the ends of Susa, and in India, until the emperors of the Tartars expelled them from all of Asia, and they were the first ones defeated, so they say, by Chingis, King of the Tartars, having killed their emperor Uncam... all those Ethiopians who had been thrown out of the kingdom of the Mongols and Chinese and were driven all the way to furthest Africa.

As Brewer (p. 225) mentions, Scaliger's theory was challenged by Peter Heylyn, who, in his Cosmographie (1652), writes that such a theory was "found in no record but in Scaliger's head." Others texts, such as Samuel Purchas' Purchas His Pilgrimes (1613) and Athanasius Kircher's China Illustrata (1667).
China Illustrata Jesuit scholar and "Master of a Hundred Arts" Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680) compiled contemporary knowledge about China in his China Illustrata (1667).

Kircher, writing in Latin from Rome, affirms that Prester John was an Asian monarch, not an Ethiopian king, citing the then-popular theory that Pêro da Covilhã and susbequent Portuguese writers had relied on faulty linguistic link to identify Prester John with the Ethiopian negus.

Curiously, he places Prester John's kingdom not in what was understood as China but in the desert-and-mountains land stretching from Tibet to Mongolia. He cites as his authorities on this matter texts including Joseph Scaliger's "Of the Correction of Times" (1583).
The Late Travels of Giacomo Baratti The late travels of S. Giacomo Baratti, an Italian gentleman, into the remote countries of the Abissins, or of Ethiopia interior wherein you
shall find an exact account of the laws, government, religion, discipline, customs, &c. of the Christian people that do inhabit there with many observations which some may improve to the advantage and increase of Trade with them : together with a confirmation of this relation drawn from the writings of Damianus de Goes and Jo. Scaliger, who agree with the author in many particulars (1670)

Printed in London in 1670, Italian traveler Giacomo Baratti's travel narrative interperses his observations with those of earlier European "authorities" on Ethiopia, including Damião de Góis and Joseph Scaliger.

The travel narrative does not offer much in terms of the Prester John legend. In the section of his narrative entitled "A Description of the country of Precious John, vulgarly called Prester John," Baratti suggests several names for the Ethiopian negus, including "Belul, that is, Precious Giam Or John," "Illustrious Serenus," "Athani Ting∣hib," and "the son of K. David, the son of Solomon, the Son of the King by the hand of Mary, the Son of Naw according to the flesh, & the son of S. Peter, & S. Paul."

Read the full text at EEBO.
Titles of Honor Written by John Selden, Titles of Honor is a large work covering peerage law, heraldry and genealogy. Selden discusses the etymology of Prester John.

From EEBO:
Out of Europe wee come into Afrique and Asia where also, the Grand Signior, notwithstanding his Court and residence at Constantinople is fittest to be placed. But first, of that Ethiopian Emperor or Prince of the Abyssins, which is commonly titled Prester John, and, in Latine, Presbyter Ioannes, as if it were Priest John. But, by testimonie of Zaga Zabo an Ethiopian Embassador to the last Emanuel K. of Portugal, the name is corrupted from Precious Gian. For his Ethiopique thus expresses it. *〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 i. Gian Belul, quod sonat (saith the translation publisht by Damian à Goes) Io∣annes Belul, hoc est Ioannes preciosus, siue altus; Et in Page 76 Chaldaica lingua, Ioannes Encoe: id, si interpreteris, etiam Ioannis Preciosi siue alti significatum habet, so that Gian Belul is of their true Ethiopian tongue, which they vse in common speech, not that which is spoken and writen in their Liturgies and holy exercises, and known, mongst them, by the name of Chaldè; but, more specially, stiled *Giaein i. Libertie, quod nimirùm (as the noble Scaliger yeelds the reason) eâ solâ vte∣rentur Arabes illi victores, qui Aethiopiam insiderunt. For he most learnedly (as in all things els) deriues them thither from the Abasens in Arabia, whence Sept. Seue∣rus had his denomination of Arabicus, as in one of his i Coins appears, inscribd with 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, of whom mention is made by Vranius, an old author of Arabique affairs, placing them in Arabia foelix, which happily salues their deriuing themselues from Melech son to Salomon (as they fable) by lMaqueda the Queen of the South. For, where *Saba is, were those Abassenes, whence the Latines haue their Sabaei and Tura Sabaea. Thus, mee thinks, those things concurre as it were to make vp on both sides that truth, at which learned men haue been very purblind. And, by likelyhood how should they fitter haue a speciall tongue for their wri∣tings and holy ceremonies vtterly differing from their vulgar, then by being transplanted out of some other Nation, and bringing it thither with them? there bee∣ing in it also a mixture of Ebrew, Chaldê, & Arabique; but it is, by them, calld Chaldè, whereupon Zaga Za∣bo saith that Helen one of their Empresses wrote two books of Diuinitie in Chaldé, and tells vs furthermore that their Prince is not properly stiled Emperor of the Abassins but of the Ethiopians. The Arabians cal them mElhabasen from the same reason, as we Abassins; but they are known to themselues only by the name of Ithiopiawians. Of this Belul Gian, is made that Beldigi∣an, by which, Luis de Vretta a Spanish Frier saies, they Page 77 call their Emperor. But Bodin notes in his margine to his 1. de Rep. cap. IX. that his name is Iochabellul i. gem∣ma pretiosa, as he saies. I cannot but preferre the testi∣mony of Zaga Zabo an Ethiopian Priest, which in this could not deceiue. But plainly as the name of Pres∣byter Ioannes is idly applied to him, so it had its cause vpon another mistaking. For, in the trauails of such as first discouerd to any purpose those Eastern States (as they were of later time) is mention n made of one Vncham or Vnchan a great Monarch in those parts where now the G•eat Cham or Chan of Cathay hath his Dominion; and him, they call Presbyter Ioan∣nes; and write that one Cinchis, whom they fained to haue been begotten on a poore widow by the Sunne beames, as chosen King among the Tartars rebelling a∣gainst this Vncham, ouercame him; and, from this Cin∣chis the Tartarian Monarchie hath its originall. And some more particulars of it you haue in the life of S. Lewes of France, written by De Ionuille, a noble Baron of France, that was with him in the holy warres. Hee calls him in his French Prebstre Iehan. This relation is of about M. C. XC. and hath made the readers con∣found the corrupted names of both Princes, twixt whom, too great distance was to haue the one deriud from the other. And some o trauellers into those parts, haue expressely deliuerd them both as one. But the Diuine Scaliger teaches, that, the Asiatique Vncham and his predecessors were calld 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉Prestigiani, that is, in Persian, Apostolique, and so had the name of Padescha Prestigiani, i. Apostolique King, because of his Religion (being a Kind of Christian, as Beldigian is al∣so) which, in Ethiopique-Chaldé must be exprest by Ne∣gush Chawariawi. Doubtles the community of sound twixt Prestigiani, Presbyter, and Precious Gian was a great cause of this error, which, vntill the Portugalls further acquaintance with the Ethiopians, alwayes pos∣sest Page 88 Europe. But I wonder how the learned Mun∣ster was so much in this matter deceiud, that hee sup∣poses the Ebrew Epistle printed in his Cosmographie, beginning 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 i. Ego Pristijuan, to be as sent from the Ethiopian Emperor; especially sith hee took notice of both the Asiatique and African Prince abusd in the name of Presbyter Ioannes. The Prestigians affirming in it, that Thomas the Apostle was buried in his country, makes plain enough that it came from the Eastern parts, if not counterfeited. The title likewise is much differing from what the Beldigian vses I will onely adde one example out of Beldigian Dauid his Letters to p Pope Clement VII. in Latine thus: In Nomine Dei &c. Has literas is ego Rex mitto, cuius nomen Leones Venerantur & Dei gratia vo∣cor Athani Tinghil (that is, the Frankincense of the Virgin) Filius Regis Dauid, filius Solemonis, filius de ma∣nu Mariae, Filius Nau per carnem, filius Sanctorum Pe∣tri & Pauli per gratiam, Pax sit tibi iuste Domine, &c. The like is in diuers Letters thence to the Kings of Portugall. But, for that name of Cham in the Tartari∣an Empire, it signifies Lord or Prince, and that Cinchis, or Cangius, Cingis, or Tzingis (for by these names he is known) was calld Cinchis Cham his sonne and succes∣sor Hoccota Cham, or rather Chahan or Chan; although a q Polonian, which seemd to haue much knowledge in that his neighboring country, long since deliuerd thus: Imperator eorum (Tartarorum)

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De Emendatione Temporum