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

Manuel I Komnenos

Byzantine Emperor from 1143 to 1180, Manuel Komnenos (or Comnenus) helped renew communication between the Eastern and Western Christian empires in an attempt to restore the Byzantine Empire to its former status as world superpower. Renown for his ambitious political plans, Komnenos oversaw a crucial time in the History of the Byzantine Empire.

Brooks (p. 18) cites Karl Helleiner (p. 56), who posits:

I believe Prester John's letter was written, in part, as a piece of anti-Byzantine
propaganda, perhaps by a man who served the political interests of the Norman
princes of Sicily, or by a German... who resented the monopolistic claims of the Greeks to the Imperial
dignity, claims, be it remembered, that were very stoutly maintained by Manuel Comnenus.

This page is referenced by:

Chronica Albrici Monachi Trium Fontium Chronica Albrici Monachi Trium Fontium (1232-1253)

Written over ten years in his home monastery of Trois-Fontaines, Alberic of Trois-Fontaines' Chronicle treats world events up to the current time.

The conventional dating of the Letter of Prester John to 1165 derives from Alberic, who explains that the letter was initially sent out to several European kings, but most especially to Frederick Barbarossa and Emperor Manuel.

As Brewer (p. 11) explains, Alberic's Chronicle, along with scribal addition, dated to 1170, in one thirteenth-century copy of the Letter, comprise the only extant evidence regarding the original date of composition of the letter of Prester John.

Alberic's chronicle also contains summaries of the mid-thirteenth century Dominican missions to the Mongols, and he was the first author to point out that the Mongols might be "neither Christians nor Saracens" (qtd. in Brewer, p. 146).

Alberic narrates the death of Prester John as follows (qtd. in Brewer, p. 149):
Indeed, at that time there arose the Tartars, a certain barbarian people under Ihe power of Prester John. When Prester John was in battle against the Medes and Persians, he called them to his aid, and placed them in forts and fortifications; they, seeing they were stronger [than him], killed him and occupied his land for the most part, setting a king above them, as though he was Prester John; and from that time on they did many evils in the land, such that this year they killed 42 bishops in Greater Armenia.

This page references:

Byzantine Empire, c. 1180