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• 1 2015-06-18T14:51:23-07:00 History of the Three Kings 16 image_header 2024-01-12T18:11:52-08:00

  Historia Trium Regum (b. 1375)
  
  John of Hildesheim's Historia Trium Regum links Prester John, St. Thomas, and the Three Magi in a single text for the first time. It was originally written in Latin– though no extant copies survive. There exists an early English translation from which Brewer excerpts the relevant Prester John material 
  
  As Hamilton (p. 181, n. 63) notes, Hildesheim "claimed to have based his work on French translations made at Acre of 'caldayce et hebrayce scriptos' brought there from India." Hamilton also mentions that Hildesheim likely consulted the collected writings concerning the Magi housed in Cologne's cathedral. Numerous manuscripts containing the English translation survive, the earliest which date to the first half of the fifteenth century. 
  
  The dating of the original text is difficult, especially because its authorship was ascribed to John of Hildesheim a century after his death by Johannes Trithemius (1462-1516). Hamilton refers to the text as an early thirteenth century text, but it seems safer to date the text as written before the death of John of Hildesheim, which occurred in 1375. 
  
  The Historia Trium Regum provides a cohesive story that links the historical Magi with the current political reality in Europe, which includes the legend of Prester John. Hildesheim based his story on the Gospel accounts of the three kings as well as the apocryphal commentary on Matthew known as the Opus Imperfectum (5th century). 
  
  Some time after returning to the East after visiting the infant Christ, these kings (Melchior, Balthasar, and 'Jasper') are converted to Christianity by the Apostle Thomas, who served as the. When Thomas died, these Magi then selected an heir to serve as spiritual Patriarch of the Indies. They also elect a secular ruler to act as rex et sacerdos, and they call this leader "Priest John," so-called in reverence to John the Evangelist. In the narrative, Prester John, here called "Preter Johan" the secular ruler of India, rules in tandem with a  “Patriarch Thomas":

  Than these thre kynges archebysshoppes and other bysshoppes of comyn [common] assent of all the people chose an other man that was dyscrete to be lord and gouerner of all the people in temporalte. And for this cause that yf ony [any] man wolde ryse or tempte agaynst the patryarke Thomas or agaynst that lawe of god yf so were that the patryarke myght not rule hym by the spyrytuall lawe, than sholde this lorde of temporall lawe chastyse hym by his power. So this lorde sholde not be called a kynge or emperour, but he sholde be called Preter Johan. And the cause is this. For the thre kynges were preestes and of theyr possessyons they made hym lorde. For there is no degree so hygh as preesthode is in all the worlde, nor so worthy. Also he is called Preter Johan in worshyp of saynt Johan the euangelyst [the evangelist] that was a preest the moost specyall chosen and loued of god almyghty. Whan all this was done these thre kynges assygned the patryarke Thomas and Preter Johan, that one to be chefe gouernour in spyrytualte, and that other to be chefe lorde in temporalte for euemlore. And so these same lordes and gouemours of Inde ben [are] called unto these dayes.    (qtd. in Brewer, p. 209)

  
  Thus Prester John becomes a title, an idea echoed in Parzival and Younger Titurel, and an idea that anticpates the Prester John as Dalai Lama narrative path.  
  
  The narrative also extrapolates on the Magi legends, which had circulated around Germany since the time of the original Prester John Letter.
  
  It is also notable that Hildesheim refers to Prester John's son, King David, as an enemy to the Mongols. 

   

  For more on the connection between the Prester John and Magi traditions, see Hamilton.

   

  Read an early English translation online.

   

   
• 1 2015-05-21T11:48:30-07:00 Early Literary and Political Reverberations 16 Wolfram through the Fifth Crusade plain 2021-09-08T10:47:57-07:00
  In the half-century that followed the appearance of the letter, interest in Prester John increased steadily, most visibly through the transmission and translation of the Letter, which was translated into the vernacular by the end of the twelfth century.
  
  Several chronicles composed before 1200, including Geoffrey of Breuil's Chronica, Roger of Howden's Gesta Regis Henrici II et Ricardi I, and Annales Colonienses Maximi, along with other "historical" texts such as Gerald of Wales' De Vita Galfridi contain some mention of either the figure or letter of Prester John, suggesting that this text was quickly transmitted and taken literally. 
  
  This is not the say that the Letter's early readers understood the figure of Prester John the same way. While Geoffrey of Breuil comments that Prester John was given his name due to his humility, Gerald of Wales relates an argument in which one party was accused of being "so prideful and arrogant he was like Prester John" (Brewer, 274). Even from its beginnings, it seems, this legend meant everything to everyone. 
  
  This first wave of popularity evidently reached Pope Alexander III, who crafted a reply to the eastern priest-king. Evidently, Pope Alexander sent his personal physician, Master Phillip, as envoy to seek Prester John's kingdom and to deliver this reply, which urged John's instruction in Catholicism. We never hear back from Master Phillip. 
  While Alexander’s letter is typically read at face-value, it also has the effect of re-inscribing ecclesiastical power, in the form of doctrinal Catholicism, as the most important feature of any imperial project.  Hamilton reads the letter as a kind of public rhetorical performance, a stance he supports by noting that Alexander made several copies of his letter. 
  
  This rhetorical reflexivity became a trademark feature found in a number of adaptations of the legend Wolfram von Eschenbach provides the first fully literary account of Prester John when he integrates the legendary ruler into the genealogy of Arthurian romance. 

  Among the early adaptations of the legend, the most impactful was John's role as prophesied savior for the Fifth Crusade. Although the legend was birthed through a letter addressed to Western rulers written between the Second and Third Crusades, there were no attempts to invoke John during the third or fourth crusades. 
  
  During the Fifth Crusade, Prester John returns. The figure of Prester John becomes entangled with that of a figure called "King David" and the epistolary genre that birthed the legend gives way to the genre of prophecy. Leaders of the crusade, including Jacques of Vitry, predict the arrival of a Prester John figure who would help defeat Islam once and for all. These prophecies found their way into several chronicles before and after the Crusade, the pertinent details of which are recorded on the following pages. 
  
  Of course, Prester John did not arrive, and the Europeans ceded their advantage and were summarily defeated. The disastrous end to the Fifth Crusade illustrates the imprint the legend of Prester John had made on Europe, even within the first fifty years of the letter's circulation.
  
  The following two pages provide a visualization of this early spread of the legend.