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

Pêro da Covilhã

In 1487, after Prince Henry's attempts to find a sea route around Africa to lead to Prester John's east African kingdom had proved difficult, Portuguese King João II chose courtiers Pêro da Covilhã and Afonso de Paiva to travel via the Mediterranean and Egypt to Ethiopia to acquire knowledge of the origin of important spices, such as cinnamon, and to meet with Prester John. This mission was commissioned in parallel to that of Bartolomeu Dias, who was commissioned one year later to seek the Ethiopian kingdom by sailing around the southern tip of Africa (which he succeeded in doing in in 1488). Nonetheless, Pêro's mission became the most famous of all explorations into Africa to search for Prester John, for reasons explained below.

The Portuguese Covilhã, who was around 40 at the time, had spent much of his earlier life in Castile in the service of Don Juan de Guzmán, brother of Castilian Duke Enrique de Guzmán, but returned to Portugal when war broke out between Portugal and Spain. Covilhã's attached himself to King Afonso V and then to his son João II on the latter's ascendency to the throne in 1481. Covilhã's fluency in Arabic, Portuguese, and Castilian, along with his attested loyalty and reputed swordsmanship, made him a good candidate for this important diplomatic journey.

The resulting journey was arduous, full of twists and turns, and gave birth to several separate accounts, and the most authoratative, Francisco Álvares' True Information of the Lands of Prester John of the Indies (1526).

Baldridge covers the entire journey and all of its adventure and misadventure in his 2012 historical monograph.

Jump to the Letters from Pêro da Covilhã

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History of Ethiopia Historia de Etiopía a Alta ou Abassia

German historian Hiob Ludolf was an academic authority on the Ethiopia of his day, having befriended an Ethiopian Christian in Rome who became the main source for his understanding of the country. Published in 1681, Ludolf's History of Ethiopia (1681) argued that Prester John was not the Ethiopian negus; instead, Ludolf reasoned, Prester John must have been the Asian monarch he was considered centuries before. Here, following Balthazar Téllez's theory, Ludolf argues that Covilhā was responsible for the misattribution of Prester John to Ethiopia:

[Covilhā, traveling] in some of the Ports of the Red Sea, heard much talk of a most Potent Christian King of the Abessines, that us'd to carry a Cross in his Hands; as also of his Subjects, who were great Favourers if not Followers of the Christian Religion. Believing it therefore to be of little moment whether this famous Monarch liv'd in Asia or in Africa, he certainly persuades himself, as being Ignorant both in History and Geography that this was the Prince so much sought after.... These glad Tidings the Portugals sooner believ'd, than consider'd, and so spread the News all over Europe for real Truth; Credulaity gaining easily upon those that are ignorant of Foreign Affairs and Kingdoms.

(qtd. in Silverberg, p. 317)

This argument became popular in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, even as the link between Prester John and the Ethiopian monarch predates Covilhā's expedition.
Purchas His Pilgrimes Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas his Pilgrimes Contayning a History of the World in Sea Voyages and Lande Travells by Englishmen and others (1613)

Published in four volumes, Samuel Purchas' Purchas His Pilgrimes attempted to provide a full, Anglican overview of the world as it was known at the time. In it, he retells many of the most famous European travel narratives that highlight the diversity of Earth's inhabitants.

Although Purchas never traveled himself, he certainly familiarized himself with the theories about Prester John. He identified Prester John with the Ethiopian monarch, averring that this figure "was called Priest John, by error of Covilhā, follwed by other Portugals in the first discoverie, applying by mis-coinceit through some like occurrents in the Relations in M. Polo and others touching Presbyter John, in the North-east parts of Asia" (qtd. in Silverberg, p. 317).

As Brewer writes,
Purchas, with scholarly acuity...reviews the various hypotheses as to the location of Prester John and the origin of his name, eventually concluding that he was once an Asian monarch whose name was mistakenly applied to the emperor of Ethiopia. (236)
In discussing the Prester John legend, Purchas argues that his kingdom stretched from Nubia in the north to “that part where the Kingdome and Land of Manicongo lyeth,” cutting across the African continent “behind the Springs and Lakes of Nilus, going through the fierie and unknowne Countries.” He includes a detailed map of these boundaries, which encompass nearly a third of the African continent.

Purchas' synthesis of contemporaneous travel lore recalls Mandeville. Like its predecessor, Purchas His Pilgrimes was well-received in its time and remained influential for another century, most famously inspiring the landscape and opening lines of Coleridge's "Kubla Khan." As he mentions in the well-known preface to Sybilline Leaves (1816), he fell asleep while reading Purchas, though the phrase ‘In Xanadu did Cublai Can build a stately palace" remained in his mind.
The Travel of the Jesuits in Ethiopia
Historia Geral de Ethiopia a Alta ou Abassia do Preste Ioam (1660)

Portuguese writer Balthazar Téllez's The Travel of the Jesuits in Ethiopia (1660) is an academic compilation of the journeys reflected in the book's title. A major source for the text was Manuel de Almeida's history of Ethiopia, which was never published in its original Portuguese. Brewer (p. 294) goes so far as to call Téllez's work "an abridgement and revision" of Almeida's that also accounts for the observations of other Portuguese travelers to Africa. Téllez also drew on the account of Jerónimo Lobo.

In the text, Téllez argues that Prester John was an Asian monarch, not an Ethiopian king, and he blames Covilhā for perpetuating the misunderstanding that Prester John was in Africa. This account and rationale influenced Hiob Ludolf's History of Ethiopia (1681) and a dozen later writers.
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).
Asia Portuguesa Portuguese humanist historian and poet Manuel de Faria e Sousa (1590-1649) penned Asia Portuguesa in Castilian, published in Lisbon in three volumes after his death (1667). The book served as a reference book on Portuguese expansion. It initially associates Prester John with Ethiopia but mentions later that his kingdom might actually be found in Tibet.

Faria e Sousa's text also includes summaries of the missions of Pêro da Covilhā and Francisco Alvares.

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