Everyone denied knowledge of it, but as I spent some time there I told the Emperor himself that he was entitled in Europe Prester John, and begged him to pronounce upon it. He was astonished, and told me that the kings of Abyssinia had never been accustomed to call themselves by this name. I therefore deduce some other origin for this name, which today is wrongly applied to the emperors of Ethiopia (qtd. in Brewer, p. 264)
because the dwellers near those springs are a ll black, the first Portuguese and Spanish conquerors of the Indies gave to the kingdom of Abyssinia the name Prete, which sounds the same in their language as black (pretu = black]. This then is the origin of the name Preteiani: the peoples of Abyssinia who dwelt by the sources of the Nile being black, the name Preteiani was given by the Spanish and Portuguese to the black inhabitants of that area; then by bad translation from Portuguese to French the name Presbyter loannes was coined (qtd. in Brewer, p. 265).
