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

Seventh Crusade

Led by Louis IX, the Seventh Crusade (1248-1254) was a failed and largely unpopular crusade shaped more by political rather than religious/militaristic exigencies. Preceding this event were Pope Innocent IV's power struggle with Emperor Frederick II and Louis IX's "pious" promise to lead a Crusade. Ostensibly this event was precipitated by the activities of the Mongols (like nearly all crusades) and the desire to retake Jerusalem-- the success of the sixth crusade-- from Muslim control. Although Pope Innocent IV called for the crusade, the response was lukewarm at best (Europe having been embroiled already in a number of internal conflicts). This was to be a crusade led by the crown rather than the church. Louis IX (aka "Louis the Pious") committed in December 1244, making sure to have his bravery and religious zeal documented by Jean de Joinville in what became the principal biography of the king. The primary strategy of Louis' crusade was to capture key Egyptian towns as leverage for negotiating the release of Jerusalem back to Christian control. As with the Fifth Crusade, the crusaders' strategy was undermined by the flooding of the Nile. Marching south from Damietta to Cairo (as in the Fifth Crusade), the crusaders were weakened by battle and disease. Heading back to Damietta from Cairo, Louis was captured and ransomed. After paying a substantial fee, Louis traveled to Acre, where he remained for the next few years in a somewhat successful attempt to recoup Christian territory through diplomacy rather than battle.

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William of Rubruck
Born in Flanders, William of Rubruck (1220-1293) was perhaps the most memorable of the Franciscan monks who traveled to the Mongol empire in the middle of the thirteenth century. His Itinerarium influenced a number of subsequent texts.

While accompanying King Louis IX of France in Constantinople during the Seventh Crusade (1248-1254), William was commissioned to travel east in order to convert the Tatars to Christianity. Specifically, William was tasked with investigating rumors of Nestorian Christians among the Mongol cities.

Following the route of fellow Franciscan missionary-adventurer John of Plano Carpini, William reached Mongolia in December 1253 and met with Möngke Khan. His entire journey took three years. Upon returning to the West, William presented King Louis with the Itinerarium, a carefully observed ethnography which records the nuances of Mongol culture and geography, and also offers an account of the journey itself.

View an annotated map of William's travels created by students from Washington & Lee University.
Fifth Crusade Called on the heels of three consecutive unsuccessful Crusades (including the disastrous Fourth Crusade), the notion of a Fifth Crusade was a popular topic of discussion at the Fourth Lateran Council. In the end, the beginning of the Fifth Crusade was codified in the council's final canon. Canon 71 designated June 1, 1217 as the start of the Fifth Crusade, though it was omitted from some later collections of Lateran IV Canons.

The Fifth Crusade (1217-1222) struggled to attract the patronage of earlier crusades. Lacking definitive leadership, the Crusaders elected to travel to northern African to capture Egyptian territory of the Ayyubid's for the purposes of negotiating the return of Jerusalem to Christian control. Later, the Seventh Crusade would adopt a very similar strategy. Although the capture of Damietta boded auspiciously, the crusade army was undone by a reliance on prophecy that had them heading west to Cairo. The rising of the Nile River prevented the army from advancing and they summarily captured as they retreated to Damietta.

The story goes something like this:

In 1222, intelligence relayed from Bohemond IV, ruler of the crusader state of Antioch, to Jacques de Vitry, preacher and crusade propagandist, reaches crusaders in Damietta. The intelligence, a report written in Arabic obtained from traveling spice merchants in Antioch, details the westward military progression of a certain King David, purportedly the great-grandson of the famed Prester John, a military leader who, rumor has it, has systematically destroyed Muslim armies in the east.

Jacques has the report translated immediately. Buoyed by prophecy and heedless of local conditions, the crusaders at Damietta decide to invade Cairo immediately to fulfill the prophecy, rejecting an agreement with the Sultan Al-Kamil that would have given Jerusalem back to the crusaders in exchange for Damietta. The Nile rises, turning the invasion of Cairo into defeat. The armies of the Fifth Crusade surrender to the Sultan of Egypt, Al-Kamil, Saladin’s nephew, a few weeks later.

This King David was not Prester John but, in fact, referred to Genghis Khan.
Life of St. Louis
Livre des saintes paroles et des bons faiz de nostre saint roy Looÿs (1305-1309)

Written as a biography of Louis IX during the Seventh Crusade, Jean de Joinville's Life of Saint Louis documents the culture surrounding the Crusade. Using information from André Longjumeau, Jean narrates the destruction of Prester John by the Mongols (Silverberg, 96-111). The story is similar to those recounted by the other missionaries deployed to Khanbaliq in the mid-thirteenth century.

Vitale (p. 16) summarizes Joinville’s contribution on the legend:
Joinville, who accompanied Louis IX on a Crusade in 1248-49, writes in his Chronicle some fifty years later that Andrew of Longjumeau and his brother, both Dominican priests who spoke Arabic, had been sent as emissaries to the Mongols. Andrew reported to Joinville that the Tartars (Mongols) who had been subject to Prester John had risen up and defeated him.

Joinville's describes the death of Prester John (qtd. in Brewer, pp. 193-4):
After [a Mongol prince] had arranged and ordered these things, he said to them: 'My Lords, the strongest of our enemies is Prester John. And I command that tomorrow you all be ready to move against him, and if it happens that he defeats us (may God spare us from this!), may everyone do the best he can. And if we defeat him, command that the occasion extend for three days and three nights, and that no one be so bold as to put his hand to spoils, but rather kill people, because after we have secured the victory, I will distribute the spoils among you so well and so fairly that everyone will be satisfied'. To this they all agreed. The next day they moved against their enemies, and they were victorious, as God had wished. They killed all those whom they found defending with arms, and they did not kill any whom they found in religious garb, the priests and the other religious men. The other people of the land of Prester John who were not in the conflict all placed themselves in lheir power.

See also Silverberg, pp. 96-111.
Read an English translation of Joinville here.
To read Joinville in the original French see Wailly’s edition.
Jean de Joinville
Born in Champagne, Jean de Joinville (1224-1317) was a historian, crusader, and knight famous for his chronicle of King Louis IX composed during the Seventh Crusade. His Life of Saint Louis also records the culture surrounding the Crusade, including contemporary theories on the historicity of Prester John.

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Seventh Crusade