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04/25/2003 Archived Entry: "Prester John ... needs aditional attention!"

Prester John ... needs additional attention! During the past week I encountered Prester John in two orthogonal accounts. Eco's Baudlino and Barzun's Dawn to Decadence. So where does this come from?

According to Saradouglass "Prester John is a very peculiar medieval legend that originated sometime in the 1140s (about the time of the Second Crusade). According to rumour, or fervent belief, the ultimate Christian king, Prester John, ruled over the perfect Christian kingdom, somewhere in Asia (or perhaps in Africa - no one was really sure). According to an old legend, readily adapted to the Prester John legend, one of the apostles, St Thomas, was supposed to have travelled to India (or thereabouts), there to establish a Christian community that retained many of the ideals of the original church, and which would blossom into an almost perfect Christian kingdom, ruled over by this legendary king, Prester John. The legend of the journey of St Thomas to India was current by the 3rd century AD, and was widespread enough in the 833 for Alfred the Great to send two priests with gifts to St Thomas' shrine on the east coast of India."

Matt Rosenberg introductory states ... "In the twelfth century, a mysterious letter began to circulate around Europe. It told of a magical kingdom in the East that was in danger of being overrun by infidels and barbarians. This letter was supposedly written by a king known as Prester John.

Throughout the Middle Ages, the legend of Prester John sparked geographic exploration across Asia and Africa. The letter first surfaced as early as the 1160s, claiming to be from Prester (a corrupted form of the word Presbyter or Priest) John surfaced in Europe. There were over one-hundred different versions of the letter published over the next few centuries. Most often, the letter was addressed to Emanuel I, the Byzantine Emperor of Rome, though other editions were also often addressed to the Pope or the King of France.

The letters said that Prester John ruled a huge Christian kingdom in the East, comprising the "three Indias." His letters told of his crime-free and vice-free peaceful kingdom, where "honey flows in our land and milk everywhere abounds." (Kimble, 130) Prester John also "wrote" that he was besieged by infidels and barbarians and he needed the help of Christian European armies. In 1177, Pope Alexander III sent his friend Master Philip to find Prester John; he never did. ...."

--- a fine Eutopia ....

Medieval Sourcebook's Mandeville on Prester John includes a text with the preface .... "This text, attribuuted to "Sir John Mandeville" was written circa 1366, and presents a series of picturesque fables about the east. These stories fascinated Western Europeans, as did the more reliable [slightly!] stories of Marco Polo. One way of understanding Western interest in the rest of the world is to see the process by which interest became research, research became knowledge, and knowledge became power. By the time Europe was able to expand in the 16th century and later, it was far better equipped to understand, and if necessary undermine, other cultures than other cultures were to understand Europe. "
- beginning parts of the text "Of the Royal Estate of Prester John. And of a rich man that made a marvellous castle and cleped it Paradise and of his subtlety.

This emperor, Prester John, holds full great land, and hath many full noble cities and good towns in his realm and many great diverse isles and large. For all the country of Ind is devised in isles for the great floods that come from Paradise, that depart all the land in many parts. And also in the sea he hath full many isles. And the best city in the Isle of Pentexoire is Nyse, that is a full royal city and a noble, and full rich.

This Prester John hath under him many kings and many isles and many diverse folk of diverse conditions. And this land is full good and rich, but not so rich as is the land of the great Chan. For the merchants come not thither so commonly for to buy merchandises, as they do in the land of the great Chan, for it is too far to travel to. And on that other part, in the Isle of Cathay, men find all manner thing that is need to man--cloths of gold, of silk, of spicery and all manner avoirdupois. And therefore, albeit that men have greater cheap in the Isle of Prester John, natheles, men dread the long way and the great perils m the sea in those parts. "

Until now I though Umberto Eco made it all up, but now i see he wove it artfully into his story ... I need to reread all of Eco's fiction ... or perhaps non-fiction ...

further readings:

Baudolino
by Umberto Eco

From Dawn to Decadence : 500 Years of Western Cultural Life 1500 to the Present
by Jacques Barzun

The Realm of Prester John
by Robert Silverberg

Prester John (The World's Classics)
by John Buchan, David Daniell (Editor)

Prester John: The Mongols and the Ten Lost Tribes
by C. F. Beckingham (Editor), Bernard Hamilton (Editor)

Prester John of the Indies: A True Relation of the Lands of the Prester John (2 Volumes in 1)
by Francisco Alvares

Die Suche nach dem Reich des Priesterkönigs Johannes : dargestellt anhand von Reiseberichten und anderen ethnographischen Quellen des 12. bis 17. Jahrhunderts

LA Lettre Du Pretre Jean
by John Prester, M. Gosman
by Ulrich Knefelkamp