THE SEARCH FOR THE IMAGINARY KINGDOM OF PRESTER JOHN
Prester John. Navigation map
of Europe. Detail: near India & the Red Sea., Jacopo Russo.1528
Renaissance, Messina. Sicily
In 1145, a fantastic rumor swept through Western Europe as the Second Crusade was being prepared. It held that there was a priest-king named Prester John who lived far to the east beyond Persia and Armenia. More significantly, he was Christian, albeit of the Nestorian faith, and he had made a triumphant attack upon the Medes and the Persians. He continued his advance in order to link up with the forces of Western Christendom, but had to turn back once he reached the Tigris River in Mesopotamia, for he had no boats. It was also said that he was descended from the Magi – the wise men who saw the star of Bethlehem.
Various other tantalizing details appeared in various chronicles, until suddenly in 1170 a letter, reportedly from Prester John himself, appeared. It was addressed to the Byzantine Emperor, Manuel Comnenus, and was also circulated to Pope Alexander III and to the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa. The author described himself as "King of Kings" and "ruler of rulers" and further related details about his fabulous realm, which he termed the "three Indias." He also set out to describe all the living things in his kingdom, including such fascinating fauna as: "elephants, dromedaries, camels, meta collinarum(?), cametennus(?), tinserete, panthers, forest asses, white and red lions, white bears, white whitings (?), cicadas, eagle gryphons,...horned men, one-eyed giants, men with eyes back and front, centaurs, fauns, satyrs, pygmies, giants, cyclops, the phoenix and almost all sorts of animals which dwell on earth..." 1
The Byzantines quickly took this letter for the fantasy which it clearly was. But the story was earnestly believed by many in Western Europe, who kept the legend alive for more than 500 years. In 1177, Pope Alexander III even dispatched his personal physician to the East with a letter for Prester John. But the man was never heard from again. Over the following centuries, numerous Europeans tried to locate Prester John's domain in various places such as China, India, and Abyssinia – all to no avail.
But there may have been some grain of truth buried in the original legend of 1145. The story may have been referring to the defeat of the Seljuk army of sultan Sanjar by Central Asian tribesmen united under the leader of the Khitan people, Gurkhan Ye-lu Dashi. This upset occurred in 1241. While Ye-lu Dashi himself was probably sympathetic to Buddhism, there may have been Nestorian Christians among the nomads who followed him. Some of the elements of the legend may therefore have had a basis in fact.
It was the idea of securing powerful Christian allies to aid in the struggle against Islam that appealed to Western European leaders. It allowed them to turn a far-fetched tale into a veritable quest. This quest to find Prester John and solicit his assistance in the Crusades against the Muslims spurred a great deal of European enquiry and exploration in Central Asia, the Far East, and Africa.
Over time, such exploration would help Europe to clarify its own world view and to establish direct contacts with numerous peoples throughout the Old World. It would, in the end, help Europeans to dispel such myths as the Kingdom of Prester John.
1 A. Hofmeister, Scriptures rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum, Hannover-Leipzig, 1913, p. 365 quoted in L.N. Gumilev, Searches for an Imaginary Kingdom; The Legend of Prester John (Cambridge University Press, 1987), p.6.