Prester John: The Greatest World Myth you Probably Have Never Heard of

The Prester John myth is possibly the greatest myth in history, and it is sad that we don’t really remember it. It is a bit like the Atlantis myth in that it is very old and held on to the public imagination. Prester John held the world’s imagination for nearly 1000 years. He was not just a legend, but treated as real and had an impact on real history.

Popes talked about Prester John and even wrote to him.

The Crusaders tried to reach out to Prester John.

Marco Polo wrote about Prester John and finding his kingdom.

Henry the Navigator gave instructions to his sailors on what to do if they found him.

William Shakespeare wrote about Prester John.

The 1507 Map that first labeled the new world as “America” also marks where the Kingdom where Prester John could be found.

What makes the Prester John myth, in my opinion, the most amazing myth in world history is that for centuries it was not just a story, it was something people believed in and actively was treated as a call to action. The Prester John story caused people to change history, and it all started with a clever forgery.

In 1165 a letter addressed the Byzantine Emperor started circulating through Europe. It was, the letter claimed, sent from a great priest king in the East who called himself Prester John. The letter described the fabulous land ruled by John.

The following is a short excerpt from a surviving copy of the letter:

Should you desire to learn the greatness and excellency of our Exaltedness and of the land subject to our sceptre, then hear and believe: I, Presbyter Johannes, the Lord of Lords, surpass all under heaven in virtue, in riches, and in power; seventy-two kings pay us tribute … Our land is the home of elephants, dromedaries, camels, crocodiles, meta-collinarum, cametennus, tensevetes, wild asses, white and red lions, white bears, white merules, crickets, griffins, tigers, lamias, hyenas, wild horses, wild oxen, and wild men — men with horns, one-eyed men, men with eyes before and behind, centaurs, fauns, satyrs, pygmies, forty-ell high giants, cyclopses, and similar women. It is the home, too, of the phoenix and of nearly all living animals. . . . Among the heathen flows, through a certain province, the River Indus. Encircling Paradise, it spreads its arms in manifold windings through the entire province. Here are found the emeralds, sapphires, carbuncles, topazes, chrsolites, onyxes, beryls, sardius, and other costly stones. Here grows the plant Assidos which, when worn by anyone, protects him from the evil spirit, forcing it to state its business and name — consequently the foul spirits keep out of the way there. In a certain land subject to us all kinds of pepper is gathered and is exchanged for corn and bread, leather and cloth. . . At the foot of Mount Olympus bubbles up a spring which changes its flavor hour by hour, night and day, and the spring is scarcely three days’ journey from Paradise, out of which Adam was driven. If anyone has tasted thrice of the fountain, from that day he will feel no fatigue, but will, as long as he lives, be as a man of thirty years. Here are found the small stones called Nudiosi which, if borne about the body, prevent the sight from waxing feeble and restore it where it is lost. The more the stone is looked at, the keener becomes the sight.

It was claimed the John was a descendant of the biblical Three Kings. His ancestors were converted to Christianity by St. Thomas (Doubting Thomas), who, legend has it, proselytized in India. John describes himself as “so humble” that the only title he takes is “Prester” or Priest, and not king. The letter sparked the imagination of Europe, and was translated in many languages and shared far and wide.

For all the fanciful wonders described in the letter, it is important to remember many people took it as true.

In 1177, Pope Alexander III wrote back to Prester John and sent his private physician Phillip to deliver the letter. The delivery was not successful.

During the Crusades many of the European knights believed if they could somehow get a message to Prester John in the East, the crusaders and John could flank the Muslim forces, they just had to let John know that his help was needed. The Crusaders were never able to get in touch with John.

Over the next century, Europeans began looking for a great Kingdom in the east. This search coincided with the rise of the Mongol Hoard and the Great Khans. It is at this point when the history and the fantasy really begin to blend. Marco Polo, in his great book on his travels wrote of Prester John:

“. . . But there was no sovereign in the land. They did, however, pay tax and tribute to a great prince who was called in their tongue UNC CAN, the same that we call Prester John, him in fact about whose great dominion all the world talks.” – The Travels of Marco Polo/Book 1/Chapter 46

In Polo’s narrative, Prester John was the great King before Genghis Kahn and was overthrown by Genghis (Who himself was a generation removed from Kublai Kahn whose court Polo would have been in contact with.)  Others believed the great Kahn of the east was actually Prester John.

One thing that varies depending on which Prester John story you are reading, is whether Prester John is a familial title passed from father to son, or a single immortal man.  (Versions of the legend say that within the Kingdom of Prester John was the fountain of youth, which stems directly from the original letter.)

Marco Polo’s Travels was one of the two most famous medieval travel narratives. The other is The Travels of Sir John Mandeville. While Marco Polo’s narrative may seem a bit outlandish, it is at least grounded in reality and the account Polo makes is within the realm of the plausible. Sir John Mandeville is straight fantasy.

To save some explanation here is a cover of the current Penguin Classic Edition:

In his book, Sir John visits the Kingdom of Prester John, meets the king and sees many of the great wonders contained in Prester John’s Kingdom.  Below is an excerpt:

In the land of Prester John be many diverse things and many precious stones, so great and    so large, that men make of them vessels, as platters, dishes, and cups. And many other     marvels be there, that it were too cumbrous and too long to put it in scripture of books; but        of the principal isles and of his estate and of his law, I shall tell you some part. . . . And he hath under him seventy-two provinces, and in every province is a king. And these kings have kings under them, and all be tributaries to Prester John. And he hath in his   lordships many great marvels. For in his country is the sea that men clepe the Gravelly Sea, that is all gravel and sand, without any drop of water and it ebbeth and floweth in great waves as other seas do and it  is never still ne in peace, in no manner season. And no man may pass that sea by navy, ne by no manner of craft, and therefore may no man know what land is beyond that sea. And albeit that it have no water, yet men find therein and on the banks full good fish of other manner of kind and shape, than men find in any other sea and they be of right good taste and delicious to man’s meat. And a three journeys long from that sea be great mountains, out of the which goeth out a great flood that cometh out of Paradise. And it is full of precious stones without any drop of     water, and it runneth through the desert on that one side, so that it maketh the sea gravelly; and it beareth into that sea, and there it endeth. And that flome runneth, also,   three days in the week and bringeth with him great stones and the rocks also therewith, and   that great plenty. And anon, as they be entered into the Gravelly Sea, they be seen no    more, but lost for evermore. -Chapter XXX, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville  

Now again, many in the Middle Ages took this narrative to be authentic. When traveling east people would use the writings of Marco Polo and Sir John Mandeville as equally valid authorities. Even Christopher Columbus was heavily influenced by both these texts.

Many believed, because of the above sources, that the Garden of Eden was within the borders of Prester John’s Kingdom. Prester John’s Kingdom also began to appear on world maps of this time (Circa 1300).

One can argue that one reason for the age of exploration was a desire to find Prester John.

By the 15th century, Europeans had established contact with the Far East.  Contact with the Mogul Empire had given Europeans a glimpse into Asia, and it became clear Prester John was not there. This was by no means a deterrent, Prester John was said to rule in India, which in the Middle Ages was a very loose term. India could mean India, India could mean China, or India could mean Eastern Africa. John was not in India nor in China; he must be to the south in Africa!

One of the lesser known reasons why the Portuguese prince Henry the Navigator was so interested in exploring Africa in the 15th century was the hope of making contact with the fabled king. The goal was to find a lost Christian Kingdom in East Africa.  As Europeans continued to explore they found… a lost Christian Kingdom in East Africa!  Ethiopia had converted to Christianity in the 4th Century. Due of the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the rise of Islam, Ethiopian Christians were cut off, and remained so for most of the Middle Ages.  When Europeans presented themselves to the Ethiopian King in the 15th century they called him by the title of “Prester John.” The Ethiopian king noted that while it was not one of his titles, he would accept the new title.

In 1507, one of the most important maps in history was created by cartographers Martin Waldseemuller and Matthias Ringmann. This map was the first one to show the New World as its own separate continent. This map also labeled, for the first time, this newly discovered continent as America.  The Kingdom of Prester John can be seen on eastern part of the map. This may have been in order to keep with tradition, as on the map Prester John is still placed in Asia not in Africa. This was actually a hallmark of this map, which paid tribute to the old, and also incorporated the new. For example, Waldseemuller had access to excellent accurate European maps, but chose to represent Europe; the center of his map, as Ptolemy had 1400 years earlier. He intentionally made errors to honor the traditions that came before. The tradition was to place Prester John in Asia, and Waldseemuller did just that. (Others maps of this era did actually place Prester John in Ethiopia.)

During the 1500s, people began to realize that the King of Ethiopia was not actually “The Prester John.” People did continue to invoke the image of Prester John, hoping to find Christians already in the New World or locate the fountain of youth, which had been associated with John. It was, at this point, in the early Modern period that the myth of Prester John began to fade.  But John would still show up now and again.

In Act 2 Scene 1 of William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing (written at the end of the 16th century),the character of Benedick lists off impossible tasks he would rather do than speak with Beatrice:

BENEDICK: Will your Grace command me any service to the world’s end? I will go on the slightest arrand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia, bring you the length of Prester John’s foot, fetch you a hair off the great Cham’s beard, do you any embassage to the Pigmies, rather than hold three words’ conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me?

In the modern era Prester John has appeared in some recent books, notably Umberto Eco’s Baudolino. Most interestingly is that both Marvel and DC comics have featured Prester John as a character in each of their comic universes.

The Prester John myth is so amazing because it is not just a myth. Prester John was considered to be real by those who were inspired by him. People risked their lives to find Prester John. He was one of the sparks that inspired European exploration.  The story of Prester John shaped and molded the lives of real people who changed history.

That is a story worth remembering.