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Presbyter Johannes, or Prester John as he is known in English, was a mythical medieval emperor whose domain was said to have extended from the ruins of Babylon to beyond India. Since that region was roughly the extent of the realm of Alexander the Great (356 BCE - 323 BCE), it is likely that legends involving the actual historical figure of the King of Macedon influenced the legends of the imaginary Eastern king.

The story of Prester John (his name is derived from the French Prêtre, which indicates he is therefore both priest and king) is known today from almost 100 manuscripts, written in several languages, including Hebrew. The first authentic mention of Prester John occurs in the Chronicle of Otto, Bishop of Freising, in 1145, and the legend endured for centuries.

The tale began with two alleged visits of an archbishop of India to Constantinople and of a patriarch of India to Rome at the time of Pope Calixtus II (1119-1124). These visits cannot be confirmed, as our only evidence comes from secondary sources. His kingdom contained such marvels as the Gates of Alexander and the Fountain of Youth, and it even bordered the Earthly Paradise. 

What is known, however, is that a document, the Letter of Prester John (see below), believed to be a forgery, was probably written to the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Comnenus (1143 - 1180) by someone alleging to be Prester John, the King of India. This correspondence, appearing around 1165, which recounted many marvels of treasures and magic, captured the imagination of Europeans for centuries. During the Second Crusade there was also hope that Prester John would come to the aid of the ‘holy cities’ and capture back Palestine from the Muslims. 

Descended from the Three Wise Men

Prester John supposedly belonged to the race of the Magi (the Three Wise Men from the East), and he ruled their former kingdoms. Some said he was a descendent of St Thomas, the doubting Apostle of Jesus Christ. His land was rich in silver and gold and all precious stones, and many fantastic things were found there: men with horns on their foreheads and three eyes; warriors riding elephants; amazons who fought upon horseback; pygmies; cannibals; rivers that flow from the Garden of Eden; men who lived 200 years; unicorns, and other wonders. There in Prester John’s paradisiacal lands grew the wonderful plant Assidos which, when worn by anyone, would protect them from any evil spirit, forcing it to state its name and business. John’s enormous wealth was demonstrated by the fact that he carried a sceptre of pure emeralds. Many believed that his empire contained a fountain of youth and that he ruled with the aid of a magic mirror (the ascent to which consisted of 25 steps of porphyry and serpentine) in which he could see everything that was happening in all provinces of his empire; this mirror was guarded day and night by three thousand men. On September 27, 1177 Pope Alexander III gave his conciliatory letter, requesting an alliance, to his physician Philip to deliver. Philip was never seen again.

Crusaders long for his support

The legend again came to the fore in the 13^th century. In November 1219 – the year that Italy’s St Francis of Assisi introduced Christianity to Egypt – after a siege of 15 months, the crusaders led by Jean de Brienne invaded and captured Damietta, on the estuary on the Nile and slaughtered all but 3,000 of its 70,000 Muslim inhabitants. In the spring of 1221 the rumour went around the Christian camp that in the East, King David, either the son or nephew of the Prester, now commanded three powerful armies, and was conquering many Muslim countries. An Arabic prophecy foretold that when Easter fell on April 3, the religion of Muhammad (c. 570 - 632) would be abolished. This occurred in 1222, so many expected that King David and his host would offer their support to the Christian army of Frederick II. This supposed ‘King David’ was actually the Mongolian conqueror, Genghis Khan (c. 1165 - 1227), who at this time with three legions pushed forward towards the West, destroying the power of Islam in Central Asia. He and many of his successors were favourable to the Christians, and averse to the Muslims, whom they slaughtered in huge numbers. 

Prester John in literature

The legend furnished a wealth of material for the poets, writers, and explorers of the Middle Ages. In England in 1366, Sir John Mandeville wrote of Prester John, and in Parzifal, the German knight and poet, Wolfram von Eschenbach (d. c. 1220), united the legend of the Holy Grail with the history of Prester John. 

Mandeville’s description might have included a backhanded explanation of why such a kingdom was not better known to Europeans – ships passing by Prester’s kingdom were attracted magnetically and thus could not return home to Europe:

For in many places of the sea be great rocks of stones of the adamant, that of his proper nature draweth iron to him. And therefore there pass no ships that have either bonds or nails of iron within them. And if there do, anon the rocks of the adamants draw them to them, that never they may go thence. I myself have seen afar in that sea, as though it had been a great isle full of trees and buscaylle, full of thorns and briars, great plenty. And the shipmen told us, that all that was of ships that were drawn thither by the adamants, for the iron that was in them. And of the rotten-ness, and other thing that was within the ships, grew such buscaylle, and thorns and briars and green grass, and such manner of thing; and of the masts and the sail-yards; it seemed a great wood or a grove. And such rocks be in many places thereabout. And therefore dare not the merchants pass there, but if they know well the passages, or else that they have good lodes men.

Was he a Chinese warrior king?

In the Annals of Admont’s monastery (1181), the chronicler records: "Johannes presbyter rex Armeniae et Indiae cum duobus regibus fratribus Persarum et Medorum pugnavit et vicit." However, there is other evidence that indicates our legendary king hailed not from Armenia as the Admont monk thought, but from China.

The Khitai tribe had ruled much of China in the late 10^th century as the Liao Dynasty. In 1124, following the demise of their dynasty, a number of the imperial family escaped to Central Asia, where they established a new empire over certain Turkish tribes. This empire was called Kara-Khitai (‘Black Cathay’, black being a term of honour).

In 1141, as they expanded westward, they met the eastward reaching kingdom of the Seljuk Turks of Persia. That year, in a battle at Qatawan (Katvan) near Samarkand on September 8 - 9, Yeh-lü Ta-Shih (aka Yeliutashi), ruler of the empire of Kara-Khitai, defeated Sultan Sanjar (1118 - 57), the Seljuk Turk ruler of Persia. In 1181, Arabic historians tell of Persia’s Sultan Sanjar vanquishment by a conqueror from the east, thought to be Ku Khan, or Korkhan of China, who had come in 1122 from Northern China, commanding a mighty army. Korkhan killed Sanjar and l00,000 of his men. It might be that Ku-Khan, Korkhan or Corchan (Coirchan), as the East-Asian conqueror is called in the chronicles, could easily have become Jorchan, Jochanan – or in Western parlance, Johannes, or John. 

Reports of this great victory over the Turks reached the Crusader kingdoms soon thereafter and included was the rumor that Yeliutashi was a Christian. This appears to be somewhat unlikely, with the Kara-Khitai perhaps being confused with the Keraits, a Christian-Nestorian tribe from central Asia. 

When Marco Polo (1254 - 1324) returned from the east and reported the death of the Prince of the Keriats (a tribe in Mongolia which was then Nestorian Christian), Unc-Khan, whom he identified as Prester John, the medieval mind simply relocated the empire in India first, then Ethiopia. From the 14th century onward his empire was sometimes placed in Africa, and in the 15^th and 16^th centuries it became considered to be equivalent to the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia. (Medieval geography located Asia as all lands east of the Nile, not those to the east of the Red Sea, which was not yet discovered to Europe. On this map, Abyssinia and Ethiopia were considered part of Asia – ‘the Indies’, another name for Asia.) 

Malabar? Caucasus? Armenia? Tibet?

With the collapse of the Mongol Kingdom, hitherto a usual setting for the legend, the kingdom of the Prester was also relocated to the hill country of the Caucasus, or to indefinite parts of India, possibly in Malabar (southern India). In the 14th century there appeared many real or fictitious accounts of voyages that pointed to the modern East Indies as the realm of the priest-king. In a map of 1447, towers may be seen at the foot of the Caucasus, and underneath is written: “The Presbyter, King John built these towers to prevent [the Tatars] from reaching him”. 

The Admont Annals mentioned above had already spoken of the Presbyter as King of Armenia. In Jerusalem at the beginning of the 15^th century the Abyssinian (Ethiopian) priests described their north African country to Christian Portuguese merchants as “the Kingdom of Prester John”. In 1497-99, while becoming the first person to sail from Europe to India, Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama (1469? - 1524), kept on his person letters of introduction from King Henry the Navigator (1394 - 1460) in case he met the elusive king. Henry’s hope was that a king as powerful as Prester John could help him defend Portugal against the Muslim Moors. 

The oldest map on which America is mentioned (1507), places the Presbyter's country in Asia (Province of Thebet; Tibet) thus: “This is the land of the good King and lord, known as Prester John, lord of all Eastern and Southern India, lord of all the kings of India, in whose mountains are found all kinds of precious stones”. On the Carta Marina (1516), Prester John’s land is placed again in northern Africa: “Regnum Habesch et Habacci Presbiteri Joh. sive India Maior Ethiopie”. In later times it was generally accepted that Abyssinia was the Presbyter's native land, or Terra do Preste, as the Portuguese called it. It was not until the end of the 17^th Century that this opinion died out. In his great work on Abyssinia (Historia aethiopica, Frankfort, 1681), the German orientalist, Job Ludolf (Hiob Leutholf; June 15, 1624 - April 8, 1704), wrote that that land had been wrongly named the Presbyter's kingdom. 

A waterless sea, and other wonders

The Prester John legend had for centuries inspired Portuguese and other European exploration, and indirectly encouraged the missionary activity of Franciscans and Dominicans in Central Asia and China. Such adventures had many objectives, including the discovery of such marvels as: griffins; men with eyes in the back as well as the front of their heads; a waterless sea where fish could be easily caught on the dry beach; and stones called Nusiosi that restored sight to the blind. 

Over the centuries, different accounts described the Prester’s kingdom as being either Nestorian or heathen, so conversion to Catholicism was another motive for exploration, as was, no doubt, plunder. For it was said that in parts of the wondrous kingdom, all that was beneath the ground was precious minerals. Even today, we might indulge ourselves, if only for a moment, that such a marvellous land truly exists.

Letter allegedly by Prester John

Possibly written in 1165 to the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Comnenus (1118 - 1180)

John, priest by the almighty power of God and the might of our Lord Jesus Christ, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, to his friend Emanuel, prince of Constantinople, greeting, wishing him health, prosperity, and the continuance of divine favour.

Our Majesty has been informed that you hold our Excellency in love and that the report of our greatness has reached you. Moreover, we have heard through our treasurer that you have been pleased to send to us some objects of art and interest that our Exaltedness might be gratified thereby. Being human, I have received it in good part, and we have ordered our treasurer to send you some of our articles in return ...

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 ... In the three Indies our Magnificence rules, and our land extends beyond India, where rests the body of the holy apostle Thomas [Judas the Twin]; it reaches towards the sunrise over the wastes, and it trends toward deserted Babylon near the Tower of Babel. Seventy-two provinces, of which only a few are Christian, serve us. Each has its own king, but all are tributary to us. 

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, Cyclopes, and similar women. It is the home, too, of the phoenix and of nearly all living animals. 

We have some people subject to us who feed on the flesh of men and of prematurely born animals, and who never fear death. When any of these people die, their friends and relations eat him ravenously, for they regard it as a main duty to munch human flesh. Their names are Gog, Magog, Anie, Agit, Azenach, Fommeperi, Befari, Conei-Samante, Agrimandri, Vintefolei, Casbei, and Alanei. These and similar nations were shut in behind lofty mountains by Alexander the Great, towards the north. We lead them at our pleasure against our foes, and neither man nor beast is left undevoured, if our Majesty gives the requisite permission. And when all our foes are eaten, then we return with our hosts home again. 

These accursed fifteen [twelve?] nations will burst forth from the four quarters of the earth at the end of the world, in the times of the Antichrist, and overrun all the abodes of the saints as well as the great city Rome, which, by the way, we are prepared to give to our son who will be born, along with all Italy, Germany, the two Gauls, Britain, and Scotland. We shall also give him Spain and all of the land as far as the icy sea. 

The nations to which I have alluded, according to the words of the prophet, shall not stand in the judgement on account of their offensive practices, but will be consumed to ashes by a fire which will fall on them from heaven. 

Our land streams with honey and is overflowing with milk. In one region grows no poisonous herd, nor does a querulous frog ever quack in it; no scorpion exists, nor does the serpent glide amongst the grass, not can any poisonous animals exist in it or injure anyone. 

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, chrysolites, 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 flavour 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. 

In our territory is a certain waterless sea consisting of tumbling billows of sand never at rest. None have crossed this sea -- it lacks water all together, yet fish of various kinds are cast up upon the beach, very tasty, and the like are nowhere else to be seen. 

Three days' journey from this sea are mountains from which rolls down a stony, waterless river which opens into the sandy sea. As soon as the stream reaches the sea, its stones vanish in it and are never seen again. As long as the river is in motion, it cannot be crossed; only four days a week is it possible to traverse it. 

Between the sandy sea and the said mountains, in a certain plain, is a fountain of singular virtue which purges Christians and would-be Christians from all transgressions. The water stands four inches high in a hollow stone shaped like a mussel-shell. Two saintly old men watch by it and ask the comers whether they are Christians or are about to become Christians, then whether they desire healing with all their hearts. If they have answered well, they are bidden to lay aside their clothes and to step into the mussel. If what they said be true, then the water begins to rise and gush over their heads. Thrice does the water thus lift itself, and everyone who has entered the mussel leaves it cured of every complaint. 

Near the wilderness trickles between barren mountains a subterranean rill which can only by chance be reached, for only occasionally the earth gapes, and he who would descend must do it with precipitation, ere the earth closes again. All that is gathered under the ground there is gem and precious stone. The brook pours into another river and the inhabitants of the neighbourhood obtain thence abundance of precious stones. Yet they never venture to sell them without having first offered them to us for our private use. Should we decline them, they are at liberty to dispose of them to strangers. Boys there are trained to remain three of four days under the water, diving after the stones. 

Beyond the stone river are the ten tribes of Israel which, though subject to their own kings, are, for all that, tributary to our Majesty. 

In one of our lands, hight Zone, are worms called salamanders. These worms can only live in fire, and they build cocoons like silk-worms which are unwound by the ladies of our palace and spun into cloth and dresses which are worn by our Exaltedness. These dresses, in order to be cleaned and washed, are cast into flames ... 

When we go to war, we have fourteen golden and bejewelled crosses borne before us instead of banners. Each of these crosses is followed by ten thousand horsemen and one hundred thousand foot soldiers, fully armed, without reckoning those in charge of the luggage and provision. 

When we ride abroad plainly we have a wooden, unadorned cross without gold or gems about it, borne before us in order that we meditate on the sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ; also a golden bowl filled with earth to remind us of that whence we sprung and that to which we must return; but besides these there is borne a sliver bowl full of gold as a token to all that we are the Lord of Lords. 

All riches, such as are upon the world, our Magnificence possesses in superabundance. With us, no one lies, for he who speaks a lie is thenceforth regarded as dead -- he is no more thought of or honoured by us. No vice is tolerated by us. Every year we undertake a pilgrimage, with retinue of war, to the body of the holy prophet Daniel which is near the desolated site of Babylon. In our realm fishes are caught, the blood of which dyes purple. The Amazons and the Brahmins are subject to us. 

The palace in which our Supereminency resides is built after the pattern of the castle built by the apostle Thomas [Judas the Twin] for the Indian king Gundoforus. Ceilings joists, and architrave are of Sethym wood, the roof ebony, which can never catch fire. Over the gable of the palace are, at the extremities, two golden apples, in each of which are two carbuncles, so that the gold may shine by day and the carbuncles by night. The greater gates of the palace are of sardius with the horn of the horned snake inwrought so that no one can bring poison within. The other portals are of ebony; the windows are of crystal; the tables are partly of gold, partly of amethyst; the columns supporting the tables are partly of ivory, partly of amethyst. The court in which we watch the jousting is floored with onyx in order to increase the courage of the combatants. In the palace at night, nothing is burned for light, but wicks supplied with balsam ... 

Before our palace stands a mirror, the ascent to which consists of five and twenty steps of porphyry and serpentine ... This mirror is guarded day and night by three thousand men. We look therein and behold all that is taking place in every province and region subject to our sceptre. 

Seven kings wait upon us monthly, in turn, with sixty-two dukes, two hundred and fifty-six counts and marquises. Twelve archbishops sit at table with us on our right and twenty bishops on the left, besides the patriarch of St Thomas, the Sarmatian Protopope, and the Archpope of Susa ... 

Our high lord steward is a primate and king, our cup-bearer is an archbishop and king, our chamberlain a bishop and king, and our marshal a king and abbot.   Source    This letter at The Museum of Hoaxes

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'Prester John: Fiction and History' from History of European Ideas (article)

The Travels of Sir John Mandeville

The Legend of Prester John

Prester John at Catholic Encyclopedia

About Prester John    Prester John at Rotten.com

Prester John, available for free via Project Gutenberg John Buchan

Otto of Freising on Prester John

According to Sir John Mandeville, 14th century

The Letter of Prester John in modern English (abridged)

Meir Bar-Ilan, "Prester John: Fiction and History"

Catholic Encyclopedia: Prester John

Encyclopedia Britannica (the 1911 edition)

Dictionary of Ethiopian Biography: Prester John