Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Prester John (Encore)

Starting point is 00:00:00 The following is an encore presentation of Everything Everywhere Daily. In the Middle Ages, a legend persisted among Europeans that there was a Christian ruler in Asia, or Africa, who would come and join with European Christians to help fight the Muslims during the Crusades. The only problem was that this distant Christian ruler didn't exist. Yet, while the ruler was a fable, the story was actually based on some facts. Learn more about the legendary Prester John and how Europeans pin their hopes on him on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

Starting point is 00:00:34 What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. The origins of the Pruster John story go back well over a thousand years. As Christianity spread across Europe, there were rumors of other Christian kingdoms far away in Asia.

Starting point is 00:01:24 Europeans certainly knew about Asia, but they didn't really know much about Asia. Good information from the East traveled slowly and went past through many hands. If you remember way back to my episode on if the ancient Romans and Chinese knew about each other, what they knew was very vague at best and there was really no direct contact. This situation didn't change after the fall of the Roman Empire. If anything, the breakdown of a central government made trade harder and decreased what little information these parts of the world knew about each other. The first confirmed mention of Prester John that we know of comes from the Chronica of Otto van Friesingen from the year

Starting point is 00:01:59 1145. He recounted how the Christian emperor in the East was going to assist the Europeans in the Crusades, but he was unable to cross the Tigris River in modern day Iraq. Just a few years later in 1165, the fabricated letter of Preser John became a meme that spread throughout Europe. It was this letter that really turbocharged the myth of Preser John. It was addressed to the Byzantine Emperor Manuel Commonus and was sent from the supreme ruler of the three Indies. The writer, who identified himself by the title Prester John, claimed to rule a massive kingdom with 72 kings below him. He listed all the exotic animals in his kingdom, which today is sort of a giveaway for the letter being fake, because it was a hodgepodge of some animals found in Asia, like tigers, and others found in Africa, like

Starting point is 00:02:45 giraffes. The letter goes further on to say how rich and powerful his kingdom is, and one day he would like to visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. This was really exciting stuff for European Christians. In 1177, Pope Alexander III sent Prestor John a reply, but of course he never heard anything back. Over the years, this legend didn't disappear. It actually grew over time. Prestor John, as the name would imply, was both a king and a priest. According to the legend, he was descended from one of the three wise men in the Bible. The initial location of Prestor John was originally somewhere in India,

Starting point is 00:03:20 as is indicated by the supreme ruler of the three Indies line in the letter. Much of the reason why the legend kept growing over time was due to the ignorance of geography most people at the time had. There were references to Asia and Africa mashed together, and most people had no clue that was a problem because both Asia and Africa were just faraway places to them, and they had no clue. what was really there. In 1221, the Bishop of Ocker, a city in modern-day Israel, returned to Europe after the Fifth Crusade, which did not go so well, with great news.

Starting point is 00:03:51 King David of India, the grandson of Prestor John, was working his way west, conquering the Muslim armies along the way. This was mostly wishful thinking, as the Christians in the Levant were getting beaten badly by the Muslims at this point. As it turns out, the King David he was referring to was none other than Gingas Khan, who was indeed working his way. West conquering kingdoms, but he wasn't a distant Christian ruler. It was at this time that the legend of Prestor John began to change. More Europeans than ever were now traveling to Asia, since much of it had been unified under one Mongol Empire. Many ambassadors and members of the clergy were sent to the court of Gingas Khan to try to work for an alliance. The new story was that

Starting point is 00:04:31 Prestor John was the stepfather of Gingis Khan, Togruel. However, changing the story really didn't help. Europeans traveling in the Mongol Empire eventually figured out that there was no Prester John to be found in Asia, anywhere. Surprisingly, this didn't kill the legend of Prestor John. The oldest map in existence that shows the lands of Prester John dates back to 1339. A map by an Italian mapmaker shows the lands of Prester John to be in Ethiopia and extend into much of central and southern Africa. Ethiopia was a much better known entity to the Europeans. There were regular contacts between Rome and Ethiopia, and it's believed that many of the animals which came from Africa to Rome did so via the Nile River and Ethiopia. However, since the spread of Islam, contact with Ethiopia had all been cut off.

Starting point is 00:05:19 In 1306, a group of 30 ambassadors from Ethiopia were sent to Europe. In the documents from the visit, it's recorded that Prestor John was the patriarch of Ethiopia. And where they got this idea from and why they wrote it down is completely unknown. In the 14th and 15th centuries, the whole Prescher John's story shifted from Asia to Africa. In 1428, the King of Aragon actually held talks with the Emperor of Ethiopia about a marriage between their two kingdoms, but nothing ever happened. The generic name in Europe at this time for the Ethiopian emperor was simply Preser John. Ethiopian sent representatives to the 1441 Council of Florence, and were deeply confused

Starting point is 00:05:57 as to why everyone kept calling their leader Prester John. As with Asia, eventually increased knowledge about Ethiopia put a damper on the Prestor-John myth. And that and the Ethiopians continually saying, We don't know who Preser John is. However, that still didn't totally kill off the legend. When the first explorers from Europe sailed to the Americas, they were keeping a lookout for Prester John, just in case he might pop up somewhere in the Western Hemisphere.

Starting point is 00:06:23 In hindsight, the Prester-John story does seem a bit far-fetched. However, there is a small kernel of truth from which the rumors and legends all began. For example, when the first stories appeared about Prestor John being in India, there actually was a Christian population in India on the west coast near the modern-day city of Koshi. Christianity arrived there by at least the third century and perhaps even sooner. There were some trade between India and the Middle East, so this knowledge probably got around. Likewise, the stepfather of Gingas Khan was in fact a Christian as well. He was an historian Christian, as were several other members of Gingas Khan's court.

Starting point is 00:07:00 Ethiopia was, and still is, a predominantly Christian country. In fact, it was one of the first countries to ever become Christian. This fact would have also been known early on, especially before the rise of Islam. The Prescher John myth can be thought of as mostly a mix of a small bit of truth, with a lot of wishful thinking, and a profound ignorance of geography. The hope for a distant king who would come and save the day was so great, that it kept the story alive for centuries. The legend of Pressure John keeps appearing in comic books and other works of fiction,

Starting point is 00:07:33 including getting a mention in Shakespeare's Much Adieu About Nothing. The lasting legacy of Prestor John, however, is simply that of a king who never was. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Thor Thompson and Peter Bennett. I just want to thank everyone, including the show's producers, who support the show over on Patreon. If you'd like to support the show, just head over to patreon.com, which is currently the only place where you can get show merchandise. Also, if you want to talk to other listeners about the show, head over to our Facebook group or Discord server, both of which have links in the show notes.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Prester John (Encore)

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