In Our Time - Prester John

Episode Date: June 4, 2015

In the Middle Ages, Prester John was seen as the great hope for Crusaders struggling to hold on to, then regain, Jerusalem. He was thought to rule a lost Christian kingdom somewhere in the East and was ready to attack Muslim opponents with his enormous armies. There was apparent proof of Prester John's existence, in letters purportedly from him and in stories from travelers who claimed they had met, if not him, then people who had news of him. Most pointed to a home in the earthly paradise in the Indies, outside Eden, with fantastical animals and unimaginable riches. Later, Portuguese explorers thought they had found him in Ethiopia, despite the mystified denials of people there. Melvyn Bragg asks why the legend was so strongly believed for so long, and what facts helped sustain the myths.WithMarianne O'Doherty Associate Professor in English at the University of SouthamptonMartin Palmer Director of the International Consultancy on Religion, Education, and CultureAndAmanda Power Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Sheffield.Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Thank you for downloading this episode of In Our Time, for more details about In Our Time, and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.com.uk slash Radio 4. I hope you enjoy the program. Hello, in the 1140s, the Second Crusade was a spectacular failure for the Christians in the West who'd believed so firmly in their success. They lost ground in the Holy Land, and Jerusalem, the centre of their world was threatened. Then came a report from the East that promised support. Quote, a certain John, king and priest, unquote, a descendant of the major,

who had visited the newborn Jesus, had already won a great victory over the Persian, as it was said, and had been trying to bring his armies to Jerusalem to help the Christians. 20 years later, a letter emerged, apparently from this king, Presto John, describing his army as advancing with 10,000 knights, 13 enormous jewel crosses and 100,000 foot soldiers behind each one of them. He offered hope, but never arrived. Later, missionaries and merchants found elements to support the story of Presta John,

but never quite met him. Will me to discuss the fact behind the legend of Presta John R. Mariano Doherty, Associate Professor of English at the University of Southampton, Martin Palmer, Director of the International Consultancy on Religion, Education and Culture, and Amanda Power, senior lecturer in medieval history at the University of Sheffield. Martin Palmer, was there an extensive Christian church in the East outside the knowledge of the Christians, or even Rome, or even Constantinople, in the early 12th century?

Yes, there was, and in fact probably the Church of the East, it called itself known in the West with a derogatory title of the Nestorian Church because they were thought to be heretics following a certain Archbishop of Constantinople could Nestorius. It was probably, at the time of the First Crusade, twice the size, both numerically and in terms of distance covered, of the Church of the West, the Catholic Church. It stretched from Baghdad up into the Russian steppes in Central Asia. It went down to the east coast of Africa. it went to India, it went through the whole of Central Asia, it went to China.

And it probably was twice the size numerically of the Church of the West, but it had been cut off, partly because it had a different theology, it believed a particular understanding of the nature of Christ, having two natures, both divine and human, and two persons in Christ, whereas the Western tradition has been two natures, but one person. But also it always had an enemy. between itself and the Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire, and this was the Persian Empire.

And it was extremely difficult for the Christians in the Church of the East to have easy communication with the Church of the West. However, there was contact. I mean, there's a fascinating entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles for the year 883, and it simply mentions that in fulfillment of a vow, Alfred the Great sent two Anglo-Saxon nobles, possibly one of bishop, to take a gift as a fulfillment of the vow to Rome, but on to St. Thomas in India

and to St. Bartholomew in India. And what's so fascinating is nobody kind of goes, my God, what a journey that must have been. It's just simply stated they went to India. So although there was this church and they knew about it and they had contact with it, if they went to Jerusalem, they would meet people from the Ethiopian church, for example, the Nubian,

there was this power block, Persia, that stood between them. and then, of course, the Muslim world also stood between them later. What was known about St. Thomas, one of the apostles, in India, at the time of the Crusades at the 12th century? Well, there's a wonderful book called The Acts of Thomas, which is probably written around about the third century, a very strange book, because it seems to contain a lot of teachings that aren't quite centrally Christian,

and probably were more to do with Gnostic and Manekean beliefs. But it gives a very vivid description of him going to India, being taken there as a slave. Christ in a sense almost sells him to someone who wants to build a palace for the king there. The king that is mentioned, Gandophorus, is a king that we know of of that period around about the middle of the first century AD. And there is, of course, a thriving church, a Tomaris Christian church in India to this day, that does claim that this is where Thomas came. And certainly in the legends of the apostles, the fact that Thomas was given India as his very very... David Thomas we're talking about. This is doubting Thomas.

Is well recorded. I think there is substantial evidence that certainly he went that way. And of course, in those days it was very easy to get to India. The Romans had a huge trading port on the west coast of India, far bigger than we've appreciated before. And so going to India was not that bigger deal. It took a lot of time, but probably no longer than it took to go from Jerusalem to Britain. Amanda Power, in the 11th century,

is what idea did people in the Latin West have, generally speaking of the East? Let's imagine to explain the huge Christian community, which seems oddly enough to have been cut off, to an enormous extent. But what about the rest of the East and other views of the East? What was going on? Well, they had a very large amount of information about the East, a lot of it, perhaps not with the quality we expect to have these days. So their main source was a sort of combination of the Bible

and a whole lot of ancient Roman texts about travel. Some of it went back to the literary texts of ancient Greece, Homer, and it's not necessarily directly transmitted, but similar sorts of ideas coming through these different texts and then commentaries on the texts and as much recent information as they could get, but there wasn't a great deal of recent information. But I think that the important thing to know about medieval ways of thinking about information

is that their sense of what makes the text authoritative is very different from ours. And so the Bible, of course, is the most authoritative text. But interestingly, the texts of the ancient world carried a sort of, if not a different type of authority, but also the immense authority of antiquity. So we're talking about how my Herodotus Pliny? Pliny in particular. And then there are various sort of sub-Plyni genres that concentrate on the more dubious elements, the exciting monstrous races, the great wealth.

I mean, Pliny was a scientist. He tried to survey everything. But the sort of condensed versions of Pliny that they had in the Middle Ages, all about men in the east with heads in their chests and pygmies that collect gold and dog-headed men. Cyclopses. Yes, all that sort of thing. So it was a fabulous knowledge. And the travels of Alexander, they're great, fed into that as well, didn't they?

And that's still swirling around at the beginning of the 12th century. So when they tell the tale of Alexander's conquests, it's Alexander meeting and fighting strange and monstrous beasts. What I can't get over. Well, of course I can get over things than this one am I talking about. These are very, very intelligent people. They're working in a different thought system than we do and so on. But with two-headed men, dog-headed men, all that sort of thing, they really thought this was going on, did they?

Well, I mean, of course, there's a whole society there, and there are a lot of people who like these fabulous tales, and so they're probably told more often. You find them on church facades to do. describe these pictures of dog-headed men. Of course there are a lot of intelligent people who are either sceptical or worried because of the

strength of the authority. You have people like St Augustine who poses the problem of are there monstrous races and if there are were they created by God? It hardly links back to the Egyptians, isn't it? Men with heads of beasts and beasts. Certainly. See those images. Anyway, we've mentioned

1145 as a grim time for the Crusades. What was grim about it? Well, they had suffered a substantial strategic defeat. The northern of the four Crusader kingdoms, which collectively described as the Crusader states, had been lost. This is in the eastern seaboard of the... Syria, we're talking about. Syria, sorry, Syria.

But I think part of it was also the psychological shock. The First Crusade had been this extraordinary event. There were miracles and signs all the way. They conquered Jerusalem. amazingly they managed to hold onto it and develop a kingdom. And then, I mean, there had been setbacks and horrible defeats and things along the way,

but essentially there was the view that God was on their side and then suddenly God wasn't on their side. And so there were explanations that began to emerge about how they must have been sinful. But as a sort of psychological event, it was shattering and also back into Europe as well. Yes, and also they really came up the force of up against a prepared force of Islam.

this time, didn't they? We were ready for them. To some extent, although a sense that Muslims and Crusaders were always at loggerheads is not quite right. The man who took a death of the city that fell had been fighting other Muslims for a very long time in order to establish

his own lordship in the region, and this is suggested to be a sort of almost an opportunistic attack on the Crusader states. Mani underlocut. The first text supposedly connected to Prestagion appeared in the 1120s, referred to a patriarch of the Indians. What does that tell us? What did that tell them more interestingly?

There are a couple of texts about this particular visit which appears to have gone to Colixus, Pope Calixus I second in 1122 and one of them is an anonymous report so we don't know who wrote it and the other one is a report by a chap and Abbott called

Odo of Rhymes who claims to have been there when this report was delivered and they're slightly different the two accounts. But in both cases it's a a priestly figure, it's a patriarch in one text, an archbishop in the other,

who says he comes from the Indies where he has custody essentially of the shrine of St Thomas. So we're linking back to St Thomas already there. And in the anonymous letter, in the anonymous report, he's coming for confirmation of his authority. Coming to Rome, sorry, to Colixus in Rome. But first of all, he goes to Byzantium, and then he goes on from there to Rome.

And the letter, the report itself, is really utterly fabulous in nature. It's an amazing amalgam of strange ideas about the East, but in particular it's very focused on the miracles of Thomas, the miracles of St Thomas. So the patriarch comes from a city called Hulner. It's on a river of paradise, the Fizon. The shrine of St. Thomas is in a... a wonderful lake, is in a mountain in a lake,

and around the Feast of Thomas every year, the waters of the lake recede to allow pilgrims to cross, and the pilgrims will receive the Eucharist from the reanimated hand of the corpse of St Thomas. It's quite extraordinary and amazing. And no one really knows quite what to make of it. I think people safely agree, scholars can safely agree, that this visitor did not come

from what we now consider to be India. Where did you come from then? We don't know. People have speculated Ethiopia. But we are talking about a time when miracles were believed. Yes, absolutely. Just like we believe in dark energy, though, we know nothing about it. Yes, absolutely. And that's a really important point.

I'm a little about it, aren't. No, I don't know anything about it either. And that's a really important point that the miracles are still believed because the miracles of Thomas, I think, are what's really important in this text. what it does is it gives an idea that out there somewhere again beyond this block of the Persians there is a Christian kingdom that is where the miracles of Thomas are still happening in the world and there's another document in 1145 there's a report from Hugh a bishop in Syria briefly does that confirm what's already begun to be known in the West about this priest and patriarch

Not really. It slightly changes it. The report of Otto of freezing, who's reporting what Hugh of Jabler says, that report actually slightly contradicts it. So in Otto's report, it's a quote unquote Nestorian, one of these heretical Christian, this figure.

He is first of all called Prestor John in that source. But he is trying to come to the aid. he has a magnificent victory over Muslim forces, over Persian forces in the source. And then he tries to come to the age of the Christians in the East, but he gets as far as the Tigris and then can't get across the Tigris, tries to cross, loses a lot of men and goes back home. So in fact, the idea that he's this great figure who's going to come

and come to the aid of Christianity is actually slightly contradicted, really, by what Otto says in his chronicle. We know about a man of enormous magnificence, magnificent palaces, traditions, people, armies and so on. The word Presta John seems quite, with excuses to all the John's in this building, seems quite ordinary, really. Well, it is until you go back into the Hebrew route, because Johanna, which is the Hebrew, means the chosen of God. And therefore in this context.

Now that may have just done irreparable damage to certain John's in this building, but we'll pass slightly over that. So there is that sense that here is someone who is a chosen of God, and we must remember that he would have been called Presta Johannes, which also gives us a slight link to possibly the fact that there was a series of Christian rulers of Turkic tribes who were called the On Khans, and this may be that through Chinese whispers almost, en khan becomes your Han, etc.

Prestor is important because that means that you, this is a Greek phrase from the New Testament, and it's the earliest levels of leadership within the church. The prester is an elder, also still with the connotation that this elder has been chosen to fulfill the post of what we would now perhaps call a bishop, that the Presbyterians would call them presbyters, And what you have in this fusion is the elder who is chosen and the chosen and beloved of God. You have essentially the notion of a priest king, someone who fuses together both the sacramental role as well as the military and judicial role. And in a sense, it's kind of an echo of the papacy which has taken on some of the legal and power structures of the Roman Empire,

in the sense of the Pope's role and fused it together. So it appeals to a medieval mind in which if only the secular and the religious were co-eterminous, were actually side by side. And it also goes back, you mentioned in your introduction, Melvin, the Magi. And in terms of the biblical tradition, which Amanda said, you know, the Bible is your main source. You have two sources as to why this figure might have this power. One is the Old Testament and the stories of Solomon and the Queen of Shiva and the notion that there are children from that union

that go on to become great rulers and kings. And so you have this sense of, again, this mystical union. And then you have the Magi, the three kings or the three wise men coming from the east. So there is this notion that in the east there are those who have sought to follow. And the great thing about the king Magi is that that is also a person. priestly, kingly role. So it's deeply attractive to a medieval mind where you've got popes and Holy Roman emperors fighting each other

that you might actually have a figure that combined them. Amanda Parr, the rumours of Presta John reached real intensity when this letter came, the letter from Presidjord, about 1160, 1165, a letter from Presta John now. Who is he delivered to, and can you tell us something about it? Yes, it was a letter that purported to be sent from Presta John. that's written in the first person, obviously the royal wee. And it was, there are various different versions of it,

but the one that's best known, I think, purported to be sent to the Byzantine, sorry, sent to the Byzantine emperor and had been sort of transmitted to the German emperor. So it emerged at the German court. And it was a letter in which Presta John informed the Byzantine emperor of his own magnificence in effect. And so it sort of starts off by saying, you know, there are a few mocking remarks about the Greeks, but then it starts off by talking about how he was Lord of Lords and he has 72 kings tributaries to him.

And then he describes the wonders of his kingdom, the immense wealth of the kingdom. But he emphasises all along that everyone in his kingdom is Christian, and that there is no vice in the kingdom. There is no adultery, none of the things that would ruin a Christian society are present in his kingdom. And so he talks about this ideal Christian kingdom, but it's interspersed with these tales of fabulous wealth.

And the two strands are rather beautifully mixed together. So, for example, there's a story. He talks about the different populations of his empire. And one story is about a group of people far to the south of his empire who live purely on manor that is given to them from heaven twice a week. And this manor tastes exactly, he says, as the manor tasted the Israelites had eaten in the desert. And these people have no vice, and they are never adulterous, he specifies.

And then it sort of shifts into this sort of wondrous vein because these same people, when they die, their bodies don't, they're remaining corrupt, like saints are thought to do in the Latin West. And the bodies are placed upright in paradise and remain incorrupt. This is after living for 500 years, incidentally. And they're remaining corrupt until the times of Antichrist, which is when the end of the world is about to come. And the times of Antichrist are bad times.

And so these bodies then sort of decay and become part of the earth, only to rise again at the time of judgment. and this whole story is kind of inserted into the letter, and then he moves on and says in another place, there are the Amazons. And then an extraordinary story about the tribes of female warriors who are the Amazons who live on an island and the islands surrounded by water in which extraordinary fish live. And some of the fish take the forms of beautiful horses

and they can ride on these fish all day and then the fish have to go back into the water at night. There are other fish that are the shape of cows and other beasts that you would use for agriculture and they farm the Amazon's lands and there are other ones that are the shape of hunting dogs and hawks and they hunt with these fish all day and then the Amazon's

Tressor John goes on to say I lead a million Amazons into war and their husbands who live separately from them follow them but they don't follow them to help in battle they follow them to admire them after they've been victorious so all sorts of strange things in this letter Absolutely what's not to believe Marianna Doherty

what do we think now about the origins of his letter and its purpose We know next to nothing for certain about those questions. It's extremely difficult to work out. I think the one thing we can know is definitely wasn't sent by an Indian priest king. That's for certain. Beyond that, it's extremely difficult to know. And that's because the letter itself doesn't tell us much,

apart from things that we can tell our lies. So it wasn't sent to Manuel Comnemnus. It's certainly clear that the earliest version wasn't in Greek. Philologists have worked on it. So it can't have been translated and then sent onto Frederick Barbarossa, the Holy Roman Empire at the time, from Manuel. Beyond that, there's really a lot of argument and discussion about it. I think some people think it was multiple in its earliest forms,

that there are a variety of these letters were actually produced. I think what people kind of agree on most is that it's, in a sense, almost proto-utopian in that it's designed to set out an ideal Christian alternative to what's happening currently. The division that Martin was talking about earlier, the division between the papacy and the Holy Roman Empire. Instead, this sets out an alternative vision in which everyone is united and a successful great kingdom is possible under one emperor. But what, according to scholars like yourselves, what was its purpose? Well, again, that's variable. Somebody has put forward about one very interesting theory about this was put forward a few years ago by Bernard Hamilton,

and it's quite persuasive and an interesting one, that it's actually part of a bit of imperial propaganda produced in the court of Frederick Barbarossa. Propaganda for what? Propaganda in his struggles against the papacy, against Pope Alexander at the time, as they're struggling for supremacy. Why does he invoke Presta John? Because he's a, well, the idea is that the Preser John is a priest-of-jong is a priest-jong, an emperor, and has authority, in the letter,

he has authority over archbishops, patriarchs, and so on, and that puts him ahead of priestly figures, ahead of the church in his own kingdom. So it actually puts forward an idea that you can have a unified empire, but at the top of that empire is the emperor, not the pope. One theory for the letter is that that's the subtext of it. And Frederick got his eye on the prize,

he thinks, I want to be in charge, I want to have a say in who's pope, and I want it to be my choice, and I want to have authority over the spiritual, as well as the temporal to a certain degree. Martin Palmer. I think what's interesting is the legend or the story that it comes by the Byzantines,

because of course the Byzantines did have a system in which the emperor was the top, and the patriarch of Constantinople was his servant. And if the emperor decreed that there was a change, there needed to be a synod, then the emperor and only the emperor could call a synod. So in a sense, what's interesting is that Barbarossa is picking up on a model that he actually prefers

and therefore having the letter come reputedly via Constantinople is kind of saying look everybody else does this, why shouldn't we? At about this time well 50 years so after that letter two power blocks let's call Christians a power block and Islam a power block

a third real power block comes along, the Mongols who sweep across the steps and sweep to the edge of the known to the Christians world and bring all sorts of considerations and problems. They certainly do. They bring humongous destruction to begin with. And they sweep through not only through northern China, through the steps, through the

Muslim kingdoms right across the Central Asia, they sack Baghdad, but they also, of course, capture Russia. They sack Kiev and Novrograd. They arrive on the borders of Hungary and drive towards Budapest. They arrive into Poland. And they defeat everybody. I mean literally everybody. And there are these wonderful accounts of saying,

where the hell of these people come from? Who are they? And going back, of course, to the theological idea, well, we must have done something really bad to warrant this not. What is fascinating about them is that probably at least a third of the Mongol Horde were Christians.

Again, Church of the East, and Astorian to use the derogative term. And, for example, Genghis Khan's favorite wife was a Christian princess. And there was an element in which the conversion, particularly of the Turkic tribes, such as the Kerrites, the Merkats, the Nyman's and the Angats, gave hope to people in the West,

ironically that in the midst of this maelstrom of utter destruction, I mean utter destruction, there might be the seeds of some sort of hope. And within they reach Poland and Hungary in 1242, and then they retreat back because there has to be a, a kind of election, a democratic election of the next Khan. And so they all have to go home to Mongolia. And that's what saves Europe from being completely sacked. But in 1245, the Pope actually calls a synod and says,

what are we going to do about these people? Why don't we send emissaries to them to say, look, you know, we know you're powerful, we know you're destructive. Would you like to join us in destroying the rest of the Muslims because we understand there are Christians amongst you? Amanda Parr, so one missionary in particular we can talk about in this connection, William of Rubebrook, Rubrook, that I pronounce it? Yeah, Rubeau.

He went to the Mongol courts and reported back. Now, is he going to the Mongol courts thinking it's the kingdom of Presta John, or is the idea that something else has happened already part of the conversation? William of Ruebrook is beloved of historians for his skepticism. He's one of the first people to say, I couldn't find any monstrous racism, even though I asked for them. He...

I couldn't find any more. Monstrous races. I was looking for people with dogheads, but no luck. But he's also an incredibly keen observer. And he did not, as it seems to be intended to go to the Mongol court, he was looking for some enslaved Christians and tried to find them to be their priest. He also hoped to convert the Mongols

because he was a member of the Franciscan Order and it was a missionary order. part. So he found himself at the court by a series of accidents and had a lot of experiences there, but it's a very kind of realistic description of life in the Mongol camps rather than about Presta John. Sorry, excuse me. Is he on a quest to find Presta John? No. So Presta John doesn't figure in his reports at all. He knows that Presta John's probably there and he asked questions. Probably where in China. Probably somewhere, probably in the east. He doesn't, I don't think he has a very precise sense of it.

But his main interest is saving souls in a very sort of immediate personal way. So his accounts full of lots of conversations that he has with individual Buddhists or individual Muslims. It's not this kind of vast ambition to find Presta John and convert him to Latin Christianity, which is what William was interested in, Latin Christianity. So this is the Christian fight back to convert the world to Christianity through saving souls rather than through taking over territories? Yes, for these people, who are the main representatives of Latin Christianity in this region at the time. But it all mingles in still with the power play that is sort of central, we can say the fulcrum could well be in Jerusalem, and that's a big thing.

I'll see you around, there's no objections, so I think I'll carry on right. Marianne, in the 14th century, there was this extraordinary popular travel book. It appeared to support the legend of Presta John. people often thought that was a reality of Prestorjord. Written by Sir John Mandeville, whoever he was. Who was he? We were discussing this at breakfast, actually. I don't want breakfast, I don't want that brought in.

That's a waste of time. Right, what do you come with discussing now? He is, we don't know that he exists. So this is a travel book that's written, but it's actually cleverly, very, very cleverly disguised by, as a personal account. though it is in fact cobbled together from various different sources. Encyclopedias, the legend of Presta John being one thing, being one of the sources,

the report of the patriarch from 1122 being another of the sources, but also lots of real travel accounts by genuine travellers, such as Franciscan missionaries like Odorico de Pordonone from the early 14th century. We don't know that a John Mandeville existed. He might have done, he might have not. He might have travelled far away, but if he did, there's not really any evidence of that in the book because it could have been written going nowhere

other than a very good library. How was it received? Do people say, ah, last we've got the truth, or did they say, hmm? I think that there's a combination, I guess, of responses to it. Certainly, later on, people start to become skeptical of Mandeville. But actually, what he does is he really, he's very clever. He ties what he does in with what people are, expect. So what you get

is a, in relation to Presta John, is a bit of a bit of late 13th century understanding of Presta John. This myth develops in the 13th century or the story develops in the 13th century that Preston was actually killed by Genghis Khan

and that his successors then ended into a permanent marriage alliance with the Great Carnes of Cathay. So the daughter of Presta descendants always marries the reigning Khan. That myth develops. And he uses that.

He refers to that myth. But he also folds in the letter, the report of the letter, the report of the patriarch. So he gives people pretty much entirely what they expect to find. And it fits in with what people expect. So people, I think, on the whole,

believe it, certainly in the Middle Ages. We're still on the search for Presta John Martin Palmer. His location now seems to shift to Ethiopia. It does. basically because Central Asia is now substantially cut off, and the Christian tribes there have largely converted to Islam. So yes, now we come to Ethiopia, which of course is considered to be part of India. The ancient cosmology or the medieval cosmology or geography

has a notion that on the anything to the east of the Nile is India. Everything to the west is Africa, because their prime experience of Africa was North Africa and the Berbers and the Muslim invaders from there. So there is an element of confusion as to what Ethiopia is. What they do know is that it's a Christian kingdom, it's orthodox, it's not part of the Church of the East, it's a separate tradition in its own right.

There have been links with this Christian kingdom, with the West going back centuries in 525. The Byzantine Emperor encourages the emperor of Ethiopia to invade Yemen and to make it a Christian kingdom and gives him support. What's the nature of the evidence that Prestagul might have been in Ethiopia? Oh, well, it's, again, I think it's a bit of a shifting. You know, you've no longer got him in Central Asia

because that's kind of been blown. William has done his piece on that score and said, nope, there's no real evidence there. And also at this point, we're talking the end of the 14th, 30, 15th century, there are substantial Western communities in China and across Central Asia, very big communities. of Christians from the West. So they know there's nothing there.

So the quest shifts, and it goes in a sense down to a third biblical reference for an exotic form of Christianity, which is the story of the conversion of the Ethiopian by St. Philip, which is contained in the Acts of the Apostles. And the fact that there really was a church there. In fact, there was a very substantial church,

not just there, but also in Nubia, which is now southern Sudan. And this church was under huge pressure from the Muslims. Anybody going to Jerusalem would meet Ethiopian Christians because they have a monastery on top of the Church of the Holy Sepul, because they got kicked out from the actual church, so they built a monastery on the roof.

They would have met Nubian Christians. There were Ethiopian bishops and archbishops and patriarchs traveled to Rome. There was one at the Synod of Constantinople in 1445. So this was not unknown, but in a sense what happens is that it's not really Ethiopia that he's located in. It's sort of deepest Africa, because the earliest map we have showing where he is, Ortilius in 1571, places in basically where Zimbabwe is.

Amanda Parr, so where are we now? We're at the end of the 15th century, let's say. What is the view around their place, around scholars and the Pope, the Christian intelligentsia of Presta John? Is Ethiopia just a last resort? I think Ethiopia has become the unknown and the inaccessible. at this particular point in time. Marianne. Yeah, I think that what happens over the course of the 15th century

is that you get increasing, just picking up on what Martin said, you get increasing references to Presta John through the 15th century being in Ethiopia. And one scholar has actually called what happens in the 15th century the Ethiopia's discovery of Europe, Ethiopia's discovery of Europe, Ethiopia's discovery of Europe rather than the other way around, because the Ethiopian church is sending so many emiscibly, to Rome, and it's also sending them to European monarchs as well. And of course, when these emissaries come to Rome to things like the Council of Constance in 1417,

the Council of Florence a little bit later in the 7th century, they are leapt upon by cosmographers and scholars who really want to know everything about Ethiopia and about Prestagion that these people have to say. So it becomes, so that that, that, that, really cements the idea that Presby John and this Christian church is situated far in Africa. And that's, that, that's, so it's, it's, it's, it enters a geographical knowledge from these diplomatic and religious missions. Amanda Puff, when, did the crusaders ever lose faith in the fact that there might be a Presta John who's going to come and help them when they got towards Jerusalem or towards the places they were trying to argue by, hoping that he would turn up with his, his army with this magnificent, massive, 1.5 million, all that.

When did they think it isn't going to happen? Well, I think in a way it's almost more interesting to us when they did think it happened. And there is a period during what's known as the Fifth Crusade where they're sitting outside Egypt expecting him to come and they make huge strategic errors because they're anticipating the arrival of this army. I suppose what we see then is ultimately he doesn't come. But at the same time, nor does the German emperor. So it doesn't necessarily disprove his existence the fact. he doesn't show up. So I think that damages the faith in some ways,

but it doesn't destroy the ultimate hope that there is this person who will come. So there's still. Martin Palmer, he seemed to get a second win. We have the Portuguese in Ethiopia where they thought they found Presta John. Is that right?

Yes, the Portuguese think that they keep thinking that Presta John is to be found in Ethiopia. This comes through from these emissary etc in the 15th century moves on to maps etc and then by the time vasco da gama is going out to India there's the reports about obviously the end of the 15th century we're talking about there as he rounds the cake he is the people with him on his trip they're saying Presta John is in the interior of Africa but he's beyond Melinda and you have to take camels etc so he gets a new lung here Martin Palmer yes he does

but to the total and utter bewilderment of the Ethiopians who keep being told that surely your kings are all called John and they go, no, no, we've never had a king called John or an emperor called John or who's this Presby John character? So I think I love Marion's point about Ethiopia reaching out to the West and then the West comes and tells them these fabulous stories and they're kind of going, no, I don't think so. What we were really looking for was some trade and some arms and some help here.

But just going back also to the point of mind, about the Crusades. I think one of the death nails at one level was when a two Church of the East monks came from Beijing at the end of the 13th century and one of them when it was sent by the Mongols to the court of the Pope and onto France and in fact celebrated mass for Edward I of England saying, look, we could combine together to defeat the Muslims, we could take Jerusalem, we'd like to do so. But he does not say, I am coming from Presta John. He says, I am coming from the Mongol Horde. We are a mixture of religions. There are Christians. There are Buddhists. There are Taoists.

There are shamans. There are some becoming Muslims. So in a sense, you get this exchange of information. William has his counterpart in Raban Sauma, who travels and writes an amazing account of his journeys from Beijing all the way to Bordeaux. And that, I think, also dispels the myths. So then you've got to find somewhere else for this story to go. And Ethiopia is kind of convenient, even if the Ethiopians are going,

I don't think so. Amanda Park, over this longish period, a couple hundred years, more than that, 250. What made it so compelling to so many people? I think it's partly, it combines everything that you want from a good story. The medieval world love these wonder stories. But I think it also, it's quite an important comment on their sense of who they are in the universe. So they are Christians, and this suggests Christianity is more encompassing, you know, in space and time than you might fear. who were just sort of locked in the Latin West,

surrounded by Islam and afraid. And I think that the way that they imagined geography, space and time are a little bit different from the way we see it. So the Garden of Eden is still there in the East, and the forces of Antichrist are waiting in the East to come out. And this is how it's broadly imagined. I think Presto John is quite an important figure within that larger framework.

Does this discovery of a sort of almost in those terms, at those times, global Christianity, Martin was referring to much earlier in the program, about how twice as big as the Latin church in Europe, does that invigorate Christianity? Does it energize it in any way? Christianity in the West? I think perhaps in a loose sort of way it might.

I mean, we mustn't get this out of proportion. I mean, this is mostly, literally, and it does, people love these stories, but I mean, it's not as if that's the only way of seeing the world. So I think it fits in with many, many strands of ideas, and I think it's a sort of excitement about God in the world generally, and this is one manifestation. Mariana Dockedy.

I also wanted to chip in that it can be quite terrifying as well as energising. So one of the Christian Archbishop, Latin Christian Archbishop in Socotra, says in very worried tones in the early 14th century, we the true Christians are but 120th, if that, of the world. it depends on how you respond to other varieties of Christianity. So he's clearly very daunted by that. I couldn't agree more. I think the tragedy is that as the West does actually discover the Tomaris Christians,

the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, it persecutes them because they're not in allegiance to the Pope. And they, you know, if you don't join the true faith, and it's a great shame that, in a sense, the early explorers come from the conquistador world of Spain, because they come with the mentality that if you're not like us, then you're wrong and you deserve to die. And what could have been, an ecumenical world becomes, in fact, a fragmented world. Amanda. Just very briefly to add to that, the Spanish Inquisition ends up operating in that region. How do you think, did the legend of Preston shape ideas about travel and exploration for some time to come?

I think it perhaps made these seem more hospitable than it might otherwise have seemed. On the one hand, it was familiar because they knew roughly what was there because of these letters. But also there was an expectation that there would be broadly sympathetic people in the East. Marianne. And it also shapes, as well as absolutely it also shapes, it shapes what people expect to find. So Vasco da Gama famously is quoted as saying he goes to India in search of Christians and spices. Well, that idea of Indian Christians comes out of the tradition of Prestagian and the Great Christian kingdoms. but of course it also shapes what people expect to read as well

and a good travel account is not a good travel account I think in the 15th century unless it contains a little bit of narrative in which you meet Presidon the travellers meet Trestoron and in the case of one Italian Jacobo de Santo Savarino Presidon plays their travel expenses so it becomes part of what you expect to read expectations are very important

Amanda you wanted to chip And worth just adding Columbus himself was, of course, expecting to go to China and to find the Indies with all these very attractive, well, you know, gold as well as religion. Well, thank you all very much. Thank you very much Amanda Pah, Mariana Doherty and Martin Palmer. Next week we'll be talking about utilitarianism, a moral theory that emphasizes it ends over means. It flourished in the 18th and 19th centuries, but thank you for listening now. And the In Our Time podcast gets some extra time now

with a few minutes of bonus material from Melvin and his guests. It's an area where what we know compared to what we don't know, we know this much. And then there's all of this huge waving arm gesture of material that we still got to be working. You touch on it in a sense. We're dealing with airport novels of the medieval world, things that you read because they entertain you. And I think if you look at them on use...

What I wanted to know, I never ask a question precisely enough, is did the people reading at the time think that they were fantasy or did they think this is what's really going on? I think this is the fascinating question because I think they could think both simultaneously in a strange sense. And more you think about it, I'm not sure that necessarily we're so different in our society. I mean, how much knowledge do we believe that we have a precise factual grasp of

and how much knowledge is, you know, maybe it's true, maybe it's not true, does it matter? Well, if you look at the Star Wars phenomenon, and the fact that, was it, 150,000 people on the public census, put themselves down as Jedi's, and you can speak Jedi language in this entire mythological world. I mean, I think we, you know, the fact that we live in a fantasy world and a real world is just what we do. Whether it exists is almost the wrong question.

Oh, Melvin, you live an entirely factual world of dark matter. No, I'm not the opposite. I mean, an entire fantasy world. I'm sorry, I got it around the wrong way. But I think sometimes we try. try to make, you know, it's rather like, did people really believe in Adam and Eve? It's not the question, really, is it? It's what did it tell them about themselves? Yes. And how do they use? If you look at the modern use of Presto John in manga

and in gaming things and so forth, or even by, I have a son who's into this, or into, you know, the way that Umberto Echre uses it, it's fantasy to explore a theme. And I think that's very much what it was. And fantastic to demonstrate what might, be as well. The thing about it, it's incredibly flexible. There are many, many versions of it and they're all doing something slightly different. That's the very alarming thing. But what they're doing is always useful. It's always useful to the particular audience.

And that's why it survives so long because it's so useful and flexible. You can change it. You don't like quite what it's saying. Well, you change it. Add a new interpretation, take a bit out and hey, presto, you've got a new story. We don't get around to John Buckin. No, he didn't. It's a really interesting one. he reinvents it within the context of British imperialism and also in the context of being a Scottish Presbyterian

who knows that anybody who is following a tradition that was Catholic has to be wrong and therefore they have to be put right by the West or particularly by the British or particularly by the Scottish I'll be very precise. There are many more Radio 4 arts and discussion programmes to download for free find these on the website at BBC.co.ukuk slash radio 4.