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Prester John |
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Prester John, legendary Christian priest and monarch of a vast, wealthy empire in Asia or in Africa. The legend first appeared in the latter part of the 12th cent. and persisted for several centuries. At first the utopian realm of this Christian king was supposed to be in Asia, but later it was more generally placed in Africa. Letters supposed to have been written by him and about him were widely circulated in Western Europe.
BibliographySee studies by V. Slessarev (1959) and R. Silverberg (1972). Prester JohnLegendary Christian ruler of the East. He was believed to be a Nestorian and a king-priest (prester being short for presbyter, “elder” or “priest”) reigning in an unspecified part of the Far East. The legend arose during the Crusades in the 12th century, among European Christians who hoped that Prester John would prove an ally in the effort to regain the Holy Land from the Saracens. In the 13th–14th century various missionaries and travelers, including Marco Polo, searched for his kingdom in Asia. After the mid-14th century, Ethiopia was the centre of the quest, as Prester John became identified with the emperor of that African Christian nation. How to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit webmaster's page for free fun content. |
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What mind, that is not wholly barbarous and uncultured, can find pleasure in reading of how a great tower full of knights sails away across the sea like a ship with a fair wind, and will be to-night in Lombardy and to-morrow morning in the land of Prester John of the Indies, or some other that Ptolemy never described nor Marco Polo saw? Its tales of the Ethiopian Prester John, of diamonds that by proper care can be made to grow, of trees whose fruit is an odd sort of lambs, and a hundred other equally remarkable phenomena, are narrated with skilful verisimilitude and still strongly hold the reader's interest, even if they no longer command belief. I have it from my husband, who is a cinquantenier**, at the Parloir-aux Bourgeois, and who was this morning comparing the Flemish ambassadors with those of Prester John and the Emperor of Trebizond, who came from Mesopotamia to Paris, under the last king, and who wore rings in their ears. |
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