The Prester John Legend Between East and West During the Crusades. Entangled Eastern-Latin Mythical Legacies

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﴾٣١﴿ ‫َوإ َذإ تُ ْت َ َٰل عَلَْيْ ِ ْم آ ََيتُ َنا قَالُوإ قَدْ َ َِس ْع َنا لَ ْو نَشَ ا ُء لَ ُقلْ َنا ِمثْ َل َه َٰ َذإ ۙ إ ْن َه َٰ َذإ إ اَّل َآ َسا ِطريُ ْ َإْل او ِل َني‬ ِ ِ And when our revelations are read to them, they say, “We have ِ heard. Had we willed, we could have said the like of this; these are nothing but myths of the ancients.” (Qur’ān 8:31) For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. (2 Timothy 4:3-4) Unalterable and eternal truth remains like the Kingdom of Heaven, an eschatological hope. Mythistory is what we actually have – a useful instrument for piloting human groups in their encounters with one another and with the natural environment. William H. McNeill (“Mythistory, or Truth, Myth, History, and Historians,” 1986: 10) The legend that moved armies is very worthy of being studied. Maḥmūd ʻUmrān, Alexandria (during my visit to him a few days before his death in May 2015) Although Western scholars have well studied the legend of Prester John, I think it is essential to be studied by a Muslim Eastern scholar, in order to provide an Eastern-Islamic perspective about the legend and its impact during the crusades. Bernard Hamilton (The SSCLE Conference, Odense, 27th June - 1st July 2016)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

1

Acknowledgements

3

Note of Transliteration and Style

5

List of Figures and Maps

6

List of Abbreviations

7

INTRODUCTION

9

Historiography: Prester John between Past and Present

17

Objectives and Methodology

28

CHAPTER 1. Setting a Geographic and Mythico-historical Stage for the Prester John Legend 37 1. Setting a Geographic Scope 1.1. Eastern Christians: Nestorians of Prester John

37 41

2. Myth and Legend versus History? 2.1. Myth

44

2.2. Legend

48

2.3. History

50

2.4. The Relationship between Myth, Legend and History 52 3. A Prehistory of the Prester John Legend

54

CHAPTER 2. Between Transmission and Reception: The Birth of the Prester John Legend and the Crusader-Muslim Conflict, 1122-1145 65 1. The St. Thomas Tradition and the Origin of Prester John 66 2. The Prester John Legend by Otto of Freising

74

3. The Fall of Edessa: The Birth of the Legend and an Actual John (Mār Yūḥannā) 82 4. The Battle of Qaṭwān (536/1141) and the Prester John Legend 5. Conclusion

92 100

CHAPTER 3. The Prester John Letter and its Perception between the Crusading Crisis in the Levant and ImperialPapal Schism in the West 103 1. The Legend and the Second Crusade (1145-49)

104

2. The Prester John Letter, ca. 1165-70

107

3. The Letter, the Byzantine Emperor and the Crusades

112

4. The Letter and the Imperial-Papal Conflict, 1154-1177

120

5. The Letter of Pope Alexander III to Prester John in 1177 133 6. The Two Letters between Reception and Perception

140

6.1. Prester John’s Letter between Circulation and Reception

141

6.2. The Perception of Pope Alexander’s Letter

148

7. Conclusion

150

CHAPTER 4. Imaging the Prester John Kingdom in the Three Indias: The Legend's Entanglements with Alexander Romance, Jewish and Arab Muslim-Christian Imagination 153 1. The Prester John Kingdom and Alexander Romance

154

1.1. The Letter between Alexandrian Tales and Jewish Travels

165

2. The Arab Geographic Conception of Indian Christian King(s) in the Twelfth Century

171

3. Prester John and the Mythical Indian Tales in the Arabian Nights 184 4. Coptic Perception of the Legendary Priest-king (John) in the Twelfth Century 188 5. Transferring the Figures of Nubian and Abyssinian Kings into Europe during the Crusades 195 6. Conclusion

201

CHAPTER 5. Waiting for King David, Son of Prester John: The Impact of the Legend on Peace and War during the Fifth Crusade (615-618/1217-1221) 203 1. The Legend between Silence and Rebirth

204

2. Rumours and Prophecies of an Imminent Christian King 205 3. King David and the Capture of Damietta: Obstructing Peace and Stimulating War

211

3.1. Awaiting King David and the Fiasco of the Fifth Crusade

221

4. The Arabic Prophecy of King David: The Entanglements with Nestorian, Coptic and Ethiopian Prophecies/Apocalypse 227 4.1. A Syriac-Arabic Figure of the Christian King (David) 228 4.2. A Coptic-Arabic Figure of Christian King (David)

233

4.3. An Ethiopian Figure of King David in Kébra Nagast 237 5. King David and the Mongols: Associating Imagination with Reality 5.1. Prester John/King David on the Eve of the Fifth Crusade

241 250

6. Conclusion

251

CHAPTER 6. The Mongol Figure of Prester John: Remembering the Legend and the Enterprise of Latin-Mongol Crusade(s), 1222-1300 253 1. The Legend, Frederick II’s Crusade and the Aftermath, 1127-1245 254 2. Prester John and the Papal-European Missions to the Mongols, 1245-48

263

3. The Legend and the Crusade of Louis IX against Egypt, 1248-1254 271 4. William of Rubruck and Re-imagining Prester John

276

5. The Entanglement of Prester John with Ung Khan in Eastern Accounts

280

6. The Legend and the Late-Thirteenth Century Attempts of a Mongol-Latin Crusade 287 7. Conclusion

293

CONCLUSION

295

Bibliography

305

Index

349

PREFACE

This book considers the history of the Prester John legend and its impact on the Crusader-Muslim conflict, investigating its entangled mythical history between East and West during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Previous works on the subject have thus far dealt primarily with the legend’s large-scale history, especially its Ethiopian sphere down to the early modern era. Further, the legend has been mainly discussed from Eurocentric perspectives. No study examines the legend from the viewpoint of both Arabic and Latin sources, hence there is an omission of the Eastern perspective on both source and academic levels. The present study thus responds to the still pressing need for a comprehensive historical investigation of the twelfth and thirteenth crusading history of the legend and its impact on the Muslim-Crusader encounters, examining various Latin, Arabic, Syriac, and Coptic accounts. It further reflects new eastern aspects of the legend, presenting a new Arab scholarly view. This book first charts a pre-history of the legend in the late ancient Christian prophecy of the Last Emperor down to the emergence of the legend in the mid-twelfth century, offering a historical investigation of Latin accounts and relevant contemporary Arabic-Muslim and Syriac Christian sources. Second, the work presents a historical discussion of the legend and its association with actual occurrences in the Far East and the Levant, analysing the legend’s history within the crusading crisis and the imperial papal schism in Europe. Meanwhile, the work considers the vague Prester John Letter addressed to Manuel I Komnenus, Byzantine Emperor, and its elaborate conception of a mythical eastern kingdom, revealing imaginative parallels on the wondrous East and legendary Eastern Christian kings in Arabic-

Preface

Muslim account of al-Idrīsī, Christian Coptic account of Ābū alMakārim and others. Moreover, the book examines how the legend impacted war and peace processes between the Ayyubids and the Crusaders during the Fifth Crusade against Egypt (615-618/12171221), revealing how it was mingled with Arabic and Eastern Christian prophecies at the time. The study concludes by investigating the perception of Prester John by the papal and European envoys to the Mongols in the thirteenth century, revealing how the legend was instrumentalised (and even weaponised) to establish a Latin-Mongol crusade through a parallel exploration of relevant Latin, Arabic and Syriac sources.

2

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am very grateful to the Yousef Jameel Education Foundation for granting me a four-year PhD fellowship (2017-2021), which has enabled me to write the first draft of the present book at the Philipps University of Marburg. I owe many thanks to the numerous people who have helped me on the writing journey of this book. First and foremost, I would like to thank Prof. Dr. Albrecht Fuess, my first PhD advisor, whose caring counsel and guidance over the years have helped me enormously, and who dealt with me like a third parent. I am equally thankful to my second advisor, Prof. Dr. Frank Rexroth (Göttingen University), for his enthusiasm, unfailing generosity and support despite his many duties and busy schedule. I have thus tried to emulate the reputation of Prof. Fuess and Prof. Rexroth for thoroughness and diligence as scholars in my own work. I would also like to express my gratitude to the other professors who were a part of the thesis committee and examiners: Prof. Dr. Stefan Weninger (CNMS of the Philipps University of Marburg) and Prof. Dr. Verena Epp (Institute for Medieval History at the Philipps University of Marburg). Each committee member has contributed valuable observations, comments and criticisms, which have helped me revise and further develop the ideas in this work. In addition, I am delighted to thank Dr. Keagan Brewer at the University of Sydney for the great suggestions and comments on some chapter drafts of the book. I also would like to thank Prof. Bernard Hamilton (d. 2019) and Prof. Maḥmūd ʻUmrān from Alexandria University (d. 2015), who encouraged me to embark on a much-needed investigation of the legend during the Crusades from a comparative Eastern-Western

Acknowledgements

source and scholarly perspectives. May God have mercy on their souls! I am grateful to Prof. Dr. Qāsim ʻAbduh Qāsim (d. 2021), Prof. Dr. ʻAly al-Sayed, Prof. Dr. Hatem al-Tahawy, who guided me in composing the first draft proposal of this work. Furthermore, I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to my friends: Dr. Amar Baadj (Postdoc fellow at Trier University) and Dr. Mustafa Banister (Postdoc researcher at Ghent University) who served as my second pair of eyes in reviewing the first draft of this book. Great thanks go to Dr. Andrew Kurt (Associate Professor at Clayton State University), who reviewed and proofed the pre-publishing version of the book. I could not forget to thank all my Egyptian friends in Marburg for their continuous support. Many thanks to my colleagues and friends at the CNMS of the University of Marburg and the history department at Damanhour University. My thanks to the library of Marburg University, Göttingen University library, the Gotha research library and other libraries in Germany and Egypt. And of course, it is most difficult to find sufficient words to thank one’s own family members who are deserving of the greatest thanks there is. I would like to thank my wonderful parents and my parentsin-law, who are always praying for me and are proud of me, and the beloved villagers and farmers with whom I grew up and developed my dream of becoming a historian. My heartfelt thanks also go out to my uncle, my sisters, my sisters-in-law, who provided love and support in every way imaginable. And of course- last but never least, I cannot express even a fraction of the gratitude and deep indebtedness I feel to my dear wife Iman and my children Mohamed, Leen and ʻUmar, who patiently weathered this lengthy process. My wife was a constant source of encouragement and a reminder of the life that exists outside the library. She and my children have always been my greatest source of support and encouragement, and my gratitude to them is immeasurable. This book is dedicated to them.

4

NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION AND STYLE

In the transliteration of Arabic words, I have adopted the system of the International Journal of Middle East Studies (IJMES) with some minor modifications. The doubled Arabic letter yā’ (with shadda) is transliterated by an (ī) followed by (y), and the Arabic letter tā’ marbūṭa is transliterated with ah at the end of the word rather than a, and at in the construct state. The Arabic definite article (Ālif-Lām) at the beginning of the word is always transliterated to (al) regardless of whether it is followed by a sun or moon letter. The Coptic and Syrian names are transliterated according to the same style of translation as the Arabic names, as long they were mentioned in relevant Arabic sources. The work uses the common names Mamluk(s) and Ayyubid(s), instead of Mamlūk/Mamālik and Ayyūbī/Ayyūbīyah. Other well-known Arabic terms such as caliph and prince (amīr) that have entered the English vocabulary have been left in their Anglicised forms. In the bibliography, footnotes and general matters of style, I have consulted the 17th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style.

LIST OF FIGURES AND MAPS

Fig. 1. The Qarakhitai Empire and Qaṭwān (1141)

96

Fig. 2. The Holy Three Kings by Johannes von Hildesheim 127 Fig. 3. The Front Side of Three Kings’ Shrine in Cologne

128

Fig. 4. Prester John in his Earthly-paradisiacal Kingdom

146

Fig. 5. Al-Idrīsī’s World Map

175

Fig. 6. Savage People in the Lands of the Zinj and other Islands

180

Fig. 7. The site of the Ayyubid and Crusader Camps

214

Fig. 8. Crusaders surrounded by Ayyubid forces and Nile flood

226

Fig. 9. The Mongol Expansion at the Beginning of the 13th Century

246

Fig. 10. Depiction Ung (Wang) Khan with the Gown of a Cardinal Receiving Envoys from Genghis Khan

270

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Abh.1

Der Priester Johannes, erste Abhandlung, des VII. Bandes der Abhandlungen der philosophischhistorischen Klasse der königlich sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften

Abh.2

Der Priester Johannes, zweite Abhandlung, Enthaltend Capitel IV, V und VI, des VIII. Bandes der Abhandlungen der philosophisch-historischen Klasse der königlich Sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften

BBKL

Biographisch-bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon

CSC

Christian Society and the Crusades, 1198-1229, ed. Edward Peters

Mediaevistik

Mediaevistik Internationale Zeitschrift interdisziplinäre Mittelalterforschung

MGH

Monumenta Germaniae Historica

MGH, Ldl

Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Libelli de lite imperatorum et pontificum saeculis

MGH, SS.

Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores

MGH, SS., RGUS

Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores, Rerum Germanicarum in Usum Scholarum

für

List of Abbreviations

PAAS

Pope Alexander III (1159-81): The Art of Survival, ed. Peter D. Clarke and Anne J. Duggan

PJLIS

Prester John: The Legend and its Sources, ed. and trans. Keagan Brewer

PJMTLT

Prester John: The Mongols and the Ten Lost Tribes, ed. Charles F. Beckingham and Bernard Hamilton

RHGF

Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France, 24 vols

RRH

Regesta Regni Hierosolymitani (1097 –1291)

Setton

The History of the Crusades (6 vols), ed. Kenneth M. Setton

UKJ

Die Urkunden der lateinischen Könige von Jerusalem, 4 parts, ed. Hans Eberhard Mayer

Viator

Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies

8

INTRODUCTION

Pope Urban II (1035-1099) called for a holy military expedition to the Holy Land at the council of Clermont in 1095. This expedition was the beginning of a series of military campaigns later known as the Crusades. Although the past crusading movement is gone forever, it remains one of the most crucial medieval occurrences that influenced the relationships between East and West and Islam and Christianity down into the present. The distinction between a “crusade” and an unarmed pilgrimage or expedition remained blurred during the twelfth century. The term “crusade” or “crusader” (crucesignatus) appeared at the beginning of the thirteenth century. For instance, one of the early uses of the term in official documents goes back to the fourth Lateran Council in 1215, where Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) called for a new crusade, the Fifth Crusade (1217-1221). Using the term “crusade” does only refer to the twelfth and thirteenth-century Frankish war against the Muslims in the Levant, but it is also used to describe other wars, mainly prompted by the papacy, against “heretics” in Europe and Muslims in Spain (al-Andalus).1 Ḥurūb al-Ifranj or Ḥurūb alFiranjah was the term used to refer to the Crusades in the medieval Arabic sources. Since the nineteenth century, the Modern Arab

1

See Benjamin Weber, “When and Where Did the Word ‘Crusade’ Appear in the Middle Ages? And Why?,” in The Crusades: History and Memory, ed. K. Villads Jensen and T. K. Nielsen, OUTREMER 12 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), 199-220; Michael Markowski, “Crucesignatus: Its Origins and Early Usage,” Journal of Medieval History, no. 10 (1984): 157–65.

Introduction

authors have used the expression of al-Ḥurūb al-Ṣalībīyah (i.e., the Crusades or the crusading wars).2 The Crusades became a flourishing subject in Western and Eastern academia, having considerable attention from the public audience. Several academic works have contributed significantly to the study of the history of the Crusades, especially the military and political aspects, relying mainly on examining traditional sources. While myths, legends, visions and prophecies influenced the crusading imagination, not enough research was devoted to studying the role of imagination and the mythical or wondrous appearances in shaping the crusading Muslim encounter during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This book thus is concerned with exploring the legend of Prester John (Presbyter Iohannes), whose legendary figure gripped the crusading and European imagination in the medieval and early modern epochs. The work considers the legend of this never existing priest-king and its impact on the Crusades, investigating its Eastern and Western entangled mythical history. The figure of the Christian saviour, king, or emperor has distant background and roots through a long-term period of Eastern Christian visions and myths. The figure of the Christian priest-king assigned to Prester John represented a developed account of the old tradition of the Christian legend of the Last Emperor, which was first circulated after the rise of Islam in the seventh century. Furthermore, the origin of the name of the legendary Prester John seems to carry echoes of the Apostle and Evangelist John (d. ca. 100 AD), sometimes called or associated with Presbyter John and the kernel of the Christian apocalyptic ideas and prophecies.3 Tracing the concept of the Christian saviour-king in the late ancient Eastern Christian prophecies

Ahmed M. Sheir, “Between Peace and War: The Peaceful Memory of the Crusades between the Middle Ages and the Modern Arabic-Egyptian Writings,” in Studies in Peace-Building History between East and West through the Middle Ages and Modern Era, ed. Aly Ahmed Elsayed, Abdallah Abdel-Ati Al-Naggar, and Ahmed M. Sheir (Cairo: Sanabil Bookshop, 2019), 145-64. 3 Cf. Karl F. Helleiner, “Prester John’s Letter: A Mediaeval Utopia,” Phoenix 13, no. 2 (1959): 47–57; Clyde Weber Votaw, “The Apocalypse of John: IV. Its Chief Ideas, Purpose, Date, Authorship, Principles of Interpretation, and Present-Day Value,” The Biblical World 32, no. 5 (1908): 314-28. 2

10

Introduction

will enhance the understanding of the history of the legend during the crusading period. In the early twelfth century, the kernel of the legend developed further thanks in part to the report of an alleged Indian patriarch by the name of John, who journeyed to Rome during the pontificate of Calixtus II (r. 1119-1124) in 1122 and presented a fantastic description of the St. Thomas tradition in India.4 In 1144, ʿImād alDīn Zankī, the Seljuk Atabeg of Mosul (r. 1127–1146) took control of the principality of Edessa - the first Frankish state established in the Levant in 1197. Consequently, Raymond of Poitiers, Prince of Antioch (r. 1136-1149), on the demand of Queen Melisende of Jerusalem (r. 1131–53), dispatched Hugh, bishop of Jabala (Jabla), to Pope Eugenius III (1145-1153) to ask for a new crusade. In 1145 in Viterbo, Hugh met the Pope and retold the first oral report of Prester John. Otto of Freising (d. 1158) witnessed Hugh’s report, and his Chronica includes the first surviving account of the legend. According to Otto, Hugh of Jabala spoke of a rich and powerful, albeit mysterious, Nestorian king called Prester John in the Far East, who was rich and powerful enough to assist the Crusaders in the Holy Land and attack the Muslims.5 Hugh’s account was most likely a distorted narrative of the actual battle of Qaṭwān between the Central-Asian Qarakhitai Yelü Dashi (r. 1124-1143) and the Muslim Seljuk Sultan Sinjar (r. 1118–1157) in 1141. Rumours of that dreadful battle reached the Crusaders, who likely assumed that the nomadic-Asian foe of Sinjar was a Christian monarch who would expunge the Muslims. In this regard, Cates Baldridge relates that “a combination of ignorance and wishful thinking quickly painted these eastern victors as followers of Christ

4

5

This story was mentioned in an anonymous text entitled “De Adventu Patriarchae Indorum” that was first brought to light in the modern era by Friedrich Zarncke in 1879. Cf. Friedrich Zarncke, ed., “Der Patriarch Johannes von Indien und der Priester Johannes,” in PJMTLT (Aldershot: Variorum, 1996), 2-35. For more details see below Ch. 2. Otto of Freising, Chronica sive Historia de Duabus Civitatibus, ed. Adolfus Hofmeister, in MGH, SS., RGUS, vol. 45 (Hanover: Lipsiae: Impensis Bibliopolii Hahniani, 1912), ch.33: 363-67; F Beckingham, “The Achievements of Prester John,” in PJMTLT (UK and USA: Variorum and Ashgate, 1996), 3-5. 11

Introduction

rather than, as in act they were, disciples of the Buddha.”6 Unlike most past scholarship, this work analyses the association between Otto’s report on the one side and the battle of Qaṭwān and other Christian legends spread in Edessa on the other side, especially those preserved in Syriac and Arabic accounts of the time. The legend of the priest-king John further spread and acquired popularity in Europe through the so-called Prester John Letter addressed to Manuel I Komnenus, Byzantine Emperor (r. 1142-1180), that was primarily composed between ca. 1165 and 1170.7 This Letter located the legendary Christian-eastern kingdom of Prester John in the Three Indias, which was a typical medieval title for massive swathes of south and east Asia as well as what was then believed to be the southeastern part of Africa (the Horn of Africa) that included the kingdom of Abyssinia.8 The Letter was an elaborate construction of the worthy and powerful kingdom of Prester John in the Three Indias, where the Shrine of the Apostle Thomas rests, abutting the Muslims’ lands from the Far East. Being a mighty priest-king, an ideal ruler and superior to other kings on earth, Prester John stimulated the enthusiasm of the crusader expectation of a possible ally against the Muslims. The Letter also mirrors the internal crusading disunity and the longstanding feuds with and prejudices toward the Byzantine Empire since the beginning of the crusade movement in the late eleventh century. The Letter commenced with an inaugural prelude followed by arrogant words from Prester John describing the Byzantine Emperor as “mortal and subject to human corruption.” 9 By the same token, these prejudices appeared in some contemporary eastern and western sources, which would further interpret the motives of the composition of both the legend and the Letter. Adding to that, the Letter mirrored the crisis over the schism between Emperor Frederick Cates Baldridge, Prisoners of Prester John: The Portuguese Mission to Ethiopia in Search of the Mythical King, 1520-1526 (Jefferson and London: McFarland, 2012), 8. 7 See below chapter two. 8 Marianne O’Doherty, The Indies and the Medieval West: Thought, Report, Imagination (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), ch.1:13-52f; Beckingham, “The Achievements of Prester John,” in PJMTLT, 14-15, 17. 9 Keagan Brewer, ed., “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” in PJLIS (Farnham, Burlington: Ashgate, 2015), 68; also see below Ch. 3. 6

12

Introduction

I Barbarossa (r. 1155-1190) and Pope Alexander III (r. 1159-1181), in which the Byzantine Emperor, the addressee, played a part as well. In this light, it is noteworthy that the legend of Prester John and the Letter were likely composed by persons in the inner circle of Frederick Barbarossa’s court.10 The legend was first written down by Otto of Freising, the half-brother of German King Conrad III (r. 1138-1152) and thus uncle of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. The Letter was translated by Christian of Mainz, Barbarossa’s chancellor, who also engaged in the political struggle between Frederick Barbarossa and the Pope.11 The legendary medieval design of the Prester John kingdom appears as a reworked construction of the Alexander the Great Romance and his wonders of the East. 12 In this form, the Letter appears to be a medieval Latinised and Christianised design of the Alexander Romance, which has also been redesigned in Jewish, early Syriac, Arabic-Islamised and Coptic forms. The most exciting yet never studied aspect is the imaginative interconnections and similarities between the legendary Prester John figure and other oriental and Arabic accounts. For instance, the work of the twelfthcentury Muslim geographer al-Idrīsī (d. 1165/66) includes several reports of similarly legendary kings and kingdoms that were comparable to Prester John and his legendary realm in the Three Indias. Al-Idrīsī composed most of his work’s material on the authority of the information and itineraries of people such as travellers or merchants that he met in the Italian harbours, some of whom he hired to collect information for his book. This may provide us with clues to interpret the path of information transmission in Europe that

10 This hypothesis has been discussed in certain recent scholarship, see Wagner, Epistola Presbiteri Johannis, 244-53; Hamilton, “Prester John and the Three Kings,” 176-77; Leyser, “Frederick Barbarossa and the Hohenstaufen Polity,” 155. 11 Joachim Ehlers, Otto von Freising: Ein Intellektueller im Mittelalter (München: C. H. Beck, 2013), 9-12, 20-29; Ulrich Schmidt, “Otto von Freising,” in Biographischbibliographisches Kirchenlexikon, vol. 6 (Herzberg: Verlag Traugott Bautz, 1993), 1373-1374. 12Albert Mugrdich Wolohojian, trans., The Romance of Alexander the Great by PseudoCallisthene (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1969), 1-27, 52-57, 116-121f. 13

Introduction

the composer of the Prester John legend might also have used to form the alleged Letter and kingdom of Prester John. Other interesting, imaginative entanglements between Prester John and the Arabic-oriental-Indian spheres can be found in the Arabian Nights (the thousand and one nights). Like the Letter, the Arabian Nights contain a mixture of Greek, Alexandrian, Indian, Syriac and Arabic influences, which the Letter composer might have reconstructed in a Latinized-Christianized fashion. The most famous Arabian nights are those about the voyages of Sindbad, which include some relevant descriptions of Indian domains, people, kings, islands and exotic creatures and animals like the ones mentioned in the Prester John Letter.13 Furthermore, the twelfth-century Arabic-Coptic account of Abū alMakārim (d. 1209), on the History of churches and monasteries, provides an apparent description of the Nubian-Abyssinian Christian kings, whose domains are comparable to that of Prester John and his legendary domain and power. According to Abū al-Makārim, the king(s) of Nubia and Abyssinia was called al-Malik al-Qiddīs, i.e., “the priest-king” or “the saint king,” 14 which was the same title assigned to Prester John in accounts written during the period in which Abū al-Makārim wrote his account. In this respect, the twelfth-century accounts of the Muslim geographer al-Idrīsī and the Copt Abū alMakārim along with the Arabian Nights should give an accurate representation of further imaginative interconnections between the legendary kingdom of Prester John and other closely related kings, kingdoms and fables in the African-Asian spheres of the vague Three Indias. During the thirteenth century, the legend developed further thanks to the prophecy of a certain King David, son of Prester John, whose prophetic figure was associated with the Mongol Khan. The victories of the Mongols over the Muslim Khawārazmian state in Central Asia between 1219 and 1221 were attributed to that hypothetical King David and circulated in a book on the deeds of King David called

13 14

See below, chapter four. Abū al-Makārim, Tarīkh al-Kanāʼis wa al-Adyirah fī al-Qarn al-Thānī ʻashar, ed. alAnbā Ṣamwʾīl, vol. 2 (Cairo: Al-Naʻām lil-Ṭibāʻah, 2000), 132. 14

Introduction

Relatio de Davide between 1220 and 1221.15 Jacques de Vitry (d. 1240) and Oliver of Paderborn (d. 1227), who joined the Fifth Crusade and were its chief preachers and chroniclers, mentioned that the prophetic text on King David was initially written in Arabic, translated into Latin and sent to Europe. While the Fifth Crusaders fought to gain control of the city of Damietta in northern Egypt, they received a book/letter(s) written in Arabic predicting the arrival of the so-called King David, son of Prester John.16 Hence, the Arabic origin of the legend became increasingly evident during the Fifth Crusade, revealing, at the same time, the extent to which Prester John and his son King David shaped the crusading imagination. Furthermore, it seems that these prophetic texts were a crusading modification and interpretation of some Coptic and eastern Christian prophecies circulated as a reaction to the Arab Muslim conquest of Egypt and the Levant in the seventh century. The remnants of these prophecies survived and developed through time among Eastern Christians. One of the closest prophecies to the fifth-crusade prophecy of King David was the prophecy of the Syrian Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq (d. 873), which predicted the imminent coming of a powerful Christian king, who would seize Damascus, Egypt and other cities and lands.17 Within the context of the Fifth Crusade, King David’s prediction might have been a reworked version of some Coptic prophecies. Christine George argues that while Copts welcomed the Arab conquest of Egypt to shake off the shackle of the Byzantine persecution, they began to feel persecuted with shifting the Islamic Caliphate to Damascus and the beginning Umayyad Caliphate in 41Ah/661 AD. Therefore, some Copts voiced their irritation from the political regime through prophecies metaphorically attributed to a group of renowned Coptic saints. Some prophecies were assigned to the Patriarch of the Alexandria Church Athanāsiyūs the Apostolic (d. 373 AD), claiming that he predicted the rise of Arabs and their Keagan Brewer, ed., “Relatio de Davide,” in PJLIS (Farnham, Burlington: Ashgate, 2015), 101-22. 16 See below chapter five. 17 Reinhold Röhricht, “la prophétie de Hannan le fil Isaac,” in Quinti belli sacri Scriptores Minores, ed. Reinhold Röhricht (Genevae, 1879), 205–13; Paul Pelliot, “deux passages de la prophétie de Hannan, fils d’Isaac’, in PJMTLT (Aldershot: Variorum, 1996), 113-37. 15

15

Introduction

destruction.18 Another prophecy was attributed to St. Samuel of Qalamūn (d. ca. 695) that predicted the end of Arabo-Muslim domination in Egypt through the assistance of a certain Christian (Rūm) king. 19 The prophecy of King David had a further connection with an Arabic-Coptic prophetic book called Kébra Nagast, which relates a venerable history of King Solomon and his young son King David, who was blessed to be the King of Ethiopia.20 On the eve of the Fifth Crusade, European sources such as the Alberic de Trois-Fontaines chronicle – written between 1232 and 1241 – referred to the Mongols as a part of Prester John’s army.21 Nevertheless, after the Mongol conquest of Eastern Europe, the remaining powers of Europe became confused about the actuality of the Mongols and their aims. At the same time, Pope Innocent IV (r. 1243-1254) sent four missions to the Mongols after the Council of Lyon in 1245, seeking to identify these unknown people and look for Prester John among them. This study explores the image of Prester John, which appeared in these European missionary-travel writings, especially the account of the Franciscan John of Plano Carpine (d. 1250), who travelled to the Mongols between 1245 and 1247. Some rumours linked the Mongols and Prester John during the Seventh Crusade to Egypt between 1248 and 1252. The second essential account is the travel of the Franciscan monk William of Rubruck (d. 1293), who journeyed to the Mongols at the request of King Louis IX (1226-1270) in 1253. Among other purposes, Rubruck aimed to propose an alliance project with the Mongols after the disastrous performance of King Louis IX in the Seventh Crusade, during which he was captured at the battle of Christine George, trans., “Al-Nnubūʾah al-Mansūbah ll-Qiddīs Athanāsiyūs alRasūlī,” Madrasat al-Iskandarih, no. 3 (2013): 223–56. 19 Samʻān al-Ᾱnṭiūanī, ed., Tanabbūʾāt al-Anbā Ṣamwaʾīl al-Muʻtaraf bi-Dyruh alʻĀmir bi-Jabal al-Qalāmūn (Cairo: Maṭbaʻat ʻAzmi, 1988), 29-31. 20 E.A. Wallis Budge, trans., The Queen of Sheba and her only Son Menyelek (Kébra Nagast), Parentheses Publications Ethiopian Series (Cambridge, Ontario: Cambridge University Press, 2000), ii-iii, 40-48; Rāhib min Dayr al-Barāmūs, al-Rahbanah alḤabashīyah, ed. Nīāfat al-Anbā Iysūzūrus (Cairo: Dār al-Qiṭār lil -ṭibāʿah, 1999), 1922. 21 Alberic de Trois-Fontaines, “Albrici monachi Triumfontium Chronicon,” ed. Paulus Scheffer-Boichorst, in MGH SS, ed. Georgius Heinricus Pertz, vol. 23 (Leipzig: Verlag Karl W. Hiersemann, 1925), 912. 18

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Manṣūrah (648/1250). It is interesting to examine how these travel accounts presented a fanciful image of how the Tatars/Mongols became the vassals of Prester John, whose land was later conquered by Genghis Khan and his sons. Finally, the reception of Prester John among the Mongols by other late thirteenth-century accounts with a parallel insight on relevant Arabic and Syriac sources, especially those written by Ibn al-ʿIbrī (Bar Hebraios) (d. 1286), will be further analysed. HISTORIOGRAPHY: PRESTER JOHN BETWEEN PAST AND PRESENT The legend of Prester John drew the attention of medieval missionaries, travellers, geographers, writers and historians. Likewise, it was the subject of sober reflections and accounts, and its imaginative importance endured many centuries through various incarnations in historical fiction, adventure novels and comic books, and anthropological, theological, philological, genealogical and historical literature. Of course, this work is far from being the first to tackle the legend of Prester John, and it cannot but be grateful to those who have paved the way. Most of the past scholarship mainly dealt with the largescale range of the legend’s history from the twelfth century into the early modern era. A significant number of these publications discuss in a smaller or greater degree the legend in its Ethiopian scope starting in the fourteenth century. Therefore, a historical review of the most preeminent and seminal studies of the Prester John legend to date will follow. While Prester John was the subject of several studies in the West, Arab academia is almost silent on the subject. The legend was never the subject of a full-length research study by a modern Arab historian. Only a brief overview of the legend can be found in the introduction of ʻĀdil Hilāl’s book in 1997 on the relations between the Mongols and Europe and its impact on the Muslims. In 2015, Maḥmūd ʻUmrān published a conference paper summarising the legend’s history during the Crusades in the context of a volume on the travellers and

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geographers in the Middle Ages.22 Following their steps, Ḥātim alṬaḥāwī rehashed the basic story in an article published in the Tafāhum cultural magazine in 2018, scanning the medieval and early modern history of the legend of Prester John.23 Though those Arabic studies relied mainly on the western historiography on the legend and proposed nothing novel, they expressed a slight Arabic and Muslim perspective. These texts and their authors served as a catalyst to sketch a transcultural historiographical perspective on the legend through a comprehensive investigation of relevant contemporary sources, considering views and interpretations of recent scholarship on the legend in East and West. Among the first scholars who took the initiative to shed light on the legend in western academia was Gustav Oppert in 1864.24 He proposed the oldest theories on Prester John, provided an overview of the legend into the sixteenth century, focused on its Ethiopian part and examined the association between heroic poetry in German literature and the Letter text. However, the majority of the studies of Prester John stand on the shoulder of the German scholar Friedrich Zarncke, to whom all subsequent researchers on the Prester John legend must render gratitude. In 1876, Zarncke published the first Latin edition of the Prester John texts with a German introduction and comments that became the main source channels of the academic scholarship down to modern times. Zarncke provides a critical edition of the Letter of Prester John to the Byzantine emperor based on examining nearly one hundred manuscripts of the Letter, together with the letter of Pope Alexander III to Prester John in 1177.25 In his zweite Abhandlung, ʻĀdil Hilāl, Al-ʻalāqāt bayna al-Maghūl wa Ūrubbā wa Āthāraha a͑ la al-ʻĀlam alIslāmi (Cairo: Dār ʻīn, 1997), 18-26; Maḥmūd Saʻīd ʻUmrān, al-Raḥḥālah wa alJughrāfīyūn fī al-ʻUṣūr al-Wusṭā (Alexanderia: Dār al-Maʻrifah al-jāmiʻīah, 2015), 112-136. 23 Ḥātim al-Ṭaḥāwī, “Ūrubbā wa-al-Islām: Mamlakat al-Kāhin Yūḥannā, al-Ḥaqīqah, al-ʾusṭūrah, al-Maghza,” Majallat al-Tafāhum, s. 16, no. 16 (2018): 281–91. 24 Gustav Oppert, Der Presbyter Johannes in Sage und Geschichte: Ein Beitrag zur Voelker-und Kirchenhistorie und zur Heldendichtung des Mittelalters (Berlin: Julius Springer, 1864). 25 Friedrich Zarncke, [Abh.1] der Priester Johannes, erste Abhandlung, des VII. Bandes der Abhandlungen der phlosophisch-historischen Klasse der königlich sächsischen 22

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Zarncke provides an edition of the texts on Prester John in the thirteenth century, such as the fifth-crusade Relatio de Davide, among others.26 Further discussion of each Latin text and source edited by Zarncke will be introduced in detail throughout the following chapters. Interdisciplinary research on the subject has flourished during the twentieth century. Most of these studies reflect Eurocentric historiographical interpretations and views of the large-scale legend history and narratives. Scholars more engaged with the narrative of Otto of Freising’s report, the literary and philological aspects of the Letter and the Ethiopian Prester John, overlook other sources from Eastern historical partners, especially Arabs. For instance, between the 1920s and 1940s, a few articles were published by Constantine Marinescu,27 E. D. Ross,28 Leonardo Olschki,29 and Malcolm Letts30 presenting hypotheses regarding the African-Ethiopian figure of Prester John with a brief overview of the legend in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Furthermore, Olschki presented allegorical theories on the Letter, arguing that it is useless in terms of its geographical and historical data Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften (Leipzig, Hirzel, 1879), 872-934; Zarncke's texts of “der Patriarch Johannes von Indien und der Priester Johannes,” and “der Brief des Priesters Johannes an den byzantinischen Kaiser Emanuel,” and “der Brief des Papstes Alexanders II an den Priester Johannes,” reprinted in PJMTLT (Aldershot: Variorum, 1996), 23-112. 26 Friedrich Zarncke, [Abh.2] der Priester Johannes, zweite Abhandlung, enthaltend Capitel IV, V und VI, des VIII. Bandes der Abhandlungen der philosophischhistorischen Klasse der königlich sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften (Leipzig, Hirzel, 1876), Reprint by Georg Omls Verlg togther with the erste Abhandlung as Zarncke, der Priester Johannes: 2 Teile in 1 Band, in 1980. 27 Constantine Marinescu, “le Prêtre Jean, Son Pays, explication de Son Nom,” Academie Roumaine. Bulletin de la Section Historique x (1923): 73–122; Constantine Marinescu, “Encore une fois le problème du Prêtre Jean,” Academie Roumaine. Bulletin de la Section Historique xxvi, no. 2 (1945): 203–22. 28 E. Denison Ross, “Prester John and the Empire of Ethiopia,” in Travel and Travelers of the Middle Ages, ed. Arthur Newton (London. NY: Kegan Paul, 1930), 174–94. 29 Leonardo Olschki, “Der Brief des Presbyters Johannes,” Historische Zeitschrift 144, no. JG (1931): 1–14; republsihed in Leonardo Olschki, Storia letteraria delle scoperte geografiche: Studi e ricerche (Florence: 1937), 194-213. 30 Malcolm Letts, “Prester John: A Fourteenth-Century Manuscript at Cambridge,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 29 (1947): 19–26. 19

Introduction

that might be designed to present an imaginary ideal society. In 1950, some works on the legend were composed by Nowell,31 Slessarev32 and Helleiner.33 Nowell reintroduced an overview of the legend and the Letter focusing on the figure and name of Prester John in Ethiopian culture and literature. Slessarev, based on a French version preserved in the James Ford Bell collection of the University of Minnesota Library, rediscussed the Letter and its utopian traditions. Helleiner speaks of the utopian aspects of the Letter, pointing to the tradition of St. Thomas in India in the Anglo-Saxon chronicle. Due to the enduring fascination fostered by such dramatic aspects of the legend, Robert Silverberg depicts a dramatic fictional scenario about Prester John, the Steppes, the embellishments and Fantasies, and the Portuguese and Prester John in Ethiopia.34 Silverberg’s book did not concern the precise history of the Prester John story; it is best seen as a historical novel rather than an academic history work. Similarly, Gumilev offered an idiosyncratic work published in Russian in 1970 and translated into English by R. Smith in 1987.35 Gumilev approaches the subject in a roundabout and popular form in the sense of a medieval world history of Central Asia and the Steppes from the eighth century to the early fourteenth century. Gumilev depicts a dramatic history of Nestorianism among the Naimans and Keraits, with the emergence of Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire. In this framework, this book is designed to discuss the Asian events that later led to the birth of the legend of Prester John, but never discusses the legend and its medieval context in a specific sense. Since 1980, significant developments have emerged on the subject, especially in the conceptual, historical, literary and philological spheres of the Prester John Letter. A fresh look at Prester John was Charles Nowell, “The Historical Prester John,” Speculum 28, no. 3 (1953): 435–45. Vsevolod Slessarev, Prester John: The Letter and the Legend (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1959). 33 Karl F. Helleiner, “Prester John’s Letter: A Mediaeval Utopia,” Phoenix 13, no. 2 (1959): 47–57. 34 Robert Silverberg, The Realm of Prester John (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1972). 35 L.N. Gumilev, Searches for an Imaginary Kingdom: The Legend of the Kingdom of Prester John, trans. T. E.F Smith, Past and Present Publications (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). 31 32

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promoted in German academia with Knefelkamp’s work, “die Suche nach dem Reich des Priesterkönigs Johannes,” published in 1986.36 Knefelkamp sketches an interesting folkloric, ethnological, literary and historical presentation of the legend between the twelfth and seventeenth centuries. He examines different genres of German literature, travel literature, epics and encyclopaedias with a heavy concentration on the Ethiopian figure of Prester John. Knefelkamp’s study shows how the Portuguese expansion into Africa relied on the search for Prester John.37 Between fiction and history, Meir Bar-Ilan provides a short paper about Prester John in India and Ethiopia38 based on the Hebrew version of the Letter.39 Depicting a general landscape of the Prester John legend in terms of the history of early contact of Europeans with East Asia, Igor de Rachewiltz wrote on “Prester John and Europe’s Discovery,” which was originally a lecture that he gave at the Australian National University.40 The next body of Prester John studies is presented in the most significant collection of articles on the topic, edited by Beckingham and Hamilton under the title Prester John: the Mongols and the Ten Lost Tribes, published in 1996.41 The volume has done much to illuminate the legend's historical aspects, among other contributions. It combined original essays from various scholars with three of Zarncke’s translations of the original Prester John texts first published Ulrich Knefelkamp, Die Suche nach dem Reich des Priesterkönigs Johannes: Dargestellt anhand von Reiseberichten und anderen ethnographischen Quellen des 12. bis 17. Jahrhunderts (Gelsenkirchen: Verlag Andreas Müller, 1986). 37 Ulrich Knefelkamp, Die Suche nach dem Reich des Priesterkönigs Johannes: Dargestellt anhand von Reiseberichten und anderen ethnographischen Quellen des 12. bis 17. Jahrhunderts (Gelsenkirchen: Verlag Andreas Müller, 1986); see also, Ulrich Knefelkamp, “Die Priesterkönig Johannes und seine Reich-Legende oder Realität?,” Journal of Medieval History, no. 14 (1988): 337–55. 38 Meir Bar-Iian, “Prester John: Fiction and History,” History of European Ideas 20, no. 1–3 (1995): 291–98. 39 Edward Ullendorff and C.F. Beckingham, The Hebrew Letters of Prester John (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982). 40 Igor de Rachewiltz, “Prester John and Europe’s Discovery of East Asia,” East Asian History, no. 11 (1996): 59–74. 41 Charles F. Beckingham and Bernard Hamilton, eds., Prester John: The Mongols and the Ten Lost Tribes [PJMTLT] (Aldershot: Variorum: 1996). 36

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in 1879. In the frame of the influence of the quest for Prester John, Beckingham presents a brief description of Africa and India in the late Middle Ages, ending with the Portuguese search for Prester John in Ethiopia.42 In another article, which was first an inaugural lecture at the SOAS in London in 1966, Beckingham indicates the connection between Hugh of Jabala’s report on Prester John the Gür-Khan (Yelü Dashi) of Qarakhitai.43 He gives a detailed explanation of the conception of the Three Indias in the medieval European imagination. Other volume sections combine useful information on Prester John and the “Three Kings of Cologne” by Hamilton 44 and the deeds of King David, son of Prester John, called Relatio de Davide by J. Richard.45 The latter aimed to touch upon the question of the historical value of the Relatio text as a source for Mongol history. Likewise, David Morgan’s article “Prester John and the Mongols” uncovers the connection between the legend and the Mongols.46 These articles are significant contributions to the history of the Mongols, discussing some aspects of the relation between Prester John and the Mongols. Nevertheless, further discussion on the imagined connection between the Mongols and Prester John in the context of the Crusading-Muslim encounter is needed. On the steps of Zarncke and Knefelkamp, Baum published a German study on the topic in 1999. 47 He traces the Christian cultural encounter between Asia, East Africa and Europe from the early Middle Ages to the sixteenth century. Baum studies Prester John, providing a dedicated study to display the medieval and early modern C.F. Beckingham, “Quest for Prester John,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 62 (1980): 291-310, republished in1996 in PJMTLTs, 271-90. 43 Charles F. Beckingham, “The Achievements of Prester John,” in Between Islam and Christendom: Travellers, Facts, and Legends in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (London: Variorum, 1983), 3-24, reprinted in the in PJMTLT, 1996, 1-22. 44 Bernard Hamilton, “Prester John and the Three Kings of Cologne,” in Studies in the Medieval History presented to R.H.C. Davis, ed. H. Mayr Harting and R.I. Moore (London: Hambledon Press, 1985), 73-97, republished in 1996 in PJMTLTs, 171-185. 45 Jean Richard, “The Relatio de Davide as a Source for the Mongol History and the Legend of Prester John,” in PJMTLT, 139–58. 46 David Morgan, “Prester John and the Mongols,” in PJMTLT, 159–70. 47 Wilhelm Baum, Die Verwandlungen des Mythos vom Reich des Priesterkönigs Johannes: Rom, Byzanz und die Christen des Orients im Mittelalter (Klagenfurt: Verlag Kitab, 1999). 42

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history of the legend in the context of a historical presentation of the history of the Eastern Church and the Eastern Christians. The scope of Baum’s work is impressive and the material used is extremely diverse, but the central tendency of the work is eclectic. The data is based on a mountain of material in the secondary literature. Many details are connected or interpreted in an idiosyncratic manner, and some scientifically questionable or no longer tenable theses are redundant.48 In 2002, Baum republished a book chapter from his work on the Syrian Christians, revealing the spread of Nestorianism among the Naiman tribe, whose ruler Ung Khan was called John, as the origin of the legend among the legend the Mongols.49 On the shoulders of Zarncke’s edition, Bettina Wagner published a new revised edition of the Letter’s manuscripts with a German translation in 2000.50 Wagner has explored about 200 manuscripts of the Letter, including about one hundred versions that Zarncke studied in 1879, between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries. The edition provides revised textual traditions of the Letter’s manuscripts with new editions of several variants that distinguish the work from that of Zarncke. She also presented a new palaeographical analysis of the Letter’s manuscripts while providing more handwritten marginal comments written in the versions she examined. Additionally, Wagner has given a detailed temporal and spatial map of the manuscripts of the Letter in Europe, which served the present work to measure the extent to which the legend was known in Europe in the Middle Ages. She also provides descriptions of scribal dialect, translation technique and possible origins of the texts, along with discussing the contemporary function of the German text. In general, Wagner’s Siegbert Uhlig, “Wilhelm Baum: Die Verwandlungen des Mythos vom Reich des Priesterkönigs Johannes. Rom, Byzanz und die Christen des Orients im Mittelalter,” Aethiopica: International Journal of Ethiopian and Eritrean Studies, no. 4 (2001): 247–50. 49 Wilhelm Baum, “Der Priesterkönig Johannes und die syrische Christenheit,” in Syriaca. Zur Geschichte, Theologie, Liturgie und Gegenwartslage der syrischen Kirchen, Studien zur orientalischen Kirchengeschichte. Band 17 (Hamburg: Lit, 2002), 177–84. 50 Bettina Wagner, Die ›Epistola Presbiteri Johannis‹ Lateinisch und Deutsch: Überlieferung, Textgeschichte, Rezeption und Übertragungen im Mittelalters. Mit bisher unedierten Texten (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 2000). 48

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edition provides a wealth of vital details about the Letter that are of great value to the present research. Furthermore, the anthropologist Johnny Wyld spoke of the fictional figure of Prester John, focusing on the imaginative description of Prester John in recent scholarship and the history of the nomadic tribes in Central Asia and the Steppes. Since the essay was originally part of a general talk given in 1999, it offers a general view of the legend in Central Asia.51 Exploring the Paris manuscript (BNF. Ms.all. 15), Gerhardt and Schmid published an essay in 2004 discussing the utopian content of the Letter. It comes across as an anthropological and philological investigation of the Paris manuscript of the Letter, providing a brief political-historical discussion of the Letter’s content.52 In 2006, Manuel João Ramos provided a further historical reading of the textual content of the Letter as a part of his volume on Christian mythology. He sheds light on multi-layered visions of the Letter and the kingdom of Prester John to bring together the common elements of the Letter’s scholarship in the twentieth century.53 In a doctoral dissertation published in 2009,54 Michael Brooks rereads the evolution of the Prester John legend from its roots in central and eastern Asia to its final destination in Abyssinia in the sixteenth century. As in several previous studies, Brooks reinterprets the large range of the legend in terms of space and time while focusing on the textual analysis and literary tradition that produced the perfect atmosphere for the pervasiveness of the Prester John legend. However, Brooks solely analyses modern university history textbooks to investigate how the Prester John is received and taught in European world history curricula. In this vein, Brooks’s project presents a new Johnny Wyld, “Prester John in Central Asia,” Asian Affairs 31, no. 1 (2000): 3–13. Christoph Gerhardt and Wolfgang Schmid, “Beiträge zum ‘Brief des Presbyters Johannes’. Bemerkungen zum utopischen Charakter der ‘Epistola’ und zu Ihrer deutschen Bearbeitung in der Pariser Handschrift (BNF, Ms. All. 150),” Zeitschrift für Deutsches Altertum und Deutsche Literatur 133, no. 2 (2004): 177–94. 53 Manuel João Ramos, Essays in Christian Mythology: The Metamorphosis of Prester John (Lanham: University Press of America, Inc., 2006). 54 Michael E. Brooks, “Prester John: A Reexamination and Compendium of the Mythical Figure Who Helped Spark European Expansion” (PhD. Thesis, University of Toledo, 2009), 1-317. 51 52

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perspective on the legend in its late medieval and early modern setting. It also deals with university didactic approaches of the legend, providing an overview of its developments in geography, visual arts and history texts. Echoing the study of Wasserstein on Eldad ha-Dani and Prester John in 1996,55 Micha Perry wrote on the relations between Prester John and Eldad the Danite (ninth-century Jewish traveller). He introduces both Eldad’s travels and the Letter in the context of the history of medieval Christian-Jewish relations, examining the literary relationship between the Eldad text and the Letter.56 While Perry explains how both Jews and Christians retold these utopian tales, demonstrating how the two societies shared the same imaginary belief in the Middle Ages, the present book demonstrates how both Latins and Muslims shared the same imaginative concept on the wonderous East, albeit differently. In his master’s thesis in 2011, Christopher Taylor presented the legend in the frame of the enclosure and expansion of Latin Christendom within the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. He reviews the legend and the Letter, presenting Prester John as an anchoring point of the conflict between the desired eschatological significance of Christianity and Islam. Taylor aimed to situate his study on the legend to concern a question of scepticism, rather than investigating what is “over or “beyond” Prester John. In the last ten pages of his thesis, he presents an overview of how the Crusaders waited for Prester John during the Fifth Crusade; unfortunately, a solid analysis of the primary sources is lacking.57

David J. Wasserstein, “Eldad Ha-Dani and Prester John.” In PJMTLT, (Aldershot: Variorum, 1996), XII: 213–36. 56 Micha Perry, “The Imaginary War between Prester John and Eldad the Danite and its Real Implications,” Viator 41, no. 1 (2010): 1–24. 57 Christopher Eric Taylor, “Waiting for Prester John: The Legend, the Fifth Crusade, and Medieval Christian Holy War,” (M.A. Thesis, University of Texas at Austin, 2011), 1-64. 55

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Later, Taylor developed his thesis and published it in two articles in 201158 and 2014.59 In 2013, I-Chun Wang provided a short comparative literary study presenting an example of the literary and cultural similarities between “Alexander the Great, Prester John, Strabo of Amasia and wonders of the East.” 60 Although the article does not provide a critical study, it provides a literary history for the Letter, which this study uses to tackle the legend’s connections with early and late ancient wonders. In a similar vein, Tilo Renz, in “Das Priesterkönigreich des Johannes,” rereads the literary and fictional content of the Letter and its reception in German literature, studying its literary context in the travel reports of the medieval and early modern era.61 In a testimonial, messianic, eschatological and theological reading for the legend of Prester John and his son King David, Camille Rouxpetel wrote her article “La figure du Prêtre Jean,” in 2014.62 She provides a beneficial treatment of the relation between the apocalyptic messianic figure of the Pseudo-Methodius apocalypse, the prophecy of Hannan of Isaac (Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq) and the King David prophecy of the Fifth Crusade. In an excellent study on The Mongol empire between myth and reality, Aigle dedicates a chapter to the Mongols and the legend of Prester John.63 Aigle discusses the events in Inner Asia on the eve of the Mongol invasions, referring to the power struggle between Ong Khan, who was said to have been a Christian, and Temüjin (Genghis Christopher Taylor, “Prester John, Christian Enclosure, and the Spatial Transmission of Islamic Alterity in the Twelfth-Century West,” in Contextualizing the Muslim Other in Medieval Christian Discourse, ed. Jerold C. Frakes (New YorK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 39–64. 59 Christopher Taylor, “Global Circulation as Christian Enclosure: Legend, Empire, and the Nomadic Prester John,” Literature Compass 11, no. 4 (2014): 445–59. 60 I-Chun Wang, “Alexander the Great, Prester John, Strabo of Amasia, and Wonders of the East,” CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 14, no. 5 (2012): 1–9. 61 Tilo Renz, “Das Priesterkönigreich des Johannes,” in ErinnerungsorteErinnerungsbrüche mittelalterliche Orte, die Geschichte Mach(t)en, ed. Frank Meier and Ralf H. Schneider (Ostfildern: Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 2013), 239–56. 62 Camille Rouxpetel, “La figure du Prêtre Jean: les mutations d’une prophétie souverain chrétien idéal, figure providentielle ou paradigme de l’orientalisme médiéval?” Questes: Revue Pluridisciplinaire d’études Médiévales, no. 28 (2014): 99–120. 63 Denise Aigle, The Mongol Empire between Myth and Reality: Studies in Anthropological History (Leiden. Boston: Brill, 2014), 41-65. 58

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Khan). She also tells of the western reaction to the Mongol advance and the evolving figure of the Prester John concept in the accounts of the papal and European missionaries to the Mongols from the year 1245 into the early fourteenth century. Aigle’s chapter provides the background on which this study builds its last chapter, which rather focuses on the consanguinity between the Latin, Eastern Christian and Arabic accounts, revealing a diverse cultural perception of the Mongol figure of Prester John. Following Zarncke’s edition, Keagan Brewer published an English and Latin edition for the Latin texts of Prester John between the twelfth and eighteenth centuries.64 Brewer’s volume begins with an introduction, which gives an excellent overview of the medieval and early modern history of the legend of Prester John. Before each Latin text, Brewer provides contextual information about the Latin text that helps the reader to understand the circumstances in which the text was produced. The volume ends with appendices containing a list of annotated sources, bibliographical details of the edition, translations and manuscripts, an appendix of the manuscript traditions of the Prester John Letter and other relevant texts on the legend. Each source text will be further discussed throughout the chapters of the present study. In 2017, in the context of his study on Mythology and Diplomacy in the Ages of Exploration,65 Adam Knobler commenced his book with a mythical-historical introduction of the legend, discussing how the Ethiopian figure of Prester John turned the European diplomatic endeavours towards Ethiopia in the early modern era. Knobler, however, gives an essential insight into how the legends, especially Prester John, played a vital role in shaping European diplomacy with Asia and Africa in medieval and early modern periods. Following the endeavours to provide further discussions on the literary and imaginative content of the Letter, Marco Giardini published an article

Keagan Brewer, ed., [PJLIS] Prester John: The Legend and Its Sources (Farnham, Burlington: Ashgate, 2015). 65 Adam Knobler, Mythology and Diplomacy in the Age of Exploration (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 5-30. 64

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discussing the name and origin of Prester John.66 Giardini sheds light on the complex intertwinement of the Letter’s narrative, investigating various meanings of Prester John’s name in historiographical and literary writings, discussing several theories regarding the interpretation, transliteration and translation of Prester’s John name. In 2019, Jonathan Dixon submitted his dissertation on The Prester John Legend and European Conceptions of Eastern Alterity before 1800, which deals with the extended history of the Prester John legend. Dixon examines how Prester John reflected a broader European conception of Eastern alterity. It also presents a history of the transfer of Prester John from being an Asian king during the Crusades into an Ethiopian king in the figure of the Ethiopian emperor in the late medieval period and early modern era.67 In addition to all of the scholarly endeavours above, further comprehensive studies are dedicated to discussing the Ethiopian Prester John, but there is not enough space to be reviewed here.68 OBJECTIVE AND METHODOLOGY While there are excellent works on the legend, they mainly deal with the wide range of aspects of the legend from the twelfth century into Marco Giardini, “‘Ego, Presbiter Iohannes, Dominus Sum Dominantium’: The Name of Prester John and the Origin of his Legend,” Viator 48, no. 2 (2017): 195-230. 67 Jonathan M.T. Dixon, “The Prester John Legend and European Conceptions of Eastern Alterity before 1800” (Doctoral Thesis: University of Cambridge, 2020). 68 Marco Giardini, “The Quest for the Ethiopian Prester John and its Eschatological Implications,” Medievalia 22 (2019), 55-87; Matteo Salvadore, The African Prester John and the Birth of Ethiopian-European Relations, 1402-1555, (London: Routledge, 2016); Andrew Kurt, “The Search for Prester John, a Projected Crusade and the Eroding Prestige of Ethiopian Kings, c.1200–c.1540,” Journal of Medieval History 39, no. 3 (2013): 297–320; Cates Baldridge, Prisoners of Prester John: The Portuguese Mission to Ethiopia in Search of the Mythical King, 1520-1526 (Jefferson and London: McFarland, 2012); Matteo Salvadore, “The Ethiopian Age of Exploration: Prester John’s Discovery of Europe, 1306-1458,” Journal of World History 21, no. 4 (2010): 593–627; Bernard Hamilton, “An Ethiopian Embassy to Europe, c. 1310,” in PJMTLT (Aldershot: Variorum, 1996), 197–206; Francisco Alvares, The Prester John of the Indies: A True Relation of the Lands of the Prester John, being the Narrative of the Portuguese Embassy to Ethiopia in 1520, trans. C. F. Beckingham and G. W.B. Huntingford, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962), reprinted by Ashgate in 2011. 66

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the early modern era. Scholarship on the subject during the Crusades seems to remain, to this day, mostly disconnected from the meaningful discussion of intertwined Arab-Latin histories and Muslim-Christian interrelations. Furthermore, previous studies mainly provide Eurocentric views on the shared histories of the Crusades and the medieval East-West relations in general. Thus, there is still a pressing need for a comprehensive historical investigation of the legend during the Crusades. This work, consequently, is exclusively dedicated to scrutinising the shared Eastern and Western history of the legend and its impact on the Crusades, presenting a transcultural historiographical view through analysis of relevant Arabic, Coptic and Syriac and Latin sources. This work thus uncovers the extent to which the legend played a part in shaping the actual historical occurrences of the Crusades. It evaluates how the belief in Prester John influenced the crusading advocates and shaped the military and political decisions of the crusade leaders, which in turn shaped the war and peace-making processes between the Muslims and the Crusaders. In this regard, the study aims to examine the history of the legend and its entanglements with further Christian prophecies and eastern wonders in Arabic and Eastern Christian accounts. The book further examines the repercussions of the Prester John in Europe, examining how the legend mirrored the schism between Frederick Barbarossa and the Papacy. It investigates the role of the Mongol advance into Asia in shaping the European and crusading imagination about Prester John, analysing the mythical Mongol figure of Prester John in Western and Eastern reports. The work argues that a complete understanding of the legendary priest-king John requires an analysis of the contemporary Arabic and Eastern Christian literary, geographical and historical accounts, which include legends, prophecies or apocalyptical priest-king(s) or domain(s) that are similar to the legendary figure of Prester. It thus deals with the legend from transcultural views and multicultural source perspectives, recasting a Latin-Western and Arab-Eastern perspective of the crusading history of Prester John. Side by side, the study also shows how Arabs and Eastern Christians shared the same imaginary belief about Christian kings, albeit in different forms, 29

Introduction

presenting an imaginative Latin conception of the Eastern alterity of the wondrous East during the Crusades. Regarding study approaches and methodology, the work considers the legend and its impact during the crusade from fresh Eastern and Western perspectives, prioritising an explanatory factor in the sources’ tenor and contents. The present work thus uses an interpretative approach based on the investigation and analysis of the primary sources and interpretation of specific texts to understand the entangled structure of the legend and its impact on historical occurrences. Each source and account will be introduced at the first instance of its mention. Addressing texts and narratives on the legend through a different range of Eastern and Western sources in narratological form aims, in the end, to analyse common narratives in Latin sources and germane Arabic sources, written by Muslims, Syrians and Copts.69 Examining different texts and narratives should also provide a micro-historical enquiry and interpretation of the western and eastern aspects of the legend during the Crusades. Secondary sources are utilised as contrapuntal historical references, while some secondary texts serve as primary sources for the attitudes of particular historians. The crusading movement is one of the trans-Mediterranean phenomena70 that could not be understood without considering the 69 On narratology see, Monika Fludernik, “Narratology in the Twenty-First Century: The

Cognitive Approach to Narrative.” PMLA/Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 125, no. 4 (2010): 924–30; Jan Christoph Meister, “Narratology,” in Handbook of Narratology, eds. Peter Hühn et al (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009) 329–50; Gerald Prince, “Narratology,” in The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism, ed. Raman Selden, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 8:110– 30; Gerald Prince, Narratology. The Form and Functioning of Narrative (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1982). 70 On Medieval Transcultural Entanglement see; Felipe Rojas and Peter E. Thompson, “Introduction: The Transcultural Medieval Mediterranean,” in Queering the Medieval Mediterranean: Transcultural Sea of Sex, Gender, Identity, and Culture, ed. Felipe Rojas and Peter E. Thompson, The Medieval Mediterranean, 121 (Leiden: Brill, 2021), 1–12; Jelena Erdeljan, “Cross-Cultural and Transcultural Entanglement and Visual Culture in Eastern Europe, ca. 1300–1550,” in Eclecticism in Late Medieval Visual Culture at the Crossroads of the Latin, Greek, and Slavic Traditions, ed. Maria Alessia Rossi and Alice Isabella Sullivan (Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2021), 29–56;

30

Introduction

various Latin-Arab and Christian-Muslim transcultural views. In this context, Prester John’s legend is considered a transculturalMediterranean paradigm that had eastern roots impacting the relationship between East and West, Islam and Christianity in the Middle Ages. Hence, the “transcultural”71 approach and investigation considers the Prester John legend through a transcultural perspective combining different cultures that contributed to forming the crusading-Latin legendary of Prester John, as the awaited Eastern Christian saviour, during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.72 Offering a transcultural reading and conversation is intended to examine potential conceptual aspects of Prester John, exploring relevant Eastern Christian legends and wonders in Arab, Muslim and Eastern Christian tradition through medieval space and time. At the same time, it aims to uncover a sort of hypothetical alternative, expressing interaction and integration dimensions, on the level of legendary perception, between East and West that have distinct cultural elements, though interconnected, especially across the Mediterranean scope. Daniel G. König, ed., Latin and Arabic: Entangled Histories, Heidelberg Studies on Transculturality–5 (Heidelberg: Heidelberg University Publishing, 2019), vii-xii, 21131; Albrecht Classen, “Medieval Transculturality in the Mediterranean from a Literary-Historical Perspective. The Case of Rudolf von Ems’ der Guote Gêrhart (ca. 1220–1225),” Journal of Transcultural Medieval Studies 5, no. 1 (2018): 133–60. 71 The conceptual term “Transculturación” was coined by Fernando Ortiz in his 1940 work: See, Fernando Ortiz, Contrapunteo cubano del tabaco y el azúcar (Havana: Jesús Montero, 1940); Fernando Ortiz, Cuban Counterpoint. Tobacco and Sugar (New York: Knopf, 1947). 72 For more on transcultural approach see; Daniel G. König, “The Transcultural Approach Within a Disciplinary Framework: An Introduction,” The Journal of Transcultural Studies 7, no. 2 (2016): 89–100; Madeleine Herren, Martin Rüesch, and Christiane Sibille, Transcultural History: Theories, Methods, Sources (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2012); Virginia H. Milhouse, Molefi Kete Asante, and Peter O. Nwosu, eds., Transcultural Realities: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on CrossCultural Relations (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2006); Andreas Hepp, Transkulturelle Kommunikation (Konstanz: UVK, 2006). For more collections of essays on (medieval) transculturality see, the Journal of Transcultural Medieval Studies, published by De Gruyter: https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/jtms/html [accessed on 20. Nov. 2021]; The Journal of Transcultural Studies, initiated in 2010, published by Heidelberg Center for Transcultural Studies (HCTS), https://heiup.uniheidelberg.de/journals/index.php/transcultural/index [accessed on 20. Nov. 2021].

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Introduction

At the same time, examining the Eastern-Western history of the legend during the Crusades uncovers hidden scopes of the transfer and reception history of imagination and legendary concepts across the Mediterranean. This study reveals the interconnectedness of the Prester John legend with similar legends, prophecies, or other similar imaginative structures of the figure of Prester John in East and West.73 For instance, the work is concerned to go beyond the early roots of the core of the legendary idea of an Eastern-Christian priest-king in Eastern Christian tradition, proposing its transcultural and transfer hypotheses into the crusading time. The work seeks to look at the entangled history of the legend during the Crusades in eastern and western perception, creating connected histories between East and West. This entanglement may include conflicting complexities like parallels, similarities and variations, exchanges and developments, exceptions and generalizations, alongside shared cultures that were also overlapped. Thus, the way of the legend transmission across religion or boundaries will be considered.74 On the one hand, exploring these transcultural entanglements and interactions between East and West in the context of the legend history is considered here as an exemplar of transmission of legends and imaginary concepts across medieval Mediterranean societies. On the other hand, it shows the different perceptions of Indo-Asian and Far Eastern legends among Arab-Muslim, Eastern Christian and Latin populations. To better examine the legend’s reception in the West and among the Crusaders, this work also uses the approach of reception history

On the entangled history, see König, Latin and Arabic Entangled Histories, 31-121; Elisheva Baumgarten, Ruth Mazo Karras, and Katelyn Mesler, eds., Entangled Histories: Knowledge, Authority, and Jewish Culture in the Thirteenth Century (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), 1-20; Eliga H. Gould, “Entangled Histories, Entangled Worlds: The English-Speaking Atlantic as a Spanish Periphery,” The American Historical Review 112, no. 3 (2007): 764–86; Sönke Bauck and Thomas Maier, "Entangled History," Inter-American Wiki: Terms-ConceptsCritical Perspectives, 2015; www.uni-bielefeld.de/einrichtu ngen/cias/publikationen /wiki/e/entangled-history.xml. 74 On this theory see, Baumgarten, Karras, and Mesler, Entangled Histories, 1-6. 73

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Introduction

(Rezeptionsgeschichte),75 which was recently more a part of visual arts, psychological and literary studies than history. Moreover, the study uses the legend as a memory site for the Latin sources and travel accounts in the second half of the thirteenth century. In general, the transcultural and entangled history of the legend here followed multiple paradigms and phases starting from its Eastern Christian core in late antiquity down into the Latinised and crusading form of the vague Prester John within the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. During the Crusades, the legendary figure of the Eastern priest-king John was a centre of mixed-cultural linkages between East and West. During the thirteenth century, another transcultural dimension will be attributed to the legend through the new growing power, the Mongols, whose Khan was imagined as the Prester John or his successor. Final transcultural and transborder changes to Prester John's legendary figure, though it is not part of the present work, was the Ethiopian spheres of the legend between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. The argument of this study will be advanced in the following manner. The first chapter seeks to establish context by way of geographical, mythical and historical settings. It therefore defines myth, legend and history, presenting a brief understanding of the relationship between mythology and history and its significance for the theme of the present work. The chapter later presents a distant history of the Prester John figure and the interconnection with the apocalypse of St. John and the apocalypse of the Last Emperor, and with the figure of the Byzantine Emperor in the seventh century and Emperor Charlemagne in the tenth century. The second chapter centres on a historical discussion of the roots of the Prester John legend in the tradition of St. Thomas in India in the report of the so-called John, patriarch of India, who visited Rome in 75

Günter Grimm, Rezeptionsgeschichte: Grundlegung einer Theorie mit Analysen und Bibliographie, UTB für Wissenschaft 691 (München: Fink, 1977); Geert Lernout, ‘Reception Theory’, in The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism, ed. Michael Groden, Martin Kreiswirth, and Imre Szeman, 2nd ed. (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005), 797–9; Madeline Caviness, “Reception of Images by Medieval Viewers,” in A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe, ed. Conrad Rudolph (Malden, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), 65–85. 33

Introduction

1122. This chapter further discusses how the downfall of Edessa to Zankī in 1144 sparked the birth of the legend on the authority of the oral account of Hugh of Jabala, whose report was recorded by Otto of Freising. It also examines later intercorrelated imaginations between the legend in Otto’s chronicle and other Syriac Christian divine legends regarding Edessa, such as the legend of King Abgar and the miracles of an eastern priestly metropolitan called Mār Yūḥannā. The chapter then reinvestigates the roots of the legend in the Central Asian war between the Qarakhitai Yelü Dashi and the Seljuk Sinjar, discussing further similar legendary reports regarding that war in Arabic and Syriac accounts such as the chronicles of Ibn al-Athīr, Ibn al-ʻIbrī and Mīkhāʼīl al-Suryānī (Michael the Syrian) and their intertextual dialogues with Otto’s report. The third chapter seeks to historicise the legend itself during the Second Crusade. It then interprets the Prester John Letter to the Byzantine Emperor and the hypotheses on its origin and date, discussing its association with the political schism between Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa and Pope Alexander III. Some prophetic visions regarding that schism will be explored to provide further literary and imaginative interconnections between the Letter and the political struggle between the Pope and the emperor. The Letter reveals anti-Byzantine machinations against its addressee, Emperor Manuel Komnenus. This chapter consequently endeavours to investigate the soul of hostility between Byzantium and the Latins at the time, discussing historical aspects of the Letter and the motif of its composer. Eventually, the reception of that Letter and Pope Alexander III’s letter to Prester John in 1177 in the contemporary Latin accounts and chronicles shall be examined. Following the eastern parallels of the legend, the fourth chapter examines interconnections between the Prester John figure and the Pseudo-Romance of Alexander the Great, which was a part of several medieval imaginative literary apocalyptical accounts in West and East, Islam and Christianity. It also uncovers the re-contextualisation and transformation of the Alexander Romance in medieval Christian garb in the twelfth-century Prester John Letter. Furthermore, this chapter examines the interconnections of the legendary figure of

34

Introduction

Prester John and his kingdom with the medieval Arabic imagination, which have never been discussed. In doing so, the chapter studies the geographical and cartographic imagination and fanciful descriptions of Indian and Abyssinian kings that are comparable to the Prester John figure in the twelfth-century geographical and cartographical Nuzhat al-mushtāq (Tabula Rogeriana) of al-Idrīsī, who wrote his account at the request of the Sicilian King Roger II of Sicily (r. 1130-1154). Following Bernard Hamilton’s suggestion of the similarities between the Letter and the Arabian Nights, some contents of similar stories to the legend in the Arabian Nights will be investigated. This will be followed by analysing the legendary priest-king figure of eastern Christian kings, especially in the Nubian-Ethiopian and Indian orbit, in the twelfthcentury account of the Copt scholar Abū al-Makārim as well as in other sources. Unlike previous works that suggest the transformation of the Prester John figure into the Abyssinian king by the fourteenth century, this chapter demonstrates the possibility of the transformation of the legendary priest-king figure of the Nubian-Abyssinian king(s) into the figure of Prester John by the Nubians, Copts or Franks since its first dissemination in the twelfth century. The fifth chapter is dedicated to discussing the legend’s role in forging the war and peace events between the Ayyubids and the Crusaders during the Fifth Crusade against Egypt (615-618/12171221). It also analyses the Latin accounts of Jacques de Vitry and Oliver of Paderborn, the chief preachers of the Fifth Crusade, about Prester John and his son King David, revealing how they employed the legend to boost crusading zeal in Egypt. This chapter further examines the genesis of the prophetic texts Relatio de Davide regarding the imminent arrival of King David, son of Prester John, in the Arabic prophecies of both Ḥunayn Ibn Isḥāq, the Copt al-Anbā Samuel of Qalamūn and Athanāsiyūs the Apostolic. Moreover, the association between the figure of the Fifth Crusade King David and the Solomonic Christian figure of the Ethiopian King David will be discussed. This is followed by an investigation of how news of the Mongols’ advance against the Central Asian Muslims reached the Crusaders in Egypt and brought to mind the legend of Prester John. This chapter uncovers the legendary association between the Mongols 35

Introduction

and King David by examining the Relatio de Davide text and other Arabic and eastern texts. It eventually shows how belief in the legend and King David led the leaders of the Fifth Crusade into a disastrous campaign. The sixth chapter traces the association between Prester John and the Mongols after the Fifth Crusade until the end of the thirteenth century. It also discusses the impact of the diplomatic relationship between Frederick II and the Muslims on the discourse of the legend during the Sixth Crusade. The established friendship between Egyptian Ayyubid Sultans and Frederick II might have created “a period of silence” for this legend between 1221 and 1244. It interprets the reports of European envoys to the Mongols such as John of Plano Carpine (d. ca. 1252), William of Rubruck (fl. 1248-1255) and Marco Polo (d. 1324), revealing how they depicted the last image of Prester John among the Mongols. In a discussion of the oriental origins and entanglements of the legend, this chapter shall examine the roots of the Prester John legend among the Mongols in the Syriac and Arabic accounts such as Ibn al-‘Ibrī (d. 1286), Ibn al-Dawādārī (d. 1335/36) and others. Finally, the chapter aims to clarify how the legacy of Prester John was employed to propose a Western alliance with the Mongols against the Muslims in the mid-thirteenth century. At the same time, it represents the legend in its final Asian-Mongol form before its transfer to Ethiopia by the fourteenth century.

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CHAPTER ONE

SETTING A GEOGRAPHIC AND MYTHICO-HISTORICAL STAGE FOR THE PRESTER JOHN LEGEND

This chapter sites a geographic and historical milieu of the Orient, in which the legendary kingdom of Prester John was imagined. It also introduces a body of definitions of myth and legend and their interrelationship with history, combining both eastern and western views. The figure of the priest-king/emperor was not a complete medieval invention, since its roots went back to the early period. As an example, the chapter provides a brief examination of the legend of the last Christian emperor and its association with the comparable medieval figure of Prester John. This chapter ultimately charts the transformation of the Christian saviour or heroic figure, king or emperor, into the medieval Prester John. 1. SETTING A GEOGRAPHIC SCOPE Dividing the universe between Orient and Occident (or East and West) was an imaginative geographical understanding that has existed long before the medieval period. The words “Orient” and “Occident” were derived from the Latin “orior” (i.e. rising) and “occido” (i.e. falling),

Setting a Geographic and Mythico-Historical Stage for the Prester John Legend

as a reference to the apparent movement of the sun across the sky.76 The Muslim sources and writers often generically labeled the Latin Christians or Europeans all as Franks (al-Firanjah or Ifranj).77 In contrast, Byzantines have often been called Rūm (Romans) by Arabs and Muslims. In the medieval Latin perception frame, the Latins and the European Christian writers saw any Muslim as an Arab and generally used the name Saracen.78 Sources did not adopt the term “crusader(s)” and “Crusades” with the beginning of the crusading movement; rather, they referred to the crusading movement through several other terms such as expeditio, passagium, peregrinatio (pilgrimage). Pope Innocent III first used the term “crucesignatus,” i.e. crusade, in the call for the Fifth Crusade in the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215.79 Writers and sources of various kinds used the terms East and West as a reference to Muslims and Latins, Islam and Catholicism or Western Christianity. Furthermore, sources refer to the Medieval West/Europe by other terms such as “medieval Western Europe,” “Latin Christian Europe,” “Latin

Kim M. Phillips, Before Orientalism: Asian Peoples and Cultures in European Travel Writing, 1245–1510, The Middle Ages Series (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014), 18. 77 Corliss K. Slack, The Historical Dictionary of the Crusades (Lanham, Maryland, and Oxford: The Scarecrow Press, 2003), 61, 98; Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Oxford History of the Crusades, Book (Oxford University Press, 1999), 111. 78 Saracen “Sarracenis”is a term widely used among European-Christian writings of the Middle Ages to refer to people of the desert in the Arab Peninsula and Arabs of Petra Peninsula, then used as a definition for the whole people of Islam and Arab. See John V. Tolan, Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination (Columbia University Press: 2002), XV; Kenneth Baxter Wolf, “The Earliest Spanish Christian Views of Islam,” Church History, IV (1986), 281-93; Norman Daniel, Islam, and the west: The Making of an Image (Edinburgh: 1958), 80-81; Other said that the term Saracen might be came from a Semitic roots Srq “to steal, rob, plunder,” and it might be driven by the word šrq “east” and šrkt “tribe, confederation.” It was used as a geographical description to the Sarakēnḗ (Ancient Greek: Σαρακηνή) to refer to the people of Sinai and Arabian Peninsula: Jan Retsö, The Arabs in Antiquity: Their History from the Assyrians to the Umayyads (UK: Routledge, 2003), 505-506; Glen W. Bowersock, “Arabs and Saracens in the Historia Augusta,” in Bonner HistoriaAugusta-Colloquium 1984-85 (Bonn, 1987), 71–80. 79 Sheir, “Between Peace and War: The Peaceful Memory of the Crusades,” 146-47; Markowski, “Crucesignatus: Its Origins and Early Usage,” 157–58. 76

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Setting a Geographic and Mythico-Historical Stage for the Prester John Legend

Christendom,” “Occident Latin,” “Christliches Abendland,” and “Lateineuropa.” 80 Scholars have also used other terms such as “Kingdom of Jerusalem,” “crusader states,” or “Frankish states,” to refer to the European and Western-Latin representatives and settlers in the Levant during the Crusades. The Crusaders or Franks were representatives of the Catholic and Latin European sphere in the confrontation with the East or Muslim East, i.e. the Levant, Egypt and Asian Muslim territories. Consequently, Outremer or Overseas was yet another label for Europeans or Latins living in the Levant during the Crusades, to distinguish them from Greeks or Byzantines and other Franks who had settled in the East. Western European sources also used Outremer to refer to the eastern Mediterranean region, including Asia Minor, Egypt and the Middle East.81 This work mainly uses the terms Crusades, crusader(s) and crusader states to refer to the crusading movement and the Latin Frankish forces and their states in the Levant in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. On medieval maps, the Far East and India - where the alleged kingdom of Prester John was supposed to be situated - appear as a distant place on the edge of the known inhabited world. This perception goes back to the fourth century BC expedition of Alexander the Great into the Orient, and his wondrous tales and imagination about the Orient told in his Romance.82 Moreover, India as the land of marvels was first presented by Herodotus (490/480430/420 BC) and Ktêsias, the fifth century BC historian, the fragments of whose works were preserved by later authors. The Alexander Romance and other literature presented a standard image of India for Daniel G. König, Arabic-Islamic Views of the Latin West (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 3-4. 81 Andrew Jotischky, Crusading and the Crusader States, 2nd ed. (London and New York: Routledge, 2017), 17-18; Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Crusades: A History (New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 2005), 50-51; Corliss K. Slack, The Historical Dictionary of the Crusades, 144. 82 Abraham Melamed, “The Image of India in Medieval Jewish Culture: Between Adoration and Rejection” Jew History, no. 20 (2006): 300, 304, 310-311; Abraham Melamed, The Image of the Black in Jewish Culture: A History of the Other (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), 154-155; for more information see: J. S. Romm, The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought. Geography, Exploration and Fiction (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992). 80

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Setting a Geographic and Mythico-Historical Stage for the Prester John Legend

subsequent writers and travellers until the late Middle Ages. The Greek geographical-historical writings and the biblical tradition remained an essential geographical source for Europe about the Far East, India and the land of paradise situated at the eastern edge of the world.83 In the legend of Prester John, the term Three Indias (Tribus Indies) was used to refer to the vast geographical Orient beyond the Muslims. The Three Indias was a common title for massive swathes of South and East Asia, including the southeastern part of Africa. The Lesser or Nearer India often referred to the northern Indian subcontinent, which was believed to be infertile lands, while the Further or Greater India referred to the southern part, which was accessible to some Europeans through East Africa and the Arabian ports. Middle India, “India minor” or “India tertia”, referred to modern geographical Ethiopia and southeastern Africa.84 The confusion between India and Abyssinia (Ethiopia) goes back to ancient times, but the two Indias, Minor and Major, were known as early as the fourth century. According to Beckingham, Guido Pisano (d. 1169), an Italian geographer from Pisa, was the first to refer to the Three Indias in his Geographica.85 Bernard Hamilton defines First India by “the northern half of the Indian subcontinent, the second was Eran Almagor, “Ctesias and the Importance of His Writings Revisited,” in The Greek World in the 4th and 3rd Centuries BC, Electrum, vol. 19 (Krakow: Jagiellonian University, 2012), 9–40; Hilāl, Al-ʻalāqāt bayn al-Maghūl wa Ūrubbā, 17; Rudolf Wittkower, “Marvels of the East. A Study in the History of Monsters,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, no. 5 (1942): 159–62; John Kirtland Wright, The Geographical Lore of the Time of the Crusades. A Study in the History of Medieval Science and Tradition in Western Europe (New York: American Geographical Society, 1925), 73-74. 84 Marco Giardini, “The Quest for the Ethiopian Prester John and Its Eschatological Implications,” Medievalia 22 (2019), 58, 60-61, 63; Marianne O’Doherty, The Indies and the Medieval West: Thought, Report, Imagination, Medieval Voyaging 2 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), ch.1:13-52f; Phillips, Before Orientalism, 19; Geraldine Heng, Empire of Magic: Medieval Romance and the Politics of Cultural Fantasy (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), 437, 453; Beckingham, ‘The Achievements of Prester John’, 14-15, 17. 85 Joseph Schnetz and Marianne Zumschlinge, eds., Ravennatis anonymi Cosmographia et Guidonis Geographica, Itineraria Romana, II (Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 1990), 111-42. 83

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Setting a Geographic and Mythico-Historical Stage for the Prester John Legend

southern half India; while the third was the Horn of Africa,” from where the Greeks sailed to the first and second India.86 The Prester John letter, moreover, presented the Three Indias as the entire extended lands from India to the desert bordering the “Bable” Egypt, in which Babylon signified Cairo and the king of Babylon referred to the ruler of Egypt according to the medieval use of the term.87 This consequently may indicate that the Christian land and people in Nubia (southern Egypt) and Abyssinia were imagined as part of the kingdom of Prester John.88 1.1. Eastern Christians: Nestorians of Prester John In 1145, the legendary priest-king John entered Latin imagination as a Nestorian eastern king living among Nestorian people in the Three Indias.89 According to Christian tradition, the apostle Thomas preached Christian teachings (Gospel) in India, extended to the Persian lands. The Church of the East was then defined by many scholars, theologians and historians, as the Nestorian Church,90 which has been labelled as a “lamentable misnomer.”91 The term “Apostolic Church of the East” was assigned to the eastern churches placed outside of the Roman Empire. During the historical epochs from late antiquity to the early Middle Ages, the “Church of the East” has been known by many names depending on the locations and circumstances. It was called, e.g. the “Holy Apostolic Catholic Church” (the capital of the Catholic See was in Bernard Hamilton, “The Impact of Prester John on the Fifth Crusade,” in The Fifth Crusade in Context, ed. Jan E.J. Mylod; Perry, Guy; Smith, Thomas W.; Vandeburie (London and New York: Routledge, 2017), 56; Beckingham, “The Achievements of Prester John,’’ 14-15, 17. 87 Raymond D’Aguilers, Historia Francorum qui ceperunt Iherusalem, ed. trans and notes by J.H.Hill and L.L.Hill (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1968), 86; Maher Abu-Munshar, “Fātimids, Crusaders and the Fall of Islamic Jerusalem: Fores or Allies?,” al-Masāq 22, no. 1 (2010): 53. 88 For further explanation, see Chapter Four. 89 See below Chapter Three 90 J.P.M. Van der Ploeg, The Christians of St. Thomas in South India and Their Syriac Manuscripts (Bangalore, India: Dharmaram Publications, 1983), 1-2. 91 Sebastian P. Brock “The “Nestorian” Church: A Lamentable Misnomer,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 78, no. 3 (1996): 23–35. 86

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Setting a Geographic and Mythico-Historical Stage for the Prester John Legend

Persia), “Assyrian Church of the East,” “East Syrian Church,” “Persian Church,” that included Persia and China and the “Chaldean Syrian Church” in India. The most common terms were “Church of the East” or “East Syriac Church,” which were also known, in many cases and especially in theological and ecclesiastical-history literature, as the “Nestorian Church.” The terms “Nestorian” and “Nestorianism” are attributed to Nestorius, the bishop of Constantinople (428-431).92 Although the Church of the East in Persia and Mesopotamia was established before the Nestorian dispute, it was labelled Nestorian. The Persian Church officially confessed the Nestorian faith in 486 AD., and starting from the Persian Empire, East Syrian Christianity reached China.93 From a theological perspective, Nestorianism should be rejected today “because ‘Nestorian’ refers to a doctrine that regards as separate the humanity and divinity in the one Jesus Christ.” This thus does not reflect the Christian teaching of that church. Moreover, the Church of the East itself had regarded this doctrine as incorrect until the end of the sixth century.94 Furthermore, the term “Syrian Christian” is acquired from the Persian word Soryāni which refers to the Christian ethnic group of the Sasanian Empire whose mother tongue was Syriac.95 During the sixth century, the West Syrian Orthodox Church (Monophysite) was both born and labelled as the “Jacobite Church.” The Alexandrian Patriarch Theodosius (535-66) ordained Jacob Baradaeus, who designated priests and bishops, setting the basis of the West Syrian Church that was figuratively connected to Jacob Baradaeus. Seeking to establish the West Syrian Christian hierarchy in the Persian Empire, Jacob Baradaeus designated Ahudemmeh of Beth Arabaye as a Metropolitan Li Tang, East Syriac Christianity in Mongol-Yuan China (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2011), XVI; Wilhelm Baum and Dietmar W. Winker, The Church of the East: A Concise History (London: New York: Routledge, 2003), 3-4; Brock, “The “Nestorian” Church,” 23-35. 93 Tang, East Syriac Christianity, XVI; Baum and Winker, The Church of the East, 5, 27-28,38, 49. 94 Dietmar W. Winker, “The Syriac Church Denomination: An Overview,” in The Syriac World, ed. Daniel King (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2019), 120. 95 István Perczel, “Syriac Christianity in India,” in The Syriac World, ed. Daniel King (Abingdon and New York: Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, 2019), 654. 92

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Setting a Geographic and Mythico-Historical Stage for the Prester John Legend

(Archbishop) of Tikrit (today in Iraq). However, East Syrian Christianity still existed among the bulk of the Christians of the Sassanian Persian Empire. Throughout the Middle Ages, there was a division between the Western and Eastern Syrian Churches. In 1142, the Catholic Abdisho III and the Jacobite (East Syrian Orthodox) Maphrian Dionysius diminished the internal division of the Church of the East by reaching a reconciliation of the two sides of Syrian Christians.96 The legend of Prester John presents an imaginative conception of a vast mixture of oriental Christians and Christianity in the vast Asiatic lands of the vague Three Indias. The imaginative construction of Prester John, his kingdom and people, designated all Eastern Christian parts and people as Nestorians. However, it appears that the prominent Christian people of the legendary kingdom of Prester John were Syrians of the Church of the East, who were commonly known as Nestorians, in addition to the Jacobites of Abyssinia and Nubia beyond Egypt, as it will be later explained.97 2. MYTH AND LEGEND VERSUS HISTORY? Since myths and legends combine confused stories, rumours, fantastic ideas, unapproved facts and fantasies, some historians tended to distrust myths and legends and excluded them from historical knowledge.98 Others regarded myths and legends as mere stories and trivial tales that might suit the interest of certain intellectuals or masses, but not to be considered in the academic fields.99 However, myths and legends had an immense influence on the construction of historical events, inspiring writers, travellers, secular people, clerics and historians. Furthermore, myths and legends have often stemmed from a religious base and were used in various kinds of political and Baby Varghese, “The Liturgies of the Syriac Churches,” in The Syriac World, ed. Daniel King (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2019), 395; Baum and Winker, The Church of the East, 38-39, 62, 80. 97 For further explanation, see Chapter Two and Four. 98 Aigle, The Mongol Empire between Myth and Reality, 17-18. 99 Qāsim Abduh Qāsim, Iʻādat Qirāʼat al-Tārīkh, Silsilat Kitāb al-ʻArabī 78 (Kuwait: Wizārat al-iʻlām, 2009), 21-24; Marc Gaborieau, “Anthropologie Structurale et Histoire,” Esprit 332, no. 11 (1963): 579–95., 96

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religious promotions. Myths and legends also provide further interpretation of “untold” or “unrecorded” historical occurrences by the traditional sources, as they sustain cultural perception and popular social image.100 2.1. Myth Myth, in most of the modern European languages, originated in the Ancient Greek Muthos/mythos (μῦθος), which refers to a story that was narrated orally by others but eventually was composed in a written form.101 The Greeks and other ancient cultures recognised myths as stories told “to make sense of their own existence and the wider world around them.”102 The word mythology comes from the Ancient Greek muthologia (μυθολογία) and Latin mȳthologia (pl. mȳthologiae). It contains two words: muthos, in Latin mȳthos (pl. mȳthī), and logos, in Latin logia. The term mythology refers to the collection of myths of a nation(s), while it also refers to a scientific terminology for studying myth and legend.103 Further, myth is a synonym for the Greek word doxa, which means a common belief or popular opinion and an untested hypothesis raised among a prevailing political and social system. The Ancient Greek mythos developed through the historical process over time with some

Qāsim, Iʻādat Qirāʼat al-Tārīkh, 24-25. Mark P.O Morford, Robert J. Lenardon, and Michael Sham, Classical Mythology (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 3; Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth, eds., The Oxford Classical Dictionary (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 1018; Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, A New Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1891), 1184. 102 ʻAbd al-Muʻṭī Shaʿrāwī, “al-ʾusṭūrah bayna al-Ḥaqīqah wa-al-Khayāl,” Majalat ʻālam al-Fikr 40, no. 207–251 (2012), 207-208; Barry B. Powell, Einführung in de klassische Mythologie (Stuttgart. Weimar: J:B: Metzler, 2009), 1-2, 8; Cruz and Frijhoff, “Introduction: Myth In History, History in Myth,” 3-4; Shākir Musṭafa Silīm, Qāmūs al-Ānthurūbūlūjīā al-Ijtimāʻīyah (Kuwait: Kuwait University Press, 1981), 659. 103 Félix Gaffiot, Dictionnaire illustré Latin-Français (Paris: Hachette, 1934), 1009; Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities (New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1898), 1072; Lewis and Short, A New Latin Dictionary, 1076, 1184. 100 101

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vocal and contextualising changes.104 The Romans used the word “Fabula” as an alternative to myth.105 The French mythe, and the German, Mythos refer to divine stories or “stories of gods,” great persons or heroes, and as the metaphorical meaning of a false story.106 In Arabic, the alternative meaning of myth is ʾusṭūrah (‫)سطورة‬, ‫ أ‬and the plural is Āsāṭīr. The Arab philologist and lexicographer al-Farāhīdī (d. 170/786), who produced the first dictionary of the Arabic language, states that the word “ʾusṭūrah” comes from the verb saṭar )‫ (سطر‬or yasṭur )‫(يسطر‬, i.e. to write, to inscribe or to document, and refers to untrue things/stories.107 The Maghrebi Arab lexicographer Ibn-Manẓūr (d. 711/1311), author of the lexicon Lisān al-ʿarab (the tongue of the Arabs) says that ʾusṭūrah / ustᴜ:ra / derives from the stem(s) of Āsṭār (‫) أسطار‬, Āsṭūr )‫ )أسطور‬or Isṭīr (‫ (إسطير‬which means fallacies and untruths.108 The word ʼusṭūra is mentioned several times and in various contexts in the holy book Qurʼan, e.g. “Ina Hādhā illā Asāṭīru al-Āwwalīn” (these are nothing but myths of the ancients).”109 Therefore, the origin of the Arabic ʾusṭūrah comes from fanciful or otherwise false stories. Concerning Arabic historical sources, they used to refer to the mythical stories of the past or those they heard or quoted from others, including statements or reports that are not required to be written or documented. Nevertheless, it is necessary to be in the form of coordinated narratives or words so that people can memorise, exchange and transfer. The chroniclers and narrators often attempted to use myths in composing their narratives to lend currency and an entertaining value to their accounts.110 Aigle, The Mongol Empire between Myth and Reality, 18-19; Powell, Einführung in die klassische Mythologie, 8-12; Luc Brisson, Platon, les mots et les mythes. Comment et pourquoi Platon nomma le mythe (Paris : La Découverte, 1982), 12. 105 Hornblower and Spawforth, The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 1018. 106 C.A. Tames, “The Political Myth,” in Some Political Mythologies: Papers Delivered to the Fifth Anglo-Dutch Historical Conference, ed. J.S. Bromley and E.H. Kossmann (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1975), 3-4. 107 Khalīl ibn Aḥmad al-Farāhīdī, al-ʻayn, ed. ʻAbd-al-Ḥamīd Hindāūī, vol. 2 (Baghdād: Maṭbaʻat al-ʻĀnī, 1967), 243 108 Muḥammad ibn Mukarram Ibn-Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʻarab, vol. 4 (al-Qāhirah: alMaṭbaʻah al-Salafīyah, 1929), 363. 109 Qurʼan (8:31). 110 Shaʿrāwī, “al- ʾUsṭūrah bayna al-Ḥaqīqah wa al-Khayāl,” 207-210; ʻAmr Munīr, Al104

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The first use of the word mythology in the English occurred in the fifteenth century as a substitute for the study of myths. The first use of the word “mythical” as an adjective goes back to 1678, and the word myth as a reference to an “untrue story” was first published in 1830.111 In this vein, the Oxford English Dictionary defines myth as “a purely fictitious narrative usually involving supernatural persons, actions, or events, and embodying some popular idea concerning natural or historical phenomena.”112 In Encyclopaedia Britannica, myth is: a symbolic narrative, usually of unknown origin and at least partly traditional, that ostensibly relates actual events and that is especially associated with religious belief. It is distinguished from symbolic behaviour (cult, ritual) and symbolic places or objects (temples, icons). Myths are specific accounts of gods or superhuman beings involved in extraordinary events or circumstances in a time that is unspecified but which is understood as existing apart from ordinary human experience.113 Pathologists and anthropologists understand myth as being “sacred narratives of traditional societies generally involving superhuman being.”114 Lauri Honko, a Finnish folklorist, provides a broader definition: Myth, a story of the gods, a religious account of the beginning of the world, the creation, fundamental events, the exemplary deeds of the gods as a result of which the Āsātīr al-Mutaʿalliqah bi-Miṣr fī Kitābāt al-Muʼarrikhīn al-Muslimīn (Cairo: Dār ʼAyn, 2008), 31-32. 111 Shaʿrāwī, “al- ʾusṭūrah bayn al-Ḥaqīqah wa-al-Khayāl,” 208; G.S Krik, It Meaning and Functions in Ancient and Other Cultures (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 8. 112 Eric Csapo, Theories of Mythology (Malden, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 2-3; J.A. Simpson and E.S.C. Weiner, The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., vol. X (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 177. 113 Knobler, Mythology and Diplomacy, 1; Robert L. Winzeler, Anthropology and Religion: What We Know, Think and Question (Lanham: AltaMira, 2008), 120; “Myth,” in Britannica Academic, accessed November 1, 2019, https://academic.eb. com/levels/collegiate/article/myth/108748. 114 Peter Heehs, “Myth, History, and Theory” History and Theory 33, no 1 (1994), 2-3. 46

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world, nature and culture were created together with all parts thereof and given their order, which still obtains. A myth expresses and confirms society’s religious values and norms; it provides a pattern of behaviour to be imitated, testifies to the efficacy of ritual with its practical ends and establishes the sanctity of cult.115 Joseph Fontenrose argues that myths are connected with rituals, and “if a story has not been associated with cult or ritual explicitly or implicitly, it is better not to call it a myth, but legend or folktale.”116 The folklorist and anthropologist William Bascom identifies myths as the “embodiment of dogma,” usually associated with ritual and theology, and they are “usually sacred.”117 In this context, myths are often categorised as highly zealous patterns connecting with religious beliefs, unpopular beliefs, stories and superstitions, and this made myth a bit misleading or vague.118 Furthermore, myths blend truths with imagination, affecting the discourse of a particular historical circumstance.119 Although myths are not factually true, they symbolically represent other facts and ways of constructing a concept or meaning, informing about the “universe or human nature.”120

Lauri Honko, “The Problem of Defining Myth,” in Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth, ed. Alan Dundes (Berkely. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984), 49. 116 Joseph Fontenrose, Python: A Study of Delphic Myth and Its Origins, 2nd ed. (Berkeley, London: University of California Press, 1980), 434. 117 Hagar Salamon and Harvey Goldberg, “Myth-Ritual-Symbol,” in A Companion to Folklore, ed. Regina F. Bendix and Galit Hasan-Rokem (West Sussex-UK: WileyBlackwell, 2012), 125; William Bascom, “The Forms of Folklore: Prose Narratives,” Journal of American Folklore 78, no. 307 (1965): 4. 118 Cruz and Frijhoff, “Introduction: Myth in History,” 3-4; Rolf Eickelpasch, Mythos und Sozialstruktur (Düsseldorf: Bertelsmann-Universitätsverlag, 1973), 9-10; Bascom, “The Forms of Folklore,” 4, 9. 119 Morford, Lenardon, and Sham, Classical Mythology, 4-5; Nāṣir al-Dīn Saʻīdūnī, “Fikrat al-'usṭūrah wa Kitābat al-Tārīkh,” Majalat ʻālam al-Fikr 40, no. 4 (2012): 253. 120 Faḍīlah ʻAbd al-Raḥmān, Fikrat al-'usṭūrah wa Kitābat al-Tārīkh (Jordan: Dār alYāzūrī, 2009), 17; Emily Kearns, Simon Price, ed., The Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth and Religion (Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press, 2003), xiv-xvi. 115

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2.2. Legend The word legend is derived from the Greek lógos (λόγος,) which is the second half of the Greek word muthologia that means ideas, rumours, reports and narratives.121 It also has simultaneous Latin (legenda) and Old French (legend) origins.122 The legend holds a manner of exaggeration and imagination of a particular notion, occurrence or person that sometimes existed in reality. Legends resemble the “unique property” of the place or person they represent. Nevertheless, various local legends are indeed unique folktales accredited to a specific person, place or situation,123 and they may reveal facts or contain partial truth. In this framework, the legend represents a “social memory” that reflects the mentality and motifs of its composer or originator, indicating some social or cultural situations, along with other political and social features.124 Moreover, the legends are usually more “secular than sacred,” and their representing figures are humans. They include information about “migrations, wars, victories, or deeds of past heroes, chiefs, kings and succession in ruling dynasties.” They also inform a kind of traditional oral history that incorporates various local stories and imaginations.125 Myth and legend have almost the same meaning in Arabic, but an alternate Arabic word for the term legend is khurāfah (‫ف ة‬ ‫) ٌخرا‬, (pl. khurāfāt), which is defined by Ibn-Manẓūr as “amusing fables or engaging narratives of lies.”126 The word khurāfah includes supernatural creatures and humans and concerns events that happened in the past, reflecting thoughts, beliefs and practices that have neither logical nor practical justifications. Yet, khurāfah does not always refer to the past; it is often used to indicate supernatural or unbelievable Lewis and Short, A New Latin Dictionary, 1076; Shaʿrāwī, “ al-ʾusṭūrah bayna alḤaqīqah wa al-Khayāl,” 208; Krik, It Meaning and Functions, 8. 122 “Online Etymology Dictionary,” accessed October 28, 2019, https://www.etymon line.com/word/legend#etymonline_v_6658. 123 Munīr, al-Āsātīr, 18; “Legend,” in Britannica Academic, accessed November 3, 2019, https://academic.eb.com/levels/collegiate/article/legend/47634. 124 Munīr, al-Āsātīr, 18. 125 Bascom, “The Forms of Folklore,” 4-5. 126 Muḥammad ibn Mukarram Ibn-Manẓūr (d. 711/1311), Lisān al-ʻarab, vol. 9 (alQāhirah: al-Maṭbaʻah al-Salafīyah, 1929), 65. 121

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things or happenings in general. The Arabic khurāfah is similar to ʾusṭūrah in terms of revealing primitive societies that embraced views and interpretations that connect humans to natural and unnatural powers, as well as mythical or legendary phenomena.127 Furthermore, historical legends involve narratives about famous characters, people, or occurrences founded upon past knowledge. They may also present old traditions about beliefs belonging to the past that were transmitted over time. Legend narratives are reflections of shared beliefs of a community about supernatural abilities or figures.128 This means that legends represent an alleged history or “half-facts” and inspired inventions for specific people, persons, or events, believing to be reliable and existing. The efficiency of a legend relied on the effectiveness of the narrators.129 The legend, therefore, includes human characters, occurrences and activities, which might be transformed and reconstructed within a historical context. Legends can also describe events that might occur through the interference between miraculous figures or persons and reality.130 In this context, the legendary figure(s) of a legend may serve as a symbolic hero or rescuer of the intended society or community, whose figure often bears secular and saintly functions. In this frame of mind, the legend of Prester John, which was first conveyed in 1144 through an oral report by Hugh of Jabala, is better identified as a legend rather than a myth. This is not only because sources and scholarship labelled it a legend, but also because the legend of Prester John speaks of a Christian priest-king who has an ecclesiastical and royal function and would come to assist the Franks in their wars against the Muslims in the holy land. Furthermore, the legend’s appearance was contemporary to a significant crisis of the crusading era, namely, the ʻAbd al-Raḥmān, Fikrat al-'usṭūrah 21-22; Ibrāhīm Madkūr, Muʿjam al-ʿulūm alIjtimāʻīyah (Egypt: al- Hayʼah al-ʻāmmah al-Miṣrīyah lil-Kuttāb, 1975), 249; Silīm, Qāmūs al-Ānthurūbūlūjīā al-Ijtimāʻīyah, 588. 128 Donal Ward, “On the Genre Morphology of Legendary: Belief Story versus Belief Legend,” Western Folklore 50, no. 3 (1991): 296–303; Robert A. Georges and Michael Owen Jones, Folkloristics: An Introduction (Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995), 7. 129 Silīm, Qāmūs al-Ānthurūbūlūjīā al-Ijtimāʻīyah, 588; Bascom, “The Forms of Folklore,” 9. 130 Georges and Jones, Folkloristics: An Introduction, 7-8. 127

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fall of Edessa in 1144, in congruence with other key political and military impulses of the time.131 This is a practical example of the entanglement of myth, legend and history that enhances both historical knowledge and historiographical processes. 2.3. History The word history comes from the ancient Greek historie, in the Ionian dialect, and the Greek Istorie means “to seek to know,” or to do an inquiry. This was the meaning of the word at the beginning of the “histories” of Herodotus, that are “inquiries” or “investigations.” The Romans took the same literal term “historia,” and its sense continued to include connotations of knowing events and their reasons. In Romance languages, words such as histoire, historia and storia refer to different concepts. The first is to examine “the acts accomplished by men (Herodotus)” and that sense has developed to be itself the science of history. The second is the objective of the inquiry of what men have accomplished. In this context, history is also a series of events or a narrative of events.132 Another meaning of history is a narrative that can be true or false based on the “historical reality” or “pure imagination.” To avoid such confusion, English distinguishes between history and story, while German likewise distinguishes between the activity of Geschichtsschreibung and the science of history known as Geschichtswissenschaft, each language having its own words to dispel any such confusion.133 In the Arabic language, the word history is “tārīkh” meaning the old and beginning. It also means the determination of time and location like dates of birth or death as well as the scientific method of studying history. It also means, in general, (studying) the past of humankind. Resembling the meaning of history in other languages, tārīkh is the process of investigation and analysis of what humankind See below chapter two. Jacques Le Goff, History and Memory, trans. Steven Rendall and Elizabeth Claman (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), 101-103; Wajih Kawtharani, Tārīkh al-Tāʾrīkh (Beirut: Arab Center for Research and policy studies, 2013), 24-25. 133 Le Goff, History and Memory, 102. 131 132

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accomplished in the past to discover the human development and its continuousness, which is called ʻilm al-tārīkh (the science of history).134 In the same way, the term “historiography” or “writing history” is equivalent to the term “kitābat al-tārīkh” or “tadwīn alakhbār” in Arabic.135 Ibn-Khaldūn (d. 808/1406), known as the father of history, presented an umbrella meaning of history as a narrative of the past nations and civilisations and outlining human activities within historical narratives. He understood history as a civilisational necessity to understand humanity. Writing history is thus an enterprise of investigating humankind since the dawn of creation to understand the mystery of human existence in this universe in the past, present and future. 136 Moreover, Ibn-Khaldūn states that Ostensibly, history is no more than information about political occurrences, dynasties and events of the remote past. It includes evolved and exaggerated narratives, elegantly presented with proverbs. […] The inner meaning of history, on the other hand, involves speculation and an attempt to get to know the truth, subtle explanation of the causes and origins of existing things, and in-depth knowledge of the how and why of events.137 Since historical studies seek to understand humankind and human society, traditional historical sources are not enough to reach such an understanding. Whether tangible or intangible, any human output has become part of the historical examination over time, affecting the events, vice-à-versa. In this vein, the historical narrative/knowledge includes imaginative elements mingled with narrated and transferred facts in either historical and mythical contexts or designs. This narrative thus bears different religious, philosophical, political, cultural, social aspects that should be subjected to the process of the Qāsim, Iʻādat Qirāʼat al-Tārīkh, 10-12. Kawtharani, Tārīkh al-Tāʾrīkh, 24-25. 136 Abd al-Raḥmān Ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddimat Ibn-Khaldūn, 1st ed., vol. 1 (Damascus: Dār īaʻrab, 2004), 81-86; Qāsim ʻAbduh Qāsim, Taṭawwur Manhaj al-Baḥth fi alDirāsāt al-Tārīkhīyah (Cairo: Dār ʿEin, 2000), 20-21. 137 Ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddimat, 81-86. 134 135

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historical investigation to produce a written history.138 In this respect, studying past myths and legends in the frame of historical investigation is part of historiography or writing history, which shows the ongoing and evolving relationship between myth, legend and history.139 2.4. The Relationship between Myth, Legend and History According to Qāsim, historical knowledge of humankind has first derived from the mythical imagination (or was first born in kinship with myth), which was one conceptualisation of the surrounding universe. Myths and legends also reflect the self-image of a specific community about its historical roots.140 Furthermore, the myth itself is a kind of history that occurred somewhere and in a certain historical period.141 William McNeill comments further on the relationship between myth and history as close kin since both explain how things got to be the way they are by telling some sort of story. But our common parlance reckons myth to be false while history is, or aspires to be, true. Accordingly, a historian who rejects someone else’s conclusions calls them mythical, while claiming that his own views are true. But what seems true to one historian will seem false to another, so one historian’s truth becomes another’s myth, even at the moment of utterance.142 The “written history” was concerned with establishing actual precision by examining accounts and investigating resources. It consequently grew to be distinct from “mythical and legendary Aigle, The Mongol Empire between Myth and Reality,17-18; Qāsim, Iʻādat Qirāʼat al-Tārīkh, 21-24; Pierre Ellinger, “L.Brisson, Platon, les mots et les mythes,” L’Homme 23, no. 4 (1983): 74–79; Gaborieau, “Anthropologie structurale et Histoire,” 579–95. 139 Aigle, The Mongol Empire, 17-19: Saʻīdūnī, “Fikrat al-'usṭūrah,” 253–59. 140 Munīr, al-Āsātīr, 20-40; Qāsim, Taṭawwur Manhaj al-Baḥth, 5-6 141 Aigle, The Mongol Empire, 18-19; Brisson, Platon, les mots et les mythes, 12. 142 William H. McNeill, “Mythistory, or Truth, Myth, History and Historians,” The American Historical Review 91, no. 1 (1986): 1. 138

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narratives.” Yet, “historiography” consolidates both mythical and fanciful ingredients, which some historians regard as fictional narratives without a historical sense. Propaganda itself is a part of historiographical studies because many historical accounts and literature were dedicated to justifying political goals and ambitions. Therefore, there is no wonder that “legendary creativity” in historical writing was the essential point to legitimate political powers and political decisions.143 William McNeill assumes that “facts that could be established beyond all reasonable doubt remained trivial in the sense that they did not, in and of themselves, give meaning or intelligibility to the record of the past.”144 Eric Hobsbawm states that invented or established traditions engrave hope and fabricated patterns by connecting with proper past historical events and heroes.145 Furthermore, each myth can simultaneously convey multiple meanings over time, which makes studying the interrelationships between them (as well as the influence of each factor on historical constructions) a problematic endeavour.146 Therefore, we can argue that legends and myths are a sort of “oral history” that convey truth claims and imagination. Oral history, from various aspects, strives to gather data and information which could not be found in written sources. Oral history includes unique information that presents implicit perspectives, ideas and beliefs.147 Thus, one could consider transferred myths and legends over time as a sort of oral history. When these oral histories became written accounts, their writers, narrators, or inventors played crucial roles in presenting what they considered a real occurrence and what they believed as myth or imagination. They, undoubtedly, would be influenced by their own Aigle, The Mongol Empire, 17, 37-38. McNeill, “Mythistory,” 2, 8. 145 Eric Hobsbawm, “Introduction: Inventing Tradition,” in The Invention of Tradition, ed. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, 7th ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 1. 146 Cruz and Frijhoff, “Introduction: Myth in History,” 7-8. 147 Gugulethu Shamaine Nkala and Rodreck David, “Oral History Sources as Learning Materials: A Case Study of The National University of Science and Technology,” Oral History Journal of South Africa 3, no. 2 (2015): 82–93; Mark. Feldstein, “Kissing Cousins: Journalism and Oral History,” Oral History Review 31, no. 1 (2004): 1–22. 143 144

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political, military, religious beliefs, or cultural purposes and the way they wanted audiences to receive the stories, myths and legends they reported and reproduced. In this framework, legends and myths, even if they were not intended to convey history or facts, should be regarded as essential sources in the process of historical investigation. They also often provided an emotional, social or political compensation for inadequacies or needs of a particular society, providing hopes and impulses by a mythical or legendary figure. For instance, the imaginary persona of Prester John presented a messianic figure who would help the Franks overcome the Muslims to restore Edessa and defend the holy land.148 It then becomes a part of the historical investigation of whole occurrences of the time. 3. A PREHISTORY OF THE PRESTER JOHN LEGEND In the Middle Ages, it was difficult to establish the authenticity of tales, wonders or myths from far distances due to the cost of travels, communications and adventures, which was “expensive, laborious and slow.” Nevertheless, the East was often labelled as lands inhabited by fantastic people, creatures and marvels.149 Several Greek narratives and other legends from Antiquity were reconstructed in one or more written accounts and manuscripts in both oral and written forms. Narrative accounts, especially between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, demonstrate a considerable increase in stories of marvels, monsters, miracles, myths and occurrences assembled to stoke fear, pleasure or religious fervour. Likewise, kings or rulers (seculars and ecclesiastics) sought to display their power and splendour by using different legendary forms of propaganda.150 See in detail under chapter two. Keagan Brewer, Wonder and Skepticism in the Middle Ages (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2016), 2-3, 36, 94. 150 Francesca Canadé Sautman, Diana Conchado, and Giuseppe Carlo di Scipio, “Introduction: Texts and Shadows: Traces, Narratives and Folklore,” in Telling Tales: Medieval Narratives and the Folk Tradition, eds. Francesca Canadé Sautman, Diana Conchado, and Giuseppe Carlo di Scipio (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), 2-4; Caroline Walker Bynum, “Wonder,” The American Historical Review 102, no. 1 (1997): 2-3, 12, 17-18, 20. 148 149

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The exotic creatures of Alexander the Great and his fictional tales about the Orient were a feature of medieval art literature and imagined conceptions of the Orient and its residents. Many tales of Gog and Magog were redesigned in Judeo-Christian and Islamic form on the authority of Alexander the Great and his barrier to confine Gog and Magog.151 For instance, many Alexandrian fables and oriental wonders were transferred and reformed in a medieval Christian fashion in the Prester John Letter (1165-70), which survives in at least 468 manuscripts in many languages from the twelfth century onwards.152 Many other medieval writers composed their own accounts of such oriental oral stories, legends and narratives, travelogue texts and legendary tales preserved and transferred from Ancient Greek times. Different histories and chronicles contained many tales and fables in the same manner of the medieval perception or consideration of wonders and myths, especially in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. For instance, the twelfth-century English chronicler William of Newburgh (c. 1136-1198) presented several wondrous stories; he seemed to believe in the myth of the green children (de viridibus pueris).153 Robert Marshall, Storm from the East: Ghengis Khan to Khubilai Khan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 118-121; Andrew R. Anderson, Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and the Inclosed Nations (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Mediaval Academy of America, 1932), 3-12, 19; Ernest A. Wallis Budge, trans., The History of Alexander the Great, Being the Syriac Version of the Pseudo-Callisthenes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1889); 144-158. 152 See below Chapter three 153 According to William of Newburgh, the green children were a boy and his sister, and they appeared during the reign of King Stephen (r.1135–54), in the harvest time wearing strange clothes. They had a human body, but their skin was green, and were speaking an incomprehensible language. They accustomed to eating only beans, and then, they were baptised and slowly adapted to eat bread and to learn English. The boy later died, and the girl got married. The girl stated that she originally came from the Christian land of St. Martin, and she did not know or memorise how she had arrived there. In her homeland, the sun did not rise, but there was another bright land that was visible near their own which they were separated from by a vast river. See: William of Newburgh, Historia Rerum Anglorum, ed. Hans Claude Hamilton, vol. I (London: Sumptibus Societatis, 1856), book 1, ch. 27, 73-75; Brewer, Wonder and Skepticism, 6-8; Derek Brewer, “The Colour Green,” in A Companion to the Gawain-Poet, ed. Derek Brewer and Jonathan Gibson (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1997), 181–90. 151

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Furthermore, Gerald of Wales (c. 1146 -1223), a senior ecclesiastical officer in the church and a historian, offered many supernatural stories, wonders and myths on his journey to Ireland in about 1180 and Wales in 1189.154 Perhaps one could clarify that the reception of such legends was contextually bound to a “gullible” author such as Gerald, who conveyed many myths. Gerald tells of the priest-king John in a specific tone of suspicion while metaphorically referring to him as a symbol of arrogance.155 The reconstructed or fabricated myth or tale is based on the purpose of its composer, narrator, as well as the quo situation of the society, as in the case of the Prester John legend.156 The first purpose of the legend was to reignite crusading enthusiasm enough to restore Edessa and defend Jerusalem.157 The legendary priest-king John of the East was initially known and relayed orally from Hugh of Jabala to Otto of Freising and then from generation to generation. The transmission of the legend suggests that its audience broadly relished its fabulous description of the exotic and unknown East through the persona of Prester John.158 Furthermore, different Christian legends have their origin in the story of the Magi, the three wise men from the East invested with kingly dignity, as described by St. Matthew the Evangelist. The story was supported by others claiming that St. Thomas had journeyed to India, where he had preached the Gospel and baptised the Magi. Further, there was the tradition of the exploits of Alexander the Great in India, which was transferred with other fantasies to form a fabulous medieval perception of Asia, especially India, being the land of Gerald of Wales, ‘The Topography of Ireland; Its Miracles and Wonders’, in The Historical Works of Giraldus Cambrensis, ed. Thomas Wright, trans. Thomas Forester (London and New York: George Bell and Sons, 1894), 1–164; Gerald of Wales, ‘The Itinerary through Wales and the Description of Wales’, in The Historical Works of Giraldus Cambrensis, ed. Thomas Wright, trans. Richard Colt Hoare (London and New York: George Bell and Sons, 1894), 325-522. 155 J.S. Brewer, ed., Giraldi Cambrensis Opera. Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages, vol. 4 (London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1973), 425. 156 Sabine Baring-Gould, Curious Myths of the Middle Ages (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1880), 4-5, 24, 26. 157 See chapter two. 158 Brewer, Wonder and Skepticism, 90, 92. 154

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wonders in which some heroic Christian kings were also believed to rule.159 As the unknown land (terra incognita) on the outermost edge of the world, close to paradise, India drew the imagination of westerners and easterners in different periods through history, having a particular position in the history of salvation. Therefore, India was an ideal place for legends as well as various kinds of prophecies and imaginations to function. It was thus the perfect setting for the twelfth-century legend of Presbyter Iohannes, who would come to help the Franks in the Levant.160 In this regard, before the appearance of the Prester John legend in the mid-twelfth century, there were pre-origins and roots through a long-term period of Eastern-Christian visions and myths. The idea of the anticipated Christian redeemer should not be studied in isolation from the concept of salvation, apocalyptic visions, and the utopia of the oriental paradise. In this sense, the sacred epithet of this legendary Prester (Presbyter) John was perhaps borrowed from the name of John the Apostle/John the Presbyter or the Evangelist (d. ca. 100 AD), the kernel of Christian apocalyptic ideas and prophecies, in order to furnish revelation, zeal and hope to fix the discouragement of the Christians. It seems the title Presbyter was then taken over as John the Presbyter, and the legend’s composer might have made a connection between the Apocalypse of John and the divine wonders and imagination of India.161 The New Testament used the term “kings of the land” that the Latin writers adopted in their apocalyptical writings and legends. The visions of John predict the fall of great Babylon: The coming and the kingdom of Him who is called Faithful and True, the Word of God, the King of kings and Lord of lords. He is seen to triumph over all his foes, even over Death and Hades, and the consummation of his Marshall, Storm from the East, 118-121; Anderson, Alexander’s Gate, 3-12, 19. See the first report of the legend by Otto of Freising under Chapter two. 161 Wagner, Die ›Epistola Presbiteri Johannis‹ Lateinisch und Deutsch, 3; Helleiner, “Prester John’s Letter: A Mediaeval Utopia,” 47–57; Clyde Weber Votaw, “The Apocalypse of John: IV. Its Chief Ideas, Purpose, Date, Authorship, Principles of Interpretation, and Present-Day Value,” The Biblical World 32, no. 5 (1908): 314-28. 159 160

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millennial reign is the descent of the New Jerusalem to the new earth, and the making of all things new.”162 The influence of mythical and marvellous tales, especially those that incorporate apocalyptic stories, was intensively reflected upon during the Crusades, a movement initially built on religious motifs, among other factors. Therefore, the belief in apocalyptic imminence was a repetitive feature of the crusading movement throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.163 The Christian apocalyptic legends had some specific modifications because Jesus had already appeared as Messiah and would come again to fulfil his messianic work. Likewise, the concept of the Christian hero and the heroic-apocalyptic figure, having royal and divine power, who would rescue Christendom for eternal Christian Salvation, is chiefly rooted in the Apocalypse of John. This apocalyptic saviour has been assigned to real and imagined emperors and kings, associated with several militarily and political circumstances of the Christian world, especially after the rise of Islam in the seventh century until the late Middle Ages.164 Between the fourth and fifth centuries, the St. Matthew Monastery, the Syrian Christian Dayro d-Mor Mattai (‫)ܕܝܪܐ ܕܡܪܝ ܡܬܝ‬, was the central archbishopric of Eastern Christianity in Mosul northern Iraq. It was founded by the fourth-century Christian priest. St. Matthew the Hermit (b. early fourth century), where merchant caravans, missionaries and travellers into the Far East regions, India and China transmitted the Christian message.165 Under the influence of Christian Milton S. Terry, “Scope and Plan of the Apocalypse of John,” Journal of Biblical Literature 13, no. 1 (1894): 99–100. 163 Brewer, Wonder and Skepticism, 61-62; Alfred J. Andrea, “Innocent III, the Fourth Crusade, and the Coming Apocalypse,” in The Medieval Crusade, ed. Susan J. Ridyard (Woodbridge: Boydell press, 2004), 97. 164 Bart D. Ehrman, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 1-13; Helleiner, “Prester John’s Letter: A Mediaeval Utopia,” 47-57; Votaw, ‘The Apocalypse of John,̓ 314– 28. 165 Ignatius Yacoub III, History of the Monastery of Saint Matthew in Mosul, trans. Matti Moosa, Archdiocese of the Syriac Orthodox Church in the Eastern United States (New Jersey: Gorgias Press LLC., 2008), 6-9, 28, 33, 41-44, 65-67; Suha Rassam, Christianity in Iraq: Its Origins and Development to the Present Day (Leominster: Gracewing, 2005), 31-33. 162

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tradition, the areas to the East were associated with particular biblical spots, such as “terrestrial paradise.”166 Besides, the long-term quarrels between the Persian Sasanian Empire (224–651) and the Byzantine Empire in Syria, Asia and the Caucasus served to spread imaginations and tales about Persia and Asia. 167 With the rise of Islam in the seventh century, Muslims extended their dominance into Central and Western Asia. As a result, there were no further shared frontiers for Europe and the Byzantine Empire with Asia. The conflict between the Muslims and Byzantium was sustained within the bounds of Asia Minor.168 Hence, the imaginary conception of paradisiacal India was coupled with the apocalyptic idea of the Christian saviour to counter the discouragement of Christendom in the face of Islamic victory. The vast expansion of Islam in the East made bizarre rumours and apocalyptic Syrian-Christian visions regarding an “awaited saviour” of Christendom blended with the figure of Alexander the Great, which was otherwise lacking at the time. The Alexander the Great Romance has been translated to Syriac, seemingly by a Mesopotamian Christian from Amid or Edessa, shortly after the victory of the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius (r. 610–641) over the Persians between 629 and 630 AD. The Syriac legend of Alexander is the first apocalyptic legend to merge Alexander with the Biblical tradition of Gog and Magog. It later became the nucleus of several Christian myths, visions and wonders, including the legend of Prester John.169 Marshall, Storm from the East: Ghengis Khan to Khubilai Khan, 118-121; Andrew Runni Anderson, Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and the Inclosed Nations (Cambridge and Massachusetts: Mediaval Academy of America, 1932), 3-12, 19. 167 Touraj Daryaee, “The Sasanian Empire,” in The Syriac World, ed. Daniel King (Abingdo and New York: Routledge Taylor and Francis, 2019), 33–43; Baum, Die Verwandlungen des Mythos, 39-40; Hilāl, Al-ʻalāqāt bayn al-Maghūl wa Ūrubbā, 1516; David Nicolle, Sassanian Armies: The Iranian Empire Early 3rd to Mid-7th Centuries AD (Stockport: Montvert, 1996), 5-10f. 168 Hilāl, Al-ʻalāqāt bayn al-Maghūl wa Ūrubbā, 15-16; Hamilton, “Prester John and the Three Kings of Cologne,” 171; Knefelkamp, Die Suche nach dem Reich des Priesterkönigs Johannes, 21; J.H. Parry, The Age of Reconnaissance. Discovery, Exploration and Settlement 1450 to 1650, 2nd ed. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1981), 4-10. 169 Emeri van Donzel and Andrea Schmidt, eds., Gog and Magog in Early Eastern Christian and Islamic Sources: Sallam’s Quest for Alexander’s Wall (Leiden. Boston: 166

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Syrian Christians were a source of information for the Crusaders and the Latin West about Christian communities in Central Asia and India until the thirteenth-century Mongol invasion. Christian travellers, merchants and missionaries also transformed many mythical and fantastic legends and visions about Christianity in Persia and India through their retellings.170 In the late seventh century, the Syriac Pseudo-Methodius apocalypse of the “awaited rescuer” diffused among eastern Christians throughout the Byzantine Empire. The so-called Pseudo-Methodius apocalypse is a Syriac prophetic historiographical novel by an anonymous author dated to 690. Still, it was falsely attributed to St. Methodius (d. ca. 311), the supposed bishop of Olympus or Patara (both in Lycia in Anatolia), who was later bishop of Tyre.171 The Pseudo-Methodius was one of several highly influential apocalyptic texts that stimulated Christian imagination and legends in Brill, 2009); 17-18, 21-22, 26; Claudia A Ciancaglini, ‘The Syriac Version of the Alexander Romance’, Le Muséon, Revue d’études Orientales 114, no. 1–12 (2001): 121–40; Knefelkamp, Die Suche nach dem Reich des Priesterkönigs Johann, 39; Ernest A. Wallis Budge, trans., The History of Alexander the Great, Being the Syriac Version of the Pseudo-Callisthenes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1889); lvii-lxxxiii, 144-158. 170 Mark Dickens, “Syriac Christianity in Central Asia,” in The Syriac World, ed. Daniel King (Abingdon and New York: Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, 2019), 583– 624; Ciancaglini, “The Syriac Version of the Alexander Romance.”136, 139; Sebastian P Brock, Syriac Perspective on Late Antiquity. (London: Variorum Reprints, 1984), 17-18. 171 Benjamin Garstad, ed. and trans., Apocalypse Pseudo-Methodius: An Alexandrian World Chronicle, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library (Cambridge, Massachusetts, London: Harvard University press, 2012), vii-xiv; Donzel and Schmidt, Gog and Magog, 26. The attribution of such an influential and historical work to St. Methodius severs seemingly the purpose of the author to give weight to his book, considering it as a prophetic vision. A further point, it could be said that this apocalyptical work was written in response to the political conditions at the time, where the era around Mosul in Iraq, Syria, the rest of the Levant, and Persia, became under Muslim lordship. For more see; Garstad, Apocalypse Pseudo-Methodius,vii-xiv; G.J. Reinink, Die Syrische Apokalypse des Pseudo-Methodius, Corpus Scriptorum Cristianorum Orientalium, vol. 541 (Louvain: Peeters, 1993), v-xv; ʻAbd-al-ʻAziz Ramaḍān, “Ṣūrat al-Islām fī Nibūʾat Methodius al-Majhūl,” Egyptian Historical Review 44 (2006): 267–82; Witold Witakowski, “The Eschatological Program of the Apocalypse of PseudoMethodios: Does It Make Sense?,” Rocznik Orientalistyczny (Annual of Oriental Studies) 53, no. 1 (2000): 33–42. 60

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the Middle Ages. The composer of that Methodius apocalypse took the Bible as a principal source and drew a fictional association between Alexander the Great, the Byzantine Empire and Ethiopia, claiming that the wife of Byzas, king of Byzantium, was the daughter of an Ethiopian king called Kūshat and mother of Alexander the Great. Through this legendary perception, the Byzantine Emperor was seen as the “awaited secure” and “the last world emperor,” who would defeat the Muslims, restore the supremacy of Christendom, and would later journey to Jerusalem to deliver the Christian kingdom to God. This apocalypse172 was utilised in the conflict between Islam and Christianity and the East and West, from late antiquity to the end of the medieval times and perhaps afterwards. The apocalyptic image of the Last Emperor symbolised a defender of Christendom against Islam. In the tenth century, the idea of the Last Emperor was developed by the French monk and historian Ademar of Chabannes (ca. 988-1034) to perceive the persona of the Western Roman Emperor. Ademar’s chronicle was written in Aquitaine in the 1020s. Ademar’s chronicle deals with the Frankish history from the region of Pharamond (ca. 395-430), the legendary early king of the Franks, to the year 1028.173 When the sixth Fatimid caliph of Egypt al-Ḥākim bi-Āmr-Allah (386-411 AH/996-1021) destroyed the Holy Garstad, Apocalypse Pseudo-Methodius, xi, 25-37; 63-65; Reinink, Die Syrische Apokalypse, 19-39; 69-70; Christopher Bonura, “When Did the Legend of the Last Emperor Originate? A New Look at the Textual Relationship between the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius and the Tiburtine Sibyl,” Viator 47, no. 3 (2016): 47–100. Donzel and Schmidt, Gog and Magog. The Pseudo-Methodius presents the Byzantine Emperor as the protector of Christendom, connected with Alexander the Great and Ethiopia, which reflected the political situation at this time where the Western Roman Empire was collapsed two centuries ago by Germanic tribes. Drawing PseudoMethodius with Biblical tradition aimed to reconcile “the Islamic conquest with the earlier Christian eschatological expectation.” Garstad, Garstad, Apocalypse PseudoMethodius, ix-xiii; Donzel and Schmidt, Gog and Magog, 27-28; Ramaḍān, “Ṣūrat alIslām,” 271-74. 173 Daniel F. Callahan, “al-Hākim, Charlemagne, and the Destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem in the Writings of Ademar of Chabannes,” in The Legend of Charlemagne in the Middle Ages: Power, Faith, and Crusades, ed. Matthew Gabriele and Jace Stuckey (New YorK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 41–49; Richard Landes, Relics, Apocalypse, and the Deceits of History: Ademar of Chabannes, 9891034, Harvard Historical Studies 117 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University press, 1995), 102-154, 309-328. 172

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Sepulchre Church in 1009, the legend of the Last Emperor was accredited to Charlemagne (r. 800-814). Ademar’s sermons and writings consider the Muslims as heretics and evildoers that should be destroyed, describing al-Ḥākim as an Antichrist.174 Ademar indicated that Christendom needed a principal defender, the Last Emperor, whose appearance would be closely linked to the Antichrist and the end of times, in his apocalyptic mindset.175 In Ademar’s writings, Charlemagne appears as Christ’s man on Earth and the Last Emperor who would overthrow the Muslims before the apocalypse. He depicts Charlemagne sitting on the throne with a golden sword, carrying a golden gospel book in his hand and holding a golden diadem with a piece of the True Cross on his head. The destruction of the Holy Sepulchre church sparked Pope Sergius IV (p. 1009-1012) to call for a proto-crusade in 1010, but it was not met with a response from the West in the same way as the call of Pope Urban II (p. 1088-1099) had done at Clermont in 1095.176 During the eleventh century, the Last Emperor prophecy developed thanks to a collection of prophecies called Latin Tiburtina, falsely known as Tiburtine Sibyll. This Latin Tiburtina was a reworked version of the Apocalypse Pseudo-Methodius, adding more details to the figure of the Last Emperor who would convert all people to Christianity. With the beginning of the crusading movement by the end of the eleventh century, the Last Emperor prophecy was assigned to Henry IV (r. 1084-1105). An Italian bishop, Benzo of Alba (d. 1089) indicated that Henry IV was the Last Emperor in the Apocalypse of pseudo-Methodius. Benzo describes that Henry would be travelling to Jerusalem, spreading Christianity and liberating all Christians.177

Adémar de Chabannes, Chronique, ed. Jules Chavanon (Paris: A. Picard, 1897), lib. III, cap. 47, 169-171; Callahan, “al-Hākim, Charlemagne,” 41-44. 175 The second book of Ademar chronicle focuses on Charlemagne; Adémar, Chronique, lib. II, 65-106. 176 Adémar, Chronique, lib. II, cap. 25, 105-106; Callahan, “al-Hākim, Charlemagne,” 46-47, 49. 177 Benzo von Alba, “Sieben Bücher an Kaiser Heinrich IV,” in MGH, SS., RGUS, LXV, ed. Hans Seyffert (Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1996), 124-27; Dixon, “The Prester John,” 112-13. 174

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The legend of the Last Emperor shows the development of Christian apocalypticism and the extent to which eschatological views played a role in the long-term encounter between Islamdom and Christendom. It also refers to the role of Syriac visions on medieval Christian imaginations. Finally, the legend of the Last Emperor is a perfect meeting of church and empire, presenting the emperor himself in the form of a priest and king.178 Likewise, the legendary Christian priest-king John, who, while never truly existing, was believed to one day come to the aid of the Crusaders in the Levant, could be viewed from an apocalyptical legendary scope that was employed in the Muslim-crusading conflict. The apocalyptic essence of Prester John would be apparent during the Fifth Crusade, as will be further explained later in this study. In short, the legend of Prester John was in part drawn from a biblical tradition that was merged with Alexander romance, within the scope of a twelfth-century perception that sought to personify the priest-king, John, as an eschatological figure who would defeat the Muslims and deliver Jerusalem.179 Prester John was a convenient fictional geographic-historic way for medieval Europeans to imagine a world they could not understand. The legend’s production is comparable to early Christian apocalyptical legends, which formed a powerful sway on the medieval perception, which in turn had a tremendous influence on the construction of the legendary world of Prester John. Therefore, the Prester John legend is the consequence of widely disseminated fantasies and wonders that benefited from the confused entanglement of Jewish, Christian and Muslim apocalyptical visions, albeit in a Latin-medieval Christian fashion. Moreover, the legend was formulated as a response to the crusading crisis and the political situation at the time, both in Europe and the Latin East. Such a situation was an ideal milieu to compose the pseudo-legend of the priest-king John. In addition to such an early apocalyptic origin of the legend of the “rescuer” priest-king John, the legend was born out of the entanglement with St. Thomas’ oriental Bonura, “When Did the Legend of the Last Emperor,” 47-52. Brewer, Wonder and Skepticism, 62; Wang, “Alexander the Great, Prester John, Strabo of Amasia,” 1-9; Taylor, “Waiting for Prester John,” 51-58.

178 179

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tradition in the early twelfth century, among other entangled events that will be analysed in the next chapter.

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CHAPTER TWO

BETWEEN TRANSMISSION AND RECEPTION: THE BIRTH OF THE PRESTER JOHN LEGEND AND THE CRUSADER-MUSLIM CONFLICT, 1122-1145

This chapter aims to explore the reception history of the Prester John legend and its entanglement with imagination and reality, with a centred historical discussion of its association with the Eastern Christian tradition of St. Thomas and the Crusader-Muslim conflict during the first half of the twelfth century. It uncovers the roots of the legend in the visit of John, patriarch of India, to Rome in 1122. The chapter also reveals other divine traditions and legends of the Eastern Christians about Edessa, like the legend of King Abgar, and their connections with the legendary figure of the priest-king John. The examination of both divine and legendary traditions of Edessa would facilitate the further interpretation of the dissemination of the Prester John legend as a defender of Edessa and the holy land. Furthermore, the chapter investigates the first known report of the legend by Otto of Freising (d. 1158) and its relationship with the downfall of Edessa, the first crusader county established in 1098, in December 1144 to ʿImād al-Dīn Zankī, Atabeg of Mosul (r. 1127–

Between Transmission and Reception

1146). Further, it discusses the battle of Qaṭwān (536/1141) in Central Asia (between the forces of Qarakhitai Yelü Dashi (r. 1124-1143) and the Seljuk ruler Sinjār (r. 1118-1157), and the role it had in originating the legend of Prester John. This chapter further discusses the extent to which the invention of the legend was inflamed by the Crusades, revealing its role in inspiring the fervent crusading zeal which helped launch a new crusade to restore Edessa. 1. THE ST. THOMAS TRADITION AND THE ORIGIN OF PRESTER JOHN Before the Prester John legend began in the mid-twelfth century, an alleged Indian patriarch named John visited Rome in 1122 and presented a fantastic description of the St. Thomas Christians in India. Although twelfth-century Europe was largely ignorant of the tradition of the shrine of St. Thomas in India, there was nevertheless a tenthcentury attempt to discover the shrine of St. Thomas in India. According to the Anglo-Saxon chronicle, King Alfred the Great (r. 871-899) in 883 sent gifts to St. Thomas in India.180 The same story was related by the twelfth-century chronicler William of Malmesbury (c.1080/1095-1143): Being devoted to almsgiving, he confirmed the privileges of churches as laid down by his father, and sent many gifts overseas to Rome and to St. Thomas in India. For this purpose, he dispatched an envoy, Sigehelm bishop of Sherborne, who made his way to India with great success, an astonishing feat even today, and brought with him on his return gems of exotic splendor and liquid perfumes of which the soil there is productive (...).181 Michael Swanton, trans., The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles (London: Phoenix Press, 2000), 79. 181 William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum: The History of the English Kings, ed. R. A. B. Mynors, R. M. Thomson, and M. Winterbottom, vol. I (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 191: (Elemosinis intentus priuilegia aecclesiarum, sicut pater statuerat, roborauit, et trans mare Romam et ad sanctum Thomam in India, multa munera misit. Legatus in hoc missus Sigelinus, Scireburnensis episcopus, cum magna prosperitate, 180

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Although there is neither tangible evidence of King Alfred’s mission nor proof of its departure from England, it indicates an early European endeavour to confirm the existence of the shrine of St. Thomas in India and its community of Christian worshippers and servants beyond the lands of the Muslims. In this regard, belief in the existence of Christian communities in the Far East created a fertile atmosphere in which tales and legends took hold of religiopolitical imaginations, and the possibility of building alliances with those Christians against the Muslims reached a high point during the twelfth and thirteenth-century Crusades in the Levant. 182 During the crusading period, several prophecies were born or revived in a new fashion to encourage knights and adventurers to take up war in the holy land. The legends and prophecies were beneficial as political and emotional means to overcome obstacles and difficulties encountered by the crusade movement.183 By the end of the eleventh century, when Europe launched the crusading movement, under the banner of a military pilgrimage movement to defend the holy land, the old tales and legends of the earlier centuries were retransferred and retold in contemporary connections with the fables of the Orient.184 While the Roman Church refused to believe in the miracles of St. Thomas, the visit of the so-called John of India to Rome in 1122 seemed to persuade the Pope to do so.185 The story of a certain John, patriarch of India, who journeyed to Rome during the pontificate of Calixtus II (r. 1119-1124) in 1122, was told in an anonymous text entitled De Adventu Patriarchae Indorum, which was first brought to light in the modern era by Friedrich Zarncke in 1879. The same text was then re-translated and re-edited by Keagan Brewer in 2015. This text dates back to the first half of the twelfth century, dealing with the journey of a mysterious persona identified as John from India, who quod quiuis hoc seculo miretur, Indiam penetrauit; inde rediens, exoticos splendores gemmarum…), here, 190. 182 Renz, “Das Priesterkönigreich des Johannes,” 239, 241; Hilāl, Al-ʻalāqāt bayna alMaghūl wa Ūrubbā, 17; Donald F. Lach, Asia in the Making of Europe, 3rd ed., vol. 1 (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 25. 183 Taylor, “Waiting for Prester John,” 3, 7. 184 Marshall, Storm from the East, 121. 185 Slessarev, Prester John: The Letter and the Legend, 12. 67

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spoke of the miracles of St. Thomas in India, culminating in a description of “the annual revivification of the interred body of St. Thomas in India.”186 Another text by Odo of Rheims (ca.1118-1151), the famous Abbot of St. Remy, reports the same event of 1122 in the aforementioned De Adventu text.187 Odo wrote a letter probably between 1126 and 1135, claiming that he was a witness to the visit of John, naming him the archbishop of India, at the papal court in Rome, “on the sixth day of the week after the observance of the Lord’s ascension.”188 According to the story in the anonymous text, John of India had initially travelled to Constantinople, whence he had come from India to receive the pallium and the other insignia.189 The legates of Pope Calixtus II were on a peacebuilding and friendship mission between Rome and Byzantium. John of India wanted to see Rome with his own eyes and attend the Roman Pontiff, Pope Calixtus II. In the papal court, he began to describe his Indian home, the city of “Hulna,” which was, as he claimed, huge and entirely inhabited by Christians. In the middle of the city, one of the paradise rivers called Physon streams with the clearest water convening the most precious gold and precious jewels that made the Indian areas wealthiest. The Mother Church of St. Thomas was located on a mountain, not far from this city, and twelve monasteries in honour of the twelve apostles were founded on Anonymous,“De Adventu Patriarchae Indorum ad Urbem sub Caslisto Papa IIo,” in PJLIS, (Farnham, Burlington: Ashgate, 2015), 30–38; Zarncke, “Der Patriarch Johannes von Indien,” in PJMTLT, 23–35. 187 Odo of Rheims, “Epistola ad Thomam Comitem de Quodam Miraculo Sancti Thomae Apostoli,” in PJLIS (Farnham, Burlington: Ashgate, 2015), 39–42; Zarncke, “Der Patriarch Johannes von Indien ,” 35-38. 188 Odo of Rheims, “Epistola,” 39–42; Zarncke, “Der Patriarch Johannes von Indien,” 35-38; Beckingham, “The Achievements of Prester John,” 7; Silverberg, The Realm of Prester John, 31. 189 Anonymous,“De Adventu,ˮ30: qualiter Bizantium, sicut racio exigebat, ad suscipiendum pallium et cetera confirmationis atque dignitatis insignia quandoque veniret. Pallium is an ecclesiastical vestment, especially for the Pope, in the Roman Catholic Church, which was bestowed by the Holy See to some metropolitans as a symbolic power of the Papacy. SJ Steven A. Schoenig, “Bonds of Wool: The Pallium and Papal Power in the Middle Ages,” The English Historical Review 133, no. 560 (2018): 133–35; ‘Pallium’, in Encyclopaedia Britannica, ed. Hugh Chisholm (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1911), 638-39. 186

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the edge of the same place. According to John, the Church of St. Thomas was built atop a mountain that remained inaccessible throughout the year. The patriarch, John himself, only entered this church once a year to celebrate the holy mysteries with his supporting bishops. On the celebration day, the holy body of St. Thomas could be “seen standing erect above the shell as though living, at the “Ciborium,” interlaced with silver, precious stones and gold.190 Odo of Rheims narrates a similar story indicating that the journey of John to Rome seems to be an actual event, but Odo’s text was different. Odo claims that while he was present at the papal court, a man suddenly appeared and reported that the Byzantine emperor’s legates had reached the gates. The Pope sent a bishop to summon them to his presence. Odo describes a comprehensive panorama, clarifying that John had come to the Byzantine Empire after the death of his lord to get his advice. Two times in sequence, the emperor sent a prince with John, but each time the prince died while John was preparing his journey home. Naturally, the Byzantine emperor refused to dispatch the third prince. The Indian John, consequently, demanded the approval of the emperor to visit Rome accompanied by byzantine imperial envoys. Odo describes what John had said regarding St.

Anonymous, “De Adventu,ˮ 31-32, 34-38; Zarncke, “Der Patriarch Johannes von Indien,ˮ 29-35; Baum, Die Verwandlungen des Mythos, 122-23. […] Sane patriarcha Indorum Romam adveniens, illius scilicet Indiae, quae ultima finem mundi facit, adventu suo Romanae curiae et universae fere Italiae stupendum miraculum fecit, cum per innumerorum curricula annorum inde huc aliquis non advenisset, nec de tam longinquis partibus et barbaris regionibus per totam Italiam paene visus umquam fuisset praeter istum supradictum beatae vitae patriarcham Iohannem.[...]ad Romanorum legatorum noticiam usque pervenit, quos videlicet praefatus papa Calistus pro utilitate mutuae pacis atque concordiae Romani et Graii regum Constantinopolim legaverat.[…]. Civitas, cui Domino donante praesumus, Hulna vocatur, quae quidem Indici regni caput est atque dominatrix. Cuius magnitudo quatuor dierum itinere per circuitum lata extenditu. […]. A fidelissimis autem christianis universa interius plenissime est habitata, […], in cuius summitate beatissimi Thomae apostoli mater ecclesia posita constat. [..] His ita compositis atque tota illa ebdomada sancti apostoli Thomae festivitati pertinentibus a clero et a populo sacris mysteriis celebratis […], unde sancti apostoli corpus deposuerunt ibidem tremebundi reponunt), Anonymous, “De Adventu,ˮ 30-33.

190

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Thomas and his church in the rest of his text, which is the same story mentioned earlier in the anonymous de Adventu text.191 Both Odo and the account of de Adventu relate that when John of the Indians had finished his report, Pope Calixtus II and the rest of his assembly appeared to believe in the presence of a Christian community living in India. They raised their hands to heaven and glorified Christ for such divine and great miracles.192 Both de Adventu and Odo’s text use various synonyms to express almost the same events and are related in conception, though they differ in several specifics. For example, in Odo’s text, the Indian John is not a patriarch but an archbishop. He asked the emperor to send his envoys with him, which illustrates that these ambassadors were not Roman envoys returning home, as mentioned in the de Adventu.193 A core of some historical facts appears to exist below the more legendary layer on the surface level. Both texts suggest that someone made a journey to Rome, but probably not from modern India. This alleged man seems likely to be a true Eastern Christian, as he was exceedingly familiar with the story of St. Thomas.194 Much of the previous scholarship on the subject considers the visit of the so-called patriarch John of India to Rome in 1122 as the kernel of the legend of Prester John that was first recorded by Otto von Freising in 1145.195 Beckingham accepted the anonymous text as an Odo of Rheims, “Epistola,” 39–42; Zarncke, “Der Patriarch Johannes von Indien,” 35-38. 192 Anonymous, “De Adventu,ˮ 33, 38; Odo of Rheims, “Epistola,” 40, 42. […] Episcopus autem coram omnibus nil esse verius affirmabat, et assensu domini papae sacrosancti evangelii iuramento ita esse comprobavit. Credidit tandem dominus papa, credidit et omnis curia et apud omnipotentiam divinam apostolum maiora impetrare posse acclamabant. Odo of Rheims, “Epistola,” 40. 193 Knobler, Mythology and Diplomacy, 5-6; Keagan Brewer, “Introduction: Believing in Prester John,” in PJLIS (Farnham, Burlington: Ashgate, 2015), 5-6; Beckingham, “The Achievments of Prester John,” 7. 194 Brewer, “Believing in Prester John,” 5-6; Igor de Rachewiltz, Papal Envoys to the Great Khans (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1971), 30-34; Silverberg, The Realm of Prester John, 32-35. 195 Knobler, Mythology and Diplomacy, 5; Brewer, “Believing in Prester John,” 4-6; Taylor, “Waiting for Prester John,” 37-39; Baum, “Der Priesterkönig Johannes und die syrische Christenheit,” 177; Zarncke, “Der Patriarch Johannes von Indien,,” 23; Beckingham, ‘The Achievements of Prester John,’ 6-7; Knefelkamp, Die Suche nach dem Reich des Priesterkönigs Johannes, 21; Slessarev, Prester John, 9-10. 191

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accurate report because it departed from the text of Odo of Rheims, pointing out that the legend of Prester John was perhaps associated with the “shrine of St. Thomas” and the associated Christian community in India. However, the description of Hulna, mentioned by John of India, was mainly deemed mythical.196 It seems that the stories told by John of India refer to the Acts of St. Thomas and his apocryphal life written originally in Syriac in the third century, which has been translated into Latin through a Greek version. The traditions of St. Thomas were generally known in the Syrian church, especially in Edessa, the city that was the centre of Syrian Christians, thus making it possible for these Acts to be written in the city of Edessa.197 It also seems that the story related earlier by the Indian John was neither the earliest nor the latest tale interrelated with the traditions of the Apostle Thomas. According to the tradition, St. Thomas had journeyed to India in the mid-first century, shortly after the Crucifixion (30-33 AD), where he preached the Gospel and baptised the Magi.198 He travelled to India with an envoy of an Indian king named Gondophares,199 who was said to be an Indo-Parthian king (r. ca.20-50 AD), who sent his envoy to Syria to search for a skilful architect to design a new royal city. This Beckingham, “The Achievments of Prester John,” 6-7 . A. F. J. Klijn, The Acts of Thomas: Introduction, Text, and Commentary, 2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 8-9, 15; Yūsuf Ḥabbī, ed., Tawārīkh Suryānīyah (Baghdād: alMajmaʻ al-ʻIlmī al-ʻIrāqī, 1982), 2, note. 9. 198 J.P.M. Van der Ploeg, The Christians of St. Thomas in South India and Their Syriac Manuscripts (Bangalore, India: Dharmaram Publications, 1983), 2-4; Leslie Brown, The Indian Christians of St Thomas: An Account of the Ancient Syrian Church of Malabar (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 59, 65; Albrecht Dihle, ‘Indien’, in Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum. Sachwörterbuch zur Auseinandersetzung des Christentums mit der Antiken Welt, ed. Ernst Dassmann and et ela., vol. XVIII (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersmann, 1986), 25-32. 199 Gondophares is considered the founder of the Indo-Parthian kingdom and is only known from some inscriptions on coins from Takht-i-Bahi - which is not entirely accurate- where he appears as Maharaja Guduvhara. The 26th year of government is attested in this inscription, which coincides with the year 103 of an undiscovered epoch, but probably that of the Indo-Parthian ruler Azes I, known as the Vikrama era, whose era begins in 57 BC. The beginning of the reign of Gondophares can be estimated precisely to AD 20. See, Adrian D.H Bivar, “Gondophares and the IndoParthians,” in The Age of the Parthians: The Idea of Iran, ed. Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis and Sarah Stewart, vol. II (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2007), 26–36. 196 197

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envoy returned with St. Thomas, who converted king Gondophares and preached Christianity across other parts of India.200 Owing to the spreading of St. Thomas miracles and teachings, he was exiled to a mountain called Bʿīytūn, where a heretic stabbed him with a bayonet, and he died as a martyr.201 This narrative corresponds to the general belief that St. Thomas was martyred after establishing a Christian society in India, and the rest of the disciples were then moved to Edessa.202 According to Syriac manuscripts of St. Thomas published in 1982, translated and edited by Johannes Petrus Maria van der Ploeg, a Dutch Dominican specialist in Syriac manuscripts, St. Thomas Christians lived on the Indian coastal city Malabar, where St. Thomas had died as a martyr. A text dated to 1504, written by a cleric called Mar Denḥa (?), who was one of the three bishops sent to India by the patriarch of the Church of the East, Eliah V (1502-1503), reported that the Church of St. Thomas was located at a distance of about twenty-five days from the coast of Malabar. The inhabitants of Malabar were the Nestorians of St. Thomas and lived according to the law of St. Thomas. In the sixteenth century, the Portuguese found copies of the Syriac New Testament with the Christians of St. Thomas, who were also named the Syro-Christians of Malabar.203 Therefore, the roots of the Syro-Malabar Church go back to the Apostle Thomas, who travelled along the southwestern coast of India between 53 AD and 60 AD, to the city of Malabar, which is the historical name of modern Kerala. It was said that St. Thomas

Buṭrus Ḥaddād, ed. Mukhtaṣar al-Akhbār al-Bayʿīyā (Baghdad: Imprimerie alDiwan, 2000), 88-90; A.L. Basham, The Wonder That Was India. A Survey of the History and Culture of the Indian Sub-Continent before the Coming of the Muslims, 5th ed. (Calcutla and New Delhi: Rupa Co., 1986), 345-46; Wright, The Geographical Lore of the Time of the Crusades, 74. 201 Ḥaddād, Mukhtaṣar al-Akhbār, 88-90 202 Robert Kerr,ed, “Voyage of Sighelm and Athelstan to India, in the Reign of Alfred King of England, in 883,” in A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, vol.1 (Edinburgh and London, 1824), 18-26; Baum, Die Verwandlungen des Mythos, 46-48, 56; Lach, Asia in the Making of Europe, vol. 1, 25-26. 203 Ploeg, Syriac Manuscripts of St. Thomas,4-6, 14-15, 26, 117, 122, 132, 148, 187. 200

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converted many Brahmans,204 ordinated two presbyters or priests, and built seven churches before he was martyred.205 Believing in the reliability of John’s visit to Rome in 1122, whether he was indeed from India or elsewhere, it seems that he was an Eastern Christian who had a thorough knowledge of the tradition of St. Thomas in India and thus the city of Malabar. According to Slessarev, the coming of that Indian John to the Byzantine Empire suggests that he would have been a member of the East Syrian/Nestorian Church, whose chief patriarch resided in Baghdād at the time.206 This proposes that he might have meant the city of Malabar by describing Hulna, where the Church of St. Thomas was first founded. According to de Adventu, Hulna was the chief city of the Indian kingdom and surrounded by waters, and on a mountain somewhat distant from the location of the Church of St. Thomas.207 The city of Malabar was also surrounded by water because it was a coastal city on the southwest coast of India. Besides, the Church of St. Thomas is at a certain distance from it.208 It seems, thus, that Hulna is almost the same geographical location as the city of Malabar. The tradition of St. Thomas yielded a stimulating legendary relationship with the legend of Prester John. Through the figure of the patriarch John of India in 1122, an idealised figure of the Prester John was constructed. De Adventu text presented the Christian community Brahman, also spelt Brahmin or Brāhmaṇa, “the highest-ranking of the four varnas, or social classes, in Hindu India. The elevated Brahman's position goes back to the late Vedic period when the Indo-European people immigrated to northern India and were divided into Brahmans, "or priests, fighters from the Kshatriya caste, merchants of the Vaishya caste, and labourers of the Sudra class. The Brahmans hold high positions and many advantages, and they were above all a priestly level. They expanded into South Asia during the first and second centuries AD. See; Norbert Peabody, C. J. Fuller, and Adrian C. Mayer, “Brahmans and the Legitimation of Hindu Kingship,” Man, New Series 27, no. 4 (1992): 879–80; Brahman,” in Encyclopædia Britannica (Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., 2020), https://www.britannica.com/topic/Brahmancaste. 205 Ploeg, Syriac Manuscripts of St. Thomas, 4-6, 11, 23, 26; William Joseph Richards, The Indian Christians of St. Thomas : Otherwise Called the Syrian Christians of Malabar (London: Bemrose and Sons Limited, 1908), 1-10. 206 Slessarev, Prester John, 23. 207 Anonymous, “De Adventu,” 31-36, Odo of Rheims, “Epistola,” 39-42. 208 Ploeg, Syriac Manuscripts of St. Thomas, 4-6. 204

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that secured the shrine of St. Thomas in a large and powerful image. Such description, thus, symbolised both St. Thomas and Prester John in the frame of a theological alliance against the Muslims. In other words, the visit of John of India to Rome in 1122 recalled the Prester John, “in name and intent,” promoting to establish a reunification between the churches of the East and West to confront Islam and the Muslims.209 2. THE PRESTER JOHN LEGEND BY OTTO OF FREISING In 1145, in the presence of Pope Eugenius III (r. 1145–1153) in Viterbo, Hugh of Jabala told the story of the priest-king John. According to Otto of Freising, after describing the hazardous situations of the Holy Land and the destruction of Edessa, Hugh spoke of a mysterious and powerful Christian monarch, saying that: Not many years before a certain John, a king and priest, dwelling beyond Persia and Armenia in the farthest East, who and all his people were Christians but Nestorians. He made war on the brother kings of the Persians and Medes, called Samiardi, and stormed Ekbatana/Ebactana,210 the seat of their kingdom, of which mention was made above. When the kings above met him with a great army of Persians, Medes and Assyrians, a battle ensued which lasted for three days, since both parties were preferring to die rather than to flee. Prester John, for so they are accustomed to calling him, finally emerged victorious in a most dreadful slaughter after the Persians had turned to flight. He (Hugh) said that after this victory, John mentioned above moved his army to the aid of the Church in Jerusalem. But when he reached the Tigris River, he was unable to transport his army across that river by any means, so he turned toward the north where he had learned Taylor, “Waiting for Prester John,” 36, 38. Otto of Freising says that he read in the book of Judith, Arphaxed founded, that this city in the Persian tongue called Hamadan (Hani in the Latin text of Otto). Otto of Freising, The Two Ciies, 407-408.

209 210

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that this river was frozen over with winter ice. After that, he waited for several years delayed by the freeze, but because of the continued bad weather and losing many of his soldiers, he was forced to return home. It is said that he is a descendant of the ancient race of Magi, of whom mention is made in the Gospel, and he is said to enjoy such great glory and wealth that he does not command his people except with an emerald scepter. Inflamed by the example of his fathers who came to adore Christ in the manger, he had planned to go to Jerusalem, but they allege that was hindered by the reason aforesaid. But enough of this.211 It is a puzzling mystery that the seemingly trustworthy account of Otto of Freising included such legendary material in his chronicle of the two cities. This is why it is essential to know more about him and Otto of Freising, De Duabus Civitatibus, lib. vii-xxxiii, 365-67; For English translation see, Otto of Freising, The Two Cities, the Chronicles of Universal History to the Year of 1146, ed. Austin P. Evans and Charles Knapp, trans. Charles Christopher Mierow (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), book. 7, ch.33, 443-44. Keagan Brewer; “Otto of Freising, of the Two Cities,” in PJLIS (Farnham, Burlington: Ashgate, 2015), 44-45. (Narrabat etiam, quod ante non multos annos Iohannes quidam, qui ultra Persidem et Armeniam in extremo oriente habitans rex et sacerdos cum gente sua Christianus est, sed Nestorianus, Persarum et Medorum reges fratres, Samiardos dictos, bello petierit atque Ebactani, cuius supra mentio habita est, sedem regni eorum expugnaverit. Cui dum prefati reges cum Persarum, Medorum, Assyriorum copiis occurrerent, triduo utrisque mori magis quam fugere volentibus, dimicatum est. Presbyter Iohannes - sic enim eum nominare solent- tandem versis in fugam Persis cruentissima cede victor extitit. Post hanc victoriam dicebat predictum Iohannem ad auxilium Hierosolimitanae ecclesiae procinctum movisse, sed, dum ad Tygrim venisset ibique nullo vehiculo traducere exercitum potuisset, ad septentrionalem plagam, ubi eundem amnem hiemali glacie congelari didicerat, iter flexisse. Ibi dum per aliquot annos moratus gelu exspectaret, sed minime hoc impediente aeris temperie obtineret, multos ex insueto caelo de exercitu amittens ad propria redire compulsus est. Fertur enim iste de antiqua progenie illorum, quorum in Evangelio mentio fit, esse magorum eisdemque, quibus et illi, gentibus imperans tanta gloria et habundantia frui, ut non nisi sceptro smaragdino uti dicatur. Patrum itaque suorum, qui in cunabulis Christum adorare venerunt, accensus exemplo Hierosolimam ire proposuerat, sed pretaxata causa impeditum fuisse asserunt. Sed hec hactenus), Otto of Freising, De Duabus Civitatibus, lib. vii-xxxiii, 365-67; Brewer, “Otto,” 44.

211

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his approach to writing his chronicle. Otto was a pioneer German ecclesiastical and historical writer. He is also known as Otto I of Austria, born probably in Klosterneuburg near Vienna in 1111/15. He later became bishop of Freising in 1138. Otto was the son of Leopold III, Margrave of Austria (1095-1137), for his wife Agnes, also known as Agnes of Waiblingen (c. 1072-1143), the daughter of Emperor Henry IV (r. 1084-1105). Further, he was the half-brother of the German King Conrad III, the uncle of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa.212 Otto studied philosophy in Paris, influenced by the Aristotelian philosophy, and was the first to introduce it in Germany. Otto’s Chronica covers the history of the creation down to his own time; he completed a major revision of the surviving version probably in 1157. Otto of St. Blasius (d. 1223) then completed the additional annals down to 1209.213 Otto’s Chronica included numerous uncertain facts as well as imaginings, myths and wonders. Otto’s objective was to connect his “ascetic, world-despising doctrine with Christian teaching of Salvation.”214 From time to time, Otto refers to his approach of writing and analysis for which he expected a kind of criticism, declaring that he presented an account of “truths that he could not grasp, which he saw through the changing colours of his mind, and to which he witnessed with questions,” 215 which illustrates the tensions between facts and fictions. Moreover, his approach reflects his family’s military and political adversities, giving a general interpretation approach to human history, explaining that the historical centre of gravity migrated from East to West, from Babylon to Europe under the Franco-German rule of his Otto of Freising, The Two Cities, xi-xiv; Ehlers, Otto von Freising: Ein Intellektueller im Mittelalter, 9-12,20-29; Schmidt, ‘Otto von Freising’, 1373-1374; Floridus Röhrig, ‘Das Leben des Heiligen Leopold’, in Babenberger und Staufer, ed. Karl-Heinz Rueß, Schriften zur Staufischen Geschichte und Kunst, Band 9 (Göppingen: Gesellschaft für Staufische Geschichte, 1987), 69–83. 213 Ehlers, Otto von Freising, 9-12; 166-213; Simone Finkele, ‘Rahewin of Freising’, in Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle., ed. Raymond Graeme Dunphy (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 1250–51; Beckingham, “The Achievments of Prester John,” 3-4; Schmidt, ‘Otto von Freising’, 1373-1374. 214 Otto of Freising, The Two Cities, xi-xiv, xix, xxii-xxiii; 95-95; Ehlers, Otto von Freising, 12-14, 146; Schmidt, “Otto von Freising.”1373-1374. 215 Otto of Freising, The Two Cities, xxiii-xxiv; 89-91; 154, 404-405, 455-456. 212

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dynasty. Being a cleric, militant and politician, he participated in the Second Crusade in 1147, returning to Bavaria in 1148-49.216 Further, Otto ventured to combine conflicting disciplines of history and philosophy. Attempting to associate history with theology, he provided various apocalyptic, legendary and wondrous tales and visions impacted by apocalyptic stories through the lens of his religious, philosophical and intellectual views. He declared that his purpose in writing history was “to teach lessons and not only to describe the truth.”217 Otto of Freising recounted the legend of Prester John on the authority of Bishop Hugh of the city of Jabala (a coastal city on the Mediterranean in Syria). Hugh was involved in the political affairs of the Latin East. Hugh of Jabala was an enthusiastic defender of the Latins against the Byzantine pretensions, resisting the claims of the Byzantine Emperor John Komnenus (r. 1118-43) in the city of Antioch. He sought to impose the authority of the Holy See over the patriarchate of Antioch. Otto of Freising heard Hugh’s complaints about the peril of the church overseas, declaring his desire to cross the Alps to seek the assistance of the king of the Romans and Franks. Besides his concern about the Latin Church in the crusader states, he was the messenger of Queen Melisende of Jerusalem (r.1131–53), mother of King Baldwin III (r. 1143-63) to the Pope and Western powers. The Queen sent an appeal to launch a new crusade after the downfall of Edessa to ʿImād al-Dīn Zankī, on Christmas Eve in 1144. In the wake of these events, Hugh began his mysterious narrative about Prester John that would initiate a centuries-long search and spark speculative conceptions and discussion around that imaginary priest-king and his kingdom.218 Nevertheless, it was perhaps not the

Otto of Freising, The Two Cities, xi-xiv, xix, xxii-xxiii; 95-95, 163, 217-22, 322-323, 448; Ehlers, Otto von Freising, 12-14, 146; Schmidt, “Otto von Freising.”1373-1374. 217 Otto of Freising, The Two Cities, xi-xvi; 89-90, 217-218, 460-461; Ehlers, Otto von Freising, 9, 170-171,182-184; Roman Deutinger, ‘Otto von Freising’, in Große Gestalten der bayerischen Geschichte, ed. Katharina Weigand (München: Herbert Utz Verlag, 2011), 51–71. 218 Otto of Freising, De Duabus Civitatibus, 354, 363; in The Two Cities, 438, 443; Beckingham, “The Achievments of Prester John,” 3-5; Silverberg, The Realm of Prester John, 5. 216

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first time telling the legend of an eastern Christian king in Europe, but Otto’s report was its first preserved record. Although the legend of Prester John was recounted before Pope Eugenius III, the contemporary pontificate chronicler of Eugenius III did not mention it, nor did the account of the Second Crusade (11471149) by Odo of Deuil (d. 1162). The legend was also not mentioned neither by William of Tyre (d. 1186), the most prominent Latin chronicler of the Latin East in the twelfth century, nor by the known accounts of the Third Crusade (1189-1192).219 For the papacy and Roman Church, Prester John was a Nestorian, which might have made Pope Eugenius III think carefully before adopting or disseminating this legend, as the Nestorians had been considered heretics by the Western Church ever since the council of Chalcedon in 451.220 Meanwhile, Pope Eugenius III was occupied by several occurrences at this time. When Hugh of Jabala reached Viterbo to request a new crusade, a delegation of Armenian bishops from Cilicia was also asking for the assistance of Pope Eugenius III against the Byzantine Empire. Besides, the Pope was seriously disquieted because he could not enter Rome, “as Rome was in the hands of a commune resentful of papal rule.”221 Distracted and disturbed by such circumstances, Pope Eugenius may have chosen to ignore the reports of Prester John. Otto of Freising claims that Hugh of Jabala had met those Armenian bishops and their metropolitan, who were coming from the Farthest Orient to complain about the Greeks, i.e. Byzantines, before meeting Pope Eugenius. This means that Hugh might have heard a story of a coming saviour to Edessa, perhaps from a Syrian or Armenian from that city, which, in some way, was then formulated in the persona of the priest-king John.222 In this case, the presence of Hugh with the Armenians at Viterbo could be regarded as the initial transmission of the legend in the West. This transmission was perhaps from the Armenians to Hugh, who, in turn, retold the myth to the Pope. Pope Eugenius III, ‘Quantum Praedecessores’, in Pl, Vol. 180, Coll. 1064A-1066A, quoted in PJLIS, 8, n. 28; Brewer, “Believing in Prester John,”8-9. 220 Baum and Winker, The Church of the East, 2-3. 221 Otto of Freising, Chronica, 354, 363; Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades, vol.2 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 15th ed, 1995), 247-48. 222 Otto of Freising, The Two Cities, 438-39, 441-42. 219

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Instead, the Armenians might have heard Hugh, and they then perhaps shared the legend with their people in the East. However, this suggestion remains somewhat speculative in the absence of tangible proof. Moreover, Otto mentioned that Prester John stormed the city of Ekbatana, “the seat of the Persians, of which mention was made above.”223 When Otto spoke about the First Crusade, earlier in chapter three of the seventh book of his chronicle, he presented some misconceptions regarding the city of Ekbatana. He claimed that a part of ancient Babylon called Baghdād was to the kings of the Persians,224 who bestowed the city to their high priest of the Empire of the Persians, whom they called Caliph, and even as our own rulers have chosen a royal city, namely Aachen, so the kings of the Persians have established the seat of their kingdom Ekbatana, a city called in their tongue Hamadan (Latin: Hani), […]. This city they took as their royal seat, reserving for themselves nothing out of Babylon except the name of the empire. This city, as I have said, is now (at the time of the First Crusade) generally called Babylon, is situated not on the Euphrates (as men suppose) but on the Nile, about six days’ journey from Alexandria.225

Otto of Freising, The Two Cities, 407; Brewer, “Otto of Freising, of the Two Cities,” 43, 44. 224 Otto of Freising, The Two Cities, 407 not 22. It seems that Otto meant here the “Seljuk Turks”, who were controlling the Abbasid Caliphate and a vast part of Persia and Central Asia at the time. 225 Otto of Freising, The Two Cities, 407-408: [Ipsi vero Persarum reges, sicut et nostriurbem regiam vel Aquisgrani, Ecbactani, quam Arfaxath in libro Iudith fundasse legitur, lingua eorum Hani dictam, centum vel amplius, ut volunt, pugnatorum milia habentem, sedem regni sui constituerunt, nichil sibi de Babylone preter nomen imperii reservantes. Porro ea, quae nunc vulgo, ut dixi, Babylonia vocatur, non super Eufraten, ut illi putant, sed super Nilum circiter VI dietas ab Alexandria posita est], Otto of Freising, De Duabus Civitatibus, 312-313. 223

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It is known that the Seljuk Turks established their rule in Central Asia, Persia, Iraq and parts of Syria from 429/1037 until 590/1190.226 It appears here that Otto received the Seljuk Turks in Central Asia and Persia as Persian vassals of the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdād, misnaming the Abbasid Caliph as the high priest of the Empire of the Persians. Nevertheless, Otto seemed to be well-informed about the political situations of the Abbasid Caliphate when he said that the Persian kings bestowed the city of Baghdād to their Caliph. Indeed, at this time, the Abbasid Caliphate was under Seljuk dominance, while the Caliph at Baghdād governed in name only.227 Otto created further misconceptions when he confused the old Babylon, Baghdād in Iraq, which was in fact the seat of the Sunni Abbasid Caliphate, with the new Babylon (the city of Fusṭaṭ/Cairo in Egypt), which was the seat of the Ismaili Fatimid Caliphate. This interpretation indicates that Otto of Freising did not understand that there were two Muslim Caliphates in the East: the Sunni Abbasid in Baghdād and the Shiʿa Fatimid in Egypt. However, when he said that Prester John stormed Ekbatana, he referred here to the city of Hamadān/Hani in western Iran which was under the Seljuk rule and subordinated to Sunni Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdād.228 According to Otto’s report, the forces of Prester John turned back and did not march into the Levant because of their losses on the frozen Tigris River. However, this goes against both geographical and historical facts, as the Tigris River rarely froze, and the climate in the area was mild. Finally, the river was not a barrier for many other invaders who had crossed it since ancient times.229 Prester John was also said to be the descendant of the Magi mentioned in the “Gospel”230 (Matthew 2:1), who ruled a people of great glory and ʻIzz al-Dīn Ibn al-Āthīr, Kītāb al-Kāmil fi al-Tārīkh, ed. Moḥammad Yūsuf, vol. 8 (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-‘Ilmyah, 2003), 23f; al-Fatḥ ibn ʿAlī al-Iṣfahānī, Kitāb Tārīkh Dawlat al-Saljūq (Egypt: Maṭbaʻat al-Mawsūʻāt, 1900), 5-9, 251-57. 227 See, Ibn al-Āthīr, al-Kāmil, vol 8: 236f, vol 9: 61-64, 172-173. 228 For the Seljuk rule in Hamadān see, Ibn al-Āthīr, al-Kāmil, vol. 8, 257, vol. 9, 186, al-Iṣfahānī, Dawlat al-Saljūq, 93, 123, 148, 213, 238, 275. 229 Hilāl, al-Maghūl wa Ūrubbā, 19-20. 230 Silverberg, The Realm of Prester John, 8. “After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi[a] from the east came to Jerusalem and 226

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wealth. Just as his forefathers had come from the East to worship Christ, he likewise would come to Jerusalem.231 However, it seems also that Otto himself doubted the authenticity of the story of Prester John, ending his report by “Sed hec hactenus,” i.e., “this is enough.” Alternatively, such a sentence might simply indicate a transition in the subject matter. Interestingly, it was no coincidence that this imaginative story of Prester John synchronised with the first Latin translation of the Qurʼan in 1143 by the outstanding theologian Peter the Venerable (d. 1156).232 That translation perhaps enabled the Latin Church to add to it Christian annotations, explanations and notes, which contributed to the merging of Islam into the limits of the Latin translation. In such an enclosure, the Muslims were perceived as occupiers of the sacred city Edessa approaching to control the holy city of Jerusalem.233 Seen from this viewpoint, it seems that the Latin translation of the Qur’an helped the Latin Church to know the conception of the prophecies, miracles and predictions mentioned in the Qur’an, especially concerning the return of Jesus Christ.234 An intellectual and cleric such as Otto of Freising may well have been aware of the Latin translation of the Qurʼan. As explained earlier in chapter one, each legend involves a kernel of historical facts, which often includes imaginative contexts.235 Taken further, there is no doubt that the Prester John legend was a reflection of actual historical occurrences that were transferred and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” Matthew 2:1– New International Version [NIV], https://biblehub.com/matthew/2-2.htm. 231 Otto of Freising, The Two Cities, 443-44; Silverberg, The Realm of Prester John, 8; Slessarev, Prester John, 29-30. 232 Peter the Venerable was Abbot of Cluny and his translation entitled Lex Mahumet pseudoprophete, “was the centerpiece of a planned codex of the whole of Muslim doctrine, which would then be authoritatively critiqued and refuted,” Taylor, “Global Circulation as Christian Enclosure,” 454: n. 11. 233 Taylor, “Global Circulation as Christian Enclosure,” 446-47. 234 In Qur'an Allah said: 'Jesus, I will take you to Me and will raise you to Me, and I will purify you from those who disbelieve. (...) Then, to Me you shall all return, and I shall judge between you as to that you were at variance.” Qur'an, 2: 55. 235 Morford, Lenardon, and Sham, Classical Mythology, 4-5; Saʻīdūnī, “Fikrat al'usṭūrah,ˮ253. 81

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reformulated in a legendary and imaginative fashion. The first historical occurrence that ignited the creation of the legend was the fall of Edessa in 1144 to the Turkish atabeg ʿImād al-Dīn Zankī, which contributed to increasing the Crusaders’ need for a “rescuer” and divine figure. Such an occurrence created a fertile environment for spreading tales, legends and superstitions about a heroic figure who could rescue Edessa and direct or support the Crusaders in the East.236 Furthermore, rumours of the dreadful battle of Qaṭwān in 1141 between a Seljuk sultan and a Central-Asian ruler reached Europe.237 The Crusaders, who first heard about that battle, possibly assumed that the enemy of the Muslim Seljuks in Qaṭwān was a Christian monarch who would expunge the Muslims, whom they also fought in the Holy Land. The spread of this rumour alongside the fall of Edessa to ʿImād al-Dīn Zankī provided the occasion for the first written record of the legend of the priest-king John, who would overwhelm the Muslims from the East and advance to deliver aid to the Crusaders in the Levant.238 3. THE FALL OF EDESSA: THE BIRTH OF THE LEGEND AND AN ACTUAL JOHN (MĀR YŪḤANNĀ) The city of Edessa is also commonly known as Rohas, which was a famous city of Mesopotamia and a central capital of the land of the Medes. The city of Edessa was the first crusader county, founded in the Levant in 1098 by Baldwin of Boulogne (1098-1100), who later became the first king of the Kingdom of Jerusalem (r. 1100-1118).239 Serban Papacostea, Between the Crusades and the Mongol Empire: The Romanians in the 13th Century, ed. and trans Liviu Bleoca (Cluj-Napoca: Romanian Cultural Foundation, 1998), 164; De Rachewiltz, “Prester John and Europe’s Discovery of East Asia,” 62; Silverberg, The Realm of Prester John, 5. 237 Michal Biran, The Empire of the Qara Khitai in Eurasian History: Between China and the Islamic World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 40-48; Saʻd al-Ghāmdī, “Maʿrakat Qaṭwān 536/1141: Asbābihā wa Natāʼijihā,” al-ʻUṣūr 2, no. 1 (January 1987): 75–94. 238 Brewer, “Believing in Prester John,” 6; Beckingham, “The Achievements of Prester John,” 6-7, Hilāl, al-Maghūl wa Ūrubbā,18; al-Ghāmdī, “Maʿrakat Qaṭwān,” 93-94. 239 William of Tyre, A History of Deeds Done beyond the Sea, ed. trans. E. A.Bacock 236

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As the city of Edessa underwent the siege of Zankī that took place between 28th November and 24th December 1144, there was a severe quarrel between Raymond of Poitiers (r. 1136-1149), the prince of Antioch and Joscelin II (r. 1131-1150/59), the count of Edessa. Joscelin II, meanwhile, had allied with some Turks like the lords of Ḥiṣn-Ziyād, Ḥiṣn-Kayfa and others against Zankī; the Christians of Edessa and the Levant, in general, were paying a high price. During the siege, Hugh, the Frankish archbishop of Edessa, refused to negotiate or surrender the city. Accordingly, Zankī smashed Edessa and its shrines, inflicting a great deal of suffering upon its Greek, Armenian and Syrian inhabitants.240 The news of the downfall of Edessa reached Queen Melisende (r. 1131-1153), who was the regent of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and ward of her underage son Baldwin III (r. 1143-1163). Queen Melisende summoned Raymond of Poitiers to find an ambassador – Hugh, bishop of Jabala – to travel in 1145 to meet Pope Eugenius III in Viterbo and request a new crusade.241 This heralded the birth of the mysterious legend of the priest-king John, who was advancing to assist the Crusaders against the Muslims. Besides the importance of Edessa for the Crusaders, it was an eternal city for eastern Christianity. News spread that Edessa, “the faithful worshipper of God,”242 came under the terrors of the enemies of the Christian faith. Such news was a trauma for the Franks and eastern Christians and was probably a stimulus to rise and revive the old traditional myths regarding Edessa, its holy saints and its spiritual traditions. The fall of Edessa astounded its Christian inhabitants, who believed in the promise of Jesus Christ to King Abgar of Edessa (ca. 4 BC-7AD and 13-50AD) that his city would not be overwhelmed by the enemy. The legend of Abgar was transmitted and known through the Latin translation of Eusebius by Rufinus of Aquileia (ca. 345and A.C.Krey, (New York, 1943), vol. I: 188-191, 415-60, vol. II:141-44; for more about Baldwin I see, Susan B. Edgington, Baldwin I of Jerusalem, 1100-1118 (London: Routledge, 2019), 204p. 240 William of Tyre, A History, vol. II, 141-44; Runciman, The Crusades, vol. II, 225, 247-248. 241 William of Tyre, A History, vol. II, 141-44; Runciman, The Crusades, vol. II, 225, 247-248. 242 William of Tyre, A History, vol. II, 142. 83

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411).243 Between Late Antiquity to the age of the Crusades, the legend of King Abgar was known among the Syrians, Armenians, Byzantines and Copts.244 The legend of Abgar was likewise known among the Latin Christians, even though the Roman Catholic Church deemed him as an apocryphal figure. Under Frankish rule, the legend was actualised, and the inhabitants of Edessa believed in the divine protection of the city, especially after its submission to crusader rule in 1098.245 The Christians of Edessa were waiting for the aid and mercy of the Lord, through a tradition that says the blessed king Abgar and the Apostle Thomas were buried in Edessa. King Abgar was the renowned ruler of the city who had sent a letter to the Lord Jesus Christ, elaborated below, asking him to come to his aid. According to William of Tyre, this letter was in the public archives of the city of Edessa and was later transcribed.246 Consequently, the local Christian inhabitants and the Franks of Edessa regarded the King Abgar tradition as a divine symbol of the William of Tyre, A History, vol. I, 189, vol. II, 141, 143-44: The legend of King Abgar has been recorded by the fourth-century ecclesiastical historian Eusebius of Caesarea (ca. 260-340 AD), born in Palestine and was lived during the time of Jews’ persecution to Christians. He was himself jailed in Egypt and then became the bishop of Caesarea around 314 AD. Many publications were received from Eusebius such as Life of Constantine, Martyrs of Palestine and several apologetic and polemical works. The principal work of Eusebius is his account on the ecclesiastical history in ten books, which is considered as the primary sources of the early church. See, Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History, trans. Kirsopp Lake, vol. I, Loeb Classical Library 153 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1926), ix-lvii; Meike Willing, Eusebius von Cäsarea als Häreseograph (Berlin, New York: De Gruyter, 2008), 11-5; R. W. Burgess, “The Dates and Editions of Eusebius’ Chronici Canones and Historia Ecclesiastica,” The Journal of Theological Studies 48, no. 2 (October 1997): 471–504. 244 Evgeniy Gurinov, “The Blessed City: Edessa and the Abgar Legend in the Age of the Crusades,” in Opere et Veritate: Sammelband von wissenschaftlichen Werken, Gewidmet dem 10-Jährigen Jubiläum der Zusammenarbeit zwischen den Historikern von Weißrussischen Universitäten und der Universität Tübingen, ed. O. B. Keller (Minsk: RIVSH, 2019), 84-86, 90-91. 245 Gurinov, “The Blessed City,” 84–114; Hiestand R., “L’archevêque Hugues d’Edesse et son destin posthume, in Crusade Studies in Honour of Jean Richard, ed. M. Balard, B. Z. Kedar, and J. Riley-Smith (Aldershot: Routledge, 2001), 171–72. 246 Mīkhāʼīl al-Suryānī, Tārīkh Mār Mīkhāʾīl al-Suryān al-Kabīr, ed. Yūḥannā Ibrāhīm, trans. Mārġrīġūrīūs Ṣalībā Shamʻūn, vol. I (Ḥalab, 1996), 96-97. 243

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power of God’s will in defending Edessa. Likewise, when Zankī controlled the city, the legend of Abgar was retold by the Syrian and Latin chronicles of the time. For instance, Michael the Syrian, known as Michael the Great (1126-1199), a distinguished twelfth-century Syrian chronicler, and William of Tyre (d. ca. 1186), a twelfth-century Latin historian, have recounted the legend of King Abgar.247 Michael the Syrian was born in Malatya in 1126 into an ecclesiastical family, and he soon became a monk at the monastery of Mār248 Barṣawmā near Malatya. In 1166, he became the patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church (commonly known as the Jacobite Church). He made two visits to Jerusalem, Antioch and the crusader states and stayed two years each time; the first was from 1168 to 1169 and the second between 1178 and 1180. Michael’s universal chronicle is divided into twenty-one books and represents a chronological history of the world from creation to the end of the twelfth century. The first six books of the chronicle cover the period from creation to the reign of Emperor Constantine (r. 306-337), which were taken from the chronography of Eusebius of Caesarea (ca. 265-339). In the rest of his chronicle up until the eighteenth book, he relied on several earlier sources, such as the eighth-century chronicle of Theophilus of Edessa, Jacob of Edessa (d. 708), Basil of Edessa (d.1172) and others. Books XV to XXI cover the history of the twelfth century, providing an essential Syrian perspective of the Crusades. There are three known translations for Michael’s history; Chabot published a French translation in four volumes between 1899 and 1910, an Arabic translation by Mārġrīġūrīūs Shamʻūn printed in 1996, and a modern English translation of books XV-XXI by Amir Harrak in 2019.249 Al-Suryānī, Tārīkh Mār Mīkhāʾīl, vol. I, 96-97. Mār is an honorable title assigned both for the Syrian bishops and saints and it also literally means my lord. See; Sebastian P. Brock, An Introduction to Syriac Studies, Gorgias Handbooks 4 (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2006), 1f.; Baarda T. J., “A Syriac Fragment of Mar Epheraem’s Commentary on the Diatessaron,” New Testament Studies 8, no. 4 (1962): 287–300. 249 Amir Harrak, ed., The Chronicle of Michael the Great (The Edessa-Aleppo Syriac Codex):Books XV-XXI, from the Year 1050 to 1195 AD (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press LLC., 2019), ix-xii, xv-xxxi; Nicholas Morton, “The Chronicle of Michael the Great (the Edessa Aleppo Syriac Codex): Books XV–XXI, from the Year 1050 to 247 248

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William of Tyre was the primary twelfth-century historian of the Latin East and the Kingdom of Jerusalem. William’s high status comes from being a native of the Latin East, born in Jerusalem in 1130. He also was the tutor of King Baldwin IV (1174-1185) and the Archbishop of Tyre, which had the second position in the Latin Catholic hierarchy after the Patriarch of Jerusalem. He was welleducated, having studied in France and Lombardy. In 1165, King Amalric I (r. 1163-1174), king of Jerusalem, delegated him to write the history of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem that he titled Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum, in twenty-three books covering the history of the kingdom till the year 1184.250 The core of the Abgar legend and its main episodes are the exchanged letters between King Abgar of Edessa and Jesus Christ, which were said to have been written originally in Syriac.251 According to the legend, King Abgar was suffering from leprosy. When he heard of the miracles of Jesus Christ, he wrote a letter to invite Jesus to Edessa to heal him from leprosy and to protect himself from the persecutions of the Jews as well. Jesus responded that he could not move to Edessa because he had to accomplish his mission, but he praised Abgar as a blessed king and promised to send one of his disciples in his stead. After the Ascension, Apostle Thomas sent St. Thaddeus, one of the seventy-two early disciples, to treat King Abgar and convert him and the people of Edessa to Christianity.252 1195 AD,” al-Masāq 32, no. 1 (2020): 109–10; Dorothea Weltecke, Die ‘Beschreibung der Zeiten’ von Mōr Michael dem Großen (1126-1199): Eine Studie zu ihrem historischen und historiographiegeschichtlichen Kontext, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 594: Subsidia 110 (Lovanii: Peeters, 2003), 1-11; E. Tisserant, “Michel le Syrien,” in Dictionnaire de théologie catholique: Ontenant l’exposé des doctrines de la théologie catholique, leurs preuves et leur histoire, ed. Alfred Vacant, Eugene Mangenot, and Emile Amann, vol. X–II (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1929), 1711–19. 250 William of Tyre, A History, vol. I, 3-26; Ahmed Sheir, The Fief of Tibnin (Toron) and Its Castle in the Age of the Crusades AD (1105-1266 / AH 498- 664) A Study of Its Economic, Political and Military Role (Norderstedt: GRIN Verlag, 2015), 12-13; Peter Edbury, and John Gordon Rowe, William of Tyre, Historian of the Latin East (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 15-18. 251 Gurinov, “The Blessed City,” 84–85, 89. 252 Mīkhāʼīl al-Suryānī, Tārīkh, vol. I, 96-97; William of Tyre, A History, vol. I, 189;

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According to the Anonymi auctoris chronicon written by an anonymous writer from Edessa, the legends of King Abgar, St. Thomas and other saints were revived in Edessa during Frankish rule and after the conquest of Edessa by Zankī in 1144.253 The Anonymi auctoris chronicon, known as the chronicle of 1234, is a West Syriac universal history from the creation until 1234 and is said to also involve some events related to the year 1237. The first part of this chronicle summarises the ecclesiastical history, and the second part deals with secular history. The chronicle also cited other Syriac chronicles like the chronicle of Michael the Great, who died in 1199.254 According to that Syriac chronicle of 1234, the Franks buried their bishops near the Church of St. John, the Latin cathedral of the city, where the relics of St. Thaddeus the apostle and King Abgar were deposited in a gilded silver coffin. When Zankī entered the city, he went to that place and heard of the miracles of St. Thomas and King Abgar. At the same time, a pillar of fire appeared descending from the sky to a water well in a monastery, and people saw something like a sun globe shining in the water. All patients who were in that monastery were washed in this water and healed. The news spread everywhere, and large crowds arrived, especially lepers and those who had similar illnesses, to King Abgar. When Zankī heard the news of this miracle, he said: “I believe that the blessed Christ can do miracles like that.” Saying this, Zankī himself, who had some disease in his legs, was healed by washing his legs from the water of that blessing well.255 By drawing parallels between the legendary King Abgar, St. Thomas and the Christians of Edessa, a common belief was produced among the Franks and the Christian inhabitants of Edessa, who were mainly Armenians and Syrians, that the promise of Jesus Christ

Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History, vol. I, 84-97, 105-106; Gurinov, “The Blessed City,” 85–92; Willing, Eusebius von Cäsarea als Häreseograph, 15-6. 253 J. M Fiey, ed., Anonymi Auctoris Chronicon ad annum Christi 1234 Pertinens, trans. Albert Abouna, vol. II, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 354: Scriptores Syri 154 (Louvain: Secrétariat du CorpusSCO, 1974), 100-103. 254 Fiey, Anonymi Auctoris Chronicon, vol. II, vii-xii; Sebastian Brock, A Brief Outline of Syriac Literature (India: St. Ephrem E.R. Institute, 1997), 74, 87, 111. 255 Fiey, Anonymi Auctoris Chronicon, II, 100-103. 87

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protected them.256 They also believed that Edessa was undoubtedly protected by the blessed objects preserved within the city walls, i.e., the originals of the exchanged letters between King Abgar and Jesus Christ as well as the shrine of St. Thomas.257 Consequently, the core of the many legends regarding the divine protection of Edessa seems to originate from the combination of the sacred tradition of St. Thomas and the legend of King Abgar. This tradition and legend might have been reformulated in the persona of the priestly King John by Hugh of Jabala or someone he may have heard or quoted. In this framework, the legend of Prester John was perhaps created by a Syrian Orthodox leader to defend the city against the Seljuk Turks, who had quarrels and unfriendly relationships with the Syrians. Furthermore, the Syrian patriarch Michael the Great (d.1199), in his universal chronicle, reports some legendary and divine miracles of an eastern priestly metropolitan called Mār Yūḥannā,258 whose miracles might have been combined with other holy figures in Edessa, and then transferred and reformulated, in the persona of Prester John told by Hugh of Jabala or someone else.259 The same miracles of that Mār Yūḥannā were also reported by the thirteenth-century Syrian chronicle of Ibn al-ʻIbrī, who also clarified, in many circumstances, the enmity between the Syrian Christians and the Turks, which could well have been enough to fashion such a legendary protector Prester John.260 Christopher M. Cain, “Anglo-Saxon Piety and the Origins of the Epistola Salvatoris in London, British Library, Royal 2.A.Xx,” The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 108, no. 2 (2009): 176-77: […] Siue in domu tua siue in ciuitate tua siue in omni loco nemo inimicorum tuorum dominabitur et insidias diabuli ne timeas et carmina inimicorum tuorum distruuntur. Et omnes inimici tui expellentur a te siue a grandine siue tonitrua non noceberis et ab omni periculo liberaueris, siue in mare siue in terra siue in die siue in nocte siue in locis obscures. Si quis hanc epistolam secum habuerit secures ambulet in pace. […]. 257 Cain, ‘Anglo-Saxon Piety and the Origins of the Epistola Salvatoris,' 168–89, 176180f; Gurinov, The Blessed City” 84, 87, 90, 93, 102. 258 Ibn al-ʿIbrī, Al-Tārīkh al-Kanasī (‫ܙܒܢܐ ܕܒܪ ܥܒܪܝܐ ܡܢܬܐ ܐ ܒ‬ ̈ ‫)ܡܟܬܒܢܘܬ‬, trans. Ṣalībā Shamʻūn, vol. (Dahūk: Dār al-Mashriq, 2012), 124-125, 127-128. 259 Mīkhāʼīl al-Suryānī, Tārīkh, vol. III, 236-37. 260 Harrak, The Chronicle of Michael the Great, ix-x; Ernest A. W. Budge, trans., The Chronography of Gregory Abû’l Faraj 1225-1286, vol. 1: English (Amsterdam: APAPhilo Press, 1976), 270. 256

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Abū al-Faraj Ibn al-ʿIbrī (d. 685/1286) was a thirteenth-century Syriac cleric and scholar, commonly known as Gregorius Bar Hebraeus or Abulpharagius; his Syriac name is Bār Ebraya ( ‫ܒܪ‬ ‫)ܥܒܪܝܐ‬, and in Arabic it is Abū al-Faraj. He was chief bishop of Persia within the Syriac Orthodox Church in the thirteenth century.261 When the Mongols invaded Malatya, Ibn al-ʿIbrī’s city, in 1243, his father was appointed as a physician at the court of the Mongol Khan. In the following year, Ibn al-ʿIbrī moved with his family to Antioch (Anṭākiya), which was still under crusader rule. At the age of seventeen, he started his hermit life and became a monk. After three years, he was appointed Jacobite bishop of Gubos (Gūbbāš), in the region of Malatya, in September 1246. In 1253, Ibn al-ʿIbrī became the Metropolitan of Aleppo. Ibn al-ʿIbrī was an eyewitness of the Mongol invasion of Aleppo in January 1260, and, in this context, asked Hulagu Khan (r. 1256-65) to show sympathy toward the Christian people. Later, he served as a physician at the Mongol court in 1263 and became head of the Jacobite Church in Persian territories in 1264. He died in Maraga (Marāgheh), Persia, in c. 685/1286, and was buried at the Mar Mattai Monastery in Mosul.262 Ibn al-ʻIbrī’s Syriac chronicle Kitābā dʿMaktbānut Zabnē (the chronography) is a chronological and historical encyclopaedia that includes enormous information of different kinds, covering the history of the world from creation until Ibn al-ʻIbrī’s time. In the first part of the chronography, he quoted numerous Arabic and Persian sources, especially the Persian history of Shams al-Dīn Ṣāḥib-Dīwān alJuwaynī (d. 683/1284) for the Mongol era. In the second and third part, Ibn al-ʿIbrī deals with the history of the Syrian Church, the western and eastern Jacobites, as well as the Nestorian churches. Ibn al-ʿIbrī summarised the first part of his Syriac chronicle in his Arabic Budge, The Chronography, vol. I, xv-xxxii; Ibn al-ʿIbrī: Makhṭūṭat Tārīkh alĀzminah, trans., Shādiah Tawfiq Hafeẓ (Cairo: al-Markaz al-qawmī li-Tarjamah, 2007), 9. 262 Abū al-Faraj Ibn al-ʿIbrī, Tārīkh Mukhtaṣar al-Duwal, ed. Anṭūn Ṣāliḥānī, 2nd ed. (Beirut: al-Maṭbaʿah al-Kāthūlīkiyya lil-ābāʾ al-Yasūʿiyyīn, 1890), p. d-h; Ahmed M. Sheir, “A Message of Intimidation and Arrogance from Hulagu Khan to al-Nāṣir of Aleppo Preserved by Ibn Al-ʿIbrī in 656/1258,” Journal of Medieval and Islamic History (JMIH) XI (2017): 1–3. 261

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tārīkh mukhtaṣar al-duwal that he wrote between 1285-1286, focusing on the Islamic history and the history of the Caliphs. Ibn al-ʿIbrī’s ecclesiastical history covers the history of the Syrian Orthodox patriarchs. Ibn al-ʿIbrī is a unique Syrian Christian author who wrote in Arabic and Syriac during the thirteenth century.263 Further, he is the only eastern historian who merged the history of the Mongol ruler Ung Khan and Prester John at the beginning of the thirteenth century,264 which will be discussed later in this study. According to Michael the Great and Ibn al-ʿIbrī, Mār Yūḥannā was the bishop of Mārdīn (in southeastern Anatolia, a Byzantine city that fell to the Seljuks in the eleventh century( . He was an outstanding holy eminence and enjoyed a high status among kings and the public. When Mār Yūḥannā heard of the collapse of Edessa, he freed many Christians from the captivity of Zankī through paying ransom and negotiations. He also declared that Zankī overcame the city because the Frankish forces were not wide-awake in defending the city. At the same time, Mār Yūḥannā wrote a letter involving natural and divine justifications and some verses from Bible, which were interpreted from the viewpoint of Mār Yūḥannā. He then received several responses to his message from the bishop of Kissum, north of Iran and other bishops in the Orient. After that, he held a council at his eparchy, issuing some apostolic canons and editing some church canons.265 Michael the Great tells the same story of Mār Yūḥannā, annexing that he was knowledgeable of many things that others could not know; he was able to straighten the earth and to change the streams of the rivers from one place to another. He had a high position in the regions of Ashur and beyond the river, i.e., Transoxania (the country beyond the Oxus River in western Central Asia). Mār Yūḥannā was generous in helping poor people and liberated Christians from slavery and was an outstanding persona in the eyes of all people (i.e., Christian people of the East). He was a distinguished person in all cities because of his Budge, The Chronography, vol. I, xxxix; Sheir, “A Message of Intimidation,” 2-4; J.B Segal, “Ibn al-ʿIbrī,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, ed. P. Bearman et al., 2012, accessed online on 23 August 2019, http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_ SIM_3209. 264 Budge, The Chronography, vol. 1, 352-53; Ibn-al-ʿIbrī, Mukhtaṣar, 394. 265 Ibn al-ʿIbrī, al-Tārīkh al-Kanasī, 124-125, 127-128; Mīkhāʼīl al-Suryānī, Tārīkh, vol. III, 236. 263

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mighty and outstanding attributes, especially among the people of one-nature (i.e., oriental Orthodox) and also the Muslims, especially the kings.266 According to Michael the Great and Ibn al-ʿIbrī, it seems that Mār Yūḥannā was regarded with high esteem not only by the local Christians but also by the ruling regime. Therefore, this special status of Mār Yūḥannā was perhaps seen and reformulated by someone in the persona of a Christian defender of the Christians of Edessa by annexing some traditional norms and legendary patterns to form a mythical priestly-kingly figure. Although this Mār Yūḥannā did not live in the Far East, Central Asia or India, his name and miracles with further legendary constructions might have been assigned to the ruler of Qarakhitai, who defeated the Muslims in 1141. In this vein, while Prester John was a legendary hope and figure in the European and crusading mind, Mār Yūḥannā was an actual divine “rescuer” for the local Christians of Edessa. He liberated Christian captives from Zankī and helped poor people. He was known among Christians and Muslims, which led to spreading further rumours about him. However, neither Muslim nor Latin sources referred to that real Syrian Christian priest John (i.e., Mār Yūḥannā), who, in reality, defended and helped the Christians after the downfall of Edessa in 1144. Considering all such divine and legendary traditions of Edessa, it is not astonishing to design a legend of an eastern priestly king who would rescue Edessa and the Crusaders. Nevertheless, to formulate such a legend of a Christian king who had defeated the Persian kings, i.e. Seljuk Turks, an actual event should be combined with such a legendary structure of that king. Therefore, the battle of Qaṭwān, in which Yelü Dashi (r. 518-537/1124-1143), ruler of Qarakhitai, broke down the Seljuk Turks, would have been blended with the figure of Prester John.

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4. THE BATTLE OF QAṬWĀN (536/1141) AND THE PRESTER JOHN LEGEND The land of Prester John, as described in Otto’s report, formulates geographical heterogeneity of uncertain and imaginary features in the Far East. One of the considered possible sites of Prester John’s realm could be the nomadic-Mongolian lands ruled by the Qarakhitai Yelü Dashi. At the beginning of the twelfth century, there was turmoil in both China and Central Asia. Mongolia and Central Asia were part of the north Chinese rule of the Khitan Liao Dynasty (907-1125). The Jurchen Jin dynasty (1115-1234) overthrew the rule of Liao and established its rule in north China. The Khitan prince Yelű Dashi did not accept the new rule of Jin and chose to move westward, seeking to restore the Liao dynasty in the former domains. In western Mongolia, Yelü Dashi successfully fashioned a new rule known by the Muslims as Qarakhitai, meaning the “black Khitans.” In 1141, Dashi ruled the vast territories in Central Asia comparable to the large part of modern Xinjing, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and southern Kazakhstan. Dashi and his successors held the inner Asian title Gűrkhan, i.e. the universal khan, that persisted for about ninety years before the Mongols vanquished Qarakhitai in 615/1218.267 Rumours of this great collapse for Muslims in 1141 by a nonMuslim foe, the ruler of Qarakhitai, reached the Crusaders. Such rumours boosted the legend of Prester John, whose kingdom was believed to be located in remote Asia.268 Ibn al-Āthīr (d. 1232), who was a unique Arabic-Muslim historian, highlighted the events of the

E. Bretschneider, Mediaeval Researches from Eastern Asiatic Sources: Fragments towards the Knowledge of the Geography and History of Central and Western Asia from the 13th to the 17th Century, vol. I (London: Trübner and Co., Ludgate Hill, 1888), 208-12, 225-230; Biran, The Empire of the Qara Khitai, 1, 19-26; Michal Biran, “Qarakhanid Eastern Trade: Preliminary Notes on the Silk Roads in the 11th12th Centuries,” in Complexity of Interaction along the Eurasian Steppe Zone in the First Millennium CE., ed. Jan Bemmann and Michael Schmauder, Bonn Contributions to Asian Archaeology 7 (Bonn: DigitalDruck and Co. KG –Aalen, 2015), 578-79, 582-86. 268 Biran, The Empire of the Qara Khitai in Eurasian History, 45.

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battle of Qaṭwān, in which Sultan Sinjar (r. 511–552/1118–1157),269 was vanquished. Ibn al-Āthīr is the most renowned Muslim historian of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, born in 555/1160 in Jazīrat Ibn ʿUmar, in southeastern Anatolia and died in 630/1232-3. His primary chronicle is the kitāb al-kāmil fi al-tārīkh (the complete history, or the collection of histories), which covers the history of the Arabs and Muslims from pre-Islamic times to the year of 628/1231. Ibn al-Āthīr was an eyewitness of the crusading movement until 1233 and was a chief Muslim historian of the Crusades.270 Ibn al-Āthīr presents a detailed description of the ferocious battle of Qaṭwān in Muḥaram 536/September 1141 in Central Asia, in which Sultan Sinjar, the Seljuk ruler of Khorasan and Ghazni, was crushed by Yelü Dashi,271 ruler of the Qarakhitai dynasty or the Khitans. The battle was so tremendous that Ibn al-Āthīr said: “In the history of Islam, there was no more disastrous battle than this (Qaṭwān).”272 The same battle was also described by the twelfth-century Muslim historian Abū-al-Farāj Ibn al-Jawzī (d. 597/1201), in his chronicle almuntaẓam fī tārīkh al-mulūk wa al-ʼumam (“orderly listing of the history of rulers and peoples”).273 Ibn al-Jawzī was a noteworthy Muslim scholar and historian born in 510/1116. He composed several Arabic works of Hadith, Fiqh, Sultan Ahmed Ibn Malik-Shah, born in ca. 1085. His birth name is Ahmed, but his father named him Sinjar in the name of the city Sinjār, in which Sinjar was born. He became Sultan of the Seljuk Empire in 1118; Ibn al-Āthīr, al-Kāmil, vol. viii, 437, 484; Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Ḥusaynī, Zubdat al-Tawārīkh: Akhbār al-Mulūk wa al-Umarāʾ al-Saljūqīyah, ed. Muḥammad Nūr al-Dīn (Beirut: Dār Ᾱqrā, 1985), 135-37, 155-57. 270 Ibn al-Āthīr, a-Kāmil, vol. I, 5-11; Sheir, Tibnīn (Toron) in the Age of the Crusade, 8; Francesco Gabrieli, ed., Arab Historians of the Crusade, trans. E.J.Costello (USA: University of California Press, 1984), xxiif. 271 Yelü Dashi (r. 1124–1143), was born in China but he was not a Chinese. He was the prince of Liao and became a king of the northern regions of Inner Mongolia, Outer Mongolia, and Manchuria and was the founder of the Qara Khitai and the Western Liao dynasty. His realm included two of northern and southern provinces. The Muslim Sources called him with several names: Nūshī Taifū, Qushqin Taifū or Qushqīn, son of Baighū. See, Bretschneider, Mediaeval Researches from Eastern Asiatic, vol. 1, 208-230; Biran, The Empire of the Qara Khitai in Eurasian History, 18-20. 272 Ibn al-Āthīr, al-Kāmil, vol. ix, 319. 273 Abū-al-Farāj ʿabd-al-Raḥman Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Muntaẓam fī Tārīkh al-Mulūk wa alʼumam, vol. 18, ed. Moḥammad ‘Aṭā and Muṣtafa ‘Aṭā (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al‘Ilmyah, 1992), 17, 19. 269

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medicine, literature and history, but few have survived. He began his career around 1150 and became a scholar of favour promoted by the Abbasid Caliph al-Muqtafī (r. 1136-1160). His chronicle alMuntaẓam is an encyclopaedic-chronological work covering history from the creation to the end of the twelfth century, dived into eighteen volumes. He died on 12 Ramadan 597/1201 in Baghdād.274 According to Ibn al-Āthīr and Ibn al-Jawzī, the battle of Qaṭwān was a crushing defeat and terrible disaster for the Muslims in general and Seljuk forces under the leadership of Sinjar in particular, about ‘100,000 Seljuk-Sinjar persons were killed, and 10,000 of them were Āṣḥāb ʿemāmah (men wearing turbans),’ i.e., Muslim imams or scholars who were living in the city of Sinjar. Besides this, “4,000 Muslim women of the city were also killed.”275 Although such numbers seem exaggerated, it shows that the sultan of Sinjar, whose name was also Sinjar, and his people received a crushing defeat. News of the battle spread amongst the Syrian Christians, who likely interpreted any foe of Sinjar’s to be a Christian ruler. Since the eleventh century, there were diplomatic relations between the eastern Christians and Qarakhitai. Consequently, the Christian merchants, who were trading with Qarakhitai, might have disseminated spurious reports about Yelü Dashi, presenting his land as a vast empire. It is likewise plausible that Nestorian Christians would verify that they established a kingdom in the East because the Assyrian Church of the East (Eastern Syriac Church) reached China during the Tang Dynasty (ca. 617-907).276 The Syriac Christian historian Abū al-Faraj Ibn alIbn al-Jawzī, al-Muntaẓam fī Tārīkh al-Mulūk, vol. I, 5-6, 14-19; Angelika Hartmann, ‘Les ambivalences d’un sermonnaire ḥanbalite. Ibn al-Ǧawzī (m. En 597/1201), sa carrière et son ouvrage autographe, le kitāb al-Ḫawātīm [Avec 10 Planches].’ Annales Islamologiques 22 (1986): 52-55. 275 Ibn al-Āthīr, al-Kāmil, vol. ix, 319; Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Muntaẓam, vol. 18: 17, 19; Biran, The Empire of the Qara Khitai, 41-48, see also, Reuven Amitai and Michal Birn, Mongols, Turks and Others: Eurasian Nomads and the Sedentary World (Leiden. Boston: Brill, 2005), 175-200. 276 Xiaojing Yan, “The Confluence of East and West,” in Hidden Treasures and Intercultural Encounters: Studies on East Syriac Christianity in China and Central Asia, ed. Dietmar W. Winkler and Li Tang (Berlin: Lit, 2009), 383–90; Biran, The Empire of the Qara Khitai in Eurasian History, 12-31; Beckingham, ‘The Quest for Prester John,’ 271-78. 274

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ʿIbrī retold the battle of Qaṯwān, but in a different contextualisation, saying Khâwârazm Shâh sent to the king of the Huns the men who had not gone back to Islâm, who were called ‘Turk kâfir’ [Turkish infidel] by the Arabs, and he invited and summoned him to war with Sûlṭân Senjâr because Sûlṭân Senjâr had killed the brother of Khâwârazm Shâh. And whilst those Huns were satisfied with three hundred thousand men, Senjâr collected one hundred thousand, and crossed the river Gîḥôn.277 And he met the Huns in battle, and his partisans were utterly broken. It is said that Senjâr escaped with six souls [only], and he came to the city of Balkh [in Afghanistan]. And his wife and his daughter’s daughter, and four thousand other women, were carried off captives. And of that hundred thousand, not one escaped the sword or capture as a prisoner.278 Ibn al-ʿIbrī writes of the same battle of Qaṯwān without naming it. He also identified the foe of Sinjar as the king of the Huns, the known nomadic barbarian tribes who lived in Central Asia. The Khitans were known and recognised as nomadic tribes and infidels by Muslim sources. Ibn al-Āthīr and Ibn al-Jawzī named the Qarakhitai “the infidel Turks” al-atrāk al-kuffār,” and Ibn al-Āthīr says that they were living in tents, according to their nomadic customs, before they became rulers.279 Ibn al-ʿIbrī thus tells the same battle of Qaṭwān naming Qarakhitai by the name of the Huns. Furthermore, Ibn al-Āthir claims that Sinjar had killed the son of the Khawārizm Shāh Ātsz ibnMuḥammad (522-551/1128-1156) and this is why he sent those Turkish forces to invoke the Khitans to attack the lands of Sinjar,280 which confirms the similar narrative presented by Ibn al-ʿIbrī. It is called the Amu Darya River, Latin name Oxus and Arabic name Jayḥūn, and it is a major river in Central Asia on the border between Afghanistan and Tajikistan; B. Spuler, “Āmū Daryā,” in Encyclopædia Iranica, 2012, http://www.iranica online.org/articles/amu-darya-gk. 278 Budge, The Chronography, vol. I, 266-67. 279 Ibn al-Āthīr, al-Kāmil, vol. ix, 319, Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Muntaẓam, vol. 18: 19. 280 Ibn al-Āthīr, al-Kāmil, vol. ix, 319. 277

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Further, it is apparent that both Sultan Sinjar and his brother Masʿūd were described as the brother kings of Persians and Medes in Otto’s report. Indeed, the Seljuk state first appeared in Central Asia in 429AH/1037, as a subordinate province allegiant to the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdād. From that time until its downfall at the hand of the Khawārizm state (1077-1231) in 590/1194, the Seljuk rulers expanded their supremacy over Central Asia, Persia and parts of Iraq and Syria. Sinjar was the ruler of Seljuk Central Asia and northern Persia, in which the ancient Median people lived. The Medes were an ancient Iranian people who spoke Median language and inhabited an area known as Media between western and northern Iran during the sixth and fifth centuries BC.281 This is why it seems that Sinjar and his brother were described by “the brother kings of Persians and Medes” in Otto’s report mentioned above.

Fig. 1. The Qarakhitai Empire and Qaṭwān (1141)282

Ibn al-Āthīr, al-Kāmil, vol viii, 236f; Al-Iṣfahānī, Tārīkh Dawlat al-Saljūq, 5-9, 25157. 282 From Biran, “Qarakhanid Eastern Trade,” 577. 281

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The same Ekbatana, the capital city of the Persians in Otto’s report, which was, in reality, the city of Hamadan (Latin: Hani), was the capital city of the Medes. The early Greek writers named the capital city of the Median kingdom “Ekbatana.” When the Persians conquered it, the city remained one of the Persian capital cities and was usually the Persian kings’ summer seat.283 The city Ekbatana (Hani) sits on the southern border of the Qarakhitai state (see Fig. 1).284 The battle of Qaṭwān took place in the steppe area near the famous city Samarqand (Fig. 1), which was also an important centre for Seljuk rule.285 As a result, Samarqand might have been misconstrued as “Samiardos” in Otto’s previous report, in reference to Sinjar, his brother and his forces conquered near Samarqand, which was also part of the Persian-Seljuk territories. In this light, it seems that the battle of Qaṭwān and Yelü Dashi were replaced by Prester John’s wars with the Persians and Medes, who were, in actuality, the Seljuks of the Persian territories under the leadership of Sinjar. Therefore, the military activities of Yelü Dashi and his victory over the Muslims had been transferred, with more imaginative and dramatic materials286 as being “the work of a Christian king.”287 Defining the war of Prester John, in the same year, Qaṭwān appeared for the first time in 1181 in the “Annales admuntenses. continuatio admuntensis,” from Admont Monastery (for the years between 1140 and 1250), as a continuation of the previous Annales admuntenses (ca. 1-1139).288 The account claimed that Prester John, king of Armenia and India, defeated the kings of the

George Grote, A History of Greece: From the Time of Solon to 403 BC, ed. J.M. Mitchell and M.O.B. Caspari (London and New York: Routledge, 2001), 126. 284 Biran, The Empire of the Qara Khitai, 46. 285Ibn al-Āthīr, al-Kāmil, vol viii, 57-59; Biran, The Empire of the Qara Khitai, 43 286 Silverberg, The Realm of Prester John, 11-12. 287 Aigle, The Mongol Empire, 41. 288 For more information, see Fritz P. Knapp, Die Literatur des Früh- und Hochmittelalters: Geschichte der Literatur in Österreich, B. 1 (Graz: Akad. Druk.u. Verlag-Anst, 1994), 394-95; Wilhelm Wattenbach, Franz-Josef Schmale, and et al., Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter. Vom Tode Kaiser Heinrichs V. bis zum Ende des Interregnum, vol. 1 (Darmstadt: WBG, 1976), 224-29. 283

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Persians and Medes in 1141,289 the year in which the battle of Qaṯwān took place. Further, determining the war of Prester John in the year 1141 matches Otto’s report that the war between Prester John and Samiardos took place “not many years ago.”290 In this vein, Li Tang argues that the name “Gür Khan, who is the same Yelü Dashi,” pronounced “Gur Han,” was loosely transliterated into “Gianni or Iohan, which is the same Christian name Iohannis, in Latin: Presby(i)ter Iohannis.291 In modern Italian, Prester John is rendered Prete Gianni, which might confirm the transliteration phenomenon to Gianni, of the Latin Iohannis. Literally, Gür Khan was perhaps transliterated and copied by the Eastern Christian to Iohannes and subsequently received as a Christian king. Prester Iohannes, meanwhile, appears in Syriac sources as Mar Johannis or Mār Yūḥannā, which was a well-known name of several Syrian bishops and priests in Edessa itself and the Asian Christian territories in general.292 Helleiner also suggests that early travellers, who had only a signal level of knowledge of the languages of the East or were utterly reliant on interpreters' services, might have erroneously drawn links between Buddhist and Christian doctrines. At the same time, the crusading milieu made had no difficulty imagining other people and their rulers, who – like the Christians – were actively engaged with fighting the Muslims. Reimagining the Qarakhitai ruler as a Christian priest-king was thus a part of the truth that the Europeans possibly never acquired the personal name of the Asian sovereign. They know him only by this title, Gϋr-khan, which seems sufficiently like “Johannes” or its vernacular equivalents, “Jehan, Giani, Juan, etc.” The name could be easily and mistakenly identified with the Christian-Latin Johannes, which remains an open line of inquiry for philologists.293 Georgivs Heinricvs Pertz, ed., Annales Admuntenses. Continuatio Admuntensis (1140-1250), in MGH SS, vol. IX (Hannover: Publ., 1851), 580. “Johannes presbyter rex Armeniae et Indiae cum duobus regibus fratribus Persarum et Medorum pugnavit, et vicit.”; Baum, Die Verwandlungen des Mythos, 126. 290 Otto of Freising, The Two Cities,443-44. 291 Tang, East Syriac Christianity in Mongol-Yuan China, 21; Helleiner, “Prester John’s Letter: A Mediaeval Utopia,” 47–57. 292 Mīkhāʼīl al-Suryānī, Tārīkh, vol. 3, 104, 152, 233, 236. 293 Helleiner, “Prester John’s Letter: A Mediaeval Utopia,” 52-53. 289

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It could be said that the Bishop of Jabala raised his curious story about Prester John in connection with Yelü Dashi’s victory over Sinjar that local Nestorians knew in the East at the time. This might therefore illustrate that the Nestorians wanted to inform the Muslims that they now had a powerful ally, and thus Prester John was born. The Latin West, but especially the Crusaders who were in need of a proper rescuer after their military setback, fed the newborn legend. Rachewiltz says that the legend “was all the more acceptable because it presented itself as a crystallisation of those traditional folkloristic, religious and literary themes that we have just mentioned.”294 Michal Biran argues The great victory of the non-Muslim Qarakhitai over Sinjar’s Muslim forces in Qaṭwān (1141) was understood as a great Christian achievement and gave a boost of the legend or Prester John. […] Originating in the Christians’ automatic equation of non-Muslim with Christians, the Qarakhitai connection to Prester John may also derive from the sizable Nestorian community within their realm, which benefited from their religious tolerance.295 The successful defeat of Sinjar had contributed to highlighting and christianising the figure of Yelü Dashi.296 As a result, reports of Yelü Dashi were conflated with the figure of Prester John, and it was believed that Prester John was the leader who defeated the Muslim Seljuk Sultan Sinjar in 1141 and would, therefore, come to defeat the other Seljuk leader to his West, ʻImād al-Dīn Zankī in Edessa. Nevertheless, Yelü Dashi was not a Nestorian, but a Buddhist and the official religion of his state was Buddhism,297 or a similar centralAsian Shamanist belief wherein he used to sacrifice a black bull and white horse to heaven, to earth and his ancestors, before marching to war.298 Yet, Qarakhatai, like other Central Asian and Persian areas, De Rachewiltz, “Prester John and Europe,” 65. Biran, The Empire of the Qara Khitai, 176. 296 Hilāl, al-Maghūl wa Ūrubbā,19; Slessarev, Prester John, 28. 297Aigle, The Mongol Empire, 41; Slessarev, Prester John, 28; Ḥāfiẓ Ḥamdī, al-Dawlah al-Khawārizmīah wa al-Maghūl (Cairo: Dār al-Fikr al-ʻArabī, 1949), 51. 298 Bretschneider, Mediaeval Researches, vol. I, 211, 214; Silverberg, The Realm, 12. 294 295

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included Nestorian communities,299 who, as mentioned before, might have christianised Yelü Dashi and his wars against the Seljuk Sinjar. Giving the title of a Christian priest and king to a Buddhist ruler was an attempt by Hugh of Jabala or one of his informants to convince his audience that everyone who fought the Muslims was, by default, a Christian defender of the Holy Land; instead, it perhaps was only a misunderstanding. The story of Prester John probably revived the hopes of the ecclesiastical and secular powers in the West to spark the crusading project against the Muslims in the Holy Land.300 Helleiner writes that Hugh of Jabala used the story of Prester John to plead for military assistance to restore Edessa from Zankī, and this anecdote must be understood in the context of the Islamic-Christian conflict. Also, such a legend perhaps was an endeavour to propose a legendary strategy for surrounding the Muslim armies from the West and the East through a Christian military alliance between Prester John and the West or the Crusaders in the Levant. In contrast, Robert Silverberg suggests that Bishop Hugh was perhaps striving to dissuade the West and the Pope from believing in the assistance of that priestly King John, who had already returned to his land, making the call for a new crusade necessary once again.301 5. CONCLUSION It appears that the Prester John legend was intended to intensify the crusade movement after the shocking collapse of Edessa. The construction of the legend was built on early Christian legends and apocalyptical traditions alongside the tradition of St. Thomas in India. The visit of the so-called patriarch John of India to Rome in 1122 flashed the European knowledge about the miracles of St. Thomas and the power of his Christians in India, which was the twelfth-century kernel of the legend of Prester John. After the Fall of Edessa in 1144, the need for a powerful Christian king reached its zenith. Therefore, the invention of the legend was composed and connected with the tradition of St. Thomas in India that had already been known since Biran, The Empire of the Qara Khitai, 176, 178, Hilāl, al-Maghūl wa Ūrubbā, 19. Hilāl, al-Maghūl wa Ūrubbā, 20. 301 Silverberg, The Realm of Prester John, 8. 299 300

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1122. Localising Prester John in the Far East was the original formulation based on the battle of Qaṭwān and the Qarakhatai Yelü Dashi, whose personage and war with the Muslims was assigned to the alleged persona of Prester John. An association between reality and aspiration created such an interrelation between a Christian sovereign and the miracles of the mighty saviour Prester John.302 Further, the Prester John legend was a kind of emotional response to the crusading crisis, designed to sustain the crusading movement and hasten the call for the Second Crusade.303 Thus, the legend derived its roots from actual events, but the conflict between Sinjar and the Qarakhitai ruler was transferred to the legendary persona of Prester John. In this frame of mind, Prester John was a fictional historical counterpart of Yelü Dashi, who was Westernised and Christianised in name and intention. Hugh perhaps aimed to stimulate the faith of the European Christians by the power of that alleged Prester John. This means that Hugh intended to bolster a plea for a crusade expedition by narrating the John anecdote, choosing an extreme time in the Islamiccrusading conflict in the Holy Land after collapsing Edessa. Given that Edessa, the blessed city and the earliest established crusader state, had fallen to Zankī in 1144 marked an appropriate time to believe in a divine legend and legendary figure.304 Furthermore, the Prester John legend influenced spiritual, physical and geographical conceptions of the medieval world. The legend of Prester John was the way to discover more information about the geography of the East in the Middle Ages.305 Therefore, a legendary geographical formulation for the kingdom of Prester John was designed through a Letter said to be composed and spread in Europe between 1165 and 1170. While the defeat of the Seljuk ruler Sinjar at the hands of the Qarakhitai ruler inspired the Christian imagination to correlate Yelü Dashi with Prester John, the Prester John Letter granted the legend more circulation, promotion and popularity in Papacostea, Between the Crusades and the Mongol Empire, 165. Taylor, “Global Circulation as Christian Enclosure,ˮ 446. 304 Taylor, “Waiting for Prester John,” 12-13; Silverberg, The Realm of Prester John, 8; Helleiner, “Prester John’s Letter,” 50-51. 305 Taylor, “Waiting for Prester John,” iv, 3-5, 15-16. 302 303

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Europe. The Letter founded different responses and receptions among European audiences, having political repercussions in Europe and the crusader states, as will be discussed in the next part.

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CHAPTER THREE

THE PRESTER JOHN LETTER AND ITS PERCEPTION BETWEEN THE CRUSADING CRISIS IN THE LEVANT AND IMPERIAL-PAPAL SCHISM IN THE WEST

The legend of the mysterious Eastern Christian king Prester John, who might come to the aid of the Christians in the Holy Land, held an intense grip on the medieval mind. The Prester John Letter addressed to the Byzantine Emperor (r. 1142-1180), which was most likely released ca. 1165-70, opened the gate to imagining the kingdom of that Asian monarch. The Letter is a remarkable piece of medieval literature, perfectly formulated to describe the kingdom of Prester John as full of hybrid creatures, monsters and marvels. This chapter begins by exposing the course and status of the Prester John legend during the Second Crusade. It then engages with the Prester John Letter and hypotheses on its origins and date. Since the Letter was addressed to Emperor Manuel Komnenus, the chapter will investigate the relations of the Byzantine Empire with both the Crusaders and the Holy Roman Empire to present some hypotheses regarding the motifs of addressing the Letter to Emperor Manuel Komnenus. Further, it uncovers the connection between the Letter’s

The Prester John Letter and Its Perception

construction and the schism between Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa (r. 1155-90) and Pope Alexander III (r. 1159-1181). This Letter appears in several manuscripts and texts but was also included in several contemporary chronicles. The chapter also examines the Letter’s reception during the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries in light of Pope Alexander’s 1177 letter to Prester John and its perception by contemporaries. 1. THE LEGEND AND THE SECOND CRUSADE (1145-49) In response to the fall of Edessa in 1144 and upon the request of Hugh of Jabala on behalf of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Pope Eugenius III issued the crusade bull “Quantum praedecessores” on 1st December 1145. This is the first pontifical bull for a crusade to the Holy Land since the First Crusade. It was crafted in a motivating language to persuade Christians to participate in the Second Crusade, forming the basis of crusading appeals for decades to come. This bull was first directed to King Louis VII of France (r. 1137-80) and his followers.306 Jonathan Phillips describes the bull as follows: Quantum praedecessores was at the heart of the Church authorities’ formal pitch to persuade people to take the cross. It was, therefore, a carefully structured and comprehensive document designed to communicate information to as wide an audience as possible. Using vivid and emotive language, in conjunction with the device of repetition, it conveyed clearly and precisely the reasons why people should crusade and the rewards that they would receive for doing so.307 In his bull for the Second Crusade, Pope Eugenius drew a direct association with the triumph of the First Crusade referring to the crusading efforts in the Holy Land. He indicated the fall of Edessa as a real threat to all Christianity and not only to the Eastern Church. He enthusiastically summoned all western monarchs to begin a holy William of Tyre, History, vol. II, 163-165; Jonathan Phillips, The Crusades 10951197 (London: Pearson Education, 2002), 63. 307 Phillips, The Crusades, 64. 306

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journey to fight the infidels.308 In June 1147, the armies of King Conrad III, the German king and king of the Romans (r. 1138-1152), set out with King Louis VII for the Levant. The first reporter of the legend, Otto of Freising, accompanied his half-brother King Conrad III to the Holy Land.309 In June 1148, an assembly of King Conrad, King Louis, Queen Melisende and her son King Baldwin III and other Frankish nobles was held near Acre to discuss the next move of their crusade. Although Hugh of Jabala asked for a new crusade to restore Edessa, they agreed to attack the city of Damascus because it was a strategic city still in the hands of the Muslims. Additionally, they saw that it was not beneficial to retake Edessa, which had been destroyed during a second Muslim attack in 1146. Further, the Second Crusade’s army aimed to prevent Nūr al-Dīn Maḥmūd (r. 540-569/1146-1174), ruler of Aleppo and son of ʿImād al-Dīn Zinkī, from taking Damascus and making a union that would endanger the crusader states in the Levant.310 Nevertheless, the siege of Damascus failed along with the Second Crusade. King Conrad returned to Germany in September 1148, and then King Louis VII went back to France in the following summer.311 The collapse of the Second Crusade put the Crusaders in the East in a more dangerous position than ever.312 Though the legend itself was one of the motifs employed to persuade the Pope to call for a new crusade, there was no action taken to open a dialogue with Prester John either during the preparation for the Second Crusade or afterwards. Though Pope Eugenius was the See the Michael Doeberl, ed., Monumenta Germaniae Selecta: ab anno 768 usque ad annum 1250, vol. 4 (München: J. Lindauersche Buchhandlung, 1890), 40-43; for the English translation see, Ernest F. Henderson, trans., Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages (London: George Bell and Sons, 1903), 333-36; Phillips, The Crusades, 64-65. 309 William of Tyre, History, vol. II, 165-67; 172-7; 184; Phillips, The Crusades, 67-68. 310 William of Tyre, History, vol. II, 185-88; Mīkhāʼīl al-Suryānī, Tārīkh, vol. III; 245, Phillips, The Crusades, 75-76; For more about the second Crusade and the siege of Damascus see, David Nicolle and Christa Hook, The Second Crusade 1148. Disaster outside Damascus (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2009); Martin Hoch and Jonathan Phillips, eds., The Second Crusade: Scope and Consequences (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001). 311 William of Tyre, History, vol. II, 187-192; Phillips, The Crusades, 75-76. 312 Silverberg, The Realm of Prester John, 9. 308

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only Pope who directly heard the mysterious legend of Prester John in Viterbo in 1145, he neither referred to it in his crusading bull nor in his registers. As mentioned earlier, no mention of Prester John is known from the time of Pope Eugenius III, except for Otto's chronicle.313 It is remarkable to note that the core of the legend commenced with an oral narrative by Hugh of Jabala and was then written by Otto of Freising. It is imperative here to note that Otto of Freising and Hugh of Jabala played an essential function in the Second Crusade. By narrating the mysterious story of the priest-king John to Pope Eugenius III, Hugh kindled the first flame of the Second Crusade. Otto of Freising also participated as an ecclesiastic and nobleman in the Second Crusade. Although Otto had first heard the legend in 1145 and then witnessed the second Crusade’s fiasco, he did not write off the legend when he revised his chronicle in 1157. This might refer to the survival of the legend, at least in Otto’s inner circle and memory, during this time. This may indicate that the early spread of the legend unfolded in parallel with the call for the Second Crusade. Following Keagan Brewer’s thesis, it is difficult to trace the spreading scope of the legend relying only on the written report of Otto of Freising assuming that: When the name of Prester John is introduced by Otto, it is followed by the subordinate clause “as indeed they are accustomed to call him,” indicating that the name already held some currency. Moreover, towards the end of Otto’s passage on Prester John, one encounters the phrase “but they allege.” Grammatically, the subject of this cannot be Otto’s informant, the bishop Hugh of Jabala, and must rather be the ubiquitous “they,” another indication that Prester John was being widely discussed at the time Otto was writing.314 The fall of Edessa to the Muslims in 1144, coupled with the failure of the Second Crusade, perhaps contributed to an increasing sense that danger loomed over the Crusaders in the Levant. Predictably, the 313 314

Brewer, “Introduction: Believing in Prester John,” 8. Brewer, “Introduction: Believing in Prester John,” 8. 106

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glories of the legendary priest-king John were revived. The defeats of the Crusaders made the victories of the indomitable Prester John even more attractive to Europeans and the Latin East.315 The imagined Prester John manufactured alterity under the banner of the kingship of John the priest and king. Prester John performed as a response to the consequences of loss, including the fall of Edessa and the failure of the Second Crusade and the trauma of the rift between Pope Alexander III and Frederick Barbarossa, who was also in a quarrel with Emperor Manuel Komnenus. Therefore, Prester John appears as a more powerful figure with a vast fantastic kingdom in a Letter addressed by Prester John himself to the Byzantine Emperor.316 In the light of contemporaneous and entangled circumstances in the Latin West and the crusader states in the Levant, this Letter should be subject to further treatments and examination. 2. THE PRESTER JOHN LETTER, CA. 1165-70 The fanciful figure of Prester John and his kingdom was formulated entertainingly and most likely composed by a German person probably between 1165 and 1170. The Letter gives an immense imaginative description of the kingdom of Prester John and its marvels, monsters, unusual creatures and miracles.317 It is seemingly here that the identity of Prester John and his Christian kingdom were derived from the earlier texts by Odo of Rheims and the anonymous text that describes the mysterious journey of the so-called bishop John of India to Rome in 1122. The second grasp of Prester John was based on the Otto of Freising chronicle discussed earlier.318 These accounts originated an initial identification of the Prester John figure, which

Steven Frimmer, Neverland: Fabled Places and Fabulous Voyages of History and Legend (New Yourk: The Viking Press, 1976), 177. 316 Taylor, “Waiting for Prester John,” 56-57; Gerhardt and Schmid, “Beiträge zum Brief des Presbyters Johannes,” 177–80. 317 Brewer,“Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis (c.1165-1170),’’ in PJLIS, 46–91; Zarncke, “Der Priester Johannes,” in Abh.1, 872–934; reprinted in PJMTLT in 1996, under, “Der Brief des Priesters Johannes an den Byzantinischen Kaiser Emanuel,” 40–100. 318 Odo of Rheims, “Epistola,” 39–42, Otto of Freising, De Duabus Civitatibus, 365-67, see also chapter two above. 315

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enabled the Letter composer to design the mysterious kingdom of Prester John.319 It seems that the Letter was written by a native of Greece from beginning to end, as indicated in one early version of the letter itself. If this were the case, it would mean that the Letter’s writer was “definitely ahead of his time.”320 Arguably the Letter was recomposed in the Latin language by a western cleric knowledgeable of religious and profane literature of the East.321 The German identity of the writer appears at one of the interpolated redactions of the Letter in the Brewer and Zarncke edition, interpolation E. It states that Here ends the Book or the History of Prester John, which was translated from Greek into Latin by Archbishop Christian of Mainz. This Christian was succeeded by Archbishop Conrad. This Manuel reigned from 1144 A.D. to 1180 A.D.322 Yet, as an eastern ruler and king of India, Prester John should have spoken some eastern languages, which suggests that the possible Greek origin might have been quoted from another unknown eastern language. Slessarev has discussed this notion based on a French version of the Letter, saying that an introductory remark in a twelfthcentury Paris manuscript stated that the Letter was first translated “into Greek and Latin.” Another Paris text proclaims that it was translated from Arabic into Latin, “which in view of the European background of the Letter’s content is completely out of the question.”323 Those two factors strengthen the possibility of the eastern origin of the Letter, which will be discussed further in the next chapter.324 Kim M. Phillips, Before Orientalism, 46-47. De Rachewiltz, “Prester John and Europe’s Discovery,” 65. 321 Lach, Asia in the Making of Europe, 26. 322 Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 66; Zarncke, “Priester Johannes,” 924: (Explicit liber sive Istoria presbiteri Iohannis, quae translata fuit de Graeco in Latinum a Christiano Maguntino archiepiscopo. Iste Christianus superpositus fuit Chunrado archiepiscopo. Iste Manuel regnavit in Graecia ab anno 1144 usque ad annum domini 1180). 323 Slessarev, Prester John, 41-42. 324 See under Chapter 4. 319 320

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Although the Letter was supposedly written originally in Greek, it is astonishing that it remained unknown in Byzantine sources, and no Greek version of the Letter is known. 325 In contrast, about 234 original Latin versions of the Letter survived in at least 469 manuscripts, with approximately thirty Latin copies from the twelfth century.326 In 1879, the German philologist Friedrich Zarncke established the standard Latin version of the Prester John Letter based on the many manuscripts that he examined. The Letter widely appeared in many manuscripts; Zarncke thus has classified five interpolations that he identified as A, B, C, D and E, each of which provides new descriptions of Prester John’s kingdom. The edition of Zarncke was the standard Latin edition of the Letter that the subsequent scholarship stands on.327 In 2000, Bettina Wagner published a new German-Latin edition of the Letter’s manuscripts. Wagner has improved the textual analysis of the Letter’s tradition based on a primary study of 200 manuscripts in detail, including a new examination of manuscripts that Zarncke studied before. In like manner, Wagner has studied the influence and breadth of the Letter in various manuscripts and printed versions of the Letter,328 determining the geographical and dating scope of those between the twelfth century and seventeenth century.329 In 2015, Keagan Brewer established the first Latin-English edition of the Letter, providing a list of the shelfmarks of 234 Latin manuscripts and 235 vernacular copies of the Letter.330 Dating the Letter is problematic since the date given in the interpolation D was not precisely clear; “Dated in our city of Bibric, Baum, Die Verwandlungen des Mythos, 127. Brewer, “Believing in Prester John,” 10; see the appendix list of 232 Latin manuscripts in PJLIS, 301-311. 327 Zarncke, “Priester Johannes,” Abh.1, 872-908, see a list of the manuscripts that Zarnke examined to compose his edition in pages 872-77. 328 The Letter has appeared in printed version since the fifteenth century; See list of the printed versions ca. 1483 to 1565 in: Wagner, Epistola Presbiteri Johannis, 132-149. 329 Wagner, Epistola Presbiteri Johannis, 14-15, 21-132. 330 Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 46-91; for the list of the shelfmarks of the Latin and vernacular copies see, “Appendix 2-the Manuscript Traditions of the Prester John letter,” in PJLIS, 299-319, and also a brief list of the handwritten manuscripts and their descriptions in Wagner, Epistola Presbiteri Johannis, 21-149. 325 326

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on the 15th of the Kalends of April in the 51st year of our nativity.” 331 However, there are two indications of the Letter’s date from the thirteenth century. Alberic de Trois-Fontaines (d. 1252) dated the Letter to the year 1165 and claimed that it was addressed mainly to the Byzantine Emperor Manuel Komnenus and various Christian kings.332 Alberic was a medieval Cistercian (a religious order also known as Bernardines) likely from a noble family from Liège (today in Belgium) or its neighbourhoods. Alberic was likely first a monk in Clairvaux and then became a monk of the Trois-Fontaines Abbey in Champagne in ca. 1230. In 1232, he began to compose his chronicle in the frame of a chronological encyclopedic universal account from creation until his time, including the events in Europe and the Holy Land. The chronicle narrates many stories, divided sometimes into a series, presenting some information on the genealogies of rulers and nobles. One of the main aims of Alberic’s chronicle was to correct the dates of events, putting them in a correct chronology, citing about 250 texts and oral sources. Nevertheless, most of Alberic’s information is considered unoriginal, but his chronicle is viewed as essential in preserving excerpts from some of the lost sources he quoted.333 Alberic’s chronicle is one of the essential Latin chronicles that includes detailed information about the Prester John legend in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and its association with the Crusades and the Mongols.334 Though he dated the Letter to 1165, it remains potentially inaccurate as his chronicle was composed about 70 years Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 91. Alberic de Trois-Fontaines, “Albrici monachi Triumfontium Chronicon,” in MGH SS, vol. 23, 848-49; Zarncke, “Priester Johannes,” Abh.1, 877; also Alberic's texts about the legend of Prester John in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were edited and translated by Keagan Brewer, see PJLIS, 142–49. 333 Alberic de Trois-Fontaines, “Chronicon,” 631-33; Antoni Grabowski, ‘Alberic of Trois-Fontaines’ Genealogies’, Medieval History Journal, 2019, 1-3; K. Reindel, ‘Petrus Damiani bei Helinand von Froidmont und Alberich von Troisfontaines’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 53, no. 1 (1997): 205–24; Mireille Schmidt-Chazan, ‘Aubri de Trois-Fontaines, un Historien entre la France et l’Empire’, Annales de l’Est 36 (1984): 163–92. 334 Alberic de Trois-Fontaines, “Chronicon,” 848-49, 853-54; 910-12, Brewer, “Alberic de Trois-Fontaines,” 142-45; Giardini, “The Name of Prester John,” 211, no. 51. 331 332

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later, between 1232 and 1242.335 The second reference to the Letter’s date is a handwritten addition by Bernardus Noricus to a thirteenthcentury manuscript. As described, Bernardus was a writer, board member of the writing school, librarian and chronicler from the time of Abbot Friedrich of Aich (1274-1325). In this scribal addition, Bernardus stated that the Letter was sent to Emperor Manuel Komnenus in 1170.336 Nevertheless, a more accurate date can be set based on the chronicle of Geoffroy of Breuil (d. ca. 1184), one of the closest contemporaries to the Letter, who refers to the figure of Prester John under the year 1167. Geoffroy, also known as Geoffroy abbot of Vigeois (1170-84), was a French clergyman and chronicler in the twelfth century who died in 1184 or shortly thereafter. Geoffroy was a monk at the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Martial de Limoges and then abbot at Vigeois from 1170 to 1184, where he wrote his chronicle. His chronicle covers the years 994 to 1184 and contains, among other themes, the history of several western families and some events of the Crusades.337 Geoffroy refers to the figure of Prester John in the frame of his records of the struggle between Frederick Barbarossa and Pope Alexander III in 1167. He mentions that this king John was given the name of Prester John because of his humility and that different forces and kings were serving him, and that his father is called Quis-utDeus.338 Although Geoffroy did not make specific mention of the Brewer, ‘Believing in Prester John,’11. MS 56 Kre., in, Wagner, Epistola Presbiteri Johannis, 53: (Incipit epistola Iohannis Regis Indie Emmanueli regi Grecorum transmissa. Interlineare Ergänzungen von Bernardus Noricus: vel Friderico primo Romanorum imperatori. Constantinopolitano. Circa annum domini M.C.LXX. sub Alexandro papa III). 337 Geoffroy of Breuil, “Ex Gaufridi de Bruil prioris Vosiensis Chronica,” ed. O. HolgerEdder, in MGH, SS, vol. 26 (Hannover: Impensis Bibliopolii Hahniani, 1882), 198– 203; Michel Aubrun, “Le Prieur Geoffroy de Vigeois et sa Chronique,” Revue Mabillon 58, no. 258 (1974): 313–26. 338 Geoffroy of Breuil, “Chronica,” 202 (Regum nomina nostris qui temporibus imperant orbi modo describam. Primo loco precelsus ille ponatur Iohannes, qui regnis imperans magnis, humilitatis causa presbyteri sibi nomen aptavit. Huius principatus diversarum copias rerum, qualiterve plures ipsi serviunt reges et de archiprotopapatu, vel qua de causa pater eius Quis-ut -Deus dictus est, epistola Emanueli ab eo directa prodit breviter.). 335 336

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Prester John Letter, he indicated information about Prester John that is only mentioned by the Letter and was never recorded by Otto of Freising. For instance, according to the B and C interpolations of the Letter, the name of Prester John’s father is Quasideus [God-like],”339 the same name mentioned by Geoffroy. Furthermore, the description of Prester John’s sovereignty as being served by several kings and their troops was only mentioned in the Prester John Letter to Manuel Komnenus and never mentioned by Otto of Freising. As is known, Geoffroy began writing his chronicle in 1170, discussing the figure of Prester John under the year 1167, which indicates that the Letter most likely was known in Europe before 1170. In this regard, the Letter can be dated between 1165 and 1167 or at most between 1165 and 1170. Zarncke points out that the Letter could not have been written after 1177, the year in which Pope Alexander III wrote to Prester John,340 as will be discussed below. Since dating the Letter is problematic, Keagan Brewer suggested that it is safe to date it between 1165, as given in Alberic's chronicle, and 1170, as mentioned by the above Bernardus in a thirteenth-century version.341 3. THE LETTER, THE BYZANTINE EMPEROR AND THE CRUSADES The Letter shows the addressee, Emperor Manuel Komnenus, the worthy and powerful kingdom of Prester John in the Three Indias where he lives and where the Shrine of the Apostle Thomas rests. In this pseudo-letter, the priest-king John claimed that he was living in the palace that the apostle Thomas designed for the Indian king Gondophares.342 The same Letter presents a huge mysterious description of his Indian kingdom, of which the city of Hulna was the Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 60-61, 80; Zarncke, “Priester Johannes,” Abh.1, 920-21. 340 Zarncke, “Priester Johannes, Abh.1,” 877-78; Hamilton, “Prester John and the Three Kings,” 177. 341 Brewer, “Believing in Prester John,” 12. 342 Keagan Brewer, ed., “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” in PJLIS (Farnham, Burlington: Ashgate, 2015), 56, 80, further depth study of this Letter will be presented below. 339

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capital in de Adventu of 1122.343 It also states that Prester John ruled the Brahmans (Pragmanis/Bragmani) along with his other subjects.344 The Letter presents Prester John as a devout Christian, wealthy and the most potent and virtuous person in the world, who protects the poor people in his kingdom, vowing to visit the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem with a massive army, to vanquish the enemies of the Christ.345 It seems here that the writer wanted to show the Emperor of Byzantium the divinely gifted supremacy of Prester John. The Letter likewise describes the lands of Prester John that include the shrine of St. Thomas and mentions that Prester John’s court contains twelve archbishops.346 In this sense, the unity between the bishops in the kingdom of Prester John served to promote the idea of unification with the Church of the West as well.347 Michael Uebel writes that the anonymous text of 1122 acts as “an instance of ritualised fetishism, whose basic elements provided source material for the descriptions of the saint's festival in at least one Latin version of the Letter.” 348 The Letter states that Prester John lives in the Three Indias, in which the body of St. Thomas rests, referring to his Christian people and that he leads Gog and Magog.349 Also, it describes that Prester John lives in a palace, which is similar in layout, workshops and buildings to the palace that St. Thomas designed for King Gondophares of India.350 Therefore, the Letter here includes some of the known eastern Christian tradition of St. Thomas and his travel to design a city for the Anonymous, “De Adventu,” 31, 35. Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 55, 56, 78, 80. 345 Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 76-78; Renz, “Das Priesterkönigreich des Johannes,” 242, 246; Gerhardt and Schmid, “Brief des Presbyters Johannes,” 174. 346 Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 84; Slessarev, Prester John, 37. 347 Wang, “Alexander the Great, Prester John, Strabo of Amasia,” 5; Beckingham, “The Quest for Prester John,” 277. 348 Michael Uebel, “The Pathogenesis of Medieval History,” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 44, no. 1., The Ends of Historicism (Spring 2002): 55. 349 Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 68, 70, 73. 350 Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 80; Slessarev, Prester John, 36: (Palatium vero, quod inhabitat sublimitas nostra, ad instar et similitudinem palacii, quod apostolus Thomas ordinavit Gundoforo, regi Indorum, in officinis et relique structura per omnia simile est illi), Brewer, 56. 343 344

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Indian King Gondophares, as mentioned in the previous chapter.351 As a result, it seems that the author of the Letter had knowledge of the envoy of the Indian bishop to Rome in 1122 and Otto of Freising’s report. In this respect, several manuscripts of the Letter merge St. Thomas with Prester John, which appears more clearly in a collection of fifteenth-century manuscripts from a Bavarian-Austrian scope.352 Furthermore, the Letter also seems to be a work of propaganda, as seen in its condescending remarks towards the Greeks and in other passages which represent a medieval European Utopia.353 The Latin version of the Letter opened with an inaugural epistolary prelude, followed by insulting words to the Byzantine Emperor Manuel Komnenus. Prester John presented himself to Manuel, saying: Prester John, lord of lords, by the power and virtue of God and our Lord Jesus Christ, to Emanuel, Roman governor, let us rejoice in salvation and cross over to the end enriched by grace. […], since I am a man, as I certainly am, so we are sending some [information] about us across to you through our delegate because we wish and desire to know if you hold the right faith like us and if you believe in our Lord Jesus Christ through all things.354

Slessarev, Prester John, 16-18: for more see under chapter 2 above. A further advantage for Prester John acquired form Gondophares himself, possibly King Gaspar of Persia, who was one of the three biblical Magi who attended the birth of Christ, according to apocryphal texts and eastern Christian tradition, see: Richard N. Frye, “The Fall of the Graeco-Bactrians, Sakas and Indo-Parthians,” in History of Humanity: Scientific and Cultural Development, ed. Joachim Herrmann and Erik Zürcher, vol. 3 (London: Routledge and Unesco, 1996), 454–56. 352 Wagner, Epistola Presbiteri Johannis, 271-72, 315; Knefelkamp, Die Suche nach dem Reich des Priesterkönigs Johannes, 39. 353 Brewer, “Believing in Prester John,” 9; Knefelkamp, Die Suche nach dem Reich des Priesterkönigs Johannes, 73-38; Silverberg, The Realm of Prester John, 47. 354 Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 67-68; (Presbiter Iohannes, potentia et virtute dei et domini nostri Iesu Christi dominus dominantium, Emanueli, Romeon gubernatori salute gaudere et gratia ditandi ad ulteriora transire. [...], Etenim si homo sum, pro bono habeo, et de nostris per apocrisiarium nostrum tibi aliqua transmittimus, quia scire volumus et desideramus, si nobiscum rectam fidem habes et si per omnia credis in domino nostro Iesu Christo), Brewer, “Epistola,” 46; Zarncke, “Priester Johannes,” Abh.1, 909-10. 351

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Further, Prester John describes, in an arrogant tone, the Byzantine emperor as a man whose little people (“Greeks”) hold him to be a god, whereas Prester John (“we”) know that the emperor is “mortal and subject to human corruption.”355 Therefore, the tone here is meant to highlight the superior status of Prester John and his excellence in contrast to the Byzantine emperor. Remember your end, and for eternity you will not sin. If you truly wish to know the magnitude and excellence of our highness, and in which lands our power dominates, understand and believe without a doubt, that I, Prester John, am Lord of Lords and exceed all kings of the entire earth in virtue, power, and all the riches which under Heaven. 356 Therefore, Prester John invited the Byzantine emperor to visit and show him his domain: If you wish to come to our domain, we will set you up as a great and worthy man of our house, and you will be able to enjoy our abundance, and if you wish to return, you will return enriched from these things, which abound in our lands.357 While most Latin copies of the Letter were addressed to Emperor Manuel, some copies were addressed to someone else. In some manuscripts, the Letter appears to be addressed to Manuel, the Pope Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 68; Zarncke, “Priester Johannes,” Abh.1, 910: (te Graeculi tui Deum esse existimant, cum te mortalem et humanae corruptioni subiacere cognoscamus). 356 Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 68: (Memorare novissima tua et in aeternum non peccabis. Si vero vis cognoscere magnitudinem et excellentiam nostrae celsitudinis et in quibus terris dominetur potentia nostra, intellige et sine dubitatione crede, quia ego, presbiter Iohannes, dominus sum dominantium et praecello in omnibus divitiis, quae sub caelo sunt, virtute et potentia omnes reges universae terrae), here, 46. 357 Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 68: (Quodsi ad dominationem nostram venire volueris, maiorem et digniorem domus nostrae te constituemus, et poteris frui habundantia nostra, et ex his, quae apud nos habundant, si redire volueris, locupletatus redibis), here, 46; Zarncke, “Priester Johannes,” Abh.1, 910. 355

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of Rome (Alexander III) and the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick I Barbarossa. Some copies mention the Letter as being sent to Emperor Frederick, without clarifying whether this is Frederick the first (Barbarossa) or his grandson Frederick II (r. 1215-1250); other copies specify that the Letter was addressed to Barbarossa. Other versions had the Letter addressed to Manuel, who forwarded it to Frederick and/or to Pope Alexander III.358 Nevertheless, most manuscripts and texts, especially those from the twelfth century, claim that the Letter was sent to the Byzantine Emperor Manuel Komnenus.359 Regardless of the intention behind the Letter’s composition, the author shared the views of Hugh of Jabala, the oral narrator of the legend in 1145, toward the Greeks, as well as the claims of their Emperor in Antioch, as Otto of Freising also said in his chronicle. 360 Moreover, historically, the Franks and Byzantines were in disagreement, especially that Byzantium always had a claim to Antioch, which created continuous quarrels between the Crusaders and Byzantium that resulted in the siege and capture of Constantinople by the Latin army of the Fourth Crusade in 1204.361 Therefore, the hostility of the Crusaders and the eastern Christians to the Byzantine Empire may explain why the Letter took an arrogant tone with Manuel Komnenus. Some eastern and western Christian sources attributed, even partly, the failure of the Second Crusade to the Byzantine Emperor.362 For instance, Michael the Syrian stated that Manuel, “King of the Greeks,” was frightened that the Crusaders would overthrow his kingdom if they crossed over the sea and established their domination. Therefore, See Wagner, Epistola Presbiteri Johannis, 25-132; Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 67, not. 14; Slessarev, Prester John, 67. 359 Wagner, Epistola Presbiteri Johannis, 14-25, 238-253. 360 Otto of Freising, De Duabus Civitatibus, 354, 363, Beckingham, “The Achievments of Prester John,” 4, 11-12; Silverberg, The Realm of Prester John, 5, and see more in chapter two. 361 See Thomas F. Maddan, ed., The Fourth Crusade: Event, Aftermath, and Perceptions, 2nd (London and New York: Routledge, 2016), and Paul Magdalino, The Empire of Manuel I Komnenos, 1143-1180 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). 362 George Finlay, History of the Byzantine and Greek Empires from MLVII to MCCCCLIII, vol. II (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood and Sons, 1854), 201202. 358

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he built an alliance with the Turks and procrastinated for two years.363 Odo of Deuil (d. 1162), the French monk who took part in the Second Crusade as the chaplain of the expedition of King Louis VII, blamed Manuel for the failure of the Second Crusade. Odo also described the Byzantines as arrogant, stating that they worked in concert with the Turks and that as a result, both Turks and Greeks were the Crusaders’ common enemies.364 Although the Greeks furnished us no proof that they were treacherous, I believe that they would not have exhibited such unremitting servitude if they had had good intentions. Actually, they were concealing the wrongs which were to be avenged after we crossed the Arm. […] Constantinople is Christian only in name, not in fact, and, whereas for her {its] part she [it] should not prevent others from bringing aid to Christians, her [its] Emperor had ventured a few years previously to attack the prince of Antioch. […] Constantinople is arrogant in her wealth, treacherous in her practice, corrupt in her faith; just as she fears everyone on account of her wealth, she is dreaded by everyone because of the treachery and faithlessness. 365 In fact, following the failure of the Second Crusade, the Jihād movement mounted, and the Crusaders found themselves in greater peril than they were at the time of the fall of Edessa.366 To add to their troubles, the forces of Nūr al-Dīn killed Prince Raymond of Antioch and a large number of his troops at the Battle of ʿInab in 544/1149. The following year, while Jocelyn II of Edessa was on the road to Antioch, Turkmens captured him and delivered him to Nūr al-Dīn. Mīkhāʼīl al-Suryānī, Tārīkh, vol. III,.253. Odo of Deuil, De Profectione Ludovici VII in Orientem: The Journey of Louis VII to the East, trans. Virginia Gingerick Berry (New York: W.W. Norton, 1948), 26-27, 4849, 58-59, 68-67, 86-87; 112-13; Jonathan Phillips, “Odo of Deuil’s de Profectione Ludovici VII in Orientem as a Source for the Second Crusade,” in The Experience of Crusading, ed. Marcus Bull and Norman Housley, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 80–95. 365 Odo of Deuil, De Profectione Ludovici VII in Orientem, 67, 69, 87 366 Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Crusades, Christianity, and Islam (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 69. 363 364

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Hence, Nūr al-Dīn and his forces were advancing from the north against the Kingdom of Jerusalem, threatening the Latin territories in this area.367 At the same time, Emperor Manuel marched to impose his power over Antioch.368 Consequently, Baldwin III, king of Jerusalem, established an agreement and friendship with Emperor Manuel to confront Nūr alDīn and his campaigns against the crusader states. King Baldwin III agreed with Emperor Manuel to defend the crusading territories that were still under Latin authority in the province of Edessa and to defend the city of Antioch.369 Further, King Baldwin III and Manuel’s niece, Empress Theodora, married in September 1158.370 As a result, Emperor Manuel solemnly entered Antioch in 1159. The Latins attempted to keep him away, claiming that there was a conspiracy inside the city to assassinate him. Yet, he insisted on entering the city and staying there for about eight days.371 But it seems that the Latin sources never admit such vassaldom, considering it as a temporary political ploy.372 Early in 1164, King Amaury I of Jerusalem (r. 1163–1174) wrote to King Louis VII of France expressing his fears of the Byzantine Emperor, asking him to come out to the Levant because Antioch was weak and that without assistance, it would fall either to the Greeks or

Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil, vol. 9, 362-63, 369-370; Ibn al-Qalānisī, Dhayl Tārīkh Dimashq (Beirut, 1908), 310; Sheir, Tibnin, 76.; Alex Mallett, ‘The Battle of Inab’, Journal of Medieval History 39, no. 1 (2013): 48, 53, 56, 58. 368 William of Tyre, History, vol. II, 83-85, 94-102, 208-09, Odo of Deuil, De Profectione Ludovici VII in Orientem, 68-71; Phillips, The Crusades, 89-90; Finlay, History of the Byzantine, 195-97, 226-29. 369 Mayer, Hans Eberhard, Die Urkunden der Lateinischen Könige von Jerusalem (UKJ), vol. I, (Hanover: Verlag Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 2010), 452-3, no. 245; John Kinnamos, Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus, trans. Charles M.Brand (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), 140-43; William of Tyre, History, vol. II, 208-09; Phillips, The Crusades, 90. 370 Mayer, UKJ, vol.I, 453-4, no. 246, 497-9, no. 271; William of Tyre, History, vol. II, 264-65;, Phillips, The Crusades, 92; Runciman, The Crusades, vol. II, p., 350. 371 Kinnamos, Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus, 142-143; William of Tyre, History, vol. II, 208-09, Runciman, The Crusades, vol. II, 353-54. 372 Runciman, The Crusades, vol. II, 309 367

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the Turks.373 At the same time, Amaury sent Gilbert, master of the Hospitallers, together with patriarchs of Jerusalem and Antioch, the other clerics and secular leaders in the crusader states, to the West in 1166 to ask for assistance. Pope Alexander III, therefore, proclaimed a new crusade, but no action from the western kings and princes was taken.374 Interestingly, in the period in which the Letter is supposed to have been written, 1165-70, King Amaury launched several campaigns on Egypt 559-564/1164-69.375 The failure of King Amaury in Egypt led to an increase in Nūr al-Dīn’s military activities against the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Owing to such circumstances and dangers, King Amaury sent his envoys led by Archbishop Frederick of Tyre, the most senior cleric in the Latin East, to Pope Alexander III, Frederick Barbarossa and other western monarchs in 1169, in order to ask their assistance in combating the dangers now threatening the Kingdom of Jerusalem. In response to Amaury’s mission, Pope Alexander III issued a new crusade bull on 29th July 1169. However, the requests of Amaury and his mission failed, and no crusade reached the Latin East. In 1171, a further mission was sent to the West to renew the request for a new crusade. Meanwhile, King Amaury himself visited Constantinople in 1171, striving to obtain assistance from the Emperor, who was closer to them and well aware of the dangers.376 According to the status quo at the time, the Muslim threat was looming over the crusader states, coinciding with the conflict between Pope Alexander III and Frederick Barbarossa in the West, which might provide another factor for the appearance of such a Letter at that Martin Bouquet, et al, Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France, ed. vol. 16 (Paris, 1937-1904.), 39-40;, no. 126, 62-63, no. 195, 79-80, no. 244; Röhricht, RRH, 104, no. 394 , 106 : no. 404 and 407. 374 Rudolf Hiestand, Papsturkunden für Templer und Johanniter: Archivberichte und Texte. Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, philologischhistorische Klasse; Folge 3, Nr. 77 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1972), 251-53, no. 53; Iben Fonnesberg-Schmidt, “Alexander III and the Crusades,” in PAAS (London and New York: Routledge, 2016), 341–54. 375 Mayer, UKJ, vol. II, 575-7, no. 334, 610-12, no. 350; Bahāʼ al-Dīn Ibn Shaddād, alNawādir al-Sulṭānīyah wa al-Maḥāsin al-Yūsufīyah, ed. Jamāl al-Dīn al-Shayyāl, 2nd ed. (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khānjī, 1994), 75-76; William of Tyre, History, vol. II, 304343, 361-65; Phillips, The Crusades, 95-96, 98-99. 376 William of Tyre, History, vol. II, 371-75-79; Phillips, The Crusades, 91, 93, 99-101. 373

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time. Both the West and the Latin East were in need of such a perfect and powerful king as Prester John was depicted. The fears of the Christians in the Kingdom of Jerusalem consequently increased, as is apparent in the narrative of Michael the Syrian. Nūr al-Dīn subdued Āshūr, Mesopotamia, Syria and Egypt whose princes became his vassals. Nūr al-Dīn, therefore, prepared his forces to overthrow the Frankish state in Jerusalem and Antioch, and the Turkish state in Bithynia (Nicaea), and that he gathered a considerable army at Damascus. The Christians everywhere, especially those powerless, became fearful, but God exists upon each kingdom in the world.377 The historical context suggests that Westerners were ready to imagine the existence of Prester John, as a consequence of the troubles of the Latin East following the Second Crusade, which occurred at the same time of increasing quarrels between the Holy Roman Empire and the Pope. 4. THE LETTER AND THE IMPERIAL-PAPAL CONFLICT, 1154-1177 As mentioned above, one of the Letter’s interpolations states that it was originally written in Greek and translated into Latin by Archbishop Christian of Mainz, whom Archbishop Conrad succeeded.378 Comparing those names with the real Archbishops of Mainz reveals that this Christian of Mainz was Christian I of Buch (d. 1183), who was twice Archbishop of Mainz and the chancellor of Frederick Barbarossa between 1165 and 1183. He then was succeeded by Conrad I of Wittelsbach (d. 1200), Archbishop of Salzburg (11771183) and Archbishop of Mainz (1183-1200).379 Conrad was also the

Mīkhāʼīl al-Suryānī, Tārīkh, vol. III, 315. Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,“ 66; Zarncke, “Priester Johannes,” Abh.1, 924. 379 G.A. Loud, trans., The Crusade of Fredrick Barbarossa: The History of the Expedition of the Emperor Fredrick and Related Texts, Crusade Texts in Translation 19 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010), 131, n. 409. 377 378

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papal legate of the German Crusade of Henry VI (r. 1191-97) on the Levant 1197-98.380 Furthermore, Christian of Mainz was a diplomat, cleric and soldier and Frederick Barbarossa’s advocate against Pope Alexander III. He accompanied an imperial expedition to Italy in 1163, and Frederick Barbarossa then appointed him Archbishop of Mainz in 1165. In 1171, he accompanied Frederick Barbarossa to Italy, attacking the cities aligned with Pope Alexander III. Thus, Christian’s bishopric in Mainz was recognised throughout the Roman Empire but not by Pope Alexander III.381 Considering that the Letter was translated to Latin by Archbishop Christian of Mainz, who was appointed to the bishopric of Mainz in 1165 and not before, it seems that the Letter was composed after 1165. An explanation of how the Letter reached Europe is given in two copies of the Letter from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. They mention that bishop Christian of Mainz was sent to Greece (Byzantium) by the Roman Emperor, and therefore he had brought the Letter with him into Germany (the Teutons’ kingdom).382 This statement matches the fact that Christian of Mainz was not just an archbishop but also a diplomat who knew several languages; that is why he journeyed to Constantinople as an ambassador of the Holy Roman Emperor in 1170.383 Yet, there is no tangible evidence that

Wagner, Epistola Presbiteri Johannis, 247; G. A. Loud, “The German Crusade of 1197-98,” Crusades 13, no. 1 (2014): 134–72; Sheir, The Fief of Tibnin, 93-96. 381 Ferdinand Gregorovius, History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages, trans. Annie Hamilton, vol. 4-2 (London: George Bell and Sons, 1986; repr., Cambridge University Press, 2010); 580, 593, 596, 599, 608-611; Peter Acht, “Christian I,” in Neue deutsche Biographie, vol. 3 (Berlin: Duncker and Humblot, 1957), 226–27. 382 MS. 32 and MS. 85, in Wagner, Epistola Presbiteri Johannis, 41, 69: (Quam maguntinus archiepiscopus, qui tunc erat in grecia a romano imperatore missus, secum attulit in regnum teutonicorum, sciens illam non habere displicere legentibus, eo quod multa refert que sunt admiratione digna); MS. 85: (Descriptio terre presbiteri Johannis. Epistolam hanc Presbiter Johannes rex yndorum, ne admirabilis quantitas terre sue lateret, greciam misit regi grecorum, quam maguntinus archiepiscopus, qui tunc erat in grecia a romano imperatore missus, secum attulit in regnum theotonicorum). 383 Wagner, Epistola Presbiteri Johannis, 247. 380

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Christian of Mainz had carried the Letter from the Byzantine Empire to Germany and translated it into Latin.384 A further exciting clue is that, according to interpolation D, the Letter was written in “our city Bibric.” The same city was mentioned in another instance: “not far from our city of Bibric we had a millhouse without water built, with an oven fitting for our majesty.” 385 This means that Bibric, according to the Letter, was an essential city to the Letter’s writer or translator. Building on that, the Letter translated by Christian of Mainz, the city of Bibric should be a German city mostly located in the district of Mainz. Comparing this city with German cities near Mainz, it seems that it was the city of Biebrich, in the district of Wiesbaden today, located on the Rhine River on the opposite side of the city Mainz.386 This means that this city was subject to the Mainz archbishopric and thus to Emperor Frederick Barbarossa at the time. Though this argument has no substantial evidence, it may give additional weight to the thesis of the translation of the Letter by a German within the German imperial propagandistic prose of the time. It is noteworthy that Rainald of Dassel (d. 1167) was Frederick’s chief propagandist and chancellor, Archbishop of Cologne (1159-67), and one of the significant supporters of Frederick’s policies against Pope Alexander III.387 The legend must have been known at the court of Frederick Barbarossa. Otto of Freising, who first reported the legend in his chronicle, and Christian of Mainz, who translated the Brewer, “Believing in Prester John,” 19 Brewer, “Believing in Prester John,” 81, 91. 386Biebrich was first mentioned in 874 as Villa Biburc, and Emperor Otto III (r. 9961002) granted it to the monastery of Selz in Elsass in 991; see Rolf Faber, “Biebrich, Usingen and Wiesbaden: History and Splendour of Nassau Castle,” in Yearbook of the Rheingau-Taunus-Kreis, vol. 52, 2002, 57–61; Rolf Faber, ed., Biebrich am Rhein. 874–1974. Chronik. Herausgegeben im Auftrag der Arbeitsgemeinschaft 1100 Jahre Biebrich (Wiesbaden: Seyfried, 1974), 1-184. 387 Rainald was appointed as the imperial chancellor in 1156 and was excommunicated affected by Pope Alexander III in 1163. In 1167, he died by a malaria epidemic while taking part in Frederick campaign over Italy. See, Hubertus Seibert,“Rainald von Dassel” in: Neue deutsche Biographie 21 (2003), 119-121; Gregorovius, History of the City of Rome, vol. 4-2, 572-73, 579-81, 589-90; Julius Ficker, Reinald von Dassel : Reichskanzler und Erzbischof von Köln 1156 - 1167. (Köln: 1850; repr., Aalen: Scientia-Verlag, 1966), 1-170. 384 385

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Letter into Latin, were influential persons in the inner circle of the imperial court.388 Consequently, the Prester John Letter might have been initially created as part of the propaganda for the imperial campaigns to diminish papal authority. In the same frame of mind, Hamilton states that the genesis of the Letter should be understood in the manner of that fierce political quarrel between Pope Alexander III and Emperor Frederick I. He thus proposes that the Letter was composed under the direction of Rainald of Dassel at Cologne to employ it in his imperial propaganda.389 Regardless of the actual identity of the Letter’s writer and the fact that the writer’s motive is not readily apparent, it was most likely composed by an active cleric engaged in the political struggle between Frederick Barbarossa and the Pope.390 The dissent between Frederick Barbarossa and Pope Alexander III began when the latter was the counsellor of Pope Adrian IV (r. 1154-59) under his baptised name “Cardinal Roland Bandinelli.”391 Frederick made his descent into Italy in 1154 to secure his coronation as Emperor, moving to Rome, where the new Pope Adrian IV was holding the Papal See. Both Pope Adrian and his advisor Cardinal Roland Bandinelli refused the claims of Frederick to participate in the papal elections.392 Pope Adrian was trying to impose Baum, Die Verwandlungen des Mythos, 124, 126. Hamilton, “Prester John and the Three Kings,” 176-77; Karl J. Leyser, “Frederick Barbarossa and the Hohenstaufen Polity,” Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies 19 (1988): 155. 390 Wagner, Epistola Presbiteri Johannis, 244-53; Henderson, Documents of the Middle Ages, 357-58; Hamilton, “Prester John and the Three Kings,” 176; de Rachewiltz, “Prester John and Europe’s Discovery of East Asia,” 65. 391 For more about Alexander III and his struggle with Barbarossa see; Anne J. Duggan, “Alexander Ille Meus: The Papacy of Alexander III,” in PAAS (London and New York: Routledge, 2016), 13–49; John Doran, “At Last We Reached the Port of Salvation’: The Roman Context of the Schism of 1159,” in PAAS (London and New York: Routledge, 2016), 51–98; Jochen Johrendt, “The Empire and the Schism,” in PAAS (London and New York: Routledge, 2016), 99–126; Johannes Laudage, Alexander III und Friedrich Barbarossa (Köln: Böhilau Verlag, 1997), 123-49. 392 Henderson, Documents of the Middle Ages, 357-58, 410-14, 420-422; Johannes Laudage, Alexander III und Friedrich Barbarossa, 33-82, 123-150, 171-186, 202-222; 388 389

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his superiority over the Roman Emperor, declaring that he gave the imperial crown as a beneficium to Frederick and that the empire was a fief of the Roman Church. Such statements thus provoked the anger of the emperor and his chancellor Rainald of Dassel.393 Furthermore, the encounter between imperial power and the papacy in Italy inflamed the empire-papacy conflict. When Frederick Barbarossa was preparing to attack Italy in 1158, Pope Adrian IV allied with the Byzantine Emperor Manuel Komnenus and King William I of Sicily (r. 1154-66) to support the Lombard cities headed by Milan against Frederick Barbarossa.394 In 1159, Alexander III was elected Pope by most of the cardinals, but Emperor Frederick was on the side of the antipope Cardinal Octavian (known by Victor IV (1159-64).395 When Victor died in 1164, Frederick’s chancellor Rainald of Dassel and other imperial cardinals chose a new antipope, Paschal III (1164-68), as a successor to Victor IV. 396 In 1165, Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and several nobles took an oath at Würzburg never to acknowledge Alexander as Pope.397 Therefore, the Emperor sought to create his imperial political theology, asserting that he held spiritual power directly from God and

Kurt Stadtwald, “Pope Alexander III’s Humiliation of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa as an Episode in Sixteenth-Century German History,” The Sixteenth Century Journal 23, no. 4 (1992): 755–68; Gregorovius, History of the City of Rome, vol. 4-2, 525-26. 393 Hubertus Seibert, “Rainald von Dassel” in: Neue deutsche Biographie 21 (2003), 119-121; Gregorovius, History of the City of Rome, vol. 4-2, 572-73, 579-81, 589-90. 394 Geoffroy of Breuil, “Chronica,” 202; Hamilton, “Prester John and the Three Kings of Cologne,” 176; Gregorovius, History of the City of Rome, vol. 4-2, 555-60. 395 Henderson, Documents of the Middle Ages, 357-358, Duggan, “The Papacy of Alexander III,” 19-21. Laudage, Alexander III und Friedrich Barbarossa, 103-23; Gregorovius, History of the City of Rome, vol. 4-2, 563- 77. 396 Henderson, Documents of the Middle Ages, 357-358, Laudage, Alexander III und Friedrich Barbarossa, 151-54; Hamilton, “Prester John and the Three Kings,” 176; Gregorovius, History of the City of Rome, vol. 4-2, 563- 77; Peter Munz, Frederick Barbarossa. A Study in Medieval Politics (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1969), 236-39; Charles Herbermann, ed., “Paschal III,” in Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 11 (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911), 515–16. 397 Henderson, Documents of the Middle Ages, 357-358, 420-22; Johrendt, “The Empire and the Schism,” 114-15; Laudage, Alexander III und Friedrich Barbarossa, 158-66; Hamilton, “Prester John and the Three Kings of Cologne,” 176. 124

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that he was not subject to the Pope.398 As a result, he demanded from his chancellor, Rainald of Dassel, to transfer the shrine of the three Magi from the Church of St. Eustorgius in Italy,399 which had submitted to Frederick, to the Cathedral of Cologne on 24th July 1164.400 In a Solomonic celebration, Rainald of Dassel moved these holy shrines to Cologne to glorify the archbishop of Cologne and thus the divine might of the Roman Emperor.401 The Magi relics would have attracted the Christian pilgrims to Cologne, which should have lifted Frederick Barbarossa's supremacy. Emperor Frederick sought to design his own caesaropapism in order to prove his supremacy over the Pope. This sort of caesaropapism that Frederick Barbarossa was attempting to build is comparable to the Caesar-papist function of Prester John, who was a king and priest. At Matthew C. Brown, “Plantagenet, the “Three Kings of Cologne” and Theology, Political,” Mediaevistik 30 (2017): 61-85. 399 The bodies of those Three Magi were found in a certain old church near the town of Milan in 1158 and then moved for reinterment in the city. According to the tradition they were brought first in the fourth century to Constantinople by Empress Helena, mother of Emperor Constantine. After establishing churches on the places of the Nativity, Crucifixion and burial of Christ in the Holy Land, she set out a journey to the East and found those holy bones and presented them in a marble casket in the church of St. Sofia in Constantinople. In the mid-fourth century, Eustorgius brought them to Milan. For more details see, William of Newburgh, Historia Rerum Anglorum, vol I, Ch. viii, 104-106; Hugh Mountney, The Three Holy Kings: How They Journeyed from Persia to Cologne and Their Veneration in England (Leominster: Gracewing, 2003), 3-6f. 400 Georg Waitz, Chronica Regia Coloniensis (Annales Maximi Colonienses), MGH. Recusa (Hannover: Impensis Bib. Hahniani, 1880), 114, 115: (A. D. 1164. Imperator iterum in Italiam regreditur. […] Interea domnus Reinoldus Coloniensis electus cum imperatore in Italia degens, super omnes qui aderant principes fidelius ac devocius servivit. Auditoque huius leticiae ac victoriae nuntio, impetrata ab imperatore licentia, cum integritate gratiae eius rediit, acceptis ab eo preciosissimis muneribus, trium scilicet magorum corporibus, qui infantiam Domini misticis muneribus venerati sunt, duobusque martiribus Felice et Nabore, qui cum praedictis magis apud Mediolanum venerabiliter reconditi erant). 401 Geoffroy of Breuil, “Chronica,” 202; Geoffroy discussed the transfer of the Three Magi under the events of 1162 and then referred to their value to the emperor and archbishop of Cologne under the events of 1167 (…Preterea Fredericus corpus Karoli Magni elevans a terra, in capsa aurea infiniti pretii lapidibus decorata collocavit. Extunc auctoritate metropolitani. Coloniensis Aquisgrani solempnitas de eodem cesare augusto orthodoxo sicut de sancto agitur, quae prius fiebat de fideli defuncto…). 398

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the same time, the Letter presents the land of Prester John as an antithesis to western society in the form of utopia and idealism as a kingdom that is privileged and free from vice. The ruler of such a perfect kingdom was a person who had both religious and secular functions, king and priest.402 In this respect, John of Hildesheim (d. 1375), a German Carmelite friar who travelled throughout Europe, penned the story of the Three Kings or the Magi in a biblical form in his Historia Trium Regum. He associated the Three Kings with the legendary priest-king John, claiming that he was a Magi’s descendant.403 Although the association between the Magi and Prester John was mentioned in Otto of Freising’s report of the legend, the story apparently should have become a vital source of more imageries and legendary connections after building the Magis’ cult in Cologne. Here, the story of the Three Magi indicates the supremacy of the kings over the popes, as the image of the secular kings crowning Christ. The Three Magi act as priest-kings, similar to the legendary figure of Prester John. Likewise, it indicates that the authority of the Pope depended upon that of emperors or kings. In all instances, utopian visions were used to support the ideological model of imperial supremacy over the ecclesiastic powers.404 As political and royal symbolism, Frederick Barbarossa aimed to appropriate this symbolism as war propaganda against Pope Alexander III.405

Brewer, “Believing in Prester John,” 12; Kurt, “The search for Prester John,” 19899, 304; Ramos, Essays, 105, 113, 116-27. 403 John of Hildesheim, Three Kings of Cologne : An Early English Translation of the ‘Historia Trium Regum’, ed. Carl Horstmann (London: N. Trübner, 1886), xiii-xiv, xvii-xviii; 138-39; John of Hildesheim, “History of the Three Kings,” in PJLIS, ed. Keagan Brewer (Farnham, Burlington: Ashgate, 2015), 210–11. 404 Hildesheim, Three Kings of Cologne, 137-38; Brown, “Three Kings of Cologne,” 65, 71. 405 After the conflict between Pope Alexander and Frederick I ended, the cult of the Magi did not die out; they remained one of the most distinguished symbols of Christian imperial power in Europe. The Magi tradition was promoted in England under Edward III (r. 1327-77), who used the Magi tradition as strong reasons to appropriate this to increase his dynastic prestige, claiming the royal rights of taxation over church properties. Brown, “Three Kings of Cologne,” 63-65. 402

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Fig. 2. The Holy Three Kings by Johannes von Hildesheim, Historia Trium Regum (c. 1450), British Library Add. Ms. 28752, f. 38r., Dixon, Prester John Legend and European Conceptions, 97.

Following the suggestion of Hamilton, the aim of the Letter’s composition was, therefore, “to show that Frederick’s concept of church-state relations, unlike that of Alexander III, produced harmony in the Christian world, and enabled Christians to unite against the enemies of the faith.”406 This might be why the antipope Paschal III promoted the canonisation of Charlemagne in Aachen, in the Christmas of 1165, and the presence of Frederick Barbarossa.407 Such action was intended to accentuate Frederick Barbarossa’s superiority, Hamilton, “Prester John and the Three Kings,” 177, 180. Brewer, “Believing in Prester John,” 12; Hamilton, “Prester John and the Three Kings,” 177.

406 407

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asserting that he had his own pope, Paschal III, and his kingship as well. His empire now contained the royal shrine of the Three Kings and another royal shrine in honour of Emperor Charlemagne at Aachen. In this way, he created his own caesar-papist domain, which was similar to that of Prester John. Therefore, the kingdom of Prester John mirrored the image of the empire that Barbarossa was seeking to establish.408

Fig. 3. The Front Side of Three Kings Shrine in the Cologne Cathedral. 409 Phillips, Before Orientalism, 47. For more information see; Rolf Lauer, Der Schrein der Heiligen drei Könige (Köln: Kölner Dom, 2006), 1-104; and the official site of the Kölner Dom https://www.koelner-dom.de/bedeutendewerke/dreikoenigenschrein-vorderseiteum-1200-1.

408 409

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Although the Prester John Letter was possibly a mirror of the imperial-papal conflict, it was addressed to the Byzantine Emperor, who was also in a quarrel with Barbarossa. Since 1160, a sort of ‘cold war’ began between Manuel and Frederick, especially after the death of Manuel’s wife, Bertha of Sulzbach (d. 1159), sister-in-law of King Conrad III. In 1166, Manuel Komnenus declared his intention to ally with Alexander III, aiming to restore the Byzantine authority in Italy, especially after the death of the Sicilian king William I in 1166. Further, he proclaimed his consent to unite the Western and Eastern Church.410 For the second time, Pope Alexander received envoys from Emperor Manuel in 1170, who renewed his proposal and demanded to wed his niece to Oddone Frangipane (d. after 1170) – the greatest vassal of the Roman Church. Although the marriage took place, Alexander III did not accept all Byzantine proposals. At the same time, his peace negotiations with Frederick failed. Therefore, the purposes of Frederick Barbarossa in Italy conflicted with both Byzantium and the papacy. For this reason, Manuel sought to ally with Pope Alexander and, at the same time, supported the Lombard league against the Roman Emperor.411 Another reason for enmity between Barbarossa and Manuel is mentioned in the royal chronicle of Cologne which refers – under the events of 1172 – to Ruolandi (Pope Alexander III) and his allies from the Italian cities who desired to put the crown of the Roman Empire on the Greek (Byzantines).412 In short, it seems that the Holy Roman Emperor sought to form his personal imperial-pontifical kingdom, which resembles that of the Kinnamos, Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus, 196-97; Jonathan Harris and Dmitri Tolstoy, ”Alexander III and Byzantium,” in PAAS (London and New York: Routledge, 2016), 301–14; Magdalino, Manuel I Komnenos, 83-88; Gregorovius, History of the City of Rome, vol. 4-2, 575, 577. 411 Waitz, Chronica Regia Coloniensi, 121; Magdalino, Manuel I Komnenos, 83-88; Gregorovius, History of the City of Rome, vol. 4-2, 575, 577, 595-96. 412 Waitz, Chronica Regia Coloniensis, 121; Magdalino, Manuel I Komnenos, 88; (Imperator in media quadragesima apud Wormatiam curiam celebrem habuit; ubi conquestus de Italicis et illis qui partibus favebant Ruolandi, quod coronam Romani imperii Greco imponere vellent, iudicio cunctorum principum expeditionem in Italiam iterum indixit, post circulum duorum annorum determinatam. Qua expeditione Romanis per Coloniensem archiepiscopum divulgata, ei talia rescripserunt), Waitz, Chronica Regia Coloniensis, 121. 410

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ecclesiastical monarchy of Prester John.413 The Prester John Letter formulated a perfect representation for such functions, combining the secular dominion and spiritual power that conflicted with the papal authority in Rome while it was in harmony with the intended imperial purposes of Barbarossa. Prester John identifies such functions to the addressee, Emperor Manuel, as follows: Your prudence ought not to question why our highness does not allow himself to be called by a name more dignified than ‘priest’ [i.e. ‘Prester’ in Prester John]. We have many ministers in our court who, such a great number, with dignified name and office, observe the ecclesiastical dignity, and they are also better provided than us in divine offices. Indeed, our waiter is a noble and a king, our cup-bearer is an archbishop and king, our chamberlain is a bishop and a king, our marshal is a king and archimandrite, the head chef is a king and abbot. And on that account, our highness is not permitted to name himself with the same names or to be distinguished with those ranks with which our court seems to be full, and therefore he chose the greater thing: to be called by a lesser name and a more inferior position on account of humility.414 Considering that the Letter was a part of the imperial propaganda, another sort of propagandistic literature in the circle of the emperor should be compared with the Prester John Letter. For instance, the Gerhardt and Schmid, “Des Presbyters Johannes,” 180-81; Slessarev, Prester John, 37-38. 414 Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 90: (Quare sublimitas nostra digniori quam presbiteratus nomine nuncupari se non permittat, non debet prudentia tua adminari. Plures enim in curia nostra ministeriales habemus, qui digniori nomine et officio, quantum ad ecclesiasticam dignitatem spectat, et etiam maiori quam nos in divinis officiis praediti sunt. Dapifer enim noster primas est et rex, pincerna noster archiepiscopus et rex, camerarius noster episcopus et rex, marescalcus noster rex et archimandrita, princeps cocorum rex et abbas. Et icirco altitudo nostra non est passa se nominari eisdem nominibus aut ipsis ordinibus insigniri, quibus curia nostra plena esse videtur, et ideo minori nomine et inferiori gradu propter humilitatem magis elegit nuncupari), here, 65. 413

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imperial-papal schism was reflected in a ten-verse prophetic text entitled versus angelici finem scismatis venturum declarantes about the end of the division between Pope Alexander and Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. This prophecy is included originally in a fourteenth-century manuscript housed in the British Library under signature number Add. Ms. 22349, from folio 203, col. 2 to the end of folio 207, col.2. The ten verses of this prophecy along with similar prophetic text preserved in Salzburg were edited and published under de fine schismatis vaticinium by Heinrich Boehmer (d. 1927), a German Lutheran theologian and Church historian,415 in MGH in 1897.416 In a single reference to this prophetic text, Keagan Brewer briefly indicated the necessity of discussing this prophetic text and comparing it with the Letter.417 The prophecy seems to have originated in the inner circle of Frederick Barbarossa, as it predicts the downfall of Pope Alexander III, referring to him by his original name Rolandus,418 who was humiliated by the mighty army of the German Emperor. It emphasises the superiority of the emperor and, in contrast, it condemns Pope Alexander III for his engagement in this schism. Furthermore, the text indicates the division between Pope Alexander and the two antipopes, Victor IV and Paschal.419 Further, some of this prophetic text is see, Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz, ‘Böhmer, Heinrich’, in BBKL 1 (1990): 665–66. H. Boehmer, ed., “De Fine Schismatis Vaticinium,” in Libelli de Lite Imperatorum et Pontificum Saeculis XI et XII, MGH, vol. III (Hannover: Impensis Bibliopolii Hahniani, 1897), 561–70 (Dic Cayphe: mercede caput dampnatur alumpni. Salvant et perdunt a a a que sunt Hieremie. In scoriam ruit exitus, egra potencia migrat. Cornua venturi mutilabunt federa thauri. Una dies mortis deponet serta duorum. Celsa ruunt, humili pendet uterque gradus. Interit atque perit quod consonat euphonie. Montibus excedunt onager atque leo. Sydere Pollucis fraternum corruet astrum. Et Babel Archadied perfusa cruore rubebit), here, 566. 417 Brewer, ‘Believing in Prester John,’ 12-13. 418 Boehmer, “De Fine Schismatis,” 568; Brewer , “Believing in Prester John,” 12. 419 Boehmer, “De Fine Schismatis,” 567-68: ( id est Romana sedes vel caput, id est ipsa Roma que est caput mundi, dampnatur mercede alumpni, id est dampnatur a precio, quod suscipit a papis et cardinalibus scisma foventibus sicut dampnatus est ipse Cayphas, qui mercede auri argentique adeptus est pontificium anni illius, quo Dominus passus est.[…] Cuius cornua potencie mutilabunt illa federa scismatis quibus Rolandus cum suis se armavit in sacerdocium et in regnum.[...], quod una die 415 416

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profoundly similar to the imaginative descriptions of the oriental marvels in the Prester John Letter. For instance, the text mirrors the oriental marvels, monsters, and the representation of the glorified society, which are similar to the imaginative anecdotes of the eastern wonders described in the Letter.420 In an analogy between the Pope and the Emperor, the text metaphorically refers to the emperor as a lion, proclaiming that he and his antipope Paschal II suffered patiently from Rolandus (i.e. Pope Alexander III). Further, it points out that the power of the lion expanded beyond all mountains and all dignities.421 In the framework of the Letter, the prophecy reveals an anti-Byzantine attitude notion, reflecting the Roman-Byzantine enmity, as mentioned above. Therefore, this propagandistic text presents the emperor in a caesar-papist form that is profoundly similar to the presentation of Prester John, as king and priest. This enhances the hypothesis that the Letter was initially part of the plans for Frederick’s propaganda campaign to weaken Pope Alexander III.422 Nevertheless, it is not certain that both the Letter and the prophecies were designed only for the above-mentioned goals or even that they were received in this way at that time by the medieval audiences. In any case, the originator of the Letter was presumably a cultured individual with a background in deponentur ambo et una die morientur ambo, et potestas eorum morietur deposita ab omni concilio tocius catholice ecclesie; arbitramur enim veniente domino imperatore in Ytaliam convocari omnem ordinem ecclesiasticum et tunc in gladio verbi Dei et sententia totius ecclesie illos duos papas, per quos scisma irrepsit, a suo papatu deponent,...). 420 Boehmer, “De Fine Schismatis,” 569-70; Brewer , “Believing in Prester John,” 1213. 421 Boehmer, “De Fine Schismatis,” III, 569-70: (…, dicunt eundem Paschalem, qui modo cuncta pacienter tolerat, donec Rolandus, qui ipsum urget et verberat, de medio fiat. Per leonem imperatorem significari autumant. Dicit ergo, quod onager, id est papa Pascalis, atque leo, id est imperator Fridericus, excedunt id est supereminent omnibus montibus, id est omnibus dignitatibus, omnibus regibus et principibus Romani imperii supervadunt. […], imperiali inquam armorum robore contrita corruet et a propria luce sue potestatis qua dudum lucebat in obscuritatis mirabiles tenebras contrito regno Grecorum deveniet. [...]. Ibi enim Romanus et Theutonicus, barbarus et Grecus, inter se pugnabunt, quorum neuter neutrum intelliget; et tanta erit imperialis gladii furentis debachacio...). 422 Hamilton, “The Three Kings,” 176-78, 181; Brewer, “Believing in Prester John,” 13. 132

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Greek and Latin literature, who was aware of the political situation in Western Europe, the crusader states, and the Byzantine Empire.423 After such a long contest, Pope Alexander, with the support of the Lombard cities, defeated Frederick I in the Battle of Legnano on 29th May 1176.424 Frederick was thus forced to recognise Alexander III as the rightful Pope and signed the peace treaty of Venice with Alexander in 1177.425 Barbarossa reconciled with Alexander III in Venice on 24th July 1177, showing him the required honorary services and recognised him as a legitimately elected Pope.426 In the same year, Pope Alexander III wrote a letter to that unseen Prester John. 5. THE LETTER OF POPE ALEXANDER III TO PRESTER JOHN IN 1177 Two months after the treaty of Venice, probably on 27th September 1177, Pope Alexander III wrote a letter to the alleged Prester John.427 At the beginning of his letter, Pope Alexander introduces himself as “Bishop Alexander, servant of the servants of God,” sending his greetings to John, the “illustrious and magnificent king of the Indians.” Still, Pope Alexander shows his supremacy and the sovereignty of the Roman Church over all Christians and Christian kings. Moreover, the Pope indicates that the person who sat on the Papal See of Rome is the successor of the blessed St. Peter, who Silverberg, The Realm of Prester John, 47; De Rachewiltzy, Papal Envoys to the Great Khans, 35-36; Ross, “Prester John and the Empire of Ethiopia,” 179. 424 Henderson, Documents of the Middle Ages, 357-359, 420-430; Duggan, “The Papacy of Alexander III,” 24-25, for more about the battle of Legnano see, Paolo Grillo, Legnano 1176. una Battaglia per la Libertà (Italy: Laterza, 2010), 157-63. 425 Doeberl, Monumenta Germaniae Selecta, iv, 243-247; Johrendt, “The Empire and the Schism,” 122-25; Laudage, Alexander III und Friedrich Barbarossa, 202-21. 426 Doeberl, Monumenta Germaniae Selecta, iv, 243-247; Henderson, Documents of the Middle Ages, 425-30; Thomas F. Madden, “Alexander III and Venice,” in PAAS (London and New York: Routledge, 2016), 334-39; Gregorovius, History of the City of Rome, vol. 4-2, 578-602. 427 Papa Alexander III, “Epistola ad Iohannem, Regem Indorum,” in PJLIS (Farnham, Burlington: Ashgate, 2015), 92-96; Friedrich Zarncke, “Der Brief des Papstes Alexanders III den Priester Johannes,” PJMTLT (Aldershot: Variorum, 1996), 10312; Röhricht, RRH, 145:544; Roger of Hoveden, The Annals of Roger de Hoveden (732-1201), ed. Henery T. Riley, vol. 1 (London: H.G. Bohn, 1853), 491-93. 423

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founded the Church of Rome by the will and blessing of the Christ:428 And as St. Peter founded the Roman Church’s rock, it would not be rocked by any winds or storms.429 Pope Alexander’s letter shows the divine supremacy of the Pope, giving a full explanation of the office of the successor of St. Peter in the Roman Church.430 It seems that Pope Alexander used this letter to prove that there was only one Pope for the Christians, who was himself in Rome, and that he was the head of all Christians on the earth.431 Pope Alexander then tells Prester John that he heard about him through several reports, rumours and also from Master Philip, Alexander’s physician and familiar, who out of pious intention and your proposition, relates that he had a word with the honourable men of John’s kingdom […], constantly and anxiously reported to us that he has heard from these men, that it is of your wish and proposition to be instructed in the Catholic and Apostolic doctrines, […] so that you and your land, having been united to the highest, may never be seen to hold your faith that which dissents from or is in any way at variance with the doctrine of the papal seat. […]. Indeed, he, who declared himself to be a Christian, is not in agreement in word and deed with this same declaration cannot truly hope for salvation, because it is not enough for anyone to be thought of as a Christian in name, […], but this nevertheless comes near to a commendation of your virtue, because, just as the aforesaid Master Philip asserts that he heard from your men that you wanted with fervent desire to have a church in the city, and an altar in Jerusalem, where virtuous men of your kingdom may abide, and be more fully educated in Apostolic doctrines after these Matthew 16.19: (You are Peter [Petrus], and on this rock [petram] I will build my church, and the doors of Hell will not prevail against it). 429 Papa Alexander III, “Epistola,” 94; Zarncke, “Der Brief des Papstes Alexanders III,” 109; Roger of Hoveden, Annals, vol. 1, 491. 430 Doran, “At Last We Reached the Port of Salvation,” in PAAS, 51. 431 Papa Alexander III, “Epistola,” 94; Zarncke, “Der Brief des Papstes Alexanders III,” 109; Hamilton, “Prester John and the Three Kings,” 182-83. 428

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things have been done, you and the men of your kingdom will be able to receive and hold that doctrine easily.432 In the rest of the Letter, Alexander shows his pious intentions for the salvation of Prester John and his men, calling them to believe in the Christian Catholic faith. He then declares that he sends Master Philip to him, despite the many difficulties he might face, through various dangers, different places, through barbarous and unknown languages. For better knowledge of Prester John's authenticity, Pope Alexander asked him to honour and give gracious hospitality to his envoy, Master Philip, and to send with him some of his honest subjects and letters signed with his seal. In that way, Pope Alexander can learn more about the reality of Prester John and his kingdom, ending his message with his wishes to move forward to make the souls of Prester John and his men “profit in the Lord.”433 Two copies of Alexander III's letter mention that the letter was sent from Venice, “on the 5th of the kalends of October,” i.e., on 27th September. However, it is complicated to definite an exact addressing date for the pope's letter.434 Zarncke, therefore, dates the letter to the 27th of September 1177, which is broadly accepted among scholars. Papa Alexander III, “Epistola ad Iohannem,” 94-95; Zarncke, “Der Brief des Papstes Alexanders III,” 109-10; Roger of Hoveden, Annals, 491-92 (Audiveramus utique iampridem referentibus multis et etiam fama communi, [..]. Sed et dilectus filius noster, magister Philippus, medicus et familiaris noster, qui de intentione pia et proposito tuo cum magnis et honorabilibus viris tui regni se in partibus illis verbum habuisse proponit […],sicut vir providus et discretus, circumspectus et prudens, constanter nobis et sollicite retulit, se manifestius ab his audivisse, quod tuae voluntatis sit et propositi erudiri catholica et apostolica disciplina, [...] ut tu et terra tuae sublimitati commissa nil unquam videamini in fide vestra tenere, quod a doctrina sedis apostolicae dissentiat quomodolibet vel discordet. [...] non enim vere potest de christiana professione sperare salutem, qui eidem professioni verbo et opere non concordat, quia non sufficit cuilibet nomine christiano censeri, [...], Illud autem nichilominus ad commendationem tuae virtutis accedit, quod, sicut praedictus magister Philippus se a tuis asserit audivisse, ferventi desiderio cuperes in urbe habere ecclesiam, et Jerusalem altare aliquod, ubi viri prudentes de regno tuo manere possent et apostolica plenius instrui disciplina, per quos postmodum tu et homines regni tui doctrinam ipsam reciperent facilius et tenerent,…), Papa Alexander III, “Epistola ad Iohannem,” 92-93. 433 Papa Alexander III, “Epistola,” 95-96; Roger of Hoveden, Annals, 492-93. 434 Papa Alexander III, “Epistola,” 96; Zarncke, “Der Brief des Papstes Alexanders,” 106-107, 112. 432

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Zarncke matched the date mentioned above with Pope Alexander’s movements, noting that the Pope was in Venice on 27th September in 1177. Building on this thesis, Zarncke dates the letter of Pope Alexander to the same date.435 Dating the letter by the contemporaneous annals shows slight variations. The Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi by Roger of Hoveden (d. 1201) mentions the letter of Pope Alexander III to Prester John under the year 1178, the year of grace and the twenty-fourth year of King Henry II.436 Roger of Hoveden is known as one of the few authentic chroniclers of that time and was the principal chronicler and historian of the reigns of Henry II of England (r. 1151-1189) and Richard I (r. 1189-1199). Roger’s chronicle consists of two parts, the Gesta Henrici II and Chronica/Annales. The Gesta, part of Abbot Benedict of Peterborough’s library, includes Roger’s Annales from 1169 to 1192. While he was writing the Gesta, he began writing the Chronica, probably in 1192.437 The Chronicle Flores Historiarum dates Alexander III’s letter to December 1181, saying that Pope Alexander invited King John of India to be instructed in the Catholic and apostolic doctrine.438 The Flores Historiarum is a Latin chronicle composed by different medieval English chroniclers, covering the history of England from the creation until 1326. The first Flores Historiarum, known as Wendover's Flores Historiarum, compiled by the St. Abbey English chronicler, Roger of Wendover (d. 1236), presents chronological narratives from the creation up to 1235. The second Flores Zarncke, “Der Brief des Papstes Alexanders,” 107. Roger of Hoveden, Annals, 470. 491-93; William Stubbas, ed., Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi Benedicti Abbatis (The Chronicle of the Reigns of Henry II and Richard I 1169-11192, vol. I. (London: Longmans, 1867), 210-212. 437 David Corner, “The Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi and Chronica of Roger, Parson of Howden,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 56 (1983): 126–44; Doris Mary Stenton, “Roger of Howden and „Benedict“,” The English Historical Review 68 (1953): 574–81; Lisa M. Ruch, “Roger of Hoveden,” in Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle, ed. Dunphy Graeme and Christian Bratu, 2020, http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2213-2139_emc_SIM_02208. 438 Henricus O. Coxe, ed., Rogeri de Wendover Chronica, sive Flores Historiarum, vol. II (London: Sumptibus Societatis, 1841), 398; for the English edition see, J.A. Giles, ed., Roger of Wendover’s Flowers of History, vol. II (London: Henry G. Born, 1849), 50. 435 436

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Historiarum more broadly covers history from the creation to 1326 and is composed by various writers. It is known as Paris's Flores Historiarum. It was attributed to Matthew of Westminster, an imaginary author to whom scribes attributed the work since the last part of the chronicle was written in Westminster. At the same time, most of it mirrored the history of Matthew Paris (d. 1259). For this reason, this Matthew of Westminster was most likely the well-known English Benedictine chronicler Matthew Paris,439 who also dates the letter to the year 1181 in his principle chronicle, Chronica Majora.440 Additionally, since Alexander’s source of information varies between popular rumours and the account of Master Philip, this indicates that Alexander had not read the Prester John Letter. Pope Alexander wrote to Prester John building on the rumours that he had heard about Prester John’s kingdom, and not as a reply to the Prester John Letter. Yet, the letter of Pope Alexander does not mean that all Europeans and Catholics at this time believed in the existence of Prester John.441 Pope Alexander III seems unsure of exactly who Prester John is or what his intentions are at that moment, which might mean that Pope Alexander III did not give credence to the boastful Letter ascribed to Prester John in circulation. This might explain why this legend was not included in Pope Alexander’s registers. 442 As a piece of evidence that Pope Alexander did not know the Prester John Letter, he neither quoted any sentences from it nor showed his interest in St. Thomas, whose body rested in the land of Prester John, as the Letter mentioned. Moreover, Pope Alexander calls Prester John “Iohannes,” the “illustrious and magnificent king of the Indians,” or in another variant “Iohannes,” “most holy priest,” and not

C.D. Yonge, trans., The Flowers of History: Especially Such as Relate to the Affairs of Britain from the Beginning of the World to the Year 1307, vol. I (London: H. G. Bohn, 1853), i-ii; Giles, Roger of Wendover, vol. I, v-viii; 3; Richard Vaughan, Matthew Paris (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958), 92-109. 440 Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, ed. Henry R. Luard, vol. II (London: Longman and Co., 1874), 316-317. 441 Papa Alexander III, “Epistola,” 92, 94; Brewer, “Believing in Prester John,”11,13. 442 Hilāl, al-Maghūl wa Ūrubbā, 22; de Rachewiltzy, Papal Envoys to the Great Khans, 19-20. 439

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“Presbiter Iohannes” as the Prester John Letter had named him.443 If Alexander had read the Letter, he would then indeed have called him “Presbiter Iohannes.”444 Furthermore, Pope Alexander’s letter differs, in style and contextualisation, from other twelfth-century popes’ letters to eastern Christians, as he provides information and details markedly.445 Hamilton argues that this letter was not addressed at all to an eastern Christian monarch whom Pope Alexander poorly identified as Prester John but to “the faithful of the West” who might have read and been misled by the Prester John Letter.446 Likewise, Alexander’s letter can also be read in the manner of the papal response to the long struggle (ca. 1154-77) between the papacy and Frederick Barbarossa. It reveals that the Pope was never defeated, and all kings obeyed him as Barbarossa himself did in July 1177. In this context, Hamilton suggested that the letter of Prester John was a piece of imperial propaganda. Alexander’s letter was likewise a reply in the frame of papal propaganda. Alexander’s letter was composed after arranging the practical details of the peace with Emperor Frederick on 27th September 1177. Consequently, Alexander’s letter emphasises that the king of the Indians, Prester John, who had shown “caesar-papist tendencies,” had now also agreed to be instructed in the Catholic faith following Pope Alexander, the only successor of St. Peter at that time.447 Throughout the long schism between the empire and the papacy, Pope Alexander’s diplomatic conversation was more or less firm according to the changing conditions of the time. Thus, Pope Alexander’s diplomacy can be called “the topdressing of the papal Papa Alexander III, “Epistola,” 94; Brewer, “Believing in Prester John,” 14; Zarncke, “Der Brief des Papstes Alexanders,” 109 :( Alexander episcopus, servus servorum Dei, karissimo in Christo filio Iohanni, illustri et magnifico Indorum regi,…), Papa Alexander III,“Epistola ad Iohannem,” 92, and (Iohannes, sacerdotum sanctissimo) in Zarncke, “Der Brief des Papstes Alexanders III,” 109, n. d. 444 Brewer, “Believing in Prester John,” 14. 445 For example, see the Papacy correspondences with the rulers of Cilicia, Bernard Hamilton, “The Armenian Church and the Papacy at the Time of the Crusades,” in Christendom, The Eastern Mediterranean Frontier of Latin, ed. Jace Stuckey (London: Routledge, 2008), 163–89, originally published in, Eastern Churches Review, no. 10 (1973), 61-87. 446 Hamilton, “Prester John and the Three Kings,” 184. 447 Hamilton, “Prester John and the Three Kings,” 182-84. 443

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administration,” depending on his ability to serve the universal spiritual, administrative and legislative aspects of the Roman Church.448 That is why his letter to Prester John appears to have been written in the frame of Alexander’s purpose to spread his universal supremacy over Christians, in the form of a diplomatic and spiritual message after the end of the schism in 1177. In this framework, Alexander III’s letter could be read in the broader manner of his diplomatic and peaceful strategies, especially after the peace of Venice in July 1177. Many letters of Alexander III to western kings or bishops commenced by such words that show the pious intentions and peaceful purposes of Pope Alexander alongside the universal supremacy of the Catholic Church.449 Alexander III mostly introduced himself in the letters he addressed to others in the same way he did in his letter to Prester John. He was never more than a servant of the servants of God and the unworthy successor of the blessed St. Peter.450 This was the same title Alexander gave himself in his letter to Prester John: The papal seat, over which we preside, although [we are] unworthy, is the head and mistress of all those who believe in Christ, with the Lord bearing witness, He who said to blessed Peter, to whom were are successor, although we are unworthy.451 One can assume that Pope Alexander III addressed this letter to advertise his universal peace and so his spiritual dominance, preparing for the Third Lateran Council, the eleventh general council, in Rome in 1179. As a piece of evidence, Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi, as a pre-introduction to the letter of Pope Alexander, states that Pope Alexander sent his messengers, at that time of peace, to all nations who were subjected to the Apostolic See, inviting them to the council Duggan, “The Papacy of Alexander III,” 36-37. See; Roger of Hoveden, Annals, vol 1, 460-61, 469, 476 450 J. P. Migne, PL (Patrologia Latina), cc, 18, 28, 60, 174-7, quoted in: Duggan, “The Papacy of Alexander III,” 45: (in apostolice sedis specula licet immeriti constitute), Pl, cc, 174-7. 451 Papa Alexander III, “Epistola,” 92: (Apostolica sedes, cui licet immeriti praesidemus, omnium in Christo credentium caput est et magistra, domino attestante, qui ait beato Petro, cui licet indigni successimus…), here 94. 448 449

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that was expected (i.e. the Lateran Council of 1179). He also sent a message to Prester John, king of India.452 Nevertheless, in this Lateran Council, Pope Alexander III mentioned nothing regarding Prester John and his Christian kingdom. However, several canons of the Council reinforced the supremacy of the papacy and the Latin Catholic Church, recognising anyone who might ignore the domination of the papacy and the Church of Rome as a heretic.453 Hence, by ignoring Prester John, the Lateran Council of 1179 seemingly confirms that the Pope did not receive any evidence from the alleged Prester John to justify his presence and authority over the Orient. It also seems that Alexander III was aware that the kingdom of Prester John was fabricated propaganda. However, it is also reasonable to believe that Rome saw Prester John as a Nestorian Christian, i.e., a heretic according to the standards of the Latin Catholic Church, but that it nevertheless expected Prester John to assist the Latin West to overcome the Muslims.454 This conveys the notion that the papacy wanted to send a message of supremacy over the Christian world, including the Nestorians and the mysterious Prester John. It was also a pointed message of the Church’s dominion over secular rulers, such as Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and that unknown eastern King John. 6. THE TWO LETTERS BETWEEN RECEPTION AND PERCEPTION After Alexander III’s letter in 1177, Prester John and his kingdom disappeared from the sources until his figure appeared again as a part of the Fifth Crusade’s propaganda. Therefore, it is difficult to measure Stubbas, Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi, vol. 1, 210: (Eodem autein tempore Alexander summus pontifex gratias Summae Trinitati persolvens, quod tempore suo pax ecclesiae reddita esset, misit nuncios suos per universas gentium nationes, sedi apostolicae subjectas, et invitavit cos ad concilium praedictum. Misit etiam nuncium suum ad Presbyterum Joliannem, regem Indorum;...). 453 Henry Joseph Schroeder, Disciplinary Decrees of the General Council: Texts, Translation, and Commentary (London: B. Herder Book Co., 1937), 214-235; Anne J. Duggan,“Master of the Decretals : A Reassessment of Alexander III’s Contribution to Canon Law,” in PAAS (London and New York: Routledge, 2016), 411-16. 454 Taylor, “Waiting for Prester John,” 12. 452

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the degree of belief or disbelief in Prester John during this period. However, some contemporary sources discussed the Prester John Letter, illustrating how they received it or if they believed or disbelieved it. Others addressed the Pope’s letter showing their perception and understanding of it. 6.1. Prester John Letter between Circulation and Reception This Letter and its fabled constructions provide an essential look into the crusade movement, presenting Prester John in biblical symbolism that fastened his prose securely to the Latin and crusader imagination tradition. The vivid evocation of the vast distant kingdom given in the Letter would have met the Latin yearning for the exotic and fantastic lands that were ruled by a Christian king, whose realm was a spiritual homeland of these eastern Christians.455 The fifteenth-century French printed version of the Letter presents Prester John as a true Christian who upheld the Trinity: “we let you know that we worship and believe in Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost, three persons in one deity and one True God Only.”456 Therefore, Prester John as a Christian king “was a shining model” for the western and crusader rulers.457 Michael Uebel writes that the Letter was a medieval bestseller- [which] signals its function in the imaginary as a composite symbolic object, one that, along with the stories that circulated with it, was enlisted alternately to affirm and to block off otherness. The Letter served a compensatory fantasy, an imaginary completion of the politico-libidinal work left undone by the loss of Edessa in 1144 and the ruin of the Second Crusade in 1149.458 In the context of the response of the contemporary chronicles to the Letter, it seems that it was accepted as a factual document by some Phillips, Before Orientalism, 48-49; Renz, “Das Priesterkönigreich des Johannes,” 240-41; Gerhardt and Schmid, “Brief des Presbyters Johannes,” 178, 180. 456 Slessarev, Prester John, 67. 457 Phillips, Before Orientalism, 48-49. 458 Uebel, “The Pathogenesis of Medieval History,” 55. 455

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and as a mixture of wonders, imaginations or untrue facts by others.459 For instance, Geoffroy of Breuil mentioned the Prester John figure in a manner of humility, as mentioned above. In addition, in his notice of the most powerful kings in the world at his time, Geoffroy placed Prester John in the first position, Manuel in the second place and Frederick Barbarossa in the third, which seems that he believed in the might of Prester John. The chronicle seems to discuss the Letter in an actual diplomatic document.460 In contrast, a credulous author like Gerald of Wales (d. 1223), who was a senior ecclesiastical officer in the Church and a historian who presented many wonders, writes of the priest-king John with scepticism regarding his power.461 Gerald refers to Prester John as a false figure who was supposed to be a powerful eastern king and priest. In a minor metaphorical indication, he referred to Prester John as an example of arrogance and superciliousness.462 Furthermore, the thirteenth-century chronicler Alberic de Trois penned various aspects of the Prester John legend. He not only included the Letter and the Pope’s text in his chronicle but also associated Prester John with the Mongols.463 He seemed here to have believed in the reality of the Prester John figure, presenting his Letter in the manner of a real diplomatic text that Prester John sent to 459

Brewer, “Believing in Prester John.” 13.

460 Geoffroy of Breuil, “Chronica,” 202 (Regum nomina nostris qui temporibus imperant

orbi modo describam. Primo loco precelsus ille ponatur Iohannes, [...] Secundo loco idem Emanuel Grecorum imperator. Tertio loco rex Italiae Fredericus nominatur, successor neposque Conradi, Romani imperii diademate clarus…). 461 See: Gerald of Wales, “The Topography of Ireland; Its Miracles and Wonders,” in The Historical Works of Giraldus Cambrensis, ed. Thomas Wright, trans. Thomas Forester (London and New York: George Bell and Sons, 1894), 1–164; Gerald of Wales, “The Itinerary through Wales and the Description of Wales,” in the Historical Works of Giraldus Cambrensis, ed. Thomas Wright, trans. Richard Colt Hoare (London and New York: George Bell and Sons, 1894), 325-522; Brewer, Wonder and Skepticism, 36, 97. 462 Brewer, Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, 425: “Solebat etenim a privatis suis multoties inquirere, utrum unquam audissent de aliquo, qui simul rex fuerit et sacerdos; et tunc exemplum eis de presbytero Johanne, qui Orientalium rex erat atque sacerdos, proponere consueverat, arroganter in hunc modum innuens idem de se fore futurum.” 463 Further discussion of Prester John association with the Mongols by Alberic will be discussed below under chapter 6. 142

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“diverse kings of Christendom.”464 Furthermore, a French version of the Letter mentions that it was addressed to Frederick, the Emperor of Rome, the thesis that matches the statement of Alberic de Trois that the Letter was addressed to various Christian kings. Slessarev suggests here that Frederick “was also a recipient of the Letter in the paraphrased version.” Instead, it might mean that the Letter was paraphrased based on the Latin version and addressed to Emperor Frederick. Nevertheless, it is not precisely clear here if the addressee is Frederick I Barbarossa or his grandson Emperor Frederick II (r. 1215-1250), as this French translation is supposed to have originated during the second part of the thirteenth century.465 It is also interesting that the Letter has been preserved in several Russian and Slavonic versions containing Tales of the Indian Kingdom that Veselovskii published in 1181. In the original Slavonic version of the Tale and the Letter, which was probably translated from a Latin version in the thirteenth century, the Letter appears as an answer from Prester John to Manuel Komnenus, commencing with a description of the Byzantine embassy to Prester John.466 As a result, the views reflected in such textual sources might reveal the dilemma of believing and disbelieving in the Letter and also the legend in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. The Letter appears through a massive number of manuscripts in the twelfth and thirteenth century that doubled in the subsequent centuries, which could be another factor to measure the scope of its reception and dissemination.467 According to a comprehensive study of the Letter’s manuscripts, Bettina Wagner put forward a chronological, literary and geographical tradition of the Letter in medieval Europe. She found out that from the second half of the twelfth century onwards, the Letter was first spread in northern France and southern Germany as a core of the literary activity in the Latin monastic area. In this light, Wagner put forward that fifteen percent of the surviving manuscripts of the Letter were Alberic de Trois-Fontaines, “Chronicon,” 849, Brewer, “Alberic de Trois,” 146. Slessarev, Prester John, 57-58 466 A. A. Vasiliev, “Prester John and Russia,” ed. W. F. Ryan, in PJMTLT (Aldershot: Variorum, 1996), 187-96. 467 Brewer, “Believing in Prester John,” 10. 464 465

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created in the second half of the twelfth century and that the oldest text redactions came from southern Germany.468 Likewise, some Letter texts seem to have circulated in south England and BavarianAustrian regions at the time.469 In a statistical calculation for the Letter’s manuscripts in the twelfth and thirteenth century, Brewer concluded that the Letter survives in twenty-five manuscripts from the twelfth century, six from the twelfth/thirteenth century, twenty-five from the thirteenth century, and sixteen versions from the thirteenth/fourteenth centuries.470 Although the Letter was widespread throughout Europe, the belief in it was mostly regarded with doubt. A piece of interesting evidence, Brewer argues, according to an analysis of the manuscripts’ marginalia, is that most of the Letter’s manuscripts call it “letter,” or “book,” or sometimes “history/story,” or “description of the region of India.”471 Further, most of the copies reproduced the same unusual marvels as a description of India.472 Although some scribes affirmed the marvels in the Letter, others did not believe them473 and added that it was of “uncertain authorship.”474 The figure of Prester John, without the Letter, was discussed in a range of texts, chronicles and particularly in travel accounts. The Letter appears only in a few contemporaneous historical works, suggesting that it was mostly regarded as an unhistorical work.475 However, the Letter created a moral utopia for Prester John, his land Wagner, Epistola Presbiteri Johannis, 235-36, 238-240, 244-53; Helleiner, “Prester John’s Letter: A Medieval Utopia,” 47. 469 Wagner, Epistola Presbiteri Johannis, 235-36, 238-240, 244-53. 470 Brewer, “Latin Manuscripts by Date,” in PJLIS, 312. 471 Brewer, “Believing in Prester John,” 18, Appendices I and 3, in PJLIS, 273-98, 22123: the Letter described, according to the manuscripts, as Epistola/Littera in 101 copies, Historia in eight versions, Liber in eight copies and with no specified in 84 manuscripts; see, “The Letter’s Genre,” in PJLIS, 315. 472 MS. 86, in Wagner, Epistola Presbiteri Johannis, 69: (incipit Textus Epistole quem misit presbiter Johannes de India [...]inter alia continens de diuresis mirabilibus Indie. Lege feliciter et audies mirabilia mundi). 473 MS. 120, in Wagner, Epistola Presbiteri Johannis, 88-89: (Incipit sermo incredibilis), 474 MS. 91, in Wagner, Epistola Presbiteri Johannis, 72: (Tractatus de potentia Iohannis Indiarum […]. Auctor incerti nominis). 475 Brewer, “Believing in Prester John.” 17. 468

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and his Christian people, which would have been attractive for a range of medieval audiences, both laymen, pilgrims and clerics. He was used as a propaganda mechanism and appeared in fictional literature to model the ideal moral society.476 An exciting instance here is that Prester John is described in explicitly biblical terms like “lord of lords by the power and virtue of God and our Jesus Christ,” and that in his land is the river Ydonus (the Indus) with its source in Paradise. The Letter also emphasises the gentleness of Prester John, who welcomed all foreign guests and pilgrims; it also highlights that there were no thieves, plunderers, liars, as well as no sycophants, vices or divisions among them.477 In respect of the entertainment value, Kim Phillips has stated that the value of the Letter went beyond both crusading and propagandistic purposes. She has argued that a late thirteenth-century copy of the Letter in Oxford (Bodleian MS Digby 86) reveals the entertainment value of the Letter. This manuscript includes romances, fabliaux, games, tricks and devotional works, charms, humorous lyrics, prayers, medical recipes and various products for removing undesired spirits from house. Such widely cheerful content should be read in the way of an entertainment price of the Letter at the time.478 Such cheerful aspects might have been based on the Letter’s description of the legendary craters and mysterious construction of the Prester John kingdom. The Letter describes the gems, crystal, beards, animals, stones and savages, unclean spirits, wise men and gold stones.479 It is clear here that the Letter found a sort of popularity among western audiences in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Through simple statistical calculation, it appears that about 100 copies of the Letter have been found in the German-speaking areas: Germany, Austria and Switzerland.480 Furthermore, until the fifteenth century,

Phillips, Before Orientalism, 47-48; Brewer, “Believing in Prester John,” 17. Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 67, 71, 76; Zarncke, “Priester Johannes,” Abh.1 909, 912, 915-16; Renz, “Das Priesterkönigreich des Johannes,” 242-43; Knefelkamp, Die Suche nach dem Reich des Priesterkönigs Johannes, 40. 478 Phillips, Before Orientalism, 47. 479 Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri,” 69-72; Zarncke, “Priester Johannes,” Abh, 1, 910-13. 480 See the list of the Letter’s Manuscripts in Brewer, ‘Appendix 2,’ in PJLIS, 299- 311; Wagner, Epistola, 21-131; Baum, Die Verwandlungen des Mythos, 353-63. 476 477

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the Letter’s distribution and writing were mainly in monasteries,481 which might explain the religious and literary aspect of the Letter, particularly in Germany. Therefore, this reveals that the Letter might have been considered a medieval German literary piece, reproduced and reconstructed in different fictional forms.

Fig. 4. Prester John in his earthly-paradisiacal kingdom of which Feirefiz tells his half-brother Parzival about the Holy Grail in India; Abb. 1. München, BSB; Cgm 8470 (Albrechts, Jüngerer Titurel), fol. 257v. 482

481

Wagner, Epistola, 268.

482 A color copy of this folio is attached to the internal cover of Bettina Wagner’s edition,

Epistola Presbiteri Johannis.

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As a piece of compelling evidence, Wolfram von Eschenbach (d. ca. 1221) associated Prester John with the Holy Grail in his medieval German epic poem Parzival, most likely written between 1200 and 1201. Wolfram tells the story of Parzival, who was a knight in King Arthur's court until his ultimate achievement being the king of Grail, which is “a life-giving Stone, “as Wolfram describes. In this literacy piece, Wolfram states that Feirefiz, the half-brother of Parzival, born the pagan son of Parzival's father, converted to Christianity and married the Grail bearer Repanse de Schoye. The text describes Feirefiz returning to the East with his bride, having received a son called Prester John, whose subsequent successors will preach Christianity throughout the Indian lands. In what follows, Prester John is described as a worthy and wealthy king, known in Heaven by his invincible authority and great virtue. The Prester John's palace, throne and other features were mingled with the Grail king and his castle. The Parzival manuscript tradition held great popularity in the Middle Ages.483 Likewise, in the thirteenth century, the poetic work “Jüngeren Titurel” by Albrecht (d. after 1270), as a continuation of the Parzival, presents the Letter designed in the form of a speech delivered by Feirefiz when the Grail arrives in India. Here, the aim of Feirefiz’s speech was to inform the members of the Grail family about the ruling system and living conditions in their new host country. Further, the text says that the construction of the palace was based on the pattern of the St. Thomas tradition, which includes the Priest-king, who was John the Pagan and converted by St. Thomas. He also includes King Gondophares, for whom St. Thomas designed a palace with Quasideus, the father of the priest John. Albrecht includes appropriate

Michaela Schmitz, Der Schluss des Parzival Wolframs von Eschenbach (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2012), 17, 24-27, 45-46, 152, 155, 168, 175-84; Arthur Edward Waite, The Holy Grail: History, Legend, and Symbolism (Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, 2006), 17-21, 286-87, 554-56; Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival, trans. A. T. Hatto (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1980), 402–8; Hermann Jantzen, Wolfram von Eschenbach Parzival: Eine Auswahl mit Anmerkungen und Wörterbuch, ed. Herbert Kolb, 4th ed. (Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1973), 4-11, 96-102.

483

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spiritual content from the Letter, which might have been intended for his thirteenth-century audience.484 6.2. The Perception of Pope Alexander’s Letter Alexander’s letter appeared in various chronicles, often accompanied by notes that reveal perceptions of the authors or the readers.485 It also serves as an exemplar of the pontifical perception of the Prester John Letter. It reflects a different image of the Indian king John, to whom the Pope addressed critical words. The power and the secular and spiritual self-sufficiency of Prester John were seen as threats to Pope Alexander’s supremacy, such that the Pope attempted to learn more about his possible competitor through the supposed letter that he sent in 1177.486 Medieval contemporaries took the letter of Alexander at face value, regardless of its original circumstances. For instance, The Flores Historiarum points out that Master Philip was initially an envoy of Prester John to Pope Alexander III. It says that this letter expressed the hope of establishing a union between Eastern and Western churches- “being of one belief in all things in the Catholic faith.487 In the same way, Alberic de Trois mentions the letter of Alexander under the year 1170, stating that the same Pope had ordained bishop Philip. This Philip had been sent across to the Roman Pope by the same Prester John.”488 Hence, Alberic de Trois identifies Master Wagner, Epistola Presbiteri Johannis, 549-50, 554-74; Schmitz, Der Schluss des Parzival Wolframs von Eschenbach, 15, 29, 60-61, 127, 130-33, 151, 169-70, 199200, 209-10; Julia Zimmermann, “Widersprüche und Vereindeutigungen–die Epistola Presbiteri Johannis und Ihre Rezeptionim Jüngeren Titurel,” Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik 39 (2009): 145–63. 485 Brewer, “Believing in Prester John,” 16. 486 Wagner, Epistola Presbiteri Johannis, 251. 487 Henry Richards Luard, ed., Flores Historiarum, vol. II: 1067-1264 (London: Rolls House, 1890), 92-93: (Anno gratiae MCLXXXI […]. Eodem tempore scripsit Papa Alexander Johanni presbitero, regi indorum, epistolam eleganter ut unirentur effecti per Omina concordes in fide catholica. Quod et idem Johannes antea postulaverat per epistolam suam, et per nuntium suum proprium, scillicet Philippum medicum). 488 Alberic de Trois-Fontaines, ‘Chronicon,’ 853-54, Brewer, “Alberic de Trois484

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Philip as a bishop who was sent on a papal mission and not a physician. This representation by Alberic de Trois gave the mission of Master Philip and by extension the pope’s letter the face of historical authenticity.489 Both Alberic de Trois’s chronicle and the Flores Historiarum state that Master Philip was the same envoy of Prester John to the Pope. Such a complicated matter might have been created due to the ambiguous figure of Master Philip himself. Pope Alexander expressed apparently that the real source of his information about Prester John was Master Philip. Furthermore, Philip seemingly brought the news after having to communicate with some men of Prester John’s kingdom while he was travelling in “those parts.”490 Consequently, one can understand or conclude here that the aforementioned Master Philip first travelled to the land of Prester John and later returned to convey Alexander’s letter to Prester John himself, as was stated above by Flores Historiarum and Alberic de Trois. In this regard, E. Ross first suggested a connection between Alexander's letter to Prester John and the king of Ethiopia. He assumes that Master Philip likely met Christian pilgrims from Ethiopia and mistook them as subjects of Prester John. Those Christians possibly asked him to convey the news they brought to Pope Alexander concerning the pious intentions of their king. Ross thus states that Pope Alexander might have been convinced of “the bona fides of the Doctor Philipus, and thereupon sending him on a mission and entrusting him with a letter couched in a sympathetic term.”491 Following this hypothesis, Brewer argues that: This purports that the entire scenario was factual, that there was a man named Master Philip who encountered a group Fontaines,” 142, 146: (Inveniuntur quedam pape Alexandri littere, quas misit presbitero Iohanni superius memorato, per quendam episcopum Philippum ab eodem papa ordinatum et de fide et de moribus sancte Romane ecclesie diligenter instructum. Qui Philippus ab eodem presbitero Iohanne transmissus fuerat ad papam Romanum…). 489 Brewer, “Believing in Prester John,” 16-17. 490 Papa Alexander III, “Epistola,” 94; Zarncke, “Der Brief des Papstes Alexanders III,” 109; Brewer, “Believing in Prester John,” 14. 491 Ross, “Prester John and the Empire of Ethiopia,” 179; Hamilton, “Prester John and the Three Kings,” 183. 149

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of oriental Christians, believed they were the subjects of Prester John, reported this to Alexander III in Rome, and subsequently carried the Pope’s letter to them, only to become lost or perish along the way. This hypothesis too presents many problems, mainly because there is no corroboration from other sources, and because Alexander’s letter provides us with so few details about what actually happened. One would expect that such a mission would receive at least a cursory treatment in other works if it were real.492 Yet, there is no mention of Master Philip’s mission to an eastern monarch in other sources of the time. Only in 1237 did Matthew Paris report the mission of Frater Philippus, prior of the Dominicans, to the eastern Jacobites. In his report to Pope Gregory IX (r. 1227-41), Frater Philippus referred to the Nestorians of the Greater India, the land of Prester John and the Mongols. This report will be further analysed in the sixth chapter of this book.493 In this context, it seems that Master Philip of Alexander III might have carried a factual mission to Jerusalem and met some Jacobite Christians, who were spreading throughout Asia, Ethiopia and Egypt. Master Philip thus associated those Christians with the Christian people of Prester John of India. Therefore, if he was on an actual mission, the papal envoy might have gone to one of these areas and disappeared. However, no tangible evidence for the travel of Master Philip to Prester John is known. All that is known about Philip’s mission is based on the letter of Pope Alexander III. 7. CONCLUSION The legend of Prester John was an imaginary conception based on actual reports concerning the Orient, Patriarch John of India, St. Thomas and the battle of Qaṭwān, melded with other assumptions and Brewer, “Believing in Prester John,” 15. Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, vol. iii, 396-99; Alberic de Trois-Fontaines, ‘Chronicon,’ in MGH, SS, vol. III, 941-42; Röhricht, RRH, 280-81, no. 1075, for further information see above, chapter 6.

492 493

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forgeries inspired by the Crusades in the Holy Land. The Letter was addressed to the Byzantine Emperor, revealing the anti-Greek prejudices of the Latin Christians or at least those of the composer of the Letter. These prejudices are also reflected in a number of other western sources, as mentioned above. In the same way, the Letter and the description of the kingdom of Prester John were neither entirely false nor completely verifiable. The Letter received polarised responses in contemporary and later medieval texts. This chapter has presented some of these reactions in twelfth and thirteenth-centuries sources and manuscripts, providing political, geographical and cultural context and information on the scope of the Letter’s dissemination. It also introduced several corroborations of the Letter’s status as a piece of crusading and political propaganda, diplomatic document, fictive literature or medieval literature for entertainment. These presentations and discussions above reveal the occidental Latin aspects and perception of the Letter. Yet, the Letter and Prester John’s kingdom bear strong parallels and entangled intersections with similar stories or tales that might have been mirrored in the oriental sources. The following chapter thus aims to uncover the oriental aspects of the Letter and the legend. In so doing, the intersections and similarities between Prester John and the Alexander the Great legend, the images of similar Christian monarchs in medieval Arabic texts, as well as geographical and cosmographical accounts will be further explored.

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CHAPTER FOUR

IMAGING THE PRESTER JOHN KINGDOM IN THE THREE INDIAS: THE LEGEND’S ENTANGLEMENTS WITH ALEXANDER ROMANCE, JEWISH AND ARAB MUSLIMCHRISTIAN IMAGINATION

The European conception of the wondrous East was inherited from ancient Greek sources. Other imaginations, which the Arabs themselves inherited from the Greeks, have been transferred to Europe through Arabic sources. For instance, the theories of imagination were derived from the philosophy of al-Kindī (c. 800-870), Ibn Sīnā/Avicenna (c. 980-1037), al-Ghazālī (c. 1058-1111). In this perspective, al-Ghazālī says that the power of imagination may convert “a human into a tree or an enemy into a serpent, leaving the soul to reconstruct the truth contained within the dream through interpretation.” The movement of imagination is random, and the

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memory stores imagination’s misconceptions and the original vision will be lost.494 This chapter thus uncovers the influence of Alexandrian marvels and imagination that were transferred and reformed in the figure of the Prester John Letter – themes that have not usually received much attention. Likewise, it seeks to shed light on the association between the Letter and the writings of two Jewish travellers, Eldad the Danite (d. 900) and Benjamin of Tudela (d. ca. 1173), to the Orient. In what follows, this chapter examines the interconnectedness of the legendary figure of Prester John and his kingdom with the medieval Arabic and Islamic imagination. Following Bernard Hamilton's suggestion of the similarities between the Letter and the Arabian Nights, some contents of similar stories to the legend in the Arabian Nights will be investigated. Furthermore, it will discuss the Coptic-Arabic tales of the Christian kings in Nubia and Abyssinia and their association and similarities with the figure of Prester John. 1. THE PRESTER JOHN KINGDOM AND ALEXANDER ROMANCE The imagination of medieval Europe about central and remote Asia goes back to the campaigns of Alexander the Great (356 BC- 323 BC) over India (326-324 BC), which opened a direct relationship between the Greeks and the inhabitants of Asia.495 Further, all exotic creations of Alexander the Great were a feature of medieval art, literature and imaginative structures of the residents of the East, which were awarded credence through the writings of early Christian scholars.496 Abu Hamid al-Gazali, Algazel’s Metaphysics: A Mediaeval Translation, ed. Joseph Thomas Muckle (Toronto: St. Michael’s College, 1933), 189-190; Michelle Karnes, “Marvels in the Medieval Imagination,” Speculum 90, no. 2 (April 2015): 333-34, 33637, 339-40; .B.D Dutton, ‘Al-Ghazâlî on Possibility and the Critique of Causality,” Medieval Philosophy and Theology, no. 10 (2001): 23–46. 495 Almagor, ‘Ctesias and the Importance of his Writings Revisited,’ 9–40; Rudolf Wittkower, “Marvels of the East. A Study in the History of Monsters,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, no. 5 (1942): 159–62. 496 Marshall, Storm from the East, 118-121; Helleiner, “Prester John’s Letter: A Mediaeval Utopia,” 47–48.; Anderson, Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, 3-12, 19; Budge, The History of Alexander the Great, 144-158. 494

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The figure of Alexander the Great and his oriental exploits were given a Christian makeover in the Middle Ages.497 Sometimes, he was presented in a figure of “a wise Christian king, sometimes even Christlike, an opponent of the enemies of Christendom.”498 Brewer says that because medieval people had no factual information of “the distant world of Asia,” they filled in the unknown gaps with fabulous tales and legends such as that of Prester John, which was likely the medieval European dream of a utopian world of their own.499 Hamilton and Letts point out that one of the essential sources of the Letter’s author was the Alexander romance, which was available in the West by the 1960s. 500 In a similar trend, Manuel Ramos states that the Prester John Letter used “oriental encyclopaedism and imagery as food for thought” about that Christian king as “an effective Christ-mimesis.” In this sense, he states that the Letter of Prester John was a propagandistic text with millenarianism purposes that includes a catalogue of marvels of Alexander the Great, assigned to the figure of the Indian priest-king John.501 The vast oriental marvels relied on what is called the Alexander Romance of Pseudo-Callisthenes, which was the basis for many of the fabulous narratives found in the Letter.502 The Pseudo-Callisthenes was composed most likely in Alexandria before the fourth century by an unknown author. However, it was assigned to a relative/nephew of Peter G. Bietenholz, Historia and Fabula: Myths and Legends in Historical Thought from Antiquity to the Modern Age (Leiden, 1994), pp. 118–45; Anderson, Alexander’s Gate, 15–57. Also, the Qurʼān refers to Gog and Magog twice, in 18:94 and 21:96. 498 Richard Stoneman, “Introduction,” in The Alexander Romance in Persia and the East, ed. Richard Stoneman, Kyle Erickson, and Ian Netton (Groningen: Barkhuis Publishing and Groningen University Library, 2012), IX–XIV. 499 Brewer, “Believing in Prester John,” 26. 500 Hamilton, “Prester John and the Three Kings of Cologne,” 179; Malcolm Letts, ‘Prester John: Sources and Illustrations’, In Notes and and Quiries 188 (May: 1945): 178–80, 204-207. 501 Ramos, Essays in Christian Mythology, 14, 71. 502 Wagner, Epistola Presbiteri Johannis, 314; Monica Berti, “Alexander the Great and Aristotle in the Libro de Alexandre,” in Aliento 3 : Énoncés sapientiels et littérature exemplaire: Une intertextualité complexe, ed. Marie-Chritine Bornes-Varol and Marie-Sol Ortola (Nancy: Presses universitaires de Nancy -Éditions Universitaires de Lorraine, 2013), 330-31; Hamilton, “Prester John and the Three Kings of Cologne,” 171. 497

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Aristotle (d. 322 BC) named Callisthenes of Olynthus (c. 360-327 BC), an influential Greek historian and companion of Alexander the Great during his Asiatic expedition. Callisthenes was perhaps the first to speak of the divine and legendary birth of Alexander.503 This divine legend was an inspiring motif to connect Alexander Romance with a wide range of theological subjects, which began to appear in Syrian and Armenian literature from the fifth century.504 The Alexander Romance of Pseudo-Callisthenes appeared in a Syriac-Christian version in the year 514 AD, in which many passages were modified to express a Christian sensibility. For Instance, Alexander was presented as the “lord of kings and judges,” who destroyed the power of kings. The oriental Paradise appears here as a part of his land, and it is stated that he conquered Persia, Babylon and the Huns, among others.505 The Christian version of PseudoCallisthenes shows the Christian faith of Alexander in this way: If the Messiah, who is the Son of God, comes in my days, my troops and I will worship Him. And if he does not come in my days, I will carry this throne, which is a seat of silver upon which I sit, and will place it in Jerusalem, that when the Messiah comes from Heaven, He may sit upon my kingly throne.506 Around 320-330 AD, Julius Valerius (3rd-4th centuries) translated the Greek version of the Pseudo-Callisthenes into Latin under the title Res gestae Alexandri Magni. However, the tenth-century Latin translation of Archbishop Leo of Naples, Historia de Preliis, or Berti, “Alexander the Great ans Aristotle,” 333-35; Thomas Hahn, “The Middle English Letter of Alexander to Aristotle : Introduction, Text, Sources, and Commentary,” Mediaeval Studies 42 (1980): 106–60; Terrence Keough, “The Middle English Letter of Alexander the Great to Aristotle: Edited from Worcester Cathedral MS. F. 172” (PhD. Thesis, The University of Ottawa, 1972), xii-xiii; A. B. Bosworth, “Aristotle and Callisthenes,” Historia: Zeitschrift für alte Geschichte 19, no. 4 (1970): 407–13; Albert Mugrdich Wolohojian, trans., The Romance of Alexander the Great by Pseudo-Callisthenes. Translated from the Armenian Version (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1969),1-2, 27, 52-53, 57, 105. 504 Wolohojian, The Romance of Alexander the Great, 8-10, 14, 210. 505 Budge, The History of Alexander the Great, 144-58; Aḥmad Abd al-Raḥīm Habū, Al-Madkhal Ilá al-Lughah al-Suryānīyah (Damascus: Dār al-Kitāb, 1190), 57. 506 Budge, The History of Alexander the Great, 146. 503

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Nativitas et Victoria Alexandri Magni, was the primary channel of the transformation of Alexander legend into a wide range of medieval literature.507 The Letter contains different tales and wonders that have been copied from the Alexander Romance of Pseudo-Callisthenes. For example, it restructured the expeditions of Alexander in India and Persia, his correspondences with the Indian king Porus and Persian Darius, and Alexander’s relationship with the Brahmans.508 In the same frame of mind, the boundless imaginative wealth, wonders, precious stones, animals and monsters of the ancient fables and fictions have been assigned to the Prester John kingdom in a creative medieval literary way.509 The Letter of Prester John names the Byzantine Emperor as the governor of the Romans (Romeon gubernatori).510 Silverberg states that no Byzantine emperor ever titled himself as the governor of the Romans, but the most proper title was the “Emperor of the Romans” (Basileus ton Romeon). Therefore, the Prester John Letter possibly adapted the title from Leo’s Latin translation of the Alexander the Great romance.511 The title of “governor” was mentioned in a letter from Alexander to his teacher Aristotle, telling him that Ptolemy should be the governor if Alexander died.512 The legend of Alexander the Great and Prester John involved similar imaginary kingdoms, legendary kings, mysterious lands, exotic animals and unusual creations in India. Both represented geographical and ethnographical wonders. Wagner argues that Prester John can symbolize a model ruler like Alexander the Great from a distance. The moral and virtuous constructions of the priest-king John Wagner, Epistola Presbiteri Johannis, 307-8, 510-11; Ioannis M. Konstantakos, “The Flying King: The Novelistic Alexander (Pseudo-Callisthenes 2.41) and the Traditions of the Ancient Orient,” Classica-Revista Brasileira de Estudos Clássicos 33, no. 1 (2020): 107; Berti, “Alexander the Great and Aristotle,” 334-35; Wolohojian, The Romance of Alexander the Great, 2-5; Budge,, The History of Alexander the Great, ix, liv-lvi. 508 Wagner, Epistola Presbiteri Johannis, 313-14; Berti, “Alexander the Great,” 334. 509Wagner, Epistola Presbiteri Johannis, 510-11, 534-36; Brewer, “Believing in Prester John,” 9; Phillips, Before Orientalism, 165-66, 181, 189; Helleiner, “Prester John’s Letter,” 48; de Rachewiltz, “Prester John and Europe’s Discovery,” 59–74. 510 Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 46. 511 Silverberg, The Realm of Prester John, 47. 512 Wolohojian, The Romance of Alexander, 76; Silverberg, The Realm, 47-48. 507

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are formulated in several passages and places through the Letter and its versions, redactions and interpolations. Further, Prester John received his legitimacy in terms of his entangled history with the salvation history as being a follower of St. Thomas. In this way, the Letter can be interpreted as a description of an ideal state and ruling model for the “crisis-ridden western society.”513 The Prester John Letter seems to be a decisive medieval perception of “eastern alterity,” evoking likeness as much as otherness. Nevertheless, it was designed in biblical metaphors and rhyming prose that fastened its content to the medieval European traditions and imagination.514 The Letter’s writer presented entangled boastful, fabulous, marvellous and boundless descriptions of Prester John’s realm, for instance: Through that entire province by various paths, and in that place are found common stones, emeralds, sapphires, carbuncles, topazes, chrysolites, onyxes, beryls, amethysts, sardians, and many other precious stones. […].. Certainly, the men of that land abound in precious stones and the yellowest gold. These men, who live thus in heavenly nourishment, each live for 500 years. […]. In addition, amongst the other marvels of our land, which seem extremely incredible to men, we have five incredibly virtuous stones the size of hazelnuts.515 In this context, among other motives and origins, the Prester John Letter is a sort of echo of the fictional Alexandrian narratives of India and the Orient, which were composed as “a political pamphlet” to Wagner, Epistola Presbiteri Johannis, 307, 320, 510. Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 71-72, 76-78; Phillips, Before Orientalism, 48-49. 515 Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 71, 73, 76: (Fluvius iste de paradiso progrediens expandit sinus suos per universam provinciam illam diversis meatibus, et ibi inveniuntur naturales lapides, smaragdi, saphiri, carbunculi, topazii, cristoliti, onichini, berilli, ametisti, sardii et plures preciosi lapides. [...] Habundant certe homines terrae illius lapidibus preciosis fulvissimoque auro. Isti homines, qui sic caelesti pane vivunt, omnes vivunt quingentis annis. [...] Praeterea inter cetera mirabilia nostrae terrae, quae hominibus videntur nimis incredibilia, habemus V lapides incredibiliter virtuosos magnitudine avellanae), here 48-49, 50, 53. 513 514

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reconcile “opposing factions in medieval Europe.”516 The history and marvels of Alexander the Great contributed to making the history of Prester John, establishing an echo in the West down from the twelfth century into the seventeenth century.517 The Alexander Romance presented vague geographical conceptions comparable to those in the Letter of Prester John. When Alexander first came to the Indus, he claimed that he had reached the sources of the Nile River, which were in fact in Africa, confusing between India and Ethiopia. The same confusion has been transferred to the medieval conception and literature, as the case in the Prester John Letter. Furthermore, the Pseudo-Callisthenes version of the Alexander Romance posed vast imaginative spheres to a body of political, cultural, geographical and anthropological materials representing the luxury of the eastern world.518 Likewise, the eastern realm of Prester John included all manner of exotic beasts and monstrous peoples, from elephants and dromedaries to one-eyed men and Cyclopes. It contained precious gemstones and produced pepper. The Letter of Prester John embarks upon unbounded magnification. In addition to showing Prester John as an imaginary and powerful Christian king, his kingdoms contained a variety of virtuous stones, beasts and a fountain of youth.519 These stories of Prester John and his rich lands in India and the Far East fascinated Europeans, who were accustomed to buying the costly species, perfumes, precious gems and pearls from those areas of Asia. It was,

De Rachewiltz, “Prester John and Europe’s Discovery,” 165; Lach, Asia in the Making of Europe,vol. 1, 26; Slessarev, Prester John, 1959, 39. 517 Wagner, Epistola Presbiteri Johannis, 508-11; Helleiner, “Prester John’s Letter,” 4950; 518 Wang, “Alexander the Great, Prester John, Strabo of Amasia,” 1–9; Wittkower, ‘Marvels of the East’, 161-62. 519 Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 77-78: (Praeterea inter cetera mirabilia nostrae terrae, quae hominibus videntur nimis incredibilia, habemus V lapides incredibiliter virtuosos magnitudine avellanae. […], omnes siquidem bestiae, tam maiores quam minores, tam ursi quam leones, tam cervi quam caprioli, tam lepores quam vulpes. [..], Inter nos nullus mentitur, nec aliquis potest mentiri. […] Omnes sequimur veritatem et diligimus nos invicem. Adulter non est inter nos. Nullum vicium apud nos regnat.), here 53-54. 516

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then, great news to hear that such lands were now held by the Christian priest-king John.520 Wagner reveals that similar intersections and similarities between the Letter and Alexandrian literature can be seen in the Letter’s texts, redactions and interpolations from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, as the interpolators mainly took annexes from the Alexandrian literature. The interconnectedness appears in the passage on the golden ants, Amazons, Brahmans, the third place of king Porus, and several exotic creatures and animals.521 These imaginative similarities can be found in several redactions in five manuscripts (Bu, Ka, Ly, Ra und W8) from the first half of the fifteenth century.522 There are other parallels to the descriptions of the third palace of the Indian Porus in the Letter, which cannot be assigned to the standard text of the Letter’s tradition. Instead, it seems plausible that the editor incorporated the material into his version of the Alexander Romance.523 Leo’s Latin translation of Alexander Romance contained a new digest version of the Alexander novels, including fictional exchanged letters between Alexander the Great and the leader of the Brahmans of India.524 Interestingly, the same Brahmans appeared under Bragmanni/ Pragmanis in the twelfth century Prester John Letter, as being one of the strongest and most diverse peoples that Prester John ruled.525 The Letter also describes the Brahmans elsewhere as numberless and simple men who lead a pure life. They do not desire to have more than what the law of nature requires. They have compassion for and support all things. They say that what is not necessary is superfluous. They are saints living in the flesh. Almost all of Christendom is Helleiner, “Prester John’s Letter,” 49-50. Wagner, Epistola Presbiteri Johannis, 289-292, 298-99, 307-308, 510-11, 534-35; Ramos, Christian Mythology, 67-68. 522 These manuscripts published by Wagner, Epistola Presbiteri Johannis, 356-67. 523 Wagner, Epistola Presbiteri Johannis, 190, 292-93 524 Andy Orchard, “The Alexander-Legend in Anglo-Saxon England,” in Pride and Prodigies. Studies in the Monsters of the Beowulf-Manuscript (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1995), 120. 525 Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 78; Wagner, Epistola Presbiteri Johannis, 31011, 535, (Municiones habemus multas, gentes fortissimas et diversiformes. Dominamur Amazonibus et etiam Pragmanis), Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 55. 520 521

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everywhere sustained by their sanctity and justice, so we believe, and it is defended by their prayers, lest it be conquered by the devil. These men serve our majesty with their prayers alone, nor do we wish to have anything else from them.526 The Brahmans were first introduced to the western audience by the first-hand accounts of India written by the historians of the expedition of Alexander the Great to India (327-325 BC). From the fourth century on, the Pseudo-Callisthenes of Alexander held large-scale popularity and became a source of wonders about Brahmans. The Brahmans claimed the utmost honour of a priestly class having a glorious divinity. In many cases, Brahmans were the magical power in a sacred utterance, and they were more powerful than any worldly kings were.527 This may be why they foregrounded as a vital part of the realm of Prester John, lending more divine weight to his figure. Furthermore, when the composer of the Letter describes the kingdom of Prester John and his fabulous treasures, he was attempting to depict, for his audiences and reader, the boundless and prosperous realm of that alleged Prester John. According to the Letter, Prester John’s lands contained all precious stones, exotic animals, unusual creatures, bestiaries and monsters of the ancient fables and fictions.528 The fountain of the gods of Alexander, its flavours and marvellous spring of waters, 529 was also reproduced in Prester John Letter: Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 80: (Bragmani infiniti sunt et simplices homines, puram vitam ducentes. Nolunt plus habere quam racio naturae exigit. Omnia compaciuntur et sustinent. Illud dicunt esse superfluum quod non est necessarium. Sancti sunt in carne viventes. Quorum sanctitate et iusticia universa fere christianitas ubique sustentatur, ut credimus, et ne a dyabolo superetur, oracionibus eorum defenditur. Isti serviunt maiestati nostrae solummodo oracionibus suis nec nos aliud ab eis habere volumus), here 56. 527 Ramos, Christian Mythology, 37-39; A.L. Basham, The Wonder That Was India. A Survey of the History and Culture of the Indian Sub-Continent before the Coming of the Muslims, 5th ed. (Calcutla and New Delhi: Rupa Co., 1986), 139-42, 171-72, 241-43; George Cary, The Medieval Alexander, ed. D.J.A. Ross, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), 27-37. 528 Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 69-81. 529 Wolohojian, The Romance of Alexander the Great, 72; Ramos, Christian Mythology, 70. 526

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This forest is situated at the foot of Mount Olympus, whence a clear spring emerges, which preserves flavours of all types within it. The flavour changes every hour of the day and night, and it proceeds by a journey of three days not far from Paradise, from which Adam was expelled. If any thirsty person drinks from this fountain three times, he will suffer no illness from that day forth, and he will always be as though he is 32 years of age, however long he may live. […] But even so, they regain 100 years of life and they are all renewed by drinking three times from the certain fountain, which flows out towards the base of a certain tree standing there, namely on the aforesaid island. 530 The Letter referred to similar columns made of gold or amethyst resembling those of Alexander at the seat of Heracles at the edge of the world.531 The same columns (though ones allegedly made of ivory) supported the tables in the palace of Prester John. Elsewhere in the Letter, these columns were designed to be installed into a specific square in Bibric, the royal city of Prester John.532 Like Alexander, Prester John took control of the land of the Indian King Porus, the brave king who preferred to challenge Alexander the Great’s troops by his fierce elephant army corps.533 The Alexandrian narrative describes the royal city of Porus, his multitude of troops, palace, royal quarters and golden columns as follows: After that we entered the royal city of Porus with our weapons. And we saw his hall and his royal quarters. There were golden columns, very great, and mighty and firm 530

Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 89. Wolohojian, The Romance of Alexander the Great, 49, 136, 145. 532 Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 80-81. 533 Orchard, “The Letter of Alexander to Aristotle,” 229-53; J.R. Hamilton, Alexander the Great (Pittsburgh: Hutchinson University Library, 1973), 112-118; Keough, “The Middle English Letter of Alexander the Great.” 5, 16-20, 25, 31, 33, 43; Wolohojian, The Romance of Alexander the Great, 92, 101, 116-121, 128, 138, 159. Quintus Curtius Rufus, “History of Alexander the Great,” in The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great as Described in Arrian, Q. Curtius, Diodorus, Plutarch and Justin, ed. J.W. McCrindle (Westminster: Archibald Constable, 1896), 183–268. 531

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[…]. The walls were also golden, sheathed with gold plates the thickness of a finger. […]. I [Alexander the Great] saw a golden vineyard, mighty and firm and its branches hung about the columns. And I was greatly amazed at that.534 Likewise, the Letter displays how Prester John took the land and palace of the same Indian king Porus: We have another palace that was owned by Porus, king of the Indians, from whose lineage all our land and family descend. Indeed, in this palace there are many things thoroughly incredible to human minds. There are, for example, 500 golden columns there with golden capitals, and golden vines hang between these columns, with golden leaves and branches, some of crystal, others of sapphires, others made from pearls, still others made from emerald; and its walls are covered with golden plates, which are as thick as human fingers. These walls are decorated with pearls, carbuncles, and every precious stone...535 Moreover, the Letter describes Prester John as even mightier than Alexander the Great, calling the latter “the boy Alexander the Great, king of the Macedonians,” who confined Gog and Magog and many other races “between the highest mountains in the northern parts.” These races now are subjected to the influential Prester John, who, when he wishes, can lead them against his enemies.536 In this perspective, Silverberg says: Since those who loved to dwell on the exploits of Alexander were the ones most likely to be attracted by the new hero, Prester John, it was perhaps inevitable that one of the best-known episodes of the Alexander mythos should wander into narratives of Prester John; and so it

Orchard, “The Letter of Alexander to Aristotle,” 229. Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 72-73. 536 Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 70; Ramos, Christian Mythology, 31, 53-58, 62-63. 534 535

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was that Gog and Magog became citizens of his kingdom.537 In the Middle Ages, the oriental tradition of Alexander was connected to the western tradition, as they both were originally based on the Greek Alexander Romance of Pseudo-Callisthenes. Throughout various Christian and Islamic texts, Alexander was seen as an adventurer or saviour sent by God to protect humanity from Gog and Magog. Yet, this tradition goes back to the Jewish and early eastern Christian traditions, which later became an essential part of Islamic tradition as well.538 With the rise of Islam and its expansion in the Orient, the ArabIslamic corpus has Islamized Alexander the Great in the same way Christian tradition Christianised his figure. The Islamized form of Alexander connected with the Qurʾānic-prophet Dhū al-Qarnayn named Alexander Dhū al-Qarnayn (the two-horned).539 Furthermore, the Iskandar Nāma, or “Book of Alexander” was another Arabo- and Perso-Islamic name/figure of the Pseudo-Callisthenes, in which the Qurʾānic-Prophet Dhū al-Qarnayn is also associated with Alexander the Great figure. It constitutes the most comprehensive synthesis of Silverberg, The Realm of Prester John, 66. Donzel and Schmidt, Gog and Magog in Early Eastern Christian and Islamic Sources,” xvii, 17, 27-28; Faustina Doufikar-Aerts, “Alexander the Flexible Friend. Some Reflections on the Representation of Alexander the Great in the Arabic Alexander Romance,” Journal of Eastern Christian Studies, 55, no. 3–4 (2003): 195– 210; Silverberg, The Realm of Prester John, 66. 539 Emily Cottrell, “Al-Mubaššir Ibn Fātik and the α Version of the Alexander Romance,” in The Alexander Romance in Persia and the East, ed. Richard Stoneman, Kyle Erickson, and Ian Netton, Ancient Narrative Supplement 15 (Groningen: Barkhuis Publishing and Groningen University Library, 2012), 233–53: DoufikarAerts, “Alexander the Flexible Friend,ˮ 195–210; Anderson, Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, 30-32. Emily Cottrell states: “The origin of the expression ‘The TwoHorned’ (dhū al-qarnayn) is a complex one. As often with Eastern mythology, several folk-tales and historical events may have aggregated. An etymology which claims that dhū alqarnayn did not mean ‘two horns’ but ‘two braids’ and was first given as a nickname to a Parthian king appears in an important but neglected text by the tenthcentury Christian Syrian historian Agapius (Maḥbūb of Manbīj) where Samiros, the victor of the Parthian king Kisrumis, makes a crown from the scalp of his victim and is therefore called “With the two braids” which the author gives as equivalent to Greek ‘diokratis’ although the word does not appear in our modern lexicons.” Cottrell, “AlMubaššir Ibn Fātik, 249. 537 538

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the Islamic perception of the Macedonian hero who became the model of Dhū al-Qarnayn, a prophet in the Islamic tradition.540 It seems here that the Christianised and Islamised figure of Alexander was a further medieval example of the interconnected imaginations shared between Christianity and Islam. A similar pattern of mythical religious transmission and entanglement can be seen in the venerated figure of St. George/Georgius, a legendary Christian saint who, according to tradition, suffered martyrdom at the beginning of the persecution of Christians under Diocletian (r. 284–305). He is mingled with the Islamic Prophetic figure al-Khiḍr and the biblical prophet figure Elijah (Ilyās). The perception of St. George in the Christian tradition and al-Khiḍr in the Islamic tradition combined several Biblical, Quranic and other ancient mythical heroes. Further, in the Middle Ages, al-Khiḍr was identified with some Christian saints, such as St. George, St. Theodore, St. Behnam and St. Sergius.541 In the same framework, the composer of the Letter might have transformed Alexander’s exploits to such a general Christian figure as Prester John. He also used the St. Thomas tradition, which was already known at the time in Europe, presenting the legend in the fashion of a response to the crusading fiasco and the political division in the West at the time. 1.1. The Letter between Alexandrian Tales and Jewish Travels In a ninth-century Arabic-Islamic manuscript in Berlin, Alexander the Great appears under the name al-Iskandar Dhū-al-Qarnayn, portraying his visit to Jerusalem and the reception by Jews to him Z. David Zuwiyya, “Alexander the Great,” in Encyclopedia of Islam, ed. Juan Campo (New York: Facts on File, 2009), 30–31; Daniel L. Selden, “Mapping the Alexander Romance,” in The Alexander Romance in Persia and the East, ed. and Ian Netton Richard Stoneman, Kyle Erickson (Groningen: Barkhuis Publishing & Groningen University Library, 2012), 36; A. Abel, “Iskandar Nāma,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, ed. W.P. Heinrichs. P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, 2012, http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_COM_0385. 541 Ernest W. Brooks, ed., Acts of Saint George, Analecta Gorgiana 8 (New Jersey: Gorgias Press, 2006); Muḥammad Badrān, Al-Khiḍr fi al-Turāth al-ʻālamī (Cairo: alMajlis al-Āʻlá li-Thaqāfah, 2012), 207f; Ethel Sara Wolper, “Khiḍr and the Changing Frontiers of the Medieval World,” Medieval Encounters, no. 17 (2011): 120–46. 540

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carrying the holy Torah and a picture of Daniel. According to this manuscript, the Jews tell al-Iskandar Dhū-al-Qarnayn, that the Prophet Daniel had predicted his world kingship. It also contains a letter from al-Iskandar to all kings of the Earth, which seems to be an Arabic-Islamized version of the Alexander Romance of PseudoCallisthenes, in which al-Iskandar called himself “King of Kings of the Earth in East and West.”542 In this view, this manuscript forms a bridge between the Judaic, Christian and Islamic traditions of Alexander the Great. The same bridge of tradition appears in the Letter of Prester John that demonstrates Jewish influence on the legend and letter construction. An uninterpolated text of the Letter describes Prester John’s annual pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Daniel. Further, it states that among the nations who subjected to Prester John are the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel543: Every year, we [Prester John] visit the body of St Daniel the Prophet in the Babylonian desert with a great army, and they are all armed on account of the deer and the other serpents called ‘terrentes’ [frightening].544 […] Truly, beyond the river of stones are the 10 tribes of the Jews, who although they contrive kings for themselves, they are in fact our [Prester John] servants and are tributaries to our excellency. The tradition of St. Daniel and the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel is one of the principal prophecies of the Judeo-Christian tradition; its presence proves that the Letter's composer used either oral or written Jewish sources. One of these assumed sources of the Letter is the ninth-century Jewish traveller Eldad ha-Dani, usually known Eldad Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin-Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, Ms. orient. fol. 2195 (d. 14th/15th C.), fol. 12b, 19b-20a, 35a. 543 Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 76: (Ultra fluvium vero lapidum sunt X tribus Iudaeorum, qui quamvis fingant sibi reges, servi tamen nostri sunt et tributarii excellentiae nostrae.), here, 52. 544 Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 78: (Singulis annis visitamus corpus sancti Danielis prophetae cum exercitu magno in Babilone deserta, et omnes armati sunt propter tyros et alios serpentes, qui vocantur terrentes), Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 54. 542

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the Danite (fl. c. 851-900), who presented fictional stories about the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.545 In 883, Eldad visited the Jews of Qayrawān (today in northern Tunisia) and presented himself as a member of the Dan tribe, one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel living with their king beyond the fanciful river called “Sambation”. The Jews of Qayrawān sent the first report about Eldad and his travel to the babylonian Gaon/Gaon of Sura (Zemaḥ ben Ḥayim, ca. 889-95) in Iraq. The origins of Eldad and his travel remained puzzling for centuries. Like Prester John, speculations associated with Eldad spread to distant places on the edge of the world, in which some powerful Jewish communities were said to dwell.546 About three centuries later, similar imaginings of Eldad’s travels turned up in the Prester John legend. Silverberg claims that Eldad’s travels were written in Hebrew and that the first known Latin translation went back to the sixteenth century. Yet, it is likely that the author of the Prester John Letter had at least second-hand knowledge of the story of the Ten Lost Tribes as recounted by Eldad.547 Wasserstein indicates that some Jews of Qayrawān might have written to Spain, which was under Islamic rule at the time, spreading the news and information given by Eldad. He clarifies that some reports prove that people in Spain and the West later knew of him.548 Both Prester John and the Eldad material shared divine stimulation, and they were composed of various elements; some of these elements were connected to the construction of the Prester John legend. The information about the powerful Jewish tribes, whether true or not, prompted messianic motives among the Jews scattered in the West and East. While the Jews believed that only God Himself prevented the Lost Tribes from coming to their rescue, one of Prester John’s

Hamilton, “Prester John and the Three Kings,” 172,174; Silverberg, The Realm, 51. Micha Perry, Eldad’s Travels: A Journey from the Lost Tribes to the Present (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2019), viii-ix, 1-9, 10-26; Perry, “The Imaginary War between Prester John and Eldad the Danite,” 1–24; Wasserstein, “Eldad Ha-Dani and Prester John,” in PJMTLT, 213–21. 547 Silverberg, The Realm of Prester John, 51. 548 Wasserstein, “Eldad Ha-Dani and Prester John,” 214. 545 546

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duties, the letter shows, was to contain these tribes in the protection of his Christian kingdom.549 The legend of Prester John speaks of a powerful Christian king and his subjects living in the Far East beyond the lands of the Muslims. Likewise, Eldad Dani was searching for the powerful Ten Lost Tribes in the Far East. Further, it is remarkable that the same pattern of entanglement, transformation and reception in both Eldad’s travel and the Prester John legend was retold and spread by others. The storytellers, here Jews of Qayrawān and Hugh of Jabala, were the event-makers in transmitting the alleged travels of Eldad and the Prester John legend. Moreover, in the early stage of spreading the legend of Prester John in Europe and at the temporal period of the Letter’s composition, the Jewish traveller Benjamin of Tudela (d. ca. 1173) journeyed to the East. He wrote about the shrine of St. Daniel and the wonders comparable to those in the legendary kingdom of Prester John in his account. Benjamin journeyed from Spain to the East between ca. 1160 and 1173. He reported essential detailed information on Arabia, Persia, India, Abyssinia and China based on the many reports he had heard, perhaps in Baghdād. Benjamin provided specific mentions and descriptions of Jerusalem, the Tower of David, the Holy Sepulcher Church and the Dome of the Rock. He was in Rome during the pontificate of Pope Alexander III in 1159 and visited Jerusalem and the crusader states between 1168 and 1170. Benjamin provides accurate information for the areas that he visited. Nevertheless, his information about the distant Asiatic areas included several fictional narratives like those in the Letter of Prester John.550 See, Perry, “The Imaginary War between Prester John and Eldad the Danite, 1, 6-8, 22-23; Wasserstein, “Eldad Ha-Dani and Prester John,” 214-23; Ullendorff and Beckingham, The Hebrew Letters of Prester John, 153-59; Abraham Epstein, Eldad Ha-Dani. Seine Berichte über die x Stämme und deren Ritus in verschiedenen versionen nach handschriften und alten drucken (Pressburg: Bi-defus Avraham Alḳʼalai, 1891), 1-15, 55-65; David H. Müller, Die Recensionen und Versionen des Eldad Ha-Dani, Denkschriften der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, philosophisch-historische Klasse, Band XLI (Wien: in Commission Bele Trmpsky, 1892), 4-8, 68-69. 550 ʿAzrā Ḥaddād and ʿAbd-al-Raḥmān al-Shaykh, eds., Riḥlat Binyāmīn al-Tuṭaylī (Abu 549

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By looking at the spatial and temporal sphere of the Letter and Benjamin's journey, one can observe that they were composed simultaneously and included similar imagination and description. While the Prester John legend was designed to create an eastern Christian kingdom, Benjamin journeyed to collect information on the Jewish families among the Muslims in the vast East while retelling several wonders and divine tales. For instance, when Benjamin was in the Persian city Susa, he spoke of a tomb said to be for the prophet Daniel, whose shrine was one of the sacred shrines in the kingdom of Prester John. 551 Benjamin provided further descriptions of wonders, a palace made of gold and glass, the tower of Babel (the lighthouse in Alexandria) and imaginative descriptions of Babylon, which all match several accounts in the Letter.552 Benjamin said that the Christian nations in the East viewed the rapid growing power of Nūr al-Dīn in the Levant and Saladin (Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn) in Egypt with great alarm. By the same way of imaginative perception, the people of Prester John in the same Asiatic orbit might have been “the infidels, the sons of Ghuz, or Kufār-al-Turk, the wild flat-nosed Mongol hordes from the Tartary Steppes,” who were described in a quaint language by Benjamin. They lived in the desert and did not “eat bread, nor drink wine, live on raw uncooked meat” and they “worshipped the wind.”553 Dhabi: al-Majma‘ al-Thaqāfī, 2002), 7-12, 45-46, Marcus Nathan Adler, ed., The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela. Critical Text, Translation and Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1907), viii-xiii; 5-6, 24-26; Anna Foa, “The Journey of Benjamin of Tudela,” in Jews, an Italian Story: The First Thousand Years, ed. Anna Foa, Giancarlo Lacerenza, and Daniele Jalla (Milano: Electa, 2018), 158–63; Joseph Shatzmiller, “Jews, Pilgrimage, and the Christian Cult of Saints: Benjamin of Tudela and his Contemporaries,” in After Rome’s Fall: Narrators and Sources of Early Medieval History, ed. Walter A Goffart and Alexander C. Murray (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998), 337–47; For German translation see; Stefan Schreiner, trans., Jüdische Reisen im Mittelalter: Benjamin von Tudela; Petachja von Regensburg (Leipzig: Sammlung Dieterich, 1991). 551 Ḥaddād and al-Shaykh, Riḥlat Binyāmīn al-Tuṭaylī, 322-323; Adler, The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, 52-53, 59-62. 552 Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 59, 80: Adler, Benjamin of Tudela, 30,43f. 553 Ḥaddād and al-Shaykh, Riḥlat Binyāmīn al-Tuṭaylī, 148, 322-323, 334-37; Adler, The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, 52-53, 59-62; Oppert, Der Presbyter Johannes, 2022. 169

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Benjamin adds that the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, who were independent, dwelled in a vast land about a twenty-day journey in the areas of the mountains of Naisabur in eastern Persia. These Jewish tribes were in league with the Kuffār-al-Turk mentioned above. Benjamin narrates a complex story of the battles between these Turkish-steppes tribes and the king of Persia, the Seljuk Sinjar. It seems that he recounts the battle of Qaṭwān in 1141 between the same nomadic tribes (Qarakhitai tribes) and the Seljuk Sinjar, which was the cornerstone of the legend of Prester John. Further clarifying, Benjamin mentioned that King Sinjar was named “The Great Sultan of Persia,”554 i.e., “king of Persians” who, according to the legend, was at war with Prester John. Consequently, the multiplication of such oriental description and imagination confirms that the Letter was a mixture of several eastern tales. The Letter is a twelfth-century Latinized and Christianized perception of oriental adventures and wonders, mingled with Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions. These imaginative entanglements may personify a grand union scheme between the East and West in the medieval intellectual mind.555 At the same time, the letter of Prester John opens communication with the western audience to witness the wealth of the vast East, providing a geographical-land scape of imagination and wonders. The medieval image of the eastern world of Prester John corresponds to the imagination of India.556 In this sense, the legendary kingdom of Prester John was a Westernized-Latinized perception of further Arabic imagination of the East, which had been presented in several Muslim and Arabic geographical and cosmographical works. As a result, examining the interconnections and similarities between the legendary figure of Prester John and Arabic tales, especially regarding some comparable Christian kings and kingdoms to Prester John, perhaps shed new light on the legend from an eastern perception that was never known before.

Ḥaddād and al-Shaykh, Riḥlat Binyāmīn al-Tuṭaylī, 148, 322-323, 334-37; Adler, The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, 52-53, 59-62. 555 Ramos, Christian Mythology, 66. 556 Wang, “Alexander the Great, Prester John, Strabo of Amasia,” 4-5; John Hale, The Civilization of Europe in the Renaissance. (London: Harper-Collins, 1993), 14-17. 554

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2. THE ARAB GEOGRAPHIC CONCEPTION OF INDIAN CHRISTIAN KING(S) IN THE 12TH CENTURY The twelfth-century Latin translation movement of Arabic astronomical, philosophical and geographical works enriched the European imagination about the wondrous East. It also reintroduced many Greek texts into the tradition of the Latin West. Many of the Latin translations of the Greek works relied on Arabic translations of the original Greek.557 For instance, Aristotle’s works were transferred to the Arabic sources through Syriac translations of the Greek texts. The teachings and works of Aristotle have been preserved by Ibn Sīnā and Ibn Rushd (d.1198). With the reconquest of Toledo in 1085 and Sicily in 1091, European scholars, e.g., Gerard of Cremona (d. 1187), started to translate the Arabic fragments and works of Aristotle to Latin. Although most of the Greek geographical works perished, Arabic cartographic and geographical knowledge was transmitted to Latin Europe.558 Since the Prester John Letter was initially written in Greek, this implies the possibility of its transformation or reformulation on the authority of some Arab legends inherited from the Greeks. Helleiner claims that there is no assertion of the original language of the Letter, but the certainty that it was translated from an Arabic original can be dismissed out of hand.559 Nevertheless, some elements annexed to a twelfth-century manuscript of the Letter in Paris point out that the Letter was translated from Arabic into Latin. Further, it is reported that after Manuel Comnenus had the Letter translated from Arabic into Latin, he sent it to Pope Alexander III.560 As a consequence, several Wright, The Geographical Lore of the Time of the Crusades, 91-99, 114, 247. Charles Burnett, “The Coherence of the Arabic-Latin Translation Program in Toledo in the Twelfth Century,” Science in Context, no. 14 (2001): 249–88; Wright, The Geographical Lore of the Time of the Crusades, 77-78; Charles Homer Haskins, The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1927), 278-302. 559 Helleiner, “Prester John’s Letter: A Mediaeval Utopia,” 54-56. 560 Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, Ms. Lat. 3858 A, (dated: 12th Cenurey(, fol. 200va-202ra, in Wagner, Epistola Presbiteri Johannis, 92: (E)pistola presbiteri Johannis ad emmanuelem imperatorem constantinopolitanum in qua hortatur eum ut 557 558

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elements of the kingdom of Prester John are indubitably entangled with the magnificent eastern wonders, fables and miracles,561 which are scattered through several Arabic geographic works. A corpus of geographic and cartographic descriptions mentioned by al-Sharīf al-Idrīsī (d. 1165-6) reveals several similarities between the imaginary conception of the Prester John kingdom in the three Indias and the Arabo-Muslim imagination about of India and the Far East. In his book Nuzhat al-mushtāq fī ikhtirāq al-āfāq (book of pleasant journeys to faraway Lands) that also known as the book of Roger (Tabula Rogeriana), al-Idrīsī presents a geographic and cartographic description of numerous lands, peoples, rivers, seas and exotic animals of the medieval world comparable to those in the vague Three Indias of Prester John.562 Arab and Muslim writers have rewritten and retold several old Greek geographic accounts. For example, the Geography of the Greek Ptolemy (ca. 100-170), the most well-known early work on geography, was translated into Arabic in the ninth century and into Latin in 1406. Ptolemy’s work contributed, along with other medieval traditions, to shape the medieval knowledge of the inhabited and uninhabitable Earth.563 In the same way, the geography and cartography of al-Idrīsī built upon Muslim earlier geographical works like Ibn Khurradādhbih (d. 300/912), Ibn-Rūsta (300/912), al-Masʾudi (d. 345/956), al-Isṭakhri (d. 346/957) and Ibn-Ḥawqal (d. after 366/977).564 Furthermore, in the cartographic sections of Nuzhat al-

ueniat ad seruitium suum et faciet eum diuitem magis quam sit quam idem emmanuel translatam de arabico in latinum misit Alexandro pape). 561 Wright, The Geographical Lore of the Time of the Crusades, 114. 562 Al-Idrīsī, Kitāb Nuzhāt al-Mushtāq, vol.1 , 5-6; Al-Mahdī ʿīd al-Ruwāḍīyah, ed., Kitab Gharā’ib al-Funūn wa Mulaḥ al-‘uyūn (Amman: University of Jordan, 2008), 48-51. 563 Raymond Clemens, “Medieval Maps in a Renaissance Context: Gregorio Dati,” in Cartography in Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Fresh Perspectives, New Methods, ed. Richard J.A. Talbert and Richard Watson Unger (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 237–56; James S. Romm, The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought: Geography, Exploration and Fiction (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 12-18. 564 Al-Idrīsī, Kitāb Nuzhāt al-Mushtāq , vol.1 , 5-6; Al-Ruwāḍīyah, Kitab Gharā’ib alFunūn, 48-51. 172

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mushtāq, al-Idrīsī benefited from the ptolemaic cartography, which was the basis of several earlier Muslim geographic works.565 By request of King Roger II of Sicily (r. 1130-1154), al-Idrīsī, who arrived in his kingdom in about 1139, completed his book shortly before Roger's death in 1154. Al-Idrīsī drew a world map with the south at the top edge, dividing his world into seven regional zones of equal width containing seventy sections, each subdivided into ten equivalent sections by meridian lines.566 Al-Idrīsī was the first Muslim cartographer to depict the Fareast and southeast Asia on a map.567 As a result, al-Idrīsī’s work was an essential source for the world geography at the time, especially for the unknown lands of India and the Far East, which was a source of legends and imagination. In this context, both al-Idrīsī and the Letter’s writer depicted those alleged Indian kings based on Alexander the Great Romance and the Alexandrian geographers, especially Ptolemy’s geography. Mapping the kingdoms, lands and islands of the Far East and India, whether in a written-literary form such as the Letter or in a geographical book or atlas like that of al-Idrīsī, shows a cross-cultural medieval Latinized and Arabized imaginative perception of eastern Asian-Indian alterity, evoking likeness as much as otherness. Hence, one can suggest that al-Idrīsī’s topographical and geographical descriptions of many wonders, legendary kings and kingdoms in the vague Three Indias, could be transferred from Sicily or Italy to the composer of the legendary descriptions of Prester John's S. Maqbul Ahmad, “Cartography of al-Sharif al-Idrisi, "Cartography in the Traditional Islamic and South Asian, vol.2. book 1, eds. J. B. Harley and David Woodward (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 156-74. 566 The ninth century al-Yaʻqūbī (d. 284/897-8), the most ancient Arabic-Islamic geographer and historian, mentioned that the Indians, who were pioneers in Astronomy, were the first to divide the earth to seven climates or regional zones. See, Aḥmad ibn Abī Yaʻqūb al-Yaʻqūbī, Taʼrīkh al-Yaʻqūbī, vol. 2 (Laydan-Baghdād: Maṭbaʻat Brīl, 1883), 93. 567 Al-Sharīf al-Idrīsī, Kitāb Nuzhāt al-Mushtāq fī’ikhtirāq al-Āfāq (Cairo: Maktabat alThaqāfah al-Dīnīyah, 2002), 3-14; Tarek Kahlaoui, Creating the Mediterranean: Map and the Islamic Imagination, Handbuch der Orientalistik 119 (Leiden. Boston: Brill, 2018), 142-155; Abū ‘Abdallāh al-Idrīsī, “The Book of Roger,” in Roger II and the Creation of the Kingdom of Sicily, trans. Graham A. Loud (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012), 355; Burnett, “The Coherence of the Arabic-Latin Translation,” 249-88; Ahmad, “Cartography of al-Sharīf Al-Idrīsī,” 156–74. 565

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lands. In this frame of mind, the Letter probably consisted of SicilianNorman propaganda against the Byzantine emperor and Frederick Barbarossa. Furthermore, Italy and Sicily were a part of the ongoing conflict between the papacy and the Roman Empire at the time. Interestingly, at the beginning of his book, al-Idrīsī describes King Roger II as a priestly sovereign in a way that is like the presentation of Prester John at the beginning of his Letter: The best subject that can interest an observer, because it inspires him with thoughts and ideas, is the great King Roger, glorious through God and powerful through the power of the latter, King of Sicily, Italy, Lombardy and Calabria, a supporter of the imâm (leader/Master) of Rome and of the Christian religion. He is superior to the king of the Rûm through the extent and the rigour of his power. […] He renders justice according to the dictates of his religion, submitting himself to equity. He takes his subjects under the protection of his generosity and his grace. […] He has conquered lands in the East as in the West. […] He has an army that abounds in men and equipment, and numerous fleets benefiting from the help of every sort. […]. His supporters always enjoy the honours of complete victory, while his enemies suffer humiliating defeats, one after another. […]. Furthermore, he combines the nobility of character and nobility of descent, the beauty of his actions and the beauty of his morality [...].568 As explained earlier, there was a conceptual and geographic confusion between India and Abyssinia (i.e, southeast Africa), seen as one-linked land of the Three Indias. Hence, the map of al-Idrīsī provides an interpretation for such a misconception. Al-Idrīsī placed both India and Abyssinia on the southern edge of the known world on his map. Southern and Central Africa were linked to Southeast Asia in such a way as to enclose the Red Sea (Qulzum) and the Indian Ocean, which included several islands, a variety of exotic people, Al-Idrīsī, “The Book of Roger,” 355-56; Al-Idrīsī, Kitāb Nuzhāt al-Mushtāq, vol.1, 3-5.

568

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animals, fishes and other creatures. In that vast southern boundary of the world, there were various islands and deserts down the south bank of the Indian sea. At the same longitude, Abyssinia and the uninhabitable land are placed on the southwest edge of the map.569

Fig. 5. Al-Idrīsī’s World Map, oriented with the north at the bottom, Kitāb Nuzhāt al-Mushtāq, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits, MS. Arabe 2221 (dated 1250-1325), fol. 3b-4a

Al-Idrīsī shows the description of the Earth (ṣūrat al-arḍ) as being a circle divided into four cardinal directions as the map below reveals. Al-Idrīsī placed both India and Abyssinia on the southern edge of the known world, the vast southern lands on his map. Moreover, the image See the first province/ climate at Al-Idrīsī, Kitāb Nuzhāt al-Mushtāq , vol.1 , 32-100; Zakarīyā Muḥammad al-Qazwīnī, ʽAjāʾib al-Makhlūqāt wa-Gharāʾib al-Maujūdāt (Beirut: Muʼassasat al-Aʻlamī lil-Maṭbūʻāt, 2000), 99-117; Al-Qazwīnī, Āthār alBilād wa Akhbār al-ʻibād (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, n.d.), 15-25, 30-35, 53-55

569

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of the seas in general, the Indian Ocean, and the southern parts of the inhabited Earth were born with the emergence of Islamic cartography in the fourth/tenth century.570 For Instance, Ibn Khurradādhbih says that India, China, al-Zanj, al-Ḥabashah (Abyssinia), Persia and Qulzum are all located on the Great Eastern Sea, i.e., the Indian Ocean, where there are savage and prolonged fishes.571 The Prester John Letter divides the Earth in four parts, from which “the wicked races will come forth” before the end of the age. 572 According to the cartography of al-Idrīsī in the map above, he has divided the Earth into seventy sections of seven zones, each of which is subdivided into ten parts, placing the south at the top edge. This depiction closely matches the geographical description the Prester John world. The Letter mentions that Prester John rules the entire Earth, which he divided into seventy-two kingdoms: I, Prester John, am the lord of lords and exceed all kings of the entire Earth in virtue, power, and all the riches which are under heaven. Seventy-two kings are tributaries to us. […]. Our magnificence dominates in the three Indias, and our land crosses from Farther India, in which rests the body of St Thomas the apostle, through the desert, and proceeds towards the sunrise, and returns down into the Babylonian desert, next to the tower of Babel. Seventytwo provinces serve us, of which few are made up of Christians, and each one of them has its own king, who are all tributaries to us.573 The Letter specifies approximate descriptions of some different provinces of the land of Prester John, in which there are Christians and abundant gold, silver, camels and elephants.574 Al-Idrīsī represents four Christian areas south of Egypt; Nubia, the abode of the nomadic Beja, the land of the Bāliyyūn (in Nubia) and the Ethiopians, who were For more about the Islamic cartography and imagination see, Kahlaoui, Creating the Mediterranean: Map and the Islamic Imagination, 1-22, 142-180. 571 ʻUbayd Allāh ibn ʻAbd Allāh Ibn Khurradādhbih, Al-Masālik wa al-Mamālik (Baghdād: Maktabat al-Muthanná, 1960), 92. 572 Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 70. 573 Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 68. 574 Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 68-70, 76. 570

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Jacobites. Al-Idrīsī describes these provinces as lands of metals, gold and silver, speaking about the mountain of gold in the area south of Egypt. In these lands, especially, the people of Ethiopia have camels, managing them in trading and shipping. He also described magic and unusual fishes, like those fishes of Prester John. Beyond the land of Ethiopia and eastwards on the Indian Sea, there are numerous islands. In these lands and islands, especially the island of Socotra, which is a part of the lands of Yamen that was seen as a part of Abyssinia, Christian people dwelled. Some of these people and lands belonged to Abyssinia and others to Indian kings.575 In a description like the Letter’s description of Prester John’s kingdom, both Ibn Khurradādhbih and al-Idrīsī spoke of an Indian Christian king called Jābah (possibly read as Jānah/John). He sits on a golden throne wearing a golden capuche and a decorated cloth with sapphire and lands containing wondrous islands, people and fables. King Jābah has coinage bearing his image and worships the Bidūd, which in the Indian language means churches, according to al-Idrīsī’s interpretation. These churches are decorated with gold, silver and marble. Al-Idrīsī further describes the several plants and animals of that prosperous kingdom of king Jābah, who was rich, generous and fair, designating the wonders of his lands as the “visual wonders of the earth.”576 Ibn Khurradādhbih relates that the lands of this king were wooded lands and contained savage people, unusual fishes and various sorts of animal species.577 In these lands, one can find elephants, monkeys with tails, giraffes, cows and buffaloes, rhinoceros, al-Nasanis, snakes, al-Baba and al-Ghida, emeralds, sapphires, al-Ghara, Saqanqura, camphor. Further, only there can be found aloewood and inhabitants with red and dark coloured skin. These lands contain gold that can be found in various places.578

Al-Idrīsī, Nuzhāt al-Mushtāq, vol. 1, 34, 40, 44-47, 50-51, 85, 67-68, 80-81. Al-Idrīsī, Nuzhāt al-Mushtāq, vol. 1, 80-100. 577 Ibn Khurradādhbih, Al-Masālik, 96-97; Al-Idrīsī, Nuzhāt al-Mushtāq, vol. 1, 81-82; Ibn al-Wardī, Kharīdat al-‘Ajā’ib wa-Farīdat al-Gharā’ib, Forschungs-bibliothek Gotha, MS. Orient A1516 (dated 1045AH/1635AD), fol 71a-72b. 578 Al-Idrīsī, Nuzhāt al-Mushtāq, vol. 1, 80-100. 575 576

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The Letter also referred to a river in the islands of the Amazon women. In this river, there are sweet fish to eat. There are also other fish “shaped like large hands, having four well-placed feet.”579 In the Letter, Prester John indicates that amongst other miraculous things in his land is a “sandy sea without water,” which cannot be crossed by any means, and therefore it is impossible to know the nature of the land beyond it.” This sandy sea is on the edge of a desert, and at a three-day distance from it there are certain mountains, from which the river of stones descends.” However, on the bank on the side of Prester John’s lands are found “diverse species of fish, most pleasing and tasty to eat, which are seen nowhere else.”580 Likewise, al-Idrīsī mentioned that there were several wondrous ships, fishes and birds amongst other unusual marvels in the Indian sea and the Chinse Sea and other streams flowing from them on the southeast side south side of al-Idrīsī’s map. He described a sea that is called in the Indian tongue Hirkind/Harkand, which includes several miraculous fish and ships, and beyond it, there is the substantial uninhabitable desert in the southern part of the Far East.581 The same uninhabitable mountains and lands were part of Prester John’s kingdom situated on the farthest south. we have a certain great and uninhabitable island. […] Next to the desert between uninhabitable mountains, a certain stream flows beneath the Earth, to which no entrance can be made unless by an accidental fall. Indeed, sometimes the land is opened up, and if anyone crosses that place at that moment, he can enter and exit with great speed lest the land may perhaps be closed up.582 579

Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 78-79. Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 74-75: (Inter cetera, quae mirabiliter in terra nostra contingunt, est harenosum mare sine aqua. Harena enim movetur et tumescit in undas ad similitudinem omnis maris et nunquam est tranquillum. Hoc mare neque alio modo transiri potest, et ideo cuiusmodi terra ultra sit sciri non potest. Et quamvis omnino careat aqua, inveniuntur tamen iuxta ripam a nostra parte diversa genera piscium ad comedendum gratissima et sapidissima, alibi nunquam visa), here, 51. 581 Al-Idrīsī, Nuzhāt al-Mushtāq, vol. 1, 88-95, 65-66; similar fictional descriptions are given by al-Yaʻqūbī, see al-Yaʻqūbī, Taʼrīkh, vol. 2, 207. 582 Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 73, 75. 580

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Additionally, the kingdom of Prester John is said to have contained Gog and Magog, which al-Idrīsī locates in the eighth and ninth sections of the sixth climate zone of his map and book. He recounts fables about the land of Gog and Magog and the barrier that Alexander the Great established to confine them behind the mountains in the region.583 A similar imaginary land mentioned by al-Idrīsī is the island nation of al-Wāq Wāq/al-Wakwak, which was famous in the Arabic tradition. However, it does not seem to have corresponded to any actual place. The land of al-Zinj (the black people), with its exotic peoples and its creatures, is situated by al-Idrīsī in the far south on the edge of the inhabited lands. These lands were also described as the land of gold.584 The thirteenth-century Muslim cosmographer and geographer Zakariyā al-Qazwīnī (d. 682/1283) described these people. However, most of al-Qazwīnī’s work echoed the same anthropological and imaginative geographical description mentioned by al-Idrīsī.585 In this respect, Wittkower says that the fabulous races of the cosmography of al-Qazwīnī contain some representations of an astonishing similarity to the western types.586

Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 70; Al-Idrīsī, Nuzhāt al-Mushtāq, vol. 2, 92738: Interestingly, al-Idrīsī told the story of Gog and Magog on the authority of Sallām al-Tūrjumān, who was the missionary of the ‘Abbasid Caliph al-Wāthiq bi-llāh (r. 22732/842-47). Caliph al-Wāthiq saw in a dream that Gog and Magog breached the wall of Alexander, so that he sent Sallām in 842, perhaps a Khazarian Jew from Sarnarra, to investigate the wall. After Sallām’s return in 844, he reported his travel to al-Wāthiq that was recorded by the renowned Arab geographer Ibn Khurradādhbih (d. 912). At the end; Al-Idrīsī, Nuzhāt al-Mushtāq, vol. 2, 934-38; Donzel and Schmidt, Gog and Magog, xvii-xviii. Nevertheless, al-Idrīsī tells that he quoted other information about Gog and Magog in that section from the Geography of Ptolemy. 584 Al-Idrīsī, Nuzhāt al-Mushtāq, vol. 1, 80; Al-Qazwīnī, Āthār al-Bilād, 33-35; Shawkat M. Toorawa, “Wâq Al-Wâq: Fabulous, Fabular, Indian Ocean (?) Island(s) …,” Emergences: Journal for the Study of Media and Composite Cultures 10, no. 2 (2000): 387–402. 585 Lewicki, T., “al-Ḳazwīnī”, in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, ed. P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs, accessed online on 02 August 2019 http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_4093. 586 Wittkower, “Marvels of the East. A Study in the History of Monsters,” 175. 583

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Fig. 6. Savage people in the lands of the Zinj and other islands in the Indian sea, al-Qazwīnī, ʿAjāʾib al-Makhlūqāt wa-Gharāʾib al-Maujūdāt, British Library: Oriental Manuscripts, MS. Or 14140 (dated 1300), fol. 132b, 133a.

The Letter in interpolation D describes such savage people, exotic animals and other unusual creatures: ...great savage dogs the size of horses, whose ferocity exceeds that of every kind of wild animal, which our hunters steal while they are puppies in their mothers’ laps, […] There are also raised in our land savage horses, savage donkeys, little horned men, savage cows, savage men, oneeyed men, men with eyes in front and back, men without heads, with their mouth and eyes on their chest, whose length is 12 feet, their width six feet; in colour they are similar to purest gold; men with 12 feet, six arms, 12 hands, four heads, and on each one of them they have two mouths and three eyes. There are also born in our land women with great bodies, beards down to their breasts, flatheads, clothed in skins; these most excellent huntresses 180

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raise beasts to hunt instead of dogs, lion against lion, bear against bear, stag against stag, and so on.587 There are other aspects of these descriptions that are paralleled in the accounts of Prester John’s domain. The title of “King of Kings” or “Lord of Lords,” by which Prester John was designated, was a general title that was applied to the great kings of India and other kings in the Far East, Nubia and Abyssinia (the imagined wide lands of the Three Indias of Prester John). According to Ibn Khurradādhbih, the general title for the Great King of India was Balharā, which means king of kings. All the kings of al-Turk (Turks), al-Tubbat (Tibet) and alKhazar (Khazars) were called Khāqān, which also means king of kings, the title that was also applied to other Asian kings in general.588 Al-Idrīsī describes an Indian king called “al-Maharaja,” who was the king of kings and ruled numerous islands and innumerable lands. The description is somewhat similar to some imaginative narratives of the power of the Indian Prester John. King Maharāja ruled prosperous lands that included different plants, animals and wonders. His lands included a city called “Kayūat” which was a golden and wealthy city and a home for travellers and foreigners.589 The same title was also assigned to the king of Nubia, whose general name was Kābīl, and to the ruler of Persia. He mentions that the kings of the Turks, Tibetans and Khazars were called Khāqān, which also means the king of kings or lord of lords. Another title indicating the same king of kings meaning was that of Shāhanshāh assigned to the king of al-Āghzāz (Ghuzz Turks). Al-Idrīsī also records several wonders about Bilād al-Sind (Indus lands) and other Indian cities that were in the domain of the king of kings Balharā. King Balharā’s lands formed a vast and prosperous kingdom that included various sorts of perfumes, animals and birds, rivers. Al-Idrīsī explains that Balharā was a royal title assigned to all Indian kings.590

Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 69. Ibn Khurradādhbih, al-Masālik, 16. 589 Al-Idrīsī, Nuzhāt al-Mushtāq, vol.1. 89, 95, 97, 98, 510-511; vol. 2, 719; Ibn Khurradādhbih, al-Masālik, 16-17; Al-Qazwīnī, Āthār al-Bilād, 30. 590 Al-Idrīsī, Nuzhāt al-Mushtāq, vol. 1, 89, 95-98,169-180, 183-185, 188, 190, 510-511; vol. 2, 719. 587 588

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Al-Idrīsī mentions another powerful Christian king called Bāghbūgh, whose name also means king of kings, and he was the most powerful king and ruled all other kings in that region. He was a wise and fair king having a good reputation, and he was known as a defender of oppressed people. Al-Baghbūgh lived in a well-decorated palace on a golden throne with a golden crown, and around him sat his ministers in council each second Friday (i.e., every two weeks). This king was a wise, respectful and pious person who protected the poor. The people of India and China glorified King al-Baghbūgh, although he worshipped al-Badūd/ Bidūd, which is the church doctrine, i.e., Christianity. The land of al-Baghbūgh was located on the edge of Far India and extended to the borders of China.591 In the kingdom of Prester John, several rivers proceed from Paradise, extending their paths through different provinces, depositing gold and gemstones.592 Similarly, the royal city of the Christian king al-Baghbūgh was called “Bājat,” and was located on the river of Khamadān/Ḥamadān al-Ṣīn (Ḥamadān of China). The river of Ḥamadān al-Ṣīn flows from Paradise containing marvellous and sacred trees. He relates that al-Baghbūgh had a guard of one thousand elephants and numerous men and weapons. A considerable army guarded the gates in the barrier mountain between his lands and the Turkish tribes.593 Al-Idrīsī further claims that there were several Turkic nomadic tribes which dwelled in the area beyond the river (Transoxiana) up to the dark Eastern Sea, i.e. the Pacific Ocean. The Turks in this region had a variety of different religious beliefs. The non-Muslim Turks, who were subjected to the Chinese and Indian kings, were constantly invading and plundering the other Turks who converted to Islam in Bilād mā-warāʾ an-nahr (Transoxiana).594 In this area, the forces of King al-Baghbūgh under the leadership of his follower, the ruler of the city of Bashhīār, fought against the Muslim Turks of al-Khāqānīah Al-Idrīsī, Nuzhāt al-Mushtāq, vol. 1, 81-82, 97-98, 184, 208, 211-213; MS. Arabe 2221 (ca. 1250-1325), BNF, Département des manuscripts, fol. 86b-87a. 592 Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 71-72, 74-75. 593 MS. Arabe 2221, fol. 88a-88b; al-Idrīsī, Nuzhāt al-Mushtāq, vol. 1, 212-214 594 Al-Idrīsī, Nuzhāt al-Mushtāq, vol. 1, 511-519; Al-Idrīsī, MS. Arabe 2221, fol. 166a180b. 591

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and al-Khazilijīah.595 Hence, al-Idrīsī’s account is similar to the tales about the wars of Prester John against the kings of the Persians and Medes, i.e. the Turkish Seljuks. It seems that the battles between the forces of King al-Baghbūgh took place near the river Ḥamadān, which appears to be near one of the famed capital cities of the ancient Medes and Persians, Ekbatana; the same city that was identified as the city of Ḥamadān by Otto of Freising.596 Building on al-Idrīsī’s description, the region of Central Asia was the area in which the nomadic Turkic tribes of the Qarakhitai/Khitans, who were subject to the Chinese empire, engaged in several wars with Muslim Turkic tribes. One of those Turks was [the Seljuq sultan] Sinjar who was defeated by Yelü Dashi in Qaṭwān 1141, the battle that was the kernel of the legend of Prester John.597 Further, as described above, Ibn al-Āthir and Ibn al-Jawzī have also referred to those non-Muslim Turks as infidel Turks “al-Atrāk al-Kuffār,” the Khitans, whose ruler overcame Sultan Sinjar in 1141.598 There are several similarities and intertwined imaginations between the figure of al-Baghbūgh and Prester John. They were both believed to be pious, rich, wise and fair Christian kings, who were also protectors of the poor. Both proceeded to fight against their Muslim Turkish enemies, and their lands had the same holy river flowing from Paradise. They had golden crowns and palaces, and the description of the palace of Prester John is similar to that of the golden palace of alBaghbūgh. Further, al-Baghbūgh had authority over other vassal kings subject to him, and Prester John ruled over seventy-two provinces, “each one of them has its own king,” which were all tributaries to him.599 The council of ministers in attendance around King al-

Al-Idrīsī, Nuzhāt al-Mushtāq, vol. 1, 213, 511-516, vol. 2, 711-717; MS. Arabe 2221, 87b-88b, 178a-183b, 250a-252b; Ibn al-Wardī, MS. Orient A1516, fol. 9b, 52a; AlMasʻūdī, Akhbār al-Zamān (al-Najaf: Al-Maktabah al-Ḥaydarīyah, 1966), 99. 596 Otto of Freising, De Duabus Civitatibus, 312-313; Otto of Freising, The Two Cities, 407-408. 597 Biran, “Qarakhanid Eastern Trade,” 575–95; Bretschneider, Mediaeval Researches from Eastern Asiatic, vol. 1, 208-230; Biran, The Empire of the Qara Khitai, 18-20, 33-47. 598 Ibn-al-Āthīr, al-Kāmil, vol. ix, 319, Ibn-al-Jawzī, al-Muntaẓam, vol. 18: 19. 599 Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 68, 71, 74, 76, 84, 86. 595

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Baghbūgh likewise resembles the description of the bishops and subkings attending the courtly service of Prester John. Every month seven kings, 62 dukes, and 365 counts serve us at our table, each one according to their rank, with the exception of those who are assigned to various duties at our court.600 In the same frame of mind, one can say here that the title “Prester John” or “priest-king John” as being lord of lords or king of kings is a proximate title to those kings who were ruling the same geographical area described by al-Idrīsī. In other words, the composer of the Letter, in his construction of the persona of Prester John, may have attributed all the imaginative authorities, wonders and marvels of some of those kings resulting in the figure of a similar Christian king bearing the apocalyptical-sacred name John. He also linked those alleged Indian kings and the romance of Alexander the Great to lend more currency and weight for the newly invented legend of Prester John. Mapping the kingdoms, lands and islands of the Far East and India, whether in a written-literary form such as the Letter or geographical book and atlas like that of al-Idrīsī, was a cutting-edge contribution in the twelfth century in both East and West. 3. PRESTER JOHN AND THE MYTHICAL INDIAN TALES IN THE ARABIAN NIGHTS The oriental style of the Prester John Letter made some scholars suggest the familiarity of the author of the Letter with the stories of the Arabian Nights (Alf laylah wa-laylah (i.e. The Thousand and One Nights), especially the voyages of Sindbad.601 Nevertheless, recurrent fantastical associations of the Arabian Nights with the legend of Prester John have received little attention from modern researchers. Like the Letter of Prester John, the Arabian Nights contained fables of Indian origins and were likely transferred into Middle Persian and Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 84. Hamilton, “Prester John and the Three Kings,” 174; Silverberg, Prester John, 49-50; Oppert, Der Presbyter Johannes in Sage und Geschichte, 54-57.

600 601

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then into Arabic after the spread of Islam in Iran and Central Asia. The Arabian Nights contain a mixture of Greek, Alexandrian, Indian, Syriac and Arabic influences. Thus, they represent a microcosm of the historical-cultural transformations between the Greeks, Indians, Persians and Arabs, which might have been transferred in a Christianised fashion to Western Europe in the Middle Ages.602 Perhaps the most fascinating of the Arabian Nights tales are the voyages of Sindbad the sailor, which are supposed to have taken place during the reign of the Abbasid Caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd (r. 143193/786-809) and were likely composed between the ninth and tenth centuries. Sindbad’s adventures occurred throughout fabulous islands, rivers and seas, especially in India. He informed his audience in Baghdād about many unusual mountains, gems, islands, magical fishes, monsters, savage people and animals that he encountered during his seven voyages. The tales of Sindbad were imitated in different ways and styles, including possibly some stories echoed in the Letter, though in a medieval western form.603 In this respect, Hamilton states that the story of Prester John’s emerald sceptre, however, is derived from the sixth Voyage of Sinbad in the Arabian Nights where it forms part of the regalia of the King of Ceylon, but Hugh of Jabala had probably been told the whole story by Arabic-speaking merchants who had come to Frankish Antioch to trade, and such details would have formed part of their folklore. 604 Like the legend of Prester John, the tales of Sindbad were built on oriental tales, especially on those about the wonders of unknown seas, islands and lands in the African Indian and Persian spheres. These tales were told in a heroic style creating a heroic figure. The stories of Sindbad are maritime stories that were probably told many times For more about the universe marvels and reception of the Arabian Nights in Islam and Christianity, see Robert Irwin, The Arabian Nights: A Companion (London: I.B. Tauris, 2010), 73, 89, 178-213. 603 Saʻid ʻAlī al-Khuṣusī, ed., Alf laylah wa-laylah, vol. 3 (Cairo: Maṭbaʻat Būlāq, 1935), 81-118. 604 Hamilton, “Prester John and the Three Kings of Cologne,” 174. 602

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throughout the ages and in all the ports of the world, mingling fragments of truth with fables. Furthermore, the sources of the Sindbad tales seem to be in Arabic, and several events in the tales are taken from early Arabic geographical works such as those of Ibn Khurradādhbih and al-Yaʿqūbī (d. 284/897-8), who lived in Baghdād, Armenia and Khurāsān, and travelled to India and parts of Africa. The same tales of the sixth voyage of Sindbad about a certain king, his islands and people were mentioned by Ibn Khurradādhbih and alYaʿqūbī in the account of the king of Sirindīb (probably modern Ceylon or Sri Lanka). This king sent great presents with Sindbad to Hārūn Al-Rashīd, whom Sindbad informed about the mysterious land of this foreign king.605 Likewise, many of the tales of Sindbad and other episodes from the Arabian Nights were echoed by subsequent Islamic writers, including al-Idrīsī and al-Qazwīnī. In the six voyages of Sindbad, there are several accounts of kings, islands, people, exotic creatures and animals. For instance, there is mention of an Indian king called al-Mahrjān, who was probably the same king called al-Maharājā mentioned by al-Idrīsī and alQazwīnī.606 Sindbad tells several tales about al-Mahrjān and his attractive city, generous people and court. Numerous nations live in his lands and the Indian people are divided into seventy-two nations or groups, one of which is al-Barāhīmah (the Brahmans), mentioned in the Letter as one of the Prester John’s people. Furthermore, these lands include fanciful Indian islands with exotic fish. In the third voyage of Sindbad, he relates unusual stories about the mountain of monkeys, mentioning that no one had arrived at this uninhabitable place before, in which many monkeys and savage people dwell.607

Al-Yaʻqūbī, Taʼrīkh al-Yaʻqūbī, vol. 2, 207; Ibn Khurradādhbih, Al-Masālik, 94-95, Al-Khuṣusī, Alf laylah wa-laylah, vol. 3, 112-116. 606 Al-Qazwīnī, Ms. Or 14140, fol. 21a-21b, 29b. 607 Al-Khuṣusī, Alf laylah wa-laylah, vol. 3, 85-87, 92-93, 106-108. ‫)فوجدت عنده جماعة من الهنودفسلمت عليهمفردوا ع ّلي السالم ورحبوابي وقدسألوني عنبالدي وسألتهم عن‬ ‫[ ومنهم جماعةتسمي البرا همة و همقوم اليشربون الخمرأبدًا وانما هم‬...] ‫فة‬ ‫بالد همفأخبروني انهم أجناس مختل‬ 605

‫فترق علياثنتين وسبعين‬ ‫فاء ولهو وضرب وجمال وخيول ومواشي واعلموني انصنف الهنودي‬ ‫أصحاب حظ وص‬ ...] ‫فرقةفتعجبت من ذلك غاية العجب ورأيتفي مملكة المهرجان جزيرة من جملة الجزائريقاللها كابل‬ ‫فرة كثير ًا من العجائب والغرائب ممالو‬ ‫[ ورأيتفي هذه الس‬...] ‫[ورأيتفي ذلك البحرسمكة طولها مائتا ذراع‬ here, p. 86, night 528. .)....‫حكيتهلكملطالشرحه‬ 186

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A comparison between the journey of Sindbad to the Prester John Letter reveals that the al-Barāhīmah of Sindbad are the same Brahmans who were linked to the Christian St. Thomas and who were also reported to be one of Prester John’s people. The seventy-two Indian groups or nations of al-Mahrjān correspond with the seventytwo kings tributaries to Prester John. The Letter also informs us about the savage men and exotic animals living in the lands of Prester John.608 Furthermore, just as India and Abyssinia were confused in the European Middle Ages, Sindbad also confuses Indians and Abyssinians in his sixth voyage.609 The most similar tales to the legend of Prester John are the tales of an Indian king called Urdu-Khān (Urdu the king of kings) in the stories that were narrated from night 889 to 927 of the Arabian Nights.610 Furthermore, these tales are included in a sixteenth/seventeenth-century manuscript in Berlin. Urdu-Khān was the son of the powerful king Jalīʿād or Kālaʿād. Seventy-two kings serve him, and he has three hundred judges and seventy ministers along with his prime minister who is called Shīmās. The fictional Urdu-Khān’s tales included several wonders and miracles of the Indian lands and kings, including the king of the Farthest India who fought against Urdu-Khān but later made peace with him.611 This gives weight to the concept of the Three Indias, in which several kings lived and subjected to Prester John – as the Letter described. Interestingly, these tales were Islamized and retold, which suggests that they were reconfigured and re-narrated in different ways and new religious contexts. As a result, we may hypothesize that Prester John was likely a medieval-Latinised form of such Sindbad adventures that were attributed to the invented medieval Christian figure of Prester John.

Brewer, ‘Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,’ 68-69, 80. Al-Khuṣusī, Alf laylah wa-laylah, vol. 3, 114-115. 610 Al-Khuṣusī, Alf Laylah, vol. 4, 134-183. 611 Ms. Orient. fol. 2564, Qiṣṣat Shīmās al-Ḥakīm maʿ al-Malik Urdu-Khān bi-Bilād alHind, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin-Preußischer Kulturbesitz (dated 16th-17th Cenurey), fol. 1-120; Al-Khuṣusī, Alf laylah wa-laylah, vol. 4, 134-183. 608 609

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4. COPTIC PERCEPTION OF LEGENDARY PRIEST-KING (JOHN) IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY The first association between Prester John and the Abyssinian spheres (including Nubia) and kings appeared in late-medieval sources such as accounts of travellers and missionaries, and not before. Since most late medieval writings were composed on the authority of their predecessors, at least in part, this suggests that the kings of Abyssinia, Nubia and India were transferred to the figure of Prester John at the beginning of the legend in the twelfth century. Owing to the geographic misconception of the Three Indias, of which Abyssinia was a part, the king of Abyssinia, with the traditions of St. Thomas and other mythical accounts of India and the Far East, might have been reconstructed and transformed into the figure of Prester John. Later, when more geographic information about India and Abyssinia became available in the late medieval period, the late-medieval travellers and writers connected the Abyssinian king with Prester John. The source of the medieval confusion between India and Abyssinia goes back to the ancient period, seeing the Horn of Africa as the Third India.612 Furthermore, the Prester John kingdom in the Three Indias was widely extended to the desert on the boundary of the “Bable,” i.e., Cairo.613 As a result, this also suggests that the Christians of Nubia and Abyssinia were part of the universal kingdom of Prester John. In the same frame of mind, E. Ross argues that from the beginning, when Prester John as a legendary figure first inspired the European imagination, he was connected to the king of Ethiopia. This twelfthcentury confusion and interference between India and the Abyssinian potentate was due to the inaccessibility of Abyssinia to Europeans and the confused medieval perception of India. On the authority of the same hypothesis, he presumes that the letter of Master Phillip, the envoy of Pope Alexander III to Prester John in 1177, might have been

Hamilton, “The Impact of Prester John on the Fifth Crusade,” 56. Raymond d’Aguilers, Historia Francorum, 86; Abu-Munshar, “Fātimids, Crusaders and the Fall of Islamic Jerusalem,” 53.

612 613

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delivered to the Negus of Abyssinia (King of Ethiopia) if he went at all.614 The twelfth-century cosmographer al-Qazwīnī indicates that the kings of Nubia and Abyssinia received a specific currency of glorification and excellency among the eastern Christians. He pointed out that a general title of the king of Nubia was Kābīl, who was a great Christian king glorified and respected by his people for his mercy and justice, as by his Indian neighbours. He had a great army and his land abounded in gold and elephants, monkeys and deer.615 Likewise, the twelfth-century Coptic historian Abū al-Makārim (d. 1209) mentioned that the Christian king of Nubia was called al-Malik al-Qiddīs, i.e., the priest-king, or the saint king,616 which resembles the title of the priest-king John. Abū al-Makārim was a Coptic Orthodox priest (qummuṣ) in the Egyptian Church. He was the author of the Tarīkh al-Kanāʼis wa alAdyirah fī al-Qarn al-thānī ʻashar (History of the churches and monasteries in the twelfth century), probably written between 893920/1170-1204. Abū al-Makārim’s manuscript was first discovered in the seventeenth century when the German Dominican theologian Johann Michael Vansleb (d. 1679) purchased a handwritten manuscript of it from Egypt, and it was then preserved in the National Library in Paris after his death. This copy was first translated into English in 1895 by B. Evetts, who misattributed the manuscript to Abū Ṣāliḥ the Armenian,617 whose name appeared as the owner of an anonymous manuscript but not as that of the author. On the authority of other manuscripts discovered in Munich and Egypt, it was established that the author of the book was Abū al-Makārim. Al-Anbā Samuel al-Suryani published an Arabic version of Abū al-Makārim’s book in five parts in 1984 and reprinted it in four parts in 1999 and 2000. Abū al-Makārim’s work is one of the most important sources on the Coptic Church and monasticism in his time, including historical 614 Ross, “Prester John and the Empire of Ethiopia,” 184-85, 180; Ḥilāl, Al-ʻalāqāt bayna

al-Maghūl wa Ūrubbā, 22. Al-Qazwīnī, Āthār al-Bilād, 24-25. 616 Abū al-Makārim, Tarīkh al-Kanāʼis wa al-Adyirah, vol. 2, 132. 617 See, al-Armanī Abū Ṡāliḣ, The Churches and Monasteries of Egypt and Some Neighbouring Countries, trans. B. T. A. Evetts, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1895). 615

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information and lists of the churches and monasteries in Egypt, Nubia and Abyssinia, relying on both his personal knowledge and ancient sources. Abū al-Makārim also wrote about other churches and monasteries in Europe and Asia.618 According to Abū al-Makārim, there were three Christian kingdoms in Nubia south of Egypt, whose people were Naṣārā Yaʿāqibah (Christian Jacobites), which contained populated cities with several magnificent monasteries and hundreds of churches. He tells us that the general title of the king of Nubia was the “saint king” or “the priest-king,” who ruled Nubian provinces as well as neighbouring regions and tribes.619 In the medieval texts and documents discovered at Qasr Ibrim, the regional capital of the Christian Nubian Kingdom of Dotawo in the Middle Ages, we find other titles of the Nubian kings. According to Giovanni Ruffini, the kings of Nubia were also called migin songoj (lord of the mountain) and mourtin ngodal (lord of horses).”620 All titles thus confirm the high-ranking divine authority of the Nubian Christian kings in the Middle Ages, especially during when the legend of Prester John was being composed in the mid-twelfth century. The Christian Nubian kingdoms contained unusual wonders, precious stones, massive mountains, vast areas and numerous troops. There was a further capital of the king of Nubia in the city of Dongola that had many churches, huge houses and wide streets. The house of the king (i.e., palace) was lofty with several domes built of red brick resembling the buildings in Iraq (this possibly means the towers of Babel or the Caliphal palace in Bagdad). These curious buildings were built by King Raphael, who was king of Nubia in the year 392/1002.621

Abū al-Makārim, Tarīkh al-Kanāʼis, vol. 1, 2-3; Johannes den Heijer, “Coptic Historiography in the Fāimid, Ayyūbid and Early Mamlūk Periods,” Medieval Encounters 2, no. 1 (1996): 77–81; Aziz Suryal Atiya, “Abu al-Makarim,” in Coptic Encyclopedia (New York: Macmillan, 1991), 23a-23b. 619 Abū al-Makārim, Tarīkh al-Kanāʼis, vol. 2, 126-28, 133; Abū Ṡāliḣ, The Churches and Monasteries, vol. 1, 260-65, 271; Giovanni R. Ruffini, Medieval Nubia: A Social and Economic History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 245, 248. 620 Ruffini, Medieval Nubia, 36. 621 Abū al-Makārim, Tarīkh al-Kanāʼis, vol. 2, 126-128, 132; Abū Ṡāliḣ, The Churches and Monasteries, vol. 1, 260-65, 271-72. 618

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Moreover, Abū al-Makārim states that the number of Nubian kings was thirteen, and they all were priests under the supremacy of the great King Kirīyākūs (Cyriacus).622 Abū al-Makārim spoke of the story of this king Kirīyākūs on the authority of the tenth-century Coptic historian, Sāwīrus ibn al-Muqaffaʿ (d. 987 AD), also known as Severus of el-Ashmunein, an Egyptian Coptic bishop. He was the first to write the long series of the account of tārīkh al-baṭārikah (history of the patriarchs of Alexandria). He first wrote the history of Alexandria’s patriarchs until the region of Pope Shenouda I of Alexandria (r. 859-880), the fifty-fifth Coptic Pope of Alexandria and patriarch of the See of St. Mark. Other Coptic writers, e.g. Anbā Mikhāʼīl, continued the work of ibn al-Muqaffa‘ and wrote the history of the subsequent patriarchs of Alexandria in the Middle Ages.623 The Christian kings of Nubia and Abyssinia had a high-ranking, almost sacred status among their people and the Copts of Egypt. The Nubians and Abyssinians were under the spiritual authority of the See of Saint Mark, the Evangelist and the patriarch of Alexandria in Egypt used to send them a metropolitan. Abū al-Makārim states that the patriarchs and fathers of the Coptic Church used to write letters to the kings of Abyssinia and Nubia twice per year until the Fatimid caliph al-Ḥākim bi-Amr Allāh prevented this practice. Nevertheless, if the ruler of Egypt received a letter from the kings of Nubia and Abyssinia, he would ask the patriarch of Egypt to write a reply. This reply would typically have mentioned the reverence and respect of all Christians of Egypt along with an appeal to the king of Abyssinia for better treatment of Muslims in his kingdom. 624 Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ and Abū al-Makārim state that Pope Anbā Khāʼil, the forty-sixth patriarch of the Egyptian church, was imprisoned in Egypt during the reign of the last Umayyad Caliph, Marwān II ibn Muḥammad (r. 127-32/744-50 AD). When the Great King Kirīyākūs Abū al-Makārim, Tarīkh al-Kanāʼis, vol. 2, 132; Abū Ṡāliḣ, The Churches and Monasteries, vol. 1, 272. 623 Jamāl al-Dīn ʻAbd al-ʻAzīz, ed., Tārīkh Miṣr min Khilāl Tārīkh al-Baṭārikah liSāwīrus Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ , vol. 1 (Cairo: Maktabat Madbūly, 2006), 6-20; Aziz Suryal Atiya, “ ‘Sāwīrus Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ,” in The Coptic Encyclopedia (New YorK, 1991), 2100-2102. 624 Abū al-Makārim, Tarīkh al-Kanāʼis, vol. 2, 126-128, 32-33,141-44; Abū Ṡāliḣ, The Churches and Monasteries, vol. 1, 260-65, 271-72, 284-90. 622

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of Nubia (elsewhere described as a king of Abyssinia) heard this, he marched with “a great army, one-hundred-thousand knights, onehundred-thousand horses and one-hundred-thousand camels” to attack Egypt. He and his forces plundered Upper Egypt and killed numerous Muslims as revenge for Muslim raids into Nubia and their practice of taking Christian slaves and selling them in Egypt.625 Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ tells us that this Abyssinian-Nubian king was the Greek king and the fourth king (in power) on Earth. Interestingly, Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ says that king Kirīyākūs, mentioned above, was still alive when he was writing his book.626 He probably means that Kirīyākūs was a general name of the Nubian/Abyssinian kings, who received both secular and ecclesiastical office, just as Prester John was alleged to have done at the same time. Furthermore, Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ and Abū al-Makārim state that the greatest king among the kings of this land was the Abyssinian king of al-Muqurrah (Makuria), al-Malik al-Ḥabashī al-Ārthiduksy/Ārtiduksy (the orthodox Abyssinian king), which was the same land mentioned by Abū al-Makārim as the second kingdom of Nubia. This Abyssinian king of al-Muqurrah was a great king who received his crown from heaven and his domain extended to the most distant areas of al-Āraḍ al-Qiblīah, (which is known as the furthest land in the southeast). He was the fourth king in power on Earth, and he and all the kings of Abyssinia and Nubia were under the jurisdiction of the See of Saint Mark the Evangelist and the Jacobite patriarch of Egypt. Additionally, it is stated that he had many armies, and no monarch on Earth could resist him.627 In 2012, Ruffini studied the Arabic, Greek, Coptic and old Nubian texts in Qasr Ibrim, which demonstrate the high prestige of the king of Makuria (al-Muqurrah). From Dongola (present-day Sudan), he ruled over several countries and numerous sub-kings. A legal text from Qasr Ibrim describes “the first-person voice of a Nubian king, a decree issued by King Moses George,” who was king of the Nubian ʻAbd al-ʻAzīz, Tārīkh al-Baṭārikah, vol. 2, 362- 65; Abū al-Makārim, Tarīkh alKanāʼis, vol. 2, 130. 626 ʻAbd al-ʻAzīz, Tārīkh al-Baṭārikah, vol. 2, 362, 365-66. 627 ʻAbd al-ʻAzīz, Tārīkh al-Baṭārikah, vol. 2, 365-66; Abū al-Makārim, Tarīkh alKanāʼis, vol. 2, 141. 625

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Kingdom of Makuria (ca. 1150-1190).628 The domain of the same Nubian king was described by Abū al-Makārim, mentioning that George ibn Zachariah, king of Nubia, sat upon a throne made of ebony, decorated with ivory and covered with pure gold. The king’s royal crown was adorned with precious stones topped by a golden cross with four jewels in each of its four sides.629 In the twelfth century, the king of al-Muqurrah was King Moses George of Nubia. Most of the texts discovered at Qasr Ibrim show that King George’s reign was a period of stability, power and central authority in Nubia. Other Qasr Ibrim texts show that another title of King Moses George was “Papelli.” It seems that this word is transmitted from “pap-or papl,” which is the terminal origin of the Nubian word for “bishop.” Therefore, this is further recognition of the priest-kingship of Moses George that is equivalent to the application of priesthood to all Nubian kings by Abū al-Makārim. 630 Additionally, “King of al-Muqurrah” was a general title for the Nubian kings of Makuria. Many names were similar to the name (Prester) John, such as Johannes, David and George. An epitaph found at Meinarti records the death of an eparch of Nobadia named Joasse, whose lived between 1065 and 1161 A.D. This Joasse held the title “choiak-eikshil” which means either an “honorary title or the name of an office,” was designated to both priests and secular officials. The materials of Qasr Ibrim confirm that this title was assigned to people who held the highest offices in the land.631 According to Abū al-Makārim, all Nubian kings were priests, celebrating liturgy with sincerity. The king of al-Muqurrah (George) had a particularly high rank among all Nubian kings. The powers of the Nubian and Abyssinian kings were united as one single great kingdom under the king of al-Muqurrah, whose domain extended up to the Indian lands. Such descriptions perfectly match the descriptions of the kingdom of Prester John, whose territory “dominates in the Three Indias” “through the desert, and proceeds towards the sunrise, Ruffini, Medieval Nubia, 8-9, 11, 31, 147-48, 210. Abū al-Makārim, Tarīkh al-Kanāʼis, vol. 2, 133; Abū Ṡāliḣ, The Churches and Monasteries, vol. 1, 272-73. 630 Ruffini, Medieval Nubia, 246-48. 631 Ruffini, Medieval Nubia, 47, 50, 246-48. 628 629

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and returns down into the Babylonian desert, next to the tower of Babel.”632 Combining the secular and ecclesiastical titles of the Nubian kings reveals that their general title would have been the priest-kings (of al-Muqurrah, George). According to the report of Otto of Freising, this general title is the same as that given to King John, whose people called him Prester John. Ruffini refers to a letter sent from an ecclesiastic to an individual called Iohannes, the great bishop, presumably the bishop of the Nubian capital Dongola. This text states that the Nubians saw no distinction between the secular positions and ecclesiastical officials and vice versa. This letter and other discovered texts are medieval versions of Christian Nubian traditions known in Africa and among other eastern Christians.633 Hence, Ruffini argues that: One of the effects of these discoveries at Qasr Ibrim is to make Ethiopia seem a little less exceptional. Nubia now stands by its side, transmitting African versions of stories that (...) were known throughout the Christians East as far as Russia and Armenia. These texts are further evidence of Nubia’s place in medieval Mediterranean ecumenism.634 Other religious texts in Old Nubian, Coptic, and Arabic were also found at Qasr Ibrim in Nubia. Greek also remained an important liturgical language among the Christians of the East. Therefore, several bilingual Greek-Old Nubian texts are engraved on wooden planks from Qasr Ibrim, and there are many texts written with a mixture of Arabic and Greek alphabets.635 The original Prester John Letter was probably created in such way with a mix of Greek and Arabic alphabets and exhibited the influence of other eastern Christian traditions before having been translated to Latin. The unusual names and places in the Prester John Letter indicate such a mixture of different languages and vernacular dialogues, and it is clear that the composer Latinized themes because he could not find an alternative

Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 68. Ruffini, Medieval Nubia, 230-31, 245. 634 Ruffini, Medieval Nubia, 231. 635 Cf. Ruffini, Medieval Nubia, 220-30. . 632 633

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in Latin synonymous to such unusual eastern names, places and creatures. Most likely, Christian kings of Nubia and Abyssinia were given general divine titles that were probably also used by other eastern Christian kings in the medieval Asian East inculding India. Further, such tales and legends were ancient narratives recorded by the monks in the monasteries to spread Christianity in Nubia, Abyssinia, Persia and India. For example, several narratives about spreading Christianity among unusual people and nations in the lands beyond Egypt circulated among the monks in the Coptic monasteries of southern Egypt. It seems that such tales were retold and rewritten between the tenth and thirteenth centuries. Other similar narratives were said about the Anbā Shinūdah, known as Shenouda the Archimandrite (348–466 AD), abbot of the monastery of Akhmim in Upper Egypt, and his relations with both Nubians and al-Bīmiyyn.636 This was in fact the same al-Bāliyyūn mentioned above by al-Idrīsī, who were Jacobites living in the areas between Nubia and Abyssinia. 5. TRANSFERRING THE FIGURES OF NUBIAN AND ABYSSINIAN KINGS INTO EUROPE DURING THE CRUSADES With the spread of Christianity and Christian teachings in the eastern lands, the image of the Orient and its marvels were redesigned and Christianised. The Orient became more attractive with the beginning of the crusade movement in 1095, which put Europe and Latin Christians in close contact with the eastern Christians, from whom the Franks learned various fabulous stories about Christianity and Christians in the vast Orient. These tales were redesigned in legendary fashion by western writers to fascinate their medieval audience and to make profits, and they were also employed in the service of imperial and political propaganda.637 ʻAbd al-ʻAzīz, Tārīkh al-Baṭārikah, vol. 2, index 3: 1051-55, index 4: 1058-59. Phillips, Before Orientalism, 86; Fred Halliday, “Orientalism and Its Critics,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 20, no. 2 (1993): 145–63; Silverberg, The Realm of Prester John, 45-46; Baum, Die Verwandlungen des Mythos, 29, 32, 41, 43; Edward Said, Orientalism (London: Penguin, 1977), 31-49.

636 637

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When the Franks settled in the Levant, they communicated with eastern Christians, especially those who came as pilgrims to Jerusalem. Christians from Egypt, Nubia and Abyssinia also travelled to Jerusalem in this time, and they thus transferred information about their kings and other Christians in the Orient. It is reasonable to assume that the Franks became more knowledgeable of the Christians living beyond Egypt in the south during the campaigns of King Amaury I of Jerusalem between 559-564/1164-69.638 The Franks thus made deeper contact with the local Christians of Egypt while also learning more about the Christians in neighbouring lands like Nubia and Ethiopia. For example, they knew that the kingdom of Abyssinia was south of Egypt. William of Tyre recounted in detail the campaigns of King Amaury against Egypt and referred to the Christian nations lying south of Egypt. Above Cairo, however, until Chus (Nubia), the southernmost city of Egypt is reached -a place, which is said to abut on the kingdom of the Ethiopians- the country, is shut in by the encroaching sandhill. [...] This upper region is called in the Egyptian tongue Seith [Ṣaʿīd Miṣr, i.e., Upper Egypt]. 639 The Ethiopians were dependent on the Coptic Church, just like the Nubians. Furthermore, several Ethiopian monks were living in Egypt and had an active presence in Bilād al-Shām and the Holy Land.640 Furthermore, the Copts, Nubia and Abyssinia played a central role in trade and communication with India and the Far East. For instance, the Abyssinian monks maintained links between Abyssinia and Egypt William of Tyre, History, vol. II, 304-343; Kinnamos, Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus, 208-09; Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil, vol. 9, 466-67; Ibn Shaddād, al-Nawādir al-Sulṭānīyah, 75-76; Röhricht, RRH, 106, no. 403; Bouquet, Recueil, vol. 16: 60-61; Phillips, The Crusades, 95-96, 98-99. 639 William of Tyre, History, vol. II, 329-330. 640 Emeri van Donzel, “Were There Ethiopians in Jerusalem at the Time of Saladin’s Conquest of 1187?,” in East and West in the Crusader States: Context - Contacts Confrontations, ed. Krijnie N Ciggaar, Adelbert Davids, and Herman G. Teule, vol. 2, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 92 (Leuven-Dudley: Peeters, 1999), 125–30; Anthony O’Mahony, “Between Islam and Christendom: The Ethiopian Community in Jerusalem before 1517,” Medieval Encounters 2, no. 2 (1196): 140–54. 638

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and between Europe and the Levant, especially those who regularly journeyed to the Holy Land. They used to voyage to Jerusalem by crossing Nubia and Egypt and visiting some churches and holy places in Egypt. Some Abyssinian monks settled permanently in the Coptic monasteries, and some Coptic monks dwelled in Abyssinia. 641 One of the main places of Copts and Abyssinians in Jerusalem was Dayr al-Sulṭān (monastery of the Sultan). This monastery was said to have been founded by a Seljuk Sultan in the late eleventh century, recovered by Saladin in 1187 who confirmed the Coptic ownership of this monastery. This monastery remained a refuge for both Coptic and Abyssinian pilgrims in the Middle Ages and afterwards. In Jerusalem, both Abyssinians and Copts communicated with other pilgrims coming from Europe and elsewhere. Some Abyssinian monks travelled from Jerusalem to other places like Cyprus, Armenia and Europe.642 Hence, one can argue that these monks and bishops might have been received in Europe as Indians, in the same way that John of India was in his visit to the papacy in Rome in 1122, which gave the first spark to the Prester John legend, as explained earlier.643 The Nubians were not only in contact with the Franks but also had possessions in Jerusalem under the Frankish rule. As evidence of this, the name Nubia is found in the sale charters of some places and castles to the Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem in 1163. According to a charter dated 1163, Guillelmus de Marreclea and his wife Beatrix, with the consent of his father Guillelmus Rainuardi and his brothers, Rainuardus and Raimundus, awards/sells a castle (castellum) called Eixserc, the valley (vallis) called Luchen, with the with a casale (castle?) called Nubia, situated in the territories of Tortosano(?) to the master of the Hospitllers, Gibertus (Gilbert of Assailly, ca. 116370), for 1400 bezants and a further grant of 60 bezants, which Gibertus has given to Beatrix. […] Raymond III of Tripoli (r. 1152-87) made a sealed grant to the Hospital,

Al-Barāmūs, Al-Rahbanah al-Ḥabashīyah, 154-56, 161, 165, 183. Al-Barāmūs, Al-Rahbanah al-Ḥabashīyah, 154-56, 161, 165, 183. 643 See above Ch. 2. 641 642

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and confirmed that sale, but added that Nubia must remain a fief owing service [in feodo et servitio suo].644 While the Franks learned of the Christians of Nubia and Ethiopia, the Europeans seemed to receive the same Christians as a part of the Asiatic kingdom of Prester John. The chronicle of Richard of Poitiers (d. c. 1174), who was the Benedictine abbey of Cluny, referred to the kings of Abyssinia and Nubia. He composed his chronicle by juxtaposing accounts from different periods to present a general encyclopedic account of the universe until his time. His chronicle also contains prophetic biblical materials blended with other divine tales. In short, Richard’s chronicle offers a traditional medieval universal history, including several tales, which were attractive and necessary to the western audience at the time.645 Richard mentions a war in which the Christians of Nubia, Abyssinia and Asia participated: There are Christian kings [which are the chief of that nation, and the kings] in the land beyond the Medes, Persians and Macedonians. Their fame, infect, had reached us. They are very abusive against the pagan nation/people of these areas. And the king of Avesguia (Abyssinia) and the king of Nubians would have to do the same, as we had heard. 646 Röhricht, RRH, 99, no.378; Joseph Delaville le Roulx, Cartulaire général de l’ordre des Hospitaliers de St Jean de Jérusalem, vol. 1 (Paris, 1894), 228, no. 317: (1163 Jan., ind XI, lun. XI- Guillelmus de Mareclea cum Beatrice uxore consensu Guillelmi Rainuardi patris, fratrum Rainuardi et Raymundi, Giberto, magistro Hospitalis, castellum Eixserc cum pertinentiis et juribus et vallem de Luchen MCCCC bisantiis, quos Guillelmus jam accepisse confirmat, et LX bisantiis, quos dictus magister Beatrici tribuit, necnon casali in territorio Tortosano sito nomine Nubia datis, vendit.Oliverius de Nephin, Gasto de Nephin, Bertrannus de Insula, Petrus Gombaldus, Guillelmus de Mareclea, (qui addit, hanc emptionem a Raimundo II, comite Tripolitano, sigillo, munitam esse, Nubia in feodum accepta et Guillelmum R (ainuardum) assensise…). 645 Richardi Pictaviensis Chronica, in: MGH SS, vol. xxvi (Hannover, 1882), 40-84; Hamilton, “Continental Drift: Prester John’s Progress through the Indies,” in PJMTLT, 240; Achim Krümmel, “Richard von Cluny (Oder Poitiers),” in BBKL, ed. Traugott Bautz (Herzberg : Bautz, 1994), col. 208. 646 Richardi Pictaviensis, Chronica, 84: (Similiter autem et de soldano Persidis propter 644

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He also referred to the Nubians and Abyssinians, suggesting that they were mingled within this vague sphere of the Three Indias of Prester John. He might have learned about Nubia and Abyssinia from some Franks who had joined King Amaury’s companies in Egypt or were in contact with the Coptic, Nubian and Abyssinian pilgrims in Jerusalem. This is a clear association between the Prester John legend and the kings of Nubia and Abyssinia. The Christians beyond the lands of the Medes and Persians were a reference to the Christians of the kingdom of Prester John, who were known from the Letter that was already known in Europe at the time. However, it seems here that Richard used the report of Otto of Freising as he adapted the same statement of Otto “beyond the lands of the Medes and Persians.”647 Emperor Frederick Barbarossa was in contact with Saladin in Egypt. His ambassador, Burchard of Strasbourg (d. probably after 1194), referred to Nubia in his report about his visit to Saladin in Cairo in 1175.648 Burchard was a canon of the St. Thomas church in Strasbourg. He travelled to Saladin in 1175 as an ambassador of Frederick Barbarossa. He reported that “Nubia is about a twenty-day journey from Cairo,” and its Christian people, who despite having a king of their faith, were said to be uncivilized denizens of a wild country.649 Further evidence of communications between the Nubians and the Crusaders is provided by chronicle of Robert de Clari (d. after 1216). Robert was a crusader knight and went on the Fourth Crusade with his lord, Peter of Amiens. His account includes 120 chapters in which he chronicled the Fourth Crusade and its aftermath until 1216. Robert terre longinquitatem et alienationem christianitatis et linguam pauca novimus; preter quod dicunt, ultra Persas et Medos et Macedones christianos reges esse, [qui etiam gentis illius pontifices dicuntur et reges]. Ita enim fama ad nos usque pervenit. Illi autem valde vexant gentiles [nationes] regio- num a illarum. Rex quoque de Avesguia et rex Nubianorum, sicut audivimus, hoc idem faciunt). 647 Otto of Freising, Chronica,365; Hamilton, “Continental Drift,” 240. 648 Hamilton, “Continental Drift: Prester John,” 242; Gottfried Opitz, “Burchard,” in Neue Deutsche Biographie, vol. 3, 1957, 30. 649 Christiane M. Thomsen, Burchards Bericht über den Orient: Reiseerfahrungen eines Staufischen Gesandten im Reich Saladins 1175/1176. Europa im Mittelalter 29 (Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2018), 202-203: (...est terra christiana, habens regem, sed populus eius incultus est et terra silvestri), 203, n. 689. 199

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claims that a Nubian king came to meet the Crusaders in Constantinople in 1203, mentioning that this Nubian king came from Nubia on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and from there, he travelled to Constantinople. Robert also mentioned that this king had an interpreter and that his land was about a hundred days’ journey from Jerusalem. He describes this unnamed king as black with “a cross in the middle of his forehead that had been made with a hot iron.” The former emperor Alexios, ie. Alexius III (r. 1195-1203) hosted him in a wealthy abbey in the city and commanded that he should be treated like a king during his residence there.650 Furthermore, the misperception of Nubia, Abyssinia and southwest Arabia (Yemen) were blended within the Asiatic sphere. Abū alMakārim declared that it was said that Abyssinia was the kingdom of Sheba (Sabaʼ) from which the Queen of Yemen went to King Solomon in Jerusalem and that the kingdom of Abyssinia is contiguous to the lands of India.651 Therefore, this confusion was not only because of the medieval misconnection of the African-Abyssinian spheres but also because the rulers of Abyssinia claimed to have come from southern Arabia. Kings of Abyssinia were associated with King David (namesake of his grandfather King David), the little son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Like Nubia, all the Abyssinian sovereigns were Christian priest-kings, and they further descended from the ancestry of King David, son of King Solomon. It seems here that the Copts of Egypt and other Christians in the East were knowledgeable about the traditional connection of King David and his Robert de Clari, La conquète de Constantinople, ed. Philippe Lauer (Paris: Librairie Ancienne Edouard Champion, 1979), 54-55: Robert de Clari, The Conquest of Constantinopl, trans. Edgar Holmes McNeal (New York : Columbia University Press, 1996). 79-80; (… Si demanda ii empereres as barons: «Savés vous ore », fist il, «qui chist hons est ?- Sir, nennil», fisent li baron. «par foi !» fist li empereres, « ch'est li roisTie Nubie, qui est venus en pelerinage en cheste vile.» Et fist an parler latimiers a lui, et fist on lui dèmander ou se tere estoit, tant qu'il respondi as latimiers, en sen langage, que se tere estoit encore cent journees de la Jherusalem, et de la estoit il venus en Jherusalem en pelerinage; et si dist que, quant il mut de sen pais, qu'il mut bien soixante hommes de se tere avec lui; et quant il vint en Jherusalem n'en i eut il de vis que dis, et quant il vint de Jherusalem en Coustantinoble, n'en avoit il que deus vis), Clari, La conquète de Constantinople, 55. 651 Abū al-Makārim, Tarīkh al-Kanāʼis, vol. 2, 126-128, 32-33,141-44; Abū Ṡāliḣ, The Churches and Monasteries, vol. 1, 260-65, 271-72, 284-90. 650

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mother, Queen of Sheba Magda (Balqīs), with the Christian kings of Abyssinia and Nubia. 652 Interestingly enough, King David appeared as the son or descendant of Prester John as a part of a crusading promotion of the Prester John legend during the Fifth Crusade against Egypt. This theme will be discussed in further detail in the next chapter. 6. CONCLUSION The legend was in part a medieval Christian perception of the wonderous East in the figure of a Latinized priest-king John. The Prester John kingdom was a fictional medieval anthropological and European geographical conception of Asian-Indian people and lands before the age of exploration. It also shows how Arabs and Eastern Christians shared the same imaginary belief of southern parts of the world, including India and Ethiopia, but in different forms. Furthermore, the reception of the East in such fashion could be regarded as “early medieval orientalism” if we understand “Orientalism” as a term referring to the European concepts and views towards Middle Eastern and oriental cultures and societies.653 The accounts of the eastern realm of Prester John presented tremendous amounts of geographical and ethnographical information concerning legendary creatures, peoples and lands that could inspire some to believe in the existence and possible exploration of such wondrous lands. The legend of Prester John can be considered the first flash that inspired the West to explore the East by the mid-thirteenth century when several missions were dispatched to the Mongols. This missionary movement ultimately resulted in the European exploration and colonization of Asia and Africa with the beginning of the fifteenth century.654 E.A. Wallis Budge, trans., The Queen of Sheba and Her Only Son Menyelek (Kébra Nagast), In Parentheses Publications Ethiopian Series (Cambridge, Ontario: Cambridge University Press, 2000), ii-iii, Rāhib min Dayr al-Barāmūs, Al-Rahbanah al-Ḥabashīya, 19-20. 653 Fred Halliday, “Orientalism and Its Critics,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 20, no. 2 (1993): 145–63; Said, Orientalism, 31-49. 654 See Matteo Salvadore, The African Prester John and the Birth of EthiopianEuropean Relations, 1402-1555 (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2017), 1-19. 652

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The imaginative description of the Prester John kingdom was conflated with several imaginary descriptions of Eastern and Indian kings, lands and seas that have been presented by the geographic and cartographic work of al-Idrīsī. As he wrote his book in Sicily, this strongly suggests that wonders and legendary descriptions that he gathered from travellers, merchants and other people, were known at the time in Europe. These stories might have transferred to other parts of Europe through the same sources and informants of al-Idrīsī. The eastern Christians in the East, such as Copts, Nubians, Abyssinians, Syrians and Armenians, had good relations and communication with each other, exchanging ideas and accounts about the East, especially about the legendary divine powers of some Christian kings or saints. It seems that the priest-king (John) was a known name associated with imagination and exaggeration to other kings in the East. One of these legendary kings was Prester John of the Three Indias, who perhaps was one of the Nubian or Abyssinian kings who were transferred to the Latin imagination in the figure of priest-king John of India. All in all, if the Letter’s construction has entangled with Arab Muslim imaginations, the Prester John legend further evolved thanks to an Arabic prophecy during the Fifth Crusade, as the chapter below discusses.

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CHAPTER FIVE

WAITING FOR KING DAVID, SON OF PRESTER JOHN: THE IMPACT OF THE LEGEND ON PEACE AND WAR DURING THE FIFTH CRUSADE (615-618/1217-1221)

The legend of Prester John had a crucial impact on the Fifth Crusade (615-618/1217-1221) that was headed to seize the Egyptian city of Damietta on the Mediterranean Sea north of Egypt. The Mongols had invaded a large part of the Muslim territories in central Asia. The news that reached the Crusaders in Egypt called to mind the legend of Prester John and his imagined victories over the Persians in the same regions in which the Mongols were advancing and conquering Muslims. At the same time, several prophetic texts appeared among the Crusaders in Egypt, promoting the so-called King David, son of Prester John, who would come to help them overcome Egypt and the Holy Land. This chapter thus examines the legend’s impact on the hostility and the détente that marked the relations between the Muslims and the Crusaders during the Fifth Crusade. It also explores the interconnections between the prophetic texts of King David and Arabic prophecies of Ḥunayn Ibn Isḥāq, St. Samuel of Qalamūn,

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Athanāsiyūs the Apostolic and the Ethiopian King David. In a book titled Relatio de Davide that reached the Crusaders in Egypt, the Mongol advances of the time in Asia were transferred to the figure of King David. Therefore, this final chapter treats the legendary confusion and its part in promoting the Prester John legend in the context of the Fifth Crusade. 1. THE LEGEND BETWEEN SILENCE AND REBIRTH The Second Crusade dramatically accelerated political circumstances in the crusader states and the kingdom of Jerusalem. After King Amaury died in 569/1174, there was a renewed strife between the political crusader elites on the throne of the kingdom of Jerusalem.655 In the last two decades of the twelfth century, Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn succeeded in uniting disparate Muslim forces in Syria and Egypt to defeat the Crusaders at the battle of Ḥaṭṭīn in 18th Jumāda II 583/29th July 1187 and regained the city of Jerusalem and numerous other fortress-cities and castles.656 There were few references to the legendary Prester John in crusading-Latin texts during the Third Crusade (1189–1192) and the Fourth Crusade (1202-1204). Only Gerald of Wales, as mentioned earlier, referred to Prester John in a minor metaphorical indication of arrogance and superciliousness. This was perhaps because the leaders of the Third Crusade, known as the Kings’ Crusade, were the most powerful kings in Europe; Richard I of England (1189–1199) ‘the Lionheart’, Philip II of France (1180–1223) and the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa.657 Nevertheless, the Third Crusade left behind memory traces related to Prester John. Roau d’Arundel, one of William of Tyre, History of Deeds Done beyond the Sea, vol. 2, 385-510; Sheir, The Fief of Tibnin, 50-57; Bernard Hamilton, The Leper King and His Heirs: Baldwin IV and the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 87-89, 167, 194-95; Runciman, A History of the Crusades, vol. 2, pp. 414–416, 421–422. 656 Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil, vol. 10, 151; Ibn Shaddād, Al-Nawādir al-Sulṭānīyah, 30406; Peter W. Edbury, trans., “The Battle of Hattin (4 July 1187) and Its Aftermath,” in The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade: Sources in Translation, 2nd ed. (London: Ashgate, 1998), 158–63. 657 Taylor, “Waiting for Prester John,” 53. 655

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the crusader knights, who stopped at Constantinople while the crusading forces were returning to Europe, was the earliest translator of the Prester John Letter and rendered it into Anglo-Norman verse. Arundel then described the letter as being “no more than a quaint narrative of exotic wonders which one could take at face value or accept as a fantasy.”658 The forces of the Third Crusade failed to recapture Jerusalem, and Pope Innocent III (r. 1198-1216) recalled the Fourth Crusade (12021204), which had deviated into an assault on the Byzantine Empire which resulted in control of Constantinople in 1204 – but not Jerusalem. At the Lateran Council of 1215, Pope Innocent III called for a new crusade but died in 1218. His successor, Pope Honorius III (r. 1216-1227), rallied the kings of Europe to march to the East. The forces of the Fifth Crusade reached Acre in 1218 and from there, under the leadership of the papal legate Pelagius (d. 1230) John of Brienne, King of Jerusalem (r. 1210-1225), as being the guardian of the kingdom of Jerusalem, marched forth to attack the Egyptian coastal city of Damietta.659 With the first move of the Fifth Crusade forces in 1217, several texts returned the legend to mind and memory among the Latins in East and West. 2. RUMOURS AND PROPHECIES OF AN IMMINENT CHRISTIAN KING Western medieval apocalypticism was closely linked to the crusading apocalyptic vision of Jerusalem’s liberation as a divine indication to launch a crusade or support the ongoing one. Latin Christians in the West and East employed myths and legends to recruit support for their Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 69, n. 17; Martin Gosman, ed., La lettre du Prêtre Jean: Edition des versions en ancien francais et en ancien occitan textes et commentaires, Mediaevalia Groningana II (Gröningen: Bouma, 1982), 172-74; Silverberg, The Realm of Prester John, 53. 659 Thomas Asbridge, The Crusades: The War for the Holy Land, 2nd ed. (London: Simon and Schuster, 2012), 683-722; Simon Lloyd, “The Crusading Movement, 1096-1274,” in The Oxford History of the Crusades, ed. Jonathan Riley-Smith (Oxford University Press, 1999), 38, 43-46; de Rachewiltzy, Papal Envoys to the Great Khans, 36-37; Hilāl, al-Maghūl wa Ūrubbā, 23. 658

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conflict with Islam and Muslims during the Crusades.660 For instance, the chronicle of Roger of Wendover refers to a prophetic sign emerged in the form of a cross in three places in the sky of Friesland, which appeared in parallel to the crusader campaign of King Andrew II of Hungary (r. 1205-35), who led the first wave of the Fifth Crusade in 1217. Nevertheless, he returned to Hungary at the beginning of 1218, having achieved little towards motivating Christendom against Islamdom.661 According to the legend of Prester John, the priest-king would have come to assist the Crusaders in the Holy Land but never arrived. The crusader army reached the coast of Damietta in late Ṣafar 615/27th May 1218 and laid siege to the city, which was an essential occurrence that led the Crusaders to rejoice and recall prophecies and visions that stoked crusading zeal. Therefore, Prester John, who was expected to assist the Crusaders in the twelfth century, or his son King David, became imminent to reach the Fifth Crusade army in Egypt. In 1218, Thietmar/Dithmar, a German pilgrim who visited the Holy Land between 1217 and 1218, spoke of the Christian people beyond Egypt. Thietmar wrote his travel account liber peregrinationis (book of the pilgrimage) in 1217-18. His account describes his own status as an unarmed pilgrim and an educated man who was perhaps a Franciscan friar from Westphalia. It seems that he reached Acre at the same time as the Hungarian Crusade in 1217.662 Thietmar visited the Monastery of Saint Catherine in Sinai and wrote about the Christians of Egypt as well as the Abyssinians beyond their lands: The Red Sea is five days’ journey distant from the Mediterranean. One branch, however, extends from the 660

Taylor, “Waiting for Prester John,” 3; Hamilton, “The Impact of Prester John on the Fifth Crusade,ˮ 53. 661 Giles, Roger of Wendover’s Flowers of History, vol. II, 387-89; Maḥmūd Saʻīd ʻUmrān, al-Ḥamlah al-Ṣalībīyah al-Khāmisah 1218-21/615-18 AH (Alexanderia, Egypt: Dār al-M ͑aārif, 1985), 164-74. 662 Denys Pringle, “Thietmar: Pilgrimage (1217-18),” in Pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Holy Land, 1187-1291, Crusade Texts in Translation (London and New York: Routledge, 2016), 95–134; Philip Booth, “Thietmar: Person, Place and Text in Thirteenth-Century Holy Land Pilgrimage” (PhD. Thesis, University of Lancaster, 2016), 26-70. 206

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one sea in the manner of a small river. Through the middle of this river, there passes from the East Gihon, the river of Paradise, which is the Nile; and it goes down through Egypt beside the walls of Babylon, and after flowing past Damietta it runs into the Mediterranean Sea at Alexandria. [...] There is also a land beyond Egypt, whose inhabitants are called Abyssinians (Issini). It is completely Christian. And each of the men of that province has on his forehead a cross, because when they are small, they are cauterised in their foreheads with the sign of the cross. They frequently fight against the Saracen [Muslim] Egyptians. It is their belief in short that they should come to Babylon in such numbers that each of them might remove a stone and not one stone will be left in Babylon.663 Thietmar referred to the River of Gihon, the same river of Paradise at the legendary kingdom of Prester John, as being the same as the Nile River, further reflecting the confusion of India and Ethiopia. Since Thietmar did not visit Nubia or Ethiopia, he seems to have met some of the Nubian or Ethiopian pilgrims in Jerusalem or Saint Catherine. He might have gathered this information from the people he met before, during his pilgrimage, or perhaps after returning home.664 Once the army of the Fifth Crusade set out for Egypt in 1217, Jacques de Vitry (d. 1240) was the first to promote the prophecy of the coming Christian King David, son of Prester John, to Egypt. Jacques played a vital role in the dissemination of the legend during the Fifth Crusade. Jacques was a French cleric, perhaps born in Reims in 1160/1170, and became the bishop of Acre in 1214, a position he held until 1229. He preached for the crusade against the Albigensians in the south of France (1209-29). He joined the army of the Fifth Crusade and played a primary role in encouraging crusading enthusiasm. During his time with the Fifth Crusade, he began to write his chronicle Historia Orientalis, also known as Historia Hierosolymitana,” of the Holy Land from the ancient past down to his 663 664

Pringle, “Thietmar,” 129-30. Pringle, “Thietmar,” 129; Booth, “Thietmar,” 212. 207

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time. He divided his Historia into three parts, of which he completed only two. The first concerned the history of the East, presenting the events of the Holy Land down to his time. The second part displayed more imaginative and geographic descriptions of the exotic East and its people.665 Jacques wrote several letters to Pope Honorius III, besides other sermons, prophecies and imaginations. Therefore, Jacques’ letters and writings were among the most important sources about the Christians in the East, especially in the thirteenth century. Furthermore, the popularisation of King David and Prester John’s myths served to inject new life into these legends and maintain the European interest in Eastern Christians.666 In 1217, He wrote to various ecclesiastics in Europe and his friends in Paris University claiming that many Christian kings living in the eastern regions up to the land of Prester John, hearing of the arrival of the Crusaders [crucesignatorum], would come to their help and go to war with the Saracens. Also, the Saracens are greatly divided amongst themselves, because they have many and various sects. […] and it was told to me by a certain merchant who had recently come from there that all those who live in the land of Prester John had recently become Jacobites, […].667 Jan Vandeburie, “The Preacher and the Pope: Jacques de Vitry and Honorius III at the Time of the Fifth Crusade (1216–27),” in Papacy, Crusade, and Christian–Muslim Relations, ed. Jessalynn Bird and Jessalynn L. Bird (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2019), 132–34; Jean Donnadieu, Jacques de Vitry (1175/1180-1240) Entre l’Orient et l’Occident: L’évêque aux trois visages (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), 17-29; Jessalynn Lea Bird, “The Historia Orientalis of Jacques de Vitry: Visual and Written Commentaries as Evidence of a Text’s Audience, Reception, and Utilization,” Essays in Medieval Studies 20 (2003): 56–75. 666 Jacques de Vitry, Lettres (1160/1170-1240), ed. R.B.C.Huygens (Leiden: E.J.Brill, 1960), 1-5; Vandeburie, “The Preacher and the Pope.” 131-54; Bird, ‘The Historia Orientalis of Jacques de Vitry,” 56-75; Jessalynn Bird, “The Religious’s Role in a Post-Fourth-Lateran World: Jacques de Vitry’s Sermones ad Status and Historia Occidentalis,” in Medieval Monastic Preaching, ed. Carolyn Muessig (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 219–22. 667 Keagan Brewer, ed., “Jacques de Vitry, Epistola II,” in PJLIS (Farnham, Burlington, 2015), 99; Huygens, Lettres de Jacques de Vitry, 95-96; (Multi autem reges christiani 665

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Jacques further mentioned that these Christians, whose king would come to help them, were outnumbered by the Muslims, and if the Crusaders could gather “4,000 men,” they would not find any army strong enough to counter them, as the Muslims were in discord at the time.668 Jacques aimed to whip up enthusiasm among the European and Crusader forces to take control of Egypt by claiming that reinforcements would come from the Christian kings of Prester John. Jacques here clearly associated the Christians of Nubia and Abyssinia with the Christians of Prester John,669 as has been discussed above. Furthermore, Oliver of Paderborn (d. 1227), who participated in the Fifth Crusade and wrote one of its primary chronicles, reported that the Crusaders received a letter in 1219 that prophesied the fall of Damietta. Oliver of Paderborn, also called Oliver of Cologne, was a bishop of Paderborn from 1223 to 1225 and was afterwards elevated to cardinal in 1225. He taught theology and was the head of the cathedral school at Paderborn and then moved to the cathedral school of Cologne in approximately 1201. Like Jacques de Vitry, Paderborn also preached for the Albigensian Crusade and was an ardent crusaderpreacher and advocate. In 1214, he began to preach for the Fifth Crusade in the Rhineland, the Netherlands and Friesland. In 1217, he set out with the Fifth Crusade army and built the so-called “Chain Tower”670 that aided the siege of Damietta in 1219. After the Fifth Crusade, he stayed in Acre until September/October 1222 and returned home to call for a new crusade. While preparing himself to

habitantes in partibus Orientis usque in terram presbyteri Iohannis, audientes adventum crucesignatorum, ut eis veniant in auxilium movent guerram cum Sarracenis. Sarraceni autem, quia multas et varias habent sectas, valde inter se sunt divisi. [...]; et tales erant omnes qui sunt in terra presbyteri Iohannis, sicut dixit michi quidam mercator cum nuper inde venerat, qui omnes de novo facti sunt Iacobite ...), Huygens, Lettres, 95-96. 668 Brewer, “Jacques de Vitry, Epistola II,” 98-99; Jacques de Vitry, Lettres, 95-98; Röhricht, RRH, 280-28:no.894. 669 See Chapter 4 above. 670 For more see, Dominic Francis, “Oliver of Paderborn and His Siege Engine at Damietta,” Nottingham Medieval Studies 37 (1993): 28–32. 209

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join the Sixth Crusade of Frederick II (1227-1229), he died on 11th September 1227.671 While on campaign in Egypt, Oliver wrote his eyewitness chronicle Historia Damiatina. The corpus of the work is divided into eighty-nine chapters, beginning with the preparations for the campaign in 1217 and covering the events of the Fifth Crusade until its aftermath into 1222. Further, it provided the most detailed and essential account of the Fifth Crusade while recording several prophecies and letters that he sent or received. It appears that Oliver founded in Egypt the necessary sources and materials to write his chronicle, including stories and prophecies like that of King David, son of Prester John, on the authority of some Arabic Christian and Coptic accounts. The Historia helped make Oliver a vivid and trustworthy source among other chroniclers of the crusading movement. Oliver revised and added the last section to his text after returning to the West, most likely in Cologne between 1222 and 1227.672 In chapter thirty-five of his chronicle, Oliver referred to a prophecy written in Arabic that predicts the imminent coming of a Christian King, who would assist the crusader army to seize Damietta and all Egypt. 673 In his seventh letter, Jacques also echoed the same prophetic

Thomas W Smith, “Oliver of Cologne’s Historia Damiatina: A New Manuscript Witness in Dublin, Trinity College Library MS 496,” Hermathena, no. 194 (2013): 37–41; Bird, “Crusade and Conversion after the Fourth Lateran Council (1215),” 23– 47; Wolfgang Giese, “Oliver von Paderborn,” in Neue Deutsche Biographie 19 (Berlin: Duncker and Humblot, 1999), 522–23. 672 Megan Cassidy-Welch, “The Stones of Damietta: Remembering the Fifth Crusade,” in Papacy, Crusade, and Christian–Muslim Relations, ed. Jessalynn Bird and Jessalynn L. Bird (Amsterdam: American Philosophical Society, 2019), 196-97, 200201; Smith, “Oliver of Cologne’s Historia Damiatina,” 41-46; Edward Peters, Christian Society and the Crusades, 1189-1229, ed. Edward Peters (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971), intro: xx-xxi. 673 Keagan Brewer, ed., “Oliver of Paderborn, Historia Damiatina,” in PJLIS (Farnham, Burlington: Ashgate, 2015). 137; John J Gavigan, trans., “The Capture of Damietta, by Oliver of Paderborn,” in CSC (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971), 89-90. 671

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book clarifying that this book announced the recapture of Acre, Damietta, Alexandria, Cairo, Babylonia and other regions in Egypt.674 3. KING DAVID AND THE CAPTURE OF DAMIETTA: OBSTRUCTING PEACE AND STIMULATING WAR Since the beginning of the Fifth Crusade, Prester John’s legend was connected with the biblical figure of King David, considered to be the ancestor of the priest-king Prester or himself called Prester John.675 In chapter fifty-five of his account, Oliver attached the biblical figure of King David to a Christian King, naming him King David, son of Prester John, who would conquer the Muslims: I have found David, My servant; with My holy oil have I anointed him King of the Indians, whom I have ordered to avenge My wrongs, to rise up against the many-headed beast. To him I have brought victory against the King of the Persians. I have placed a great part of Asia beneath his feet. The King of the Persians, raised into excessive pride, wished to be the monarch of Asia. King David, who they call the son of Prester John, won the first fruits of victory against him, then he subjugated to himself other kings and kingdoms, and as we have learned from a report that has reached far and wide, there is no power on earth strong enough to resist him. He is believed to be the executor of divine vengeance, the hammer of Asia.676 Keagan Brewer, ed., “Jacques de Vitry, Epistola VII,” in PJLIS , 132-33; (…, prenuntiavit enim qualiter capta damiata, alexandriam et Kayrum et Babyloniam et universas egypti regiones christianorum populus optineret, damascum preterea et alapiam et omnes adiacentes provincias christianorum princeps potentissimus in virtute exercitus populi christiani occuparet et civitatem ierusalem cum universa syria liberaret de manibus paganorum), Huygens, Lettres de Jacques de Vitry, 150-51. 675 Jessalynn Bird, “Preaching and Narrating the Fifth Crusade: Bible, Sermons and the History of a Campaign,” in The Uses of the Bible in Crusader Sources, Commentaria 7 (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 316–40. 676 Gavigan, “The Capture of Damietta,”112-13; Brewer, “ Historia Damiatina.” 138: (Inveni David servum meum, oleo sancto meo unxi eum regem indorum, cui precepi 674

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Oliver of Paderborn was not alone in linking King David with Prester John: Jacques de Vitry told the same stories of King David, who was for Jacques the awaited king who would assist the Crusaders in overcoming the Muslims. This King David, a most powerful man and a knight strenuous in arms, fiery in nature, and most victorious in battle, whom the Lord roused in our times to be the hammer of pagans and the exterminator of the pestilential tradition and detestable law of the faithless Muhammad; he is the man whom the common people call Prester John. Although he was the smallest of his brothers, as we have read of David the prophet, the holy king of Israel, he was placed before all and crowned as king by divine inspiration.677 The spreading of these prophecies of the coming of King David coincided with a massive trauma among the Ayyubids because of the death of Sultan al-ʻĀdil (r. 596-615/1200-1218) that caused internal conflict over the sultanship. Ibn Wāṣil (d. 697/1298) described the clash of power between the sons of al-ʻĀdil with the entire events of the fifth crusade. The full name of Ibn Wāṣil was Abū ʻAbd Allāh Jamāl al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Wāṣil, a historian, Qādi (jurist), born in Ḥamat in Shawwāl 604/April 1208. In 641/1243, he went to Baghdād and thereafter went to Cairo. Ibn Wāṣil produced three highly valuable iniurias meas vindicare, contra bestiam tot capitum insurgere, cui contra regem Persarum victoriam contuli, magnam partem asie pedibus eius subieci. rex Persarum in nimiam elatus superbiam asie monarcha esse voluit, contra hunc rex david, quem dicunt filium Johannis presbiteri, primitias victorie tulit, deinde reges alios sibi subiugavit et regna, et sicut fama celeberrima nunciante didicimus, non est potestas super terram, que ipsi valeat resistere. executor creditur esse divine vindicte, malleus asie), Brewer, “ Historia Damiatina.” 135. 677 Brewer, “Jacques de Vitry, Epistola VII,” 126, 131: (Hic autem rex david, vir potentissimus et in armis miles strenuus, callidus ingenio et victoriosissimus in prelio, quem dominus in diebus nostris suscitavit ut esset malleus paganorum et perfidi Machometi pestifere traditionis et execrabilis legis exterminator, est ille quem vulgus presbyterum iohannem appellant. Qui cum fratrum suorum minimus esset, sicut de sancto rege israel david propheta legimus, omnibus prepositus est et in regem divinitus coronatus), Huygens, Lettres de Jacques, 141. 212

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historical sources of Ayyubid history. He dedicated his first work, alTārīkh al-Ṣāliḥī, to the Ayyubid sultan al-Malik al-Ṣāliḥ Najm al-Dīn (638-647/1240-1249), the son of al-Kāmil. He then dedicated his Naẓm al-Durar to al-Malik al-Muʻaẓ am-ʿīsā Tūrān-shāh (64748/1249-50). The essential work for Ibn Wāṣil is the Mufarrij alKurūb fī Akhbār banī Ayyūb which he composed between 671/1272 and 683/1285.678 In this chronicle, Ibn Wāṣil detailed Ayyubid history and focused on their conflict with the crusaders, Mongols and others. He has extended this work to cover some events of the Mamluk period from 649/1250 to the year 661/1263.679 Ibn Wāṣil reports that the death of al-ʻĀdil initiated a divisive succession struggle amongst his sons. For instance, al-Kāmil (r. 615635/1218-38) declared himself Sultan of the Ayyubids in Egypt and was in continuous conflict with his brother. His brother al-Muʻaẓ amʻIas (r. 615-24/1218-27) became the governor of Bilād al-Shām (the Levant). Al-Āshraf (d.1237 ruled al-Jazīrah (Upper Mesopotamia), alRuhā (Edessa) Ḥarrān, and later Damascus between 1227 and 1237. When the crusader army arrived at the coast of Damietta in Ṣafar 615/May 1218, Sultan al-Kāmil of Egypt wrote to his brothers to beg their assistance to defend Egypt. While the brothers united in confronting the army of the Fifth Crusade, they resumed their troubled relations and internecine conflicts after the end of the campaign.680 While the Crusaders were encouraged by stories circulating about King David, the Ayyubid prince Ibn al-Mashṭūb (d. 619/1222),681 with Ibn Wāṣil, Mufarrj al-Kurūb fī Akhbār Banī Ayyūb, eds. Jamāl al-Dīn al-Shayyāl (vols. 1-3) and Ḥasanīn Rabīʻ ( vols. 4-5), (Cairo, 1953-75.). 679 Ibn Wāṣil, Mufarrj al-Kurūb, vol. 1, 4-22; Gamal al-Dīn Shayyal, “Ibn Wāṣil,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, ed. W.P. Heinrichs P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, 2012, http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM _3408. 680 Ibn Wāṣil, Mufarrj al-Kurūb, vol. 4, 16-19; see slo ʽAli al-Ḥarīrī, Al-I‘lām wa alTabīyn fī Khurūj al- Firinjah al-Malā‘iyn ʻalá Diyār al-Muslimīn, ed. Suhaīl Dhakār (Damascus, 1981), 91-92; Abū Bakr Ibn al-Dawādārī, Kanz al-Durar wa Jāmiʻ alGhurar, ed. Saʻīd ʻĀshūr, vol. 9 (Cairo: 1972), 190-91; Badr al-Dīn al-‘Ainī, ‘Iqd alJumān fi Tārīkh Ahl al-Zamān, vol.4, ed. Mahmud Rizq, 2nd ed. (Cairo: Dār al-Kutub wa al-Wathāʼiq al-Qaūmīyah, 2010), 57. 681 ‘Imad al-Dīn ibn al-Mashṭūb was a Kurdish prince who rebelled against al-Kāmil saying that “This (al-Kāmil) is a ridiculous boy, and there is no be benevolence comes from him.” Ibn Wāṣil, Mufarrij al-Kurūb, vol. 4, 16-17; Ibn al-Dawādārī, Kanz alDurar, vol. 7, 198-200. 678

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large numbers of followers, conspired to depose al-Kāmil. This, therefore, created chaos in the Muslim camp on the eastern side of the Nile River. Thus on 18th Dhū-lqiʻdah 615/ 5th February 1219, the Crusaders marched toward al-Kāmil’s camp and took control of al‘adilīah, which enabled the Crusaders to lay a complete siege to the city of Damietta by land and sea.682

Fig. 7. The site of the Ayyubid and Crusader Camps. Created by the author, cartography design by Christiane Enderle, Dipl. Ing. für Kartographie, FB Geographie, Philipps-Universität Marburg.

Two days later, al-Mu’aẓ am–Isa of Damascus reached Egypt and ended Ibn al-Mashṭūb’s movement and exiled him from Egypt. On his way to Egypt, al-Mu’aẓ am–Isa destroyed several Muslim castles and Ibn Wāṣil, Mufarrij al-Kurūb, vol. 4, 16-17; Ibn al-Dawādārī, Kanz al-Durar, vol. 7, 198-200, Taqī al-Dīn Aḥmad al-Maqrīzī, Kitāb al-Sulūk li-Ma r̔ ifat Duwal al-Mulūk, vol. 1, ed. Muhammad Abd al-Qadir ʻAta (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-‘lmyah, 1997), 314; ʻUmrān, al-Ḥamlah al-Ṣalībīah al-Khāmisah , 224-25.

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cities, as he wanted to leave them in an untenable condition for the Crusaders if they accepted al-Kāmil’s peace offer.683 He also calculated that even if the Franks did occupy these cities, he would regain them because they would be vulnerable without defences.684 Although the Muslim side had become more powerful, the people of Damietta suffered fierce starvation. The crusader forces also plundered the villages and regions surrounding Damietta. Besides, the Ayyubids were terrified by incoming reports of the Mongols’ advance on the eastern Asian boundaries.685 As a consequence, al-Kāmil sent his first peace proposal to the Crusaders in late Dhū-l-ḥijja/early Muḥarram 615/March 1219, proposing to hand over to them the cities of Jerusalem, Tibnīn (Toron), Tiberius, as well as the other areas that had been taken by Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn, except for the castles of Karak and Montreal “Shoubak.” In return, the Crusaders would raise their siege on Damietta.686 John of Brienne, King of Jerusalem, preferred to accept this offer. Still, the Papal legate Pelagius, Hospitallers of St. John, and Knights Templar refused to hold peace negotiations with the Muslims.687 Steven Runciman has argued that the papal legate, Pelagius, was an arrogant man who caused the failure of the Fifth Crusade by Ibn Wāṣil, Mufarrij al-Kurūb, vol. 4, 17-19; Aleksandre Tvaradze, “Der Westfeldzug von 1219-1221: Die Mongolen Erwartung im Kreuzfahrerlager von Damiette und im christlich Kaukasus,” in Caucasus during the Mongol Period – der Kaukasus in der Mongolenzeit, ed. Jürgen Tubach, Sophia G. Vashalomidze, and Manfred Zimmer (Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag, 2012); 251-52; Thomas C. Van-Cleve, “The Fifth Crusade,” in Setton, Vol. II. (Madison, Mikwaukee, and London: University of Wisconsin, 1969), 410; Runciman, A History of the Crusades, Vol. 3, 156. 684 Al-Ḥarīrī, al-I‘lām wa al-Tabīyn, 91; Shīhab al-Dīn Abū Shāmah, Dhayl alRawḍatayn, ed. Mohammed Zahid Ibn-al-Hassan, 2nd ed. (Beriut-Lebenon: Dār alJīl, 1974), 155; Sheir, Tibnīn (Toron) in the Age of the Crusade, 96. 685 Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil, vol.10, 376-77; Ibn Wāṣil, Mufarrj al-Kurūb, vol. 4, 32-33; ʻUmrān, al-Ḥamlah al-Ṣalībīahal al-Khāmisah, 235-37. 686 Ibn al-ʿIbrī, Tārīkh Mukhtaṣar al-Duwal, ed. Antoine Salhani, 2nd ed. (Lebanon: Dār al-Raaed, 1994), 413; Oliver of Paderborn, “The Capture of Damietta,” 84-86, 8990; Sheir, Tibnīn, 95-96. 687 Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmīl , vol. 10, 379; Penny J. Cole, The Preaching of the Crusades to the Holy Land, 1095-1270 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Medieval Academy of America, 1991), 143-44; Pelliot, “La prophétie de Hannan, fils d’Isaac,’113; Joseph Donovan, Pelagius and the Fifth Crusade (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1950), 62-63. 683

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refusing the peace terms offered by the Sultan of Egypt. However, his strategy might not seem quite as intransigent, i.e., refusing to take back the city of Jerusalem without holding the castles of Montreal castle and Karak, when we consider that the Muslims in Egypt and Syria were in alliance governed by the same sultan.688 Belief in the imminent arrival of Prester John or his son David ultimately played a role that was antithetical to peace. Furthermore, Latin sources interpreted the arrival of al-Mu’aẓ am-ʿīsā of Damascus to Egypt on 7th February 1219 and the peace proposal of al-Kāmil, as a sign of weakness and fear among the Muslims from the anticipated advent of King David. In this regard, Oliver of Paderborn stated: Coradin [i.e. al-Mu’aẓ am], the Lord of Damascus, with the princes of Hamah and Homs [in Syria], having amassed a huge army with a multitude of cavalrymen from the eastern parts, they came together near Homs, because of which, a great fear struck the inhabitants of Antioch, Acre, and the other coastal cities, whose warriors were absent, having been sent on an expedition. Those at the White Castle, in the County of Tripoli, were especially concerned about this gathering of troops. The aforenamed princes deliberated long and earnestly whether they themselves should come to the aid of Egypt or divide the Christian armies by besieging one of the Saracens’ fortresses. They were influenced by the power of King David, the conqueror who was powerfully driving forward against the King of the Persians at the borders of Persia and Baghdād, and on account of him, they were afraid to go far from their lands. They also reflected that the castles of the Hospitallers or the Templars could not easily be captured in a short time. Finally, the counsel of those urging advance into Egypt prevailed.689 Runciman, A History of the Crusades, Vol. 3, 170. Brewer, “Historia Damiatina,” 139; Paderborn, “The Capture of Damietta,” 123-124, 130: (…Coradinus dominus Damasci cum principibus de Haaman et Chamela congregata de partibus Orientis equitum multitudine maxima convenerunt apud Chamelam, unde timor magnus incussus erat Antiochenis et Acconensibus aliisque

688 689

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The extent to which belief in Prester John was connected to the refusal of peacebuilding with the Ayyubids became further apparent. On 19th Jumāda al-Thānī 616/1st September 1219, the leaders of the Fifth Crusade, especially the papal legate Pelagius, declined the second peace offer from al-Kāmil, who sent two envoys from his side with two crusader prisoners, Andrew of Nanteuil and John of Arcis. He renewed his prior peace offer with a suggestion of a three-year truce. Al-Kāmil also offered to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and other castles. He also promised to send twenty Muslim nobles hostages until he delivered the places mentioned above to the Frankish forces.690 Although Pelagius had refused al-Kāmil’s proposal, John of Brienne, king of Jerusalem, tended toward accepting it, but he lacked the ability to dominate the crusader army. King John declared his intention of peacebuilding in a letter to Emperor Frederick II, dated 12th November 2019, pleading with him to march to lead them to free Jerusalem. This demonstrates his inability to convince Pelagius and his party to accept al-Kāmil’s offers. He further wrote: […], when first we came before Damietta, the enemies of the Christ destroyed the castle of Mount Tabor, the castle of [name not clear], and other places in the kingdom of Jerusalem: which represents a good starting point from which to recover the Holy Land. […] indeed, you will hear through the bearer of this letter, and from many that are on their way to you, concerning the truce that they [Muslims] urbibus maritimis, quarum bellatores aberant in expeditionem profecti. Suspectam etiam habuit hanc collectionem Castellum album in comitatu Tripolitano. Diu multumque deliberabant prenominati principes, utrum personaliter subvenirent in Egypto, au exercitum dividerent Christianorum obsidendo aliquam munitionem ipsorum. Urgebat potentia regis David, qui victor contra regem Persarum in finibus Persidis et Baldach potenter agebat; propter hoc timebant a finibus suis elongari. Considerabant etiam castrum Hospitaliorum vel Templariorum de facili capi non posse tempore parvo. Prevaluit tandem consilium hortantium profectum in Egyptum), Brewer, “Oliver of Paderborn,” 136. 690 Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmīl, vol. 10, 379; Huygens, Lettres de Jacques de Vitry, 150; Guy Perry, John of Brienne: King of Jerusalem, Emperor of Constantinople, c.1175-1237 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 198-200; ʻUmrān, Al-Ḥamlah alṢalībīyah al-Khāmisah, 237-38, 263-64. 217

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offered to us, before that city [Damietta] was conquered. […] This undertaking to free the Holy Land just had only just begun, and such was the intention of all Crusaders.”691 On the other hand, the rejection of the peace offer reveals the extent to which this legend prompted the conflict and obstructed peacebuilding endeavours, provoking the Ayyubids’ decision to proceed in their war against the Crusaders. As evidence for such association, Ibn Wāṣil mentioned that at the same time when the Muslims and Crusaders were exchanging the envoys and correspondences to hold peace, the warfare was enduring, and each side was achieving some victories while also absorbing defeats.692 Nevertheless, the situation became more dangerous with the death of al-Kāmil’s brother, al-Fāīz, who was responsible for bringing further assistance from the East, with the increasing Mongol danger, and with the conflict between al-Kāmil and his brother unfolding in Aleppo.693 As a result, al-Kāmil had to repeat the same peace proposal once again, but the crusader side further ignored it. Al-Kāmil added that he would abide by a truce for thirty years and pay five thousand dinars to the Crusaders in exchange for the castles of al-Karak and alShūbuk (Montreal). He also promised to pay all expenses to rebuild the castles and cities that had been destroyed by his brother alMuʿaẓ am.694 In this regard, ʿUmrān has written that it was unreasonable for the Crusaders to refuse all these offers. Besides, it is possible that these generous concessions were a mere political ploy by which al-Kāmil aimed to gain time and regroup Muslim forces.695 The belief in the coming of Prester John furnished a sort of confidence for the Crusaders in Damietta, prompting them to demand their highest 691

Guy Perry, “From King John of Jerusalem to the Emperor-Elect Frederick II: A Neglected Letter from the Fifth Crusade,” in The Fifth Crusade in Context, ed. E.J. Mylod et al. (London and New York: Routledge, 2017), 43-45. 692 Ibn Wāṣil, Mufarrij al-Kurūb, vol. 4, 95. 693 Ibn Wāṣil, Mufarrij al-Kurūb, vol. 4, 23; ʻUmrān, Al-Ḥamlah al-Ṣalībīyah, 270. 694 Ibn Wāṣil, Mufarrij al-Kurūb, vol.4, 23; Roger of Wendover, Flowers of History, vol. II, 421-422; Eracles, ‘Estorie d’Eracles, Empereur et de Conquest de la Terre d’outreMer’, in R.H.C.H.Occ., Tome II (Paris, 1859), 342-43; ʻUmrān, Al-Ḥamlah alṢalībīyah al-Khāmisah, 243, 264-65; Perry, John of Brienne, 198-200. 695 ʻUmrān, al-Ḥamlah al-Ṣalībīah al-Khāmisah, 265. 218

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terms for peace with the Ayyubids.696 This is evident in the seventh letter by Jacques when he claimed that the sultan of Egypt, al-Kāmil, had heard of King David, Prester John’s son, and he thus sued for peace: So the Sultan of Egypt, hearing through the messengers of the aforesaid Caliph of Baghdād of the invincible power of the aforesaid King David and his marvellous triumphs and how he had now seized in his powerful hand almost 200 days’ journey of the lands of the Saracens, and that there was no one who was strong enough to resist him, terrified in soul and confused in mind, began to call forth to himself certain nobles of ours who he was holding captive in prison in Cairo, namely the elect of Beauvais and his brother, the vice-count of Belmont, John of Arques-laBataille, Odo of Chatillon, Andrew of Carignon, and certain men of the brothers of the Temple and of the Hospital of Saint John and from the house of the Teutons, through whom he hoped to obtain peace with us. […] But the aforesaid army of the Christians rejoiced at the aforesaid rumours and was strengthened in the Lord and especially after we received the letters of Frederick, Emperor of the Romans, with his messengers confirming that, with the Lord allowing it, he was about to come with great strength and sumptuous supplies the next August, to the honour of God and subsidy of the Christians.697 Oliver of Paderborn, “The Capture of Damietta” in CSC, 66-67; Roger of Wendover, Flowers of History, vol. II, 413; ʻUmrān, Al-Ḥamlah al-Ṣalībīyah al-Khāmisah, 217. 697 Brewer, “Jacques de Vitry, Epistola VII,” 132; (Soldanus igitur Egypti per nuntios predicti caliphe Baldacensis audiens predicti regis David insuperabilem potentiam et mirabiles triumphos et qualiter iam fere per ducentas dietas terras Sarracenorum in manu potenti occupasset nec erat qui valeret ei resistere, consternatus animo et mente confusus precepit adduci sibi quosdam nobiles ex nostris quos in carcere Kayri detinebat captivos, electum scilicet Belvacensem et fratrem eius et vicecomitem Bellimontis et Iohannem de Archies et Odonem de Castellione et Andream de Espoisse et quosdam de fratribus Templi et Hostpitalis sancti Iohannis et de domo Theutonicorum, per quos pacem cum nostris se sperabat obtenturum, proprios etiam nuntios in exercitu Damiate cum litteris nobis transmisit modis omnibus attemptans si pacem vel treugas posset habere nobiscum. Christianorum autem exercitus predictis 696

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In what follows, Jacques stated that the Christians would capture the city of Damietta, which would then be subject to the control of two new kings – one from the West (Frederick II) and the other from the East (King David, son of Prester John). These kings would exterminate some Muslims, while others would convert to the “faith of Christ.” He also stated that the Crusaders announced the previously mentioned news and letter to the Christian people who “were gathered on the Word of God,” i.e., who had joined the Crusades. However, they waited for a long time without hearing any positive news or letters from either Emperor Frederick II or King David, the eastern king.698 Jacques here made an association between the anticipated coming of King David and the letter of Frederick II to Pope Honorius III on 12th January 1219, in which the emperor declared his intention to join the Crusade on Damietta. Frederick II also sought to show Honorius III that the crusade had particular value in his heart, and that he understood the necessity of his support to sustain the crusading enthusiasm at Damietta. In this letter, Frederick II affirmed that he would set out to the East on the Feast of John the Baptist, on 24th June 1219.699 Furthermore, Jaques’s letter indicated the bleak circumstances in Damietta. He mentioned how the crusader army fell into sins after capturing the city,700 referring to troubles that Muslims also faced, including Ibn al-Mashṭūb’s movement against al-Kāmil.701 rumoribus exultabat et confortabatur in domino et maxime postquam litteras imperatoris Romanorum Frederici recepimus cum nuntiis eius affirmantibus, quod concedente domino cum magna virtute et magnifico apparatu venturus esset in proximo Augusto ad honorem dei et subsidium christianorum), Huygens, Lettres de Jacques de Vitry, L.VII: 150. 698 Brewer, “Jacques de Vitry, Epistola VII,” 133-34; Huygens, Lettres de Jacques de Vitry, L.VII: 150-53; Röhricht, RRH, 250: no. 941. 699 Jean L.A Huillard-Bréholles, ed., Historia Diplomatica Frederici Secundi, vol. 1 (Paris, 1852), 584-86; Imān al-ʻIryān, Al-ʻAlāqāt al-Diblūmāsīyah bayna al-Sharq wa-Al-Gharb fī al-ʻuṣūr al-Wusṭā:Diblūmāsīyat al-ʻalāqāt bayna Firīdrīk al-Thānī wa al-Ayyūbīyīn: 1215-1250/612-648 (Damascus: Dār Nūr Ḥūrān, 2020), 69; Thomas W. Smith, ‘Pope Honorius III and the Holy Land Crusades , 1216-1227: A Study in Responsive Papal Government’ (PhD. Thesis, Royal Holloway, University of London, 2013), 88-89. 700 Brewer, “Jacques de Vitry, Epistola VII,” 133-34; Vandeburie, “The Preacher and the Pope,” 144. 701 Ibn Wāṣil, Mufarrij al-Kurūb, vol.4.16-17; ʻUmrān, a-Ḥamlah al-Ṣalībīah alKhāmisah, 234-35, 275-76. 220

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[A]s we have seen with our own eyes on various occasions, certain things which have happened to us and the Saracens these days up to the capture of Damietta, and because of this, with other things which have not yet eventuated, we have readily had faith [in] what that man foretold would come in the near future […].702 Despite the Crusaders’ insistence on war and the failure of the peace efforts until now, one person sought to end the war by faith. This was St. Francis of Assisi (d. 1226), who had abandoned military life to become a preacher. St. Francis thought that he could convert to Catholicism the Muslims and their sultan al-Kāmil and that this could serve as a peacebuilding endeavour without bloodshed. After refusing this peace offer, St. Francis got Pelagius’ approval to visit the Muslims’ camp and the sultan al-Kāmil, who listened to Francis and his request for peace through conversion. St. Francis believed that peace could not exist without the conversion of the Muslims. He was an ardent Christian who sought to convert all people to believe in Christ.703 St. Francis’ overtures to al-Kāmil could thus be seen as another form of the crusading mission to universalise Christianity through evangelic proselytisation. 3.1. Awaiting King David and the Fiasco of the Fifth Crusade After all peace attempts had failed, the crusader army captured Damietta on 25th Shaʻbān 616/5th February 1219.704 Therefore, the capture of Damietta increased the belief in the prophecy that circulated Brewer, “Jacques de Vitry, Epistola VII,” 133. Huygens, Lettres de Jacques de Vitry, no. 6, 123-23; Röhricht, RRH, no. 928; Adam L Hoose, “Francis of Assisi’s Way of Peace? His Conversion and Mission to Egypt,” The Catholic Historical Review 96, no. 3 (2010): 449–69; Jessalynn Lea Bird, “Crusade and Conversion after the Fourth Lateran Council (1215): Oliver of Paderborn’s and James of Vitry’s Missions to Muslims Reconsidered,” Essays in Medieval Studies 21, no. 1 (2004): 30; Rosalind B Brooke, “The Franciscan Concept of Mission in the High Middle Ages by E. Randolph Daniel,” Speculum 52, no. 3 (1977): 643–44. 704704 Ibn Wāṣil, Mufarrj al-Kurūb, 15-16; al-Ḥarīrī, al-I‘lām wa al-Tabīyn, 92;Gavigan, “The Capture of Damietta,” 86-88 702 703

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before the capture of Damietta about the coming Christian king, David, son of Prester John, who would reach them in Egypt.705 Oliver of Paderborn mentioned that while the crusader army was in Damietta, the legate of the Apostolic See received another book written that confirmed what was written about the victory of King David and his coming to Egypt. He also mentioned that King David, son of Prester John, sent his messengers to release the Christian captives whom the Ayyubids had sent to the Caliph of Baghdād as gifts.706 Jacques referred to the same prophecy as part of “the history of the deeds of David” that they received after the capture of Damietta.707 However, disputes and tensions broke out between King John of Brienne of Jerusalem and Pelagius over the leadership of the Crusaders in Damietta. As a consequence, in March 1220, King John of Brienne and his forces returned to defend Acre and crusader possessions in Syria against al-Mu’aẓ am, who had returned to Damascus to mobilise Islamic forces to fight the fifth-crusade forces in Egypt, as well as to launch attacks against their possessions in Syria to distract the Crusaders’ attention from Egypt.708 In 1221, John of Brienne returned to the city of Damietta with numerous stories about the victories of King David against the Muslims in Asia. However, it seems that Oliver connected this prophecy with some biblical verses,709 saying: My counsel shall stand, and all my will shall be done; there is no one who can resist my countenance. (...). I have found David, son of Prester John, my servant; with my holy oil, I have anointed him king of the Indies, whom I have commanded to avenge My wrongs, to rise against the 705

Brewer, “Jacques de Vitry, Epistola VII,” 132-34; Gavigan, “The Capture of Damietta,” 89-91, 113-114; Vandeburie, “The Preacher and the Pope,” 144-45. 706 Gavigan, “The Capture of Damietta,” 114. 707 Brewer, “Jacques de Vitry, Epistola VII,” 133-34; Huygens, Lettres de Jacques de Vitry, 151-52. 708 Oliver of Paderborn, “The Capture of Damietta,” 101-102; Perry, “From King John of Jerusalem to the Emperor-Elect Frederick II,” 41, 47; Pelliot, “La Prophétie de Hannan, Fils d’Isaac,” 113; Donovan, Pelagius and the Fifth Crusade, 70-71; ʻUmrān, Al-Ḥamlah al-Ṣalībīyah al-Khāmisah, 298. 709 For instance, Isaiah 46:10 and 11. 222

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many-headed beast, to whom I have given victory over the king of the Persians; I have placed a great part of Asia under his feet. The King of the Persians, being lifted up unto excessive pride, wished to be the monarch of Asia; against him, King David, who they say is the son of Prester John, won the first fruits of victory. Then he subjugated other kings and kingdoms to himself, and, as we learned by a report that reached far and wide, no power on earth can resist him.710 At the same time, Pope Honorius III received a letter from Pelagius, the papal delegate, in March 1221, recounting the glories of King David and triumphs against the Muslims. The Pope, in turn, shared this letter with the venerable brothers Theodoric, the Archbishop of Trier and his supporters, saying: our venerable brother P[elagius], the bishop of Albano, legate to the papal seat, has told us in his letters, King David, who is commonly called Prester John, a Catholic and god-fearing man, has entered Persia with a mighty force and, having defeated the Sultan of Persia on the battlefield, is invading and occupying 24 days’ worth of his land, in which there are a great many fortified cities and castles, and he has proceeded so far from that region that his army is not even ten days distant from Baghdād, that greatest and most famous city which is said to be the special seat of the Caliph, the one whom the Saracens call their highest priest or pontiff. In fear of him, the Sultan of Aleppo, the brother of the sultans of Damascus and Babylon, prepared his forces against the Christian army, which was staying at Damietta, and went against the aforementioned king to repulse him. 711 Oliver of Paderborn, “The Capture of Damietta,” 112-113 Brewer, “Papa Honorius III, Epistola,” in PJLIS, 124: (Ecce enim, sicut venerabilis frater noster P[elagius] albanensis episcopus, apostolice sedis legatus, suis nobis litteris intimavit, [quod] rex david, qui presbiter Johannes vulgariter appellatur, vir catholicus et timens deum, in manu potenti Persidem est ingressus et, soldano Persidis

710 711

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The chronicle of Alberic de Trois referred to the same letter but stated that this prophecy was written in “Chaldean letters,” found in the Temple of the Saracens. He added that when the letter of Pelagius reached the Pope in Rome, “a certain Master James, appointed legate to Ireland by the lord pope, carried from Rome to Clairvaux, continuing to Ireland.”712 Pope Honorius himself seemed to accept the news about King David that was broadly being disseminated, using it to promote the crusading vow in the West. For this reason, we command your brotherhood through [these] papal writings that you urge (and if it is necessary, compel) the crusaders [crucesignatos] in the region of Trier to fulfil their vows, and also that you strive to rouse others with assiduous encouragements to come to the assistance of the aforementioned army. But ensure that you anxiously forewarn those who will cross over to help the aforesaid army that they not fail to bring as many horses as they can, both warhorses and other horses, without which support the army is not able to proceed. For there is a great scarcity [of horses] there, nor can they be found for sale in those parts. 713 bello campestri devicto, terram ejus per .xxiiii. dietas invadens et occupans, in ea tenet quamplures munitas civitates et castra; tantumque ab illa parte processit, ut non nisi per .x. dietas distet ejus exercitus a Baldach, maxima et famosissima civitate, que Kalisti, ejus videlicet, quem Sarraceni suum summum sacerdotem vel pontificem appellant, sedes esse dicitur specialis. Cujus timore soldanus Halapie, frater soldanorum damasci et Babilonie, vires suas, quas preparaverat contra christianum exercitum, qui damiate consistit, compulsus est contra regem convertere memoratum), here 123. 712 Alberic de Trois-Fontaines, “Chronicon,” in MGH SS, vol. 23, 910; Brewer., “Albericus Trium Fontium Chronica,” in PJLIS, 146-47. 713 Brewer, “Papa Honorius III, Epistola,” 124-25; R. W. Southern, Western Views of Islam in the Middle Ages (Cambridge and Massachusetts: Harvard University press, 1962), 45-46; (ideoque fraternitati vestre per apostolica scripta mandamus, quatinus cruce signatos Treverensis provincie exhortemini ad exequenda celeriter vota sua, et si necesse fuerit, compellatis; alios quoque ad subventionem prefati exercitus studeatis sedulis exhortationibus animare. eos autem, qui transibunt ad exercitus predicti succursum, curetis sollicite premonere, ut equos quanto plures potuerint transvehere

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The news of King David redoubled the crusaders’ intention to continue fighting the Muslims and caused them to dismiss all peacemaking attempts, believing that the coming of the mighty King David influenced the Muslims’ reaction. As a consequence, the Crusaders persisted in refusing any peace agreement with al-Kāmil of Egypt, who sent his fourth peace offer in Rabīʻ al-Thānī 618/ June 1221. He suggested handing over to them the cities of Jerusalem, Tiberius, Sidon, Jabala and Latakia, as well as all places that Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn had taken. However, the Crusaders declined to build peace and demanded three hundred thousand to five hundred thousand dinars as compensation for the destruction of the walls of Jerusalem.714 In this vein, it could be said that the Prester John legend of the Fifth Crusade seemed to be a kind of attempt at a convergence of the previously divergent eastern and western Christian powers, who could now be allies against the Muslims. For the last time, the possibility of making peace with the Muslims was dismissed, as the crusaders believed in their powers and the assistance of the (non-existent) army of Prester John. These letters spread rumours by Pope Honorius, Pelagius, Jacques, Oliver and others, revealing the role of the legend in inciting the crusading war. After waiting for King David or Prester John from 1217 to 1221, neither of them reached Egypt, of course, just as Prester John could not come to Jerusalem in 1145.715 According to the above prophecies of King David, his forces would join the army of Emperor Frederick II, but he had not arrived. However, the emperor sent forces under the leadership of the Duke of Bavaria with the bishop of Passau, Count Guy of Brienne, the Marquis of Baden and other nobles to Damietta in May 1221. Together with

non omittant, cum et dextrariorum et aliarum equitaturarum, sine quarum amminiculo exercitus proficisci non potest, grandis penuria sit ibidem, nec venales in illis partibus valeant inveniri), “Papa Honorius III, Epistola,” 123. 714 Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil, vol. 10, 379; Al-Maqrīzī, Kitāb al-Sulūk, vol.1, 327; ʻAbd alʻAzīz, Tārīkh al-Baṭārikah, vol 3.2, 1538; ʻUmrān, Al-Ḥamlah al-Ṣalībīyah alKhāmisah, 322-323. 715 See below Chapter 2. 225

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the crusading army in Damietta, these forces would be sufficient to exterminate the Ayyubids in Egypt.716

Fig. 8. Crusaders surrounded by Ayyubid forces and Nile flood. Created by the author, cartographic design by Christiane Enderle, Geography Department, Philipps-Universität Marburg.

Therefore, the forces of the Fifth Crusade marched towards Cairo in July 1221, but the Egyptian forces repulsed them. This interval of time in which the Crusaders waited for Prester John proved pivotal and enabled the Muslims to regroup themselves. Similarly, by the time actual fighting began, it was summer, the season when the Nile River burgeoned and overflowed its banks − unlike the rivers of Europe −

Gavigan, “The Capture of Damietta,” 90-note.2, 112, 113-note.4; ʻAbd al-ʻAzīz, Tārīkh al-Baṭārikah, vol. 3.2, 1530; Pelliot, ‘Deux Passages de la Prophétie de Hannan, Fils d’Isaac’, in PJMTLT, 113.

716

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thus preventing the Crusaders from crossing it southward to Cairo.717 The Muslims were thus able to besiege the crusader forces between the two water sources of the Nile.718 After several clashes between the two sides in Damietta, the Crusaders eventually made a peace agreement.719 At this point, alĀshraf, al-Kāmil’s brother, was not inclined to reconcile with the Crusaders and wanted to wipe them out. Nevertheless, the Sultan alKāmil said that this was neither fair, nor was it in the interests (maṣlaḥat) of Muslims. The sultan was concerned that the Crusader leaders were the Latin Christian senior knights, still in control of the city of Damietta at the time. He argued that the right decision was to make peace with the Crusaders, who were in such a weakened state by then that they would accept any terms proposed by the Muslims. The Crusaders submitted the “hard-won” city of Damietta for their lives and sailed out of Egypt on the 7th of September 1221/ 7th of Rajab 618. All prisoners held by the Crusaders and Muslims were released according to the terms of this long-awaited peace.720 4. THE ARABIC PROPHECY OF KING DAVID: THE ENTANGLEMENTS WITH NESTORIAN, COPTIC AND ETHIOPIAN PROPHECIES/APOCALYPSE Oliver and Jacques referred to two Arabic-prophetic texts about King David; the first was before the capture of Damietta to announce the coming assistance of a Christian King to Damietta. The second was after capturing Damietta about King David and his imminent arrival to Egypt. Therefore, it is evident that both Oliver and Jacques spoke of King David on the authority of the same Arabic-prophetic book, but they might have had different sources of information. In this frame Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmīl , vol. 10, 379-80; ʻAbd al-ʻAzīz, Tārīkh al-Baṭārikah, vol.3.2, 1538; Vandeburie, “The Preacher and the Pope,” 146-47; Brewer, PJLIS, 97. 718 Brewer, “Believing in Prester John.” 719 Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmīl, vol. 10, 380; ʻAbd al-ʻAzīz, Tārīkh al-Baṭārikah, vol 3.2, 1539; al-‘Ainī, ‘Iqd al-Jumān, vol.4, 57. 720 Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil, vol. 10, 380; Ibn al-Dawādārī, Kanz al-Durar, vol. 7, 211; alMaqrīzī, Kitāb al-Sulūk, vol.1, 329; Smith, “Oliver of Cologne’s Historia Damiatina.” 40-41. 717

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of mind, the entangled historical aspects between King David and the Prophecy of Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq, the Coptic prophecy/apocalypse of alAnbā Samuel of Qalamūn, and the Arabic prophecy of the Ethiopian King David must now be discussed. 4.1. A Syriac-Arabic Figure of the Christian King (David) Before the capture of Damietta, Oliver, in chapter thirty-five of his chronicle, writes that the Crusaders received a book/letter written in Arabic, whose author was neither a Jew nor a Christian nor a Muslim. This text declared that Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn had brought evil over the Christians, referring to his victories over the Christian people at the battle of Ḥattīn on 4th July 1187 AD/25 Rabi II 583 and his capture of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. 721 Furthermore, it states that a certain king of the Christian Nubians was to destroy the city of Mecca and cast out the scattered bones of Mohammad, the false prophet,722 and certain other things which have not yet come to pass. If they are brought about, however, they will lead to the exaltation of Christianity and the suppression of the Agarenes (i.e. the Muslims).723 Brewer, “Historia Damiatina.” 137; Gavigan, “The Capture of Damietta” 89-90. Oliver of Paderborn was far from the first Christian cleric who called Prophet Mohammed by this description. Saint John of Damascus (675 or 676 – 749 or 750), was among the first one representing the Prophet Moḥammad to the West as “false prophet,” and “Antichrist.” The writings of Churchmen and orientalists between the seventh and the Nineteenth led to further attempts, to show the Prophet as a “false prophet, a Saracen prince, a writer of the Quran, the Anti-Christ, the Biblical beast.” See; Ahlam Sbaihat, “Stereotypes Associated with Real Prototypes of the Prophet of Islam’s Name till the 19th Century,” Jordan Journal of Modern Languages and Literature 7, no. 1 (2015): 21–38; Hartmut Bobzin, Mohammed (München: C.H.Beck, 2000), 9-13; Hartmut Bobzin, Der Koran (München: C.H.Beck, 1999), 16-17, for more information see, James Kritzeck, “Muslim-Christian Understanding in Medieval Times,” in Travellers, Intellectuals, and the World Beyond Medieval Europe, ed. James Muldoon (London and New York: Routledge, 2016), 65–78; Bernard Hamilton, “Knowing the Enemy: Western Understanding of Islam at the Time of the Crusades,” in Travellers, Intellectuals, and the World Beyond Medieval Europe, ed. James Muldoon (London and New York: Routledge, 2016), 79–93. 723 Brewer, “ Historia Damiatina,” 137; Gavigan, “The Capture of Damietta,” 90; 721 722

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Jacques also echoed the same prophetic book clarifying that it was written by a particular astrologer considered a great prophet by the Saracens. In addition to predicting the recapture of the city of Acre, the book prophesied how the army of the Christian people would seize Damietta, Alexandria, Cairo and Babylonia, among other regions. Besides, it refers to a Christian prince, “most powerful in the strength of his army of Christian people,” who would capture Damascus and Aleppo and “liberate the city of Jerusalem along with all of Syria from the hands of the pagans.”724 After the capture of Damietta, Oliver mentions, in chapter 56, that while the crusader army was in that city, the legate of the Apostolic See (Pelagius) ordered that a book written in Arabic be briefly read loudly by an interpreter. It was entitled The Book of Clement 725 and was written by St. Clement himself about the “revelations made to Peter (Apocalypse of Peter of the second century) between resurrection and the ascension by the Lord.” This book began with the (Predixit etiam destructionem hortorum palmeti damiate civitatis, quam factam vidimus, quando librum hunc per interpretem inspeximus. addit etiam, damiatam a Christianis fore capiendam; saladini nomen non ponit, sed per nigros oculos et crocea vexilla ipsum designat. insuper predixit, quendam regem Christianorum nubianorum Mecham civitatem debere destruere et ossa Machometi pseudoprophete dispersa proicere et quedam alia, que nondum evenerunt, sed si completa fuerint, ad exaltationem Christianitatis et depressionem agarenorum evenient),Brewer, “Oliver,” 135. 724 Brewer, “Jacques de Vitry, Epistola VII,” 132-33; (prenuntiavit enim qualiter capta damiata, alexandriam et Kayrum et Babyloniam et universas egypti regiones christianorum populus optineret, damascum preterea et alapiam et omnes adiacentes provincias christianorum princeps potentissimus in virtute exercitus populi christiani occuparet et civitatem ierusalem cum universa syria liberaret de manibus paganorum), here, 128; Huygens, Lettres de Jacques de Vitry, 150-51. 725 Rouxpetel, “La Figure du Prêtre Jean ,” 111-16; Pelliot, “Deux passages de la prophétie de Hannan, fils d’Isaac,” 115-18; St Clement lived c. 100 AD and was traditionally regarded as the third successor to St. Peter as Bishop of Rome, was a respected figure in the Western Church:” Hamilton, “The Impact of Prester John,” 60. There was another Clement, Known as Clement of Alexandria to differentiate him from the elder Clement of Rome. He was a Christian theologian lived c.150-215. He was affected by Hellenistic philosophy to a greater degree than any other Christian philosopher of his time. See; Denise Kimber Buell, Making Christians: Clement of Alexandria and the Rhetoric of Legitimacy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999),10; Albert Outler, “The ‘Platonism’ of Clement of Alexandria,” The Journal of Religion 20, no. 3 (1940): 217–40. 229

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creation of the world to the end of time, telling the teachings of salvation. In addition, it confirmed the prophecy of King David, son of Prester John, and presented him as the defender of Christendom, who released Christian captives at Baghdād, as mentioned above. 726 Further, Oliver said: Amongst other things, it is said that the Christians would capture a city abounding in water along with one city of Egypt. It mentions the capture of Alexandria, nor is Damascus left unmentioned, which greatly tormented and [still] torments God’s servants. It thereafter discusses two kings who will come to Jerusalem, one of which it is said will come from the East, the other from the West, and which will take in the year in which Easter will fall on 3rd April.727 In his seventh letter in April 1221, Jacques referred to the same prophecy as a part of “the history of the deeds of David” that they were able to translate from Arabic into Latin. Jacques also indicates that they learned the prophecy of King David from the Syrians, who were in the army (of the Fifth Crusade crusade) with them: the Syrians who were in the army with us showed us from their old book-cases another most ancient book written in the Saracen language, whose heading was: ‘The Revelations of the blessed Peter the apostle by his disciple Clement, brought together in one volume’. [...] But he foretold, among other things, about the conclusion or consumption of the treacherous law of the Agarenes [i.e. Muslims], and how with the destruction of the pagans Brewer, “Jacques de Vitry, Epistola VII,” 132-34; Gavigan, “The Capture of Damietta,” 89-91, 113-114. 727 Brewer, “Historia Damiatina.” 138; Gavigan, “The Capture of Damietta,” 113-114: (inter alias dicitur, civitatem aquosam a Christianis fore capiendam cum civitate una egypti. additur etiam de alexandrie captione nec tacetur damascus, que servos dei multum cruciavit et cruciat. additur preterea de duobus regibus, quorum unus asseritur venturus ab oriente, alius ab occidente Jerosolimam in illo anno, quo pascha erit tertio die aprilis. liber iste cum eo, cuius supra mentionem fecimus, etiam in multis concordat), Brewer, “Historia Damiatina,” 135-36. 726

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imminent, as though it were standing in a doorway [and about to enter], the people of the Christians will first subjugate the city which is grassy and surrounded with waters, as indeed he calls Damietta, truly after this it comes under the control of two new kings, one of whom he predicted will come from the western parts, and the other will come from eastern parts into the holy city to meet the aforesaid king.728 Therefore, it is evident that both Oliver and Jacques spoke of the coming Christian king on the authority of the same Arabic prophetic book(s), which had been transmitted to the Crusaders through Syriac Christian intermediaries. In this vein, it seems that the prophecy of King David originated through the crusading reception of some oriental prophetic writings, such as the so-called prophecy of Ḥunayn Ibn Isḥāq.729 These prophetic texts mentioned by Oliver and Jacques report the predictions of this prophecy. Jacques mentioned that a certain astrologer of the Muslims wrote the prophecy that they received – a description that matches Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq (Latin: Johannitius, d. 873). Ibn Isḥāq was a ninth-century Syriac Christian/Nestorian philosopher, physician and astrologer, born in Hira and deceased in Baghdād. He worked in the service of Brewer, ‘Jacques de Vitry, Epistola VII,’ 134; (…, hoc presenti anno suriani qui nobiscum erant in exercitu, librum alium antiquissimum lingua sarracenica scriptum de antiquis armariis suis nobis ostenderunt, cuius erat superscriptio: Revelationes beati Petri apostoli a discipulo eius Clemente in uno volumine redacte. [...] Prenuntiavit autem inter alia de consummatione seu consumptione perfide legis Agarenorum et qualiter imminente et quasi in ianuis existente destructione paganorum primo civitatem herbosam et aquis circumdatam -sic enim damiatam appellavit - populus christianorum subiugaturus esset, post hec vero de duobus regibus novis subiungit, quorum unus venturus est a partibus occidentis, alium a partibus orientis obviam predicto regi in civitatem sanctam venturum predixit et quod per manus regum predictorum dominus...), here 133, Huygens, Lettres de Jacques de Vitry, 151-52. 729 Camille Rouxpetel, “la figure du Prêtre Jean: Les mutations d’une prophétie souverain chrétien idéal, figure providentielle ou Paradigme de l’orientalisme Médiéval ?,” Questes: Revue Pluridisciplinaire d’études médiévales, no. 28 (2014): 99–120; Giardini, “The Quest for the Ethiopian Prester John,” 64-65; Pelliot, “Deux passages de la prophétie de Hannan, fils d’Isaac,” 113-73; Bernard Hamilton, “Continental Drift: Prester John’s Progress through the Indies,” in PJMTLT, 243. 728

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the Abbasid caliph, especially at the House of Ḥikmah (wisdom) in Baghdād, which was founded by the Caliph al-Maʾmūn (198-218/ 813-33) and became the centre of culture and translation at the time. Ibn Ishāq later became the chief physician at the court of the Caliph al-Mutawakkil (r. 232-47/ 847-61). Besides, he was known as an active Arabic-Syrian translator of the classical Greek books, especially those Syrian versions of the classical Greek texts, into Arabic. The most important book that he translated was the book of Artemidorus, which he translated from Greek to Arabic under Kitāb Taʿbīr al-Ruʼyā, which included sixty-one chapters of different interpretations of various visions and prophecies.730 The same prophecy appears under the Hannan son of Agap in the continuation of William of Tyre – “la continuation de Guillaume de Tyr” (1229-1261) – which was edited by Röhricht and published in 1879. This Prophecy announced the evils inflicted on Christians by Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn in Palestine and Syria, including the siege of Acre. Yet the prophecy later foretold the coming of a powerful Christian “king from the mountains,” who would seize Damascus, Egypt and other cities. This king would also destroy Mecca, the holy city of the Muslims.731 Therefore, it is most likely that this prophecy was, as Jacques stated, developed in Arabic in the Nestorian circle, and Jacques and Oliver used it in promoting the Fifth Crusade. Nevertheless, Tyerman and Hamilton, on the other hand, propose that this prophecy was produced by local Egyptian Copts around 1219-20.732 Ḥunayn Ibn Isḥāq, Kitāb Taʿbīr al-Ruʼyā, ed. ʿAbd al-Minʿim al-Ḥifnī (Cairo: Dār al-Rashād, 2002), 7-13; Glen M. Cooper, ‘Isḥāq Ibn Ḥunayn: Abū Yaʿqūb Isḥāq Ibn Ḥunayn Ibn Isḥāq al‐ʿIbādī’, in The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers, ed. Thomas Hockey et al (New York: Springer, 2007), 578; Pelliot, “Deux passages de la prophétie de Hannan, Fils d’Isaac,” 120 731 Reinhold Röhricht, “La prophétie de Hannan le fil Isaac,” in Quinti Belli Sacri Scriptores Minores, ed. Reinhold Röhricht (Genevae, 1879), 205–13; “Sommaries de la Continuation de Guillaume de Tyr, de 1229-1261 ( Dite du Manuscrit de Rothelin),” in Recueil des Historiens des Croisades, Occidentaux, vol. II (Paris, 1859), ch. xiixiii, 515-17; Rouxpetel, “La figure du Prêtre Jean ,” 111-12; Pelliot, “Deux passages de la prophétie de Hannan, Fils d’Isaac,” 114, 118-20. 732 Christopher Tyerman, God’s War: A New History of the Crusades (London: Penguin Books, 2007), 642 730

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4.2. A Coptic-Arabic Figure of Christian King (David) The prophecies told by Oliver and Jacques perhaps were a reworked version of some Coptic prophecies that might have been rewritten and reused during the Fifth Crusade. While the Copts voiced their irritation regarding the political regime, in a metaphorical way, through prophecies, it seems that some crusading advocates have politically instrumentalized these prophecies to attract more Christian support, especially from the Latins, during the Fifth Crusade. In this context, after examining several Arabic-Coptic prophecies that were disseminated amongst the Copts, the most similar Coptic prophecy or apocalypse to that of Oliver and Jacques was the apocalypse of Samuel the Confessor (Arabic: al-Anbā Ṣamuʾīl al-Muʾtarf), known as Samuel of Qalamūn, (ca. 597-695). Anbā Samuel was born in the Northwest Delta in 597 and died in his monastery of Qalamūn in 695. He spent most of his life at his monastery in Qalamūn, in the western desert in the province of Bani Suef in Egypt. He wrote several prophecies and sermons that have been retold many times, perhaps until the present day. His apocalypse was designed to resist the AraboMuslim domination of Egypt. Although it should have been written in Coptic in the seventh century, it most likely was composed initially in Arabic in the ninth/tenth century. 733 One of his more exciting prophecies, which was closely related to those of Oliver and Jacques that had been circulated during the Faith Crusade, was the prophecy or apocalypse of St. Samuel after the Arabic conquest of Egypt (19-20 AH/640-42 AD), to predict the imminent victory of Christianity. This prophecy was an answer to the question of Pope Gregory (al-Āb Ighrīghūrīs) when he asked how long the Arabs would rule in Egypt, to which St. Samuel answered: My father Gregory, no one knows the regulations and changes of times, only the Creator (God) knows. But if the Kenneth S. Parker, “Coptic Language and Identity in Ayyūbid Egypt,” Al-Masaq 25, no. 2 (2013): 232-36; Isaac the Presbyter, The Life of Samuel of Kalamun, ed. Anthony Alcock (Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 1983), ix-x; J. Simon, “Saint Samuel de Kalamon et son monastère dans la littérature Éthiopienne,” Aethiopica, no. 2 (1933): 36–40.

733

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Christians turned aside from their sins and wicked practices and fulfil the laws/teachings of the Church and follow them carefully, faithfully and uprightly before Allah, Allah will lift these trials from them. […] But if they are not good, then the kingdom of the Arabs will continue for generations until a king called [Lasmarini].734 [..] The earth will be disturbed in the days of his reign. […] There will be no peace in his time. […] Afterwards, the Lord will think of his people who were so much humiliated, and He will send against them Malik al-Rūm (the Byzantine emperor) in great anger from the direction of the sea, as Michael the Archangel will appear to him in a vision and will say to him, “Arise and reject captivity [i.e. release the captives], for God has made you king over the whole land.” Thus, he will possess the whole land. The King of the Abyssinians will cause great destruction in the land of their fathers [i.e. Arabian lands as a reference to the Muslim holy cities; Mecca and Madina] in the East. The Arabs will flee to the deserts where they were before, and they will escape from the King of the Abyssinians from the eastern regions. [...] Allah will deliver them to Malik alRūm, who will vanquish them with the blade of the sword and will take them captives because they have destroyed the land. For this reason, of course, and for the God justice, God will deliver them to the Malik al-Rūm, and he will get angry on them, [...] Malik al-Rūm will come to the land of Egypt and burn the city of the Egyptians which is called Babylon [...].735 The name Lasmarini, which means the dark one, is founded in the French-Arabic edition and not the Arabic edition, see next footnotes 735 This translation quoted from the English translation of Anthony Alcock of the Apocalypse of Samuel of Kalamun based on the French edition, J. Ziadeh, ed., “L’Apocalypse de Samuel, supérieur de deir-el-Qalamoun,” in Revue de l’orient chrétien, vol. 20 (Paris: Bureau des oeuvres d’Orient, 1917), 389-91, with slight amendments basde on the Arabic edation of "St. Smauel's prophciey, in: Al-Ᾱnṭiūanī, Tanabbūʾāt al-Anbā Ṣamwaʾīl al-Muʻtaraf bi-Dyruh, 29-31: 734

‫فقالله األب اغريغوريسياأبي القديساتري االمريطول؟ وحتى متيتدوم هذه الشدة وإلي متيتدوم هذه األمة‬

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The content of the prophecy of Samuel is very similar to the prophecy mentioned by Oliver and Jacques, especially the one before the capture of Damietta. The Arabic prophecy of Oliver predicts, “a certain king of the Nubian Christians would destroy the city of Mecca and would destroy the Muslims/Arabs.”736 The same king by Jacques was living in the eastern regions up to the land of Prester John and would come to vanquish the Muslims.737 After the capture of Damietta, Jacques and Oliver proclaimed that the same king’s coming was imminent and he would help the Crusaders control all of Egypt and the Holy Land with another king who would come from the western parts. According to Oliver’s interpretation, these kings would have been King David from the East and Frederick II from the West.738 In the same sense, the prophecy of Samuel informs of the coming of two Christian kings, one from the West, but here the latter was seen as the king of Rūm, and the other from the East was the Abyssinian king. It seems that the prophecy of Samuel of Qalamūn was neither the first nor the last of the Arabic Coptic prophecies that were connected with the Arabic conquest of Egypt and retold during the time of the Crusades. The prophecy/apocalypse of Athanāsiyūs was assigned to Athanāsiyūs the Great (c. 296/98-373), known as Athanāsiyūs the Apostolic, who was the patriarch of Alexandria under Athanasius I (328-373 AD). Previous scholarship varies regarding the composition period of this prophecy. Yet the original text probably goes back to ‫ "ليسيعرف أحدتدبير األزمنة‬،‫ياأبي اغريغوريس‬:‫(العرب) علي أرض مصر؟فقالله القديس أنباصموئيل‬ ‫وتقلبهاسوي الخالق وحده ولكن اذاتابوا النصاري ورجعوا عن اعمالهم الرديئة ويقيمونقوانين الكنيسة ويسلكون‬ ‫ وذالميتابوافانهاتدومفي األرض الي‬.‫فع عنهم هذه االتعاب‬ ‫فان هللاير‬.‫فظ واستقامة أمام هللا‬ ‫فيهابحرص وتح‬ ‫فرنسية اسمهلسمريني وعدد‬ ‫في النص العربي من النسخة ال‬ ( ‫ وأخر ملكيقوم منهم اسمه ــــ‬،‫كمال مملكة األعراب‬ ‫[ وبعدكل هذايذكر الرب‬...] ‫[ واألرضتضطربفيأيام مملكته] … [وليسفيأيامه راحة‬... ]‫ ـ‬666 ‫اسمه‬ ‫فيرسل ملك الرومبغضب عظيم منناحية البحر ألن ميخائيل رئيس المالئكةيظهرلهفي‬.‫شعبه الذيقد ذل جد ًا‬ ‫ وان ملك‬.‫ و هكذاتملك علي األرض جميعها‬،‫ انهض ورد السبيفان هللاقد ملكك األرض كلها‬:‫الرؤيا ويقولله‬ ‫ ويهرب‬.‫الحبشةيصنعفساد ًا عظيم ًافي أرضأبائهم (أرض العرب وربمايقصد مكة والمدينة)فيناحية المشرق‬ .‫[ وهللايسلهم إلييد ملك الروم‬...] .‫فار التيكانوافيها أو ًال ويهربون من ملك الحبشة من المشارق‬ ‫العرب إلي الق‬ ‫فيهلكهمبحد السيف ويسبيهم ألنهم أ هلكوا األرضفلذلك طبع ًاللعدل األلهييسلمهمليد ملك الروم الذييغضب‬ . ...‫ ويحضر ملك الروم إلى أرض مصر ويحرق مدينة المصريين المسماهبابليون‬. [...] ‫عليهم‬

Brewer, “Historia Damiatina,” 137; Giardini, “Quest for the Ethiopian Prester John,” 68-69. 737 Brewer, “De Vitry, Epistola II,” 99; Huygens, Lettres de Jacques de Vitry, 96. 738 Brewer, “De Vitry, Epistola VII,” 133-34; Brewer, “Historia Damiatina,” 138-39. 736

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the eighth century during the Umayyad period in Egypt (41-132/662750), and it was most likely rewritten and developed during the Fatimid period of rule in Egypt (358-566/973-1171) during the twelfth century.739 The prophecy of Athanāsiyūs foretells the destruction of the Muslims by a conflict between two Muslim nations, said to be the Turks and Fatimids (Persians), especially in the twelfth century, when Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn subjected Egypt to the rule of the Seljuk Sultan Nūr alDīn Zinkī in 566/1171. Athanāsiyūs also predicted the arrival of Malik al-Rūm (king of the Romans), who would conquer the Arabs and take Egypt and many other countries from the Muslims. Nevertheless, “the Lord will give the power to the kings of Persia for a little while and because of their evils; God will withdraw the land of Egypt from them. In what follows, the prophecy refers to the ruler of a mighty nation called Saracen, whose ruler shall live in the city of Damascus. The prophecy indicates that many Christians, including Syrians, would change their faith to protect themselves from the sufferings that this nation would bring to the earth. Many disasters would take place because of the anger of Allah from the sins of this nation. After all the suffering and dangers, Christ would come for the salvation of all humankind.740 It appears that the prophecy of St. Samuel and Athanāsiyūs in part echoed the pseudo-Methodius apocalypse, which was in the same seventh century, and predicted the end of the Arabo-Muslim domination by a collaboration between the Byzantine emperor and Abyssinian king.741 This further reveals that the eastern Christians Christine George, trans., “Al-Nubūʾa al-Mansūba ll-Qiddīs Athanāsiyūs al-Rasūlī,” Madrasat al-Iskandarih, no. 3 (2013): 223–56; Francisco Javier Martinez, “Eastern Christian Apocalyptic in the Early Muslim Period : Pseudo Methodius and Pseudo Athanassius,” Ph.D. Dissertation (Catholic University of America, 1985), 248-274. 740 George, “Al-Nubūʾa al-Mansūba ll-Qiddīs Athanāsiyūs al-Rasūlī,” 226, 228-29, 23539; Martinez, “Pseudo Methodius and Pseudo Athanassius,” 623-32. 741 Garstad, Garstad, Apocalypse Pseudo-Methodius, vii-xiv, 25-37; 63-65; Ramaḍān, “Ṣūrat al-Islām,” 271-74. Similar prophecies were attributed to Shenoute of Atripe, also known as Saint Shenoute the Archimandrite (d. ca. 465-66), and the Prophet Daniel (the biblical Daniel). Cf. George, “Al-Nubūʾa al-Mansūba ll-Qiddīs Athanāsiyūs al-Rasūlī,” 225-26; Jos van Lent, “The Nineteen Muslim Kings in Coptic Apocalypses,” Parole de l'Orient 25 (2000), pp. 643-693. 739

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exchanged the belief in these kinds of eschatological prophecies. On the same authority, the Syrian and Copts played a role in disseminating these prophecies among the Crusaders, especially during the Fifth Crusade. It is reasonable that such prophecies might have reached the hand of the Crusaders in Damietta invoked the enthusiasm of the Crusaders. Crusader preachers like Jacques and Oliver interpreted such predictions according to their crusading motif and purposes, transferring to the figure of the coming Christian king. He later became King David, son of Prester John. Further, it seems that the formation of King David had another origin with the Ethiopian-Coptic tradition of the Solomonic Christian King David of Ethiopia. 4.3. An Ethiopian Figure of King David in Kébra Nagast It seems that the prophecy of King David was further entangled with Coptic-Arabic and Ethiopian origins, as the descendant of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba Magda (Arabic: Balqīs) and their son Ibn al-Ḥakīm (i.e., Son of the Wise Man), who became known as Menelik I of Axum, also referred to as King David. A fourteenthcentury manuscript of the book Kébra Nagast, i.e., “the glory of the kings (of Ethiopia),” has identified the details of such connections. The book includes 112 chapters grouped into three parts that describe a venerable history for the Solomonic descent of the Ethiopian kings.742 The composer of this book was a Coptic priest, either living in Aksum or Egypt. In the subsequent centuries, because of the vastness of the Islamic empire, the Coptic text was, partly or totally, translated in the 1220s into Arabic by two persons named Abū al-ʻizz and Abū al-Faraj. It was later translated into Ge'ez (classical Ethiopic) by Ethiopian clerics in the fourteenth century. During the translation and E.A. Wallis Budge, trans., The Queen of Sheba and Her Only Son Menyelek (Kébra Nagast), In Parentheses Publications Ethiopian Series (Cambridge, Ontario: Cambridge University Press, 2000), ii-iii, Rāhib min Dayr al-Barāmūs, Al-Rahbanah al-Ḥabashīyah, 19-20; Paolo Marrassini, “Kəbrä Nägäst,” in Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, vol. 3-He-N, ed. Siegbert Uhlig (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag: 2007), 364-68.

742

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transliteration process, many additions from Arabic sources were added to Kébra Nagast. According to the same authority, the Arabic version was later translated into Ethiopic, and original names underwent abnormal transliteration and transformation during the translation process. Finally, a man called Isaac, of whom nothing is known except that he was a devoted, dreamy and patriotic Christian, made the Ethiopic translation.743 Budge describes this book, saying: Kébra Nagast is a great storehouse of legends and traditions, some historical and some of the purely folk-lore character, derived from Old Testament and the later Rabbinic writings and Egyptian (both pagan and Christian), Arabian and Ethiopia sources. Of the early history of the compilation and its maker, and of its subsequent editors we know nothing, but the essential groundwork of its earliest form was the traditions that were current in Syria, Palestine, Arabia and Egypt during the first four centuries of the Christians era.744 The little son, King David (Ibn al-Ḥakīm), visited his father, King Solomon, in Jerusalem and received the replica of the Ark of the Covenant guarded by many Israelite leaders. Solomon said of his son that he was “better looking than his father David in all days of his youth, and blessed his son by the name of David, to be the King of Ethiopia.” Upon his return to his mother, David found the original Ark of the Covenant, discovering that it was stolen from Jerusalem. Hence, the high priest Sādwaq/Zadok, who accompanied him, anointed him David, king of Abyssinia (Arabic: al-Malik Dāwud Malik alḤabashah). The priest Michael then taught this little King David the correct religious teachings. The Solomonic royal dynasty of King David of Abyssinia continued to rule, even after Ethiopians became Christians, until the tenth century. Although the Solomonic dynasty in Budge, Kébra Nagast, ii-v; Rāhib min Dayr al-Barāmūs, al-Rahbanah alḤabashīyah, 19; David Allan Hubbard, “The Literary Sources of the Kebra Nagast,” (PhD. Thesis, University of St Andrews Library, 1956), 39, 44, 358, 370; Van Vorst and Hugues le Roux, ‘Romance of the Queen of Sheba’, The Newyork Times, November 2, 1907. 744 Budge, Kébra Nagas, iii. 743

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Ethiopia was restored in 1270 by King Yekuno Amlak (r. 1270-85), the Ethiopian kings continued to associate with the figure of King David several miracles that were assigned to them. As a result, the medieval Christian kings of Abyssinia were associated with the Solomonic tradition and this son King David.745 There is an Ethiopian saga that says that God is a Pearl in the body of Adam that passed into a series of holy bodies into the body of Solomon, “an ancestor of Christ.” Furthermore, Christ and Menelik, the son of Solomon by the Queen of Sheba, were both sons of Solomon, who, according to Ethiopian understanding, “were akin to each other.” Nevertheless, “Christ was the Son of God, and, therefore, being the kinsman of Christ, Menyelek (David) was divine,” and so the kings of Ethiopia descended from him. The idea of the sacred origin of the Abyssinian kings, and likewise of the Christian kings in Egypt, Nubia and the lands south of Ethiopia, seems to have been homegrown.746 Arguably, this sacred tradition crossed borders with additional imaginations and mixed fables through the spatial and temporal transformation processes. The divine occurred with Alexander the Great; almost all religions and nations accredited him different forms of divine origin, which was declared by the main storyteller of Alexander the Great, Pseudo Callisthenes, as was discussed earlier. According to the Kébra Nagast, after the sovereignty given to the young son David by his Father, Zadok the priest, the commander of the army of King Solomon, anointed him with the holy oil of the ointment of kingship. Moreover, he went out of the house of the Lord, and they called his name David, for the name of a king came to him by the law. Moreover, they made him ride upon the mule of King Solomon, [...]. It is meet and right that the dominion of Ethiopia shall be from the River of Egypt to the West of the sun, blessed by the seed upon the earth— and from Shoa to the East of India, for thou wilt please [the Budge, Kébra Nagast, iii-v; 40-48; Rāhib min Dayr al-Barāmūs, al-Rahbanah alḤabashīyah, 19-22; Vorst and Roux, “Romance of the Queen of Sheba,” 1907. 746 Budge, Kébra Nagast, v-vi 745

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people of these lands]. In addition, the Lord God of Israel shall be into you a guide, […] and all your enemies and foes shall be overthrown before you, and completion and finish shall be into you and into the seed after you; you shall judge many nations, and none shall judge you.747 This explains how the Christian king David was perceived as the king of the three Indias. Zadok the priest blessed him and those who were gathered, saying that God would bring him his enemies and no one would be able to resist him, which the same biblical tradition and divine power assigned to King David of the Fifth Crusade According to several textual finds at Qasr Ibrim in Nubia, Text F refers to a letter addressed to (King) Israel, whose son, David, was congratulating him on his appointment as Eparch of Nobadia. Another text, A, contains an Arabic signature of David ibn Israel. Text J refers to the same Israel in the reign of a Nubian called Basil “Basilé ourou ein[n]” who was on the throne in the year 1190 as a successor of King Moses George.748 This also indicates the association between the King of Israel, who was the father of the Ethiopian King David and the Fifth Crusade David, who was also a son of the king of Israel, as described by Oliver. He is the man whom the common people call Prester John. Although he was the smallest of his brothers, as we have read of David the prophet, the holy king of Israel, he was placed before all and crowned as king by divine inspiration. But oh, how the Lord has marvellously pushed him forward these days and amplified his acts!, directing his steps and subjecting to his dominion countless peoples, races, tribes and languages, as will be known from the copy of the following tract which we managed, as well as we were able, to translate from Arabic into Latin through trustworthy translators.749 Budge, Kébra Nagast, 46. R. Ruffini, Medieval Nubia, 210. 749 Brewer, “Jacques de Vitry, Epistola VII,” 131: (est ille quem vulgus presbyterum Iohannem appellant. Qui cum fratrum suorum minimus esset, sicut de sancto rege 747 748

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Furthermore, the deeds of King David included several sweeping victories that he achieved against the Muslims in Central Asia, especially against the Khawārizmian state, which were, in fact, the Mongols’ invasions of the Muslim lands in same areas. Therefore, the prophetic texts with the apocalyptic and biblical tradition of Prester John and his son David were further correlated with the Mongols, especially Genghis Khan. 5. KING DAVID AND THE MONGOLS: ASSOCIATING IMAGINATION WITH REALITY Sweeping victories by Mongol forces into Asia under the leadership of Genghis Khan gave the legend of Prester John, laso associated with his son David, a new stimulus and life. As earlier mentioned, the belief in the legendary King David played a part in moving the crusader leaders to deny al-Kāmil’s peace proposals. Jacques de Vitry, in his seventh letter, referred to “the book of the deeds of King David of the Indians,” from which Oliver excerpted the essential information about King David in his seventh letter.750 Indeed, this book was a sort of legendary construction that transferred the military activities of the Mongols against the Muslims to the figure of King David. According to Jacques, the men of King David in the Muslim country of the land of Sultan of Iconium, Aleppo and Damascus brought copies of that book to the Count of Tripoli, Bohemond IV of Antioch (r. 1219-33).751 In this context, Aigle mentioned that the connection between David and Prester John was seemingly created by Jacques de Vitry, who might insert extra elements based on the well-known letter of Prester John about 1165.752

Israel David propheta legimus, omnibus prepositus est et in regem divinitus coronatus. Quam mirabiliter autem dominus ipsum his diebus promoverit et eius opera magnificaverit, gressus illius dirigens et populos innumeros, gentes, tribus et linguas eius ditioni subiciens…), Brewer, “Jacques,” 126. 750 Brewer, “Jacques de Vitry, Epistola VII,” 127: (excerpta de historia gestorum David regis indorum, qui presbyter iohannes a vulgo appellatur). 751 Brewer, “Jacques de Vitry, Epistola VII,” 131-32. 752 Aigle, The Mongol Empire between Myth and Reality, 50. 241

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The deeds of King David were spread through a prophetic text known as the Relatio de Davide (ca. date: 1220/early 1221), which is a Latin translation of what is believed to be initially written in Arabic. The Relatio is an essential part of the Prester John legend, depicting King David, his army and his kingdom as a divine superpower that would crush the Muslims of the East. The Relatio de Davide described the initial movements of the Mongols, including the names of many places and cities, as having been subjected to the authority of King David. Zarncke has well studied and edited the three versions of Relatio de Davide, including the Jacques text, which varies in treatment of the given information, but they are derived from the same source. Recently, Brewer has provided a new English and Latin edition of the three versions, which has chiefly relied on the Latin edition of Zarncke.753 The second version also referred to the capture of Khawārizm state and other cities, but the number of cities mentioned is fewer than in the first version of the letter.754 The third version was written by anonymous clergymen whose names are abbreviated as W. and R. in the manuscript copies. They were probably privy to one of the earlier composers of the David letters who circulated the story among their ecclesiastic followers in the German city of Münster. They express their excitement at the news brought from Egypt and the victories of Genghis Khan, or as they thought, “David, son of Prester John of India,” who had come to the Holy Land after capturing many cities. They also mentioned that, at the time of the writing of the text, King David was himself in Baghdād.755 This alleged news was echoed by Radulph of Coggeshall (d. after 1227) in his Chronicon Anglicanum. Radulph was an English chronicler, monk and the sixth abbot of Coggeshall Abby, 1207-1218. The Chronicon’s events start at 1066 into 1224, mainly dealing with the English historical events of that period. Further, it refers to some Keagan Brewer, ed., “Relatio de Davide,” in PJLIS (Farnham, Burlington: Ashgate, 2015), 101–22; Friedrich Zarncke, “Relatio de Rege David,” in Abh.2 (Leipzig, 1876), 45–59; Jean Richard, “The Relatio de Davide as a Source for the Mongol History and the Legend of Prester John,” in PJMTLT (Aldershot: Variorum, 1996), 139–40. 754 Brewer, “Relatio de Davide, ‘(Secunda Carta ),’ 116-17. 755 Brewer, “Relatio de Davide,” (Secunda and Tertia Carta), 118-122. 753

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visions and miracles like that of the Green Children and King David.756 Radulph mentions under the year 1121, that rumours spread among the Christendom that King David of India, who was named Prester John, invaded Persia and Media with a great army and subjected the territories of the Saracens. He also threatened the Caliph of the Muslims in Baghdād and commanded him to convert to Christianity. This king would have defended Jerusalem and wanted to assist the Christians in Damietta.757 Genghis Khan’s (r. 603-623/1206-1227) invasion of Khawārizm and Central Asia between 1219 and 1221 coincided in part with the Fifth Crusade. Thus, the Crusaders might have drawn an imaginative association between their old tradition of Prester John and the victorious Mongol army under Genghis Khan. Therefore, the Christian morale was at first bolstered by the Mongol victories over the Muslims, which led to creating such associations between King David and the Mongol ruler, Genghis Khan.758 The Relatio describes the apocalyptic figure of King David, the son of King John, who believes in Jesus Christ, in the same presentation of David’s tradition maintained in the above Kébra Nagast. The text also describes the holy appearance and domination of King David over the eastern world. It also explains how David ascended the throne with the death of his father, his first-born brother succeeded him, and this king, just like his father, King D. A. Carpenter Ralph of Coggeshall, “Abbot Ralph of Coggeshall’s Account of the Last Years of King Richard and the First Years of King John,” The English Historical Review 113, no. 454 (1998): 1210–12; David Corner, “Coggeshall, Ralph of (Fl. 1207–1226), Historian and Abbot of Coggeshall,” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (sept. 2004), https://www.oxforddnb.com/ view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-5816. 757 Ralph of Coggeshall, Chronicon Anglicanum, ed. Joseph Stevenson (London: Longman, 1875), 190: (Rumores per totam Christianitatem circumquaque dispersi sunt, quod rex David, cognomento Joannes presbyter, de India, cum magno exercitu adveniens, Persidem et Mediam et multos alias terras et provincias Saracenorum, sibi subjugaverat; et quod mandaverat caliphea de Baldac, summo papae Saracenorum, nisi si ad fidem Christi convertissent; atque exercitui Christianorum apud Damiatam et in terra Hierosolymitana celerrem subventionis succursum esset praestiturus). 758 Pierre-Vincent Claverie, “L’apparition des Mongols sur la scène politique occidentale,” Le Moyen Âge 105 (1999): 603-04; Papacostea, The Crusades and the Mongol Empire, 166. 756

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Israel, and his grandfathers and great-grandfathers, was subject to the great King of the Persians, who was called Chanchana, which means in our language ‘King of Kings’, [ the same Genghis Khan], kings’, and his land was from Chassar [Kashgar] up to Bellasagum [Balasagun], which is beyond the river which is called, in the Persian language, the river Geon.759 The author of the Relatio added imaginative and dramatic materials to the legend by transferring the exploits of the actual Genghis Khan, whose name means khan of khans/ king of kings, to the legendary King David, son of Prester John, as being the protector of Christendom. The Relatio counts the lands that King David subjected, which are the same lands that Genghis Khan’s forces invaded and subjected. For instance, King David defeated the Khawārizm Sultan with his great army and captured his land Chavarsmisan (Khawārizmian).760 The second and third versions of the Relatio mentioned that king David subjected the land of King Muhammad Khawārizm-shāh, whose land was called Cohorassan/ Coresen, in which there are these cities: Amanchioniro [Amul?], Mero [Merv], Sirchos [Sarakhs], Thos [Tūs], Maummerie dadli [Messhed],24 sarasten [sharistan], gaharamien [?], nossachor [Nishapūr], where the best baldachins come from, Barach [Balkh], Herre [Herāt], [..] Bastem [Bistām], Schere [Sari], Damirigagi [damarki]; these are the greater cities. […] Nessihor [Nīshāpūr? Misurgan?], Debihagan [Dāmghān? Dolbiqan], Dehestan [Dehistan], [and] Gargan [Gorgan]. […] In addition, he captured the regions of Brewer, “Relatio de Davide,” 107-108: (rex David praefatus, quem deus protegat, est minor fratrum suorum. Pater eius, Rex Israel, cuius animae Deus parcat, habuit sex filios, et hic fuit minor omnium. Mortuo patre eius successit ei frater eius primogenitus, et tam ipse rex quam pater eius, rex israel, et avi et proavi eius erant obedientes magno regi Persarum, qui vocabatur Chanchana,b quod dicitur in lingua nostra ‘rex regum’, et terra sua erat a Chassarc usque Bellasagum,d quae terra est ultra flumen, quod lingua persica dicitur flumen Geon) here, 101; Zarncke, “Relatio de Rege David,” 45-46. 760 Brewer, “Relatio de Davide,” 110-11; Zarncke, “Relatio de Rege David,” 49-50. 759

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Maherentzedran [Māzandarān] and the adjacent land along with ten great cities and 250 great fortresses. […] Casuhil [Qazvin], Chon [Qum], Chassehen [Kashan], Sephen [Isfahan], where the best buckrams come from, Hamedam [Hamadan], and in addition to the aforesaid cities, it contains 420 towns and great villages. 761 The Relatio also states that “King David came to the land called Alaanar, which is at the border of India.”762 The text of the Relatio here assigned further acts of Genghis Khan to King David. For instance, the Relatio mentions that King David took control of the land of Alaanar (Transoxiana), which is in Arabic Bilād mā warāʾ al-Nahr (“the land beyond the river”), also known as Transoxania, the area north of the river Amu Darya (present Tajikistan and Uzbekistan).763 While Latin sources and the crusaders’ advocates like Jacques promoted the figure of King David and confused him with Genghis Khan, Muslim sources described the Mongols’ invasion of Khawārzim and Central Asia with fear and horror. In 617/1219, Ibn al-Athīr also wrote that people came from al-Sīn (China) to the lands of Turkistan, including Kashgar and Balasagun. They then headed to the lands beyond the river, including Samarqand and Bukhara, among others. Some of these Tatars marched on Khurasan and devastated it, after which they conquered the cities from Khurasan up to the border of Iraq. Later, a group of Tatars marched to Ghazni, India, Sijistan, Kirman and other cities and countries, committing atrocities and crimes.764 Ibn al-ʿIbrī also mentioned that the Tatars under the leadership of Genghis Khan conquered the lands beyond the river, which are called “Alaanar” in the Relatio de Davide’s letter, in 1219/ 616 AH with about 200,000 soldiers. Genghis Khan subsequently captured the lands of the Khawārizm state.765 Brewer, “Relatio de Davide,” 116-17, 121-22, Zarncke, “Relatio de Rege David,” 57-59. 762 Brewer, “Relatio de Davide,” 109. 763 Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil, vol. 10, 401-07; Ibn Wāṣil, Mufarrj al-Kurūb, vol. 4, 41; ʻAbd al-Salām Fahmy, Tārīkh al-Dawlah al-Maghūlīyah fī Īrān (Cairo: Dār Ma‘ārif, 1981), 57-58. 764 Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmīl, vol. 10, 399-401; Tvaradze, “Der Westfeldzug,” 258-64. 765 Ibn-al-ʿIbrī, Mukhtaṣar, 407-11; Brewer, “Relatio de Davide,” 103, 109-110 761

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Fig. 9. The Mongols’ expansion at the beginning of the 13 th century; derivative work Bkkbrad / *File: Gengis Khan empire-fr.svg: historicair 17:01, 8th October 2007 (UTC).

It is quite remarkable that the Relatio presents a full description of the Mongols’ advances.766 The lands that were subjected to King David are the same lands and cities, with some scribal errors, which Genghis, his forces and sons invaded and captured since 1206, as the map shows. Contemporary Arabic sources mentioned the same places and cities that Genghis Khan and his forces conquered, which are like those subjected to King David in the Relatio, with some errors in name or the spatial sphere.767 In what follows, the Relatio states that King David defeated the Khawārizm Sultan; he subjected many other cities, including the

Richard, “The Relatio de Davide as a Source for the Mongol History,” 143-145. Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil, vol. 10, 400-418; Ibn Wāṣil, Mufarrj al-Kurūb, vol. 4, 34-55; Tvaradze, “Der Westfeldzug von 1219-1221,” 258-64.

766 767

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kingdom of Sultan Soniar (Sinjar).768 The text here refers to the land of Sinjar, who was defeated in the battle of Qaṭwān by Yelü Dashi, the leader of Kara Khitai State. 769 It is more likely that the connection between Sinjar and Prester John became an enduring feature of the legend as it was transmitted orally. Instead, the latter perhaps meant by the “kingdom of Sultan Soniar,” the city of Sinjar and not the king Sinjar himself. Ibn al-Athīr mentioned under the year 616/1219 that Quṭb al-Dīn Zinkī, the ruler of Sinjar (Sāḥib Sinjār), had died. This asserts that the name Sinjar was often attached to the name of all of Sinjar’s rulers. Moreover, the Relatio mentioned that after conquering Khawārizm (Chavarsmisan), King David “came to within six days journey to Baghdād.” He sent his messengers to the Caliph of Baghdād, Allnanzer Ledinalla,” the Abbasid Caliph al-Nāṣir (r. 575–622/1180– 1225) in 1221, demanding his homage and so forth and the Caliph was terrified because “he was not able to have the strength to resist him.”770 Further, the Relatio presents the conversation between David’s messengers and the Caliph: our king, David, greets you and informs you that our Iaphelet, that is, the Patriarch, greatly commends you to him, because you always had a sincere heart towards Christians and honoured our churches, and for this reason, he is conceding to you one-sixth part of the land you hold, and he wants to have Baghdād so that the seat of our patriarch might be there’. The Caliph said to them: ‘the king, by divine strength, has subdued to himself so much territory, and he cannot be everywhere in person. He must set up his stewards throughout the conquered lands. I, therefore, ask humbly that he make me his steward in this land, and I will give him as much money as he wants’. The messengers said: ‘we do not come to obtain money; rather because we have heard that you ordered the holy city of Jerusalem to be demolished, we are making enough money Brewer, “Relatio de Davide,” 107-108. Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmīl , vol. 9, 319; Ibn-al-Jauzī, Tārīkh al-ʼUmam, vol. 18, 17, 19. 770 Brewer, “Relatio de Davide.” 110-11. 768 769

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with us to rebuild the walls of that city with gold and silver.’ In addition to this, he offered the messengers gifts to the value of 100,000 bezants, which the messengers refused to accept.771 In this respect, one can assume that al-Nāṣir might have received a letter or envoys from Genghis Khan, and these events were later associated with the legendary figure of King David. However, there is no mention of Mongol messengers who might reach Baghdād during that time. By contrast, Ibn-al-Āthīr mentioned that the Abbasid Caliph al-Nāṣir requested the assistance of Genghis Khan against Sultan Muhammad ibn Khawārizm-Shāh (r. 596–616/1200–1220), who was about to attack Baghdād due to an Abbasid-Khawārizm disagreement. Al-Nāṣir thus sent his envoys to Genghis Khan to enlist him as an ally against the Khawārizm Sultan. Ibn-al-Athīr blamed the Caliph, saying that “al-ʻAjam “Persians” were right in what they said that al-Nāṣir was the reason for the Mongols’ greediness in the Muslims’ lands.”772 This text also referred to the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem, which was demolished by al-Mu’aẓ am. However, the city of Jerusalem remained in Muslim hands until 1229 when Emperor Frederick II took control of the city on 18th February 1229/ 638, through the agreement of Jaffa signed with al-Kāmil of Egypt.773 Besides, the walls of Jerusalem remained without defence until the

Brewer, “Relatio de Davide,” (Prima Carta), 113: (rex noster david vos salutat et significat, quod noster Iaphelet,d id est patriarcha, multum se commendat de vobis, quod sincerum semper habuistis animum erga Christianos et honorastis ecclesias nostras, pro quo ipse concedit vobis sextam partem terrae, quam tenetis, et vult habere Baldach, ut sit ibi sedes patriarchae nostri’. Quibus dixit caliphas: ‘Rex virtute divina subiugavit sibi tantam terram et ubique personaliter esse non potest. Oportet ut per terras conquisitas statuat baiulos suos; supplico ergo, ut me in terra ista baiulum suum statuat, et dabo sibi tantum pecuniae, quantum ipse voluerit’. Nuncii dixerunt: ‘non venimus ad quaerendam pecuniam; sed, quia audivimus vos dirui fecisse sanctam civitatem ierusalem, tantum pecuniae nobiscum ferimus, quod muros ipsius auro et argento reaedificabimus’. Obtulit etiam nunciis exennia valentia centum millia besanciorum, quae nuncii recipere noluerunt), here, 105-06. 772 Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil, vol.10, 453. 773 Al-Maqrīzī, Kitāb al-Sulūk,vol.1, 353-54; Sheir, Tibnīn, 97. 771

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Crusaders rebuilt them in 1239; the matter that caused the repeal of the agreement of 1229 between the Muslims and the Crusaders.774 Once again, it depicts King David as a Nestorian Christian who freed the Christian captives sent by al-Kāmil of Egypt, “Sultan of Babylon” as a gift to the Caliph of the Muslims in Baghdād. It added that “some of these came from them to Antioch, who told these and other rumours.”775 Moreover, the letter of Jacques likely Christianized the Mongols and their leader Genghis Khan in the figure of King David. The Relatio also included some real historical events, such as the Latin nobles who were sent by al-Kāmil to present his offer of peace, which made the context consistent with events of the time.776 The advance of the Mongols caused horror, fear and chaos among the Muslims and all tribes, cities and people of the East. It is interesting that Ibn al-Athīr made a link between the rise of the Mongols and Nebuchadnezzar – king of ancient Babylon (c. 605-562 BC), whose name was also used by Israelites – and his massacres of the sons of Israel and the destruction of Jerusalem. He states that the terrors and massacres that the Mongols made are incomparable to those of Nebuchadnezzar—adding that they conquered the world in a short time in comparison to Alexander the Great.777 Ibn Wāsil relates that the Mongols worshipped Genghis Khan and that he established several rulers and rituals for his people. In addition, Genghis Khan was considered a Prophet (equal to Saint/priest in Christianity) by his people, who consulted him in all matters. Ibn Wāsil then described the lands that the Mongols conquered, which

Sheir, Tibnīn, 100-101; Peter Jackson, “The Crusades of 1239-41 and Their Aftermath,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 50, no. 1 (University of London:1987), 42; Saʻīd ʻAbd al-Fattāḥ ʻĀshūr, Al-Ḥarakah alṢalībīyah, Vol. 2 (Cairo, 1963), 987-89. 775 Brewer, “Relatio de Davide,” 122-13: (Contigit interea, quod Melvcaleeme soldanus Babiloniae, miserat in exennium calypho quosdam milites Christianos, quos liberavit ad preces nunciorum. Quorum quidam ex eis antiochiam venerunt, qui haec et alios rumores dixerunt), here, 106. 776 Brewer, “Jacques de Vitry, Epistola VII,” 132; Taylor, “Waiting for Prester John,” 8-9. 777 Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil, vol. 10, 399-400. 774

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were almost the same lands subdued by King David in the Relatio de Davide.778 All these connections and confusion between the real Mongol advance and the imagined king David’s victories reveal that Oliver, Jacques and other crusader advocates aimed to convince the Crusaders and Europe that Prester John and his son possessed authority over the Muslims in Central Asia. He had an enormous army, as described in the Relatio, which would defeat the Muslims of Egypt and recapture Jerusalem as well. 5.1. Prester John/King David on the Eve of the Fifth Crusade The Patriarch of Jerusalem, Raoul of Mérencourt (1215-1224), addressed a letter supposedly in spring of 1221, stating that an eschatological account entitled the “Book of Fulfilment of the New Testament (liber executionis Novi Testamenti)” known to Christian people in the East for a time. It alleged that the “Tartars” were heading to Europe, painting the “son of God” on a “golden crate.” The papacy seems to have believed in this eschatological perception, and Pope Honorius III claimed that there was reinforcement coming from the East in a letter dated 20th June 1221. The rise of Genghis Khan had been attached to Prester John’s figure, which illustrates that the advance of the Mongols against Muslims territories along with the Fifth Crusade had been connected to the “eschatological perspective” to arouse the Latins’ hope in Prester John or his son, King David.779 After the Fifth Crusade, European sources began to point to the Mongols as a part of Prester John’s army. As a Justification for the fiasco of Prester John to join the Fifth Crusade, Alberic’s chronicle (1232-41) mentions that King David returned to his fatherland when he heard the frustrating outcomes of the Fifth Crusade. Under the year 1222, Alberic writes that the aforesaid King David and his army which the Hungarians and Cumans call the Tartars – and up till now Ibn Wāṣil, Mufarrj al-Kurūb, vol 4, 36-37. Aigle, The Mongol Empire between Myth and Reality, 50-51; “L’apparition des Mongols,” 604–07.

778 779

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their followers in the overseas parts were known as ‘Tartar’ – when they heard that Damietta had been ruined, they returned through the islands of the sea to their fatherland as much as they were able and all their fame was scattered and vanished in a short time. 780 However, as earlier mentioned, Alberic’s chronicle was composed about ten years after the Fifth Crusade. At this time, Europeans began to hear of the fears and disasters that the Mongols made on the eastern territories of Europe, which drastically changed the European imagination of the Mongols.781 Nevertheless, Prester John had a great allure for the western imagination. The papacy craved to convert them to the Catholic faith and subsequently use them as a powerful ally against the Muslims in the Holy Land. All such aspects, combined with the internal crusader turmoil in the Levant, stimulated Pope Innocent IV (r. 1143-1254) to hold the council of Lyon in 1245, sending four missions to the Mongols to open direct conversations with them.782 6. CONCLUSION The legend of Prester John and his son King David had a profound impact on the course of the Fifth Crusade, indicating the crusaders’ essential determination − one might even say irrational desire − for supremacy over the Ayyubids. The belief in the coming of a Christian king from the land of Prester John, who later appeared in prophetic apocalyptic texts under King David, son of Prester John, merely materialised a long-held crusader desire, since the campaigns of King Brewer., “Albericus Trium Fontium Chronica,” in PJLIS, 148: (supra dictus rex David et exercitus eius quos Hungari et Comani Tartaros vocabant -et adhuc sequaces eorum in partibus transmarinis Tartar cognominantur, -cum audissent damietam esse perditam, per insulas maris prout melius potuerunt in patriam suam recesserunt et tota fama que de illis sparsa fuit in brevi evanui), here, 144; Alberic de TroisFontaines, “Chronicon,” in MGH SS, 912. 781 Baum, Die Verwandlungen des Mythos, 152-53. 782 Peter Jackson, “Early Missions to the Mongol Empire: Carpini and His Contemporaries,” The Hakluyt Society, Annual Report, 1994, 15–32; Gregory G. Guzma, “Simon of Saint-Quentin and the Dominican Mission to the Mongols, 12451248” (University of Cincinnati, 1968), 34-35 780

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Amaury I between 1164 and 1169, to overcome Egypt along with the Holy Land. The same legendary belief was among the foremost reasons for the disastrous failure of the Fifth Crusade. As a result, it is not an overstatement to say that the Crusaders lost the Fifth Crusade, not on the coasts of Damietta or the Nile River but behind the Tigris River from whence they believed Prester John was coming and heading to Jerusalem. It is apparent that the crusader preachers, Oliver and Jacques, associated the biblical tradition with the prophetic texts that they received with the figure of Prester John’s son, King David. The prophecies of Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq and Samuel of Qalamūn that appeared after the Arab conquest of Egypt in the seventh century might have been reproduced and recirculated during the Fifth Crusade. In addition, the tradition of the Solomonic Ethiopic King David that endured until the late Middle Ages appeared in Coptic and Arabic texts, like the original version of Kébra Nagast. Although the legend was employed to boost the Fifth Crusade’s success, the belief in it, along with the intransigence of some Crusaders’ leaders, especially Pelagius’s party, led neither to the conquest of Egypt nor the restoration of the Holy Land. Furthermore, the Crusaders misinterpreted the Ayyubids’ peace proposals as fear of Prester John and his son David. At the same time, while the Muslims feared a real foe – the Mongols – the Crusaders had converted that foe and his victories into an imaginary Latin legend. The Fifth Crusade was thus the peak of the legend’s influence over the crusading movement, producing a new flux for the legend by imaginative connections between Prester John and the Mongols. A further connection between the Mongols and Prester John appeared in the accounts of the papacy and European missionaries to the Mongols in partial parallel with the Seventh Crusade (1248-54), which will be further examined in the next chapter.

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CHAPTER SIX

THE MONGOL FIGURE OF PRESTER JOHN: REMEMBERING THE LEGEND AND THE ENTERPRISE OF LATIN-MONGOL CRUSADE(S), 1222-1300

This chapter examines the association between Prester John and the Mongols from the Sixth Crusade until the end of the crusading campaigns in the late thirteenth century. It also discusses the impact of the diplomatic, peaceful relationship between Frederick II and the Muslims on the promotion of Prester John, between 1221 and 1244. Pope Innocent IV (1243-54) sent four missions to the Mongols after the council of Lyon in 1245, seeking to baptise them and create a Latin-Mongol crusade. The chapter thus interprets how the reports of the Papal-European embassies to the Mongols, such as John of Plano Carpine, Simon of Quentin and William of Rubruck, attributed Mongol origins to Prester John, whose vassals, the Mongols, later defeated him and dominated his land. At the same time, the reception of Prester John among the Mongols by additional European reports as well as other Arabic and Syrian accounts, especially in Ibn al-ʿIbrī (Barhebraeus), will likewise be analysed. The chapter examines how the legacy of Prester John was instrumentalised to inspire yet another

The Mongol Figure of Prester John

Mongol-Western alliance against the Muslims after the Battle of ʻAyn Jālūt in 1260. Finally, it represents the legend in its final AsianMongol scope prior to its transference to Ethiopia in the early fourteenth century. 1. THE LEGEND, FREDERICK II’S CRUSADE AND THE AFTERMATH, 1127-1245 After the failure of the Fifth Crusade, Pope Honorius III composed a letter in November 1221 to blame Emperor Frederick II for failing to join the Fifth Crusade army in Egypt as he promised and to demand that he launch a new crusade to retake Jerusalem.783 In March 1223, Frederick II met with Pope Honorius III and John of Brienne of Jerusalem and announced his intention to march to the Levant within two years. In 1225, Frederick II wed Yolane (Queen Isabella II, r. 1212-28), daughter of John of Brienne and the queen of Jerusalem, with the blessing of Honorius III, who sent a decree of his acceptance regarding this marriage to the crusader states in the East.784 The event spurred Frederick to move to the East to restore Jerusalem, which now fell under his authority through the marriage. Meanwhile, there was a diplomatic dialogue and friendly alliance between Sultan al-Kāmil of Egypt and Frederick II785 – the latter identified in Arabic sources as “al-Ānburū,” or “the king of the

G. H. Pertz, Epistolae Saeculi XIII e Regestis Pontificum Romanorum, ed. Carolvs Rodenberg, vol. 1, MGH (Berlin: Weidmannos, 1883), no. 183: 128-30; al-ʻIryān, alʻAlāqāt al-Diblūmāsīyah, 72-73. 784 Mayer, UKJ, vol. 3, no. 652: 1074; Pertz, Epistolae Saeculi XIII, vol. 1, no. 225: 152-55, no. 234: 163-34; Huillard-Bréholles, Historia Diplomatica Frederici, vol. 2, 500, 921-24; Pertz, Epistolae Saeculi XIII, vol. 1, no. 225: 152-55, no. 234: 163-34. 785 For more information about these diplomatic and friendship relationships, see AlʻIryān, al-ʻAlāqāt al-Diblūmāsīyah, ch 2: 93-136; Dorothea Weltecke, “Emperor Frederick II, ‘Sultan of Lucera’, ‘Friend of the Muslims’, Promoter of Cultural Transfer: Controversies and Suggestions,” in Cultural Transfers in Dispute: Representations in Asia, Europe and the Arab World since the Middle Ages, ed. Jörg Feuchter, Friedhelm Hoffmann, and Bee Yun (Frankfurt: Campus-Verl, 2001), 85– 106; Laila Atrache, Die Politik der Ayyūbiden. Die fränkisch-islamischen Beziehungen in der ersten Hälfte des 7./13. Jahrhunderts unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Feindbildes (Münster: Rhema, 1996), 84-147. 783

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Princes.”786 After the Fifth Crusade, the conflict of power between the two brothers, al-Kāmil and al-Mu‘aẓ am-ʿĪsā of Damascus, began once again. In 1226, al-Kāmil sent his messenger, al-Āmīr Fakhr alDīn, to seek the support of Frederick II against his bother alMu‘aẓ am-ʿĪsā. In return, al-Kāmil would submit the city of Jerusalem to Frederick II along with some other cities that had been taken by Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn in 1187.787 Frederick thus sought to exploit the internecine struggles of the Ayyubid house in the hope of obtaining political victory in the West by restoring Jerusalem as a result of his peace negotiations with Sultan al-Kāmil. Nevertheless, al-Mu‘aẓ amʿīsā died in 1227 and al-Kāmil no longer required the assistance of his ally, the emperor.788 Pope Honorius III died the same year and was succeeded by Gregory IX (p. 1127-41), who took a hard line on the Crusades and was enraged by what he interpreted as Frederick II’s dereliction of duty and endless procrastination. Therefore, he issued an excommunication decree against Frederick II on 29th September 1227 and reformed it on 18th November 1228.789 Consequently, Frederick II had to begin his crusade and marched with a small fleet and about six hundred of his forces to the Levant in 24th Rajab 625/28th June 1228.790 Frederick II relied on his diplomatic relationships with al-Kāmil and marched to gain Jerusalem through peace and diplomatic negotiations See Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil, vol. 10, 478, 481; Al-‘Aynī, ‘Iqd al-Jumān, vol. 4, 196. Ibn Wāṣil, Mufarrj al-Kurūb, vol. 4, 206; Ismā ͑īl Ibn ʽAlī Abū al-Fidā, Al-Mukhtaṣar fi Akhbār al-Bashar, vol. 3, ed. Mohammed Zenhom and Yahya Hussein (Cairo: Dār al-Mā ͑arif, 1999), 138; Al-ʻIryān, al-ʻAlāqāt al-Diblūmāsīyah, 82-3; Atrache, Die Politik der Ayyūbiden, 94. 788 Ibn Wāṣil, Mufarrj al-Kurūb, vol. 4, 208; Richard F. Cassady, The Emperor and the Saint: Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, Francis of Assisi, and Journeys to Medieval Places (Illinois: Northern Illinois University Press, 2011), 235-245; Al-ʻIryān, alʻAlāqāt al-Diblūmāsīyah, 86-91; Atrache, Die Politik der Ayyūbiden, 94-98. 789 Huillard-Bréholles, Historia Diplomatica, vol. 3, 23-28; Lucien Auvray, ed., Les Registres de Grégoire IX. Recueil des Bulles de ce Pape, Publiées et Analysées d’après les Manuscrits Originaux des Archives du Vatican, vol. 1 (Paris: Albert Fontemoing, 1896), no. 181, 104; James M. Powell, “Church and Crusade: Frederick II and Louis IX,” The Catholic Historical Review 93: 2 (2007): 250–64. 790 Cassady, The Emperor and the Saint, 246-62; Hiroshi Takayama, “Frederick II’s Crusade: An Example of Christian–Muslim Diplomacy,” Mediterranean Historical Review 25:2 (2010): 169–85; Thomas C. Van-Cleve, “The Crusade of Frederick II,” in Setton., vol. 2 (Madison and London: University of Wisconsin, 1969), 377–420. 786 787

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instead of war and bloodshed. After mutual diplomatic conversations al-Kāmil conceded Jerusalem along with other cities to Frederick II and ratified the treaty of Jaffa 15th -22th Rabīʻ al-Awwal 626/11th-18th February 1229, under which they also agreed to uphold a ten-year truce beginning on 28th Rabīʻ al-Awwal 626/24th February 1229. However, most Muslim sources saw al-Kāmil’s agreement with Frederick II as a huge scandal.791 As these events unfolded, the Mongols continued to expand and reached their zenith. Latin sources and witnesses quickly interpreted reports of those unknown people as the fulfilment of Prester John. This conception changed after the Mongol invasion of the eastern gates of Europe.792 The Mongols were advancing in the southern parts of Russia (1222-23) and later in the eastern parts of Europe (1230-1241). Following the account mentioned above of Alberic de Trois-Fontaines in 1222, Richard of San Germano (d. after 1243) claimed that the forces of King David (Tartars) invaded Russia.793 Richard was a public notary in the monastery of Montecassino in southern Rome and of San Germano from 1186 to 1232 and later served in the office of the imperial notary of Frederick II. His chronicle Richardus or Ryccardus de Sancto Germano historicises the events of Italy and the kingdom of Sicily between 1189 and 1244, concentrating on the reign of Frederick II. Serving in the imperial office enabled him to narrate various events that he witnessed or which he otherwise compiled from his circle.794 In this regard, Richard relates that the Hungarian King (Andrew II, r. 1205-35) informed Pope Honorius about the attack of a certain king identified as Prester John on his Rus neighbours. The forces of this For this discussion see, Al-ʻIryān, al-ʻAlāqāt al-Diblūmāsīyah, 93-136; Atrache, Die Politik der Ayyūbiden, 84-147. 792 Osipian, “Armenian Involvement in the Latin-Mongol Crusade,” 69-70. 793 Bayarsaikhan Dashdondog, The Mongols and the Armenians (1220-1335) (Leiden. Boston: Brill, 2011), 39, 46, 50; Peter Jackson, The Mongols and the West, 1221-1410 (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2005), 58-59; Hilāl, al-Maghūl, 34-35 . 794 See, Edoardo D’Angelo, “Stil und Quellen in den Chroniken des Richard von San Germano und des Bartholomaeus von Neocastro,” Quellen und Forschungen aus Italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 77 (1997): 437–58; Hans Martin Schaller, “Richard von San Germano,” in Lexikon des Mittelalters (LexMA), vol. 7 (München: LexMA-Verlag, 1995), 824-25. 791

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king killed about 200,000 from the Rus people in one day.795 The historian Ibn al-Athīr also narrated similar information about the Mongol invasion of Rus and al-Kurj (Georgians), which corroborates the account of Richard and Alberic, except for the confusion of Prester John with the Mongols. He also mentioned that the Mongol warrior kills a hundred people per day.796 While Eastern Europeans witnessed Mongol savagery up close, they still connected them to King David and Prester John. This confused perception of Prester John and the Mongols came in parallel with the mutual discussions between the Pope and Frederick to launch a new Crusade. Further, at a time when crusading advocates should have been astonished by this new information about the Mongols and Prester John, they were instead silent about the legend. To some extent, the Mongols’ attacks on Christian lands in Eastern Europe might have frustrated the hope of Prester John’s alliance against the Muslims and the promotion of the legend during the Sixth Crusade. While rumours spread regarding the imminent arrival of King David of Prester John to ally with Frederick II during the Fifth Crusade,797 there was no mention of any such expected alliance during the crusade of Frederick II (1227-1229). The legend thus played no role in the Sixth Crusade. This perhaps was a result of Frederick’s successful diplomatic manoeuvres with al-Kāmil that led to the restoration of Jerusalem. At the same time, Frederick II and his followers in the crusader states were in endless conflict with the nobles of Ibelin and their followers in the Levant and Cyprus.798 Carlo A. Garufi, ed., Ryccardi de Sancto Germano Notarii Chronica, 2nd ed., vol. 7.2, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores (Bologna: N. Zanichelli, 1938), 110: (Rex Ungarie per legatos suos domino papa significat, quod quidam rex Dauit, qui presbiter Iohannes dicebatur in uulgari cum infinita gentis multitudine in Ruteia uenerat. Septem anni erant quod de India exiuerat, corpus afferens beati Thome apostoli, et uno die de Ruteis et Plautis occiderant ducenta milia. Ipsorum castra per duas dietas protenduntur: non procedunt nisi in duobus mensibus anni, in Augusto et Septembre). Keagan Brewer was the first, I know, who referred to Prester John in Richard of San Germano Chronica in his list of annotated sources in PJLIS, 277. 796 Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil, vol. 10, 412, 417-18 797 Brewer, “Jacques de Vitry, Epistola VII,” 133-34; Huygens, Lettres de Jacques de Vitry, L.VII: 150-53; Röhricht, RRH, 250: no. 941. 798 For this long struggle, see Philip de Novar, The Wars of Frederick II against the 795

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Moreover, the Latins were engaged in the political dispute between Frederick II and the papacy, which became less severe and suspended after the treaty of San Germano on 28th August 1230, in which Frederick promised joint peacekeeping with the Roman church.799 Consequently, the Pope revoked the excommunication and admitted the kingship of Frederick II over Jerusalem and accepted the appointment of Richard Filangieri (d. 1254/63) as Frederick’s agent in the Holy Land.800 While there was no mention of a central communication between Frederick II and the alleged Prester John, some Latin manuscripts state the Letter was addressed to Roman Emperor Federigo.801 Yet, as Chapter Three explained, it did not specify which Frederick was referred to, the grandson Frederick II or the grandfather Frederick I Barbarossa. However, it seems that the German writer Paul Wigler (d. 1949) has interpreted this version of the Letter as having been sent to Frederick II. In his 1928 literary-historical work, Der Antichrist, Wigler quotes a part of the Letter sent to Frederick II. He retells that Prester John war mächtig in den drei Indien. Er wohnte nache dem Paradies und den heiligen Strömen, die voll von Edelsteinen sind. Er sandte Boten an den Kaiser Federigo, daß sie ihn fragten, was das Beste auf der Welt sei, und ihm drei Juwelen mit geheimen Eigenschaften schenkten. Der Kaiser sprach zu Ihnen: “Das Beste auf der Welt ist das Maß” Doch die Kraft der Juwelen erkundete er nicht. Ibelins in Syria and Cyprus, trans. John la Monte (New York: Columbia University Press, 1936), especailly 9-11, 59-184; Sheir, Tibnīn (Toron) in the Age of the Crusade, 98-109; Peter W Edbury, John of Ibelin and the Kingdom of Jerusalem (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1997), 24-104; Jonathan Riley-Smith, “The Assise Sur La Ligece and the Commune of Acre,” Traditio 27 (1971): 179–204. 799 Auvray, Les Registres de Grégoire IX, vol. 1, no. 424-29: 264-66, Röhricht, RRH, no. 1020: 267; Cassady, The Emperor and the Saint, 263; Emilio Pistilli, “La Pace di San Germano del 1230,” Studi Cassinati 11 (2011): 101–8. 800 Mayer, UKJ, vol. 3, no. 680: 1155-7; Röhricht, RRH, no. 1020, 267; Auvray, Les Registres de Grégoire IX, vol. 1, no. 491: 322; Cassady, The Emperor and the Saint, 263-64. 801 Wagner, Epistola Presbiteri Johannis, 25-132; Brewer, ‘Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,’ 67, not. 14; Slessarev, Prester John, 57-58, 67. 258

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Der Priester Johannes sandte ihm einen Steinschneider zu mit wunderbaren Kleinodien, da mit er jene drei Juwelen durch List wieder erraffe.802 The truce of Jaffa encouraged Christians from East and West to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and exchange knowledge and information about each other. This perhaps provided the western audience and Latin sources with more information about the eastern Christians and their lands, creating a further perception of the Christians of Prester John, whose figure was now confused with the Mongols attacking Europe. In the year 1234, Alberic states that many Christians visited the sepulchre in Jerusalem during the time of the truce. Besides, he classified overseas Christianity into nine orders, of which the eighth order contained the multitudinous Christians of Prester John.803 Moreover, Matthew Paris reports a mission of the friar called Philippus to the eastern Jacobites in the year 1237. In his report to Pope Gregory IX, friar Philippus spoke of his meeting with the patriarch of the Jacobites with other monks in Jerusalem. They promised Philippus to obey the Roman Church, giving him a written confession in Chaldean and Arabic. Philippus’ report describes this eastern patriarch as being the leader of Chaldea (Mesopotamia), Media, Persia and Armenia, whose lands, which had been destroyed by the Mongols, included seventy provinces that obeyed him. They are subjected to the “Sarraceni” (Muslims), but do not pay tribute. This Jacobite patriarch also promised to unify the churches subjected to him in Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya and Lesser India under the Holy Apostolic See. This Philippus stated that he received a letter from the leader of all Nestorians who spread through Greater India and the Land of Prester John, also promising to obey and reunite themselves with the Catholic Church.804 Paul Wiegler, Der Antichrist: Eine Chronik des Dreizehnten Jahrhunderts (Leipzig: Avalun-Verlag, 1928), 230. 803 Brewer., “Albericus Trium Fontium Chronica,” in PJLIS, 149; Alberic de TroisFontaines, “Chronicon,” in MGH SS, vol. 23, 935: [Octavus ordo totam illam multitudinem christianorum continet, que presbitero iohanni subiecta est]. 804 Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, vol. iii, 396-99; Röhricht, RRH, 280-81, no. 1075: 802

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Therefore, information about the Mongols increased with the Mongols’ threat to Russia and Hungary, and the great hope of Prester John seemed dashed, at least for a while. European sources which began to identify those Mongols as being the conquerors of Prester John’s lands mingled the old tradition of Prester John with sober facts.805 In 1237, Alberic claimed that the Tatars had killed their lord Prester John. At that time there arose the Tartars, a certain barbarian people under the power of Prester John. When Prester John was in the battle against the Medes and Persians, he called them to his aid, and placed them in forts and fortifications; they, seeing they were stronger [than him], killed him and occupied his land, for the most part, setting a king above them, as though he was Prester John; and from that time on they did many evils in the land, such that this year they killed forty-two bishops in greater Armenia. […].806 (Nam patriarchal Jacobitarum Orientalium, vir quidem venerabilis scientia, moribus, et setate, cum maximo comitatu archiepiscoporum, episcoporum, necnon et monachorum suae gentis, hoc anno venit adorare in Jerusalem. [...], obedientiam sanctye E-omanse ecclesiee promitteret et juraret, omnem pariter hyeresim abjurando, et confessionem suam nobis tradidit, in Uteris Caldseis et Arabicis, in testimonium sempiternum. Ad hoc etiam et habitum nostrum recepit in recessu. Ipse prseest Caldseis, Medis, et Persis, et Armeniis, quas terras Tartari pro magna parte jam vastaverunt; et in aliis regnis in tantum dilatatur ejus prselatio, quod septuaginta provincise ei obediunt, in quibus habitant innumerabiles Christiani, servi tamen et tributarii Sarracenis, exceptis monachis, quos liberos dimittunt a tributo. Secundum eandem formam fecerunt duo archiepiscopi, unus Jacobinus de Egipto et alius Nestorianus in Oriente, suas tamen prselationes et subditos habent manentes in Syria et Phoenice. [...]. De alio quoque, qui prseest omnibus quos Nestoriana hseresis ab ecclesia separavit, cujus prselatio per Indiam majorem, et per regnum Sacerdotis Johannis, et per regna magis proxima orienti, dilatatur, jam plures recepimus literas; [...], Misimus etiam fratres in Egyptum ad patriarcham Jacobitarum. Aegyptiorum, qui multo amplius errare solent quam Orientales, aliis erroribus circumcisionem ad modum Sarracenorum addentes; a quo similiter recipimus, quod velit redire ad ecclesiae unitatem…). 805 Bietenholz, Historia and Fabula, 134. 806 Brewer., “Albericus Trium Fontium Chronica,” in PJLIS, 149; Alberic de TroisFontaines, “Chronicon,” in MGH SS, vol. 23, 942: (erant enim hoc tempore Tartari quidam populus barbarusk sub potestate presbiteri iohannis constitutus. Quos cum

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Alberic de Trois and Richard of San Germano were the earliest Latin accounts to promote direct links between the Mongols and Prester John between 1222 and 1237. Consequently, this perhaps stoked the curiosity of European missionaries to discover the facts of these unknown people and the fate of Prester John by the midthirteenth century. While this new western realisation of the Mongols and Prester John became increasingly noticeable, the truce between Frederick II and the Ayyubids terminated in 1239. Therefore, Frederick sought to renew the truce with Sayf al-Dīn al-ʻĀdil (637-38/1239-40), son of al-Kāmil who had died the year before.807 While these matters occurred in the Latin East, Pope Gregory and Frederick II renewed their old enmity because the emperor refused the papal request to lead a new crusade in 1239. Therefore, Pope Gregory re-excommunicated the emperor in 1239.808 The Pope thus called a new crusading campaign led by the French Theobald of Champagne and King of Navarre (r. 1234-53) between 1239 and 1240. In 1240, Richard of Cornwall, second son of John of England and King of Germany (r. 1257-72), led the so-called English crusade (1240-41).809 While Theobald was defeated in Gaza in presbiter iohannes in bello, quod habuit contra Medos et Persas, in adiutorium suum advocasset et eos in forteritiis et munitionibus locasset, illi, videntes se esse fortiores, presbiterum iohannem occiderunt et terram eius ex magna parte occupaverunt, regem unum super se statuentes, quasi ipse esset presbiter iohannes; et ex tunc fecerunt multa malal in terra, ita etiam quod hoc anno 42 episcopos in maiore armeniam interfecerunt. [...]), Brewer, 144. 807 Ibn Wāṣil, Mufarrj al-Kurūb, vol 4, 246-47; Al-Maqrīzī, al-Sulūk, vol. 1, 399; Röhricht, RRH, no. 1098, 286; Al-ʻIryān, al-ʻAlāqāt al-Diblūmāsīyah, 156-57. 808 Auvray, Les Registres de Grégoire IX, vol. 3, no. 5118: 209; Shirley, Crusader Syria in the Thirteenth Century, 58-61; Jean Richard, The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, ed. trans. Janet Shirley, vol. 2 vols. (Amsterdam, New York, Oxford: North Holland Publishing Company, 1979), 321-23. 809 Janet Shirley, trans., Crusader Syria in the Thirteenth Century: The Rothelin Continuation of the History of William of Tyre with Part of the Eracles or Acre Text, Crusade Texts in Translation 5 (London and New York: Routledge, 2016), 38-58; Michael Lower, “The Burning at Mont-Aimé: Thibaut of Champagne’s Preparations for the Barons’ Crusade of 1239,” Journal of Medieval History 29, no. 2 (2003): 95108; Peter Jackson, “The Crusades of 1239-41 and Their Aftermath,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 50, no. 1 (1987): 32–60; Sidney Painter, “The

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1239,810 Frederick II reconciled between Richard of Cornwall and alMalik al-Ṣāliḥ Najm al-Dīn Ayyūb (638-647/1240-1249) in 1240. Frederick II thus extended the truce for additional years.811 As these events unfolded in the Middle East, sharp strife boiled between Frederick II and the papacy supported by the crusader barons of Ibelin and their followers in the crusader states and Cyprus.812 By 1241, Mongol warriors, who struck fear throughout Eastern Europe, retreated on account of the death of the Great Khan Ögedei (r. 12291241).813 Furthermore, the Ayyubids of Egypt, with the assistance of Khawārazmian forces, retook the city of Jerusalem after conquering the crusader forces in the battle of Gaza (Forbie), known as Hiṭṭīn II, in 642/1244.814 Pressures from the combined failure of the Muslims re-taking Jerusalem along with the Mongols onslaught against Eastern Europe increased the hostility between the emperor and the papacy. Consequently, Pope Innocent IV held the council of Lyons in 1245, in which he deposed Frederick II from his kingship and imperial

Crusade of Theobald of Champagne and Richard of Cornwal 1239-1241,” in Setton, vol. 2 (Madison and London: University of Wisconsin, 1969), 463–86. 810 Abū Shāmah, Dhayl al-Rawḍatayn, 170; Shirley, Crusader Syria in the Thirteenth Century, 38-58; Matthew Paris, English History, vol. 1, 263-66, 303; Sheir, The Fief of Tibnin, 101-02, Jackson, “The Crusades of 1239-41,” 41-47; Painter, “The Crusade of Theobald of Champagne,” 478-80. 811 Ibn Wāṣil, Mufarrj al-Kurūb, vol 4, 247; ʻAbd al-ʻAzīz, Tārīkh al-Baṭārikah, vol. 4.1: 585-86; Al-Maqrīzī, al-Sulūk, vol. 1, 408; Al-ʻIryān, al-ʻAlāqāt al-Diblūmāsīyah, 158-62. 812 Peter Jackson, “The End of Hohenstaufen Rule in Syria,” Historical Research 59, no. 139 (1986): 20–36; Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Feudal Nobility and The Kingdom of Jerusalem, 1174–1277 (Hampshire and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1974), 21013. 813 Papacostea, Between the Crusades and the Mongol, pp. 157-159; Sophia Menache, “Tartars, Jews, Saracens and the Jewish-Mongol ‘Plot’ of 1241,” in Travellers, Intellectuals, and the World Beyond Medieval Europe, ed. James Muldoon (London and New York: Routledge, 2016), 250-51; Hilāl, Al-Maghūl wa Ūrubbā, 35-53. 814 Ibn Wāṣil, Mufarrij al-Kurūb , vol. 5, 340; al-Maqrīzī, al-Sulūk, vol. 1, 419-21; Shirley, Crusader Syria in the Thirteenth Century, 63-64; Shlomo Lotan, “The Battle of la Forbie (1244) and its Aftermath – Re-Examination of the Military Orders’ Involvement in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in the Mid-thirteenth Century,” Ordines Militares. Colloquia Torunensia Historica 53 (2012): 53–67. 262

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authority.815 Furthermore, he commissioned for the first time four separate missions/embassies to the Mongols, seeking both to baptise them and collaborate with them.816 The legend would thus be revived to re-engage the Mongols in the medieval European dream of expansion, in the frame of proposing a common Latin-Mongol crusade.817 2. PRESTER JOHN AND THE PAPAL-EUROPEAN MISSIONS TO THE MONGOLS, 1245-48 While the papal missionaries strived to communicate with the Mongols, Pope Innocent IV aimed to continue the crusading movement and expand the papal authority over the Eastern Church. Seeing the Mongols as a threat to Islam encouraged the papacy and western powers to view them as their natural allies against Muslims. This feeling and expectation increased by seeing large groups of Nestorians serving the Mongols and enjoying prestigious positions in the Mongol Empire. Many high-ranking Mongols also took Nestorian wives. The Nestorians were a primary source of the European miseries, as they attempted to Christianise the Mongols heretically and entice them to join the crusading movement in the Levant.818

Schroeder, Disciplinary Decrees of the General Council, 297-300, 315-23; Powell, “Church and Crusade: Frederick II and Louis IX,” 258-59; Joseph R. Straye, “The Political Crusade of Thirteenth Century,” in Setton, vol. 2 (Madison and London: University of Wisconsin, n.d.), 353. 816 Mirko Sardelić, “John of Plano Carpini vs Simon of Saint-Quentin: 13th–Century Emotions in the Eurasian Steppe,” Zolotoordynskoe Obozrenie 5, no. 3 (2017): 494– 508; Peter Jackson, “Early Missions to the Mongol Empire: Carpini and his Contemporaries,” The Hakluyt Society, Annual Report, 1994, 14–32. 817 Aigle, The Mongol Empire between Myth and Reality, 41-65; Ruotsalam Antti, Europeans and the Mongols in the Middle of the Thirteenth Century: Encountering the Other (Finland: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 2001), 36-37; Hansgerd Göckenjan and James R. Sweeney, trans., Der Mongolensturm: Berichte von Augenzeugen und Zeitgenossen 1235 – 1250 (Köln: Verl. Styria, 1985), 300-301. 818 De Rachewiltz, Papal Envoys to the Great Khans, 84-88; Gregory G. Guzman, “Simon of Saint-Quentin and the Dominican Mission to the Mongols, 1245-1248,” (PhD. Thesis, University of Cincinnati, 1968), 34-35; Jackson, “Early Missions to the Mongol Empire,” 14-32. 815

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The first two papal envoys to the Mongols were the Franciscan monks, Lawrence of Portugal and John of Plano Carpine, who left Lyons on the 5th of March 1245. However, the outcomes of this embassy are unknown, and it appears likely that Lawrence and his embassy got lost or may never have left Europe.819 John of Plano Carpine (d. 1250), who visited the court of Güyük Khan (r. 1246-1248) at the Mongol capital of the Karakorum between 1245 and 1247, revived the hope of Prester John through different perceptions in his surviving account. Carpine was born toward the end of the twelfth century in a small town called Piano di Carpine near Perugia (today Magione in Italy). Carpine had been a Franciscan friar, founder of monasteries and schools, and reputed to be an experienced and trustworthy person. St. Francis of Assisi sent him to establish the Franciscan order in Saxony in 1221, and he became the Provincial of Saxony in Germany in 1232. Pope Innocent chose him to lead his second embassy to the Mongol court. Carpine left Lyons on 16th April 1245 and spent about two and a half years on an adventurous journey, which he reported to the Pope in an extensive account known as Historia (Ystoria) Mongalorum. It seems that Carpine visited many places, as he himself stated that the unfinished version of his account was gathered in Poland, Bohemia, Germany and France. Carpine’s account is preserved in several manuscript copies from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.820 The mission of Carpine was to preach Christianity among the Mongols. He thus carried the letter of Pope Innocent inviting Güyük Khan to convert to Catholicism. Likewise, Carpine returned to Europe carrying an arrogant letter from the Khan demanding the Pope to Pertz, Epistolae Saeculi XIII, vol. 2, no. 102, 72-73; Christopher Dawson, ed., The Mongol Mission : Narratives and Letters of the Franciscan Missionaries in Mongolia and China in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1955), xv; de Rachewiltz, Papal Envoys to the Great Khans, 87-88; Sardelić, “John of Plano Carpini vs Simon of Saint-Quentin,” 497; Guzman, “Saint-Quentin and the Dominican Mission, 36-37; Ruotsala, Europeans and the Mongols, 43. 820 Johannes von Plano Carpini, Kunde von den Mongolen, ed. and trans. Felicitas Schmieder (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke Verlag, 1997), 14-23; Erik Hildinger, trans., The Story of the Mongols Whom We Call the Tartars by Giovanni di Piano Carpini (Boston: Branden, 1996), 17-21; Dawson, The Mongol Mission, xv-xviii, Sardelić, “John of Plano Carpini vs Simon of Saint-Quentin,” 497-508; De Rachewiltz, Papal Envoys to the Great Khans, 89-90. 819

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subject himself to the Mongol Khan. At the same time, Carpine reported a war between Genghis Khan and the Indians, whose king was called Prester John, who grouped his forces to face the Mongols.821 [Chingiscan] also sent another of his sons with an army against the indies; he captured Lesser India. These men are black Saracens, who are called Ethiopians. But this army proceeded to fight against the Christians who are in Greater India. Hearing this, the king of that land, who is commonly called Prester John, having gathered an army, came against them, and, making copper images of men, he put them in saddles upon horses, placing a fire within, and he put men with bellows behind the copper images on the horses, and with many such images and horses prepared in this way, they came against the aforesaid Tartars to fight them. And when they had arrived at the place of battle, they sent these horses forward in a line, but the men who were behind them placed I know not what upon the fire which was in the aforesaid images, and with their bellows, they blew them forcefully. This caused men and horses to be consumed by the Greek fire, and the air was made black from the smoke. And then they shot arrows upon the Tartars, from which many men had been wounded and killed, and in this way, with such confusion, they repelled them from their borders, nor have we ever heard that they returned to them again.822 Keagan Brewer, trans., “John of Plano Carpini, Ystoria Mongolorum,” in PJLIS (Farnham, Burlington: Ashgate, 2015), 152; Carpini, Kunde von den Mongolen, 13,19, 24-28; Dawson, The Mongol Mission, 85-86, Hildinger, The Story of the Mongols, 55-70; Aigle, The Mongol Empire between Myth and Reality, 44-49. 822 Brewer, “Ystoria Mongolorum,” 153; Dawson, The Mongol Mission, 22-23: (Alium etiam filium misit cum exercitu contra Indos; qui minorem Indiam devicit. Hii autem nigri sunt Sarraceni, qui Ethiopes nominantur. Hic autem exercitus contra christianos, qui sunt in india maiori, ad pugnam processit. Hoc audiens rex terre illius, qui vulgo Iohannes Presbiter appellatur, venit contra eos exercitu congregato, et faciens ymagines hominum cupreas in sellis posuit super equos, ponens ignem interius, et posuit homines cum follibus post ymagines cupreas super equos, et cum 821

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It is interesting here that Carpine mentioned that the Mongols had fought against the Lesser India, whose people were black Saracens or Ethiopians. These Indians were subjected to the rule of Prester John. Carpine does not correspond to the real historical occurrence. This war was between the Mongols and the Khawārizmid State, which was vanquished by Mongol forces under the sons of Genghis Khan in the year 1219-21. Nevertheless, he confused them with the Lesser India, meaning Ethiopia in the traditional medieval European conception as earlier explained. Furthermore, this could be understood as an early European thirteenth-century insight into the Ethiopian part of the legend, receiving the Ethiopians as a part of the Prester John forces. This perhaps also clarifies the complete transfer of the legend to Ethiopia (Lesser India) in the fourteenth century because of the Mongol conquest of Prester John in Great India. The Dominican envoys, Andrew of Longjumeau, Ascelin of Lombard and Simon of Quentin, accompanied by others, led the second wave of the papal mission. On his way to the Mongol Khan, Andrew of Longjumeau delivered letters to some Muslim rulers in the Levant and Iraq, inviting them to convert to Christianity. He also visited al-Ṣāliḥ Ismāʻīl, Ayyubid prince of Baalbek, and al-Manṣūr of Homs, who both were on good terms with the Crusaders. Andrew handed the Pope’s letters to the Mongol Khan to a Mongol detachment in Tabriz and returned to Lyons in 1247. Ascelin accompanied Simon of Quentin (fl. 1245-48) at the head of the second Dominican mission to the Mongols, which left Lyons in March/April 1245 and returned to Europe in 1248, without achieving any progress regarding the conversion of the Mongols or establishing an alliance with them. The

multis ymaginibus talibus et equis taliter preparatis venerunt contra predictos Tartaros ad pugnandum. Et cum ad locum prelii pervenissent, istos equos unum iuxta alium premiserunt, viri autem qui erant retro posuerunt, nescio quid, super ignem, qui erat in predictis ymaginibus, et cum follibus fortiter suflaverunt. Unde factum est quod ex igne greco homines comburebantur et equi, et ex fumo aer est denigratus. et tunc super Tartaros iecerunt sagittas, ex quibus multi homines vulnerati fuerunt et interfecti, et sic cum confusione eos de suis finibus eiecerunt, nec unquam audivimus quod ultra ad ipsos redierint.), Brewer, “Ystoria Mongolorum,” 151-52; Enrico Menestò and et al., eds., Storia dei Mongoli: Giovanni di Pian di Carpine (Spoleto: Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 1989), 258-59. 266

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results of his negotiations with the Mongols showed that Mongols became the greatest enemy of the Pope and the European kings. 823 The Latin missionaries found some advantages because the Christian spouses were known among the ruler’s spouses, which could introduce Christianity among the Mongol elites and rulers. However, the missionaries failed to convert the Mongols or convince them to enter an anti-Muslim alliance. The reports of the missionaries to the Mongols since the mid-thirteenth century and afterwards stated that they were able to baptise new converts. Still, they generally faced difficulties incorporating the converts and making them content with the Christian rules.824 Despite the failure of the Papal-Dominican missions to baptise the Mongols, the report given by Simon of Quentin in his Historia Tartarorum contained a reference to Prester John. Simon was a French Dominican missionary who had worked in the Holy Land before 1246. He joined the papal embassy of Friar Ascelin and wrote the single surviving account of this travel. His account shows Simon’s fury at the arrogance of the Great Khan, who wanted to execute Simon and his companions three times, although they survived in the end. Simon’s account is only preserved in the encyclopedia of Vincent of Beauvais (d. 1264), a French Dominican friar at the monastery of Royaumont Abbey.825 Simon’s account is an apparent collection of Dawson, the Mongols mission, xviii-xxi, 122-25; de Rachewiltz, Papal Envoys to the Great Khans, 112-24; ʻUmrān, al-Raḥḥālah wa al-Jughrāfīyūn, 116-117; Guzma, “Simon of Saint-Quentin and the Dominican Mission to the Mongols, 38-46. 824 James Muldoon, “Missionaries and the Marriages of the Infidels: The Case of the Mongol Mission,” in Travellers, Intellectuals, and the World Beyond Medieval Europe, ed. James Muldoon (London and New York: Routledge, 2016),, 235-37, 24445; Alexander Osipian, “Armenian Involvement in the Latin-Mongol Crusade: Uses of the Magi and Prester John in Constable Smbat’s Letter and Hayton of Corycus’s ‘Flos Historiarum Terre Orientis,’ 1248-1307,” Medieval Encounters, no. 20 (2014): 72-76. 825 See Guzman, Gregory G., “Vincent of Beauvais [c. 1190-1264],” in Trade, Travel, and Exploration in the Middle Ages: An Encyclopedia, eds., John Block Friedman, and Kristen Mossler (New York, Garland, 2000), 633-634; Mark Zier, “Vincent de Beauvais,” in Medieval France: An Encyclopedia, eds. William W. Kibler et Grover Zinn (New York and London: Garland, 1995), 961; Gregory G. Guzman, “Vincent of Beauvais,” in Dictionary of the Middle Ages, ed. Joseph R. Strayer, 12th ed. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1989), 453-455. 823

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exciting episodes which he collected from a variety of sources. Simon also reported many ecclesiastical matters of the Christians of Georgia, Armenia and Central Asia. Some chapters in Simon’s report seem identical to others in the account of Carpine, which is expected as both accounts were nearly contemporary and concerned the same people.826 In his Historia Tartarorum, Simon devoted a chapter to the war between Genghis Khan and King David, son of Prester John. In this regard, Simon writes In the year of the Lord 1202, according to some, the Tartars, after killing their lord, departed to destroy peoples. Indeed, these men lived up till then in their own land, namely Tartaria, which is next to India, and they conspired against their lord King David, namely the son of once lord and emperor of India, Prester John, and, cunningly plotting [against him], they killed him. Accordingly, before this, from ancient times, Tartaria was subject to the King of India, and up till that time calmly and peacefully paid him the tribute that was due. […] However, one of them by the name of Chingis Khan, who seemed more sagacious and venerable, gave counsel that they oppose their king’s order, and they all unanimously rose against him [David] and killed him and whoever they could find of his men. [..]. one day, he undertook to bring all of them together arrayed in their arms and divided into two groups, with each of the two groups equally distant from the middle of the land, they entered the land of their lord David, [...]. But King David, hearing of their unexpected coming, and being in no way strong enough to resist them, when he tried to flee from one section of the army, he was prevented and besieged by the other, and at length, he was cut to pieces limb by limb, along with his whole family except for one daughter, namely the surviving daughter which

Sardelić, “John of Plano Carpini vs Simon of Saint-Quentin,” 494-508; De Rachewiltz, Papal Envoys to the Great Khans, 115-18; Guzma, “Simon of SaintQuentin and the Dominican Mission,” 71-80.

826

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Chingis Khan took to wife, and from whom, so it is said, he produced sons.827 While Carpine had described the war between Prester John and the Mongols, Simon imagined the war between King David, son of Prester John and Genghis Khan. In addition to the account of Alberic of Trios regarding the war between King David and the Mongols, Simon and his contemporaries apparently transferred the old conflict between Genghis Khan and the Nestorian Ung Khan of the Keraits (r. 11981203). However, the story of Simon substitutes Ung Khan, also known as Toghrul Khan, for King David and places the event in the same year 1202 rather than in 1203. We may thus speculate that Simon merged Ung Khan of the Keraits with Küchlüg of the Naimans (r. 1204-1218), who was the last ruler of the Qarakhitai.828

Keagan Brewer, “Simon of St Quentin, Historia Tartarorum,” in PJLIS (Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate, 2015), 157–58: (anno domini Mo.CCo.iio., secundum quosdam, Tartari post occisionem domini sui exierunt in populorum destructionem. Hi etenim prius adhuc in terra sua, videlicet Tartaria, que affinis est Indie, residentes, contra regem David dominum suum, videlicet presbyteri Johannis quondam dominatoris et imperatoris indie filium, conspiraverunt eumque dolose machinando interfecerunt. Antea siquidem ab antiquo Tartaria Indie regi fuerat subjecta eique pacifice et quiete debita usque ad tempus illud exolverat tribute. […]. Tandem unus eorum nomine Cingischam, qui sagatior et antiquior videbatur, dedit consilium ut mandato regis contradicerent et omnes unanimiter in eum exurgerent eumque ac suos quos invenire possent occiderent. […]. Quod cum omnes se observaturos in perpetuum promisissent, licet jam iniquitas mentita sit sibi, precepit omnes illos in armis paratos congregari eosque in duabus aciebus divisos una die a duabus partibus equaliter a medio terre distantibus terram domini sui David […]. Rex autem david adventum eorum audiens improvise nec ullatenus valens resistere cum ab una parte exercitus effugere vellet, ab altera preventus est et oppressus, tandemque cum tota familia sua preter unicam filiam menbratim detruncatus, quam videlicet filiam superstitem predictus Cingiscam sibi uxorem accepit et de ea, ut dicitur, filios generavit.), Jean Richard, ed., Simon de Saint-Quentin, Histoire des Tartares, Documents Relatifs à l’histoire des Croisades VIII (Paris: Die Librairie orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1965), 27-29; Brewer, “Simon of St Quentin, Historia Tartarorum,” 155-56. 828 Aigle, The Mongol Empire between Myth and Reality, 43-44; Biran, The Empire of the Qara Khitai in Eurasian History, 194-96; Baum, “Der Priesterkönig Johannes und die syrische Christenheit,” in Syriaca, 178-79; de Rachewiltz, Papal Envoys to the Great Khans, 114. 827

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Fig. 10. Depiction of Ung (Wang) Khan with the gown of a Cardinal receiving envoys from Genghis Khan, in Livre des merveilles, MS. Français 2810, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits, 26r.

The Kerait tribes converted to Nestorianism between 1007 and 1009, and their leaders had Christian names, even if they acquired other names as rulers. Küchlüg had adopted anti-Islamic policies after having fought the Muslims in central Asia. Genghis Khan had later defeated Küchlüg and married his niece, but the daughter of Ung Khan had been assumed to be married to Jochi, the eldest son of Genghis Khan, in 1202-03. Therefore, Küchlüg mixed with Ung Khan and became a possible candidate of King David, son of Prester John, which is implied in Simon’s account. The Nestorians of Asia echoed the likelihood of Küchlüg and Ung Khan being one and the same Christian person killed by Genghis Khan in 1202/03, the story of which circulated in Asia for decades.829 Biran, The Empire of the Qara Khitai in Eurasian History, 194-96; Morgan, “Prester John and the Mongols,” in PJMTLT, 159–70; Fuʾād Ṣaīyād, Al-Maghūl fī al-Tārīkh, vol.1 (Beirut: Dār al-Nahḍah, 1980), 25-29, 99-100; De Rachewiltz, Papal Envoys to the Great Khans, 114.

829

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While this disappointing realisation and information of the reality of the Mongols reached Europe, King Louis IX of France (r. 1226-70) was ready to launch a new Seventh Crusade (1248-54) to attack Egypt. This crusade revitalised dormant hopes of christening the Mongols, which led to the creation of other reports of the fate of Prester John and his land under Mongol power. 3. THE LEGEND AND THE CRUSADE OF LOUIS IX ON EGYPT, 1248-1254 The papal diplomatic and missionary envoys to the Mongols opened a further diplomatic chapter in European-Mongol relations, in which King Louis IX of France played a part. While King Louis was in Cyprus heading to Egypt on the Seventh Crusade, he received Mongol messengers (Tartars) in December 1248. Two Nestorians named David and Mark carried a letter from Eljigidei (in office: 1247-51), the Mongol’s commander in Persia, in which Eljigidei spoke of the Mongol sympathy with Christianity. He also suggested a military alliance against the Muslims in Egypt and the Levant to recapture Jerusalem. The two Nestorian messengers of the Mongols made their message more attractive by claiming that the mother of Güyük Khan was the daughter of Prester John, adding that both Eljigidei and Güyük Khan had converted to Christianity.830 In 1247, the Armenian King Hethoum (r. 1226-1270) sent his brother Sempad (d. 1276) to the Court of the Great Khan at the Karakorum. In 1248, Sempad sent a letter to King Louis IX of France claiming that the Mongols had inherited Christian faith from the Magi, protecting all Christians in their lands. Sempad also indicated a Christian king in the land of India, in an apparent reference to Prester

Peter Jackson and David Morgan, eds., The Mission of Friar William of Rubruck: His Journey to the Court of the Great Khan Möngke, 1253–1255 (London: The Haklyt Society, 1990), 34; Ethel Wedgwood, Memoirs of the John Lord de Joinville (London: John Murray, 1906), 58-59, 64, 249-51; Denise Aigle, “The Letters of Eljigidei, Hülegü and Abaqa: Mongol Overtures or Christian Ventriloquism?,” Inner Asia 7, no. 2 (2005): 145-52; Aigle, The Mongol Empire between Myth and Reality, 46-47 Ruotsala, Europeans and the Mongols, 45; De Rachewiltz, Papal Envoys, 120-24.

830

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John, who would ally with the Mongols to destroy the Muslims.831 It is apparent here that the Armenians would have tried to establish an alliance between the King of France and the Mongols before the Seventh Crusade on Egypt. This alliance would thus empower Armenians and the crusader states in the Levant, preventing them from future Muslim invasions or expansion. Here, Prester John, as a Christian king, would play a role in creating the Mongols as a potential ally to create a Latin-Mongol crusade.832 In this regard, Ibn al-ʿIbrī mentioned that there were two Christian princes in Ātābikīat (the court) of Güyük Khan, called Qidāq and Jīniqāī, who were employed in the service of the Mongol Khan. In these days, the Christian groups from Franks, Rus, Syrians and Armenians had high official positions in the Mongol Court. Besides, Güyük Khan himself was Christian, and his camp was full of priests and monks. In this year, 647/1249, the same year of Rīdafrans (Louis IX) was heading to Egypt; Güyük caught a deadly disease and sent an envoy instructing his wife to serve as regent until the convening of a kurultai (the Mongol council) to choose the new Mongol khan. Therefore, in 650/1252, the Armenian King Hātim (Hethum I, r. 122670), contacted the Khan’s court to ally with Mongols and the Nestorian people living among them. The Great Khan received him with warm hospitality shortly before his death. In 1254, Hethum set out to Karakorum to attend the appointment of the new Khan and renew his hope of securing the cooperation of the Mongolian emperor against the Muslims.833 These references highlight the role played by the Nestorians in the Mongol court and how they became involved in diplomatic relations, not only as envoys but also proselytising negotiators interested in reporting back on news of the spread of Christianity among the Mongols. It seems here that some European sources have interpreted the Mongol envoys as being monks of Prester John or, at least, from Osipian, “Armenian Involvement in the Latin-Mongol Crusade,” 84; Dixon, “The Prester John Legend,”124. 832 See, Osipian, “Armenian Involvement in the Latin-Mongol Crusade,” 66-100. 833 Ibn al-ʿIbrī, Mukhtaṣar, 450-52, 459-62; Budge, The Chronography of Gregory Abû’l Faraj, vol. 2, 410-16; John A. Boyle, trans., “The Journey of Het’um I, King of Little Armenia, to the Court of the Great Khan Möngke,” Central Asiatic Journal, no. 9 (1964): 175–89; Osipian, “Armenian Involvement,” 82-93. 831

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his land. In this sense, Mathew Paris, relying on the mission of Andrew of Longjumeau, recounted the power of the Mongols, whose king had killed Prester John and taken his daughter as a wife. Paris interestingly claims that a monk sent by Prester John to make peace between Frederick II and Pope Innocent would strengthen Europe to stand victorious over the Mongol threat.834 Paris had previously referred to similar Nestorian monks from the land of Prester John in 1237.835 As a consequence, he perhaps misinterpreted the Nestorian envoys of Eljigidei for Prester John’s monks or was otherwise misinformed in this way. Answering Eljigidei’s embassy, King Louis thus re-dispatched Andrew of Longjumeau to the Great Khan at Karakorum. When Andrew arrived there, Güyük Khan had passed away, but his regent, his widow Oghul Qaimish (r. 1248-51), approached Louis IX as a tributary.836 These events, alongside other relevant accounts about the Prester John and the Mongols, have been recounted by Jean of Joinville (d. 1317).837 Joinville, a French nobleman who accompanied King Louis IX in the Seventh Crusade, was taken captive with King Louis by the mamluk slave-soldier contingent of the Ayyubid sultan in 1250. He wrote his account in the Vie de Saint Louis, on the life of King Louis in old French, considered an essential first-person work of the Seventh Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, vol. 6, 113-15: (Item dixit idem frater quod rex eorum est filius Christianae. Nam pater ejus cum totam sibi subjugasset Indiam, et eum qui vocabatur presbyter Johannes, quod nomen omnes reges Indiso sortiuntur, interfecisset, accepit filiam ejus in uxorem, ex qua genitus est ipse rex qui nunc regnat inter Tartaros. Et ad illius mulieris instantiam adductus est praefatus monachus ad regem Tartarorum. Nam fuerat ante cum prsefato presbytero Johanne. Quem cum rex Tartarorum comperit virum sanctum et boni consilii, retinuit eum, et ei prgescriptam concessit potestatem. Hie monachus misit domino Papse per memoratum fratrem pro exennio unum baculum de ebano, et scripsit ei et Fretherico amare eos, arguens pro eo quod, cum sint capita ecclesiee, mutuo se confligunt, non attendentes potentissimum regem Tartarorum in proximo venturum ad debellandum eos, adversus cujus potentiam tota Chris tianitas non resistet), here, 115. 835 Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, vol. iii, 396-99. 836 Ethel Wedgwood, trans., Memoirs of the John Lord de Joinville (London: John Murray, 1906), 58-59, 64, 249-51; Aigle, “The Letters of Eljigidei,” 145-52; Aigle, The Mongol Empire between Myth and Reality, 46-47; Ruotsala, Europeans and the Mongols, 45; De Rachewiltz, Papal Envoys to the Great Khans, 120-24. 837 Wedgwood, Memoirs of the John Lord de Joinville, 250-54. 834

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Crusade against Egypt and its aftermath. Joinville later wrote his account from memory after returning home and dedicated it to King Philip IV of France (r. 1285-1314) in 1309. Joinville’s account provides unique information on the Bedouins of Egypt, the Mong ols, as well as environmental and geographical descriptions of Egypt. Joinville is an outstanding writer in that he seemed to be more knight than a scholar. In stark difference with most medieval sources, his account appears fully candid in most cases.838 Regarding the imaginative entanglements between the Mongols and Prester John, Joinville provides a creative description of the rise of Genghis Khan and his killing of Prester John: They [the messengers] asked how they [the Mongols] had come to hold such power, because they had the authority to make it such that there were so many dead and defeated people, and the manner of it was this, as they [had] reported it to the king [Louis] that they had come and emerged from a great sandy desert, where no good thing grew. […] in this desert was the people of the Tartars, and they were subject to Prester John and to the emperor of Persia, whose land was beyond his, and to many other infidel kings, to whom they paid tribute and homage every year, for the sake of the pasturage of their animals; indeed, they did not live on anything else. This Prester John and the emperor of Persia and the other kings, held the Tartars in such contempt that when they brought them their payments, they did not want to receive them in front of them, but would turn their backs on them.839 Wedgwood, Memoirs of the John Lord de Joinville, v-x, 1-5; Cristian Bratu, “‘Je, Aucteur de ce Livre’: Authorial Persona and Authority in French Medieval Histories and Chronicles,” in Authorities in the Middle Ages: Influence, Legitimacy, and Power in Medieval Society, ed. Sini Kangas, Mia Korpiola, and Tuija Ainonen (Berlin, New York: De Gruyter, 2013), 183–204; Caroline Smith, Crusading in the Ages of Joinville (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 1-15, 47-74. 839 Keagan Brewer, ed., “Jean de Joinville, La Vie de Saint Louis,” in PJLIS, (Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate, 2015), 192-93; Wedgwood, Memoirs of the John Lord de Joinville, 250-54: (Il enquistrent comme il estoient venu en tel auctoritei, par quoy il avoient tant de gens mors et confondus; et la maniere fu teix, aussi comme il le 838

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Joinville later goes on to explain in the reports of European envoys how the Tartars chose a wise man – Genghis Khan – to free them from the King of Persia and Prester John. This wise man later killed Prester John, and all the tribes of the Mongols put themselves under his power.840 Like Matthew Paris, Joinville’s account probably derived information from Andrew of Longjumeau while adding more fantastic elements from later journeys or missions.841 In this context, Joinville’s narratives describe the familiar story of the Mongols killing their lord Prester John or his son King David that contemporaneous European envoys had reported to the Mongol Khans. Nevertheless, it remains difficult to say whether the Nestorian envoys fabricated these stories themselves or on the demand of Eljigidei, who was planning to invade Baghdād at the time. By proposing such an alliance, Eljigidei would have benefited from the Crusaders in the Levant to attack Baghdād and other Muslim cities there.842 While King Louis IX hoped to ally with the Mongols and convert them to Christianity, his army had been besieged in Egypt, and he was taken captive by the Mamluks and paid their ransom for his freedom with 400.000 livres.843 When Louis IX was released from Egypt, he went to the Levant at the City of Caesarea, where he received the returning French embassy carrying letters from the Great Khan court. In these letters, the Oghul Qaimish asked King Louis to send them gold and silver each year to keep their friendship or risk his destruction

raporterent au roy: que il estoient venu et concréei d’une grant berrie de sablon, là où il ne croissoit nul bien. […]. En celle berrie estoit li peuples des Tartarins, et estoient sougiet à prestre Jehan et à l’empereur de Perce, cui terre venoit après la seue, et à plusours autres roys mescréans, à cui il rendoient tréu et servaige chascun an, pour raison dou pasturaige de lour bestes; car il ne vivoient d’autre chose. Cis prestres Jehans et li emperieres de Perce, et li autre roy, tenoient en tel despit les Tartarins, que quant il lour aportoient lour rentes, il ne les vouloient recevoir devant aux, ains lour tournoient les dos…), Brewer, “La vie de Saint Louis,” 190-91. 840 Brewer, “La vie de Saint Louis,” 193-94; Wedgwood, Memoirs of the John Lord de Joinville, 253-55. 841 Aigle, The Mongol Empire between Myth and Reality, 59, 62. 842 De Rachewiltz, Papal Envoys to the Great Khans, 120-21. 843 Al-Maqrīzī, al-Sulūk, vol. 1, 460; Wedgwood, Memoirs of the John Lord de Joinville, 152-170, 185-96; Smith, Crusading in the Ages of Joinville, 4. 275

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with his people.844 Despite the negative answer, William of Rubruck, who was on the campaign of King Louis in Egypt, led a new missionary embassy to the Mongols. 4. WILLIAM OF PRESTER JOHN

RUBRUCK

AND

RE-IMAGINING

The hope of a new alliance with the Mongols was rekindled when rumours appeared that the Mongol prince Sartaq (Khan: 1256–1257), son of Batu Khan (r. 1227-1255), had converted to Christianity.845 Thus, the Flemish Franciscan William of Rubruck (fl. 1253-55) journeyed to the Mongol lands in a missionary capacity, heading first for Sartaq’s camp on the western banks of the Volga. Sartaq, in turn, forwarded William and his journey companion, Bartolomeo of Cremona, to his father Batu, ruler of the Golden Horde, who in turn dispatched him to the court of his cousin, Möngke Khan (r. 1251-59) in Karakorum. A frequent mistake is represented by the journey of William to the Mongols as another attempt of King Louis IX to renegotiate with the Mongols after the failure of his previous embassy led by Andrew of Longjumeau. But the fact remains that William made his journey from the Holy Land after the approval of King Louis and the Franciscans’ chief in the Holy Land. The reason for this confusion comes from William submitting his final report to King Louis IX in 1255, which made later audiences assume he had been an official envoy sent by the King of France.846

Wedgwood, Memoirs of the John Lord de Joinville, 58-59, 258-59; Jackson and Morgan, The Mission of Friar William of Rubruck, 36-37; De Rachewiltz, Papal Envoys to the Great Khans, 123-24. 845 Keagan Brewer, ed., “William of Rubruck, Itinerarium,” in PJLIS (Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate, 2015), 163; Aigle, The Mongol Empire between Myth and Reality,47-48; de Rachewiltz, Papal Envoys to the Great Khans, 125-28. 846 Peter Jackson, “William of Rubruck in the Mongol Empire: Perception and Prejudices,” in Medieval Ethnographies: European Perceptions of the World Beyond, ed. Joan-Pau Rubies (Routledge, 2018), 273-74; Aigle, The Mongol Empire between Myth and Reality,47-48; De Rachewiltz, Papal Envoys to the Great Khans, 125-28; Hilāl, al-Maghūl wa Ūrubbā, 74-77; Jean Richard, “Sur les Pas de Plancarpin et de Rubrouck : La Lettre de Saint Louis À Sartaq,” Journal des Savants, 1977, 49–61. 844

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William’s report Itinerarium fratris Willielmi de Rubruquis is divided into 40 chapters. The first ten chapters present his general observations of the Mongols, their customs and rituals along with geographical and anthropological information. In the rest of his account, William presents an account of the course and events of his journey, including additional information on the eastern Christians in Asia, Hungary and the Balkans, that seems to have been collected from an unnamed source he read. Furthermore, it seems that William took the report of his Franciscan predecessor Carpine as an instructive account, of which variant recensions can be found in William’s report. However, Carpine is a more official report than William, whose account is more personal document or memories.847 While Rubruck did not achieve his goal of inspiring conversion among the Mongols, he proved that Sartaq was not a Christian. In chapters seventeen and twenty-six of his account, Rubruck echoed the same information of the aforementioned envoys with further recensions. The main distinction was that Ung Khan had been the brother and heir of King John, but not King John himself. Rubruck was the first European missionary to doubt the authenticity of Prester John, in a similar tone as Otto of Freising when he said “enough is enough” at the end of his report about Prester John.848 However, William did not deny the existence of Prester John at all, but he doubted his unmerited power, riches and reputation. He further mentioned that the rumours regarding Sartaq made the “great rumour of the Christian King John spread.”849 In this regard, Rubruck reported that in a certain plain between these mountains there was a certain Nestorian, a powerful shepherd and lord over a people called Naiman, which was a Nestorian Christian Jackson and Morgan, The Mission of Friar William of Rubruck, 39-51; Jackson, “William of Rubruck in the Mongol Empire,” 273-79; Peter Jackson, “William of Rubruck: A Review Article,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, no. 1 (1987): 92–97; Maria Bonewa-Petrowa, “Rubrucks Reisebeschreibung als soziologische und kulturgeschichtliche Quelle,” Philologus 115, no. 1–4 (1971): 16–31. 848 See the Otto’s report above under Chapter 2. 849 Brewer, “William of Rubruck, Itinerarium,” 162, 163. 847

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people. When Coirchan [gürkhan of Kara-Khitai) died, this Nestorian raised himself to the kingship, and the Nestorians called him King John, and only a tenth of what they said about him was the truth. For in this way the Nestorians who come from those parts make great rumours from nothing. Consequently, they spread word that that Sartach was Christian, and the same of Mangu Chan and [i.e. Möngke] and of Keuchan [i.e. Güyük], because they have greater respect for Christians than for other peoples. [..] And when I myself crossed his pasturelands, nobody knows anything about him except a few Nestorians. There was a certain brother to this John by the name of Unc [Ung Khan], also a powerful shepherd, and he lived beyond the mountains of the Kara-Khitai, at distance of three weeks’s journey from his brother. He was lord of a certain little village named Karakorum, and with a people under him who are called Crit [i.e. Kerait] and Merkit, who were Nestorian Christians. […] King John died without an heir and his brother Unc was made rich, and he had himself proclaimed Chan, and his cattle/flocks and herds were sent to the boundaries of Moal [i.e. Mongols]. At that time lived Chingis, a certain worker of the Moal people, […]. He then, gathering an army in secret, he made an attack against that Unc and defeated him, and he [Unc] fled to Cathay. His daughter was captured there, and Chingis gave her to one of his sons as wife, from which [union] she received he who now reigns, Mangu [i.e. Möngke] […].850 Brewer, “William of Rubruck, Itinerarium,” 162-64; Jackson and Morgan, The Mission of Friar William of Rubruck, 121-25: (et in quadam planicie inter illas alpes erat quidam nestorinus, pastor potens et dominus super populum qui dicebatur naiman, qui erat christiani nestorini. Mortuo Coirchan, elevavit se ille nestorinus in regem et vocabant eum nestoriani regem iohannem, et plus dicebant de ipso in decuplo quam veritas esset. Ita enim faciunt nestoriani venientes de partibus illis, de nichilo enim faciunt magnos rumores. Unde disseminaverunt de sartach quod esset christianus et de Manguchan et de Keuchan, quia faciunt maiorem reverentiam christianis quam aliis populis. Et tamen in veritate christiani non sunt. Sic ergo exivit magna fama de illo rege iohanne. Et ego transivi per pascua eius,

850

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The Mongol Figure of Prester John

Therefore, the common pattern of the bulk of European travelogues and missionary accounts was that the Tatars or the Mongols were the vassals of Prester John, whose subordinate Genghis Khan defeated him.851 In the above missionary and travelogues accounts, the reliability of the information about Prester John presented several difficulties. Some travellers/missionaries wrote accounts of their journey by themselves such as William of Rubruck and John of Plano Carpine. In other cases, reports preserved in other chronicles of other historians such as Ascelino of Cremona whose report was preserved through Simon of St Quentin’s Historia Tartarorum. Thus, the transmission process of the texts led to enriching knowledge about Prester John, through changes of perspectives of the transmitters and how they reflected the events they witnessed at different times.852 Unlike Simon’s report that described war taking place between Genghis and King David of Prester John, Rubruck’s account depicted the war as having taken place between the brother of King John (Ung Khan) and Genghis Khan. It is quite remarkable that William Rubruck and other Latin missionaries to the Mongols made the association between Ung Khan and Prester John, relying only on oral reports heard from Nestorians and Syrians who were in the service of the Mongols. William Rubruck himself confirmed a story of King John nullus aliquid sciebat de eo, nisi nestoriani pauci. in pascuis eius habitabat Keuchan, apud cuius curiam fuit frater andreas, et ego etiam transivi per eam in reditu. […]. Huic Iohanni erat frater quidam, potens pastor similiter, nomine unc; et ipse erat ultra alpes ipsorum Caracatai distans a fratre suo spacio trium ebdomadarum, et erat dominus cuiusdam villule que dicitur Caracarum, populum habens sub se qui dicebantur Crit et Merkit, qui erant christiani nestorini. [...]. Rex Iohannes mortuus fuit sine herede, et ditatus est frater eius unc, et faciebat se vocari Chan, et mittebantur armenta et greges eius usque ad terminos Moal. Tunc temporis erat Chingis, faber quidam in populo Moal, [...].Tunc latenter congregato exercitu irruit super ipsum unc et vicit eum, et ille fugit in Cathaiam. Ibi capta fuit filia eius, quam Chingis dedit uni ex filiis suis in uxorem, ex quo ipsa suscepit istum qui nunc regnat Mangu.), C.Raymond Beazley, ed., The Texts and Versions of John de Plano Carpini and William de Rubruquis (London: The Haklyt Society, 1903), 166-168; Brewer, “William of Rubruck, Itinerarium,” 160-61. 851 852

Aigle, The Mongol Empire, p. 48-49, 52. Aigle, The Mongol Empire between Myth and Reality,48-49. 279

The Mongol Figure of Prester John

and Ung from eastern Christians, declaring his distrust in the reports of King John that he heard from the Nestorian people. Similarly, he claimed that King John was not famous in the territories he had visited. However, a few Nestorians knew him, but they had overstated his powers and his marvels and reported great rumours about nothing.853 Jacques de Vitry and Oliver of Paderborn, as earlier explained, declared that King David was known among the Saracens and the Syrians,854 who were apparently also Simon’s informants. In this regard, it seems that the Syrians or Nestorians of Asia used to call Ung Khan by the name of King John. Therefore, when western missionaries journeyed to the Mongols, they echoed the story substituting Ung Khan for King David and Prester John, as appeared in Simon’s report. This was obviously mentioned by the thirteenthcentury Syrian Christian Ibn al-ʻIbrī, whose report with other eastern legendary descriptions relating to the Mongols and Ung Khan would further interpret the European reception of the Mongol Prester John. 5. THE ENTANGLEMENT OF PRESTER JOHN WITH UNG KHAN IN EASTERN ACCOUNTS The roots of the entangled mythical-historical association of Genghis Khan with Ung Khan as being Prester John or King David relied on the Nestorians of Asia, who played the same role in spreading the legend in the mid-twelfth century. Ibn al-ʻIbrī mentioned, in his Syriac chronography of which he produced the abridged Arabic version Tārīkh Mukhtaṣar al-Duwal, that Ung Khan was the same Christian King John. Ibn al-ʿIbrī wrote down the Arabic Mukhtaṣar in response to the request of Arab friends who wanted to read his universal history in their Arabic tongue. In Mukhtaṣar, Ibn al-ʿIbrī aimed to present a brief history of the world and concentrated on Islamic history, the history of the caliphs, the Mongols and the biographies (tarājim) of

Jackson and Morgan, The Mission of Friar William of Rubruck, 122-23: Beazley, John of Plano Carpini and William of Rubruquis, 168, 214,216; Frimmer, Neverland: p. 178 854 Jacques de Vitry, Letter VII and Oliver of Paderborn, Historia Damiatina, in PJLIS, 132-33- 137-39. 853

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essential scholars and physicians. He, therefore, added annexes to the Mukhtaṣar, which did not form part of the original Syriac version.855 The Mukhtaṣar and the Syriac version are the only Arabic and Syriac accounts from the thirteenth century that have mentions relevant to Prester John among the Mongols. In this context, Ibn alʻIbrī writes that in this year, that is, in the year of 1514 for Alexander the Great (i.e. 599 AH/1203AD) was the beginning of the Mongol State. At this time, Ung Khan [also: Unc Can or Unach Chan], who is called King John, from the tribe that called Kerait, whose people were Christians, and he was taking over the eastern Turkish tribes. There was a man named Temūjin (Genghis Khan), who was not from this tribe, was always a supporter and in the service of Ung Khan from his early childhood till became an adult. This Temūjin was very strong in fighting the enemies, his fellows/mates, thus, envied him and provoked Ung Khan against him. Ung Khan charged Temūjin with changing of his intention [of being his servitude] and seek to arrest him. [...] In the late-night, when of Ung Khan and his companions attacked the tenets of the Temūjin, but they found no one there. Temūjin and his companions hid in ambush, and they engaged in a battle against Ung Khan two times until Ung Khan and his forces were defeated and killed, and Ung Khan’s women, sons, and daughters were taken into captivity. (….).856 Conrad, On the Arabic Chronicle of Bar Hebraeus, p. 322; Budge, The Chronography, vol. 1, xxxix. 856 Ibn-al-ʿIbrī, Tārīkh Mukhtaṣar al-Duwal, 394: here is the Arabic text 855

‫في ها و هي سنة ألف وخمسمائة واربع عشرة لالسكندر كان ابتداء دولة المغول وذلك انفي هذا الزمان كان‬ ‫(و‬ ‫المستولي عليقبائل الترك المشارقة اونك خان و هو المسمي الملكيوحنا من القبيلة التييقاللها كريت و هي‬ ‫ وكان رجل مؤيد من غير هذه القبيلةيقاللهتموجين مالزم ًالخدمة اونك خان منسن‬.‫فةتدينبالنصرانية‬ ‫طائ‬ ‫ وكان ذابأسفيقهر األعداءفحسده األقران وسعوبه إلي أونك خان وما زالوا‬،‫فولية إلي انبلغ حد الرجولية‬ ‫الط‬ ‫في وقت السحرلما هجم أونك خان [الملك‬ ‫] و‬...[ ‫يغتابونه عنده حتياته مهبتغير النية و همَّباعتقاله والقبض عليه‬ ‫يوحنا] واصحابه عليبيوتتموجينلقيها خالية من الرجال وكر عليهتموجين واصحابه من الكمين واوقعوابهم‬ ).َّ‫وناوشوو هم القتال واثخنوافيهم و هزمو هم وحاربو هم مرتين حتيقتلوه وابطاله وسبوا ذراري ه‬

While there is no English translation of this Arabic version, there is a French and English

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Ibn al-ʻIbrī mentioned real evidence of the Syrian role in connecting the legend with the Mongol Khan. Ibn al-ʻIbrī was not only a Syrian-Christian cleric and scholar but he and his father served the Mongols as physicians and ambassadors.857 The quoted text above is similar to the above papal envoys' narratives, who presented Genghis Khan as a subordinate to Ung Khan, the Christian King (Prester) John. Interestingly, when Ibn al-ʿIbrī wrote that Ung Khan was the same King John, he did not seem to be astonished. Furthermore, Ibn al-ʻIbrī relates a vision in which Genghis Khan saw a Priest who said to him, “do not be frightened and do whatever you want because you are supported [by God].”858 Following the details of Genghis Khan and his battle with Ung Khan, Ibn al-ʿIbrī mentioned that a certain man of the Tatars rose up, who in the depth of winter, went about naked saying, I have gone forth from God, and He said into me, I have given the whole earth to Temūjin and his sons.”859 In another context, in his Syriac Chronography, but not in Mukhtaṣar, Ibn al-ʿIbrī justified that

translation of the Syriac version, see, Philippe Talon, trans., La Chronographie de Bar Hebraeus, vol. 2 (Bruxelles: E.M.E., 2013), 179-179; Budge, the Chronography, 35253. And an English translation based of the Latin mad by Kegan Brewer, “Bar Hebraeus, Chronicon Syriacum,” in PJLIS, 169-170; (Hoc anno, id est, anno graecorum 1514, arabum 599, [1221 a.d.] quum unach Chan, qui idem est cum iohanne rege Christiano, imperaret genti cuidam Hunnorum barbarorum quae vocatur Cherith, Cinghis Chanus constanter in eius famulitio fuit. Quum eius praestantiam alacritatemque ei serviendi quotidie videret, invidit ei, et insidiose eum prehendere et interficere voluit. Has insidias duo pueri unach Chani sentientes Cinghiso indicarunt. statim Cinghisus certiorem fecit socios suos, qui noctu ex tentoriis progressi se in insidiis occultarunt. Mane unach Chanus tentoria Tartarorum aggressus neminem ibi invenit. Tum insiluit in eum Cinghis et iuxta fontem, qui appellatur Balschuiah, praelio commisso superior evasit Cinghisus et fusus est unach Chanus. Postea aliquoties praelio iterum conseruerunt, donec res unach Chani funditus eversae sunt, ipse interfectus est et mulieries, filii et filiae eius in captivitatem abductae sunt …). 857 Ibn al-ʿIbrī, Mukhtaṣar, d-h, Budge, The Chronography, vol. 1, 433; Sheir, “A Message of Intimidation and Arrogance, 1–3. 858 Ibn al-ʿIbrī, Mukhtaṣar, 401-02. 859 Ibn al-ʿIbrī, Mukhtaṣar, 394-95; Budge, The Chronography, vol.1, 353. 282

The Mongol Figure of Prester John

King John of the Keraits was not rejected for nothing, but afterwards, his heart was estranged from fear of Christ, his lord, whom he praises […]. Because, being subordinate to the fear of his fathers, he worshipped foreign gods, God took his power away from him, and gave it to a better man than him, who was moved to God with a pure soul.860 This might explain the way of receiving Genghis Khan as being the heir of Ung Khan/ King John, who was seen in the figure of King David, son of Prester John, by the imagination of the European envoys in the mid-thirteenth century and afterwards. The question here is, how did Ibn al-ʿIbrī identify Ung Khan as the Christian King John and how also did other Latin accounts of the same century give a piece of relevant information about Ung Khan being the same King John? Ibn al-ʿIbrī knew the story of King John from previous writings, which spoke of the conversion of the Kerait to Nestorianism in the early thirteenth century, as mentioned above. Moreover, he relied on the oral narratives of Syrians living among the Mongols, and he himself was one of them. The same Syrians were the informants of the European envoys and the Crusaders about that confused perception of Prester/King John, as confirmed by Jacques, Oliver, Rubruck and others.861 Furthermore, in the first circulation of the legend in 1145, Otto of Freising recorded “a certain John, King and Priest, who was a Nestorian Christian and his people called him Prester John.”862 It seems that this Prester John or King John was a general name assigned by the Nestorians to any Turco-nomadic ruler whose power rose in Central Asia, especially if he was a Christian like that Ung Khan. In this light, one can understand the legend’s development and how it was entangled with Genghis Khan. The sources such as Alberic and Richard first spread the rumours that those Mongols were part of King David’s army and then killed him. This connection was further retold and reconstructed in the reports of the European missionaries by 1245, Brewer, “Bar Hebraeus,” 170; Budge, The Chronography, vol. 1, 353. Jacques de Vitry, Lettres, 95-96, 141-142; Baum, “Der Priesterkönig Johannes und die syrische Christenheit,” in Syriaca, 177-84. 862 Otto of Freising, “De Duabus Civitatibus,” in PJLIS, 43. 860 861

283

The Mongol Figure of Prester John

whose primary informants were Syrians and Christians living among the Mongols. In this sense, Ung Khan, like King John, acted as a bridge that brought together the Latins, Muslims and Mongols in Mediterranean eastern-western conflict during the thirteenth century. Furthermore, Arabic and Muslim sources contain similar imaginative and legendary descriptions of the conflict between Genghis Khan and Ung Kahn. For instance, the Mamluk historian Abū Bakr ibn al-Dawādārī (d. after 736/1335-6) mentioned that there were many unbelievable legends and rumours about the Mongols and their creation, which he himself never believed. Ibn al-Dawādārī was from a family that worked in the service of the Ayyubid sultans, and his father was a grand prince (amīr) serving the Mamluk Qalāwūnid sultans (r. 678–709/1279–1310). He began writing his chronicle in Cairo in 709/1309–10 and completed it about 736/1335–6. His work Kanz al-Durar is an excellent example of a comprehensive historical textbook, which deals with the Islamic universe and cosmology history. This book is a case of the development of historiography at the beginning of the Mamluk era. It accumulates between official and public narratives blending between history and literature, tales, marvels and poetry. For this reason, Kanz al-Durar is one of the unique thirteenth-century chronicles that includes several imaginative narratives. Yet, Ibn al-Dawādārī always used to classify these accounts declaring his view about them.863 In this regard, Ibn al-Dawādārī wrote the main book that narrates the imaginative-divine creation of the Turco-Mongol tribes and Genghis Khan. This book was called in the Turkish tongue al-Wāy Āṭām Bitikī meaning the book of the great lord/father. According to Ibn al-Dawādārī, this book was first written down in Turkish and was translated to Persian by a Syrian physician named Gibrīl ibn Bochtīschū (d. 9th century), whose family served in the Abbasid court. The book’s events continued and included the rise of the Mongols and their advance. Ibn al-Dawādārī first read this book, which had existed Saʻīd ʻĀshūr, Muqadimah, in Kanz al-Durar wa Jāmiʻ al-Ghurar, vol. 7, 1-5; Bernd Radtke, Weltgeschichte und Weltbeschreibung im Mittelalterlichen Islam (Beirut and Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1992), 6-7, 145-47, 151-53, 177-79, 189, 193-96, 200-01; Li Guo, “Ibn al-Dawādārī,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, ed. Kate Fleet et al., 2016, http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_30754.

863

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for a long time, in the year 710/1310. According to this book, Ibn alDawādārī mentioned that the great grandfather of Genghis Khan was called the king of the Moon, who was the same king of the gold. He also described in imaginative mode the birth and life of Genghis Khan until he became the leader of the earth. Ibn al-Dawādārī mentioned that the philosophers and astrologers fabricated this fabulous book to fascinate kings and people's minds. At the same time, they employed its fancies and legends as propagandist mechanisms for the kings they served. Regarding Ong Khan and Genghis Khan, this book mentioned that Genghis Khan became the earthly ruler by the will of heaven after slaughtering Alṭin Khan (Ung Khan), killing his family and enslaving his forces, and taking his throne.864 It is worth noting that the passage of time from the rise of Genghis Khan’s power and the first missionary report was about a half-century. The fact is that the oral transformation of this information and its reception by the recipients confused the order of the historical events and their heroes’ names. Yet, the typical pattern was that Tatars, Mongols, were the vassals of Prester John, and then Genghis became their leader and marched to Prester John and caused him a fatal defeat. Other common elements between the accounts are that they connected Prester John “as an active role in the symbolic integration of the Mongols into the history of Christendom, in an eschatological perspective.”865 Furthermore, the imagined Prester John in the reality of a Mongol lord seemed entangled with the Mongol shamanism (Mongol folk religion), which is a religious practice mastered by the so-called shaman. This shaman is connected with the world of gods, spirits and the dead persons through his own rite Can. Therefore, the spirits with whom he has held an alliance would protect him. Through this communication, the Mongol ruler was identified by his people as the protector of the earth and the conductor or guarantor of the way of life. On the top of the aristocratic hierarchy was the Möngke Tenggiri, which means “the External Heaven” or Köke Tenggiri, representing “Blue Heaven.” The Mongols considered this Tenggiri as God himself, but he was not as God in the usual sense of the world. The 864 865

Ibn al-Dawādārī, Kanz al-Durar wa Jāmiʻ al-Ghurar,vol. 7, 217-37. Aigle, The Mongol Empire between Myth and Reality,48-49, 52. 285

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Mongols considered that Tenggiri represented masculine forces, imagined by anthropomorphic names or figures and usually considered the creator of all things. This Tenggiri gave the supreme powers to the nomadic rulers with the mandate of heaven and the Tenggiri support to restore the peace, law and order in the world. This belief had already led the rulers of the Mongols and their predecessors to consider themselves as the chosen leaders to dominate the world.866 At the same time, everybody had the right to practice his own religion in the Mongol Empire. Nevertheless, all the religious leaders were needed to contribute to the administrative aspects of the Mongol Empire, paying taxes to the Great Khan and his family. The religiousimperial ideology of the Mongols was represented in the worship of Genghis Khan. The sacredness of Genghis Khan came down later to his successors, and it found expression in the law of Genghis Khan called “Jasagh” or “Yassa.”867 This might interpret the supremacy of Genghis Khan that descended from the Mongol tradition over all the Mongols, which might give a further interpretation of the way of the Khan’s association with Prester John, whose land later appeared as conquered by his Mongol vassals. In this framework, it appears that the Turco-nomadic origin of the Mongols was connected with Turkish fables spread in Asia. The same myths and visions have been consequently Christianised and Islamised, Westernised and Easternised by informants and narrators. This, in turn, takes us back to the first appearance of Prester John’s legend in the mid-thirteenth century that was empowered by the conflict between the Qarakhatia prince and Seljuk sultan Sinjar. The same entangled mythico-legendary interconnectedness echoed with the rise of Genghis Khan at the beginning of the thirteenth century. These complex entanglements between myths and heroic events Thomas Alberts, Shamanism, Discourse, Modernity (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015), 7379; Paul D. Buell, The A to Z of the Mongol World Empire (Lanham and Toronto: The Scarecrow Press, 2010), 265; Ruotsala, Europeans and the Mongols, 24-27. 867 D. O. Morgan, “The Great Yāsā of Chingiz Khān and Mongol Law in the Īlkhānate,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 49, no. 1 (1986): 163–76; Ruotsala, Europeans and the Mongols, pp.28-31; Thomas T. Allsen, Mongol Imperialism: The Policies of the Grand Qan Möngke in China, Russia and the Islamic Lands, 1251-1259 (Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 1987), 121122. 866

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should open several inquires and question regarding the real impact of such myths and fables in shaping an Asian-Transmediterranean historic bridge in the Middle Ages. Such a heterogeneous perception confirms that the missionaries had failed in their missions and recognised the real figure of the Mongols. The reports of all Dominican and Franciscan friars confirmed that the alliance with Prester John was folly and would never take place.868 Menache argues that the failure of the Christian missions to convert the Mongols and the latter's attacks on Europe contributed to excluding the legend of Prester John and led to receiving them as enemies and pagans rather than as allies.869 Yet, by the rising of Hülegü (r. 1260-65) and his destruction of the IslamicAbbasid Caliphate in Baghdād in 656/1258,870 the Prester John’s memory would have been refreshed for the last time in the thirteenth century among the Mongols. 6. THE LEGEND AND THE LATE-THIRTEENTH CENTURY ATTEMPTS OF A MONGOL-LATIN CRUSADE Muslims heard fabled stories about the Mongol commander Hülegü’s army and his atrocities, and they became afraid of his pending invasion of their countries.871 Hülegü’s invasion of Iraq and various cities in the Levant contributed to spreading different stories about his army and his atrocities. Hülegü’s self-portrayal was as a supernatural king invested with irresistible power and presiding over a countless army who had been sent by God to rule the world and to punish the Muslims. 872 In this sense, this legendary power of Hülegü given by God reflects the legendary divine power of Prester John in the European and crusading imagination. This perhaps revived the legacy of Prester John for the last time in a Mongol Khan. Bietenholz, Historia and Fabula, 135. Menache, “Tartars, Jews, Saracens and the Jewish-Mongol ‘Plot’ of 1241.” 257-261 870 See, Ibn al-Dawādārī, Kanz al-Durar, vol. 8, 34-37; Al-Maqrīzī, al-Sulūk, vol. 1, 496. 871Abū al-Fidā, al-Mukhtaṣar fi Akhbār al-Bashar, vol. 3, 202-03; Al-Maqrīzī, Kitāb al-Sulūk, vol.1,499-500, Ibn al-ʿIbrī, Mukhtaṣar, 482-483; ʻUmrān, al-Raḥḥālah wa al-Jughrāfīyūn, 121. 872 Al-Maqrīzī, Kitāb al-Sulūk, vol.1, 499-500, Ibn al-ʿIbrī, Mukhtaṣar, 482-483. 868 869

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The Mongol Figure of Prester John

Moreover, Hülegü saw himself as the chosen king sent by God to rule the world and to punish the Muslims, and no one could resist his power. This propaganda was evident in a letter sent by Hülegü to the ruler of Aleppo, al-Malik al-Nāṣir in 657/ 1259 that Ibn al-ʿIbrī has reported. Al-Malik al-Nāṣir knows that we have attacked Baghdād in 656/1258 and took control of the city by the sword of God. We brought its king and asked him two matters/issues, but he could not respond to our command so that he deserved the torture, as reported in your Qurʾān; ‘God does not change the state of a people until they change themselves [sūra 13:11, al-Raʿd].’ […] We have reached the strength by the power of God. Also, we will get further strengthened with the aid of God. Undoubtedly, we are the soldiers of God, who created us and gave us the power over those who evoked his wrath. You must learn and take an example from the past and from what we have stated. The fortresses could not restrain us; no troops can fight us. Your prayers against us will not be heard and will not avail against us. […]. We do not have mercy to those who complain; we will not be influenced by weeping. We demolished the countries and exterminated people. Sons became orphans, and we devastated the land. You have to escape. You must submit to our demand. You have no salvation, neither from our swords nor from our arrows. Our horses are swift, our arrows are sharp, our swords are thunderbolts, our minds are like the mountains, and our soldiers are as numerous as the sand. Whoever asks us for peace will be safe, and whoever demands a war will regret. If you obeyed our command and accepted our condition, you will then have your won rights and for us ours. If you declined our orders and continued in your perversion, then do not blame us, but blame yourselves […].873 873

Ibn al-ʿIbrī, Mukhtaṣar, 484-85.

‫فتحنا هابسيف هللاتعالي واحضرنا مالكها وسألناه‬ ‫"يعلم الملك الناصر اننانزلنابغدادفيسنةست وخمسين وستمائة و‬

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Hülegü’s letter to al-Nāṣir ties in with a particular facet of the Christian King John or his son King David, which reflects the way Mongol rulers were perceived as being Christianised. Rather, the Nestorians serving the Mongol Khans represented them as Christians or at least having sympathised with Christianity. This interpretation accords with Ibn al-ʿIbrī’s description of the Mongol Khans, especially Hülegü, as “the kings of kings or lord of lords and the owner of the earth in East and West.” 874 Hülegü’s letter includes the same mythical powers and possessions, which have been mentioned in the Prester John Letter, in which Prester John’s powers were highlighted as a superior king never defeated. Prester John was described as “lord of lords and exceed(ing) all kings of the entire earth,”875 synonymous with the aforesaid description of Hülegü for himself. The majority of the Asian lands assigned to Prester John in the Letter and to King David in Relatio de Davide had been subsequently subjugated into the Mongols. It was spread that Hülegü had converted to Christianity, an interpretation that probably resulted from the fact that Hülegü’s army included some Christian leaders. For instance, Kitbuqa Noyan (d. 1260) was one of the leaders of Hülegü’s forces, was a Nestorian belonging to the Turkic group of the Naiman.876 Additionally, Nestorians identified Hülegü’s wife, Doquz Khatun (d. 1265), a sincere Christian queen like Queen Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, and that she “raised on high the horn of the ‫قوم حتييغيروا ما‬ ٍّ ‫مسئلتينفلميجبلسؤالنافلذلك استوجب من ٍّ ّا العذاب كماقالفيقرأنكم انًّ هللا اليغير ماب‬ ‫ وكان ذلك ظا هر‬.‫فيسةبنقوس معدنية خسيسة‬ ‫فوس الن‬ ‫ واستبدل الن‬.‫فآل الد هرب ِه إلي ما آل‬.‫ وصان المال‬.‫فسهم‬ ‫بأن‬ ‫ والشك‬.‫ ونحنبمعونة هللاتعاليفي الزيادة‬.‫ النناقدبلغنابقوة هللا اإلرادة‬.‫ وجدوا ما عملوا حاضر ًا‬:‫قولهتعالي‬ ‫ وبما ذكرنها وقلناه‬.‫فليكنلكمفي ما مضي معتبر‬.‫اننحن جند هللافي ارضه خلقنا وسلطنا علي من حل غضبه‬ .‫ ودعاؤكم علينا اليستجاب واليسمع‬.‫فع‬ ‫ والعساكرللقائنا التضر والتن‬.‫فالحصونبين ايدينا التمنع‬.‫مزدجر‬ َّ ‫فا‬ ‫ والنرق‬.‫فنحن النرحم منشكا‬.‫ ويحلّ عليكم الخطا‬.‫قبل انينكشف الغطا‬.‫ وسل موا الينا اموركم‬.‫تعظوابغيركم‬ .‫ وعلينابالطلب‬.‫فعليكم الهرب‬.‫فساد‬ ‫ وتركنافي االرض ال‬.‫ وايتمنا االوالد‬.‫فنينا العباد‬ ‫ وا‬.‫قد اخربنا البالد‬.‫لمنبكا‬ ‫ وعقولنا‬.‫وفناصواعق‬ ‫ وسي‬.‫ وسهامنا خوارق‬.‫فخيولناسوابق‬.‫ وال منسهامنا مناص‬.‫فنا خالص‬ ‫فمالكم منسيو‬ ‫فإن انتم اطعتم امرنا وقبلتمشرطنا‬.‫ ومن طلب الحربندم‬.‫فمن طلب منا االمانسلم‬.‫ وعددنا كالرمال‬.‫كالجبال‬ ".)...( ‫في غيكمتماديتمفالتلومونا ولوموا انفسكم‬ ‫فتم امرنا و‬ ‫ وان انتم خال‬.‫كانلكم مالنا وعليكم ما علينا‬

Budge, The Chronography, vol. 2, 433-34. Brewer, “Epistola Presbiteri Iohannis,” 46-66. 876 Michael Weiers, Geschichte der Mongolen (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 2004), 128130; René Grousset, The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia, trans. Naomi Walford (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1970), 361-63. 874 875

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Christians in all the earth.”877 She thus enjoyed a high reputation among western and eastern Christians and managed to keep the Persian throne for her son Abaqa Khan (r. 1265-1283), who married Maria, the illegitimate daughter of the Byzantine Emperor, Michael VIII Palaeologus (r.1258-1282).878 All these facts, consequently, contributed to enhancing the Latin memory to reconnect Hülegü with the old fables of Prester John. However, the Crusaders’ situation at the time was not exactly rosy. The Mamluks were slowly building up their forces, Louis IX had only managed to protect Acre, and the crusader powers in the Levant were considerably diminished. Hülegü’s glamour thereby might have supported the interpretation that a Mongol Khan represented the much longed-for saviour figure of Prester John. This interpretation, however, was short-lived and lost its validity in the eyes of the Latins soon after the Mamluk forces had defeated the Mongols in the battle of ʿAyn Jālūt 658/1260.879 Furthermore, Prester John’s hope further faded away shortly when al-Malik al-Ẓāhir Rukn al-Dīn Baybars (r. 658-676/1260-1277) restored the city of Antioch from the Latin-crusading rule in 663/1268.880 ʻUmrān argues that with the death of Hülegü Khan in 1265 and Baybars’s control of Acre, the dream of Prester John’s figure or his successor among the Mongols disappeared forever, causing a sort of frustration in Europe.881 Nevertheless, King Louis IX, accompanied by the English Prince Edward I, King of England (r. 1273-1307), launched a new crusade, known as the eighth crusade, to attack Tunisia in 1270. About two months later, King Louis died, and Edward thus sought to open a new diplomatic relationship with the Mongols. These endeavours came to Budge, The Chronography, vol. 2, 419; Aigle, The Mongol Empire between Myth and Reality, 74. 878 Ibn al-ʿIbrī, Mukhtaṣar, 461; Budge, The Chronography, vol. 2, 419, 444; Abū alFidā, al-Mukhtaṣar fi Akhbār al-Bashar, vol. 4, 4-6. 879 Abū al-Fidā, al-Mukhtaṣar fi Akhbār al-Bashar, vol. 3, 305-306; Ibn al-Dawādārī, Kanz al-Durar, vol. 8, 49-53; Al-Maqrīzī, al-Sulūk, vol. 1, 516-17; ʻUmrān, alRaḥḥālah, 123. 880 Ibn al-ʿIbrī, Mukhtaṣar, 461; Budge, The Chronography, vol. 2, 419, 444; Abū alFidā, al-Mukhtaṣar fi Akhbār al-Bashar, vol. 4, 4-6. 881 ʻUmrān, al-Raḥḥālah wa al-Jughrāfīyūn, 123. 877

290

The Mongol Figure of Prester John

disappointing outcomes, and the English king had to return home after holding a truce between the Mamluks and the Crusaders of Acre in May 670/1272.882 While the legacy of Prester John failed to spark a Latin-Mongol crusade, the Mongol Khan now began to open a new chapter in the diplomatic relation with Europe. In so doing, Arghun Khan (1284-1291) sent Rabban Sauma (d. 1294), a Nestorian ambassador and monk of Turkish origin from the Uighur tribes and a Chinese citizen to the West in April 1287. He worked as a Nestorian ambassador in the Mongol cities and had intimate relations with the Mongol Khans. Sauma journeyed to the King of France Philip IV, the King of England Edward I, the Catholic Church in Rome, seeking to establish a joint Mongol-European alliance against the Mamluks.883 Therefore, Sauma’s journey perhaps was an attempt that was enough to revive the old tradition of Prester John, but Europe was no longer so excited over Prester John or Mongols as it was before. In this same period, Pope Honorius IV (1285-1287) had died on 3rd April 1287, and the European rulers were engaged in their internal problems. Nevertheless, Arghun Khan reattempted to send further envoys to the king of France and England, seeking to convince them to establish an alliance against the Mamluks. Nevertheless, these attempts of alliance were unsuccessful, as European powers were engaged in their domestic problems.884 Around this time, the crusader states in the Levant were encountering their final fate, when Sultan al-Manṣūr Sayf al-Dīn Qalāwūn (r.1289-1290) restored Tripoli in 688/1289 and his son alAshraf Khalīl (r.1290-1293) took Acre, the last crusader state in the Matthew Paris, The Flowers of History: Especially Such as Relate to the Affairs of Britain from the Beginning of the World to the Year 1307, collected by Matthew of Westminster, trans. C.D. Yonge, vol. II (London: H. G. Bohn, 1853), 450-54; AlMaqrīzī, Kitāb al-Sulūk, vol. 2, 70-71. 883 E. A. Wallis Budge, trans., The Monks of Kublai Khan: History of Life and the Travel of Rabban Sauma (London: Harrison and Sons, 1928), 1-16, 49-80; Jackson, The Mongols and the West, 165-70; Osipian, “Armenian Involvement in the Latin-Mongol Crusade,” 76-80. 884 Matthew of Westminster, The Flowers of History, collected by Matthew of Westminster, vol. 2, 482f; Budge, The Chronography, vo. 2, 470-94; Knobler, Mythology and Diplomacy in the Age of Exploration, 17-21; ʻUmrān, al-Raḥḥālah wa al-Jughrāfīyūn, 129-30. 882

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The Mongol Figure of Prester John

Levant, in 690/1291.885 Meanwhile, Arghun Khan died and was followed by Gaykhatu (r.1291-95), whose successor Ghazan Khan (r. 1295-1304) tried to ally with the Armenians and Georgians to attack Damascus and Jerusalem between 1295 and 1300.886 While these endeavours of establishing a Mongol-European alliance took place, the late-thirteenth century accounts were echoing and reworking the same above reports of Prester John and his assassin, Genghis Khan. For instance, Roger Bacon (d. after 1292), an English Franciscan teacher and philosopher, met William of Rubruck in Europe and wrote on his authority about Prester John in his geographical section of his Opus Majus. He also had the same suspicion that William had about the fallacious things spread about that Prester John. At the same time, Prester John was in most writings received as being a title assigned to a Mongol or Asian ruler rather than being a real person.887 This dual perception can be founded in the popular travelogues account of Marco Polo (fl. 1271-95, d. 1342), who identified Prester John as Ung Khan and later referred to him as a man who had a political struggle with a certain “King of Gold.” Besides, Marco Polo added further legendary and fantastic annexes to the story of Prester John that combined the above reports and his image in the earlier-mentioned story of the Parzival at the beginning of the thirteenth century888 as being the son of the Holy Grail.889

Ibn al-Dawādārī, Kanz al-Durar, vol. 8, 283-84, 308-10; Al-Maqrīzī, al-Sulūk, vol. 2, 211-12, 223-25. 886 Ibn al-Dawādārī, Kanz al-Durar, vol. 8, 375-76; vol. 8, 12-31; Ahmed M. Sheir, “AlTaḥāluf al-Armanī al-Maghūli Ḍid al-Mamālīk, 699-703/1299-1303,” in Biḥūth fī Tārīkh al-’usūr al Wusṭa, ed. Moḥammad ’Aūaḍ and ʻAly al-Saīyd (Kafr al-Dāwar: Bostān al-Maʾrifah, 2016), 533–54; Osipian, “Armenian Involvement in the LatinMongol Crusade,” 93-100; Dashdondog, The Mongols and the Armenians, 184-203; Jackson, The Mongols and the West, 170-73. 887 Roger Bacon, The Opus Majus, trans. Robert Belle Burke, vol. 1 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016), 384-87; Keagan Brewer, ed., “Roger Bacon, Opus Majus,” in PJLIS (Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate, 2015), 166–68. 888 This perception has been discussed above, see chapter three. 889 Keagan Brewer, ed., “Marco Polo, Livres des merveilles du mond,” in PJLIS, trans. Keagan Brewer (Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate, 2015), 171–87; Ronald Latham, trans., The Travels of Marco Polo (London: Penguin Books, 1958), 93-6, 105-06, 1657, 201, 315-17; Morgan, “Prester John and the Mongols,” 162-63, 166-67. 885

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The Mongol Figure of Prester John

These changes and transformations in the reception of Prester John allowed his figure to survive in the western worldview. By the end of the thirteenth century, the hope of Prester John faded in Asia, but his mythical personage and his name were assigned to the Christian emperor of Ethiopia by the beginning of the fourteenth century. According to the vague medieval thought and the composer of the Prester John Letter, Prester John lived in the vast Three Indias. This, in turn, allowed his figure to be seen and received in some other parts of these Three Indias. Accordingly, when Europe received an embassy from Ethiopia in 1306, Prester John’s title began to be assigned to the Christian Ethiopian Empire.890 This would thus open a further chapter in the Prester John legend and its impact on the Mamluk-European relationship/conflict into the early sixteenth century; the subject no doubt be further treated and investigated in future scholarship. 7. CONCLUSION Prester John was a legendary response to the crisis of the crusading movement, which intensively appeared during the Fifth Crusade. While King David of Prester John never reached Egypt during the Fifth Crusade, widespread belief in the likelihood of his aid persisted. However, the legend and its promotion disappeared during the Sixth Crusade of Frederick II, who restored crusader rule over Jerusalem through diplomatic negotiations with the Ayyubid sultan al-Kāmil in 1229, which led to a ten-year truce. During this period, European sources have realised the factuality of the Mongols in proportion with their invasions of Russia, Hungary and other parts of Eastern Europe. Yet, the Mongol treatment of repeated attack on the eastern gates of Europe refreshed the legendaryapocalyptic anticipation of Prester John and his expected help. This reinvigorated memory occurred alongside the Ayyubid restoration of Salvadore, “The Ethiopian Age of Exploration: Prester John’s Discovery of Europe, 1306-1458,” 593–627; Kurt, “The Search for Prester John, a Projected Crusade and the Eroding Prestige of Ethiopian Kings, 307–320; Hamilton, “An Ethiopian Embassy to Europe, c. 1310,” 197–206; Verena Krebs, “Windows onto the World: Culture Contact and Western Christian Art in Ethiopia,1402-1543,” (PhD-Dissertation, University of Konstanz, 2014), 9-15.

890

293

The Mongol Figure of Prester John

Jerusalem in 1144. Consequently, Pope Innocent IV called for the council of Lyons in 1245, in which he decided to dispatch the first Euro-papal missions to the Mongols. The papal missions provided a new legendary structure around the figure of Prester John, integrating the Mongols into the European dream of exploration through a western-eastern alliance against the Muslims. The first missionary reports reflected the Mongol origins of Prester John, whose Mongol people defeated him and conquered his land in the early thirteenth century. Syriac sources such as Ibn al-ʻIbrī report the roots of the connection between Prester John and Ung Khan, which was the core of the involvement of the Mongols in the European dream of expansion through that legendary power of Prester John. Likewise, the origin of that Prester John, who was the Christian Ung Khan, can be observed in similar legendary construction through some Muslim sources. However, the status was changed entirely after the defeat of the Mongols in ʻAyn Jālūt in 1260. By the late thirteenth century, the balance of power had changed, and the Persian Mongol (Ilkhanate) Empire initiated embassies to the European powers, who by then – occupied with their own internal affairs – had long since lost interest in allying with Mongols. Despite the downfall of the last crusader state in the Levant, Acre, in 1291, the legend continued in the imagination of the western worldview. By the start of the fourteenth century, the figure of Prester John was connected to the Ethiopian Emperor.

294

CONCLUSION

The belief in Prester John and his legendary power and kingdom sparked Western imagination from the mid-twelfth century to the late Middle Ages. Advocates and preachers employed the Prester John legend to help galvanize the crusading movement. By considering both Latin Crusading and Eastern Arabic narratives and sources, this study has examined the legend of Prester John as a practical example of how it played a part in shaping the course of war and peace in the context of the crusading movement. In this regard, the work explored Oriental aspects of the legend and its entanglements with its Western and crusading perception, revealing how the legend was weaponised to boost crusading enthusiasm. This sort of weaponisation and instrumentalisation reached its zenith during the Fifth Crusade. The legend and its legacy were employed to promote a Western-Mongol alliance against the Ayyubids and later Mamluks of Egypt and Syria from the mid-twelfth century to the late-thirteenth century. The present study proved that the Prester John was a mythical conception, having its roots in the eastern-Christian legends, entangled with Alexandrian, eastern wonders and Arabic imaginations, inspired by the crusading movement and other contemporary conflicts in central Asia. Moreover, this work has assumed that the legendary Prester John first connected to the king of Ethiopia in the figure of the confusing Prester John of the Three Indias. While this confused perception seems to have dawned in the twelfth century, European sources and travellers’ accounts first realised this association in the early fourteenth century, when the figure of Prester John was totally ascribed to the Ethiopian emperor.

Conclusion

This confusion probably was due to the inaccessibility of Abyssinia to Europeans and the old medieval perception of India during the time of the Crusades. This study has presented a medieval European conception of the other during the Crusades reflecting the European political ambitions of expansion. In this context, Prester John was a crusading European notion of the Eastern alterity that laid the groundwork for the European expansion movements afterwards down into the modern era. In the present work, the legend’s development during the Crusades and its impact, between Eastern and Western entanglements, reception and perception, can be categorised into five phases. The first is “the pre-origin background of the legend” that goes back to the seventhcentury Syriac Pseudo-Methodius of the Last Emperor, who would overcome Islam and restore the kingdom of God over Jerusalem. In the late seventh century, the last Christian monarch who would rescue Christendom was received in the figure of a Byzantine emperor with Ethiopian and Alexandrian origins as an early Christian mythicolegendary response to Islamic expansion in the seventh century. The figure of that Christian saviour often appeared in response to conflict with Islam or a Muslim ruler. When the Fatimid ruler al-Ḥākim biAmr-Allāh destroyed the Holy Sepulchre in 1009, the figure of the Last Emperor was revived in the person of Emperor Charlemagne. According to Ademar’s chronicle, Charlemagne would have appeared as an apocalyptical figure of the Last Christian Emperor who would overthrow the Muslims before the apocalypse. In this framework, the crusading figure of Prester John can be considered as a developed figure of the same last-Christian king or emperor who would assist the Crusaders to exterminate the Muslims, thereby maintaining Christian Crusader rule over the Holy Land. Both legends were raised in response to the conflict with Islam and to defend the Sepulchre and Holy Land. Nevertheless, the origin of the name of the legendary Prester John seems to have derived from the name of the first-century John the Presbyter/the Evangelist. We can interpret the defining context of the twelfth-century Crusader-Muslim conflict as “the phase of the legend’s invention,” in which imagination became entangled with real happenings, forming the figure of the priest-king John. The fall of Edessa into the hands of 296

Conclusion

ʿImād al-Dīn Zankī in 1144 was the actual event that raised hopes for the appearance of Prester John. Yet the twelfth-century kernel of the legend first appeared thanks to the report of the alleged Indian patriarch, John of India. He visited Rome in 1122 and spread a fanciful description of St. Thomas’ shrine and his Christian followers in India. The construction of the legend thus had its prehistory in the early Christian legends and apocalyptical traditions alongside the twelfthcentury tradition of St. Thomas that reached Europe in that year, 1122. Consequently, the flames of the legend sparked and circulated with the fall of Edessa to Zankī in 1144, when Hugh of Jabala, the Kingdom of Jerusalem’s envoy to Pope Eugenius III, presented an oral report of the legendary figure of Prester John in Viterbo in 1145. This oral report first appeared in a written form by Hugh’s witness, Otto of Freising, whose account became the nucleus of the legend’s spread over space and time in Europe into the late Middle Ages. According to Hugh’s narrative preserved in Otto’s Chronica, the imagined Nestorian king, Prester John, was rich and powerful enough to assist the Crusaders in the Holy Land. The legend was most likely a distorted construction of the actual battle of Qaṭwān between the Central-Asian Qarakhitai Yelü Dashi and the Muslim Seljuk Sultan Sinjar in 1141. The figure (or literary persona) of Prester John – intended to inspire and intensify crusading zeal after the shocking collapse of Edessa – allowed the demand for a powerful Christian king capable of delivering a crushing response to reach its fever pitch. In this context, Prester John emerged as a fictional historical counterpart to Yelü Dashi, though Westernised and Christianised in name and intention. Hugh sought to puncture the faith of European Christians through the powerful avatar of that alleged Prester John, choosing an extreme time in the Islamic-crusading conflict in the Holy land after the collapse of Edessa. Furthermore, the holy position of Edessa among Eastern Christians and Franks played a part in spreading rumours of the legend, believing in a divine saviour that had materialised in the figure of Prester John. This work examined the interconnectedness between the legend of Prester John and the old Edessene tradition of King Abgar, who was blessed by Christ, creating belief in the divine protection of the city. In parallel with the first oral narrative of the legend, the Syriac priest 297

Conclusion

Mār Yūḥannā, who was an outstanding sanctified eminence, freed the Christians of Edessa from the captivity of the Muslim commander Zankī. This was a further temporal coincidence between the figure of Mār Yūḥannā, whose miracles spread on account of his attempts to protect Edessa and its Christians, and Prester John, whose figure was created to encourage the Crusaders to defend the city. The legend was thus a medieval Christian perception of the vast Orient in the figure of the Christianized and Latinized priest-king John. As a consequence, Prester John’s marvellous oriental kingdom resides in the Three Indias, a typical medieval utopia of the land of the awaited king who would revive the rule of Christendom and protect the Holy Land. This legendary-powerful image of Prester John was the basis of the further exaggerations and fables spread in Europe and among the Crusaders throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The figure of the eastern Christian priest-king revealed the entangled history and oriental origin of that obscure eastern Christian monarch. The Prester John legend also influenced the spiritual, physical and geographical conception of the medieval world. The legendary geographical formulation of the kingdom of Prester John was designed throughout the alleged Prester John Letter, ca. 1165-70. Prester John stimulated the enthusiasm of crusader expectations of a possible ally, presenting himself as an ideal ruler and superior of the kings on the earth as he claimed in his Letter to Manuel I Komnenus, the Byzantine Emperor. The arrival and circulation of this Letter in Europe represented the third stage of the legend’s development, the phase of “Creating an eastern wondrous Christianised Kingdom of Prester John.” In this phase, the Letter was an elaborate construction of the worth and powerful kingdom of Prester John in the Three Indias, abutting the Muslims’ lands from the Far East. The present work explored how this Letter also reflected the crisis of the crusader states and the necessity for a mighty king to defend Jerusalem and vanquish the Muslims. The Letter also mirrored the internal crusading divergence and their struggles with the Byzantine Empire, revealing the anti-Greek prejudices of the crusading sources. The composer of the Letter opened it with an inaugural epistolary prelude, followed by insulting words to the Byzantine Emperor Manuel Komnenus. This humiliating statement was similar to the blaming tone of the crusading 298

Conclusion

sources toward the Byzantine Emperor, charging him the responsibility of the failure of the Second Crusade and other crusading endeavours in the East. Furthermore, the Letter reflected the political schism between Frederick Barbarossa and Pope Alexander III. It is interesting to note that Otto of Freising, uncle of Frederick Barbarossa, first wrote the legend. The Letter was also translated/composed by Christian of Mainz, Barbarossa’s chancellor. Thus, we can see that the legend of Prester John and the Letter were spread by persons from within Frederick Barbarossa’s court. This study analysed several entanglements and interferences between the imperial papal schism and the legendary figure of Prester John and his kingdom and measured the reception of the Letter among the contemporary accounts and chronicles in the West. It appears that the legend and the Letter found different responses among the European audience, ranging between belief and disbelief in Prester John and his so-called kingdom of the Three Indias. The Letter was also the source of further wonders, epics, and fanciful literary works about the paradisiacal East, such as the early-thirteenth century Parzival of Wolfram of Eschenbach. At the same time, the Letter carried strong parallels and imaginative entanglements with similar Oriental accounts about the wonders of the East. The Letter presented the kingdom of Prester John in an identical form and a reworked construction of wonders of the East and India in the so-called Pseudo-Callisthenes of Alexander the Great Romance. Fantasies involved in the Letter are a medieval exemplification of that Pseudo-Callisthenes with the recurrence of the same mysterious lands, exotic animals and unusual creatures, kings and palaces, although in a medieval Latinised and Christianised fashion. Taking this form, the Latin Christian reconstruction of the Alexandrian wonders, which coincided with the Crusades and was motived by crusading zeal, presented a new perception of the semimythical version of Alexander the Great Romance that was also redesigned in Jewish, Syriac, Arabo-Islamic and Coptic forms. While the Letter reflected the medieval European Alexandrian powers and wonders of Prester John, it combined several other imaginary presentations of the East in Arabic accounts. By examining 299

Conclusion

and analysing Arabic and Eastern Christian accounts like those of alIdrīsī (d. 1165-6) Abū al-Makārim (d. 1209) and the Arabian Nights, the present study uncovered other hitherto unexamined entanglements of the legend of Prester John with Eastern Christian and Arabic stories retold or reconstructed during the time of the Crusades. The imaginative description of the Prester John kingdom in the vague Three Indias was comparable to several imaginary reports of Eastern and Indian kings, lands and seas presented by the twelfth-century Muslim geographer al-Idrīsī, in his Nuzhat al-mushtāq (Tabula Rogeriana). Al-Idrīsī presented large imaginative kingdom(s) in the extended sphere from southeastern Africa (Nubia and Abyssinia) to the Farthest India and China, which match the imaginary medieval Three Indias of Prester John. Al-Idrīsī described and depicted Christian kings and kingdoms, hybrid animal-people, precious stones, the land of minerals, animals and people like those of the Prester John kingdom. One of the kings mentioned by al-Idrīsī was an Indian Christian king identified as Jābah (possibly read as Jānah/John), whose golden throne, lands, islands and churches resembled those included in the imagined Prester John kingdom. Some of al-Idrīsī’s geographical imagination was echoed in the thirteenth-century cosmographic work of al-Qazwīnī (d. 1283) who also reported relevant tales of Christian kings in India and Abyssinia. In this perspective, the similarities between the realm of Prester John in the Letter and al-Idrīsī work open the question of the extent to which the work of al-Idrīsī was known in Sicily, Italy and Europe at the time. Al-Idrīsī composed most of his work material on the authority of the information and itineraries of people, travellers or merchants that he hired to collect information for his book and those he interviewed in the Italian harbours. This consequently shows the pattern of information transmission in Europe that the true composer behind Prester John may also have used to form the alleged Letter and kingdom of Prester John. This strongly suggests that the same wonders and legends about the East were perhaps known to Europe at the time. Furthermore, the Letter seems to have cited information about St. Daniel from medieval Jewish writings, like those of Eldad the Danite and Benjamin of Tudela. Further interesting imaginative 300

Conclusion

entanglements between Prester John and the Arabic-oriental-Indian spheres can be founded in the Arabian Nights. Like the Letter, the Arabian Nights contained a mixture of Greek, Alexandrian, Indian, Syriac and Arabic influences, which might have been reconstructed in a Latinized-Christianized mode in the Letter. Among the most famous tales of the Arabian Nights are the voyages of Sindbad, which contain relevant descriptions of Indian domains. Sindbad spoke of the same Brahman subjects of Prester John and a number of kings, islands, people, exotic creatures and animals like those included in the kingdom of Prester John. The twelfth-century Arabic-Coptic account of Abū al-Makārim provided an apparent description of the Nubian-Abyssinian Christian kings, whose domains are comparable to that of Prester John and his legendary domain and power. According to Abū al-Makārim, kings of Nubia and Abyssinian priests celebrated the liturgy with sincerity, and the Nubian kings were regarded as priest-kings, “al-Malik al-Qiddīs,” which was the same title assigned to Prester John. One of those kings was the Nubian king of al-Maqurra (r. ca. 1150-1190), whose name was George and who lived at the same time that Prester John was presumed to exist. According to the mythico-geographic localisation of Prester John’s kingdom, those kings of Nubia and Abyssinia were part of the larger Indian kingdom of Prester John. This suggests that the Christians of Nubia and Ethiopia were likewise incorporated into the Three Indias of Prester John. While this confusing perception seems to have happened in the twelfth century, European sources, travellers’ accounts and missionaries first realised this association in the early fourteenth century, when the figure of Prester John was totally ascribed to the Ethiopian emperor. During the Fifth Crusade against Egypt, the legend was extensively promoted and developed, establishing a new framework for the legend during the crusade. This phase can be categorised as the “reconstruction of the legend in the figure of King David, Son of Prester John,” based on several entanglements with Arabic, Syriac and Coptic prophecies, as well as the Mongols’ advance in Central Asia. While the Fifth Crusaders fought to gain control of Damietta in northern Egypt, they received text(s) written in Arabic predicting the arrival of the so-called King David, son of Prester John. 301

Conclusion

According to Jacques de Vitry and Oliver of Paderborn, while they were besieging Damietta, they received an Arabic prophetic text predicting the imminent arrival of King David. This text was translated to Latin under the title “Relatio de Davide” and sent to Europe. Rumours about the coming of King David reshaped the course of the Fifth Crusade, increasing the Crusaders’ desire to control Egypt. This led the Crusader leaders of the Fifth Crusade, especially the party of the Papal legate Pelagius, to refuse a peace proposal sent by al-Kāmil of Egypt. Belief in the imminent arrival of King David’s assistance was also evident in Jacques’ and Oliver’s claims that the Muslims were in fear of the power of King David and sent letters and messengers to make peace with the Crusaders, who refused. The development of the legend during the Fifth Crusade reveals further interconnectedness of the legend with similar Arabic Christian visions/prophecies. This study also demonstrated that the legend of a Christian king who would come to vanquish the Muslim rule of Egypt and the Levant/Greater Syria (Bilād al-Shām) had its origins in SyriacArabic and Coptic prophecies that first appeared in response to the Arabo-Muslim conquest of Egypt in 19-20AH/640-42AD. The present work treated the relationship between the prophecy of King David and the ninth-century Syriac prophecy of Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq that predicted the conquest of Egypt and the Levant by a certain Christian king. Also, further roots and origins of the legend were found in the Coptic prophecies of St. Ṣamuel of Qalamūn and the Athanāsiyūs, which predicted the end of Arabo-Muslim domination in Egypt at the hands of an apocalyptic Christian king. Similar to the previous connections between the legendary power of Prester John and the Christian Abyssinian kings, the King David of the Fifth Crusade era was comparable to the old tradition of the Solomonic rule of King David of Ethiopia. The legend of that Abyssinian King David, little son of King Solomon, was reworked in the Middle Ages on the authority of the Arabic-Coptic and Abyssinian prophetic account of the Kébra Nagast. All these prophetic texts were contextually intermingled with the sweeping victories of Genghis Khan in Central Asia and against the Muslim Khawārazmian state in tandem with the Fifth Crusade. The victories of the Mongols were attributed to the figure of King David 302

Conclusion

in the Relatio de Davide. Nevertheless, in reality, this text recounted the Mongol advance under the leadership of Genghis Khan but replaced the Mongol khan for King David of the Prester John legend. While the Muslims feared a real foe in the Mongols, the Crusaders had converted that foe and his victories into the imaginary Christian King David. Belief in the imminent aid of Prester John or his son King David spread quickly, reaching Pope Honorius III, who then forwarded the letter of Pelagius, the Papal Legate, about the glories of King David, to other European rulers. In this context, the promotion of the legend during the Fifth Crusade gave added impetus to a long-held crusader hope, held since the time of the campaigns of King Amaury I between 1164 and 1169, to conquer Egypt. The Fifth Crusade thus stood as the peak of the legend’s influence throughout the crusading movement, producing a new impulse for the legend. This development of the legend indicated the Crusaders’ desire for expansion of the Latin-Christian dominion in the East. Nevertheless, the same legendary belief was among the foremost reasons for the disastrous fiasco of the Fifth Crusade. After a long wait in vain for King David, the Crusaders advanced south from Damietta, which had fallen to them in November 1219, to Cairo, when they were defeated by the Muslims and forced to leave Egypt in July 1221. While King David of Prester John never reached Egypt during the Fifth Crusade, widespread belief in the likelihood of his aid persisted. However, the legend and its promotion disappeared during the Sixth Crusade of Frederick II, especially after the latter restored crusader rule over Jerusalem through diplomatic negotiations with the Ayyubid sultan al-Kāmil in 1229, which led to a ten-year truce down to 1239. During this time, while little was done to spread the Prester John legend, the Mongols were still regularly perceived as a part of King David’s army. In response to the Mongols’ attacks on Eastern Europe, sources began to state that those unknown people, the Mongols, defeated their lord Prester John and conquered his land. This confusing perception and the desire to ally with the Mongols, especially after their withdrawal from Eastern Europe, impelled Pope Innocent IV and European powers to send missionary embassies to baptise the Mongols and ally with them. These embassies and their 303

Conclusion

accounts formed a new phase of the “legend’s involvement in creating a Latin-Mongol Crusade,” which was the last chapter in the entangled developments of the legend during the Crusades. With the first papal-European missionaries sent to the Mongols via Lawrence of Portugal and John of Plano Carpine, a new Mongol origin of Prester John emerged and circulated in the West. The Papal missions provided a new legendary structure around the figure of Prester John, integrating the Mongols into the European dream of exploration. The fabricated Mongol origin of Prester John is traceable to the Nestorians who lived among the Mongols, and it was believed that Ung Khan of the Keraits, whose vassal was Genghis Khan, was the Christian King John. The core of the Nestorian tradition of this King John was preserved in the main-thirteenth century Syriac chronicle of Ibn al-ʻIbrī. This Nestorian representation of the Christian Ung Khan, whose vassal Genghis Khan killed him and conquered his land, was reconstructed in the accounts of Carpine, Simon of Quentin, William of Rubruck and other contemporary authors and travellers. Although these accounts imagined the Mongols as the people who defeated their lord Prester John, further mutual attempts to establish a Crusader-Mongol alliance endured. By the late thirteenth century, European powers were consumed by internecine struggles, and the crusader states had problems of their own as they struggled to survive attacks from the Muslim Mamluks. European sources continued to re-tell narratives of how the Mongols had conquered Prester John. Nestorians who served the Mongols successfully Christianised some Mongol Khans like Güyük Khan and Hülegü, which helped to revive the hope of creating a European-Mongol alliance against the Mamluks in Egypt and Syria. Nevertheless, the Mamluk Qalāwūnid dynasty subdued the last crusader states, Tripoli in 1289 and Acre in 1291. This, in turn, led to the end of approximately two centuries of hopeful crusading fantasies concerning the coming of Prester John. Yet the quest for Prester John went on to live another life in Ethiopia in the early fourteenth century when the figure of Prester John was connected to the Ethiopian emperor, the belief that persisted down to the sixteenth century.

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347

INDEX

A

Abaqa Khan (r. 1265-1283), 290 Abbasid Caliph al-Nāṣir (r. 575– 622/1180–1225), 247, 248 Ābū al-Makārim, 2, 14, 35, 189193, 200, 300, 301 Abū Shāmah, 215, 262 Abyssinia, 12, 14, 24, 40- 43, 154, 168, 174, 175, 177, 181, 187-192, 195-201, 209, 238, 300 Abyssinia/Ethiopia (alḤabashah), 16, 20, 22, 27, 36, 40, 61, 149, 150, 159, 177, 188, 189, 194, 196, Africa, 12, 14, 19, 21-22, 27, 40, 41, 159, 174, 185- 186, 188, 194, 200, 201 Al-Āmīr Fakhr al-Dīn, 255 Al-Ashraf Khalīl (r.1290-1293), 227, 291 Al-Ghazālī (c. 1058-1111), 153 Al-Idrīsī, 2, 6, 13–14, 35, 172– 179, 181–184, 186, 195, 202, 300, 305, 307 Al-Juwaynī (d. 683/1284), 89 Al-Khiḍr, 165, 318 Al-Kindī (c. 800-870), 153 Al-Manṣūr Qalāwūn (r. 12891290). 291

Al-Muʻaẓẓam-ʻIas of Damascus (r. 615-24/1218-27), 213 Al-Qazwīnī (d. 1283), 175, 179– 181, 186, 189, 300, 305, 307 Al-Ṣāliḥ Najm al-Dīn Ayyūb (638-647/1240-1249), 262 Alaanar (Transoxiana), 245 Alberic de Trois-Fontaines, 16, 110, 143, 148, 150, 224, 256, 306 Aleppo, 85, 89, 105, 218, 223, 229, 241, 288, 335, 341 Alexander Romance, 13, 34, 39, 60, 63, 153–157, 159–160, 164–166, 318, 323, 325, 341– 342 Alexander the Great, 13, 26, 34, 39, 55–56, 59–61, 63, 113, 151, 154–157, 159–166, 170, 173, 179, 184, 239, 249, 281, 299, 309, 316, 319, 323, 325, 331, 345–346 Anglo-Saxon chronicle, 20, 66, 316 Apocalypse, 10, 26, 33, 57–58, 60–62, 227–229, 233–236, 296, 310, 317–318, 320, 332–333, 346 Arabian Nights, 14, 35, 154, 184–187, 300–301, 334, 343 Archbishop Conrad, 108, 120

Index

Arghun Khan (1284-1291), 291– 292 Aristotle (d. 322 BC), 155–157, 162–163, 171, 313, 319–320, 329, 331 Athanāsiyūs the Apostolic, 15, 35, 204, 235- 236, 302 Ayyubid, 2, 5–6, 35–36, 212– 215, 217–219, 222, 226, 251– 252, 255, 261–262, 266, 273, 284, 293, 295, 303 ʻAyn Jālūt, 294

Buddhism, 99 Bukhara, 245 Byzantine Emperor, 1, 12–13, 18, 33–34, 59, 61, 69, 77, 103, 107, 110, 112, 114–116, 118, 124, 129, 151, 157, 174, 234, 236, 290, 296, 298–299

C

Cairo, 10, 14, 16, 18, 41, 46, 51, 80, 89, 99, 119, 165, 173, 185, 188, 191, 196, 199, 211–213, 219, 226–227, 229, 232, 245, 249, 255, 284, 303, 305–307, 311–312, 314–315, 318, 326, 329–330, 338, 341 Caliph of Baghdād, 219, 222, 247 Caliphate, 15, 79–80, 287 Calixtus II, 11, 67–68, 70 Central Asia, 14, 20, 24, 60, 66, 79–80, 90–96, 183, 185, 203, 241, 243, 245, 250, 268, 270, 283, 289, 295, 301–302, 324, 328, 333, 346 China, 42, 58, 82, 92–94, 98, 168, 176, 182, 245, 264, 286, 300, 309, 317, 320, 342 Christian I of Buch, 120 Christian of Mainz, 13, 108, 120–122, 299 Christian prophecy, 1–2, 10, 15, 29 Christianity, 9, 25, 31, 34, 38, 42–43, 58, 60–62, 72, 83, 86, 94, 98, 104, 117, 147, 165, 182, 185, 195, 221, 228, 233, 243, 249, 259, 264, 266–267, 271– 272, 275–276, 289, 324, 337– 339, 342 Church of St. Eustorgius, 125

B

Babylon, 41, 57, 76, 79–80, 156, 169, 207, 223, 234, 249 Baghdād, 45, 71, 73, 79–80, 94, 96, 168, 173, 176, 185–186, 212, 216, 219, 222–223, 230– 232, 242–243, 247–249, 275, 287–288, 306–307, 311–312, 328 Baldwin of Boulogne/ King Baldwin I (1098-1100), 82 Battle of Legnano (1176), 133 Battle of ʿInab, 117 Baybars (r. 658-676/1260-1277), 290 Benjamin of Tudela (d. ca. 1173), 154, 168–170, 300, 306, 310, 341 Bernardus Noricus, 111 Bertha of Sulzbach (d. 1159), 129 Bibric, 109, 122, 162 Bilād al-Shām (the Levant), 196, 213, 302 Bohemond IV of Antioch (r. 1219-33), 241 Brahmans, 73, 113, 157, 160– 161, 186–187, 337 350

Index

D

Cologne, 6, 22, 59, 122–126, 128–129, 155, 185, 209–210, 227, 321, 329, 335, 342 Conrad I of Wittelsbach, 120 Copt, 14–15, 30, 35, 84, 191, 196–197, 200, 202, 232–233, 237 Coptic, 1–2, 5, 13–16, 29, 154, 188–192, 194–197, 199, 210, 227–228, 233, 235–237, 252, 299, 301–302, 318, 324, 333, 337 Council of Lyon, 16, 251, 253, 262, 294 Crusade, 2–3, 7–12, 15–17, 19, 25–26, 28–30, 32–36, 38–41, 58, 61–63, 66–67, 72, 77–79, 82–86, 93, 100–101, 103–107, 110–112, 116–121, 138, 140– 141, 151, 171–172, 188, 195– 196, 199, 201–213, 215–218, 220–222, 225–226, 228, 230, 232–233, 235, 237, 240, 243, 249–258, 261–263, 267, 271– 274, 287, 290–293, 295–296, 299–304, 309–310, 313–315, 318, 320, 322–324, 326, 328– 333, 335–346 Crusader, 1–2, 6, 9, 11–12, 15, 25, 29, 32, 35, 38–39, 41, 60, 63, 65, 77, 82–85, 89, 91–92, 99–103, 105–107, 116–119, 133, 141, 168, 188, 196, 199– 200, 203–206, 208–215, 217– 218, 220–222, 224–229, 231, 235, 237, 241, 243, 245, 249– 252, 254, 257, 261–262, 266, 272, 275, 283, 290–291, 293– 294, 296–298, 301–304, 315, 317, 320, 325, 329, 331

Damascus, 15, 51, 105, 120, 156, 213–214, 216, 220, 222–223, 228–230, 232, 236, 241, 255, 292, 306, 312, 317, 328, 335 Damietta (Egyptian city), 15, 203, 205–207, 209–211, 213– 223, 225–231, 235, 237, 243, 251–252, 301–303, 310, 322, 324 De Adventu Patriarchae Indorum, 11, 67–68 Dhū al-Qarnayn (QurʾānicProphet)/ Alexander Dhū alQarnayn, 164- 166 Doquz Khatun (d. 1265), 289

E

East, 1, 5, 9–13, 18, 21–22, 25– 26, 29–34, 37–43, 54–59, 61, 63, 67, 72–74, 76–82, 86, 90– 92, 94, 98–101, 105, 107–108, 117, 119–120, 123, 125, 147, 153–155, 159, 164–174, 178– 179, 181, 184, 188, 194–196, 200–202, 205, 207–208, 218, 220, 230, 234–235, 239, 242, 249–250, 254, 259, 261–262, 289, 298–300, 303, 313, 318– 319, 323–325, 327, 334, 341– 343, 345–346 Eastern Christians, 15, 23, 29, 41, 60, 65, 83, 94, 116, 138, 141, 189, 194–196, 201–202, 208, 236, 259, 277, 280, 290, 297 Edessa, 11–12, 34, 50, 54, 56, 59, 65–66, 71–72, 74, 77–78, 81– 88, 90–91, 98–101, 104–107, 117–118, 141, 213, 296–298, 311, 328, 335 351

Index

G

Egypt, 2, 4, 15–16, 35, 39, 41, 43, 49, 61, 80, 84, 119–120, 150, 169, 176–177, 189–192, 195–197, 199–201, 203–204, 206–207, 209–211, 213–214, 216, 219, 221–222, 225–227, 230, 232–239, 242, 248–250, 252, 254, 259, 262, 271–272, 274–276, 293, 295, 301–304, 306–307, 330, 333, 337, 344 Eldad travels, 25, 166-168 Eljigidei, 271, 273, 275

Gaza, 261–262 Genghis Khan (1206-1227), 6, 17, 20, 241–246, 248–250, 265–266, 268–270, 274–275, 279–286, 292, 302–304 Geoffroy of Breuil, 111, 124– 125, 142, 310 Gerald of Wales (d. 1223), 56, 142, 204, 310 German Crusade, 121, 333 Gog and Magog, 55, 59–61, 113, 154–155, 163–164, 179, 317, 324 Gondophares, 71–72, 112–114, 147, 320 Gospel, 41, 56, 62, 71, 75, 80 Güyük Khan (r. 1246-1248), 264, 271–273, 304

F

Far East, 1, 11–12, 39–40, 58, 67, 91–92, 101, 159, 168, 172– 173, 178, 181, 184, 188, 196, 298 Fatimids (Persians), 236 Fifth crusade, 2, 9, 15–16, 25–26, 35–36, 38, 41, 63, 140, 188, 201–213, 215, 217–218, 221– 222, 225–226, 230, 232–233, 237, 240, 243, 250–252, 254– 255, 257, 293, 295, 301–303, 320, 322, 324, 329, 337, 343– 344 First Crusade, 79, 104 Franks, 35, 38–39, 49, 54, 57, 61, 77, 83–84, 87, 116, 195–199, 215, 272, 297 Frederick I Barbarossa (r. 11551190), 34, 104, 116, 143, 258 Frederick II (r. 1215-1250), 36, 116, 143, 210, 217–218, 220, 222, 225, 235, 248, 253–258, 261–263, 273, 293, 303, 314, 322, 337–338, 342, 344–345 Fusṭaṭ, 80

H

Hamadan, 74, 79, 97, 245 Heinrich Boehmer, 131 Hethoum (of Armenia, r. 12261270), 271 Holy Grail, 146–147, 292, 345 Holy Three Kings, 6, 127 Hospitaller, 119, 197, 215–216 Hugh, bishop of Jabala, 11, 83 Hülegü Khan (r. 1256-65), 290 Hulna, 68–69, 71, 73, 112 Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq, 15, 26, 35, 203, 228, 231–232, 252, 302, 323 Huns, 95, 156

I

Ibn al-Āthīr, 80, 92–96

352

Index

Ibn al-Dawādārī (d. 1335/36), 36, 213–214, 227, 284–285, 287, 290, 292, 311, 347 Ibn al-Jawzī, 93–95, 183, 312 Ibn al-Mashṭūb (d. 619/1222), 213–214, 220 Ibn al-Wardī, 177, 183, 305 Ibn al-ʿIbrī (Bar Hebraios), 17 Ibn Sīnā/Avicenna (c. 980-1037), 153, 171 Ibn Wāṣil, 212–215, 218, 220– 221, 245–246, 250, 255, 261– 262, 312, 347 ʿImād al-Dīn Zankī, 65, 77, 82, 297 Innocent IV (r. 1243-1254), 16, 251, 253, 262–263, 294, 303 Iskandar Nāma, 164–165 Islam, 9–10, 22, 25, 31, 34, 38, 58–59, 61, 74, 81, 90, 93, 117, 164–165, 179, 182, 185, 196, 206, 213, 224, 228, 263, 284, 296, 329, 336, 338–340, 342, 346–347 Israel, 166–167, 170, 212, 240– 241, 244, 249

John of Plano Carpine, John of Plano Carpine, 16, 36, 253, 264, 279, 304 Joinville (French chronicler), 271, 273–276, 308, 316, 342 Julius Valerius (3rd-4th centuries), 156

K

Karak (Castle), 215–216, 218 Karakorum, 264, 271–273, 276, 278 Kébra Nagast, 16, 201, 237–240, 243, 252, 302, 309 Keraits, 20, 269, 283, 304 Kerala, 72 Khawārazmian state (Chavarsmisan), 14, 302 Khitans, 92–93, 95, 183 King Amalric I (r. 1163-1174), 86 King Amaury I of Jerusalem, 118, 196, 303 King Andrew II of Hungary (r. 1205-35), 206 King Baldwin III (r. 1143-63), 77, 105, 118 King Baldwin IV (1174-1185), 86 King Conrad III (r. 1138-1152), 13, 76, 105, 129 King Darius, 157 King David, son of Prester John, 14–16, 22, 26, 35–36, 200–201, 203–252, 256–257, 268–270, 275, 279–280, 283, 289, 293, 301–303 King Edward I of England (r. 1273-1307), 290- 291 King Henry VI, 121

J

Jacobite Christians, 150 Jacques de Vitry (d. 1240), 15, 35, 207–209, 211–212, 217, 219–222, 229–231, 235, 240– 241, 249, 257, 280, 283, 302, 311–312, 320, 324, 344 Jin dynasty, 92 John Komnenus (r. 1118-43), 77 John of Brienne, King of Jerusalem, 205, 215, 217–218, 222, 254, 337

353

Index

King Louis IX (1226-1270), 16, 271, 273, 275–276, 290 King Louis VII, 104–105, 117– 118 king Porus, 157, 160, 162–163 King Solomon, 16, 200, 237– 239, 302 King William I of Sicily (r. 115466), 124, 129 Kitbuqa Noyan (d. 1260), 289 Knights Templar, 215 Küchlüg, 269–270

263, 266, 271–272, 275, 287, 290–292, 294, 302 Liao Dynasty, 92–93

M

Magi, 56, 71, 75, 80, 114, 125– 126, 130, 172, 260, 267, 271, 336 Mainz, 13, 108, 120–122, 299 Malabar, 71–73, 321, 339 Malik al-Rūm, 234, 236 Manuel Komnenus, 34, 103, 107, 110–112, 114, 116, 124, 129, 143, 298 Mār Yūḥannā, 34, 82, 88, 90–91, 98, 298 Marco Polo (d. 1342), 36, 292, 308, 313 Master Philip (Alexander III’s physician), 134–135, 137, 148– 150 Matthew of Westminster, 137, 291, 313 Matthew Paris, 137, 150, 259, 262, 273, 275, 291, 313, 344 Medes, 74, 82, 96–98, 183, 198– 199, 260 Mediterranean, 30–32, 39, 77, 138, 173, 176, 194, 203, 206– 207, 255, 284, 323, 329, 331, 339, 342 Michael the Syrian/ Michael the Great (1126-1199), 34, 85, 116, 120 Michael VIII Palaeologus (r.1258-1282), 290 Möngke/ Köke Tenggiri, 276, 278, 285 Mongolia, 92–93, 264, 309 Montreal “Shoubak” (Castle), 215

L

Last Emperor, 1, 10, 33, 61–63, 296, 320 Latin, 1–2, 15, 18–19, 25, 27, 29–35, 37–39, 41, 44, 48, 57, 60, 62–63, 71, 74, 77–79, 81, 83–87, 91, 95, 97–99, 107–110, 113–116, 118–123, 133, 136, 138, 140–141, 143–144, 151, 156–157, 160, 167, 171–173, 194–195, 202, 204–205, 216, 227, 230–231, 233, 240, 242, 245, 249–250, 252–253, 256, 258–259, 261–263, 267, 272, 279, 282–284, 287, 290–291, 295, 299, 302–304, 313, 322, 325–327, 329, 332–333, 336, 339 Latinized, Christianized, Islamised (form, fashion and etc), 14, 170, 173, 194, 301 Lawrence of Portugal, 264, 304 Leo of Naples, 156 Levant, 1, 9, 11, 15, 39, 57, 60, 63, 67, 80, 82–83, 100, 103, 105–107, 118, 121, 169, 196– 197, 213, 251, 254–255, 257,

354

Index

Münster, 242, 254, 318 Muslim, 1–2, 9–18, 22, 25–26, 29–32, 35–36, 38–40, 49, 54, 59–63, 65, 67, 72, 74, 80–83, 91–95, 97–101, 105–106, 119, 140, 161, 168–170, 172–173, 179, 182–183, 191–192, 202– 204, 206–212, 214–218, 220– 223, 225–228, 230–232, 234– 236, 241–243, 245, 248–257, 259, 262–263, 266–267, 270– 272, 275, 284, 287–288, 294, 296–298, 300, 302–304, 318, 320, 322, 332–334, 343–345

Oliver of Paderborn (d. 1227), 15, 35, 209–210, 212, 215–217, 219, 221–223, 228, 280, 302, 308, 310, 320, 324 Orientalism, Orientalism, 38, 40, 108, 128, 141, 145, 157–158, 195, 201, 329, 337, 340 Otto of Freising (d. 1158), 11, 13, 19, 34, 56–57, 65, 74–81, 98, 105–107, 112, 114, 116, 122, 126, 183, 194, 199, 277, 283, 297, 299, 314, 335

P

Papacy, 9, 29, 68, 78, 123–124, 129, 133, 138–140, 174, 197, 208, 210, 250–252, 258, 262– 263, 322, 325, 329, 344 Papal envoys, 70, 133, 137, 205, 263–264, 267–271, 273, 275– 276, 282, 324 Papal legate Pelagius, Hospitallers of St. John, 205, 215, 217, 221- 225, 229, 302, 303 Paradise, 40, 57, 59, 68, 145, 156, 162, 182–183, 207 Parzival, 146–148, 292, 299, 312, 315 Paschal III (1164-68), 124, 127– 128, 330 Persia, 42, 59–60, 74, 79–80, 89, 96, 114, 125, 155–157, 164– 165, 168, 170, 176, 181, 195, 216, 223, 236, 243, 259, 271, 274–275, 318, 323, 335, 341– 342 Philip II of France (1180–1223), 204 Pope Adrian IV, 123–124

N

Naimans, 20, 269 Nebuchadnezzar (c. 605-562 BC), 249 Nestorianism/ Nestorians, 11, 4142, 73, 78, 89, 94, 99-100, 140, 227, 231-232, 249, 263, 269, 271-273, 275, 277-278, 280, 283, 289, 291, 297, 304 Nile, 6, 79, 159, 207, 214, 226– 227, 252 Nubia, 14, 41, 43, 154, 176, 181, 188–201, 207, 209, 239–240, 300–301, 315, 340 Nubian/Abyssinian kings, 14, 35, 190-195, 200, 202, 240, 301 Nūr al-Dīn, 93, 105, 117–120, 169, 307

O

Odo of Deuil, 78, 117–118, 313, 337 Odo of Rheims (Reims), 68–71, 73, 107, 313 Ögedei Khan (r. 1229-1241), 262

355

Index

Pope Alexander III. (r. 1159-81), 8, 13, 18, 34, 104, 107, 111– 112, 116, 119, 121–124, 126, 129, 131–133, 136–137, 139– 140, 148, 150, 168, 171, 188, 299, 342 Pope Eugenius III, 11, 74, 78, 83, 104, 106, 297 Pope Gregory IX (1127-41), 150, 259 Pope Eugenius III, 11, 74, 78, 83, 104, 106, 297 Pope Honorius III, 205, 208, 220, 223, 250, 254–255, 303, 342 Pope Honorius IV (1285-1287), 291 Pope Innocent III, 9, 38, 205 Pope Innocent IV (r. 1143-1254), 16, 251, 253, 262–263, 294, 303 Presbyter John, 10 Prester John, 1–2, 6, 8, 10–22, 24–29, 31–68, 70–71, 73–74, 76–82, 88, 90–92, 94, 97–101, 103–151, 153–304, 307, 318– 319, 321, 324, 327–330, 332– 333, 335–346 Prester John Letter, 1, 12, 14, 20, 27, 34, 41, 55, 101, 103–151, 154–155, 157–161, 167, 171, 176, 184, 187, 194, 205, 289, 293, 298 priest Sādwaq/Zadok, 238 Pseudo-Callisthenes, 55, 60, 155–157, 159, 161, 164, 299, 309, 316, 332 Ptolemy, 157, 172–173, 179, 343

Qaṭwān, 6, 11–12, 66, 82, 91–97, 99, 101, 150, 170, 183, 247, 297, 317 Queen Melisende of Jerusalem (r. 1131–53), 11, 77, 83, 105 Queen of Sheba Magda/ Balqīs, 201, 237

R

Rabban Sauma (d. 1294), 291, 309 Radulph of Coggeshall (d. after 1227), 242 Rainald of Dassel, 122–125 Raymond of Poitiers (Antioch), 11, 83 Joscelin II of Edessa (r. 11311150/59), 83 Relatio de Davide, 15, 19, 22, 35–36, 204, 242, 244–250, 289, 302–303, 308, 339 Richard of Cornwall, 261–262 River of Gihon, 207 Roger Bacon (d. after 1292), 292, 308 Roger of Hoveden (d. 1201), 133–136, 139, 315, 347 Roger of Wendover, 136–137, 206, 218–219, 310 Rūm (Byzantium), 16, 34, 38, 59, 61, 68, 113, 116, 121, 174, 235, 236

S

Saint Catherine, 206–207 Samarqand, 97, 245 San Germano, 256–258, 261, 323, 338, 341 Schism, 1, 12, 29, 34, 103–104, 123–124, 131, 133, 138–139, 299, 325, 331

Q

Qarakhitai, 6, 11, 22, 34, 66, 91– 99, 101, 170, 183, 269, 297 356

Index

Seljuk Turks, 79–80, 88, 91 Sempad (Armenia), 271 Seventh Crusade, 16, 252, 271– 273 Shamanist, 99 Simon of Quentin, 253, 266–267, 304 Sinai, 38, 206 Sindbad, 14, 184–187, 301, 338 St. George/Georgius, 165 St. Samuel of Qalamūn, 16, 203 St. Thomas, 11, 20, 33, 41, 56, 63, 65–74, 87–88, 100, 113– 114, 137, 147, 150, 158, 165, 187–188, 199, 297, 314, 339 Sultan al-ʻĀdil (r. 596-615/12001218), 212 Sultan al-Kāmil (r. 615635/1218-38), 213, 221, 254– 255, 293, 303 Sultan Muhammad ibn Khawārizm-Shāh (r. 596– 616/1200–1220), 248 Sultan Sinjar (r. 1118–1157), 11, 93, 96, 99, 183, 286, 297 Syria, 59–60, 71, 77, 80, 96, 120, 204, 211, 216, 222, 229, 232, 238, 258, 260–262, 295, 302, 304, 314–315, 331 Syrians/Syriac, 15, 23, 42, 43, 58-60, 71, 73, 78, 83, 85, 8890, 94, 98, 116, 120, 156, 232, 237, 280, 282, 284

Third Crusade, 78, 204–205, 309 Three Indias, 12–14, 22, 40–41, 43, 112–113, 153–202, 240, 293, 295, 298–301 Tiberius, 215, 225 Tibnīn (Toron), 93, 215, 248– 249, 258 Tigris River, 74, 80, 252 Toghrul Khan, 269 Transoxania, 90, 245 treaty of Venice (1177), 133 Tripoli, 197, 216, 241, 291, 304 Turk kâfir', 95 Turkistan, 245 Turks, 79–80, 83, 88, 91, 94–95, 117, 119, 181–183, 236

T

Yassa, 286 Yelü Dashi (r. 1124-1143), 11, 66, 93

U Ung/Wang Khan, 270 Urdukhān Edward III (r. 132777), 126

V

Victor IV (1159-64) (antipope), 124, 131

W

William of Rubruck (d. 1293), 16 William of Tyre, 78, 82–86, 104– 105, 118–119, 196, 204, 232, 261, 315–316, 325

Y

Tatars/Mongols, 17, 245, 260, 279, 282, 285 Temūjin, 281–282 Theobald of Champagne, 261– 262, 336 Thietmar/Dithmar (travel), 206 357