PRESTER, JOHN

Prester John is the name given to a mythical medieval Christian priest-king of a vast empire in Central Asia, who was later identified with the emperor of Ethiopia.

His first appearance in historical documents is in the Chronicle of Otto of Freisingen, who in 1145 heard word of a powerful Christian sovereign reigning in the East from a Syrian bishop who arrived at the Papal court in Viterbo, northwest of Rome, Italy. In 1177, Pope Alexander III (reigned 1159-81) wrote a letter to “Presbyter Iohannes,” hoping that he might become an ally of the European princes fighting to stop the Muslim advance in Mediterranean areas. At that time it was believed that Prester John was a sovereign of an Asian country near India.

During the Fifth Crusade, which lasted from about 1215-21, information about Ethiopia was collected by Crusaders in Egypt. In consequence, the existence of Christian sovereigns in Nubia and Ethiopia, always fighting to defend the faith, became known in Europe. As a result, Prester John of the Indies of former legend became identified with the emperor of Ethiopia, more easily because, in the Middle Ages, India and Ethiopia were often confused by European scholars. Until the Renaissance, for example, it was believed that only a narrow strait (“el cavo de Diab,”) according to Fra Mauro, the Venetian cartographer who drew the Fra Mauro Map of 1459) separated Ethiopia from the Indian subcontinent.

Thus, in his Mirabilia descripta, written in 1329, the Dominican friar Jourdain Catalani, called the sovereign of Christian Ethiopia “Prester John.” Thereafter the kingdom of Prester John was located in Africa, and his legend was enriched, sometimes by data later made known about Ethiopia. For instance, Prester John was believed to have the power to cut off the flow of the Nile toward Egypt (an ancient tradition). Again, it was said that, in Prester John’s country, children were baptised with fire and not with water (an adaptation of an old Ethiopian custom of consecrating children in the service of a special patron saint).

In documents and legends of the 15th century, Prester John appears with the personal name of “At Senap” or “Senab,” a corruption of the Arabic “Abd as-Salib.” This is a local Egyptian translation of the Ethiopic Gabra Masqal “Servant of the Cross.” the name of some Ethiopian emperors, and in particular of the 12th-century Emperor ‘Amda Seyon (reigned 1314-44).

The legends inspired the great Italian poets of the 16th century. Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533), in his poem Orlando Furioso, described the travels of Astolfo, Knight of the Court of Emperor Charles the Great, to Ethiopia to visit and liberate the Emperor “Senapo.” Torquato Tasso (1544-1595), in his Gerusalemme Liberata, celebrated the heroism and virtue of Clorinda, daughter of the same Emperor “Senapo” of Ethiopia.

ENRICO CERULLI