Article first published in Buzzle, American Chronicle, and AfroArticles on 21 October 2007
An introduction into the pre-history of a Western European legend, which only later was extrapolated and associated with Eastern Africa; the legendary 'kingdom of Prester John' has nothing to do with Amhara and Tigray Abyssinians.
Prescribed medication order and communication skills.pptx
The West’s Ethiopian Aberration: the kingdom of Prester John between Myth and Reality
1. The West’s Ethiopian Aberration: the
kingdom of Prester John between
Myth and Reality
Few Kushitic Sidamas, Oromos, Somalis and others are aware of the real
reason for the Abyssinian tyranny due to which they have suffered for more
than 100 years; viewing the issue within the local context, oppressed Kushitic
Ethiopians see in the Amhara and Tigray Abyssinian elites' colonialism the
2. main reason of their misfortune. This is definitely wrong and absolutely
misleading.
Without the devoted Western European (French and English mainly but not
exclusively) colonial guidance and support, the Abyssinians would have
never been able to invade the vast fatherlands of the Horn of Africa and
subjugate the Ethiopian Kushitic nations. European support was instrumental
for various Abyssinian kings, either Yohannes IV or Menelik, and this is
known to Oromo and Somali historians and intellectuals. Yet, few have
understood that the reasons for this support were not of geo-political and
geo-strategic nature.
Even fewer have studied the formation of the European perception of
Ethiopia. We briefly dealt with this subject in an earlier article entitled
"Ethiopia: a Panacea for Tyrants, a Stiletto in Colonial Hands", in which we
presented the axes of historical sources about Ethiopia used by Orientalist
colonial academia
(http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=255
68 / republished here:
https://www.academia.edu/43443326/Ethiopia_a_Panacea_for_Tyrants_a_S
tiletto_in_Colonial_Hands_2007)
Yet, far worse than the misunderstanding or the manipulation of historical
sources is the impact of mythologized factoids, historically inaccurate
legends, and imaginative creatures of moments of despair; long believed as
existent, persons and states of the fable, concepts emanating from sagas of the
times of ignorance, defeat, and isolation, and nebulous hopes of
unsubstantiated contents shaped a misperception that accompanies the
European thought with respect to all things East African.
Out of this stuff emerged in Medieval Europe the legend of the Kingdom of
Prester John that would be of critical help for the disenchanted and disunited,
frail and out-of-the-way Western Europe. In the very beginning, it was not
identified with Abyssinia; it was certainly located in the extreme East, which
would be good enough to constrain the Great Islamic Caliphate in bi-frontal
position.
In fact, there has never been a Kingdom of Prester John in Africa! In this
article, we will make a vast itinerary in the legendary topology that played a
determinant role in the Colonial European approach to the heretical,
Monophysitic kingdom of Abyssinia.
It is essential to understand that victimized North-Eastern African nations
paid a heavy tribute to the European misperceptions and hallucinations,
which opened the way for academics, diplomats, generals, and statesmen to
establish a disreputable alliance with the Black Continent’s most barbaric and
3. inhuman state, the early 19th century Abyssinian relic of monarchy.
I. Eras preceding the formation ofthe LegendofPrester John's
Kingdom
As the forces of Christianization were rising in the 3rd century CE Roman
Empire, a great event prepared the Middle East, Central Asia, Eastern
Mediterranean, and the Indian Ocean for a new era: the rise of the Sassanid
dynasty of Iran set the background for a long period of Iranian-Roman
confrontation. And quite rightly; for four consecutive centuries the world
affairs revolved around this confrontation.
Religion – as always – mattered little; as in our days, religion in the last four
pre-Islamic centuries was an investment in geopolitical interests. The fact that
for an entire century before the Christianization of the Roman Empire, large
parts of the populations of the world's two superpowers, Iran and Rome,
were worshipping the same god, namely Mithra, who was called Sol Invictus
(Invincible Sun) in Rome, played little role in their confrontation.
It is crucial to find in the major historical phenomenon of the Iranian-Roman
confrontation the answer to many questions that persist down to our times.
As a continuous clash, with only very brief periods of peace, it lasted for 400
years, and it was unique in the entire History of the Oriental Antiquity. The
Iranian-Greek wars had lasted only a few decades. The Macedonian–Greek
invasion of the Achaemenid Empire under Alexander the Great occurred 150
years after Darius' and Xerxes' attempt to annex the few insignificant cities-
states that were located south of Macedonia, a kingdom which was already a
tributary state to Iran. Alexander's state lasted just a few years, and the wars
among his successors (Epigones) were multifaceted and lasted two decades.
The gradual rise of Rome in Eastern Mediterranean was completed with the
annexation of Egypt, the Roman – Meroitic Ethiopian alliance, and the Roman
expedition to Yemen (all the events dating back to the period 30 – 25 BCE).
The Romans became the allies of the kingdoms of Pontus, Armenia, and the
Nabateans (in Rekem / Petra, in today’s Jordan), whereas they annexed
Commagene and Judah.
Various small kingdoms and caravan cities existed in the area between Rome
and Iran; the latter was ruled by the Parthian Arsacid (Ashkanian) dynasty.
Albania of Caucasus (today’s Azerbaijan), Hadhyab (Adiabene in Ancient
Greek and Latin), Hatra, Charax Spasinou, Oshroene, Tadmor (Palmyra) were
all buffer states stretched in the area of today’s South-Eastern Turkey, Iraq,
Eastern Syria, Jordan, and North-Western Arabia. In addition to them, the
Himyarite – Sheba alliance, which had eradicated the great maritime
Yemenite state of Qataban at the end of the 2nd c. BCE, and the Hadhramawt
kingdom (known in Ancient Greek as Libanotoforos Khora, Frankincense-
bearing Country) had good relations with the Romans, being all tied in a
4. network of commercial – cultural exchanges that also comprised Arsacid Iran,
and some Central Asiatic and Indian states. Gerrha, an Aramaean city (not yet
identified and excavated but extensively known through epigraphic and
literary sources) in the coast of today’s Emirates in the Persian Gulf, was
considered to be even richer than Alexandria!
The rise of the Sassanian (Sassanid) dynasty put an end to 250 years of rather
peaceful political and economic Iranian-Roman relations. The largest part of
the benefit from the East – West trade was going now to the Peacock Throne
at Istakhr, the main Sassanid capital; that's why Rome entered in war with
Iran in order not to collapse financially.
II. Sassanid Empire ofIran: larger than the Roman Empire
The Iranian-Roman wars were a shock for the Romans and the Europeans,
and an unbearable burden mainly for the Aramaeans, and secondly the
Egyptians, the Armenians, the Anatolian Greeks, and the Yemenites. In 260
CE, Roman Emperor Valerian defeated in Edessa of Osrhoene (today’s Urfa in
South-Eastern Turkey) was taken captive in Istakhr where he later died, only
to be depicted kneeling in front of the Great Emperor Shapur I in a great bas-
relief at Naqsh-e Rustam, not far from Persepolis.
At this point, one has to denounce the historical falsification throughout the
Western world, involving manuals, books and mass media, and the incessant
publication of false maps, which only help produce a total misunderstanding
among generations and generations; these subtly forged maps depict the
Mediterranean world with the Italian and Balkan peninsulas at the very
center, thus coloring an impressively large territory as Roman, while leaving
at the extreme right side (the easternmost confines of the Roman Empire),
namely the area of today’s Eastern Turkey, Iraq, SW Caucasus, and a small
portion of today’s Western Iran. That small part of the map they ridiculously
and shamefully name "Sassanid Empire".
This consists in a malicious forgery because it affects the subconscious of all
readers and viewers, making them think that the Sassanid Empire of Iran was
'small'. As a matter of fact, the Sassanid Empire of Iran was larger than the
Roman Empire, and this could be clearly seen, if a proper and correct map is
prepared for the purpose, thus comprising the entire area between Tibet
(partly colonized by Sassanid Iran) and today's North India in the east and the
Atlantic Ocean in the West, and between England in the north (Roman
territory) and Somalia in the south (Yemenite and Iranian colony).
With the Christianization of the Roman Empire, the administrative division,
and the creation of a second capital at Nova Roma (Ancient Byzantium) –
Constantinople – Istanbul, it became clear that the survival of the new religion
and the vast empire would hinge on the outcome of the Iranian-Eastern
Roman wars.
5. III. When the last among the Ancient Greekspreferred Iran to
Constantinople…
Again, it would be a monstrous historical distortion to consider the Sassanid
Empire as anti-Roman, and anti-Western. As the Sassanid dynasty claimed an
ideological – religious return to the Zoroastrian Orthodoxy, it was only
normal to vindicate lands that had been parts of the Achaemenid Empire
before Alexander the Great, and were at those days occupied by the Roman
Empire; these lands included Syria, Phoenicia, Palestine, Egypt, Libya,
Armenia, Anatolia (called Asia Minor in Greek) and the Balkans. In other
words, due to political ideological demands, Istakhr was claiming half the
Roman territory!
With the Christianization of the Roman Empire, Sassanid Iran proved to
become an incredible Ark of "Western" Heritage. Of course, terms like "East"
and "West" (or "Orient" and "Occident") are modern times' bogus-historical
fabrications and contradict all the historical facts and sources of the Pre-
Islamic times; that is why they are used only conventionally within the
present article. Iranians regretted the collapse of the Ancient civilizations,
namely Egyptian, Aramaean, Phoenician, Greek and Roman, which were all
destroyed because of the (oddly non-criticized today) Christian fanaticism
and hysteria, which led to extermination millions of populations in Egypt,
Anatolia, Greece, Macedonia, Thrace, Rome and elsewhere.
Quite indicatively, when the hysterically anti-Greek emperor Justinian closed
down the Philosophical School of Athens (ca. 530 CE), the last Seven Sages of
that city did not wish to further stay in the dictatorially, criminally and
inhumanly Christianized state; so, they left, crossed the entire Anatolia and
Mesopotamia, and found a better shelter in Jond-e Shapur vast, imperial
university, academy, library, center of scientific research, arts and architecture
in Southern Trans-Tigritane (today’s southwestern Iran), which was
sponsored by every Sassanid emperor.
Even earlier, in 489 CE, Jond-e Shapur (often written in Western bibliography
Gundishapur) had also become the shelter for the Monophysitic (Miaphysitic)
Aramaeans of the school of Urhoy, which was known as Edessa of Osrhoene
among the Ancient Greeks and Romans (today's Urfa in southeastern
Turkey). The reason for this relocation was the fact that Monophysitic
Christianity was particularly persecuted by the Eastern Roman Emperor
Zeno, although it represented the bulk of the local population in the eastern
provinces. Later, the Monophysitic (Miaphysitic) Aramaeans of the school of
Nisibis (today's Nusaybin in SE Turkey) left the Eastern Roman Empire to
avoid persecution and settled in Jond-e Shapur too.
It is within this context that one must interpret the Iranian–Judaic alliance,
which was a reminiscence of the earlier excellent Achaemenid Iranian–Judaic
6. relations: Cyrus, conqueror of the Babylonian Empire in 539 BCE, liberated
the Judaic captives from the Babylonian yoke and allowed them to return to
Palestine. Jews were allowed to stay in Jerusalem during the Iranian
occupation of the city during in the period 613 – 628 CE; furthermore, they
were instrumental in leading the Iranian soldiers to the pillage of the
Christian church from where the latter removed the wooden cross that
fanaticized Christians identified it with the cross of the crucifixion, according
to their narratives. The Iranian decision was quite right of course, because for
almost 550 years, the Jews had been expelled from Jerusalem by the Romans.
With the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, Constantinople had to
mobilize all possible resources of the empire, and this was not easy precisely
because of the overwhelming rejection of the religious and the imperial
authority from the part of the Eastern populations. In fact, the nefarious
influence and the impact that the Constantinopolitan theologians had over the
Easter Roman Emperor was deeply reviled by all Eastern Christians, i.e. the
Copts (Egyptians), the Aramaeans, the Phoenicians, and the Eastern Greeks of
Cappadocia and Pontus, who were all either Monophysitic or Nestorian
(terms used herewith only conventionally).
IV. Christian communitiesand kingdomsbeyondthe Eastern
Roman borders
The diffusion of Christianity led to the formation of other small Christian
kingdoms in the East, and in addition, there were already several Christian
communities in several non-Christian countries. The Christians of the Iranian
Empire could not be of use for the Eastern Roman Empire as fifth column,
because they were all Nestorians, and as such they were very inimically
predisposed towards Constantinople. Yet, Nestorians were not fortunate in
Iran where they were also persecuted many times. In Yemen, there were
Christian communities, and due to the commercial contacts with the
Aramaean merchants and caravan leaders (originating either from the Iranian
or the Roman Empire), they were predominantly Nestorian. They arrived up
to the point of cooperating with the sizeable local Judaic community, and they
established a joint Jewish–Nestorian Yemenite kingdom. The Nubian and
Ethiopian Cushitic populations of today’s Sudan had formed three Christian
states, namely Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia, of which only the second had
good relations with the Greek Patriarchate of Alexandria and Constantinople.
Consequently, only the -often ravaged by the Sassanid emperors- kingdom of
Armenia and the faraway Axumite kingdom of Abyssinia could be of
practical help for the Eastern Romans. Both kingdoms were Monophysitic
(Miaphysitic) but could not afford to make of their religious differentiation a
major issue because they were either constantly threatened or isolated. The
first was of seminal importance in case of a great attack against Iran; the
second was of critical value in outmaneuvering the Sassanid – Nestorian /
Judaic Yemenite alliance that would ruin the Eastern Roman empire
7. financially, raising the taxes of all products coming from the sea and the
desert routes of trade (involving merchandise originated from Eastern African
coast, India, Indochina, Indonesia, and China).
Axum (Abyssinia) tried to help Constantinople, despite all the religious
differences at the times of Justin I (518 – 527) and Justinian I (527 – 565), but
finally failed. Under Kaleb, the Abyssinians prepared an expedition to
Yemen, and to Najran, which was Yemen's northernmost region. There was
located a great Nestorian cathedral and the famous Kaaba of Najran, and
Najran Christians were apparently numerous. Kaleb wanted also to advance
thence to Arabia and up to Mecca, but he failed to invade that small town.
The Sassanid reaction against Kaleb's expedition was terrible; an Iranian
expedition regiment was dispatched through Oman, which was traditionally
an Iranian province. The Iranians kicked the Abyssinian army out of Yemen
and annexed the entire land up to Najran.
V. Armenian help to Rome: key to Heraclius' victory
Armenia's help proved to be more effective; at the worst moment of the
Eastern Roman Empire, when Egypt, Syria, and Palestine were lost to
Khusraw II, Armenia allowed the Roman soldiers, who were first transported
from Constantinople to Trabzon by sea, to cross the Armenian territory and to
attack Iran from its northwestern borders, without the geographical
constraints of a long expedition through Anatolia.
Having experienced no fatigue or real exhaustion (as it usually happened due
to the length of the ordinary itinerary through Anatolia), having avoided to
cross the territory of Syria, which was the land of the unfriendly Aramaeans,
and having been engaged in the first battles (not on Roman but) on Iranian
soil, the Eastern Roman armies had an advantage. Then, they won the
strategically critical battle nearby the ruins of the Ancient Assyrian capital
Nineveh, and they continued on the relatively easy Mesopotamian soil down
to Tesifun (Ctesiphon), the principal among the numerous Sassanid capital
cities of Khusraw II (Iran has been diachronically known for the existence of
many parallel capitals).
This victory would not be considered as very important, and Iran would need
some years to recover and go on. However, the Roman victory at Ctesiphon,
and the subsequent restoration of the (now twice hypothetical) cross in
Jerusalem (628 CE), with Heraclius entering barefoot the city and walking
until the sepulcher church, marked the Eastern Roman Christianity
irrevocably, also leaving a momentous impact on Western European
Christianity, and exciting the Western European medieval fascination.
Although Western Europe, in its entirety, involving the Merovingian Franks,
the Visigoths, the Lombards, and the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy, was absent
from the dramatic events, the recuperation of the cross left an unforgettable
8. stamp that we attest in many instances from Medieval Western European
religious art and literature to Renaissance paintings and Piero della Francesca.
The reason Heraclius' victory became important is due to the fact that it was
the last; and this was made sure by the subsequent rise of Islam, which cut off
once and forever the Eastern provinces of the Eastern Roman Empire
(Carthage, Libya/Cyrenaica, Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Eastern Anatolia)
from the rest of the Constantinopolitan realm, while also terminating at the
same time the existence of the Sassanid Empire of Iran.
Soon afterwards, the Islamic Umayyad Caliphate and, later on, its Abbasid
heir were substituted to the Sassanid Empire at all levels, namely politically,
economically, culturally and religiously; Iranian and Aramaean knowledge,
philosophy, wisdom, science, literature, art and architecture shaped the
Islamic civilization, wiping out the slightest element of Arab culture left after
the strongly de-Arabizing preaching of Prophet Muhammad. It is to be noted
that, being monotheistic of nature, Islam and Mazdeism are far closer to one
another than any of them is to Christianity.
The decisive and determinant help of Armenia was not forgotten. In times
difficult for both, the Eastern Roman Empire and the various Western
European kingdoms, Armenia became the country–deus ex machina; then, an
imaginary importance was extended to a hypothetical Christian king of the
Orient, who would offer unexpected assistance and relief to Christians in
distress because of their wars against the Islamic armies.
In this manner, started a great legend that had a very long itinerary of its
own.
VI. The Country of King David
Quite interestingly, the earliest mentions of the Christian king of the Orient
do not originate from the times of the Western Christian world's weakest
moments and greatest danger, when the Islamic armies sieged Constantinople
in 674–677 and in 717, and when they advanced beyond the Pyrenees in
France in the 720s (to be engaged in the Battle of Poitiers, also known as Battle
of Tours, in 732).
The earlier mentions of the hypothetical, wealthy and powerful Christian king
of the Orient date back to the times of the recovery of the Eastern Roman
Empire and the rise of the Western European powers, namely the period of
war preparation for the Crusades, at the very end of the 11th century, There
are several basic and permanent elements in this legend, which appear from
the very beginning; the hypothetical Christian king of the Orient, beyond his
enormous fortune and military force, was mythologized to be in a position to
attack the Islamic Caliphate from the rear. However, the greater functionality
of the mythologized king was to save Jerusalem.
9. The Christian king of the Orient has a different name in the very early records
of the legend: King David. His country is Armenia - specifically. This fact
makes apparently sense, because Armenia is located northeast of Jerusalem.
The South Caucasus was situated beyond the northernmost confines of the
Islamic Caliphate, which at the time encompassed Eastern Anatolia (cut off
from the Eastern Roman Empire) and the entirety of Iran.
The name is not quite mythical, although it seems to have rather been a
hereditary royal title of the Armenian Bagratid (Bagratuni) kings (885-1045),
who claimed direct descent from the Biblical king David of the Ancient Israel.
The claim was totally unhistorical and unreal, but the real fact of the survival
of a Christian mountainous and thus impregnable state at a so close distance
from the Islamic capital, Baghdad, fascinated the Western minds. The
fascination was not the result of imagination, but sheer truth.
In fact, despite the vast territories ruled from Baghdad (from NW Africa to
India to China), the capital of the Caliphate was relatively close to the
borders! At the end of the 10th c., the Bagratid Armenian border, passing
from Hasankeyf, Bitlis and Van in today's Turkey, was located at a distance of
only ca. 550 km from Baghdad! One gets a clearer picture, if one takes into
consideration -not only the distance but also- the evident geomorphological
advantage, namely the fact that any eventual expedition launched from the
Armenian border against Baghdad would involve -for the attacking armies-
an easy advance through the Mesopotamian plains.
Now, if we add to the aforementioned data the fact that Baghdad’s distance
from Jerusalem (880 km) happened to be at those days the same as that
between the holy city and the Westernmost borders of Armenia, we get a
better idea about the impressions conveyed to Western audiences at a time
the interest for a military expedition to recapture that city and the Christian
Holy Land was shared among more and more Western European fanatics.
Thanks to the above data, we can better assess why on Western European
maps of the Earth ('Oikoumene' in Greek) dating back to the 10th and 11th
centuries we always find depictions of king David who is portrayed as key-
keeper (kleidokrator) of the legendary Gates of Caucasus whereby every
eventual penetration effort -hypothetically undertaken by the 'demons' (sic!)
Gog and Magog- would find an end.
This description enables us identify one more functional trait of the legendary
Christian king of the Orient, i.e. the -highly mythologized among the Western
Europeans- 'Armenian king David'. He is evidently parallelized with
Alexander the Great, and described as having a similar mission, namely to
protect the Mankind against the evil nations Gog and Magog.
10. The great Macedonian king had extensively been mythologized in the
Alexander Romance by Pseudo-Callisthenes; this fascinating pre-Islamic
narrative was later re-formulated extensively in Islamic epic poetry, notably
in Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh and Nezami’s Iskender Nameh. It is Alexander the
Great, who was first credited with the erection of a miraculous, invisible wall
erected between two mountains in Central Asia in order to protect/defend
'his people' against the 'unclean nations' Gog and Magog. Apparently, in so
late periods as the times of the Crusades, the 'protection area' had effectively
receded to Caucasus!
Yet, the Eastern Roman delusions and the Western European hallucinations
had to end one day; so furtive they had been that they vanished with the
overwhelming victory of the Seljuk Turks, who put a dead end to the Bagratid
dynasty and the independence of the medieval kingdom of Armenia (1045-6).
At a moment the Eastern Roman Empire had recovered sizeable territories in
Central and Southern Anatolia (and several islands in the Mediterranean) and
the Abbasid Caliphate (established before 300 years) had retreated being
clearly in decadence and disarray, the arrival of the Seljuk Turks, already
Islamized in Central Asia (i.e. the Islamic Caliphate’s easternmost territories),
was a dynamite against the Christian anti-Islamic projects.
Georgia collapsed few years later (1054). And in 1071 near Lake Van’s
northern confines, at Malazgirt (Manzikert), the Eastern Roman Emperor
Romanos IV Diogenes was met with a disastrous defeat that opened the gates
of Anatolia to Alp Arslan’s Seljuks, who only six (6) years later founded the
Islamic Sultanate at Nicaea (Iznik) on the Marmara (Propontis) Asiatic coast,
just opposite Constantinople. The event precipitated the final decision for the
Crusades, the first of which was precisely directed against the capital of the
new Sultanate that was named Rum, since its population was predominantly
Eastern Roman.
The Crusades did not help the Eastern Roman Empire recover Central and
Eastern Anatolia. The same event, which occurred in Mesopotamia, Palestine,
Syria, Egypt, Libya, NW Africa, during the 7th c. Islamic invasions, was
reproduced in Central and Eastern Anatolia between the 11th century and the
15th century. The overwhelming majority of Anatolia's Eastern Roman
populations had adhered to the Iconoclasm Movement (Eikonomachia) and to
Paulicianism, finally worshipping a very different form of Christianity than
that of the Constantinopolitan theologians.
Considered as heretics, oppressed and exploited through an incredibly heavy
system of taxation, these populations preferred to be the free citizens of an
Islamic state rather than the miserable slaves of the Constantinopolitan
tyranny. Similarly with the Aramaeans, the Phoenicians, the Egyptians, and
the Berbers who, either Nestorian or Monophysitic, preferred to be ruled from
Madinah, Damascus and Baghdad rather than from Constantinople, the
11. overwhelming majority of the Eastern Roman inhabitants of Central and
Eastern Anatolia preferred Islamic rule to Christian tyranny.
VII. The Dawn of the LegendofPrester John's Kingdom
At those early days of the Crusades, in the middle of the 12th century, the
hypothetical-legendary Christian king of the Orient 'changed' name and
appeared for the first time as Prester John; however, he remained nebulous
and indefinite.
The first reference to a high sacerdotal Oriental potentate, who under this
name enters into contact with the West, is not probably part of the story. The
legendary and undocumented journey (in 1122) to Rome of an otherwise
unknown Patriarch John of India, who supposedly visited PopeCallixtus II
(1119-1124), must be another narrative that was later combined with the
legend that we examine here. In an apocryphal book of devotions, the
"Narrative of Eliseus", a purely mythical context which dates back to the end
of the 12th century, we encounter the earliest combination of the two legends.
But, Patriarch John and Prester John become identical only in the "Tractatus
pulcherrimus" (end of the 15th c.), as Friedrich Zarncke (1825–1891) first
specified.
The first reference to Prester John we encounter in the "Chronicle" of Otto,
Bishop of Freising, a text that dates back in 1145; Otto was the uncle of the
German Emperor, and stated -in the concerned passage- that a representative
of the Armenian Bishop of Jabala (Byblos of Phoenicia) came to Rome, and
met Pope Eugene II, on demand of the Christian Crusader Prince Raymond of
Antioch in order to recount the Muslim recapture of Urhoy (Edessa of
Osrhoene – today’s Urfa in SE Turkey) in dire outlines. The ensuing danger
for the Christians of the Jerusalem Crusader state was great, and the priestly
visitor wished to induce the West to send another Crusade.
Otto met the Armenian Bishop of Antioch at Viterbo, and in the pope’s
presence, he heard the visitor saying that a Prester and King, named John,
was ruling in the Far East, and that he managed to convert his people to
Christianity, which implies automatically Nestorianism. The Armenian
Bishop of Byblos went on saying that a few years earlier, Prester John had
achieved a staggering victory, after a 3-day battle, and then, coming from the
East, invaded Ecbatana (today’s Hamedan in Western Iran), and was
planning to further advance and meet the Western kings in Jerusalem,
eliminating the Islamic threat. Although victorious over the Islamic kings of
Media, Persia, and Samiardi, he met adversity when attempting to cross the
waves of Tigris River, and many of his soldiers died, because of an epidemic,
which constrained him to retreat. More specifically, Prester John belonged to
the 'nation of the three Magi', and having merged their kingdoms, he was in
control of a fabulous treasure, even holding an emerald scepter!
12. Through the narrative, it becomes clear that the visitor wants to persuade the
Pope that there is a substantial need for another crusade and that there are
more reasons to believe it will be finally successful.
We cannot be sure about the weight that the Christian kingdoms of Western
Europe gave to this argument; perhaps in the very beginning it was not taken
very seriously. More than 100 years before Marco Polo’s trips, Europeans had
a very vague idea about Asia, Asiatic kingdoms and their monarchs.
Yet, soon after the first Prester John 'episode', we have a second one! The
same -Asiatic and mysterious- person sent letters, in many, diverse and odd
ways, to Manuel I Comnenos, the Eastern Roman Emperor, Frederick
Barbarossa, the Holy Roman Emperor, and a multitude of European princes.
All this happened around 1165–70.
No less than 100 manuscripts – copies of the letter addressed to Manuel I
Comnenus have survived, involving therefore significant variants; it was
apparently an obsession. The unknown author's persistence to mention
incidents of the Alexander Romance narratives clearly reduces the credibility
of the document dramatically. Modern scholarship falls in agreement in
interpreting the document as a Nestorian forgery; this however does not say
much about the possible origin of the initial author of the letter. Nestorians at
those days inhabited practically speaking the every land across the entire
Asiatic continent, from today’s Iraq to China, Mongolia, Eastern Turkistan,
India, Central Asia, Oman, Yemen, and Iran.
A few years later, we have a papal reference to a certain John, who was
supposedly an 'illustrious and magnificent King of the Indies'. It is a letter
signed by Pope Alexander III (1159-1181) that starts with following words:
"Alexander episcopus (or Papa), servus servorum Dei, carissimo in Christi
filio Joanni, illustro et magnifico Indorum regi".
The Pope seems to have accepted the related rumors about the legendary
Christian king of the Orient, and sent a private envoy named Philippus with
the aforementioned letter. The contents are overwhelming; the Pope extends
an invitation to Prester John to enter the Roman Church, and in exchange he
would be willing to cede to him a church in Rome, and certain rights in the
church of the sepulcher in Jerusalem. What happened, and whom precisely
the papal envoy met, if any, we don’t know. Through the context, we realize
that the recipient was in Asia, and not a mythical but a real figure. However,
we cannot be sure that the pope had identified him as the Prester John of the
earlier references.
Furthermore, we find in the Annals of Admont (1181), which are a
continuation of Otto's chronicle, the following note: "Johannes presbyter rex
Armeniae et Indiae cum duobus regibus fratribus Persarum et Medorum
13. pugnavit et vicit".
What is sure is that from that time onwards, Eastern Romans and Western
Europeans truly believed that there was an Oriental Christian kingdom either
in Central Asia or even in the Far East.
The legend became stuff for poets, authors and mystics like Wolfram von
Eschenbach (in "Parsifal" - first link between the Prester John theme and the
Holy Grail legend), Sir John Mandeville, Albrecht von Scharfenstein, and
others.
There is a historical explanation for all this, and many modern scholars
interpret Otto von Freising's expression "ante non multos annos" about the
battle between Prester John and the Persian Sultan as referring to the same
events as those narrated by the Aramaean Muslim historian Ibn Athir (1160-
1233) who expands on the subject; in the year of the Hegira of 536 (1141-2),
Ahmad Sanjar (1118-1157), the most powerful of the Seljuk princes, seems to
have attacked his Kara-Khanid vassal, Atsiz Qizil Arslan (1127-1156), Shah of
Khwarazm, who demanded the help of the Gurkhan ('Universal Ruler of the
Mongols') Yelü Dashi (of the Chinese-Mongol kingdom of Qara-Khitai; 1124-
1143).
The latter had come in 1122 from Northern China at the head of a mighty
army, and coming to help the Shah of Kharezm, defeated Sanjar and l00,000 of
his men in the battle of Qatwan (north of Samarqand). The event is also
mentioned by several other historians of the Islamic times, notably the great
Aramaean archbishop and primate ('maphrian' of the Syriac Orthodox
Church), historian, and erudite scholar Gregory Bar Hebraeus (known in
Western Europe as Abulpharagius, 1226-86), the Aramaean Muslim historian
and theologian Abul Fida (1273-1331), and the Persian historian Mirkhond
(1432-89)
Gurkhan Yelü Dashi, founder ruler of the Chinese-Mongol Empire of
Karakhitai, which stretched across Central Asia and NW China, must have
been the legendary Prester John; the state had two official religions, namely
Buddhism and Nestorian Christianity. Sizeable part of the indigenous,
Turanian, Mongol and Chinese population was Nestorian Christian, and
Syriac Aramaic was their holy scriptural language.
However, we cannot afford to fully consider as real the Christian name and
the priestly character of the legendary personage. As the latter remains still a
matter of mystery, several modern scholars (G. Oppert, L. Kehren), who
identified Prester John’s kingdom with the Qara Khitai Empire (1141-1218),
established a plausible etymology of the name, by associating the title
Gurkhan with 'Jorchan', a Sodgian and Central Asiatic form of 'Jochanan'
(Aramaic for John).
14. Basics about the parts involved in the battle of Qatwan:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Qatwan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yel%C3%BC_Dashi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qara_Khitai
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kara-Khanid_Khanate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khwarazmian_dynasty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atsiz
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_Sanjar
How this legend was extrapolated and associated with Abyssinia is a totally
different topic.
By Prof. Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
Published: 10/21/2007