The legend of Prester John has received much scholarly attention over
the last hundred years, but never before have the sources been collected
and coherently presented to readers. This book now brings together a
fully-representative set of texts setting out the many and various
sources from which we get our knowledge of the legend. These texts,
spanning a time period from the Crusades to the Enlightenment, are
presented in their original languages and in English translation (for
many it is the first time they have been available in English). The
story of the mysterious oriental leader Prester John, ruler of a land
teeming with marvels who may come to the aid of Christians in the
Levant, held an intense grip on the medieval mind from the first
references in twelfth-century Crusader literature and into the
early-modern period. But Prester John was a man of shifting identity,
being at different times and for different reasons associated with
Chingis Khan and the Mongols, with the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia,
with China, Tibet, South Africa and West Africa. In order to orient the
reader, each of these iterations is explained in the comprehensive
introduction, and in the introductions to texts and sections. The
introduction also raises a thorny question not often considered: whether
or not medieval audiences believed in the reality of Prester John and
the Prester John Letter. The book is completed with three valuable
appendices: a list of all known references to Prester John in medieval
and early modern sources, a thorough description of the manuscript
traditions of the all-important Prester John Letter, and a brief
description of Prester John in the history of cartography.
