Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A legendary figure in Europe during the Middle Ages, who was thought to rule over a large Christian kingdom in Ethiopia or Central Asia.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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Under the firmament is not so great a lord, ne so mighty, ne so rich as is the great Chan; not Prester John, that is emperor of the high Ind, ne the Soldan of Babylon, ne the Emperor of Persia.
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Its chief purpose was to find the country of the Christian African king known as Prester John, concerning whom recent reports had arrived (1486) through João Alfonso d'Aveiro, and with whom the Portuguese wished to enter into friendly relations.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 4: Clandestinity-Diocesan Chancery 1840-1916 1913
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Presbyter's country in Asia (Province of Thebet; Tibet) in the following words: "This is the land of the good King and lord, known as Prester John, lord of all Eastern and Southern India, lord of all the kings of India, in whose mountains are found all kinds of precious stones."
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 12: Philip II-Reuss 1840-1916 1913
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The king of that country, who was called Prester John, came to their succor.
The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus Irving, Washington, 1783-1859 1892
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Mandeville calls Prester John a lineal descendant of Ogier, the Dane.
Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 Ebenezer Cobham Brewer 1853
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The king of that country, who was called Prester John, came to their succor.
The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Volume II) Washington Irving 1821
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From thence, towards the east and south, reigneth the Christian emperor called Prester John, by some named Papa Johannes, or as others say _Pean Juan_, signifying Great John, whose empire reaches far beyond the Nile, and extends to the coasts of the Red Sea and of the Indian ocean.
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 07 Robert Kerr 1784
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"the King of Habbesh," who fulfilled sufficiently in Covilham's eyes, the idea of Prester John, and was accordingly called so.
The Life of Columbus Arthur Helps 1844
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He has but a weak faith in principles, and flinches and flies off to "Prester John," or somewhere into the clouds, when at last principle and sentiment must either fly off or fairly take the stubborn British _taurus_ by the horns.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 Various
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Unc-Khan as the great prince who is called Prester John, the whole world speaking of his great power ".
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 12: Philip II-Reuss 1840-1916 1913
chained_bear commented on the word Prester John
"In the twelfth century a new legend of a powerful Christian ruler of the East established the picture of India as fantastically wealthy and enthusiastically Christian. In about 1165 a letter began to circulate in Europe purporting to be from Prester John, who styled himself 'Emperor of the Three Indias.' ... There had also been earlier accounts of this fabulous ruler. ... The actual monarch with the peculiar name or title of Prester John was first mentioned in the mid-twelfth century by Otto of Freising, a half-brother of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and author of a universal history. Here Prester John is a priest and ruler (Prester from the German Preister, 'priest') who has battled Muslim Persia and whose extraordinary wealth is symbolized by a scepter made of emerald. ... Most of his subordinate kings are pagan, and so his land is by no means uniformly Christian, but everyone is just and there is no lying, adultery, or theft. ... The letter expresses the desire of Western Christians for a great ally."
Paul Freedman, Out of the East: Spices and the Medieval Imagination (New Haven and London: Yale UP, 2008), 101-102.
Also...
"The legend of Prester John was not completely groundless or fantastic. There really was a Christian African kingdom, in Ethiopia (also called Abyssinia), just as there was a substantial Christian population along the western coast of India. Ethiopia was one of the first places to have embraced Christianity (in the third and fourth centuries), but it had little or no connection with Western Europe for the first thousand years after its conversion, and it followed the Monophysite doctrine (that Christ has essentially one divine nature), which had been deemed heretical in the Catholic and Orthodox churches. Ethiopia sent occasional emissaries to Europe beginning in 1306, when a group of Ethiopians visited the papal court in Avignon. In 1400, King Henry IV of England wrote to Prester John as 'King of Abyssinia' in response to rumors that the African ruler was planning to recapture Jerusalem from the Muslims. Speculation in this vein, understandably, irritated the real Ethiopians. At Rome in the mid-fifteenth century, members of an Ethiopian delegation responded to inquiries about the legendary priest-king with the bewildered comment, 'We are from Ethiopia, our king is Zara Yaqob--why do you call him Prester John?'" (p. 197-198)
November 28, 2017