Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T20:39:36.849Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Prester John redivivus: a review article

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2009

Peter Jackson
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The development of the Prester John legend and matters associated with it are complex, and no significant work of book length in English has appeared on the subject since V. Slessarev's Prester John. The Letter and the Legend (1959). The recent publication of a collection of texts and interpretive essays will therefore be warmly welcomed. The texts are among those published by Zarncke in the Abhandlungen der königlichen sāchsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, vii (1879), and include the famous “letter” of Prester John, together with a note by Hamilton on additional Latin manuscripts that have since come to light. The essays comprise both reprints of work that has appeared over the past five decades and six fresh studies that now see the light of day for the first time.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 7 , Issue 3 , November 1997 , pp. 425 - 432
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Beckingham, Charles F. and Hamilton, Bernard (eds.), Praster John, the Mongols and the Ten Lost Tribes, pp. xiv, 315. Aldershot, Hants., Variorum, 1996.Google Scholar £45.00.

2 Barthold, W., Four Studies on the History of Central Asia (Leiden, 1956–1962, 4 vols in 3), i, p.102.Google Scholar

3 Marinescu, Constantine, “Le Prêtre Jean: son pays, explication de son nom”, Académie Roumaine. Bulletin de la section historique, XI (1923), pp. 73–112.Google Scholar

4 See Dauvillier, Jean, “Byzantins d'Asie centrale et d'Extrême-Orient au Moyen Age”, in Mélanges Martin Jugie (Paris, 1953 = Revue des Études Byzantines, X), pp. 62–87;Google Scholar repr. in his Histoire et institutions des églises orientales au Moyen Age (London, 1983).Google Scholar

5 Beckingham dismisses the Georgians on the grounds of their hostility towards the Latin Church, but in fact relations during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries appear to have been cordial: Richard, Jean, “Quelques textes sur les premiers temps de l'église latine de Jérusalem”, in Recueil Clovis Brunel, ii (Paris, 1955), pp. 423–6;Google Scholar repr. in his Orient et Occident au Moyen Age: contacts et relations (Xlle–XVe s.) (London, 1977).Google Scholar

6 Knefelkamp, Ulrich, “Der Priesterkönig Johannes und sein Reich – Legende oder Realität?”, Journal of Medieval History, XIV (1988), pp. 337–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Olschki, Leonardo, “Der Brief des Presbyters Johannes”, Historische Zeitschrift, CXLIV (1931), pp. 1–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Gosman, M., “Otton de Freising et le Prêtre Jean”, Revue Beige de Philologie et d'Histoire, LXI (1983), pp. 270–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Gosman, M., “La légende du Prêtre Jean et la propagande auprès des croisés devant Damiette (1218–1221)”, in Buschinger, Danielle (ed.), La croisade: réalités et fictions. Actes du colloque d'Amiens, 18–22 mars 1987 (Göppingen, 1989), pp. 133–42.Google Scholar

10 Huygens, R. B. C. (ed.), Lettres de Jacques de Vitry (Leiden, 1960), p. 144.Google Scholar On Yahballaha, see Fiey, Jean Maurice, Chrétiens syriaques sous les Abbassides surtout à Bagdad (749–1258), Corpus Scriptoram Christianorum Orientalium, Subsidia, 59 (Louvain, 1980), pp. 262–3.Google Scholar

11 Klopprogge, Axel, Ursprung und Ausprägung des abendländischen Mongolenbildes im 13.Jahrhundert: ein Versuch zur Ideengeschichte des Mittelalters, Asiatische Forschungen, 122 (Wiesbaden, 1993), pp. 115–23.Google Scholar

12 Barthold, W., Turkestan down to the Mongol Invasion, 3rd ed. by Bosworth, C. E. (London, 1968), pp. 349–51.Google Scholar

13 al-Dīn, Rashīd, Jāmi' al-Tawārīkh, i, part 1, ed. Khetagurov, A. A. (Moscow, 1965), p. 273Google Scholar and tr. Khetagurov, et al. , Sbomik letopisei, i, part 1 (Moscow and Leningrad, 1952), p. 132.Google Scholar Secret History of the Mongols, para. 165; and see the note to de Rachewiltz's, translation, in Papers on Far Eastern History, XIII (03, 1976), p. 72.Google Scholar

14 de Saint-Quentin, Simon, Historia Tartarorum, ed. Jean Richard (Paris, 1965), pp. 29, 30.Google Scholar William, of Rubruck, Itinerarium, XVII, 5,Google Scholar tr. Jackson, P. with Morgan, D. O., The Mission of Friar William of Rubruck, Hakluyt Society, 2nd series, 173 (London, 1990), pp. 124–5.Google Scholar

15 Juwaynī, , Ta'rīkh-i Jahān-Gushā, ed.Qazwīnī, Mīrzā Muḥammad (Leiden and London, 1912–1937, 3 vols), i, pp. 46, 48;Google Scholar and tr.Boyle, J. A., The History of the World-Conqueror (Manchester, 1958, 2 vols with continuous pagination), pp. 61, 64.Google Scholar

16 Hebraeus, Bar, The Chronography, ed. and tr. Budge, E. A. Wallis (Oxford and London, 1932, 2 vols), i (tr.), pp. 352–3;Google Scholar more briefly in the Arabic version, Ta'rīkh Mukhtaṣar al-Duwal, ed. Ṣaḥinānī, A. (Beirut, 1890), p. 394.Google Scholar

17 Secret History of the Mongols, paras. 152, 177. Pelliot, P. and Hambis, L. (ed. and tr.), Histoire des campagnes de Gengis-Khan. Cheng-wou Ts'in-tcheng-lou (Leiden, 1951, vol. i only), p. 231.Google Scholar al-Dīn, Rashīd, Jāmi' al-Tawārīkh, i, part 2, tr. Smimova, O. I., Sbomik letopisei, i, part 2 (Moscow and Leningrad, 1952), p. 110.Google Scholar

18 Göckenjan, Hansgerd, “Frühe Nachrichten über Zentralasien und die Seidenstraßen in der ‘Relatio de Davide rege’”, Ural-Altaische Jahrbücher, VIII (1988), pp. 115ff.Google Scholar

19 Bosworth, C. E., “Ildenizids or Eldigüzids”, Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed.Google Scholar

20 Rodenberg, C. (ed.), Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Epistolae saeculi XIII e regestis pontificum Romanorum selectae (Berlin etc., 1883–1994), i. P. 179 (no. 252);Google Scholar also Rusudan's own letter ibid. (no. 251), “nos non cavebamus ab ipsis quia credebamus eos Christianos esse”. See further Göckenjan, p. 114.

21 “Annales monasterii de Burton”, in Luard, H. R. (ed.), Annales monastici, Rolls Series (London, 1864–1869, 5 vols), i, p. 497.Google Scholar

22 Huygens, , Lettres de Jacques de Vitry, pp. 149–50:Google Scholar this detail occurs in Jacques's own letter and is not found in the Historia, but seems to be derived from the oriental merchants who allegedly brought it to the territories of the count of Tripoli.

23 Meyvaert, Paul, “An unknown letter of Hulagu, Il-Khan of Persia, to King Louis IX of France”, Viator, XI (1980), p. 257.Google Scholar Roberg, Burkhard, “Die Tartaren auf dem 2. Konzil von Lyon”, Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, V (1973), p. 300.Google Scholar

24 Meyvaert, p. 252.