The next name, “Galgarien”, is undoubtedly intended for Khozary or Gazary, described by Marino Sanudo (Kunstmann, Stud. über M. S. 105) as Galgaria, a dependancy of the Tatars, inhabited by “Gothi et aliqui Alani”. It was a Genoese possession in the Crimea, whence was carried on a large export trade, chiefly in slaves to Alexandria, where many afterwards became men of note; but Khozary was a dependancy of Kiptchak, a name that signifies—hollow tree—the distinctive title immediately following that of “the mighty emperor of Galgarien” as “the Lord of the withered tree”. The rulers of Kiptchak, or khans of the Golden Horde, were long bound by the strictest ties of friendship to the sultans of Egypt, and as zealous followers of Mahomet, were not likely to question their right to hold the first place among the monarchs of Islam.
That the high position attained by those sultans did not influence them against according their protection to Christian potentates, is evident from the intimate relations that existed between themselves and the kings or emperors of Abyssinia, among whom should certainly be included “Prester John, in enclosed Rumany”.
It is now generally admitted that Marco Polo, with his usual good faith, stated the precise truth in affirming that in his time, one George, a descendent of Prester John, became the governor of a province as a vassal of China. This prince professed the Roman Catholic faith, instead of Nestorianism as did his grandfather Ovang Khan, chief of the Keraits, and not, as Oppert has sought to prove (Der Presb. Johannes in Sage und Gesch., etc., Berlin, 1864) of the Gour Khan of the Karakhitaians mentioned by Rubruquis. In either case it is pretty certain that so soon as European intercourse with the interior of Asia decreased, the existence of a Christian state on the Nile, to the south of Egypt, became more generally known; a state to which Haythoun, the Armenian historian, had already directed the Pope’s attention (De Tartaria, c. 57, apud Webb, A Survey of Egypt and Syria, etc., 394), and it thereafter became the custom to metamorphose the Christian monarch of the Nubians and Abyssinians into Prester John. Like Schiltberger, De Lannoy (Voy. et Ambass., 93) knew of no other Prester John, and far from admitting his dependance on the sultan, a condition to be inferred by the title of protector attributed to the latter by Schiltberger, the knight implies that it was rather the sultan who was in a state of dependance on Prester John, in whose power it lay to “destourber le cruschon” of the Nile, which he certainly would have done, but for the fear of victimising the many Christians in Egypt.
In another chapter, De Lannoy terms these Christians “Christians of the girdle”, a name that was applied, says his commentator (Webb), in consequence of a law promulgated A.D. 856 by the caliph Motonakek, which prescribed that Jews and Christians should wear a broad leathern girdle. It appears, however, that in course of time the Nestorians and Jacobites also became subject to the same law, and this accounts for the expression, “Prester John, in enclosed Rumany”, which, if intended for Abyssinia, a country mistaken by Marco Polo and De Lannoy for that of the Brahmins, would indicate that the former was inhabited by the Christians of the girdle. (De Lannoy styles the primate of the Copts, the primate of India.) That they were believed to be in Abyssinia is proved in the following lines from Juan de la Encina’s narrative of his journey to Jerusalem in the year 1500.
“Hay muchas naciones alli de Christianos,
De Griegos, Latinos, y de Jacobitas,
Y de los Armenios, y mas Maronistas
Y de la cintura, que son Gorgianos:
Y de estos parecen los mas Indianos,
De habito y gesto mas feo, que pulcro: