Odo, Abbot of St. Rémy from 1118 to 1151, states in a letter in response to the inquiry of a Count Thomas what had happened when he was recently in Rome. Byzantine ambassadors introduced to the pope an archbishop of India who had already had the extraordinary and disconcerting experience of having to return a third time to Constantinople for a new prince for his country, each previous Byzantine nominee having died on his hands. This archbishop said that the body of the Apostle Thomas was preserved in his country in a church rich in treasure and ornaments and surrounded by a river fordable only at the time of the saint’s festival. On that solemn occasion the Apostle’s body was shown to believers and the Apostle would raise his arm and open his hand to receive their gifts, but close it and refuse to receive any gift offered by a heretic. When this tale reached the pope’s ears he forbade the archbishop to disseminate such falsehoods further under pain of anathema, but the archbishop finally convinced the pope by taking an oath on the holy gospels.
Another longer and anonymous account has come down from manuscripts going back to the twelfth century of the visit of a Patriarch John of India to Rome under Pope Calixtus II (1119-1124). It is this account which is often joined in the manuscripts and early printed editions with the Letter of Prester John of which we shall presently speak. In this account the Patriarch John told “of memorable matters of his Indian region that were unknown to the Romans,” such as of the gold and gems in the river Physon which flows from Paradise, “but especially of the miracles of the most holy Apostle Thomas.” Without going into further details, such as that of the miraculous balsam lamp, which differ a good deal from Odo’s account, it may be noted that in this account the Apostle’s hand ministers the Eucharist to believers and refuses it to infidels and sinners.
Otto of Freising on Prester John, the descendant of the Magi.
We have progressed from an archbishop of India to a Patriarch John; we now come to Prester John the monarch. The historian, Otto of Freising, learned in 1145 from a Syrian bishop at Rome of a great victory recently gained over the Moslems by “a certain John who lived beyond Persia and Armenia in the extreme East, a king and priest, since he was a Christian by race but a Nestorian ... Prester John, for so they are wont to call him.” He was of the ancient progeny of the Magi mentioned in the Gospel, ruled the same races as they, and enjoyed such glory and abundance that he was said to use only an emerald scepter. After his victory he would have come to the aid of the crusaders at Jerusalem, but could not cross the Tigris, although he marched north along its eastern bank and waited for some years in the hope that it would freeze over.[730]
Prester John’s letter to the Emperor Manuel.
This Prester John was to be heard from again, however, for in the same century there appeared a letter purporting to have been written by him to the Byzantine Emperor, Manuel (1143-1180).[731] It is in this letter that the natural and artificial marvels of India and adjacent territories—Prester John’s dominion reaches from farther India to the Babylonian desert—are especially recorded. This letter even in its earliest and briefest form seems without doubt a western forgery and bears the marks of its Latin origin, [732] since despite the use of a few Greek ecclesiastical and official terms[733] and the attempt to rehearse unheard-of wonders, the writer indulges in a sneer at Greek adoration of the emperor[734] and is unable to conceive of Prester John except as a feudal overlord[735] with the usual kings, dukes and counts, archbishops, bishops and abbots under him. The letter then is of value chiefly as showing us what ideas prevailed concerning India and the orient in the Latin world of the twelfth and succeeding centuries, for the letter received many additions and variations, was translated into the vernacular languages, and appeared in print before 1500.[736] In the following account of its contents, however, I shall try to describe the letter as it existed in the twelfth century, after which I shall mention what seem to be interpolations of the thirteenth or later centuries.
Marvels recounted by Prester John.
But while different copies of the work vary, all have the same general character. Prester John tells what a mighty and Christian potentate he is and describes his marvelous palaces and contrivances or the natural marvels, strange beasts and serpents, monstrous races of men, potent herbs, stones, and fountains, to be found in the lands owning his sway. In one province is the herb assidios which enables its bearer to rout an impure spirit and force him to disclose his name and whence he comes. “Wherefore impure spirits in that land dare not take possession of anyone.”[737] A fountain flows from Mount Olympus not three days’ journey from Paradise whence Adam was expelled. Three draughts from it taken fasting insure one henceforth from all infirmity, and however long one may live, one will seem henceforth but thirty years of age.[738] Then there are some little stones which eagles often bring to Prester John’s territories and which worn on the finger preserve or restore the sight, or if consecrated with a lawful incantation, make one invisible and dispel envy and hatred and promote concord.[739] After a description of a sea of sand in which there are various kinds of edible fish and a river of stones, Prester John soon mentions the worms which in his language are called salamanders, who cannot live except in fire, and from whose skins he has robes made which can be cleansed only by fire.[740] After some boasting concerning the absence of poverty, crime, and falsehood in his country and about the pomp and wealth with which he goes forth to war, Prester John then comes to the description of his palace, which is similar to that which the Apostle Thomas built for Gundaphorus, King of India. Its gates of sardonyx mixed with cornu cerastis (horn of the horned serpents) prevent the secret introduction of poison; a couch of sapphire keeps John chaste; the square before the palace where judicial duels are held is paved with onyx “in order that the courage of the fighters may be increased by the virtue of the stone.”[741] Near this square is a magic mirror which reveals all plots in the provinces subject to Prester John or in adjacent lands.[742] In some manuscripts of the twelfth century is a description of another palace which before Prester John’s birth his father was instructed in a dream to build for his son. One feature of it is that no matter how hungry one may be on entering it, he always comes out feeling as full as if he had partaken of a sumptuous banquet.[743]
Additional marvels in later versions.
To such marvels in the early versions of the Letter of Prester John were added others in the course of the thirteenth century and later middle ages:—the huge man-eating ants who mined gold by night;[744] the land where men lived on manna, a substance which we shall find somewhat similarly mentioned by Michael Scot and Thomas of Cantimpré;[745] the tale, which we shall also hear from Roger Bacon, of men who tame flying dragons by their incantations and magic, saddle and bridle them, and ride them through the air;[746] the five marvelous stones that froze or heated or reduced to an even state of temperature or made light or dark everything within a radius of five miles; the second five stones, of which two were unconsecrated and turned water to milk or wine, while three were consecrated and would respectively cause fish to congregate, wild beasts to follow one, and, sprinkled with hot lion’s blood, produce a conflagration which could only be quenched by sprinkling the stone with hot dragon’s blood;[747] the marvelous mill operated by the occult virtue of the stone adamant;[748] the wonderful tree on which the wonderful healing apple grew;[749] the marvelous chapel of glass, always just big enough for as many persons as entered it;[750] and the stone and the fountain that served as fireless heaters.[751] In another case a marvel is wrought by stone and fountain combined. Two old men guard a large stone and admit to its hollow only Christians or those who desire to become Christians. If this profession of faith is genuine, the water in the hollow which is usually only four fingers deep thrice rises above the head of the person admitted, who thereupon emerges recovered from all sickness.[752]