Prester John: The Legend and its Sources

Front Cover
Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., Jul 28, 2015 - History - 348 pages
The story of the mysterious oriental leader Prester John, who ruled a land teeming with marvels and might come to the aid of Christians in the Levant, held an intense grip on the medieval mind. It has received much scholarly attention, but never before have the sources been collected and coherently presented to readers. This book now brings together a fully-representative set of sources from which we get our knowledge of the legend. These texts, spanning from the Crusades to the Enlightenment, are presented in their original languages and in English translation.
 

Contents

The Beginnings of Prester John Twelfth Century
29
Prester John and the Fifth Crusade early Thirteenth Century
97
Mongols and Travel writers MidThirteenth
141
Prester John in africa Fifteenth to early
213
legends and lies late sixteenth and early
229
Annotated List of Primary Sources
273
The Manuscript Traditions of the Prester John Letter
299
Appendix 3Prester John in Maps
321
Index
335
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About the author (2015)

Keagan Brewer is affiliated with the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Sydney, Australia

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