Otto of Freising

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Prester John 1: The Letter

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From "Le Livre des Merveilles", 15th century. From the Gallica Digital Library. (Wikimedia)

From "Le Livre des Merveilles", 15th century. From the Gallica Digital Library. (Wikimedia)

The legend in its early forms: the arrival in Rome of a patriarch from the east, the chronicles of Otto of Freising, and that famous "letter."

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Sources:

  • Otto of Freising, Chronicon, ed. G.H. Pertz, MGH SSRG (Hanover: Hahn, 1867), VII, 33, (pp. 334-35), translated by James Brundage, The Crusades: A Documentary History, (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1962). Accessed at Fordham University Internet Medieval Sourcebook.

  • Prester John: The Legend and its Sources, compiled and translated by Keagan Brewer. Taylor & Francis, 2019.

  • Baring-Gould, Sabine. Curious Myths of the Middle Ages. Roberts Brothers, 1867.

  • Heng, Geraldine. The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages. Cambridge University Press, 2018.