Prester John and his Letter: Between Intellectual Joke and Contemporary Criticism

A GHIL seminar in which medieval historian Jochen Johrendt examines the invented letter of the legendary priest king Prester John and what it reveals about twelfth-century criticism.

Jochen Johrendt, Professor of Medieval History at the University of Wuppertal, gives a seminar on the Prester John legend. He discusses Otto of Freising's report of about 1157 concerning a priest king ruling in India, and the later letter supposedly addressed to the Byzantine emperor describing an ideal realm of abundance, health and faith. The talk asks why contemporaries invented this letter, which some crusaders believed to be genuine.