Editing Prester John (section)

== Mongol Empire ==
{{see also|Christianity among the Mongols}}
[[File:WangKhan.JPG|thumb|right|250px|Depiction of the [[Keraite]] ruler [[Toghrul]] as "Prester John" in "Le Livre des Merveilles", 15th century]]

In 1221, [[Jacques de Vitry]], [[Latin Catholic Diocese of Acre|Bishop of Acre]], returned from the disastrous [[Fifth Crusade]] with good news: King David of India, the son or grandson of Prester John, had mobilized his armies against the Saracens. He had already conquered Persia, then under the [[Khwarazmian Empire]]'s control, and was moving on towards [[Baghdad]] as well. This descendant of the great king who had defeated the Seljuks [[Battle of Qatwan|in 1141]] planned to reconquer and rebuild Jerusalem.<ref>{{cite book |author=Jacques de Vitry |author-link=Jacques de Vitry |editor-last=Huygens |editor-first=R. B. C.  |date=1960 |orig-date=13th century |title=Lettres de Jacques de Vitry |location=Leiden |publisher=Brill |language=fr }}</ref>{{sfn|Silverberg|1972|pages=71–73}} 

Controversial Soviet historian and ethnologist [[Lev Gumilev]] speculated that the much reduced [[Crusades|crusader]] [[Kingdom of Jerusalem]] in the [[Levant]] resuscitated this legend in order to raise Christian hopes and to persuade European monarchs who had lost interest by that time in getting involved in costly crusades, in a distant region that was far removed from their own states and affairs.{{sfn|Gumilev|2009|p=342}}  The bishop of Acre was correct in thinking that a great king had conquered Persia; however "King David", as it turned out, was the [[Tengrist]] Mongol ruler, [[Genghis Khan]].{{sfn|Silverberg|1972|p=73}}

The [[Mongol Empire]]'s rise gave Western Christians the opportunity to visit lands that they had never seen before, and they set out in large numbers along the empire's secure roads. Belief that a lost Nestorian kingdom existed in the east, or that the [[Crusader states]]' salvation depended on an [[Franco-Mongol alliance|alliance with an Eastern monarch]], was one reason for the numerous Christian ambassadors and missionaries sent to the Mongols. These include [[Franciscan]] explorers [[Giovanni da Pian del Carpine]] in 1245 and [[William of Rubruck]] in 1253.{{sfn|Silverberg|1972|pages=86, 101}}

The link between Prester John and Genghis Khan was elaborated upon at this time, as the Prester became identified with Genghis' foster father, [[Toghrul]], king of the [[Keraites]], given the [[Jin dynasty (1115–1234)|Jin]] title Ong Khan Toghrul. Fairly truthful chroniclers and explorers such as [[Marco Polo]],{{sfn|Polo|Rustichello da Pisa|1930|pages=84–88}} Crusader-historian [[Jean de Joinville]],<ref name="Joinville 1977">{{cite book |contributor-last=Joinville |contributor-first=Jean, sire de |contributor-link=Jean de Joinville |contribution=The Life of Saint Louis |title=Chronicles of the Crusades |pages=161–353 |date=1977 |orig-date=c.1309 |author2-last=Villehardouin |author2-first=Geoffroy de |author2-link=Geoffrey of Villehardouin |author1-last=Joinville |author1-first=Jean, sire de |author1-link=Jean de Joinville |translator-last=Shaw |translator-first=Margaret R. B. |editor-last=Shaw |editor-first=Margaret R. B. |location=London |publisher=Penguin |isbn=9780140441246 |url=https://archive.org/details/chroniclesofcrus00shaw |url-access=registration |access-date=2021-06-18 |via=[[Internet Archive]]}}</ref> and the Franciscan voyager [[Odoric of Pordenone]]<ref name="Odoric 1913">{{cite book |author=Odoric of Pordenone |author-link=Odoric of Pordenone |title=Odoric of Pordenone |series=Cathay and the Way Thither. Being a collection of medieval notices of China |volume=I |translator-last=Yule |translator-first=Henry |translator-link=Henry Yule |editor-last=Yule |editor1-first=Henry |editor1-link=Henry Yule |editor2-first=Henri |editor2-last=Cordier |editor2-link=Henri Cordier |date=1913 |orig-date=c. 1350 |location=London |publisher=Hakluyt Society |url=https://archive.org/details/cathaywaythither02yule |access-date=2021-06-18}}</ref>{{rp|244–247}} stripped Prester John of much of his otherworldly veneer, portraying him as a more realistic earthly monarch. Odoric places John's land to the west of [[Cathay]] en route to Europe, and identifies its capital as "Cosan", variously interpreted by translators as a number of names and locations.<ref name="Odoric 1913"/>{{rp|245–246}} Joinville describes Genghis Khan in his chronicle as a "wise man" who unites all the Tartar tribes and leads them to victory against their strongest enemy, Prester John.<ref name="Joinville 1977" />{{rp|283–288}} 

William of Rubruck says a certain "Vut", lord of the Keraites and brother to the Nestorian ''King'' John, was defeated by the Mongols under Genghis Khan. Genghis Khan made off with Vut's daughter and married her to his son, and their union produced [[Möngke Khan|Möngke]], the Khan at the time William wrote.<ref>{{cite book |author=William of Rubruck |author-link=William of Rubruck |editor1-last=Jackson |editor1-first=Peter |editor1-link=Peter Jackson (historian) |editor2-last=Morgan |editor2-first=David |date=1990 |orig-date=13th century |title=The Mission of Friar William of Rubruck: His Journey to the Court of the Great Khan Möngke, 1253–1255 |location=London |publisher=Hakluyt Society |isbn=0-904180-29-8}}.</ref> According to Marco Polo's ''[[The Travels of Marco Polo|Travels]]'', the war between the Prester and Genghis Khan started when Genghis Khan, new ruler of the rebellious Tartars, asked for the hand of Prester John's daughter in marriage. Angered that his lowly vassal would make such a request, Prester John denied him in no uncertain terms. In the war that followed, Genghis Khan triumphed, and Prester John perished.{{sfn|Polo|Rustichello da Pisa|1930|pages=84–88}}

The historical figure behind these accounts, Toghrul, was a Nestorian Christian monarch defeated by Genghis Khan. He had fostered the future Khan after the death of his father [[Yesugei]] and was one of his early allies, but the two had a falling-out. After Toghrul rejected a proposal to wed his son and daughter to Genghis Khan's children, the rift between them grew, until war broke out in 1203. Genghis Khan captured [[Sorghaghtani Beki]], daughter of Toghrul's brother Jaqa Gambu, and married her to his son [[Tolui]]. They had several children, including Möngke, [[Kublai Khan|Kublai]], [[Hulagu Khan|Hulagu]], and [[Ariq Böke]].

The major characteristic of Prester John tales from this period is the king's portrayal not as an invincible hero, but merely one of many adversaries defeated by the Mongols. As the Mongol Empire collapsed, Europeans began to shift away from the idea that Prester John had ever really been a Central Asian king.{{sfn|Silverberg|1972|p=139}} At any rate they had little hope of finding him there, as travel in the region became dangerous without the security the empire had provided. In works such as ''[[John Mandeville|The Travels of Sir John Mandeville]]''<ref>{{cite web |editor-last=Halsall |editor-first=Paul |date=March 1996 |url=http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/mandeville.html |title=Mandeville on Prester John |website=Internet Medieval Sourcebook |access-date=2021-06-20 |publisher=Fordham University |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210228165808/https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/mandeville.asp |url-status=live |archive-date=2021-02-28}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author-last=Mandeville |author-first=John |author-link=John Mandeville |editor-last=Mosely |editor-first=C. W. R. D. |editor-link=Charles Moseley (writer) |date=1983 |orig-date=14th century |title=The Travels of Sir John Mandeville |pages=167–171 |location=New York |publisher=Penguin |isbn=0-14-044435-1}}</ref> and ''Historia Trium Regum'' by [[John of Hildesheim]],<ref>{{cite book |author=John of Hildesheim |author-link=John of Hildesheim |date=1997 |orig-date=14th century |title=The Story of the Three Kings |publisher=Neumann Press |isbn=0-911845-68-2}}</ref> Prester John's domain tends to regain its fantastic aspects and finds itself located not on the steppes of Central Asia, but back in India proper, or some other exotic locale. [[Wolfram von Eschenbach]] tied the history of Prester John to the [[Holy Grail]] legend in his poem ''[[Parzival]]'', in which the Prester is the son of the Grail maiden and the Saracen knight [[Feirefiz]].<ref>{{cite book |author=Wolfram von Eschenbach |author-link=Wolfram von Eschenbach |translator-last=Hatto |translator-first=A. T. |translator-link=Arthur Thomas Hatto |date=1980 |title=Parzival |page=408 |location=New York |publisher=Penguin |isbn=0-14-044361-4}}</ref>

A theory was put forward by the Russian scholar Ph. Bruun in 1876, who suggested that Prester John might be found among the kings of [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]], which, at the time of Crusades, experienced military resurgence challenging the Muslim power. However, this theory, though regarded with certain indulgence by [[Henry Yule]] and some modern Georgian historians, was summarily dismissed by [[Friedrich Karl Theodor Zarncke|Friedrich Zarncke]].<ref>{{cite book |author-last=Ross |author-first=E. Denison |author-link=Edward Denison Ross |chapter=Prester John and the Empire of Ethiopia |editor-last=Newton |editor-first=Arthur |editor-link=A. P. Newton |date=1996 |orig-date=1926 |title=Travel and travellers of the Middle Ages |pages=174–194 |location=London; New York |publisher=Routledge |isbn=0-415-15605-X}}</ref>{{rp|184}} The connection with Georgia is unlikely, considering that country was Orthodox, rather than Nestorian, and due to the fact that it and its predecessor states [[Colchis]]/[[Lazica]] and [[Kingdom of Iberia (antiquity)|Iberia]] were well known and documented at the time, with Episcopoi of Kartli having regular epistolary conversions with Bishops of Rome.