5
… there is a land far, far away, mysterious, inaccessible—an earthly paradise that lies at the true center of the world. There, crowning a great mountain, is a castle or temple of fabulous splendour containing the most precious of all objects, the Grail itself.
…
A. U. Pope, Persia and the Holy Grail
From the castle of the Grail, the temple evolved; from the temple grew something greater still—a kingdom, ruled over by a figure as famous in the Middle Ages as the Grail itself: Prester John. It was perhaps inevitable that the Letter of Prester John, one of the most copied and most discussed documents of the Middle Ages, should influence the literature of the times. Paraphrases or direct quotes from the original letter, along with many interpolations and re-editing, can be traced from the twelfth to the nineteenth centuries, yet one of the most important borrowings remains largely ignored: the one to be found in the last third of The Later Titurel. Here we have not only a radically different version of the priest-king’s legend, but the most specific connection yet between that legend and the story of the Grail.
Albrecht borrowed heavily from the text of the letter for his description of the Grail Temple, but he went further when he spoke of the quarrel that split the Grail family and caused a copy of the original cup to be taken to Constantinople, while the true Grail went East, to the land of Prester John. In this he far extended the brief mention in Wolfram’s Parzifal to the parentage of the priest-king. Though this was, of itself, important, as it connected Prester John to the family of the Grail, Albrecht chose to ignore it; instead, he extended the story to encompass both a detailed description of John’s kingdom and the fact that the Grail was to be kept there for an indefinite future.
In doing so he opened up the world of the Grail hugely, making it part of the vast realm of the priest-king, which was itself only a small corner of the infinitely greater earthly paradise.
The Mysterious Kingdom
To understand how this came about, we must look further at the legend of the priestly lord ruling over a vast and mysterious land. It first became widely known when, in 1165, a letter was delivered to the Byzantine emperor Emanuel Commemnos, the Holy Roman emperor, Frederic Barbarossa, and the king of France. It claimed to be from a monarch who was also a priest—hence prester, priest-king—ruling over an impossibly rich land situated somewhere in India. The exact origins of this letter, along with the identity of its author, remain a mystery, though we can point to a number of older documents that contributed to it. The letter itself caused a sensation; the idea of a Christian monarch ruling over a kingdom in the East was extraordinary. It became an overnight talking point amongst the courts of the West, and everywhere debates took place as to the reality of Prester John and the impact his existence, if true, would have on the continuing wars between Christian and Moslem. The letter offered proof that a powerful Christian ally existed behind the Islamic kingdoms—an ally with a vast army at his disposal and a willingness to come to the aid of the Christian West.
There are innumerable versions of the Letter of Prester John and a good number of translations. We chose the one made by Robert Williams, taken from the fourteenth-century Welsh Hengwrt Manuscript collection in 1892. This is, in many ways, the most poetic rendering of the text, and with a few corrections from more recent editions and some modernization of the language, it reads well and gives a good feeling of the original document.
We were also intrigued to note that the same collection of manuscripts includes a fifteenth-century Welsh amalgamation of the Quest del Saint Graal and Perlesvaus, known today as Y Seint Greal, as well as extracts from the Gospel of Nicodemus, which includes some of the earliest references to Joseph of Arimathea and a version of Seth’s quest for the Oil of Mercy. As we shall see, this is yet another parallel to the Grail quest, and while almost certainly no more than a coincidence, it suggests that all three texts were in circulation at the same time. The manuscripts in question are Peniarth MS 5 and Jesus MS 111, now in the collection of the National Library of Wales. The opening paragraph seems to be unique to this version, and since the letter is clearly not a book suggests that at one time there might have been a longer account of the kingdom of Prester John. The divisions were made by Robert Williams and are retained here for convenience.
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The Letter of Prester john
edited and translated by Robert Williams
This is a Book that the King of India sent to the Emperor of Constantinople, in which many diverse strange things are understood, and in it there are new things that have never been found in other books, and never shall be found. And this is the force of that book.
I. John the Priest, by the might and strength of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, King of earthly kings, and Lord of Lords, sends to him that stands in the place of God, namely the Ruler of Rome, joy and greeting by the grace of poetry, and thereby rising to things that are above. It was told to us that you love our excellence and the plenitude of our greatness, and we have learnt through our messenger that you wish to send us things that are amusing and pleasant; and that is good in my sight. Of the things we possess we send by our messengers to you, and we desire to know whether you share our faith and believe wholly in our Lord Jesus Christ.
II. Where we ourselves know ourselves to be mortal, the Greeks think that you are a God. Yet, since we know you are mortal, and that you are subject to human corruption, if you desire any of the things that bring joy, notify us through your messenger, and by the munificence of our bounty, you shall have it. Therefore take this gift of Hawkweed,147 in my name, and make use of it, and we will joyfully use your gifts, so that we may strengthen ourselves mutually in our power. If you wish to visit the nation from which we are sprung, we will place you amid the greatest things in our palace, so that you may make use of our abundance, and the many things that are in our midst; and if you would return, you shalt go home rich. Remember, however, the last thing, which is the end of your life, and you will sin no more.
III. Now, if you would know our majesty, and the excellence of our highness, and in what lands our power holds sway, understand and believe without doubt that I am John the Priest, Lord of Lords, excelling all the Kings of the earth in strength and power, in all kinds of riches that are under heaven. Seventy-two kings pay tribute to me. I vow that I am a devout Christian; and that everywhere we give succour to poor Christians. We have also undertaken a vow to visit the Sepulchre of Our Lord with a great host, as it befits the glory of our mightiness to subject and subdue the enemies of the Cross of Christ, and to exalt His Blessed Name. Our land stretches from the extremities of India, where the body of Thomas the Apostle rests, and extends through the wilderness to the setting sun, to the Babylonian desert, near the tower of Babel.
IV. Seventy-two kings serve us in bondage, and of those but few are Christian; and each of them has a king of its own, and these all pay tribute to us. In our country are born animals—elephants, dromedaries, camels, hippopotami, crocodiles, methagalinarii,148 camelopards, pantheræ, curanthers, white and red lions, white bears, white merlins, silent grasshoppers, gryphons, tigers, lamias, hyenas, wild buffaloes, archers, wild men, men with horns, fauns, satyrs, and women of the same race, pigmies, giants forty cubits in height, one-eyed men, cyclopes, the bird that is called the phœnix, and almost all the kinds of animals under heaven. In our country there is abundance of milk and honey; in another quarter in our land no poison hurts, no frog croaks, no snakes hiss in the herbage. No venomous animals can abide there, or do harm to anyone. In the midst of some races called pagans, through one of our provinces, a river called Ydonis runs, and this river, coming from Paradise, goes noiselessly through our entire kingdom by a series of mazes. Here are found natural stones—these are their names: emerald, sapphire, carbuncle, topaz, chrysolite, onyx, beryl, amethyst, sardonex, and many others.
V. Here springs the herb called Assidôse.149 Whoever bears the root of that plant, it will drive evil spirits from him, and will constrain such spirits to say what they are, and what their name; therefore the evil spirits dare not corrupt any man here. In another kingdom of ours there grow all kinds of pepper, which are collected and exchanged for wheat, skins, cloth, and bread; and those regions are wooded, as if thickly planted with willows, and all full of serpents. And when the pepper ripens, the people come from the nearest kingdoms and bring with them chaff, and dry branches; and they kindle the wood round about; and when a mighty wind blows, they set fire throughout the forest, so that not one of the serpents may escape. And so within the fire, after it has been thoroughly kindled, all the serpents perish, save those that reach their caves; and when all the fire has died out, all come, men and women, small and big, with forks in their hands, and fling all the serpents out of the forest, and make great heaps of them. And when they have finished shaking the chaff, the grain that is gathered from among the fagots is dried, and the pepper is boiled, but how it is boiled no one from another country is allowed to know.
VI. That forest is situated under Mount Olympus, and from there an excellent spring flows; and the water has every kind of taste, and the taste changes each hour, day and night. And from there, it is but three days’ journey to Paradise, from which Adam was driven out. Whoever drinks of the water of that spring during his fast, no disease will come upon him from that day forth, and he will ever be thirty years of age. There, too, there are stones called Midriosi. Eagles bring these to us, and through them they revive and recover their sight if they lose it. Whoever bears this stone on his hand, his sight never fails, and if he would hide himself, it will make him invisible. It drives hatred from all, and induces unity, and repels jealousy. This, too, is a strange thing that our country has, among other things: there is a sea of sand there, which moves without water, and it surges in waves like other seas, and never rests; but one cannot go on it by ship or in any other way, nor can it be in any way known what kind of land there is beyond; but on the side towards us there are found many kinds of fish, so sweet and so good that man never saw their like.
VII. There are likewise three days’ journey from this sea, mountains from which flow a river of stones like water, and it runs through our land to the sea of sand. And when the river reaches the sea, the stones disappear, so that they are not seen again. Three days in the week the stones move and slide, both small and great, and take with them some trees, as far as the sea of sand, and so long as they move, no one can ever cross it. On the other four days a passage is obtained. This is another marvel that is there; hard by the desert near the mountains where no one dwells, there is a river beneath the earth, and no one can find a road to it, except by chance; sometimes the earth trembles, and whoever then happens to be passing by can find a road to the river, and he must travel in haste, lest perchance the earth close upon him; and whatever sand he brings with him will become precious stones and jewels. This rivulet runs into another river larger than itself, and therein is none of the gravel or sand, but only precious stones. Into this river the men of that country go, and seize and bring with them a multitude of precious stones and jewels. But they dare not sell them until they first show them to us. And if we would fain have them in our treasure, we take them, and give the men half their value. If we do not want them, they are free to sell them where they will. Children are raised in water in that land to enable them to seek the stones, so that they can live under water for as long as three or four months.
VIII. Beyond this stony river there are ten tribes of the Jews. Though they possess kings, yet they are subject to us, and are tributaries to our majesty. In another kingdom of ours, beyond the place where the island lies, there are worms, called in our tongue Salamanders, and those worms can live only in fire. They have around them skins like the skins of worms that make silk; and to spin this is the work of our ladies in our palace, whereof is made all kinds of apparel for the use of our majesty. These clothes cannot be washed save in a large and strong fire. In gold, silver, precious stones, in elephants, dromedaries, camels and dogs, is the abundance of our greatness. No one is poor among us; no adulterer is found there; all men of strange lands, to wit, guests and pilgrims, we receive. No thieves, no oppressors, no misers are found in our midst; there is no envy here.
IX. Our men have abundance of all kinds of riches; there are not many horses among us, though they are poor. We liken none on the face of the earth to us in riches. When we go to war in force against our enemies, we let carry before us fifteen magnificent crosses made of gold and silver, with precious stones therein, one in each van, instead of standards, and behind each one of them twelve thousand men of arms, and a hundred thousand foot soldiers, without counting the five thousand who carry our food and drink. But when we walk abroad in peace, a wooden cross precedes us, without any legend whatever, either of gold or silver, so that the suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ may be brought back to our remembrance constantly. And we take also a vessel full of earth, so that we may remember that our flesh returns to its source—that is, to earth. Another vessel, full of gold, is borne before us, that all may understand that we are the Lord of Lords.
X. In all the kinds of riches that are in the world our greatness abounds and excels. No one tells a lie among us, nor is anyone able to tell one; and whoever tells a lie willingly, straightway he dies, and no ill will is borne of him. All of us follow after truth, and all love one another mutually; no kind of sin reigns here. Every year we go on a pilgrimage to the place where lies the body of Daniel the Prophet, taking great hosts with us, to the Babylonian desert, and those under arms because of wild animals and serpents which are deemed frightful. In our country some fish are caught, and from the blood of these the most precious purple dye is found.
XI. We have many places of power and are the bravest people in the world. We lord it over the races called Amazons and Brahmans. The palace wherein we dwell was made in the form and likeness of that which the Apostle Thomas ordained for Gondoforus, king of India; and its wings and structures are exactly like it. The columns of the hall, its pillars, and its fretwork, come from a tree called acacia. The roofing of the hall is made of ebony, since no one in the world can burn it. On the topmost part of the roof of the hall are two apples of gold, and in each of them there is the precious stone called carbuncle, so that the gold may give light during the day, and the stones by night. The largest parts of the hall are made of stones called sardonex, inlaid with serpent’s horn, so that no one may secretly bring in poison. Other parts of the hall are made of ebony, and the windows are of crystal; the tables we eat on in our palace are some of gold, and others of the precious stone amethyst. The pillars that support the tables are of whalebone. Before our palace there is a street, wherein our justice is wont to look on those triumphant in battle. The top of the hall and its walls are made of onyx, the purpose being that energy may arise in our combatants by the virtue of the stones. In that hall light is not kindled at night, save that which the precious oil called balsam feeds.
XII. The chamber wherein our majesty rests is fitted with wonderous work, and that of gold, and every king of precious stone in the world, because of the excellence of onyx, which gives us light. Around this is made a foursquare work so that the purity of the onyx may be judged. Precious ointment is at all times burned in this chamber; our bed is made of sapphire because of the stone’s virtue of chastity. We have the fairest wives in the world, but they come in to us only four times in the year, that we may have heirs; and thereafter each one returns to her own place, blessed by us as Beersheba was by David.
XIII. In our palace we eat once a day; each day thirty thousand men eat at our board, besides the guests that come and go. And these all receive their charges from our palace, both in horses and other supplies. That table is made of the precious stone called emerald, and is supported by two pillars of amethyst. The virtue of this stone is that it suffers no one to get drunk so long as he sits thereon. Before the doorposts of our hall, near where our warriors sit, there is a watch-tower of great height, to which one climbs by one hundred and twenty-five steps; and of these steps, some are made of porphyry, blended with the blood of serpents and alabaster ointment. The lower parts of these are made of crystal, jasper, and sardonex, and those at the top of amethyst, amber, jasper, sardonex, and panthera. This watch-tower is supported by one pillar, and on this there is a base, and on this base two columns; and on these there is a base, and on this four columns, and again a base, and on this sixteen columns; and so the work proceeds, until the number thirty-four is reached, and then the number of the bases lessens, and the columns, as they increased before, descend to thirty-four.
XIV. The columns and bases are of the same kind of precious stone as the steps by which men ascend. On the summit of the highest there is a mirror placed by graceful skill, so that no one in the various kinds of land subject to us can work any fraud, or treachery, or dissension against us, nor those among us, without it being clearly seen from that watchtower without it being known who they are or what they do. There are three thousand men of arms ever guarding this mirror night and day, lest by chance it be broken or overthrown to the ground.
XV. Each month in the year seven kings serve me, each one of them in his order, and forty-two princes, and three hundred and fifty-six earls. That number is always at our board, without those placed in the various duties in our palace. At our board there eat each day, on the right, twelve archbishops, and on the left twenty bishops, and the patriarch of St. Thomas and he that is Pope.
The Welsh text ends here, but there is more still. This is from our own translation of the original Latin text of the Letter:
XVI. “… the Bishop of Samarkand, and the Archbishop of Sousa. Every month each one of these prelates returns home, but others stay always at our side. Abbots serve us every day of the year in our chapel, taking turns to be with us and in their own homes—but there are always as many as there are days in the year that remain with us.
XVII. We posses another palace which, though of no greater length or breadth than the other, was built by my father according to a vision that he had. So great was his holiness and justness that he was named Quasidus.150 To him it was told in a dream: “Build a palace for your son who, when he is born to you, will be king over all the kings and lords of the earth.
“The palace will have so much grace conferred upon it by God, that no one who enters there will leave unsatisfied; and even if one desperate with hunger enters there and is sick to the point of death, even though he stays there for a long while, he will be satisfied—as though he had eaten a hundred courses of food—and as healthy as if he had never suffered any infirmities in his life.” Next morning Quasidus, my father, fearful of this vision, got up. Greatly disturbed, he heard a sublime voice, which all who were with him heard also. It pronounced: “Quasidus—do what you have been told, do not hesitate, all will be well as it was predicted.”
XVIII. This voice comforted my father greatly, and immediately he ordered the palace to be built, using only precious stones, and the best gold as cement. Its heavenly roof is of sapphire, and brilliant topazes were set in between them, so that the sapphires were like the purest heaven and the topazes were stars that illuminated the whole palace. The floor itself is covered with large crystal flagstones, and there are no chambers or compartments there, merely fifty columns of the purest gold, slender as needles, set in the palace near its walls. In each corner is one greater than the rest, which are set between them. The height of one column is sixty cubits, its breadth such that two men are able to encompass it with their arms. Each one has at its top a carbuncle as great in size as an amphora, and from this the palace is eliminated as the world is illuminated by the sun. If you ask why the columns are sharpened to needlepoints, it is because if they were as wide at the top as at the bottom, the floor and the palace would not be sufficiently illuminated from the brightness of the carbuncles. Likewise if you ask which of the two jewels is the brightest, the truth is that the brightness is so great that nothing, however small, even if it lies upon the floor, cannot fail to be seen. There are no windows or openings there, so the brightness of the carbuncles and other stones cannot be eclipsed by the brightness of the sun. On our birthday, when we wear the crown, we enter the palace and remain there for as long as it takes to eat a meal, and we leave satisfied as if with all kinds of food.
XIX. If you ask also why, since the Creator of All has made us the most powerful and glorious of mortals, our sublime nature does not allow us to be called by any title more honorable than that of Presbyter, you should not be surprised. For we have in our court many officials more deserving of such ecclesiastical titles. They are provided with a divine service even greater than ours. Indeed our steward is a primate and king, our cupbearer an archbishop and king, our marshal a king and archimandrite, and our chief cook a king and an abbot. On this account I have not allowed myself to be distinguished by the same rank with which our court is full. Therefore we choose to be called by a lesser name and inferior rank, on account of our humility.
XX. We cannot presently tell you all about our power and glory, but when you come to us you will see that we are truly a Lord of Lords over the whole earth. In the meantime you should know that our country extends in breadth for four months in one direction, and that in the other no one knows how far our kingdom stretches. If you can count the stars in heaven and the sands of the sea, you may calculate the extent of the kingdom and our power.
The Meaning of the Letter
The letter itself is clearly a fantasy, created almost certainly from a desire to have an ally in the East who would help win the Holy Land back for the Christians. But it was not the first such account, and the earlier ones, from which the writer clearly borrowed, are in themselves every bit as intriguing today as they were in the twelfth century. They also cast a new and surprising light on the Grail myth.
The oldest of these documents, the De Adventu Patriarchae Indorum (“On the Coming of the Patriarch of the Indians”) is dated circa 1122 and describes the visit of a mysterious man to Rome. Calling himself John, Patriarch of the Indians, he is very clearly a forerunner of the priest-king. Arriving at the court of Pope Calixtus II, who reigned from 1119–1124, he regaled the astonished pontiff and his court with an account of a land of marvels and miracles, including an apparent revivification of the preserved body of the apostle Thomas—widely believed at this time to have converted the people of India to Christianity.
The description that follows is startling to say the least; not only for the way in which it sets the tone of the later Prester John material, but for the number of ways that it foreshadows the Grail romances. Because the document itself, discovered in the 1870s by Friedrich Zarncke, the premier scholar of the Letter of Prester John, remains of uncertain origin (though it does seem to date reasonably to within a year of 1122, from interior references), we cannot be certain whether any of the Grail authors would have seen it. However, the striking parallels to the earliest Grail myth, as ascribed to Chrétien de Troyes, as well as later retellings, make it hard to dismiss as an important source for the developing legend.
John the Patriarch begins with a description of the chief city of his country, which he calls Hulna. It takes four days to travel from one side to the other, and its walls are very tall and thick enough to allow two Roman chariots to drive side by side along them.151 Though the midst of the city runs the River Physon, which flows out of paradise.152 It washes out much gold and many precious jewels, which have made the people of the land very wealthy.
Only devout Christians live there, and if any wicked unbeliever enters the city, he or she is likely to fall dead. Nearby is a mountain surrounded on all sides by the waters of a deep lake that rise almost to the mountaintop for most of the year, only receding when it is time to celebrate the sacred mysteries of Christ in the church that was founded by the apostle Thomas. This makes the church inaccessible throughout most of the year, and even the patriarch, elected as a high priest, only visits it once a year, when it is time to celebrate the sacred mysteries.
The description that follows is astonishing, especially in the context of the Grail story and the texts we have been exploring:
… within the Holy of Holies of the church is a ciborium of magnificent workmanship, its cover woven with gold and silver, decorated with precious stones of the kind which the river of paradise deposits there. Within this ciborium is the most precious silver shell hanging from silver chains … but although it is placed in valuable metal, a greater treasure lies within. For there is the body of the apostle, preserved to this day whole and unharmed. The body stands erect above the shell as though still living, and a golden lamp filled with the sacred balsam hangs by ropes of silver before him. From the previous year, when this lamp was first lit, until the current moment, it is found with neither the Balsam diminished nor the lamp extinguished. And by the will of God and the intervention of the apostle, these things are still there until the year passes over …
As has been said before, according to the custom of the place, when the patriarch returns every year to the church, a great gathering of people follow him, men and women standing before the platform of the glowing apostle, shouting out as one for a portion of the sacred balm. 153
In another echo of the Grail story, those who stand before the “glowing” body of the apostle, and who are touched by ointment from the lamp that hangs before him, are healed. The presence of a ciborium, as we have seen, is a distinctive factor both in the description of the Grail Temple in The Later Titurel and in the account of the building of the temple of the apostle Thomas in the De Adventu.
What follows is even more striking. With trembling hands, the patriarch and his priests lift the body of Thomas and place it in a golden chair next to the altar. The description of the apostle is detailed:
The shape and integrity of the body endures still, through the will of God. He seems as he was when he moved though the world in life, and his face glows with the light of a star. He is most handsome, with red hair to his shoulders and a short, curly red beard. Even his clothes are as fresh as on the day when he first donned them. 154
This is followed by a description full of echoes of the Grail story:
Once the body is placed upon its throne [… and …] when the time comes to administer the Eucharist, the patriarch gathers offerings, which are placed in a golden dish on the altar. These are then offered on bended knee to the Apostle, who, according to the will of God, takes them in his right hand, prophetically outstretched, so that he seems to be not dead but alive. Keeping the offerings in his outstretched hand he allows one to be taken by each person, approaching in turn and receiving the offering in their mouths with great awe. 155
These miraculous events continue for a week, with each member of the faithful community receiving the offering, which we can assume to be the sacred wafer. Only those who are pagan or of doubtful belief are turned away, the apostle closing his hand to deny them.
The reference to the tomb of the prophet Daniel is also intriguing. There are actually a number of supposed resting places for the prophet, but the most usually cited is at Susa, where it is still revered today and which is mentioned in the Letter of Prester John. Discovered in AD 640, the prophet’s remains were said to bring good fortune. A bitter dispute broke out over this between the two tribes who were guardians of the relics. They lived on opposite sides of the River Choasps, and those on one side were perpetually poor while those on the other were rich. This good and bad fortune was tied to the presence of Daniel’s body, and fighting broke out between the two tribes for their possession. Eventually this was stopped by the Persian shah Sanjar on the grounds that it was disrespectful to the prophet. He ordered the bier on which the body was laid to be chained at the exact center of a bridge across the river and had a chapel built there which was open to all. The shah also forbade all fishing near the bridge, declaring that it was dangerous due to the presence of goldfish in the water at this point.
This is curiously reminiscent of the division that occurs in The Later Titurel between the guardians of the Grail, while the reference to the ban on fishing, though not an exact correlation, reminds us of the daily activity of the Fisher King. The setting of the prophet’s grave in Iran may have its own significance due to its proximity to another important site with major connections to the Grail, while the fact that the body is kept on a bier, or bed, is more than slightly reminiscent of the wounded king on his bed in the castle of the Grail.
A total of eighteen manuscript copies of this document have so far come to light, dating from the middle of the twelfth century to the end of the fifteenth. This means that it could have been seen by any one of the major Grail authors, including Chrétien, Robert de Boron, Albrecht, and the author of Sone. Though not a Grail text as such, it nonetheless contains several essential elements that became central to the evolving myth. The apparently undead Thomas in his chair is very much like the description of the Wounded King in the side chamber of the Grail castle; the presence of a sacred reliquary containing an even more sacred relic (in this instance the uncorrupted body of Thomas); and the fact that this was kept within a ciborium—a canopy resting on four pillars—reminds us of the setting of the hall in Chrétien. The fact that, as we have seen, this is also included in the description of the Holy of Holies in the Solomonic temple and that a ciborium is mentioned significantly in The Later Titurel, adds to the importance of its presence—especially as it is a term used by the anonymous author of the De Adventu. Nor should we forget that the apostle Thomas (known as Doubting Thomas) is the only one of the disciples to touch the sacred blood of the risen Christ when he doubts the evidence of his eyes and is invited to put his fingers into the wounds. Again, the link with the Grail and its sacred contents is significant.
Reports of the Patriarch John
We might be inclined to dismiss the appearance of the patriarch John as a piece of fiction were it not for another document that describes the visitor from the East in such a way as to leave little doubt that he really existed.
The document in question is a letter from Odo, abbot of the monastery of Saint-Remi in Rheims. Odo’s tenure was from 1118 to 1151, which gives us a period in which the letter was written—probably within a year or so of the De Adventu. Odo claims to have been present during the visit of the mysterious John (here called Archbishop of the Indians rather than Patriarch). While the letter bears a close similarity to the account of the De Adventu, there are also a number of small details that differ, implying that Odo probably wrote from memory and was not simply copying from the existing report.
On his arrival at the Roman court he reported to officials that he was the head of the church where the body of the Blessed Thomas was laid. Truly, amongst other details he described concerning the location of the aforesaid church, its vast wealth and mighty treasures, he mentioned something that can only amaze those who hear it. 156
Odo then repeats the description of the church, enclosed on all sides by water, which only receded shortly before the date of the apostle’s feast day. Finally he repeats the description of the saint’s body being brought forth and how his arm was raised and his hand extended. Into this was placed offerings of one sort or another, which were all received by the saint—excluding any offered by pagans or unbelievers, at which the fingers closed. This is slightly different from the De Adventu, where the saint appears to dispense the host to the congregation.
An interesting coda to Odo’s letter is that the pope was apparently suspicious of the visitor and required him to swear to the truth of his account on a gospel. When he did so, the prelate relented and everyone praised the miracles of Thomas.
This depiction of the visitor rings true, though it does not enable us to identify him. One recent authority describes him as an “imposter,” but there is actually no reason to see him in this light. He may well have been a visitor from one of the Nestorian churches traditionally founded by St. Thomas or perhaps the long-lost sect of the Nasoreans, whose teachings are reflected so deeply in the earliest Christian writings.157 Perhaps the writer was making up an account of the wonders of his homeland; we cannot know this. What we can be certain of is that when we hear an account of a mysterious personage called John from a semi-paradisal realm to the East, the description echoes that of both the De Adventu and Odo’s letter.
The next account appeared in 1143, in a chronicle entitled De Duabus Civitatibus (“On the Two Cities”) written by Bishop Otto of Freising. This work, which recorded events from the mid-twelfth century, includes an account of a story related by a certain Bishop Hugh of Jabala, in Syria, who had reported to Pope Eugenius III (reigned 1145–1153) concerning the fall of Edessa and a great battle in which
… a certain John, king and priest, who lives beyond Persia and Armenia in the furthest east, and who with his people, is a Christian, though Nestorian, made war on the brother kings of the Persians and Medes, called the Samiards, and stormed Ecbatana, the seat of their kingdom. 158
This fatal battle, which ended in a victory for Prester John, has been identified with an actual battle that took place on 9 September 1141 between the armies of the Seljuk sultan Sanjar and Yelu Dashi, leader of the Kara-Khitai, a nomadic tribe from China. This may seem a long way from the battles of the priestly king and the Persia Samiards, but it has been reasonably argued that this encounter, which ended in the destruction of the Moslem army of Sanjar, left behind such echoes that when news of it reached the West, it had become transformed into a Christian victory over the forces of Islam. From this, it is suggested, grew the legend of the Christian monarch ruling over a kingdom in the East who promised to come to the aid of his fellow believers in their time of greatest need.
It is also perhaps worth noting that Otto’s relation of Bishop Hugh’s account includes the intriguing statement that the priest-king was descended from “the ancient race of the Magi” and that he ruled over his people with a scepter of emerald. Such details had the effect of making Prester John even more imposing, implying as it did both an ancient and mystical heritage and a great and richly endowed power.
The Mysteries of Thomas
The focus of the De Adventu and other documents relating to the origins of Prester John are of great interest, as they suggest several further connections to the works we have been examining. Thomas, one of the original apostles of Christ, was also named Didymus, “the twin,” which has led to some speculation that he was a twin brother of Jesus. He was also known as “Doubting Thomas” because of his reluctance to acknowledge Jesus’s resurrection until he had actually touched the wounds—which, as noted, made him the only one to actually touch the holy blood of the Messiah, which was later to be caught in the Grail.
Early Christian tradition relates that Thomas travelled far to the East, taking word of Christianity as far as India. To this day he is regarded as a patron saint of India, and there is a surviving group in that country that call themselves Saint Thomas Christians.
At some point, possibly around the beginning of the sixth century, the followers of St. Thomas became associated with a Christian splinter group known as the Nestorians. These were followers of Nestorius (AD 386–450), a patriarch of Constantinople from AD 421–431, who pronounced a belief separating the human and divine aspects of Jesus, while the more orthodox fathers of Christianity taught that these were one and the same. Nestorius’s teachings brought him into conflict with other theologians and churchmen of the time, and his writings were eventually declared heretical. When this occurred, a number of Nestorius’s followers moved to join a breakaway sect known as the Church of the East, located in and around parts of the Persian-Sasanian Empire and modern-day Iran.
The connections between the followers of Thomas and Nestor are best seen as a matter of location rather than of specific belief. But the presence of both groups in the Eastern kingdoms, especially the area once ruled over by the Sasanians, is important, as we shall see, since it connects the story of Thomas, the extraordinary building in which his uncorrupt body was said to be kept, and the later legend of Prester John and the Grail. As we shall see in chapter 7, a collection of buildings, the foundations of which are still extant, are situated within the area once part of the Sasanian kingdom; that they influenced descriptions of the temples of the Grail in the works we have been examining here is almost certain.
Vsevolod Slessarev, one of the foremost experts on the Prester John legend, believes that the story of Patriarch John originated in Edessa, a city that has connections both with the Nestorian church and St. Thomas, and was, at one time, said to have possessed the greatest relic of Christendom—the Holy Grail! He believes that the city of Hulna, otherwise unknown, could well be either Edessa itself or a nearby town, as claimed by another medieval traveller.159 Edessa was itself the site of the tomb of St. Thomas, and at this period it possessed two outer walls with a raised street between them—very like the description of the city contained in De Adventu. In addition, the early historian Gregory of Tours (circa 539–594) in his book De Gloria Martyrum (“On Glorious Martyrdom”) mentions a pilgrimage made by a certain Theodore to the lands of the East, who described a church in India where relics of Thomas were to be seen, and where a lamp burned constantly before the altar without ever needing to be refilled. This, of course, is remarkably like the descriptions in both The Later Titurel and the De Adventu and again points to a historical aspect in the evolving legend of Prester John.
Slessarev believed that the Thomas legend sprang from a relic—perhaps a hand—belonging to the apostle, which had originally been kept at Edessa and was subsequently taken to a church further east. This is certainly in keeping with the story of Patriarch John’s visit and the information he gave to the pope. Whatever the truth, the most important factors remain the description of the relics and their veneration within the temple built to house them. These, together with the connection with the Nestorian church and the followers of St. Thomas, are essential pointers for our developing argument.
The New Grail King
The Letter of Prester John itself arrived in Europe less than a decade later than these writings, but in these few years something had happened to the visitor from afar—he had become a far more mythical figure. He had become the priest-king John.
We can see immediately how many borrowings there are, both from the letter itself and from the older source of the De Adventu, in Albrecht’s description of the Grail Temple. Its construction is done at the bidding of angels, and many of the components used are the same, with lists of precious stones extremely close. Even the lists of curious beasts are close to those in Albrecht’s account, as are other details, such as the fact that no one who enters the building goes away hungry and the sick are restored to health within a day of being there. There is no mention of a sacred object such as the Grail or the Ark, but the building is a place of power and the priest-king himself an imposing and perhaps semi-divine figure.
An interesting variation is the name of Prester John’s father, who in Wolfram’s Parzifal is called Feirefiz but is here given as Quasidus. This is a name that might tentatively be translated as “semi-god” or perhaps semi-divine; other suggestions are “god-like” or even “face-of-God.” 160 The important factor is that, like Titurel, he is instructed by a heavenly voice to build the palace—though he does not appear to have the divine help provided by the Grail. That the palace is described more in terms of a temple is significant, as is the fact that it is created for the future king of kings. We can see how Albrecht and others could have seen this as a highly appropriate home for the most sacred of relics.
We also learn that this not the first such heavenly inspired building connected with this story. Earlier, the apostle Thomas, whose history inspired the figure of Prester John, had been commanded to build a palace for a King Gondoforus. The mention of this monarch is interesting, as it leads us to an account in the great medieval book of Christian mythology known as The Golden Legend, attributed to the twelfth-century author Jacobus de Voragine. There, we learn:
When St. Thomas was at Cesarea, our Lord appeared to him and said, “The king of the Indies, Gondoforus, hath sent his provost Abanes to seek out workmen well versed in the science of architecture, who shall build for him a palace finer than that of the emperor of Rome. Behold, now I will send thee to him.” And Thomas went and Gondoforus commanded to build for him a magnificent palace, and gave him much gold and silver for the purpose.
The king went into a distant country, and was absent for two years; and St. Thomas meanwhile, instead of building a palace, distributed all the treasures entrusted to him among the poor and sick; and when the king returned, he was full of wrath, and he commanded that St. Thomas should be seized and cast into prison, and he meditated for him a horrible death.
Meantime the brother of the king died; and the king resolved to erect for him a most magnificent tomb; but the dead man, after that he had been dead four days, suddenly arose and sat upright and said to the king “The man whom thou wouldst torture is a servant of God: behold I have been in Paradise, and the angels showed to me a wondrous palace of gold and silver and precious stones, and they said, “This is the palace that Thomas the architect hath built for thy brother King Gondoforus.”
And when the king heard these words, he ran to the prison, and delivered the apostle and Thomas said to him, “Knowest thou not that those who would possess heavenly things, have little care for the things of this earth? There are in heaven rich palaces without number, which were prepared from the beginning of the world for those who purchase the possession through faith and charity. Thy riches, O King, may prepare the way for thee to such a palace, but they cannot follow thee thither.” 161
From this we see that not only was there an earlier temple, based upon one seen by the king’s resurrected brother, but that the palace is perceived as a metaphor for the heavenly city or temple in the paradisal realm. If we are right in our belief that the underlying purpose of the accounts of such buildings, and even more of their physical manifestations, is the creation of places where the individual may encounter the Divine directly, just as those who go in search of the Grail are allowed to do, this fits exactly.
The legend of St. Thomas and King Gondoforus was well known throughout France during the Middle Ages; it is depicted in one of the windows of the cathedral in the ancient city of Bourges and is also the subject of one of the medieval French mystery plays, once acted with great popularity in Paris during the fourteenth century.
The mention of mysterious salamanders can also be seen as the source of both Albrecht and Wolfram’s vision. The weaving of the material called pfelle, which simply means “skin,” probably refers to the confusion of the lizard-like creatures and the cocoons spun by silkworms, who were widely believed to spin the threadlike material asbestos and until as recently as the eighteenth century were still believed to live in fire. According to Wolfram, Gawain’s surcoat was woven by salamander worms in the hottest fires close to the mountain of Muntsalvasche. The fact that Prester John also owned a mirror that enabled him to see what his enemies were doing recalls that owned by the anti-Grail king Clingchor in Wolfram’s Parzifal and a replica of this described in the creation of a church in Southern Germany, which partially replicated the Grail Temple in The Later Titurel (see chapter 7).
There is no question that the Letter of Prester John had an enormous effect on the romance literature of the Middle Ages. Descriptions that perfectly mirror those contained in the letter are found not only in the context of the Grail myth, but in the medieval romances of Alexander the Great and the travel writings of Sir John Mandeville. Albrecht would have been familiar with at least some of these and with one of the many copies of the letter itself.
As we have seen, Albrecht altered the focus of the Grail castle to that of a temple. He refers to a “hall,” which seems to echo both Wolfram and Chrétien’s description of the castle of the Grail, but now the castle is a sacred temple. How this change occurred may be traced back to the simple fact that Albrecht’s borrowing from the Letter of Prester John meant that the country of the Grail had became synonymous with the earthly paradise, making a temple more appropriate as a building created to house the Grail than a secular building that represented the chivalry and warfare of knightly endeavor.
The Beautiful Garden
India became the home of Prester John because it was considered to be where the entrance to the earthly paradise lay. The Later Titurel is not the only Arthurian romance to associate one of its heroes with a paradisal setting with close similarities to the priest-king’s realm. In the long Dutch poem Roman van Walewein (Gawain) by Penninc and Pieter Vostaert,162 Gawain makes his way to a castle that echoes not only the description from the Letter of Prester John but also Albrecht and others, who each sought to place the earthly paradise in a specific spot. The English poet John Gower, in his Confessio Amantis,163 made it clear that India was where Prester John dwelled. Where else, indeed, should one situate the Grail but there?
In Walewein Gawain’s chief adversary is a king named Assentijn, who seeks to prevent Gawain from wooing his daughter Ysabel. In order to win the girl, Gawain has to make his way to Assentjin’s castle, which lies somewhere in “distant India.” Within this castle is a kind of paradisal garden in which Ysabel holds court. In it is a type of Fountain of Youth, which, like the Grail, sustains the life of anyone who drinks from it.
It is right for me to praise this well, for from the Earthly Paradise itself flows a stream which wells up at this splendid and sparkling clear fountain … Though a man were 500 years old, if he were to taste but a drop from the fountain, he would surely and without a doubt become as strong and as young as if, at that very moment, he had become as he was when he was 30 years old. 164
Above the fountain grows a splendid olive tree on which sits a golden eagle that protects the spot from any evil. Also present are rose bushes, bay trees, and many sweet-scented herbs, not to mention a golden tree with hollow branches through which air is pumped by eight men with bellows hidden in a chamber beneath. On every branch sit little golden birds that sing sweetly when the air is pushed though them. These also have healing properties:
The man who hears that sweet music,
Though he were wounded to the quick
If he were there but a short space of time
And heard those little birds sing
He would be healed of all his pain. 165
The castle itself echoes the descriptions of the Grail castle in the works we have explored. It is surrounded by twelve walls, each one with four score towers, while between every second wall runs a moat. Gates of copper and bronze, bound with steel and iron, are the only way in, and these are each guarded by at least eighty armed men.
Aside from the striking similarity to the descriptions of the Grail Temple in Titurel, there are other echoes. In the description of Quasidus’s temple in the Letter of Prester John we find again twelve gates, which may be modeled on the twelve gates of the heavenly Jerusalem (Revelation 21:12). It has also been suggested166 that these references may derive from another apocryphal medieval text, The Vision of St. Paul, where we read:
I entered the city of Christ. It was all gold and twelve walls encircled it, and there were twelve towers inside it …[An] angel … said to me: “The second is better than the first, and likewise the third is better than the second; for one excels the other right up to the twelfth wall.” 167
The descriptions are consistent throughout, and though there are inevitable variations, the general indication is that the vision of the earthly paradise followed a distinctive pattern that can be traced from biblical sources (and earlier) through the romance literature of the Middle Ages. It is very clearly present in both the Letter of Prester John, the description of the Grail Temple and its setting in Titurel, and the description of the Grail Island in Sone.
To the medieval mind, the otherworld was an absolute reality. Entrances to faeryland hid behind bushes and rocks, while the rivers of paradise flowed into the Euphrates and the Tiber. In Walewein the hero finds himself on the banks of the River of Purgatory, while a stream out of paradise rises in the garden of his beloved. Thus, when the medieval audience heard or read tales of quests and adventures leading to strange lands full of curious beasts and splendid buildings, these were as real to them as accounts of heaven, hell, and Eden. These could all be located on earthly maps, and often were, and the realm of Prester John was believed to be reachable—provided one had the strength of will and the courage to get there. So, too, the castle of the Grail and the various shrines, temples, and chapels that held the holy relic were just as likely to be real, and when described in the kind of detail lavished upon them by the authors of The Later Titurel and Sone, this became even more deeply embedded in the imaginal world of the medieval poets and storytellers.
That the character of John mostly vanished from the later texts can be ascribed to two things—the recognition of the important part played by Joseph of Arimathea in the stories that drew upon the Passion narratives of the four canonical Gospels, and the gradual loss of belief in the existence of the king of the far distant, paradisal realm of the Indies. Perhaps also we may see it as a more simple triumph of nearer and prevailing myths of the West.
In short, Prester John was written out of the Grail narrative, with the exception of the brief reference in Wolfram’s Parzifal and the much longer and more detailed account found in The Later Titurel. Yet even the briefest reading of the Letter of Prester John, with the addition of the information found in the De Adventu, one at least of which was almost certainly available to our authors, shows that the story could not be completely excised.
The detailed descriptions of the Grail kingdom, as well as of the temple and the Fisher King’s castle and the island in Sone de Nansay, all point significantly to a common thread, which was very much in the forefront of the imaginal world of the medieval poets and storytellers, who established Prester John as the latest in a line of Grail kings and guardians.
With such remarkable figures keeping watch over the Grail, it is small wonder, then, if the actual buildings where they dwelled were seen as magical and powerful. Before we look more closely at some actual sites that had an enormous influence on the way the Grail Temples were presented, we must examine the nature of those who dwelled within these temples and castles.
147. Hawkweed is a common name for Hierakion pisosella, a genus of the sunflower family related to dandelion, chicory, prickly lettuce, and sow thistle, which are part of the tribe Cichorieae. Culpeper’s Herbal says it is a singular herb for wounds both inner and outer. Given the wounded nature of the Grail king, this gives one pause for thought.
148. Possibly a combination of metagon (hunting dog) and gallinarii (poultry) to mean something like “attack chickens.” Other suggestions include guinea fowl.
149. As we saw in The Later Titurel, this is also present in the Grail Temple. Again, since it is related to Stellaria media (starwort) and chickweed, both of which are excellent treatment for wounds, we begin to see a certain consistency in the presence of these herbs.
150. Godlike or semi-divine.
151. As described in both the description of the Island of the Grail in Sone and the castle of Gundebald in Meriadoc.
152. Genesis 2.10–12
153. Our translation, from the Latin text included in Keagan Brewer’s Prester John: The Legend and Its Sources.
154. Ibid.
155. Ibid.
156. Our translation from the text in Keagan Brewer’s Prester John: The Legend and Its Sources.
157. We are grateful to David Elkington for this suggestion.
158. Translated by Keagan Brewer, Prester John.
159. Slessarev, Prester John, 18–21.
160. M. Uebel, Ecstatic Transformation: On the Uses of Alterity in the Middle Ages (New York, 2005).
161. Text from Sacred and Legendary Art by Anna Jameson (London, 1911), 245–50.
162. Penninc and Vostaert, Roman van Walewein.
163. Gower, Confessio Amantis.
164. Lines 3550–57, 3686–92 in Putter, “Walewein in the Otherworld and the Land of Prester John,” 79–99.
165. Lines 3344–48, trans. Johnson in Penninc and Vostaert’s Roman van Walewein.
166. Ibid.
167. St. Paul’s Apocalypse, 30–33.