Case file · Folklore / legend
The Portuguese find 'Prester John'
For centuries Europeans believed in Prester John, a fabulously rich Christian priest-king beyond the Muslim world; in 1520 a Portuguese embassy reached the Ethiopian emperor Lebna Dengel and treated him as that king.
1520 CE · 9.60, 39.00 · status: legend
The account
The legend began with a forged letter that circulated in Europe from about 1165. Over the 14th and 15th centuries it moved from Asia to Ethiopia. The chaplain Francisco Álvares spent six years with the court and published his 'True Information of the Lands of Prester John of the Indies' in 1540. The point stands for the court's movements in Shewa and is approximate.
The sceptical view
Prester John was a European fantasy; the real Ethiopian emperors never used the title and were puzzled by it.