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| Domain | Definition |
Literature | Prester John according to Mandeville, a lineal descendant of Ogier the Dane. This Ogier penetrated into the north of India, with fifteen barons of his own country, among whom he divided the land. John was made sovereign of Tenedue, and was called Prester because he converted the natives. Another tradition says he had seventy kings for his vassals, and was seen by his subjects only three times in a year. In Much Ado about Nothing, Benedick says:- "I will fetch you a tooth-picker from the farthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John's foot: fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard. rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy."- Act ii. 1. Prester John (in Orlando Furioso, bk. xvii.), called by his subjects Senapus, King of Ethiopia. He was blind. Though the richest monarch of the world, he pined "in plenty's lap with endless famine," for whenever his table was spread hell-born harpies flew away with the food. This was in punishment of his great pride and impiety in wishing to add Paradise to his dominion. The plague was to cease "when a stranger came to his kingdom on a winged horse." Astolpho came on his flying griffin, and with his magic horn chased the harpies into Cocytus. The king sent 100,000 Nubians to the aid of Charlemagne; they were provided with horse by Astolpho, who threw stones into the air, which became steeds fully equipped (bk. xviii.) and were transported to France by Astolpho, who filled his hands with leaves, which he cast into the sea, and they instantly became ships (bk. xix.). When Agramant was dead, the Nubians were sent back to their country, and the ships turned to leaves and the horses to stones again. Source: Brewer's Dictionary. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
What is very definite is a letter, the Letter of Prester John, believed to be a forgery, which was supposedly written to the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Comnenus (1143-1180) by Prester John, the King of India. This letter, appearing around 1165, which recounted many marvels of richness and magic, captured the imagination of Europeans and circulated in ever more embellished form for centuries and shortly after the invention of printing in printed form, being still current in the popular culture during the period of European exploration. During the Second Crusade there was also hope that Prester John would come to the aid of the holy cities and capture back Palestine from the Muslims.
The reports were so far believed that Pope Alexander III sent a letter to Prester John via his emissary Phillip, his physician, on September 27, 1177. Phillip was never heard of again. Several Asian tribes were identified with Prester John by travellers, but from the 14th century onward his empire was sometimes placed in Africa, and in the 15th and 16th centuries it became considered to be equivalent to the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia. Prester John was often also identified as a descendant of the Magi, or a descendant of St. Thomas, who had supposedly founded an early (and therefore more pure) church in India. When the Mongols invaded Palestine in the 13th century, the Christians inhabiting the remnants of the Crusader States also believed Genghis Khan was Prester John, coming to rescue them from the Muslims. Another possible origina for Prester John is Toghrul Khan, a Nestorian khan defeated by Gengis.
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Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Prester John."
Crosswords: PRESTER JOHN |
| English words defined with "PRESTER JOHN": Prester. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "PRESTER JOHN": Boast of England. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Imagination | Flying Dutchman, great sea serpent, man in the moon, castle in the air, pipe dream, pie-in-the-sky, chateau en Espagne; Utopia, Atlantis, happy valley, millennium, fairyland; land of Prester John, kindgom of Micomicon; work of fiction; (novel); Arabian nights; le pot au lait; dream of Alnashar; (hope). |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
prester john | 20 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "e-e-h-j-n-o-p-r-r-s-t" | |
-2 letters: shortener. | |
-3 letters: honester, northers, potheens. | |
-4 letters: estrone, heptose, heteros, hornets, horrent, norther, openers, openest, penster, pentose, perrons, porters, posteen, postern, poteens, potheen, pothers, present, presort, prester, pretors, projets, renters, reopens, repents, reports, reposer, reshone, resojet, restore, rhetors, serpent, shorten, shorter, snorter, sporter, sterner, strophe, thereon, thorpes, threeps, thrones. | |
-5 letters: enters, ephors, ethers, ethnos, hereon. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)50 52 45 53 54 45 52 4A 4F 48 4E |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01010000 01010010 01000101 01010011 01010100 01000101 01010010 00100000 01001010 01001111 01001000 01001110 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)P R E S T E R   J O H N |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0050 0052 0045 0053 0054 0045 0052 004A 004F 0048 004E |
Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)50523953543952244494248 |
| 1. Crosswords 2. Usage: Commercial 3. Expressions: Internet 4. Anagrams | 5. Orthography 6. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
