The Great Travelers: Part Four- Prestor John
Prestor John is not a traveler… in fact, he is not even a real person… but he was the cause of European renaissance, in a way!... His idea taught European the art of traveling.
In mid- 12th century some time, a horseman entered the holy city of Vatican and handed over a scroll to the Pope.
The scroll, legend goes, was from King Prestor John, who claimed that he was the mightiest Christian king of the East and had the mightiest Army at his disposal… and that he wanted to help the Pope and vanquish the Muslims.
Christians in Europe, at that time, were living in the dark ages… still nursing the loss of Jerusalem and Bethlehem at the hands of Muslims… still scheming and plotting as how to get their “rightful ownership’ over these holy cities back… Pope was the totem-pole of Christianity… he knew, with what he had at his disposal, he was fighting a losing battle against much more modern and much more forward looking Muslims… and when the Pope got this letter… he thought… the tide of history, perhaps, could be changed.
This letter, actually, helped in changing the tide of the history. Not in the way… as was thought by the Pope… that of somehow getting the help of Prestor John’s Army and defeating the Muslims… but in another way… it taught Europeans- TRAVELING.
Hereafter… a stream of travelers set out to find the Christian King Prestor John in the East…
There was, however, another reason for undertaking this journey… an economic one! Europe, at that point of time, a phase of (should I say) Global Cooling… the winter temperatures were falling every year… and bringing along winter droughts… which in turn, left little fodder for the cattle- the main source of meat and food.
In those days, Europeans started slaughtering their cattle well before the winters and preserving the meat with salt. Salt preservation helped them for a while, but little later they realized that Salt alone was not the answer… It was around this time, they were introduced to something magical- THE SPICES!!! Spices provided them with one of the most effective preservatives of its time. Soon spices were in vogue throughout the Europe.
Spice, however, were grown in India, Srilanka and South East Asia- and therefore the entire Spice trade was controlled by Arabs… in fact it is often said that the Mamluk rulers of Cairo derived half their strength from the booties of Spice trade… In the bazaars of Cairo (perhaps the Khan-e-Khalili), Spice was sold at 100 to 1000 times of its cost in India. The situation was ripe for some Europeans to try and find an alternative route to India, preferably by sea… as all land routes were controlled by the Muslims.
With the twin desires, one of finding the Great Christian Empire of the East and other trying to find new routes to the Spice lands- a number of travelers set out to find India and the East!!!
But imagine their plight… Suppose! If we are stranded in a desert… with no landmarks, no maps- what we will do? We will just grope in dark… say, if I am stranded in Thar- I would walk east, if in Sahara- I would walk north… hoping that the habitation is nearby!!! So similar was their plight.
Only that their job was made a wee bit easier by a person called Ptolemy… who was the first man to have sliced the earth into latitudes and longitudes… he was, one might say, the father of first map of the world.
Taking a cue from Ptolemy… some argued… if we move south and the east… we would reach India (Portugal being the biggest proponent of this idea- Portugal was, at that time, a strange country… every one in that country was smitten by discovering distant land… it is often said that about 10-15 percent of Portuguese population perished while trying to discover)… some other argued that if we move west… we would eventually reach the East (Spain being the biggest proponent of this idea… Spanish Christopher Columbus, eventually, discovered the Americas)… and some other argued that if we move north… we would eventually reach the other side of the globe, that is, East (Scandinavians and British being the biggest proponents of the idea… they eventually found important places like Arctic, Greenland and Iceland)
Religion, of course, played an important role in shaping the above ideas… for the optimal utilization of the Christian effort, Pope decried that some countries would only go in north, some in south and some in west!
So one might say, Portugal just got lucky. It was not the case… most of the Geographers, of those days, believed that Africa was an unending mass of land… going right up to the South Pole… so anybody trying to reach the East via this route would have to first fight the heat and morbidity of Equators and thereafter the frigidity of Poles… and thereafter, just somehow, reach the East.
Anyway… as time proved, Portuguese Vasco Da Gama finally reached India and landed in a place called Calicut and met King Zamorin… it is said that when he landed in Calicut, he said that he was looking for Great Christian King Prestor John… and spices, in that order.
Prestor John, apparently, was a myth… it is often said that some monk in Turkey or Greece sent this letter to the Pope in order to boost their morale… the Europeans kept on searching for Prestor John for centuries… until they found Ethiopia… whose king was a Christian… where legends said that one day Ethiopia would rise to conquer entire Arab. Finally, European travelers assumed that perhaps Prestor John was from Ethiopia and that they were very late to have arrived here… as Ethiopia, the time when they arrived, was a very very weak kingdom.
In mid- 12th century some time, a horseman entered the holy city of Vatican and handed over a scroll to the Pope.
The scroll, legend goes, was from King Prestor John, who claimed that he was the mightiest Christian king of the East and had the mightiest Army at his disposal… and that he wanted to help the Pope and vanquish the Muslims.
Christians in Europe, at that time, were living in the dark ages… still nursing the loss of Jerusalem and Bethlehem at the hands of Muslims… still scheming and plotting as how to get their “rightful ownership’ over these holy cities back… Pope was the totem-pole of Christianity… he knew, with what he had at his disposal, he was fighting a losing battle against much more modern and much more forward looking Muslims… and when the Pope got this letter… he thought… the tide of history, perhaps, could be changed.
This letter, actually, helped in changing the tide of the history. Not in the way… as was thought by the Pope… that of somehow getting the help of Prestor John’s Army and defeating the Muslims… but in another way… it taught Europeans- TRAVELING.
Hereafter… a stream of travelers set out to find the Christian King Prestor John in the East…
There was, however, another reason for undertaking this journey… an economic one! Europe, at that point of time, a phase of (should I say) Global Cooling… the winter temperatures were falling every year… and bringing along winter droughts… which in turn, left little fodder for the cattle- the main source of meat and food.
In those days, Europeans started slaughtering their cattle well before the winters and preserving the meat with salt. Salt preservation helped them for a while, but little later they realized that Salt alone was not the answer… It was around this time, they were introduced to something magical- THE SPICES!!! Spices provided them with one of the most effective preservatives of its time. Soon spices were in vogue throughout the Europe.
Spice, however, were grown in India, Srilanka and South East Asia- and therefore the entire Spice trade was controlled by Arabs… in fact it is often said that the Mamluk rulers of Cairo derived half their strength from the booties of Spice trade… In the bazaars of Cairo (perhaps the Khan-e-Khalili), Spice was sold at 100 to 1000 times of its cost in India. The situation was ripe for some Europeans to try and find an alternative route to India, preferably by sea… as all land routes were controlled by the Muslims.
With the twin desires, one of finding the Great Christian Empire of the East and other trying to find new routes to the Spice lands- a number of travelers set out to find India and the East!!!
But imagine their plight… Suppose! If we are stranded in a desert… with no landmarks, no maps- what we will do? We will just grope in dark… say, if I am stranded in Thar- I would walk east, if in Sahara- I would walk north… hoping that the habitation is nearby!!! So similar was their plight.
Only that their job was made a wee bit easier by a person called Ptolemy… who was the first man to have sliced the earth into latitudes and longitudes… he was, one might say, the father of first map of the world.
Taking a cue from Ptolemy… some argued… if we move south and the east… we would reach India (Portugal being the biggest proponent of this idea- Portugal was, at that time, a strange country… every one in that country was smitten by discovering distant land… it is often said that about 10-15 percent of Portuguese population perished while trying to discover)… some other argued that if we move west… we would eventually reach the East (Spain being the biggest proponent of this idea… Spanish Christopher Columbus, eventually, discovered the Americas)… and some other argued that if we move north… we would eventually reach the other side of the globe, that is, East (Scandinavians and British being the biggest proponents of the idea… they eventually found important places like Arctic, Greenland and Iceland)
Religion, of course, played an important role in shaping the above ideas… for the optimal utilization of the Christian effort, Pope decried that some countries would only go in north, some in south and some in west!
So one might say, Portugal just got lucky. It was not the case… most of the Geographers, of those days, believed that Africa was an unending mass of land… going right up to the South Pole… so anybody trying to reach the East via this route would have to first fight the heat and morbidity of Equators and thereafter the frigidity of Poles… and thereafter, just somehow, reach the East.
Anyway… as time proved, Portuguese Vasco Da Gama finally reached India and landed in a place called Calicut and met King Zamorin… it is said that when he landed in Calicut, he said that he was looking for Great Christian King Prestor John… and spices, in that order.
Prestor John, apparently, was a myth… it is often said that some monk in Turkey or Greece sent this letter to the Pope in order to boost their morale… the Europeans kept on searching for Prestor John for centuries… until they found Ethiopia… whose king was a Christian… where legends said that one day Ethiopia would rise to conquer entire Arab. Finally, European travelers assumed that perhaps Prestor John was from Ethiopia and that they were very late to have arrived here… as Ethiopia, the time when they arrived, was a very very weak kingdom.
No comments:
Post a Comment