The
founders of the Kin Dynasty, which the Mongols superseded in Northern
China, were of Churche race. [It was part of Nayan's appanage. (See Bk.
II. ch. v.) - H. C.]
NOTE 4. - The idea that a Christian potentate of enormous wealth and power,
and bearing this title, ruled over vast tracts in the far East, was
universal in Europe from the middle of the 12th to the end of the 13th
century, after which time the Asiatic story seems gradually to have died
away, whilst the Royal Presbyter was assigned to a locus in Abyssinia; the
equivocal application of the term India to the East of Asia and the East
of Africa facilitating this transfer. Indeed I have a suspicion, contrary
to the view now generally taken, that the term may from the first have
belonged to the Abyssinian Prince, though circumstances led to its being
applied in another quarter for a time. It appears to me almost certain
that the letter of Pope Alexander III., preserved by R. Hoveden, and
written in 1177 to the Magnificus Rex Indorum, Sacerdotum sanctissimus,
was meant for the King of Abyssinia.
Be that as it may, the inordinate report of Prester John's magnificence
became especially diffused from about the year 1165, when a letter full of
the most extravagant details was circulated, which purported to have been
addressed by this potentate to the Greek Emperor Manuel, the Roman Emperor
Frederick, the Pope, and other Christian sovereigns.
