after the most bloodthirsty slaughter.... Victorious the said John
moved forward in order to come to the aid of the holy Church.^52
The king failed to reach the embattled Crusader states because he could
not cross the Tigris River. As Gumilev points out, this story might be echoing
an actual historical event, “the defeat of the forces of the Seljuk sultan of Sanjar
by the levies of the Central Asian tribes... in 1141 .” Nestorian Christians,
expelled by the Byzantines centuries earlier, did indeed migrate eastward.
With this disconnection from European and Mediterranean Christendom,
Nestorianism became a form of “lost Christianity.” Some, such as the Ameri-
can physician and missionary Asahel Grant ( 1807 – 1844 ), identified the Nes-
torians with the ten lost tribes. Grant died in Ottoman Mosul, leaving a
beautifully written memoir and a long book on his travels in northern Iraq
and Iran, both widely published.^53 But mainly, the Prester John story “was
more an aspiration than history.”^54
The legend of Prester John spread quickly across Europe, collecting a
trail of “almost 100 manuscripts, written in several languages, including
Hebrew,” which purported to bring further notice about the Christian king.^55
It is clear that there is no connection between the legend of Prester John and
Eldad’s stories about the ten tribes, though “there are important elements
common to the narratives.”^56 A connection was created when the fictitious
“Letters of Prester John”—in which the king describes his kingdom in detail—
surfaced around 1165. These letters, which claimed to come from somewhere
in the east, were of European origin and based in part on the “Romance of
Alexander,” a story of the wonder of the Mokdons which was popular in Europe
at the time. The letters were addressed to the pope and several European rulers,
most notably Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa ( 1122 – 1190 ). A tale about a
river that throws up stones and about mighty kingdoms of “Jews” was included
in all versions. In the letter to the emperor, Prester John specifically wrote
about the ten lost tribes:
On the one side of our country is a river, on the border of which all
kinds of excellent spices are found. Near to it is another river, full of
stones, which falls into the ocean, which flows between the sea and the
Nine Tribes of Israel. This river runs all the week till the Sabbath day,
when it rests.... it carries large and small stones to the sea, like a
river of water does; consequently the Nine Tribes of Israel cannot pass
the river. On the other side we have forty-four towns, built of very
strong stones, and the distances between one town and another is not
more than a bowshot. And in order to guard them we have 44 , 000
horsemen, 50 , 000 bowmen, and 30 , 000 men on horseback to guard