Volume 1

Opus majus / edited, with introduction and analytical table by John Henry Bridges.

  • Roger Bacon
Date:
1897-1900]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Opus majus / edited, with introduction and analytical table by John Henry Bridges. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    568/608 (page 368)
    Prester John. Nam in historia Antiochena legitur, quod Turei miserunt pro succursu contra Francos ad regnum Coir Cham, qui tenebat monarchiam in regionibus aquilonis tempore illo quo capta fuit Antiochia, qui fuit de Caracathaia. Coir vero est nomen proprium, et Cham est nomen dignitatis, et sonat idem quod divinator. Nam principes ibi regunt populum per divinationes et scientias quae instruunt homines in futuris, sive sint partes philosophiae, ut astronomia et scientia experimentalis, sive artes magicae, quibus totum oriens est deditum et imbutum. Omnes igitur imperatores Tartarorum vocantur Cham, sicut apud nos vocantur imperatores et reges. Mortuo vero isto Coir, fuit quidam pastor Nestorinus in terra illa potens et dominus super populum, qui populus vocatur Naiman, qui erant Christiani Nestorini, qui sunt mali Christiani, et tamen dicunt se esse subjectos Romanae ecclesiae. Et isti Nestorini non solum sunt ibi in terra Naiman, sed per omnes regiones usque in orientem sunt dispersi. Iste vero pastor erexit se in regem, et vocatus est Presbyter et Rex Johannes. Huic Johanni erat frater quidam pastor potens, nomine Unc *, habens sua pascua ultra fratrem suum per iter trium septimanarum, et erat dominus cujusdam villae, quae dicitur Caracarum 2, quae Khitai: founded by a Prince of the Khitan dynasty of Liao, who had escaped from North China on the overthrow of that dynasty by the Kin or Niuchd about 1125. His empire extended over Eastern and Western Turkestan. He took the title of Gur-khan, said to mean universal khan ; and fixed his centre of government at Bala Sagun north of Thian San. This Gur-khan is the Coir Cham of Rubruquis. 1 Prester or Presbyter John is a shadowy and almost mythical personage whose habitat shifts between Abyssinia and the wall of China. Marco Polo (i. 46) identifies him with Unc Cham. Rubruquis, a somewhat earlier authority, regards him as his brother. Unc, or Ung, Cham, says Yule, is called Tuli by the Chinese and Togrul by the Persian historians. The Kin sovereigns of North China had conferred on him the title of Wang ( = king) of which probably Aung or Ung is a corruption. He was the king of the Keraites who had professed a nominal form of Christianity since the eleventh century. The wide diffusion ofNestorian Christianity through Central Asia is very emphatically marked in Rubruquis’s narrative. It was a somewhat colourless creed. 2 Near the upper course of the river Orkhon, about 250 miles south of lake Baikal. After the overthrow of Prester John, Okkodai the successor of Chinghis established his capital here. ‘ It continued to be the Mongol head- quarters till 1256, when Mangu Khan decided to transfer the seat of government to Kaiping, far north of Peking.’ [Yule's ed. of Marco Polo, vol. i. note to p. 204.]