Papers by Christopher Taylor
In considering the increasing interest in the study of a global Middle Ages, there seem to be few... more In considering the increasing interest in the study of a global Middle Ages, there seem to be few individuals, either fictional or actual, that had a more powerful cosmopolitan currency than the figure of Prester John and the legends surrounding his kingdom. As a product of cultural imaginings and questionably recounted historical events, the search for and legitimization of Prester John has commanded consistent interest, both popular and scholarly, almost continuously since first mention of the figure of John in 1145. The now infamous Letter of Prester John, which details the magnificent Christian kingdom lying somewhere in the East, beyond the approaching threat of an ever-expanding Islam, has long catalyzed a hunt, by both adventurers and scholars, to seek the elusive patriarch. The very indeterminacy of the geographic location of Prester John allowed the European imagination to consequently imagine him everywhere precisely because he could neither be confirmed nor denied existence anywhere. This report will explore the ways that a reading of the Prester John legend reveals competing ambitions of enclosure and expansion within twelfth and thirteenth-century Latin Christendom, specifically around the time of the Fifth Crusade. This report will trace the ideational tensions within a presumed Christian Crusading West trying to legitimate itself against the dialectical buttress of what was increasingly professed as its heretical other, Islam. The Fifth Crusade, especially, seemed to hinge on the possibility of the harmonious convergence of Eastern and Western Christian powers, literalizing the sense of Christian enclosure around all of Islam. Prester John's kingdom thus served two functions: first, to comprise the other half of the Christian enclosure, and secondly, to mark a phenomenological limit point of human experience that domesticated alterity under the banner of a sovereign priest-king. v Table of Contents WAITING FOR PRESTER JOHN .
Studi e materiali di Storia delle Religioni, 2023
“Tracing the Paths of an Imaginary King” seeks to contextualize and account for Prester John’s su... more “Tracing the Paths of an Imaginary King” seeks to contextualize and account for Prester John’s supposed, repeated re-emergences across five centuries by identifying and describing five achronological narrative paths that the legend took. In so doing, this essay wrestles with the questions of how and why writers and adventurers throughout Europe continued to imagine Prester John despite repeated, sometimes costly failures to identify any evidence of his existence. By outlining distinct, yet permeable paths this essay addresses the ease with which the legend transformed in response to historical and cultural pressures, in order to account its durability, elasticity, and influence.
The Once and Future Herod: Vernacular Typology and the Unfolding of Middle English Cycle Drama
New Medieval Literatures 15
From the writings of early Church Fathers through the twelfth century, Herod the Great was consid... more From the writings of early Church Fathers through the twelfth century, Herod the Great was considered an exemplar of arrogance as madness, a role that is expanded in the English Cycle plays of the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries. In the York, Chester, N-Town, Towneley, and Coventry plays, Herod’s keen historical foresight betrays his awareness of the unfolding of Christian eschatology. The predetermined failure of his own actions to prevent the ascendancy of Christ suggest the impotence of a non-Christian future. Herod’s performances align deviance with knowledge, reaffirming faith and humility as the governing ethics of Christian epistemology. As a medium through which playwrights develop a kind of vernacular typology, the dramatic Herod testifies to the vitality of cycle drama within the landscape of fifteenth-century vernacular theology in England.
Literature Compass
In a global Middle Ages, there are few individuals, fictional or historical, who have exercised a... more In a global Middle Ages, there are few individuals, fictional or historical, who have exercised a stronger cosmopolitan pull than Prester John. A product of anxious cultural imaginings mixed with hope for historical change, Prester John has commanded consistent interest since 1145. Over the course of six centuries, Prester John figured centrally in Christendom’s understanding of what the distant world was like: crusading aspirations depended on his materialization; missionary undertakings in the East leveraged their chances of converting the heathen against a presumption of his existence, and mercantile-minded men from Marco Polo through Christopher Columbus dreamt of the putative riches of his kingdom. From its inception in the twelfth century, the Prester John legend linked the impulse to explore a global landscape with the desire for this landscape to be revealed as a continuation of, rather than a departure from, the known: as already Christian. Nowhere is this better expressed than in the original Latin Letter, the primary source for the legend of John. Produced in
the mid-twelfth century at the zenith of the Crusading impulse, the legend situates John as a Christian sovereign ruling authoritatively over an East that is beyond Dar al-Islam and, despite its exotic and
strange landscape, remains decidedly Christian.
Prester John, Christian Enclosure, and the Spatial Transmission of Islamic Alterity
Contextualizing the Muslim Other in Medieval Christian Discourse, Nov 2012
Beholding Violence in Medieval and Early Modern Culture, Nov 2011
In considering the increasing interest in the study of a global Middle Ages, there
seem to be fe... more In considering the increasing interest in the study of a global Middle Ages, there
seem to be few individuals, either fictional or actual, that had a more powerful
cosmopolitan currency than the figure of Prester John and the legends surrounding his
kingdom. As a product of cultural imaginings and questionably recounted historical
events, the search for and legitimization of Prester John has commanded consistent
interest, both popular and scholarly, almost continuously since first mention of the figure
of John in 1145. The now infamous Letter of Prester John, which details the magnificent
Christian kingdom lying somewhere in the East, beyond the approaching threat of an
ever-expanding Islam, has long catalyzed a hunt, by both adventurers and scholars, to
seek the elusive patriarch. The very indeterminacy of the geographic location of Prester
John allowed the European imagination to consequently imagine him everywhere
precisely because he could neither be confirmed nor denied existence anywhere. This
report will explore the ways that a reading of the Prester John legend reveals competing
ambitions of enclosure and expansion within twelfth and thirteenth-century Latin
Christendom, specifically around the time of the Fifth Crusade. This report will trace the
ideational tensions within a presumed Christian Crusading West trying to legitimate itself
against the dialectical buttress of what was increasingly professed as its heretical other,
Islam. The Fifth Crusade, especially, seemed to hinge on the possibility of the
harmonious convergence of Eastern and Western Christian powers, literalizing the sense
of Christian enclosure around all of Islam. Prester John’s kingdom thus served two
functions: first, to comprise the other half of the Christian enclosure, and secondly, to
mark a phenomenological limit point of human experience that domesticated alterity
under the banner of a sovereign priest-king.
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Papers by Christopher Taylor
the mid-twelfth century at the zenith of the Crusading impulse, the legend situates John as a Christian sovereign ruling authoritatively over an East that is beyond Dar al-Islam and, despite its exotic and
strange landscape, remains decidedly Christian.
seem to be few individuals, either fictional or actual, that had a more powerful
cosmopolitan currency than the figure of Prester John and the legends surrounding his
kingdom. As a product of cultural imaginings and questionably recounted historical
events, the search for and legitimization of Prester John has commanded consistent
interest, both popular and scholarly, almost continuously since first mention of the figure
of John in 1145. The now infamous Letter of Prester John, which details the magnificent
Christian kingdom lying somewhere in the East, beyond the approaching threat of an
ever-expanding Islam, has long catalyzed a hunt, by both adventurers and scholars, to
seek the elusive patriarch. The very indeterminacy of the geographic location of Prester
John allowed the European imagination to consequently imagine him everywhere
precisely because he could neither be confirmed nor denied existence anywhere. This
report will explore the ways that a reading of the Prester John legend reveals competing
ambitions of enclosure and expansion within twelfth and thirteenth-century Latin
Christendom, specifically around the time of the Fifth Crusade. This report will trace the
ideational tensions within a presumed Christian Crusading West trying to legitimate itself
against the dialectical buttress of what was increasingly professed as its heretical other,
Islam. The Fifth Crusade, especially, seemed to hinge on the possibility of the
harmonious convergence of Eastern and Western Christian powers, literalizing the sense
of Christian enclosure around all of Islam. Prester John’s kingdom thus served two
functions: first, to comprise the other half of the Christian enclosure, and secondly, to
mark a phenomenological limit point of human experience that domesticated alterity
under the banner of a sovereign priest-king.