Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 12.djvu/466

PRESTON origin of the legend; the account of Rubruquis, however, carefully considered, supports the Oppert-Zarncke hypothesis, and elucidates the transition of the legend from the Karakhitai, to the Keria. Zarncke meanwhile agrees with Oppert only in essentials, and in many points sharply and unjustly criticizes his colleague. Oppert is an Orientalist, Zarncke is not.

—With the collapse of the Mongol Kingdom, hitherto the setting for this legend, the latter, finding no favourable background in Upper or Middle Asia, was shifted to the hill country of the Caucasus, or to indefinite parts of India. It is true that all earlier accounts of the Presbyter designated India as his kingdom, but in the Middle Ages the term India was so vague that the legend obtained in this way no definite location. But in the fourteenth cen- tiu^y there appeared many real or fictitious accounts of voyages (Zarncke), which pointed to the modern East Indies as the kingdom of the Priest-King. The most important document of this, or a somewhat later period, is the afore-mentioned "Tractatus pulcher- rimus". In some maps, especially a Catalonian pub- lished in 1375, we find Christian kingdoms given in India. In another map of 1-147, towers are to be found at the foot of the Caucasus, and underneath is written: "The Presbj-ter, King John built these towers to prevent [the Tatars] from reaching him". The Admont Annab (llSl) had already spoken of the Presbrter as Iving of Armenia. Professor Brun of Odessa supports the h\-pothesis founded on these and other plausible grounds, namely that the Armenian general, Ivane, who in 1 124 gained a great victory over the Crescent, was the first Presb\'ter John (Zeitsch. f. Erdkunde, 1876, 279).

Fifth Stage. — Marco Polo speaks of the country called Abascia as part of India, meaning probably Abyssinia. Many scholars (among others Yule) are of the opinion that Pope Alexander's enigmatical let- ter was sent to the Xegus of Ethiopia; at a much earUer time it was customary to see in him the Pres- byter of the legend. In 132S the Christian bishop, Jolm of Columbo (not Colombo) in India, designated the Xegus as Prester John: quern vos meal is Presire Johan. In Jerusalem at the beginning of the fifteenth centurj- the Abyssinian priests described their country to the Christian Portuguese merchants as the King- dom of Prester John. The Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes expressed the same opinion in a letter written to King Charles VII of France in 1448. This interpretation was most popular at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth cen- tury, on account of the voyages of discovery made by the" Portuguese, who at first persistently sought the Presb\-ter's kingdom along the whole African coast (Vasco de Gama even carried with him letters of in- troduction to this supposed Christian ruler), and believed that in Ethiopia they had at last faUen in with him. .\s a matter of fact, the Christian King- dom of Abyssinia had for centuries successfully with- stood the onslaughts of Islam. The Negus combined in his person a kind of spiritual with temporal power, and the name of John recurs in a remarkable manner in the long Une of princes of that land. The oldest map, discovered bj' P. Joseph Fischer, on which America is mentioned (1507). places the Presbyter's coimtrj' in .\sia (Pro^dnce of Thebet; Tibet) in the following words: "This is the land of the good King and lord, known as Prester John, lord of all Eastern and Southern India, lord of all the kings of India, in whose mountains are found all kinds of precious stones," On the Carta Marina (1516) it is placed in Africa: "Regnum Habesch et Habacci Presbiteri Joh. sive India Maior Ethiopie" etc. In later times it was the general opinion that .\byssinia was the Presbj-ter's native land, "Terra do Preste", as the Portuguese called it. Only towards the end of

the seventeenth century did this opinion disappear. In Leutholf's great work on Abyssinia (Frankfort, 1681) it is said that the land had been wrongly named the Presbj'ter's kingdom. The legend had a stimulat- ing effect on Portuguese discoverers, and indirectly encouraged the missionary actiWty of Franciscans and Dominicans in Central Asia and China, the con- version of the Mongolian ruler being often their goal. Some also exhibited a certain scientific interest in the solution of the legend; the narrative of Rubruquis, for instance, is still the starting point for all modern research.

YCLE. Cathay and the Way Thither. 173 iq.: Marco Polo (2nd ed.), I, 229-33: II. 539-43; Ritter, Erdkunde ron Asien (2nd ed., Berlin, 1838): d',\tez.\c, Recueil de Voyages et de Mimoires publie par la SocieK de Geagraphie. IV (Paris, 1839), 547-64; Oppert. Der Presbyter Johaitnes in Sage und Gesch. (2nd ed., Berlin, 1870); Z.\rscke. FUnf Leipziger Programme (1S73-75), the first four revised lav the same author in vol. XVII of Abhandl. der k. sachs. Geseltsch. d. Wissenschaflen, vol. VII, phil-histor. Klasse 1879. Der Priester Johannes^ I. Abh., p. 827-1030, II. Abh. in vol. XIX, vol. VIII. phil-histor. Klasse 1883-86; Ostasiati^cher Loyd. XV (1902), 1819 sq.

Alois Stockmann.

Preston, Thomas, alias Roger Widdrixgtox, Benedictine, d. in the Clink prison, 5 April, 1640. He studied first at the Enghsh College in Rome, his professor of theology being the distinguished Jesuit Vasquez. He was professed in the Benedictine Order in 1590 at Monte Cassino, being then a priest of mature age, and, says Weldon, a learned and virtuous man. He was sent on the English mission in 1603, landing at Yarmouth, and li\ed with Dom Sigebert Buckley (the last survivor of the monks of Westminster) until the latter's death in 1710. Before this he had laeen indicted at the Middlesex Sessions for the crime of being a priest, and the year after Dom Buckley's death he seems to have been in prison, as he delegated his authority to two other monks. Expelled from England three years later, he took part at Reims in the negotiations for the union of the English monks of Monte Cassino, ValladoUd, and the old English Congregation. He returned to England and was again imprisoned, first in the Clink, on the south side of the Thames, and later in the Archbishop of Canterbury's palace at Croydon. In one prison or anotlier he wrote, under the assumed name of Widdrington, several works treating of the oath of allegiance proposed by King James I, of which (together with many other Benedictines and secular priests) he was an upholder and apologist against the Jesuits. Weldon says that Preston "evermore disowned'' the books written under the name of Widdrington. but there is no doubt that he was the author of them. Towards the end of his hfe, however, he seems to have altered his \-iews, or at any rate to have made full submission on the question of the oath to the authorities of Rome.

Retxer, Apostolatus Benediclinorum in Anglia l.Douai. 1626), app. ii, is; Weldox. Chronological \otes concerning the Eng. Congr. O. S. B. (Stanbrook, 1881). 40. 43. 46. 76. 94. 95. 180; Oliver. Collections Illustrating the Hist, of the Catholic Religion (London. 1857). 521. 522; Foley, Records of the English Province S. J., aer. I (London. 1877), 258. note; Mil-ner. Supplementary Memoirs of English Catholics (London. 1820). 33; Berixgton. .Memoirs of Gregorio Panzani (Birmingham. 1793). 121. 156; Gillow, Bibl. Diet. Eng. Cath. a. v. Preston. Thomas, 0. S. B.

D. O. Hu>'ter-Blair.

Preston, Thomas Scott, Vicar-General of New York, prothonotarv .\postolic, chancellor, dis- tinguished convert," author, preacher, and adminis- trator, b. at Hartford. Connecticut, 23 July, 1S24; d. at New York, 4 Nov., 1891. From his youth he was serious, pious, and zealous. He studied in the Epis- copalian general seminary, located at Ninth Avenue
 * \nd Twentieth Street. New York, where he w.as rec-

ognized as the leader of the High Church party. In 1S46 he received deacon's orders, and served in this