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Prester John: The Legend That Shaped Ethiopia's Fate
Description
For centuries, Europe believed a mythical Christian king named Prester John ruled a vast realm somewhere beyond the Islamic world. This episode follows how that legend became entwined with Ethiopia's real history, from the first Ethiopian delegation to Portugal in 1306 to the arrival of Portuguese ambassadors and Jesuit missionaries in the 16th century. We explore how the search for Prester John shaped European geopolitics, how King Zara Yaqob actively cultivated the myth to forge alliances, and how it culminated in the Portuguese military expedition that helped Ethiopia survive the wars of Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi. But the legend also brought unintended consequences — Jesuit attempts to convert Ethiopia to Catholicism, the bloody conflicts over religion, and the eventual expulsion of the Jesuits under Emperor Fasilides. Along the way, we meet figures like Pero da Covilhã, Francisco Álvares, and the enigmatic Ethiopian monk known as 'John, Patriarch of the Indians' who visited Europe. This is the story of how a medieval rumor changed the course of an empire.