![CHRISTIAN KING OF THE STEPPES](https://api.qalam.global/storage/media/0ac9c976-168c-401c-9ed1-6280aeb5b01f.webp)
"Prester" as the Emperor of Ethiopia, enthroned on a map of East Africa. From an atlas by the Portuguese cartographer Diogo Homem for Queen Mary, c. 1555–1559. /Alamy
From the middle of the twelfth century, Europeans believed that somewhere in the East, in the territory of either Kazakhstan or India, there was a vast Christian kingdom ruled by a king and priest called Prester John.