The intention to march to the aid of the Christians in Palestine is more like the act of a Georgian General than that of a Karacathayan Khan; and there are in the history of the Kingdom of Jerusalem several indications of the proposal at least of Georgian assistance.

The personage in question is said to have come from the country of the Magi, from whom he was descended.  But these have frequently been supposed to come from Great Armenia.  E.g.  Friar Jordanus says they came from Moghan.[4]

The name Ecbatana has been so variously applied that it was likely to lead to ambiguities.  But it so happens that, in a previous passage of his History, Bishop Otto of Freisingen, in rehearsing some Oriental information gathered apparently from the same Bishop of Gabala, has shown what was the place that he had been taught to identify with Ecbatana, viz. the old Armenian city of ANI.[5] Now this city was captured from the Turks, on behalf of the King of Georgia, David the Restorer, by his great sbasalar,[6] John Orbelian, in 1123-24.

Professor Bruun also lays stress upon a passage in a German chronicle of date some years later than Otho’s work: 

“1141.  Liupoldus dux Bawariorum obiit, Henrico fratre ejus succedente in ducatu.  Iohannes Presbyter Rex Armeniae et Indiae cum duobus regibus fratribus Persarum et Medorum pugnavit et vicit."[7]

He asks how the Gur-Khan of Karakhitai could be styled King of Armenia and of India?  It may be asked, per contra, how either the King of Georgia or his Peshwa (to use the Mahratta analogy of John Orbelian’s position) could be styled King of Armenia and of India?  In reply to this, Professor Bruun adduces a variety of quotations which he considers as showing that the term India was applied to some Caucasian region.

My own conviction is that the report of Otto of Freisingen is not merely the first mention of a great Asiatic potentate called Prester John, but that his statement is the whole and sole basis of good faith on which the story of such a potentate rested; and I am quite as willing to believe, on due evidence, that the nucleus of fact to which his statement referred, and on which such a pile of long-enduring fiction was erected, occurred in Armenia as that it occurred in Turan.  Indeed in many respects the story would thus be more comprehensible.  One cannot attach any value to the quotation from the Annalist in Pertz, because there seems no reason to doubt that the passage is a mere adaptation of the report by Bishop Otto, of whose work the Annalist makes other use, as is indeed admitted by Professor Bruun, who (be it said) is a pattern of candour in controversy.  But much else that the Professor alleges is interesting and striking.  The fact that Azerbeijan and the adjoining regions were known as “the East” is patent to the readers of this book in many a page, where the Khan and his Mongols in occupation of that region