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The first mention of a powerful Christian king in the far east is found in the historian Otto von Freising. In his chronicle, which he wrote from 1143 to 1146, he mentions the report of the Syrian bishop Hugo von Gabula: "A few years ago a certain John, a king and priest, lived in the far East, beyond Persia and Armenia and as his people are Christians, but Nestorians, two brothers who attacked the kings of the Persians and Medes, called Samards, and conquered their capital (Chronicles 7:33). After that, he also wanted to liberate Jerusalem, but the long march path and the Tigris had prevented him from doing so. As for the person of the king, the report also notes that he is descended from the lineage of the magicians mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew.

Hugo von Gabula had not just sucked it out of his fingers. Historically, this is the victory of the Black Kitan (Kara-Kitai), a Manchurian people, under their prince Jelütaschi over the Muslims under Sandschar near Samarkand in 1141. Since even Arab chroniclers admitted the heavy defeat and the Kitan as Christians, spread In the Occident, the most fan-tastic ideas about John and his kingdom beyond Islam quickly became apparent.

Around 1165, an alleged letter from John to Emperor Manuel I of Byzantium, to Frederick Barbarossa and Pope Alexander III. on. In this letter, which was soon circulated in numerous translations throughout Europe, Johannes describes in the most magnificent colors his vast empire "in India," in which mythical creatures of all kinds live and where people serve their mild ruler happily and contentedly. Traits of the ancient Alexander novel and much more mix in this presentation, which is why many contemporaries recognized this as a forgery.

After all, Pope Alexander wrote in 1177 an answer in which he called "the famous and glorious King of the Indians, the Most Holy Priests" to join the right Church. However, the papal physician Philippus, entrusted with the delivery of the letter, disappeared just as much from history as the author of that forgery remained unknown to this day.

New food was given to the legend at the beginning of the 13th century, when in the course of the Mongolian expansion the Islamic world again suffered heavy defeats; Genghis Khan had also married a daughter of the last Kara-Kitai prince, and several of his family members professed Nestorian-Christian faith. The shock was all the greater in Europe, when the alleged "Christians from the East" ravaged Christian Georgia, and a little later Poland and Hungary.