Prester John's Speculum Becomes Real

Light On Light Through · Aug 15, 2007

People in the Middle Ages spoke of a Prester John - a prince of a far off kingdom in the East. He was said to have magic powers and magical instruments. Most magical of all was his "speculum," through which Prester John could see all the provinces in his kingdom. A sort of television...

Scholars, inspired by this legend, began referring to their surveys and encyclopedias as "specula" - or speculum literature. There was a speculum of history, of astronomy, of alchemy, of morals. Someone even wrote a speculum on fools.

The speculum, in other words, had gone on in the popular and then scholarly…