Denis Nosnitsin "Wäwähabo qoba wä'askema...: Reflections on an Episode from the History of the Ethiopian Monastic Movement" (original) (raw)
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Hagiographies and the History of Medieval Ethiopia
History in Africa, 1981
The hagiographic literature of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church may be divided into two major categories: the translated lives of the saints and martyrs of the early Christian church and the lives of local saints. The essentially foreign works, which constitute the first of these groups, will be of only peripheral concern in this paper. While books such as Barlaam and Joasaph, The Life of St. George, and The Conflict of Severus did serve as models for the traditions dealing with local saints, they are of little interest to the student of Ethiopian history.The most interesting of these local hagiographies are those about saints who lived between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. These traditions, which recount the lives of some kings and many monastic leaders, are of great importance for the reconstruction of the history of medieval Ethiopia. As Conti Rossini has written, The more I preoccupy myself with the history of Ethiopia, the more I realize the importance of the study of lo...
Ge’ez Literature and Medieval Ethiopian Hagiographies in the course of Ethiopian Literature
2019
The main objective of this paper is to survey out Ge’ez literature specifically studying Ethiopian hagiographies to see what influence they put to modern Ethiopian literature. Ethiopian literature has aged about two millennia. Ge’ez literature, started by Saint Yared before 1500 years ago, is the prominent feature of Ethiopian literature. Before the introduction and expansion of Christianity, the habit of writing on stones and other hard materials was introduced in Ethiopia. After the maturity of Christianity, the attention was turned to write on soft materials like parchment. St. Yared, The Nine Saints and St. Salama were major literary figures of the Ancient Period. The literature reached at its highest point of development during the medieval historical period. A number of great figures with their magnificently enlightened works were raised in the period. The era is termed as the “Golden Age” of Ethiopian literature for the quality and quantity of works and writers. Indigenous wo...
During a period of internal struggle and decline of royal power at the end of the 18th century, the Ethiopian emperor Täklä-Haymanot II founded the church Däbrä-Ṭǝbäb Bäʾata in Gondär. The motif for this foundation, as well as its statutes and privileges, are to be found in historical narratives and in preserved documents. Two chronicles compiled by Liq Aṭqu in the Rüppell collection of the “Stadt- und Universitätsbibliothek Frankfurt” give a detailed account of the event. This historical report indicates the institutions and even manuscripts where the juridical documents about the act of foundation had to be inscribed according to the custom and procedures of traditional law. A fortunate case allowed that manuscripts once housed in churches and monasteries in Gondär – sackings and plunders notwithstanding – have survived till our days and are preserved and accessible. The article aims at a reconstruction of the historical event in as much details as given in the narratives and documents. At the same time the juridical laws, customs and procedures that are behind the preserved texts and documents are put in evidence and explained.
Kingship Between History and Hagiography: The Ethiopian Monk-King Ideal
In the course of this work, we will discuss a number of cases and examples related to the monk-king ideal, within the history of Ethiopia in the Middle Ages. Firstly, we will start by introducing the development of the monastic movement, outlining the tight linkage between the monastic institution and the kingship. Subsequently, we will carefully analyze the role of the Gadl – Ethiopian hagiography – within the context of this period of time, pointing out the relevance these hagiographies for the reconstruction of the history of Medieval Ethiopia. By considering these factors, I will present the most relevant “monk-kings” that assisted us to discuss and analyze this ideal.
In the long religious history of Ethiopia, paganism has been widely practised since ancient times, as evidenced by the inscriptions of ʿEzānā and other archaeological objects. It continued to dominate for centuries even after the introduction of Christianity in the fourth century, which hindered its expansion south of the Aksumite empire until the thirteenth century. However, later in the fourteenth century, Christianity expanded widely with the military and political support of the Christian emperors, especially King ʾAmda Ṣǝyon (1314-1344), who suppressed pagan practices in the northern highlands of the Christian kingdom. Subsequently, pagan chiefs and priests were forced to be baptised and converted to Christianity, pagan sanctuaries were dismantled, and, in their place, churches and monasteries were built. Resistance against paganism continued in a more organised way in the fifteenth century during the reign of King Zarʾa Yāʿǝqob (1434-1468), who actively engaged in making laws and composing religious books to prevent Christian adherents from practising paganism. In this regard, we have a sizeable collection of Gǝʿǝz texts dating to the time of Zarʾa Yāʿǝqob that provide vivid information to better understand the development and features of paganism, on the one hand, and the measures undertaken by the king as a part of religious reformation to resist and dismantle pagan practices, on the other. Paganism, in general, is a neglected subject in the historiography of medieval Ethiopia, but taking into account the source availability, studying the pagan practices and resistance of this period is indispensable. Thus, this paper attempts to reconstruct the history of pagan practices and its development in the period under discussion to identify the names of the pagan gods as well as to analyse their social role and the measures taken under Zarʾa Yāʿǝqob against paganism.
Studies in Ethiopian Languages, Literature, and History. Festschrift for Getatchew Haile (ed. A. macCollum), 2017
The dramatic history since the early 17th century of the church of Gonǧ Tewodros Däbrä Ṭǝbab in the province of Goǧǧam was linked to its prominent rank and to its close relations, and frequent conflicts with, royal power. Its clergy might have turned to Catholicism in the 1620s, when the Ethiopian king Susnəyos (1607-32) conducted a policy, with the help of Jesuit missionaries, for converting the Ethiopian Church and society to Roman Catholicism. Besides this Catholic episode, Gonǧ headed a theological movement, unctionism or qəbät, till the first half of the 18th century, when it lost its leadership. Unfortunately for the church, this theological faction was proclaimed heretical in 1878. Thereafter, its brilliant past had to be concealed. This article focuses on the first known abbot of Gonǧ, Ləbsä Krəstos, who was sentenced to death in 1636 and has been incarnated in a giant sycamore, one of the biggest trees in the area. It examines a case presented as successive exhibits from nine sources. Each of them provides clues about Ləbsä Krəstos. Sources on the life of such a controversial figure come from factions that have taken sides. Can different sources about a single person be pieced together in order to write his biography? Or do they stem from such mismatched contexts that they cannot be put together like pieces of a single puzzle but, instead, have to be handled like disjointed pieces of evidence about the person in question? The life and career of Ləbsä Krəstos provides an opportunity for seeing how religious identities emerged at the very beginning of the Gondarine period and how different parties competed. By following these exhibits about the life of a single man and listening to the different voices that talk about him, will we come to hear about this man or will we learn more about the ones who are talking?