Aksum An African Civilisation of Late Antiquity Stuart Munro-Hay

the Ethiopian Orthodox church, were careful to include references to the patriarchate's 
dealings with the kingdoms of the south, Nubia and the Habash, since the authority of the 
patriarchs there was a useful counter to their subordination to the Muslim government in 
Egypt. From this source we have a few glimpses of conditions in Ethiopia, though the 
majority of references concern purely church matters and are not very informative on 
other questions. A detailed analysis of all the notes about Ethiopia in the ecclesiastical 
records can be found in Munro-Hay (The Metropolitan Episcopate of Ethiopia and the 
Patriarchate at Alexandria, 4th-14th centuries, forthcoming).  
During the patriarchate of James (819-830) the metropolitan John was ordained for 
Ethiopia (Evetts 1904: 508ff). During his metropolitanate, military defeats, compounded 
by plague which killed both men and cattle, and lack of rain, are mentioned. The 
metropolitan had been driven to return to Egypt by the opposition of the queen and 
people while the king was occupied at war, and he was only able to return in the 
patriarchate of Joseph (831-849). Dates around c820-30 have been suggested for these 
events, and it is interesting to note that during that decade the king of Abyssinia was 
involved in unsuccessful military engagements. At just this time, in northern Abyssinia, 
the Beja tribes were growing stronger, and in 831 a treaty between the caliph al-Mu`tasim 
and Kannun ibn Abd al-Aziz, `king' of the Beja (Hasan 1973: 49-51), seems to recognise 
his power even as far south as Dahlak. This may well indicate that there had been 
disputes between the Beja and the Ethiopians, with the Ethiopians, at least temporarily, 
coming off rather the worse in the conflict.  
It is also noted in his biography that Joseph had problems over his Abyssinian pages, 
presented to the church as gifts by the Ethiopian king (Evetts 1904: 528-31).  
Nothing more is noted until the patriarchate of Kosmas III (923-934), when Ethiopian 
questions again came to the fore (Atiya 1948: 118-21; Budge 1928: III, 666-8). 
Interestingly, the eleventh century biographer, when he introduces al-Habasha 
(Abyssinia), adds the gloss that it is "the kingdom of Saba, from which the queen of the 
South came to Solomon, the son of David the king", showing that this identification was 
current even then. The Ethiopian king, Tabtahadj (or Yabtahadj, Babtahadj — a name not 
recorded elsewhere — Perruchon 1894: 84; it is, in fact, a misreading of bi-ibtihaj `with 
joy'), received a new metropolitan, Peter, and is said to have given him authority to 
choose his successor on his death-bed. Peter selected the youngest of the late king's two 
sons, but soon a monk, Minas, arrived with forged letters which declared that he himself 
was the rightful metropolitan, and Peter an imposter. This naturally found favour with the 
rejected brother, and Peter and the king he had chosen were deposed. Eventually the new 
king learned from Kosmas that Minas was actually the imposter, and he was executed, 
but meanwhile Peter had died in exile, and patriarch Kosmas refused to consecrate 
another metropolitan. The king therefore forced Peter's assistant to take up the post, 
uncanonically, thereby instituting a quarrel between monarchy and patriarchate which 
lasted for the unconsecrated metropolitan's lifetime, through four succeeding 
patriarchates and into a fifth. Eventually, during the patriarchate of Philotheos (979-
1003), the quarrel was resolved, but only after Ethiopia had suffered terrible devastation.  

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The story is preserved in the History of the Patriarchs (Atiya 1948: 171-2) and in the 
Ethiopian Synaxarium (Budge 1928: I, 233-4), as well as in the accounts of certain Arab 
historians (see below). The first two refer to enemies who attacked Ethiopia, driving the 
king out and destroying his cities and many churches. In the History of the Patriarchs the 
enemy is named as the queen of the Bani al- Hamwiyya; a title which has not much 
assisted in identifying her. These ecclesiastical sources claim that the troubles were all 
due to the fact that metropolitan Peter had been deposed illegally, and when patriarch 
Philotheos, responding to the pleas of the king of Ethiopia sent through the agency of 
king Girgis II of Nubia, appointed a new metropolitan, Daniel, to Ethiopia, the troubles 
ceased.  
The Arab historians add considerably to the history of Ethiopia at this point. Ibn Hawqal 
(Kramer and Wiet 1964: 16, 56) mentions that the country had been ruled for thirty years 
by a woman, who had killed the king, or hadani, and now ruled the hadani's territory as 
well as her own lands in the south. This was written in the 970s or 980s, and so the 
queen's advent was probably in the 950s. A confirmatory note occurs in a reference 
which states that the king of the Yemen sent a zebra, received as a gift from the female 
ruler of al-Habasha, to the ruler of Iraq in 969-70 (el-Chennafi 1976). It seems more than 
likely that this queen is identical with the queen enshrined in Ethiopian legend as the 
destructive Gudit, Yodit, or Esato, who invaded the kingdom and drove the legitimate 
kings into hiding, in spite of her legendary association with the establishment of the 
Zagwé kings. In fact, it seems likely that a period of well over a hundred years yet had to 
elapse before this new dynasty  came to the throne, and that the Ge`ez chronicles have 
become hopelessly muddled at this stage.  
Between 1073 and 1077 more trouble occurred because of a false metropolitan (Atiya 
1948: 328-330; Budge 1928: IV, 995). A certain Cyril arrived with forged letters to claim 
the metropolitanate, and actually managed to bribe the ruling amir of Egypt to force the 
patriarch to ratify the appointment. The problem was only solved in the patriarchate of 
Cyril II (1078-92), who consecrated a new metropolitan, Severus; Cyril fled to Dahlak, 
where he was arrested by the sultan, and sent to Egypt, where he was duly executed.  
Metropolitan Severus wrote to the patriarch in Egypt that the country was in good order 
but for the practice of polygamy by the Ethiopian ruler and some of his subjects. He was, 
however, soon in trouble. He apparently tried to please the Egyptian amir by building 
mosques in Ethiopia, for which he was arrested. Letters with threats from the amir to 
demolish churches in Egypt were despatched to Ethiopia, but the king's reply was 
uncompromising and unimpressed; "If you demolish a single stone of the churches, I will 
carry to you all the bricks and stones of Mecca . . . and if a single stone is missing I will 
send its weight to you in gold" (Atiya 1948: 347-51).  
The patriarchal biographies continue, without much useful information about Ethiopian 
affairs, to relate the history of the metropolitan George (Atiya 1948: 394-5), consecrated 
by patriarch Michael IV (1092-1102). This prelate behaved so badly that he was arrested 
and sent back to Egypt. A successor, consecrated by Macarius II (1102-28), was the 
metropolitan Michael (Sergew Hable Sellassie 1972: 203). He was at the centre of a 

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