Envoys of a Human God : The Jesuit Mission to Christian Ethiopia, 1557-1632 [1 ed.] 9789004289154, 9789004289147

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Envoys of a Human God

Jesuit Studies Modernity through the Prism of Jesuit History

Edited by Robert A. Maryks (Boston College) Editorial Board James Bernauer S.J. (Boston College) Louis Caruana S.J. (Pontificia Università Gregoriana) Emanuele Colombo (DePaul University) Paul Grendler (University of Toronto, emeritus) Yasmin Haskell (University of Western Australia) Ronnie Po-chia Hsia (Pennsylvania State University) Thomas M. McCoog S.J. (Fordham University) Mia Mochizuki (New York University Abu Dhabi and Institute of Fine Arts, New York) Sabina Pavone (Università degli Studi di Macerata) Moshe Sluhovsky (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) Jeffrey Chipps Smith (The University of Texas at Austin)

VOLUME 2

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/js

Envoys of a Human God The Jesuit Mission to Christian Ethiopia, 1557–1632 By

Andreu Martínez d’Alòs-Moner

LEIDEN | BOSTON

On the Cover: Sǝṭu Abuḥǝy from Mange standing on top of the ruins of the church of Gorgora Iyäsus. Photo 2012, Andreu Martínez. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Martínez d’Alòs-Moner, Andreu.  Envoys of a human God : the Jesuit mission to Christian Ethiopia, 1557-1632 / by Andreu Martínez d’Alòs-Moner.   pages cm. -- (Jesuit studies - Modernity through the prism of Jesuit history, ISSN 2214-3289 ; volume 2)  Includes bibliographical references and index.  ISBN 978-90-04-28914-7 (hardback : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-90-04-28915-4 (e-book) 1. Jesuits--Missions-Ethiopia--History--16th century. 2. Jesuits--Missions--Ethiopia--History--17th century. I. Title.  BV3560.M28 2015  266’.263--dc23 2014047438

This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 2214-3289 ISBN 978-90-04-28914-7 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-28915-4 (e-book) Copyright 2015 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper.

This work is dedicated to the memory of my grandparents, Lluís and Guillermo, for there is a touch of them in its conception, and Father Miquel Batllori, who showed the way.

∵

O God, each age narrates Your wonders to the next, fathers tell their children— truth incontrovertible. Witness this Nile here before me, which You turned to blood— not by magic, charms, or sorcery, but just Your name in Moses’ mouth, with Aaron at his side, and in his hand, the staff You turned into a serpent. O, be with me, Your trusting slave, as I make haste to see the places where Your miracles took place.

(Judah Halevi, ca. 1075–1141; English translation from Raymond P. Scheindlin, The Song of the Distant Dove. Judah Halevi’s Pilgrimage [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008], 119)

∵

Contents Acknowledgments ix List of Figures, Maps, Plates and Tables XI List of Abbreviations Xiv Glossary of Terms XV Introduction XiX

PART 1 From Diu to Fǝremona 1 The Prester John’s New Clothes 3 The Courting of the nǝguś 3 Dom João III: Religious Reform as Expansion 13 The Preste’s New Clothes 17 2 From Santiago to St. Paul 24 Evangelizing the Preste 24 Santiago’s Last Call 30 Paul’s Momentum 38 3 Native Networks 51 The Carreira to the Preste 51 Diu and the Banyans 58 Massawa, Fǝremona and the Ethio-Portuguese 73

PART 2 From Fǝremona to Gorgora 4 Mission Metrics 83 1555–1603: Difficult Beginnings 83 1603–1623: Setting up a Local Missionary Network 96 1623–1632: The Catholic Patriarchate and the Expansion of the Network 117

viii

Contents

5 Mission Politics 134 The Redução of Christian Ethiopia 135 Observation, Deconstruction, and Replacement of Ethiopian Christianity 148 Beyond Absolutism 176 6 Mission Culture 200 The Presentation of Self in Missionary Life 200 A Theology of the Visible 219 Spaces of Faith, Spaces of Power 238 Mission Support 259

PART 3 From Gorgora to Goa 7 Yäṭǝnt 277 Utopian Ethiopia 277 The Mission of the Qwälläfä and Chalcedonians 279 From Dissent to Open Resistance 292 8 Exile and Memory 311 The Mission after the Jesuits 311 Longing for Ethiopia 323 A Mission between Oblivion and Curiosity 332 9 Conclusions 338 Appendix 1 Leading Political Figures in the Red Sea, India, and Europe, ca. 1600–1635 345 Appendix 2 National and Provincial Rulers in Christian Ethiopia, 1603–1636 347 Appendix 3 Jesuit Missionaries in Ethiopia, 1555–1632 351 Appendix 4 Intellectual Production during the Mission, 1611–1632 355 Appendix 5 Genealogical Chart of the Extended Ethiopian Royal Family (ca. 1550–1640) 359 Sources and bibliography 360 Index 400

Acknowledgments This work began as a doctoral dissertation and evolved into a full-fledged monograph. During the first stages I received funding from the Portuguese government via the Vasco da Gama project and from the European University Institute in Florence. To these institutions I am mostly indebted. I am particularly grateful for the help given during my years at the Institute to Prof. Gérard Delille, who supervised this project, and to Prof. Kirti Chaudhuri, both of whom are inspiring scholars and brilliant teachers. After my Florence funding came to an end, I transferred to the Research Unit of Ethiopian Studies, today Hiob Ludolf Centre for Ethiopian Studies, at Hamburg University. The facilities, friendly atmosphere, and outstanding people I encountered there were fundamental in helping me complete the project. My heartfelt thanks go to the heads of the Centre, Prof. Siegbert Uhlig and Prof. Alessandro Bausi, and to its members who have been my workmates for many years: Maria Bulakh, Dirk Bustorf, Sophia Dege, Alexander Meckelburg, Denis Nosnitsin, Thomas Rave, Wolbert Smidt, and Zhenja Sokolinskaia. My research in Portugal was sponsored by the Instituto Camões and my work in Roman archives benefited from a grant from the Ecole Française de Rome, for which I am grateful. This monograph is based on intensive work in archives and libraries as well as in the field. I am thankful to the personnel I have encountered during research trips in Rome, Spain, and Portugal, at Archivum Romanum Societatis Jesu, Institutum Historicum Societatis Jesu, Archivio di Propaganda Fide, Archivo General de Simancas, Arquivo Distrital de Braga, and Biblioteca Pública de Évora. My special gratitude also goes to the directors and staff of the centers where I spent a large amount of time collecting material and writing the book: the Biblioteca Nacional de Lisboa (especially to María Helena Arjones from the ‘Reservados’ section), the ‘Fons Antic’ section at the library of the Universitat de Barcelona, the Staats und Universitäts-Bibliothek Hamburg and the Library of the Asien-Afrika-Institut (especially Carmen Geisenheyner). During these years I also visited Ethiopia a few times. I am especially beholden to Víctor Fernández and his team, who gave me the opportunity to assist in historical matters relating to their archaeological project on Jesuit sites in the Lake Ṭana region. My gratitude also goes to Abbäbä Mängǝśtu, Ǝndalkaččäw Fäqadu and Wärqǝnäh from Azäzo, who guided me during field trips in Tǝgray, Goǧǧam, and Dämbǝya. In addition, I want to thank those scholars and friends with whom I exchanged ideas and points of view: Alexandre Surrallès, Fredy Ovando

x

Acknowledgments

Grajales, Elizabeth Fordham, Antonio García Espada, Alessandra El Far, André Ferrand de Almeida, Kittya Lee, Rie Arimura, Jonathan Miran, Lars Achenbach, Mersha Alehegne, Antonella Brita, Janina Karoleski, Matthias Gloël and Martin Haars. My gratitude goes as well to the very supportive scholars who read parts of the work and gave their valuable comments to help me improve it: Michael Kleiner, Leonardo Cohen and Solomon Gebreyes. Special thanks go to Cristina Osswald and Stefan Halikowski, with whom I share a passion that has grown over the years of studying the activities of the Jesuits in the East. Prof. Gianfranco Fiaccadori shared with me his erudition on the Christian Orient and also his skills and time in checking a number of translations of Latin passages into English; my most sincere gratitude goes to him. Alessandro Bausi and Solomon Gebreyes also assisted me in translating Gǝʿǝz passages, for which I am thankful. A series of proofreaders tried to make up for the shortcomings in the English style. My thanks go out to Sarah Harrison. I am thankful to Brill Publishers and to their editorial team for having trusted in this project. Robert Maryks provided me with fundamental editing guidelines that helped in many instances to improve the text. Finally, I would like to thank my family and, in particular, my parents, for the understanding they showed during the delays and difficulties this study has experienced. This work is dedicated to my grandparents, Lluís and Guillermo, who each shared with me their personal experiences concerning the Jesuits and to the late Father Miquel Batllori, for this research was inspired by his advice.

List of Figures, Maps, Plates and Tables Figures 1 2 3

Growth of Jesuit operatives in India and Ethiopia, 1549–1632 89 Evolution of the number of students at Fǝremona and Gorgora, 1605–1626 216 The organization of contributions and disbursements during the Ethiopian mission, ca. 1610–1630 260

Maps 1 2 3 4 5

Ethiopia and the Portuguese Asian World, 1500–1632 2 The Jesuit missionary network in Ethiopia: residences and kätäma, 1560–1632 82 Missionary sites north of Lake Ṭana, 1603–1632 106 The Catholic monastic network in Goǧǧam, ca. 1610–1632 151 Fəremona and the mission’s northern network, ca. 1560–1632 271

Plates 1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8 9 10

The mighty Prester John: Map of Africa, detail, Gerhard Mercator, 1595 11 A house for the patriarch: Däbsan, eastern façade, ca. 1626–1632 204 A new Virgin for the Ethiopians: the Madonna of Santa Maria Maggiore. Virgin and Child, Crucifixion, 17th or 18th century 223 A theology of the visible: the Holy Trinity, ‘Sancta Trinitas Unus Deus. Miserere Nobis.’ Alittenio [Alitenio] Gatti, Rome, 1590, Maryam Dǝngǝlat monastery, Tǝgray 227 Possible remains of the Jesuit church at Särka, Gǝmb Maryam, Goǧǧam, ca. 1626–1632 234 Fǝremona, fundaments of the Jesuit church (covered since 2006), ca. 1626–1632 242 ‘The Phoenix of Ethiopia’: the church of Gorgora Iyäsus, interior view of the nave towards the main altar. Architect: João Martins, ca. 1626–1632 245 The ‘phoenix’s’ Indian model: the church of São Paulo, Diu. Architect: João Martins, ca. 1606–1624 245 The headquarters of the mission: residence of Gorgora Nova, view of the southern façade, ca. 1626–1632 246 Ashlars for the ‘phoenix’: the quarry of Wǝša Śǝllase, interior of one of the galleries to the south, Debeza 246

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List of Figures, Maps, Plates and Tables

11 12

Gujarat craftsmanship: stepwell, Adalaj, Gujarat, India. 1499 248 Mughal craftsmanship: Sultana’s House, Fatehpur Sikri, Uttar Pradesh, India, ca. 1569 248 The architectural upgrade reaches Goǧǧam: the church of Märṭulä Maryam, decorated arch and pilars. Architects: João Martins and Bruno Bruni, ca. 1626–1632 251 The See Patriarchal: the cathedral of Dänqäz, view of the transept. Architects: Francisco Rodríguez and Bruno Bruni, ca. 1626–1632 253 A palace for the nǝguś: the gǝmb of Dänqäz, cistern. Architects: Gäbrä Krǝstos, ʿAbd al Kerim and Sadaqa Nesrani, ca. 1626–1632 253 Connecting the provinces: the bridge of Alata, Ṭis Abbay, ca. 1626–1632 254 A paradise for the nǝguś: plan of the complex of Gännätä Iyäsus, Azäzo (excavated in 2009–2012 by Víctor Fernández Martínez and others), ca. 1621–1631 256 Mughal palace-gardens: Anup Talao, Fatehpur Sikri, Uttar Pradesh, India, ca. 1575 257 Mughal palace-gardens: Hiran Minar, Sheikhupura, Punjab, Pakistan, ca. 1600 258 The Prester John goes native: the Ethiopian nǝguś and the Jesuit prelates. Engraving by Philip Fruytiers and Peter van Lisebetten, 1660 329 A mission vindicated: Thesenblatt Die Weltmission der Gesellschaft Jesu. Design by Johann Christoph Storer, engraving by Bartholomäus Kilian, ca. 1660 330 An encounter imagined: the meeting between Susǝnyos and Patriarch Afonso Mendes in Dänqäz on February 7, 1626. Engraving by Louis de Boullongne and Coenraad de Putter, 1728 336

13

14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

22

Tables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Currencies and units of measure used in the sources xxxv Routes undertaken by the Jesuits to Ethiopia, 1555–1630 59 The population of Ethio-Portuguese mixed race in Ethiopia, numbers and leaders, 1541–1646 76 Age of missionaries in Ethiopia on joining the Society of Jesus, 1555–1632 88 Average age of missionaries arriving in Ethiopia, 1555–1630 94 Mean length of service in the Society of Jesus for the missionaries in Ethiopia, 1555–1632 97 Speed and main routes of communication for the mission, 1557–1632 103 The evolution of conversions in Ethiopia, 1605–1630 128 Jesuit residences in Ethiopia, 1561–1632 (listed by year of foundation) 131

List Of Figures, Maps, Plates And Tables 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

xiii

The Pauline framework 139 Mean years spent in India by the missionaries before reaching Ethiopia, 1555–1630 213 Number of interns at the Jesuit schools in Ethiopia, 1605–1626 215 Portuguese and Spanish expenditure for the Ethiopian mission, 1555–1617 261 Comparative estimates of expenditure and revenue for the Ethiopian mission, Jesuit Indian residences and the Japan mission, 1575–1638 (in 1,000 reis) 265 Ethiopian local expenditures for the mission, 1570–1630 267 Comparative of revenues between the Jesuit residences and main regions in Ethiopia, ca. 1619–1629 (in 1,000 reis) 273 Exile literature produced by the Jesuit missionaries, ca. 1628–1660 324

List of Abbreviations

Archives and Libraries

adb ags ahpc ame apf arsi bna bnl bub

Arquivo Distrital de Braga Archivo General de Simancas Archivo histórico de la Compañía de Jesús de la Provincia de Castilla Arquivo Municipal de Évora Archivio della Propaganda Fide Archivum Romanum Societatis Jesu Biblioteca Nacional da Ajuda Biblioteca Nacional, Lisboa Biblioteca de la Universitat de Barcelona

Literature Barros, Décadas Barros, João de, Décadas I–IV (Lisboa: Regia Officina Typografica, 1777–88 [Lisboa: Pedro Craesbeeck, 1614]). cdp Visconde de Santarém et al. (ed.), Corpo Diplomático Português: contendo os Actos e Relações Politicas e Diplomáticas de Portugal com as diversas potências do mundo desde o sec. XVI até aos nossos dias, 15 vols. (Lisboa: Academia das Sciencias de Lisboa, 1959–69 [1846]). Couto, Décadas Diogo do Couto, Décadas V–X (Lisboa: Regia Officina Typografica, 1777–88 [Lisboa: Pedro Craesbeeck, 1614]). di Wicki, Joseph and John Gomes (eds.), Documenta Indica, vols. 1–18 (Romae, Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 1948 seq). eae Siegbert Uhlig and Alessandro Bausi (ed.), Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, 5 vols. (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2003–14). raso Beccari, Camillo (ed.), Rerum Aethiopicarum scriptores occidentales inediti a saeculo XVI ad XIX, 15 vols. (Romae: C. de Luigi, 1903–17).

Glossary of Terms1 Abba

an Ethiopian honorific title applied to religious figures, such as monks, abbots in Ethiopia the Blue Nile a male member of the Solomonic dynasty

Abbay Abeto, abetohun (Portuguese abetecom) Abuna a form of address that was—erroneously—used by the Portuguese as a title to refer to the metropolitan, the Egyptian bishop sent by the Coptic patriarchate of Alexandria to rule over the Ethiopian church Afä mäkwännǝn an Ethiopian title, literally ‘breath of the dignitary’, the (Portuguese affamacon) deputy of the Tǝgre mäkwännǝn Amba in Ethiopia ‘mountain’, usually difficult to access and of strategic importance, used as military camps and refuges ʿAqqabe säʿat literally ‘keeper of the hours’, in Ethiopia the chief ecclesiastic (Portuguese cabeata) at court, monitoring the monarch’s schedule and audiences Assistencia a group of provinces of the Society of Jesus headed by an assistente, who normally resided in Rome Azmač an Ethiopian state office. Literally ‘the one who leads the razzias’, commander of troops Azzaž (Portuguese an Ethiopian state office, literally meaning ‘commander’, a azage) civil administrator versed in both juridical and ecclesiastic issues and one of the highest offices in service at the royal court Bäga the Ethiopian dry season (September to May/June) Bäǧǝrond an Ethiopian court office, chief of the court craftsmen or of the royal treasury Baḥǝr nägaš literally ‘ruler of the sea’, the governor of the northernmost (Portuguese barnagaes) Christian provinces in Ethiopia, near the Red Sea shore

1 Sources: Asmarom Legesse, Gada. Three Approaches to the Study of African Society (New YorkLondon: The Free Press, 1973), 8; Harald Aspen, Amhara Traditions of Knowledge. Spirit Mediums and Their Clients (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2001); EAE; Thomas Leiper Kane, Amharic-English Dictionary, 2 vols. (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1990); Mǝhǝrka Dǝngǝl et al., Chronica de Susenyos, rei de Ethiopia, trans. Francisco M. E. Pereira (Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional, 1892–1900); António Roiz to Muzio Vitelleschi, February 13, 1625, in ARSI, Goa 39 I, 220r–30r; Sir Henry Yule and A.C. Burnell, Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial AngloIndian Words and Phrases… [1886], ed. William Crooke (Kent: Linguasia, 1994).

xvi Banyan (Portuguese banean) Bitwäddäd or ras bitwäddäd (Portuguese betudete) Blattengeta (Portuguese mordomo mor, maestro do arrayal, mestre de casa or belatinoche goita) Buda

Glossary of Terms Bengali word for Indian trader, especially from the province of Gujarat the highest court noble rank in Ethiopia, member of the council of regents literally ‘chief of pages’, an influential court office in command of a guards’ regiment created at the time of Susǝnyos

in Ethiopia it refers to the evil eye, to the person with the power to spread it Capitão, capitam in Spain and Portugal the highest military title in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The captain could lead a simple company of about fifty men or a larger formation with more than 1,000 men. In Ethiopia, also the leader of the Ethio-Portuguese militia Däbr, däbrä in Ethiopia literally ‘mountain’, which typically designates a cloister or monastery Däbtära a non-ordained class of clergy in Ethiopia that play important roles within the church and society, such as scribes or specialists in buda afflictions and exorcisms Däǧǧazmač (Portuguese literally ‘rear-guard commander’, also ‘commander of the deggiasmache) ruler’s door’, one of the highest Ethiopian military titles, in charge of corps of his own army and/or provinces Don, Dom a Portuguese and Spanish honorific title attributed to high-ranking figures: in Portugal to kings, royal family and clergy, in Spain to nobles and clergy Ǝččäge (Portuguese title given to the abbot of Däbrä Libanos monastery in Šäwa, icceghê) second in importance in the hierarchy of the Ethiopian church after the metropolitan Ǝtege, also ite the title of the consort of the Ethiopian monarch, princess, (Portuguese itê) queen Fitawrari a commander of an advanced detachment of a traditional Ethiopian army en march Gaada an Oromo system of classes (luba) that succeed each other every eight years in assuming military, economic, political and ritual responsibilities. Each gaada class remains in power during a specific term (gaada) and before one assumes a position of leadership it is required to wage war against a community that none of its ancestors had raided

xvii

Glossary of Terms Galla General, Superior general (Portuguese Preposito general, Superior Geral) Gwǝlt Käntiba Kätäma Kǝrämt Liq Liqä mäʾǝmǝran

Mestre

nǝburä ǝd (Portuguese nebrete) Nǝguś Nǝguśä nägäśt

Pasha Pashalik Procurator Professed

Provincial

Qäññazmač

a term designating the Oromo people until the mid-­ twentieth century the head of the Society of Jesus elected for life

in Ethiopia non-permanent rights to tribute over a piece of land given by the monarch a representative of the Ethiopian monarch in a small region or village an Ethiopian royal encampment, normally temporary Ethiopian rainy season. In the highlands it spans from May/ June to September in Ethiopia, a learned person, scholar, doctor, expert in Ethiopia literally ‘master of masters’, the head of the scholars, doctors, one of the highest offices in the Ethiopian church title used in Portugal and Spain and normally accompanied by the person’s first name. Given to a doctor, surgeon, a teacher, someone with studies, a university degree an Ethiopian title, the senior administrator of Aksum title used in Christian Ethiopia and equivalent to king literally ‘King of kings’, the title of the Ethiopian ruler. The Jesuits of the second mission period often translated it as ‘Emperor’ an Ottoman title, commander of a port or province the Ottoman jurisdiction or territory administered by a pasha a Jesuit in charge of managing in situ affairs concerning his motherhouse or Province a priest of the Jesuits who has taken three solemn vows and a fourth one of obedience to the pope. Only the solemnly professed may hold certain higher posts. Known often in Portuguese texts as profeso de cuatro votos the head of a province of the Society of Jesus nominated by the superior general. In the Jesuit Indian Province, the head was often called ‘Provincial of Goa’ literally ‘commander of the right’, one of the main commanders of the army in Ethiopia, together with the däǧǧazmač and grazmač

xviii Rǝst

Glossary of Terms

in Ethiopia permanent or semi-permanent rights over a piece of land. Normally given by the monarch. Sometimes exchangeable for gwǝlt Ṣäḥafe lam (Portuguese an Ethiopian court position veedor da fazenda) Šǝfta a rebel, outlaw, bandit, it has a political connotation Spiritual coadjutor a priest of the Jesuits who has taken three simple vows Šum a title of the commander or lord of a region in Ethiopia. The office holds political as well as legal powers and some holders commanded an important army Tǝgre mäkwännǝn literally the ‘Lord of Tǝgray’, a governor of part of Tǝgray, sometimes sharing power with the baḥǝr nägaš Temporal coadjutor a brother of the Jesuits with a wide variety of assignments, including clerical, technical, household or farming duties. In Portuguese sources known as irmão Viceroy of India a title given in the first half of the sixteenth century to only a few governors of Portuguese India and from 1550 up to the eighteenth century to most of the governors Visitor (in Portuguese a Jesuit office, held normally only for a limited number of visitador) years, during which the holder had full power over a determined area (mission, province). Holders of the office were chosen by the superior general as his personal delegate; the role was intended to act as a link between the superior general and the provinces Visorey a term employed in Jesuit sources to designate Ethiopian provincial lords. The term is a misnomer for not all lords carried the same title and in this book whenever Jesuit sources mention a visorey the more neutral term of governor is used. It follows a tentative list of equivalences between the visoreys of the most important regions and the actual Ethiopian titles: Visorey of Amhara = sähafe lam; Visorey of Bägemdǝr = däǧǧazmač, šum; Visorey of Damot = azmač; Visorey of Goǧǧam = Goǧǧam nägaš, ras; Visorey of Sǝmen = šum Sǝmen; Visorey of Tǝgray = Tǝgre mäkwännǝn, däǧǧazmač, baḥǝr nägaš; king of Ǝnnarya = šum Ǝnnarya; king of Danakil = shaikh Danakil an Ethiopian office designating judges Wämbär (Portuguese senadores do Visorey or ombar) Wäyzäro (Portuguese a female of Solomonic descent, of high rank or the upper oziero, oizero) nobility

Introduction The palaces, towers and churches of Gondärine Ethiopia defy reason. Besides the ones set in Gondär city, these structures, locally known as gǝmb and sometimes also as nora, are often built in rural and remote areas, and strike the visitor to regions surrounding the Lake Ṭana as somehow alien. Since first learning about these sites in Michel Leiris’s hypnotic travelogue L’Afrique fantôme I was thrilled by their very existence; the images in this book sparked in me a curiosity about that region of the African continent. Subsequently, the quest to learn about a religion that was so close to and at the same time so distant from my family background, which was divided between anti-clericalism and Roman Catholic religiosity, took me to the study of early modern proselytism and, specifically, the Jesuit missionary endeavors in the Indian Ocean world. Later an encounter with a venerable member of that order, the late Pare Batllori, pushed me to scrutinize the experiences of Andrés de Oviedo, Pedro Páez and a group of Portuguese and Italian padres in Christian Ethiopia during the early modern period. Little did I imagine then that the research that Pare Batllori set up, which would continue for well over ten years, would bring me to study, among many issues, the very origins of the phantasmatic Gondärine architecture. The mission to Christian Ethiopia was one of the earliest and perhaps one of the most challenging projects run by the Jesuit order during the early modern period. Throughout its development this project led to the presence in Ethiopia of over fifty priests, including four prelates, and the mobilization of immense logistic, material and human resources. It was, above all, an endeavor on a global scale. For over eighty years it received financial and material support from several directions: firstly, from the Portuguese and Spanish treasuries and the Estado da India and, in its later and most decisive stages, from the Ethiopian state, which became a major subsidizer of the project. Moreover, Indian banyan merchants provided funding decisively whenever the need arose. The Jesuit presence in Ethiopia was first recorded in 1557, with the arrival of five missionaries and continued almost uninterrupted until Catholicism was definitely eradicated in the 1640s and 1650s but the mission only blossomed in the late 1610s and 1620s. Then, for over a decade extraordinary things occurred. The nǝguś and the court made open profession of Catholicism and obedience to the pope and the Jesuits and their associates took over religious leadership in the land. Thereby, one of the most ancient and remote Christian churches was brought under the authority of Rome. As symbols of religious renewal as well as a sign of the supremacy of the state ambitious architectonic projects were undertaken. The global network the local mission relied upon

xx

Introduction

was activated once again. Experienced architects, master masons and artists from India and Europe flowed in to produce a series of churches, palaces and palace-gardens of a sort never seen before: the workforce was local but the architectonic inspiration came unequivocally from Catholic Europe as well as from Mughal and Portuguese India. Throughout my research on this fascinating and contested episode I have seldom been alone. The present work emerges from a recent revival of scholarship on Jesuit missionary activities worldwide. Within the last twenty years or so the number of studies dedicated to the so-called Portuguese period in Ethiopia has also been considerable. It is chiefly thanks to the work of the late Merid Wolde Aregay, Hervé Pennec and Leonardo Cohen that the complex layers of this undertaking have been to a large extent scrutinized. Merid’s unpublished dissertation defended in 1971 at the School of Oriental and African Studies, ‘Southern Ethiopia and the Christian Kingdom 1508–1708’ is a well-researched analysis of pre-Gondär political dynamics and provides clever insights into key missionary figures.1 The more recent monograph by Pennec, Des jésuites au royaume du Prêtre Jean, is perhaps the most ambitious of the recent studies on this mission; its vast scope, integrating different methods, such as archaeology, philology, cartography and political analysis, has been an inspiration for my own research.2 Seven years later Leonardo Cohen published The Missionary Strategies of the Jesuits in Ethiopia, a work particularly focused on cultural and religious problems that shed fundamental light on the hermeneutical context in the clash between Ethiopian Christianity and Roman Catholicism.3 1 Merid Wolde Aregay, ‘Southern Ethiopia and the Christian Kingdom 1508–1708, with Special Reference to the Galla Migrations and Their Consequences’, (PhD diss., University of London, 1971). Although officially focusing on the Oromo migrations, the work remains today a superb study of Ethiopian political history during the period of Portuguese contacts. The author thoroughly surveys military conflicts, state reforms and population movements and takes a close look into the agency of political and religious leaders. A posthumous edition is a desideratum. 2 Hervé Pennec, Des jésuites au royaume du Prêtre Jean (Éthiopie): Stratégies, rencontres et tentatives d implantation (1495–1633) (Paris: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian and Centre Cultural Calouste Gulbenkian, 2003). 3 Leonardo Cohen, The Missionary Strategies of the Jesuits in Ethiopia (1555–1632) (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2009). An ulterior study that failed to receive its due attention is the doctoral dissertation authored by Tewelde Beiene, which has a strong theological focus; Tewelde Beiene, ‘La politica cattolica di Selṭan Sägäd I (1607–1632) e la missione della Compagnia di Gesù in Etiopia: Precedenti, evoluzione e problematiche, 1589–1632’, (PhD diss., Pontificia Università Gregoriana, 1983). More recent is Matteo Salvadore, ‘Faith over Color: Ethio-European Encounters and Discourses in the Early-modern Era’ (PhD diss., Temple University, 2010), 202–03.

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Connecting the Local and the Global Missions

My work has profited enormously from past and ongoing research on the Jesuit mission in Ethiopia. It appeared to me, however, that historiographical research on the Jesuit Ethiopian adventure had left still room for a comprehensive monograph on the whole episode—one that, on the one hand, was generous in its chronological scope (from the mission’s earlier developments to the period of expulsion and exile) and, on the other, addressed the complex layers that formed it. Indeed, as I grew convinced of the feasibility of this project, significant gaps in the historiographical discussion became all the more evident. In trying to fill these gaps I drew on a path of research that was opened in the 1990s by scholars who studied the regional and global networks managed by the Society of Jesus.4 Focusing on the Ethiopian endeavor as part of the Jesuit global mission I have tried to encompass in my book the nodes that participated in this network. Thus in Chapters 3 and 4 I draw attention to the Jesuit Indian network, in particular to the houses of Goa and Diu, from which the Ethiopian mission drew both human and financial resources as well as its inspiration.5 The Indian connection reverberates also in Chapter 6, where the book casts light on the cultural developments that had their origin in Portuguese-dominated areas in India and beyond. Additionally, whenever the analysis would profit from it, I have carried out comparisons with other more distant but related Eastern missions, such as those to Mughal India and Japan. 4 Dauril Alden, The Making of an Enterprise: The Society of Jesus in Portugal, Its Empire and Beyond, 1540–1750 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996); David Block, Mission Culture on the Upper Amazon: Native Tradition, Jesuit Enterprise and Secular Policy in Moxos, 1660–1880 (London: University of Nebraska Press, 1994); Steven J. Harris: ‘Confession-building, Longdistance Networks, and the Organization of Jesuit Science’, Early Science and Medicine 1, 3 (1996); Id., ‘Long-Distance Corporations, Big Sciences, and the Geography of Knowledge’, Configurations 6, 2 (1998); Id., ‘Jesuit Scientific Activity in the Overseas Missions, 1540–1773’, isis 96, 1 (2005). 5 Recent studies on Jesuit activities in the East include Ines Županov, Disputed Mission; Jesuit Experiments and Brahmanical Knowledge in Seventeenth-Century India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999); Maria Cristina Osswald, ‘Jesuit Art in Goa between 1542 and 1655: From “Modo Nostro” to “Modo Goano”’ (PhD diss., European University Institute, 2003), published as Id., Written in Stone: Jesuit Buildings in Goa and Their Artistic and Architectural Features (Goa: Golden Heart Emporium, 2013); Pamila Gupta, ‘The Relic State: St. Francis Xavier and the Politics of Ritual in Portuguese India’ (PhD diss., Columbia University, 2004); Stefan Halikowski Smith, Creolization and Diaspora in the Portuguese Indies: The Social World of Ayutthaya, 1640–1720, European Expansion and Indigenous Response (Leiden [u.a.]: Brill, 2011).

xxii

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The connections between the Mughal Indian and Ethiopian missions revealed a possible source of inspiration for the elite architecture promoted in Ethiopia by the padres, a hypothesis that I address in Chapter 6. In the future, it is my hope to substantiate this hypothesis with a more focused study of cultural transfers between pre- and Gondärine architecture and Indian-Mughal architecture. Additionally, the rich historiography on the Indian Ocean world came to my help in understanding how the Jesuit eastern network was connected to a set of local and regional networks wherein several groups were active.6 Thus, banyan agents, studied in Chapter 3, were crucial in maintaining communications between Portuguese India and Ethiopia open and providing financial support for the missionary project. While Jesuit missions were supported by long-distance networks, their focus was on local groups. The institutional approach of Dauril Alden or Charles Boxer thus needs to be balanced by studies of missionary encounters carried out by cultural historians and anthropologists.7 Stimulating studies on interactions between natives and missionaries are those by Bruce Trigger on the Jesuit mission among the Huron in French Canada and by Nathan Wachtel on Jesuit activities among the Urus from Lake Titicaca.8 Using prosopographical analysis in the present book, I pay attention to the local networks that supported the mission, such as the Ethio-Portuguese mixed-race group, part of the Ethiopian nobility and state apparatus as well as monastic circles. Since Ethiopia is a 6 Among the recent studies on regional or transnational networks, see Mihael N. Pearson, Coastal Western India. Studies from the Portuguese Records (New Delhi: Concept Publ. Co., 1981); R.B. Serjeant, The Portuguese off the South Arabian Coast: Hadramî Chronicles (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963); Kirti N. Chaudhuri, Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean: An Economic History from the Rise of Islam to 1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); Jonathan Miran, Red Sea Citizens: Cosmopolitan Society and Cultural Change in Massawa (Bloomington [u.a.]: Indiana Univ. Press, 2009); Sanjay Subrahmanyam, ‘Holding the World in Balance: The Connected Histories of the Iberian Overseas Empires, 1500–1640’, The American Historical Review 112, 5 (2007). 7 Alden’s eurocentrism permeates his text. He thus defined missionary work as that among ‘indigenous multitudes whose basic systems of belief and customs they [the Jesuits] sought to alter’; Alden, The Making of an Enterprise, 77. On Boxer’s, his chief contribution to mission history is The Christian Century in Japan: 1549–1650 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951). 8 Bruce Trigger, The Children of Aataentsic. A History of the Huron People to 1660 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1987, 1st ed. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1976), 714–722; Id., Natives and Newcomers. Canada’s ‘Heroic Age’ Reconsidered (Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1985), 246–50; Nathan Wachtel, Le retour des ancêtres: Les indiens Urus de Bolivie. XX–XVI siècle: Essai d’histoire regressive (Paris: Gallimard, 1990), 583.

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xxiii

nation with an old written tradition, I have also benefited from a rich scholarship on Ethiopian Studies in reconstructing the landscape of dissent to the mission. Local sources, although biased by their eulogistic (royal chronicles) or hagiographical (gädl) focus, echo the widespread social and political skepticism about Catholicism, which ultimately provoked the collapse of the whole missionary experiment. The emergence of local dissent to the mission and the eventual uprooting of Catholicism are the focus of Chapters 7 and 8.

The Followers of Iyäsus

While I set myself to fill historiographical gaps I also tried to address more significant problems related to the encounter between Ethiopian Christians and Catholic missionaries. Two fundamental questions remained in my view largely unresolved and deserving further scrutiny. The first concerned the ultimate goal of the conversion mission: what was at stake in the quest to reform Ethiopian Christianity? The second focused on the form that ‘conversion’ (or reducción) took in the Ethiopian highlands: how did an Ethiopian Catholicism come about? On the one hand, I tried to pay attention to the particular emphasis the padres placed on St. Paul’s teaching and the humanity of Christ. This was epitomized in the missionaries’ constant use of Pauline literature in preaching, ministering and public debates, as well as their conspicuous use of the term Jesus, the trademark of the Society. Iyäsus was indeed ubiquitous. The three most important Catholic temples in Ethiopia, at Gorgora, Dänqäz (the royal capital) and Gännätä Iyäsus (in imitation of the order’s mother church in Rome) were dedicated to the God-man. Similarly, Catholic imagery circulating in Ethiopia (in the form of printings, paintings, medals and even sculptures) focused on motifs such as the infant Jesus, the Nativity scene (pressepe), the Ecce Homo, the Veronica and, of course, the famous Jesuit acronym of Franciscan origin, the ‘ihs’. The impression that all these images were embedded in a larger Western theological narrative that embraced the cult of a human God appeared to me obvious.9 At the same time, the centrality of this theme in the Ethiopian mission, compared with other missions in the East (in China, for instance, by the hand of Matteo Ricci, the Jesuits tried to bridge the gap between Catholic teaching and Confucianism with the help of a rather different concept, the Tianzhu or ‘the Lord of the Heaven’), seemed to underscore a crucial theological divide 9 On the importance of the ‘humanation’ of God in Western painting, see Leo Steinberg, The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion (New York: Pantheon, 1983), 9.

xxiv

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between the Catholic and the Ethiopian traditionalist faiths: the first was based on what John O’Malley dubbed an ‘incarnational theology’, emphasizing ‘a being known, loved and imitable’; the second, on a theology stressing the ‘majesty of unapproachable godhead’.10 The hypothesis that I sustain in Chapter 5 is that such radically different theological approaches precluded the emergence of a genuine accommodating mission. On the other hand, in order to appraise how Catholicism took roots in the Ethiopian highlands I drew on the sociological concepts of habitus and court society, as formalized by Pierre Bourdieu and Norbert Elias.11 Here, benefiting from adopting a long durée perspective, I tried to show that the rapid integration of the Jesuit missionaries within state structures from 1603 onwards could have a sociological explanation. After decades of exchanges between Christian Ethiopia, on the one side, and Portuguese India and Catholic Europe, on the other, the habitus of Ethiopian court society and part of the clergy had been transformed. The result was that when the missionaries renewed their religious project in 1603 they met a court society predisposed to their discourse. They catered to a court prone to a cosmopolitan lifestyle and eager to incorporate ‘cultural capital’ originating from abroad. Moreover, it can be assumed that during the rule of Susǝnyos the idea of a political and religious reform in the kingdom was no longer alien. In Chapter 5 I defend the hypothesis that social conditions smoothed the way to the mission. Additionally, the same conditions paved the way for the development of a ‘mission culture’ characterized by outstanding artistic, architectural and literary expressions, studied in Chapter 6. However, more research on these issues is needed to substantiate or discredit the hypothesis of the involvement of local agencies in the missionary project. In particular, a thorough study of the rich indigenous literature concerning the monarchy that was produced during the Portuguese period could help enrich this debate.12 Shifting between micro and macro analyses, weaving the global and the local, the book tries to situate the missão do Preste within the wider networks to which it was connected and also to understand its successes and setbacks at 10 11 12

Ibid., 10–11. Norbert Elias, Über den Prozeß der Zivilisation, 2 vols. (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997); Pierre Bourdieu, Le sens pratique (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1980). The studies by the Japanese historian Hiroki Ishikawa could be a valuable starting point; see Hiroki Ishikawa, ‘On the Functions of the Bǝḥt wäddäd and the Talallaq blattenoč gweta of the Solomonic Dynasty, 1607–1682’, Nilo-Ethiopian Studies 8–9 (2003); Id., ‘Changes in the Military System during the Gondar Period (1631–1769): Their Influence on the Decline of the Solomonic Dynasty’, Annales d’Ethiopie 18 (2002).

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the local level. With this book, however, the interpretative possibilities that this episode offers are far from being exhausted.13 The amount of historical information available is such that more studies are urgently needed.14 Moreover, the theme itself is so puzzling that historiographical and conceptual debates have yet a long way to go. For example, the articulation of the different ‘ethnic’ groups (Agäw, Oromo, Amhara, Tǝgrayan, Kǝmant and Betä Ǝsraʾǝl, Gumuz and Berta-speakers) within the mission and within Susǝnyos’s political project deserves a detailed investigation in order to gain a more complex picture of the Solomonic multi-ethnic state.15 Finally, at the level of the historical record there is still work to be done in terms of the editing or re-editing of some collections of sources.16

13

14

15

16

The results of the recent archaeological excavations at mission sites in the Lake Ṭana area will stimulate new ideas and complement the already rich historical record; see Víctor M. Fernández et al., Archaeology and Architecture of the Jesuit Missions in Ethiopia (1567–1632) (Leiden: Brill, in print); Iid., ‘Archaeology of Jesuit Architecture in the Lake Ṭana Region: Review of the Work in Progress’, Aethiopica 14 (2012); Iid., ‘Arqueología de las misiones jesuitas ibéricas del siglo XVII en la región del lago Ṭana (Etiopía, Estado Regional de Amhara). Informe preliminar sobre las excavaciones de 2009 en el yacimiento de Azäzo’, Informes y trabajos del ipce (Instituto del Patrimonio Cultural de España) 5 (2011); Iid., ‘Arqueología de las misiones jesuitas ibéricas del siglo XVII en la región del lago Tana (Etiopía): Informe preliminar sobre las excavaciones de 2008 en el yacimiento de Azäzö (Gondar, Estado Regional de Amhara)’, Informes y trabajos del ipce 3 (2009); Iid., ‘Arqueología de las misiones jesuitas ibéricas en Etiopía (1614–1633)’, Informes y trabajos del ipce 1 (2008). Among the original perspectives that were opened recently, two studies by Leonardo Cohen should be mentioned. The first shed light on the Judaic background to the religious debates in Ethiopia; Leonardo Cohen, ‘El padre Pedro Páez S.J. frente a la interpretación bíblica etíope: La controversia sobre “cómo llenar una brecha mítica”’, Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu 82, 164 (2013), which connects with the fascinating field opened up recently with Robert Aleksander Maryks, The Jesuit Order as a Synagogue of Jews: Jesuits of Jewish Ancestry and Purity-of-blood Laws in the Early Society of Jesus (Leiden [u.a.]: Brill, 2010). The second, dwelled on the psychological effects among native Ethiopians of conversion to Catholicism; Leonardo Cohen, ‘Visions and Dreams: An Avenue for Ethiopians’ Conversion to Catholicism at the Beginning of the Seventeenth Century’, Journal of Religion in Africa 39, 1 (2009). A valuable contribution to this problem remains Taddesse Tamrat, ‘Processes of Ethnic Interaction and Integration in Ethiopian History: The Case of Agaw’, Journal of African History 29, 1 (1988). Concerning missionary sources, an important recent achievement has been the translation of Pedro Páez’s História de Etiópia to English; Pedro Paez, Pedro Páez’s History of Ethiopia, 1622, ed. Isabel Boavida et al., 2 vols. (London: Hakluyt Society, 2011).

xxvi

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The intention with this book is twofold. On the one hand, it is my goal to connect the Ethiopian project with the global Jesuit enterprise, thus providing a comprehensive yet compact case study with which to participate in a debate from which this endeavor has been largely, and regrettably, absent. On the other hand, I have tried to give answers to questions that have concerned scholars since decades. The effort has led me to adopt several perspectives— from art history to theology, from geopolitics to sociology—as well as to use a variety of methods and resources—from cartography to prosopography, from archival work to field research. It is my hope that the book contributes positively to the ongoing debates regarding cultural exchanges during the early modern period and to the renewal of state and church structures in the African continent in the pre-colonial era.

Geographical Setting and Historical Background

The focus of activity of the Jesuit missionaries was primarily the Christian Ethiopian Church and the Solomonic monarchy. Christianity was first introduced by Aksumite king ʿEzana in the mid-fourth century c.e. Later, successive waves of Christianization occurred, chiefly by the work of missionaries coming from Egypt and Syria.17 Henceforth, towards the end of the first millennium c.e. the Ethiopians developed their own national church, borrowing most of the traditions and theological corpus from the Coptic Church of Egypt. Moreover, the see of Alexandria also appointed an Egyptian bishop as metropolitan of Ethiopia, a praxis that remained uncontested until the mid-twentieth century.18 17

18

See Wolfgang Hahn, ‘ʿEzana’ in eae vol. 2; and Heinzgerd Brakmann, To para tois varvarois ergon theion: Die Einwurzelung der Kirche im spätantiken Reich von Aksum (Bonn: Borengässer, 1994). There are few detailed studies as well as original historical accounts on the office of the metropolitan in Ethiopia. Some hints are provided in Taddesse Tamrat, Church and State in Ethiopia, 1270–1527 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), 114–117, 270 (map), 273; Stuart C. Munro-Hay, Ethiopia and Alexandria: The Metropolitan Episcopacy of Ethiopia (Warszawa [u.a.]: Zaâ Pan, 1997), 36–44; Steven Kaplan, The Monastic Holy Man and the Christianization of Early Solomonic Ethiopia (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1984), 29–31; and Mario da Abiy-Addi [Aielè Tekle-Haymanot], La dottrina della Chiesa Etiopica dissidente sull’unione (Roma: Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, Roma), 14 and passim. A concise but informative note appears in Gianfranco Fiaccadori, ‘Appendice’ to Delio Vania Proverbio, ‘Un nuovo testimone della Rivelazione di Pietro a Clemente: il ms. 121 del monumento nazionale di Casamari (Veroli)’, Rendiconti della Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei-Classe di Scienze morali, storiche e filologiche ser. 9, 15 (2004).

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Together with the other Oriental churches, the Ethiopian church developed a liturgy as well as a set of Christological dogmas and ritual practices significantly different to those developed by the Roman Catholic Church. Until the sixteenth century Rome had led several attempts to place these churches under its jurisdiction, but with unequal outcomes. The coming to scene of the Society of Jesus brought renewed hopes to an old quest. Although the Solomonic monarchy sustained its legitimacy by claiming direct descent from the biblical King Mǝnilǝk and the Queen of Sheba, the actual foundation of the dynasty may be dated to the rule of Yǝkunno Amlak (1270–94), who would have replaced the Zagwe line and ‘restored’ the Solomonic lineage. The Solomonic state supported a mobile court whose main revenues were tributes and taxes exacted from subject territories and neighboring polities. Additional sources of revenues were military raids and the participation in trade. The Solomonic rulers were at home in their kätäma and until the sixteenth century did not establish a permanent or semi-permanent capital. When moving around the country with his army, we are told, the nǝguś processed at the head of several thousand men. An important aspect of the Christian Ethiopian kingdom is that its boundaries were never fixed; over the course of the centuries the state contracted and expanded as often as it moved its center. Roughly speaking, the Christian state reached its point of greatest expansion during the period that runs from the reigns of ʿAmdä Ṣǝyon (1314–1344) to that of Zärʾa Yaʿǝqob (1434–1468). In contrast, the period that witnessed the first contacts with the Portuguese is largely seen in the historiography as one of decay. The djihad of Aḥmad Grañ in the 1520s, the arrival of the Ottomans at Massawa and the northwards expansion of the Oromo people from the 1540s onwards had landlocked the state and compelled it to relocate its base to the north of the Abbay (Blue Nile) river. In the mid-sixteenth century the core of the kingdom was thus concentrated in the Lake Ṭana area and political control in such neighboring provinces such as Goǧǧam and Tǝgray was weak. This is illustrated by an episode in 1627 in which the missionaries who went to collect the bodily remains of the Portuguese soldier Christovão da Gama in Wäfla (in today’s Wällo province), then inhabited by the Oromo, having expanded in the mid-sixteenth century, had to be escorted by an army of between seven and eight thousand men.19 Other areas inhabited mostly by Christians, such as the Ḥamasen, Damot and large parts of the Amhara and Šäwa provinces were de facto independent from central rule. 19 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter XXIV.

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The Ethiopian highlands were populated mostly by Semitic peoples speaking Amharic and Tǝgrǝñña. However, important Cushitic-speaking groups, generally called Agäw in missionary literature, lived scattered throughout the Christian regions. Ethiopian Christianity was the religion of a majority of the population as well as the official religion of the Solomonic monarchy, but groups of Jews known as Fälaša (today Betä Ǝsraʾǝl), Muslims and followers of local religions were also present. Moreover, the religious confession was never rigid: religious groups shared a great number of practices and rites and changes of faith occurred. The geographical setting in which the missionaries worked was therefore largely delineated by the area occupied by the Christian Ethiopians. In these areas, defined by the zones known locally as the däga and qwälla (elevations of 1,500 up to 2,400 meters), life is shaped by two clear-cut seasons: a rainy season, called in Amharic kǝrämt, lasting from about June to September, and the bäga, or dry season, from October to May. Military campaigns, tax and tribute collecting and expeditions to foreign lands typically avoided the rainy season, when the intense and daily showers made roads near impassable and isolated one province from another. The missionaries adapted their work to this climatic pattern and used the rainy season to celebrate the annual assembly at their headquarters in Gorgora, to focus on educational tasks at the schools and to compile information for their voluminous annual letters sent to India and Europe.

Sources and Historiography

This study draws most of its data from missionary sources and from translated Ethiopian sources. The amount and quality of documentation directly or indirectly produced by the Jesuit missionaries is not matched by any other type of documentation, European or otherwise. Beccari’s fifteen-volume collection has been an invaluable tool for analysis and I have used it extensively throughout the text.20 Missionary documents found in other published collections have also been used.21 In addition, a large number of unpublished missionary texts preserved in archives and libraries in Rome (Archivum Romanum 20 raso. 21 E.g. di; Compagnia di Gesù, Lettere annue del Giappone, China, Goa, et Ethiopia… (Napoli: Lazaro Scoriggio, 1621); Fernão Guerreiro, Relaçam annal das covsas que fizeram os padres da companhia de iesvs, nas partes da India Oriental, & em alguãs outras da conquista deste Reyno nos annos de 607 & 608… (Lisboa: Pedro Craesbeeck, 1611).

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Societatis Jesu, Archivio della Propaganda Fide) and Portugal (Arquivo Distrital de Braga, Arquivo Municipal de Évora, Biblioteca Nacional and Biblioteca Nacional da Ajuda) have been consulted. Since a number of the sources (especially the series ‘Goa’ in arsi) have been already consulted by other scholars interested in the Ethiopian mission, I have also looked into lesser-studied collections, such as some titles in Lisbon (bnl), in Rome (Fondo Gesuitico arsi) and the two largely unpublished volumes preserved in Braga (adb). Research at the Archivo General de Simancas (Spain) produced a few documents of minor importance. Moreover, the major treatises written by missionaries in Ethiopia (Páez, Almeida, Mendes and Lobo) were read exhaustively as were those authored by Jesuits scholars that included contemporary summaries of the mission (Maffei, Godinho, Tellez), which are all published in Beccari’s collection or elsewhere. A second major set of sources is represented by European non-missionary texts. I utilized most of the documents concerning the mission produced by the Spanish, Portuguese and papal chancelleries, which for the most part are published in different collections of sources (raso and cdp). In addition, I became acquainted with the main Portuguese treatises on Ethiopia (Alvares, Castanheda, Góis and Bermudez) and the East (Barros, Correia, Couto, Castanhoso, Góis and Faria e Sousa) during the age of expansion. Works such as the Décadas have been particularly useful in reconstructing the earlier context in which missionary activities unfolded. Indigenous sources have been also considered. Christian Ethiopia stands close to the Arabic-speaking regions in Africa in holding a rich literary tradition. In Ethiopia such a tradition has been especially fertile in two types of genres: religious and hagiographical texts and royal chronicles. Among the first group, particularly interesting was a series of polemic treatises produced by local religious scholars as a response to missionary activities, chiefly those compiled and translated by Enrico Cerulli under the title Scritti teologici etio­ pici dei secoli XVI–XVII.22 Royal chronicles, which began to be compiled in a systematic form in the sixteenth century, record the exploits of the Ethiopian Solomonic rulers.23 Although they are mostly dedicated to political life and military campaigns, they provide glimpses of the Portuguese and missionary 22

23

Enrico Cerulli (ed., trans.), Scritti teologici etiopici dei secoli XVI–XVII, 2 vols. (Città del Vaticano: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1958–60). For an interpretation of the texts under a different light than that cast by Cerulli, see Pierluigi Piovanelli, ‘Connaissance de Dieu et sagesse humaine en Éthiopie. Le traité Explication de la Divinité attribué aux hérétiques “mikaélites”’, Le Muséon 117 (2004). Sevir B. Chernetsov and Red., ‘Historiography: Ethiopian Historiography’, in eae vol. 3.

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activities as well as a local perspective of the political and social developments in Christian Ethiopia. Most of the royal chronicles and theological treatises are today available in bilingual editions. Unfortunately, another class of document that has recently gained importance thanks to the studies of scholars such as Donald Crummey – royal land grants and charters – has left few traces for the period concerning the mission.24 This study has also tried to encompass a long durée historiography. Thus, the consultation of secondary literature has been extensive. Shortly after the demise of the mission, during the second half of the seventeenth century onwards, several works that focused on this episode appeared.25 A number of them, such as those by Johann Wansleben and Michael Geddes, drew on the mission’s tragic finale to rebuke Catholicism and have little in them of interest aside from their being the foreground of a Protestant anti-popish and antiJesuit black legend.26 Other works, in contrast, have been of more interest. Chief among these were those authored by the German Hiob Ludolf (1624– 1704) and his aide abba Gregorios (†1658), an Ethiopian monk who had been ordained as a priest by Patriarch Afonso Mendes. James Bruce’s Travels to Discover the Sources of the Nile (1730–1794) included lengthy analyses of the mission period.27 From the period of exploration and colonialism only a few studies have been of interest.28 At the turn of the twentieth century, amidst the Catholic revival led by Leo XIII, the number of studies on the mission increased. Among the most interesting works are those by the Italian Carlo Conti Rossini on the Portuguese-Jesuit period in Ethiopia.29 For its part, the only monograph 24

25

26

27 28

29

Only a few grants from the period of Susǝnyos survived; see Donald Crummey, Land and Society in the Christian Kingdom of Ethiopia: From the Thirteenth to the Twentieth Century (Oxford: James Currey, 2000), 72. See W.G.L. Randles, ‘La diffusion dans l’Europe du XVIe siècle des connaîssances géographiques dues aux découvertes’, in La découverte, le Portugal et l’Europe. Actes du colloque célébrée à Paris le 26, 27 et 28 mai 1988, ed. Jean Aubin (Paris: Fondation Calouste Gulbenkian, 1990), 269–277. Johann Michael Wansleben [attributed], A Brief Account of the Rebellions and Bloodshed Occasioned by the Anti-Christian Practices of the Jesuits and Other Popish Emissaries in the Empire of Ethiopia (London: Jonathan Edwin, 1679); Michael Geddes, The Church History of Ethiopia (London: R. Chiswell, 1696). James Bruce, Travels to Discover the Sources of the Nile, 4 vols. (Edinburgh: J. Ruthven, 1790). See Charles Tilstone Beke, ‘Mémoire justificatif en réhabilitation des pères Pierre Paëz et Jéròme Lobo, missionnaires en Abyssinie, en ce qui concerne leurs visites à la source de l’Abai (le Nil) et à la cataracte d’Alata’, Bulletin de la Société de Géographie de Paris ser. 3, 9 (1848). Carlo Conti Rossini, ‘Portogallo ed Etiopia’, in Relazioni storiche fra l’Italia e il Portogallo; Memorie e documenti (Roma: Reale Accademia d’Italia, 1940).

Introduction

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dedicated to our subject during this period, Charles F. Rey’s The Romance of the Portuguese in Abyssinia, from 1929, was, as its title announces, a superficial and romanticized account of the same story.30 As a work that tries to combine institutional history with local and regional perspectives, this study had to draw on a range of methodologies. The research began with a comprehensive bibliographical survey of the secondary literature on the mission and an exhaustive reading of the primary sources. Subsequently I carried out a quantitative-qualitative analysis of the data gathered for which purpose four different databases were built: on missionary personnel and close associates (over fifty names); Ethio-Portuguese figures (nearly 250 names); Ethiopian figures (over 400 names); and missionary sites (twenty place names). With the help of this data a series of tables and figures illustrating particular aspects of the mission’s composition and the developments in Ethiopia was produced that included a genealogical tree containing over 120 members of the extended Ethiopian royal household (Appendix 5). The production of relevant maps to complement the historical data was possible with the invaluable help of Eduardo Martín Agúndez. Coordinates were gleaned with the help of remote sensing systems and during field trips carried out within Universidad Complutense de Madrid’s project on missionary sites in the Lake Ṭana area directed by Víctor M. Fernández Martínez. Finally, I have made ample use of pictorial material, mainly my own but also that from the pictorial database of ‘Wikimedia Commons’ (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page), which is freely licensed. As regards terminology, anachronisms have been avoided. The main goals have been clarity and a respect for, as far as possible, the historical and social context. To refer to the area targeted by the Jesuit mission the term Ethiopia or Christian Ethiopia is mostly used along with, in the first chapters, ‘Preste’. The Ethiopian nǝguś is addressed by the local title or by the European equivalent of king. The term ‘emperor’, much esteemed by the missionaries, is explicitly avoided here since, as part of the study will show, it was an ideological construct of the Europeans. The Red Sea shore, which today belongs to the state of Eritrea, is called the ‘Ethiopian shore’. This is unconventional and the reader shall bear in mind that during the period under consideration the hand of the nǝguś in the north never reached further than the Ḥamasen province, south of Asmära. For the use of local place-names and names of ethnic groups I retained the terms employed in Jesuit literature, but standardized the transcription.

30

Charles F. Rey, The Romance of the Portuguese in Abyssinia (London: H. F. & G. Witherby, 1929).

xxxii

Introduction

The term Oromo has been used instead of the more historically accurate Galla because of its widespread use in today’s scientific literature. The group of ‘Portuguese’ who lived in Ethiopia and who were known locally as burtukan or färänǧ are distinguished by the term ‘Ethio-Portuguese’. References to Jesuit and Portuguese sources that have more than one edition (e.g. Barros, Couto, Páez and Almeida) indicate the book (livro, shortened as liv.) and the chapter rather than page numbers. The aim is to help a reader using a different edition to the one employed here to locate the exact reference easily.

Note on Transcription

For the transliteration of Amharic and other Ethiopian language terms I have followed the system employed by the Encyclopaedia Aethiopica. For names that appeared only in Portuguese texts I have also used Hiob Ludolf’s Historia aethiopica, Pereira’s Index to the Chronicle of Susǝnyos and Huntingford’s Geography as references to clarify the spelling.31 Since Unicode does not support at least three of the characters employed by Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, I have used similar Unicode-compatible fonts (č, ṗ and ṩ). For oriental terms beyond the Christian Ethiopian area I have followed the conventions in English-speaking literature and avoided using diacritical marks. Due to technical issues labels on maps had to be simplified.

Note on the Units of Measure and Currencies

As far as possible I have tried to standardize measures and currencies employed in the historical literature. For this task I have relied on the compilation made by Georg Schurhammer in his monumental Franz Xaver, sein Leben und seine Zeit and on the classic works by Gerson da Cunha and Charles Boxer. Although Schurhammer’s list focuses on units of measure from the period of Francis Xavier in India (1541–1556), the currency values concerned in this book 31

Hiob Ludolf, Historia aethiopica, sive Brevis & succincta descriptio regni Habessinorum, quod vulgò malè Presbyteri Iohannis vocateur (Francofurti ad Moenum: Joh. David Zunner, 1681), liv. III, Chapter XI; Mǝhǝrka Dǝngǝl et al., Chronica de Susenyos, rei de Ethiopia [ca. 1633], ed., trans. Francisco Maria Esteves Pereira (Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional, 1892–1900); George W.B. Huntingford, The Historical Geography of Ethiopia. From the First Century ad to 1704 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).

xxxiii

Introduction Table 1

Currencies and units of measure used in the sources

Category

Unit

Equivalence

Currencies

1 cruzado 1 oukea/ouquea (Ethiopia) 1 pardão (Gujarat) 1 pataka (India) 1 xerafim 1 ducado 1 scudo 1 alqueire 1 legua/legoa 1 palmo 1 côvado (cubit)

360 reis 3,000 reis 300 reis 300 reis 300 reis 3,300 reis 300 reis 13.5 liters 6.1–6.6 km 22 cm 50 cm

Capacity Distance Length

Sources: Charles R. Boxer, The Great Ship from Amacon. Annals of Macao and the Old Japan Trade, 1555–1640 (Lisboa: Centro de estudos históricos ultramarinos, 1959), Appendix; J. Gerson da Cunha, Contribuções para o estudo da numismática indoportuguesa, ed., tr. Luís Pinto Garcia (Lisboa: Agência geral do ultramar, 1955), 86; raso VI, 151, 494; Georg Schurhammer, Franz Xaver, sein Leben und seine Zeit (Freiburg: Herder, 1955–73), vol. 2/2, Anhang VIII.

suffered slight or no variations in the first decades of the next century. In some instances, standardization was deemed inappropriate and therefore the original unit value was preserved.

Part 1 From Diu to Fǝremona

∵

Rome

Madrid

Istanbul

Beijing

Lisboa Mazagão

Cairo

Lahore

Suez Re d

Sawakin Massawa

Jiddah

Se

Timbuktu

a

Gulf of Guinea Luanda

Macau

Damão

Chaul Goa

Socotra isl.

São Jorge da Mina

Diu

Arabian Sea

Aden

Aksum

Agra

Hormuz Muscat

Manila

Calicut Cochin

Colombo Malacca

Mogadishu Mombasa

Malindi

INDIAN OCEAN

Kilwa

Sofala

Legend Other site Portuguese colony

Map 1 

Ethiopia and the Portuguese Asian World, 1500–1632 Credits: 2014, Eduardo Martín Agúndez

chapter 1

The Prester John’s New Clothes In Aethiopia’s realm Senapus reigns, Whose sceptre is the cross; of cities brave, Of men, of gold possest, and broad domains, Which the Red Sea’s extremest waters lave. A faith well nigh like ours that king maintains, Which man from his primaeval doom may save.1

The Courting of the nǝguś

The Prester John myth reached its apogee in the fifteenth century. The myth told of a Christian potentate said to rule over a Christian nation lost somewhere in the Orient.2 Italian humanists pondered the myth in their compositions and numerous envoys travelled to Christian Ethiopia, where this ruler was believed to reside. The evidence indicates that the Portuguese first attempted to contact the ‘Prester John’ during the rule of Alfonso V ‘the African’ (1432–1481).3 However, it was King João II (1481–1495), the ‘Perfect Prince’ and Alfonso V’s successor, who launched a series of missions to reach the Preste as the ‘Prester John’ was known in Portugal.4 Around 1485, King João II sponsored an attempt to cross Africa. His envoy, João Afonso Aveiro, eventually reached 1 Ludovico Ariosto, Orlando Furioso (Ferrara: Francesco Rosso da Valenza, 1536), Canto 33, 102 (Engl. trans.: Ludovico Ariosto, The Orlando Furioso of Ludovico Ariosto, trans. William Stewart Rose, London: G. Bell, 1905–07). 2 On this myth, see Wilhelm Baum, Die Verwandlungen des Mythos vom Reich des Priesterkönigs Johannes. Rom, Byzanz und die Christen des Orients im Mittelalter (Klagenfurt: Kitab, 1999); Lew Nicolai Gumilev, Searches for an Imaginary Kingdom. The Legend of the Kingdom of Prester John (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Gianfranco Fiaccadori, ‘Prester John’, in eae, vol. 4. 3 See Armando Cortesão, Esparsos (Coimbra: Imprensa de Coimbra, 1974), 70–71. For more information about the centrality of Ethiopia/Prester John during early exploratory campaigns see António Alberto Banha de Andrade, Mundos novos do Mundo. Panorama da difusão, pela Europa, de notícias dos Descobrimentos Geográficos Portugueses, vol. 1 (Lisboa: Junta de investigações do ultramar, 1972), 63 and passim. 4 According to Thomaz King João II was the first to lead a ‘coherent overseas policy’; Luís Filipe Thomaz, De Ceuta a Timor (Lisboa: Difel, 1994), 149.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004289154_002

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the Ifé kingdom of Oni (Benin) but failed to meet the Preste. Two years later Bartolomeu Dias led a mission on a different route, by sea around the continent. Although his mission failed to reach the Prester John it led to the discovery by the Europeans of the Cape of Good Hope. During the 1480s at least two expeditions across the Mediterranean were also launched. Pedro de Montarroio and frei António de Lisboa headed the first failed attempt to follow this route. In 1487 Afonso da Paiva and Pêro da Covilhã left Portugal to lead a second, more successful attempt. They journeyed across Egypt, India and the Red Sea. Some ten years later Covilhã reached the Ethiopian highlands, where he lived until his death around 1530.5 Shortly after Covilhã’s mission, Dom João called to Portugal an Ethiopian named Lucas Marcos, who resided in Rome. His aim was to dispatch Lucas to Ethiopia with letters for the nǝguś, but the fate of his mission is unknown.6 With the Portuguese expansion into India, carried out under King Dom Manuel I (1495–1521), the cousin and the successor of João II, contact with Ethiopia increased.7 Around 1507 the Portuguese naval commander Affonso de Albuquerque traveled to the Ethiopian coast with João Sanches, a priest, and one João Gomes. They reached the Christian court probably around 1508.8 Ethiopian Queen dowager Ǝleni (1508–1522) then sent to Portugal an Armenian merchant, Mateus, who reached Lisbon in 1514. Mateus brought with him a letter of friendship and two pieces from the Holy Cross, which King João III later sent to Rome.9 5 Both described by Francisco Alvares, Verdadeira informaçam das terras do Preste Joam [Lisboa: Luís Rodriguez, 1540] (Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional, 1883), Chapter CIV; I also draw from Bailey W. Diffie and George D. Winius, Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 1415–1580 (St. Paul, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press and Oxford University Press, 1977), 154–165. 6 Barros, Década I, liv. III, Chapters VI and XII; Jean Aubin, ‘L’ambassade du Prêtre Jean à D. Manuel’, Mare Luso-Indicum 3 (1976): 2–3. 7 Portugal’s Ethiopian policy was preceded by intense proselytizing efforts in Congo which began in 1490 with the shipment of Franciscan and Dominican missionaries and reached their apex in 1491 with the baptism of the Nzinga a Nkuwu as João I; see Georges Balandier, La vie quotidienne au royaume de Kongo du XVIe au XVIIIe siècle (Monaco: Hachette, 1965), Chapter 2. 8 On this embassy, which is mentioned in the letter of Queen Ǝleni and in other contemporary documents, see Damião de Góis, Chronica do Feliçissimo rei dom Manuel [1566] (Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade, 1954), parte III, Chapter LIX; also Cortesão, Esparsos, 77–81; Aubin, ‘L’ambassade du Prêtre Jean’, 6–7. For a discussion on the names of the two envoys see Armando Cortesão and Henry Thomas (eds.), Carta das novas que vieram a el Rei nosso ­senhor do descobrimento do Preste João (Lisboa: Bertrand, 1938 [Lisboa 1521]), 25. 9 Mateus seems to have been a nickname; his real name was Abraham. See Aubin, ‘L’ambassade du Prêtre Jean’.

The Prester John’s New Clothes

5

During this time O Venturoso organized a second diplomatic mission, the most relevant of all. This embassy group was dispatched in 1514–15, shortly after Mateus’s arrival in Lisbon. Duarte Galvão, Dom Manuel’s royal biographer, was appointed as guide.10 However, opposition from the governor of India, Lopo Soares de Albergaria, and the untimely death of Galvão on Kamaran Island caused a delay. Some five years later a new embassy was organized in India. Headed by the fidalgo Rodrigo da Lima, the embassy reached the Ethiopian shore in 1520 aboard an armada guided by the new governor Diogo Lopes de Sequeira. A few months later the Portuguese group reached the camp of nǝguś Lǝbnä Dǝngǝl in the Southern Šäwan highlands. An Ethiopian ecclesiastic, Ṣägga Zäʾab, who was acting as ambassador for Lǝbnä Dǝngǝl, joined the Portuguese on their return trip to Portugal seven years later. One member of Lima’s embassy, João Bermudez, stayed in Ethiopia and became an improvised ambassador for the nǝguś to the pope between 1535 and 1538. By the 1530s Portugal, already positioned as the principal maritime power in the Indian Ocean, had thus become Europe’s privileged partner with the Christian Ethiopian kingdom. It had in its favor a history of some thirty years of stable contacts with this kingdom and was spreading throughout Europe news about this Christian African monarchy. Credit for these diplomatic successes should go to its rulers and agents. The Portuguese kings never abandoned the quest to reach Ethiopia and knew – Dom João II and Dom Manuel I in particular – the necessity of giving impetus to a pursuit that in other royal houses had remained a daydream of isolated monarchs.11 But the Portuguese kings also counted on a number of valuable people. After decades of travels, its fidalgos and sailors had become experienced and skilled navigators and warriors, determined and intrepid enough to reach corners such as the Straits of ‘Mecca’ (Aden) and Hormuz where no Christian fleet had ever ventured before. Among the monarchy’s other assets were the foreigners who acted as investors, soldiery and agents. Italians and Jews played a prominent role here. The involvement of Italian banking families in the Portuguese expansion is well known. The Florentine house of the Marchionni procured the foreign 10

11

Jean Aubin, ‘Duarte Galvão’, in Le latin et l’astrolabe: Recherches sur les Portugal de la Renaissance, son expansion en Asie et les relations internationales (Lisbonne-Paris: Centre culturel Calouste Gulbenkian, 1996). Aragón’s failed attempts under Alfonso V being a case in point. A similar fate was endured by the Medicis from Florence, who, within their Oriental agenda, failed in closing ties with the Ethiopian nǝguś; see Carla Sodini, I Medici e le Indie Orientali. Il diario di viaggio di Placido Ramponi emissario in India per conto di Cosimo II (Firenze: Leo S. Olschki Editore, 1996), 7.

6

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credit needed for the expedition of Pedro da Covilhã and Afonso da Paiva.12 In their turn, Jews, who until the coming to the throne of João III, enjoyed a much better status in Portugal than in neighboring Castile, provided the kingdom with valuable intelligence and contacts.13 Portuguese Jews in Cairo were instrumental in facilitating, through their far-reaching contacts, Covilhã’s and succeeding missions.14 One Samuel, a Jew from Cairo, translated the letters brought by Mateus to Affonso de Albuquerque and another Jew from Spain, baptized as Alexandre de Ataíde, became an interpreter and close aide of the admiral during his conquests in Asia.15 Finally, the Portuguese also drew resources and men from the native societies they encountered; they used plenty of natives in their trips, be it in the form of pilots, linguas (i.e. interpreters) or informants, and proved ready to learn from them.16 12

See Laurence A. Noonan, John of Empoli and his Relations with Afonso de Albuquerque (Lisboa: Ministério da educação, Instituto de investigação científica tropical, 1989), 23. 13 On this issue, see the Dejanirah Couto, ‘L’espionnage portugais dans l’empire ottoman au XVIe siècle’, in La découverte, le Portugal et l’Europe. Actes du colloque célébrée à Paris le 26, 27 et 28 mai 1988, ed. Jean Aubin (Paris: Fondation Calouste Gulbenkian, 1990), 245 and passim, especially 249, 260. 14 Carmen Radulet, ‘Os judeus na diplomacia secreta de D. João II: a missão de Pero da Covilhã e Afonso de Paiva’, in Os Judeus portugueses, entre os descobrimentos e a diáspora. Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisboa, 21 de Junho a 4 de Setembro, VV.AA. (Lisboa: Associação Portuguesa de Estudos Judaicos, 1994), 77–79. More evidence on Jewish intelligence in the Red Sea in Cortesão, Esparsos, 80. 15 Barros, Década II, liv. VII, Chapter VI; Cortesão and Thomas, Carta das novas, 88–89. Jews also played an important role as mediators and couriers between Portuguese India and the Ottoman Porte. In ca. 1543, for instance, a Diogo de Mesquita sent via a Jew named Solomon (Soleimão), a ‘brother of the isal of Cairo’, letters to Constantinople to settle a conflict provoked by the fidalgo Diogo de Reinozo in the Red Sea; Diogo do Couto, Tratado dos feitos de Vasco de Gama e seus filhos na India [ca. 1610], ed J.M. Azevedo and J.M. dos Santos (Lisboa: Cosmos, 1998), 180–181. The isal is probably a misspelling of ra’is al-yahud, the head of the Jewish community in Cairo – at the time a position occupied by the famous rabbi of Spanish origin David ibn Solomon Abi Zimra; see Emil G. Hirsch et al., ‘Egypt’, in The Jewish Encyclopedia, ed. Cyrus Adler et al., vol. 5 (New York and London: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1901–06), 66. 16 Portuguese reliance on indigenous powers and local work force has been amply studied. Winius pointed to the flexible attitude of the Portuguese towards the indigenous as to one of the keys to their rapid success in India; George D. Winius, ‘The Estado da India on the Subcontinent: Portuguese as Players on South Asian Stage’, in Studies on Portuguese Asia, 1495–1689, George D. Winius (Suffolk: Ashgate, Variorum, 2001), Chapter XII, 193–194. The importance and role of the linguas has been surveyed in Dejanirah Couto, ‘The Role of Interpreters, or Linguas, in the Portuguese Empire During the 16th Century’, e-JPH [e-Journal

The Prester John’s New Clothes

7

The Ethiopian adventure, besides being one of the longest and most publicized diplomatic exchanges of its time, was also a costly endeavor. The Solomonic House in Ethiopia had neither the means nor the institutional framework to afford modern diplomatic games and it was, to a large extent, the Portuguese Crown that carried the burden of the diplomatic exchanges. Portugal’s investments in its overseas adventures, in particular in Ethiopia, were indeed huge, in both material and human resources. The costs to form a fleet (armada) such as those sent regularly to the Red Sea between 1507 and about 1550 were extremely high and during the period of most heated communication with Ethiopia, Portugal sent at least seven large fleet to the Red Sea.17 In these Ethiopian adventures the Portuguese also took significant political and military risks, as they interfered in an area that was clearly beyond the actual reach of its military capability. Of particular interest in an evaluation of Portuguese investments is the most important and decisive of all the embassies, the one directed first by Duarte Galvão and later by Dom Rodrigo da Lima. This was conceived as a great diplomatic endeavor, analogous to those Dom Manuel’s agents had organized shortly before in Rome. The embassy carried a rich list of gifts, including Oriental fabrics, precious church paraphernalia, a large collection of printed books and musical instruments. None of the gifts reached their destination, however, as when the embassy failed they were looted in Cochin by the elusive governor Lopo Soares de Albergaria.18 Nonetheless, the Portuguese from India managed to improvise a second embassy, which comprised at least thirteen of Portuguese History] 1, 2, 2003, accessed September 28, 2013, url: http://www.brown.edu/ Departments/Portuguese_Brazilian_Studies/ejph/html/issue2/html/couto_main.html. 17 Although there are shortcomings in the historical evidence for the expenses of the armadas ao Estreito, valuable information on the high costs incurred by the crown appears in ‘Despezas extraordinárias que el-rei D. João 3.° fez des do tempo que começou a reinar até que fez terceiras cortes em Almeirim, no ano de 1544’, in Frei Luís de Sousa, Anais de D.  João III [written 1631–32], ed. M. Rodrígues Lapa (Lisboa: Livraria Sá da Costa, 1951 [1844]), vol. 2, ‘Memorias e Documentos extraidos dos apontamentos de frei Luís de Sousa, relativos às lacunas que se encontram no manuscrito’, 272–275. See also Andreu Martínez d’Alòs-Moner, ‘Conquistadores, Mercenaries, and Missionaries: The Failed Portuguese Dominion of the Red Sea’, Northeast African Studies 12, 1 (2012). 18 Alvares, Verdadeira informaçam, Chapter V; also Gaspar Correia, Crónicas de D. Manuel e de D. João III (até 1533), ed. José Pereira da Costa (Lisboa: Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, 1992), 116–117. The list of gifts has been studied by Aida Fernanda Dias: ‘Um presente régio’, Humanitas 47 (1995). On the important collection of books included in the royal present, which do not seem to have reached the intended destination, see David Hook, ‘A Note on the Books Sent to Prester John in 1515 by King Manuel I’, Studia 37 (1973); also Aubin, ‘L’ambassade du Prêtre Jean’, 39, note 190. Thomaz explained the failure of Duarte Galvão’s

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officials. These included a fidalgo, Dom Rodrigo da Lima; a chaplain, Francisco Alvares; an escrivão (chronicler, secretary); a lingua (interpreter); and several officers, such as an organist, a doctor and painters. The embassy was accompanied by a train of slaves and servants probably double or triple the officials in number. The presents offered to the nǝguś and to Ǝleni were fewer than those of the first embassy but were still important. They included pepper, a mappa mundi, organs and a clavichord.19 To identify the gains that Portugal obtained or expected to obtain from this expensive diplomacy is not an easy task. It is to be assumed that benefits of a symbolic character played an important role. Privileged ties with the Eastern Christian ruler were, at a time of mounting patriotism, a source of national pride. Besides, the crown of Avis and its people probably gained much symbolic capital by approaching a kingdom that many in Europe believed was the site of the mythical Prester John. By way of fine and brave diplomacy, the peripheral House of Avis became the protagonist of a legend that the greatest figures of the Italian Renaissance had largely contributed to spreading. However, the undeniable fascination of the Preste was not the only reason that Europeans were attracted to Christian Ethiopia. The Lusitanian crown and its principal advisors, who were particularly skilled in their geopolitical maneuvers in Asia, were certainly well aware of more concrete political gains. Situated at one of the peripheries of the European continent, the House of Avis probably saw in the number of diplomatic ventures in which it was engaged in such places as Ethiopia, Persia, Siam, Malacca, China and Japan a means to consolidate its image and to place its dynasty in the front line of the European powers. It is, thus, remarkable that contact with Ethiopia flourished during the reign of Dom Manuel I, the ruler who most skillfully employed diplomacy and propaganda to obtain prestige and political power at home.20 In tandem with

19

20

mission as a deliberate sabotage of Dom Manuel’s Ethiopian policy by a ‘commercial ­faction’ (partido mercantil) within the court, which would have counted with such men as Lopo Soares himself and the future king Dom João. This faction would have supported a more pragmatic and less ‘messianic’ policy in Asia; Thomaz, De Ceuta a Timor, 198 and passim. The whereabouts of the embassy were minutely recorded by its chaplain in Alvares, Verdadeira informaçam; see especially Chapters IV–V. For the list of presents, ‘Carta das novas que vieram a el-rei nosso Senhor do descobrimento do Preste João’ in Cortesão and Thomas, Carta das novas; and also Luís Filipe Barreto (ed.), Por mar e terra. Viagens de Bartolomeu Dias e Pero da Covilhã (Lisboa: Biblioteca Nacional, 1988). On the rise of modern diplomacy during this century see José Antonio Maravall, Estado moderno y mentalidad social (Siglos XV a XVII), Madrid: Ediciones de la Revista de Occidente, 1972, § ‘El papel de la diplomacia, en su transformación renacentista’, 186–191.

The Prester John’s New Clothes

9

the fabulous military expansion achieved in India, Dom Manuel led a conscious policy of propaganda in Europe. This included the two outstanding embassies to Rome from 1505 and 1514, where his agents paraded before the pope the successes achieved overseas.21 It was also during his reign that the printing press was deliberately used to publicize the discoveries.22 In this, Dom Manuel was also helped by a network of able and active agents, among whom stand out the bishop of Viseu, Dom Miguel da Silva, and Damião de Góis. The former was ambassador to Rome between 1515–1525 and a friend of a number of important contemporary Italian personalities and families, not the least the Medicis, who ‘ruled’ at the eternal city during the papacies of Leo X and Clement VII.23 Góis was for some time secretary at the Portuguese commercial house (feitoria) in Antwerp and also authored two works reporting on the two Ethiopian embassies that reached Lisbon between 1510 and 1527. Figures such as these made sure that news of progress in the overseas expansion, including in Ethiopia, promptly reached the European capitals.24 In addition, in 1521 the first Portuguese text on

21

22

23

24

The first embassy was described by P. Mac Swiney de Mashanaglass, Le Portugal et le Saint-Siège. Une ambassade portugaise à Rome sous Jules II (1505) (Paris: Plon, 1903; extrait from Revue d’histoire diplomatique 17, 1903, 50–65). The standard study for the second and most famous embassy, that led by one of the conquistadores of India, Tristão da Cunha, is Salvatore de Ciutiis, Une ambassade portugaise à Rome au XVIe siècle (Napoli: Michèle d’Auria, 1889). See also Sylvie Deswarte, ‘Un novel age d’or. La gloire des portugais à Rome sous Jules II et Léon X’, in Humanismo Português na época dos Descobrimentos. Actas do Congresso Internacional (Coimbra: fluc, 1993), 126 and passim; and Giuseppe Marcocci, A consciência de um império: Portugal e o seu mundo, sécs. XV–XVII (Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra, 2012), 92. See W.G.L. Randles, ‘La diffusion dans l’Europe du XVIe siècle des connaîssances géographiques dues aux découvertes’, in La découverte, le Portugal et l’Europe, 269–277. On early printings on the Prester John and Ethiopia, see Renato Lefèvre, L’Etiopia nella stampa del Primo Cinquecento (Como: Pietro Cairoli, 1966). On da Silva’s Italian contacts see Sylvie Deswarte, Il ‘perfetto cortegiano’ D. Miguel da Silva (Roma: Bulzoni, 1989); his lobbying for the Ethiopian cause is attested in Letter of Manuel I to Pope Leo X, May 10, 1521, in cdp, vol. XI, 257–259. See Andrade, Mundos novos do Mundo, vol. 2, §: ‘Divulgação oficial da actividade marítima na India e costas da América’, 422–450; and ibid. § ‘Diplomacia e Humanismo’, 650–672. On the use of diplomacy by Manuel I and João III, although not of the best sort, is Pedro Soares Martínez, ‘O Humanismo Renascentista e a Diplomacia Portuguesa Do Século XVI’, in O Humanismo Portugês: 1500–1600. Primeiro Simpósio Nacional (21–25 de Outubro de 1985), VV.AA. (Lisboa: Public.do II Cent. da Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, 1988), 479–480. A valuable recent survey of Portuguese diplomacy in the East is Stefan Halikowski Smith, ‘“The Friendship of Kings was in the Ambassadors”: Portuguese Diplomatic Embassies

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Christian Ethiopia, the Carta das novas que vieram a el Rei nosso senhor do descobrimento do Preste João, came to press. This document described the landing at Massawa of Diogo Lopes de Sequeira’s expedition of 1520 and included the famous-to-be letter of Queen dowager Ǝleni to Dom Manuel.25 The result of all this activity was that Portugal enjoyed great visibility in Rome and in the European courts. The Lusitanian Crown was admired, its achievements praised and its progresses closely observed. This respect and visibility paid off. The papal chancellery dedicated a great amount of time to Portugal, writing on its behalf a large number of briefs and bulls, most of them with an accentuated eulogistic character.26 Although not all of these documents carried the same weight, they helped boost and legitimate the Portuguese ­campaign of expansion in the Indies. Through them, Dom Manuel I and later Dom João III were granted a series of important ecclesiastic rights and privileges without which it would have been virtually impossible to carry out the process of expansion to its full extent.27 Besides local and domestic factors, there were also strong geopolitical influences pushing the Portuguese towards Ethiopia. From the time of ­ Henrique o Navegante onwards, the Portuguese had entertained grand ideas of destroying Islam with the help of the mythical Prester John, whose dominions were believed to be, at least until the sixteenth century, much greater than they were in reality. Accordingly, most of the maps of Africa produced during the sixteenth century granted a dominant geographical position to ‘Ethiopia’ or ‘Abassia’ and showed the Ethiopian place names identified by Alvares scattered throughout the whole southern part of the African landmass ­

in Asia and Africa during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’, Portuguese Studies 22, 1 (2006). 25 The Carta das novas was probably printed in only a few copies and remained unknown for a long time. It was rediscovered by the Portuguese historian Armando Cortesão in 1935 and reprinted three years later; see Cortesão and Thomas, Carta das novas; Lefèvre, L’Etiopia nella stampa del Primo Cinquecento, 36–44. 26 See Fortunato de Almeida, Historia da Igreja em Portugal, vol. III: Desde o Principio do Reinado de D. Manuel I até ao fim do reinado de D. João V (1495–1750), parte II (Coimbra: Imprensa Académica, 1915), 23 and passim, 32 and passim. For the period preceding Dom Manuel the standard study of papal favors is Charles Martial de Witte, ‘Les bulles pontificales et l’expansion portugaise au XVe siècle’, Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 48 (1953); Ibid. 49 (1954); Ibid. 51 (1956), 809–836; Ibid., 53 (1958). 27 For a list of these privileges and rights see Ludwig von Pastor, Geschichte der Päpste im Zeitalter der Renaissance und der Glaubensspaltung, vol. IV–1: Von der Wahl Leos X. bis zum Tode Klemens VII. (1513–1534) (Freiburg um Breisgau: Herder & Co., 1925), 50–53.

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(Plate 1).28 In the sixteenth century, however, projects became more accurate and realistic and although Dom Manuel probably did not yet abandon his escha­ tological projects, as the historian Luís Filipe Thomaz argued, he – and especially key players in the expansion in India such as Albuquerque – realized

Plate 1 

28

The mighty Prester John: Map of Africa, detail, Gerhard Mercator, 1595

Credit: Gerardo Mercatore, Atlas sive cosmographicae meditationes de fabrica mundi et fabricati figura (Dusseldorpii, Albertus Busius, 1595; facsimile edition, Bruxelles: Culture et civilisation, 1963). Staats und Universitäts Bibliothek Hamburg, Handschriftsleesesaal, KS 189/14

On this issue see W.G.L. Randles, Geography, Cartography and Nautical Science in the Renaissance (Aldershot u.a.: Ashgate-Variorum, 2000), Chapter XIX: ‘South-east Africa as Shown on Selected Printed Maps of the Sixteenth Century’, 74; and Michael E. Brooks, ‘Prester John: A Reexamination and Compendium of the Mythical Figure Who Helped Spark  European Expansion’, (PhD diss., University of Toledo, 2009), 184 and passim.

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that Christian Ethiopia could be, above all, a formidable ally owing to its position in the Red Sea area.29 At this time, an alliance with the Ethiopians could assist in the project of occupying a strategic place in the Red Sea and therefore accomplishing complete Portuguese control of the Asian spice trade, which by 1515 provided 68 percent of the crown’s revenues.30 To maintain if not increase these contributions to revenue the Portuguese focused a large part of their diplomatic skills and military forces in the Red Sea area and Ethiopia. In 1505, a royal regimiento urged the first viceroy of India, Francisco de Almeida, to raise a fortress at the mouth of the Red Sea, which Albuquerque accomplished the next year with the takeover of the fort of Suk on Socotra, which was renamed São Miguel.31 However, the minor strategic relevance of the island combined with its distant location forced the Portuguese to abandon it.32 Henceforth, they tried to put into practice a more realistic policy. Thus, without abandoning the quest for territorial conquests, the admiral of the Portuguese fleet established the practice, which remained unaltered until the mid-sixteenth century, of sending a fleet to the mouth of the Red Sea every year.33 In this way the Portuguese believed that they would be able to

29

30 31

32 33

A ­comprehensive sample of historical maps of Africa is offered by Oscar I. Norwich and Pam Kolbe, Maps of Africa. An Illustrated and Annotated Carto-bibliography (Cape: A.D. Donkar, 1983). Luís Filipe Thomaz, ‘L’idée impériale manueline’, in La découverte, le Portugal et l’Europe, 35–103 and Id., De Ceuta a Timor, 192 and passim. On the millernarist momentum in the early sixteenth century, see Marcocci, A consciência de um império, 85 and passim. Stefan Halikowski Smith, ‘Portugal and the European Spice Trade, 1480–1580’, (PhD diss., European University Institute, 2002), 19. Diffie and Winius, Foundations, 227–228. Similarly, in Dom Manuel’s official chronicle, Góis explains that the main reason why the king insisted on reaching the ‘Abyssinian Emperor’ was his desire to talk with the latter ‘about preparing a war against the Turks, and about his own plans to set up fortresses along the coasts of the Arabian and Ethiopian Seas’; Góis, quoted in Cortesão, Esparsos, 83. Zoltán Biderman, Soqotra: Geschichte einer christlichen Insel im Indischen Ozean vom Altertum bis zur frühen Neuzeit (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2006), 65–76. On the establishment of this practice see Castanheda, História do descobrimento, liv. III, Chapter VIII. Boxer dates to ca. 1569 when the Portuguese armadas stopped patrolling in the Red Sea area; Boxer, Portuguese Conquest and Commerce, 419. Francisco Rodrigues da Silveira, who in 1585–1586 served in the Red Sea, commented that ‘as many years had elapsed since any fleet of ours had sailed in the Red Sea, we had no accurate knowledge of the prevailing winds, nor of the ports, anchorages, and watering-places’; ibid. 420. During the first decades when this system was active the most important armadas sent were in 1508 and 1513 (Affonso d’Albuquerque), 1517 (Lopo Soares de Albergaria), 1520 (Lopez de Sequeira), 1524 and 1525 (Hector de Sylveira), 1528 (Antonio de Miranda) and

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control the trade flowing through this area effectively, without incurring the risks and costs involved in the maintenance of distant and isolated fortresses. In turn, the Christian Ethiopians had their own motives for setting up diplomatic contacts with the Catholic European states. Although their isolation was never as dramatic as European historiography has traditionally suggested, the position of the state in an area largely dominated by Muslim powers did shut many gates to the outer world, while trade and diplomatic ties were weak. The Renaissance European states offered Christian Ethiopia a way out of this seclusion and the possibility of strengthening the state’s structure.

Dom João III: Religious Reform as Expansion

By the late 1520s the Portuguese attitude towards Christian Ethiopia was shifting. The diplomacy of Dom Manuel was abandoned in favor of a policy of much stronger religious character that was dominated, from the 1540s onwards, by the active presence of the Jesuit order. There were many reasons for this, both internal and external. Among the internal factors, the death of Dom Manuel I and the succession to the throne of his son Dom João III (1521–1557) was decisive. The ‘pious’ king proved a monarch of different, if not opposite, ideals to his father. While not yet fully abandoning the political and military expansionism of the first decades of the century, Dom João attributed great importance to the reinforcement of the national church, both domestically and in the overseas dominions. During his thirty-six-year reign, important religious reforms occurred, a crucial one being the incorporation into the architecture of the state of key religious institutions. In 1532 the Mesa da consciéncia e ordens was created: this was an institution that, manipulated by the ecclesiastical spheres, was to become a powerful tool for controlling the state.34 Four years later a papal bull set up the Inquisition as a special tribunal in the Portuguese kingdom, the first inquisidor mor being Dom Frei Diogo da Silva, bishop of Ceuta.35 Then, in 1551, the pope

34 35

1530 (Hector de Silveira); see also A. Kammerer, Introduction to Le routier de Dom Joam de Castro. L’exploration de la mer Rouge par les portugais en 1541 by João de Castro, trans. A. Kammerer (Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1936), 4–6. See Almeida, Historia da Igreja em Portugal, vol. 2, liv. III, 12 and passim. On the political role of the tribunal at the service of the centralizing state, see J. Lucio d’Azevedo, Historia dos Christãos Novos Portugueses (Lisboa: Livraria Clássica Editora, 1921), 63. The establishment of the tribunal came, though, after many years of unheeded petitions, beginning with the reign of Dom Manuel I, who had been requesting it since

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conferred absolute rights over the Order of Christ to the House of Avis. In the same period, the Portuguese church continued the campaign of expansionism as initiated under Dom João II and Manuel I, creating a number of new dioceses, bishoprics (Leiria, Miranda, Portalegre), especially in the newly acquired territories overseas (Angra, Bahia, Cabo Verde, Goa, São Tomé), and archbishoprics (Évora, Funchal, Goa). The administration of the church also took important steps towards significant cohesion and control; after the Council of Viseu in 1527, diocesan and provincial councils began to be celebrated with regularity, forerunning by some decades the decree of Trent of November 11, 1563 that officially instituted this practice.36 The two brothers of Dom João, the infantes Dom Henrique and Dom Afonso, also rose to positions of prominence in the ecclesiastic hierarchy: Dom Afonso (1509–1540) received the red hat when he was eighteen and, before suffering an early death, was aimed at a promising ecclesiastic career. Dom Henrique (1512–1580) became, in 1534, archbishop of Braga, the first religious see of the kingdom, and later occupied the same position in Lisbon and Évora; in 1539 he was made inquisidor mor and in 1546 cardinal of Portugal. Both infantes were also for some time likely candidates for the papacy.37 These grants, institutional reforms and individual achievements, often obtained against the will of the papacy, played an important role in strengthening the absolutism of the state, which came to acquire decisive political, religious and economic assets.38 The Portuguese court itself was also reformed. Under Dom João the Erasmian circles that had flourished under the auspices of his father were progressively displaced. Figures of marked liberal character who had been close to and favored by Dom Manuel I suffered. This was the case of the bishop of

36

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38

1515; see Dejanirah Couto, História de Lisboa. trans. Carlos Vieira da Silva (Lisboa: Gótica, 2003) (4th ed.), 155; Almeida, Historia da Igreja em Portugal, vol. 2, liv. III, 184–186. On ecclesiastic expansion see Fortunato de Almeida, Historia da Igreja em Portugal, vol. 3, parte I, Chapter 1, and Ibid., parte II, liv. III, 12 and passim. Also Council of Trent, 24th Session, ‘Decretum de reformatione’, Kanon 2, in Dekrete der ökumenischen Konzilien/ Conciliorum Oecomenicorum Decreta, trans. and ed. Josef Wohlmuth and Giuseppe Alberigo (Padeborn et al.: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2000–02), vol. 3, 761. See Luís Ribeiro Soares, Pedro Margalho (Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, 2000), 242–243, note 10. Also Francisco d’Andrada, Chronica do muyto alto e muyto poderoso rey destes reynos de Portugal Dom João o III deste nome [Lisboa: Jorge Rodriguez, 1613] (Coimbra: Officina da Universidade, 1796), parte IV, Chapter LV. On tense relations between the Holy See and the crown of Portugal during this period, see Almeida, Historia da Igreja em Portugal, vol. 3, parte I, 25–26 and §109; Azevedo, Historia dos Christãos Novos Portugueses, 63.

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São Tomé, Dom Miguel da Silva, who hastily abandoned the kingdom in 1540 to receive, against the monarch’s will, the red hat in Rome; and, partially, also that of the cosmopolitan Damião de Góis, whose case is discussed below. Important literates such as André de Resende suffered a similar fate. The court of Dom João saw the emergence of circles that blended a thorough theological education with religious zeal; it was the period of the ‘Parisian Bachelors’. Orthodox-oriented figures such as Diogo Ortiz, bishop of São Tomé, and the theologian Pedro Margalho increased their influence in orienting the king’s and the kingdom’s spiritual affairs. This shift culminated in the arrival at the Portuguese court of the Jesuits, beginning with Francis Xavier and Simão Rodrigues in 1540.39 This made Portugal the second state – after Italy – where the Jesuits settled down.40 Portuguese society also experienced important changes that ultimately affected the framework within which Luso-Ethiopian contacts evolved. Lisbon grew exponentially to become the largest town in the Iberian Peninsula and the second metropolis in Europe.41 The migration to the Indies and Brazil took off in the central decades of the century, while the presence of foreigners, among them Italians, northern Europeans and Jews, increased in the Portuguese territory. While being the natural outcome of the growth and wealth of the state, these phenomena brought about conflicts. The fate of Portuguese Jews is a case in point. The Jewish community in Portugal, ever active throughout history, grew dramatically at the turn of the sixteenth century following the arrival of Jews en masse from neighboring Castile fleeing the religious policies of that kingdom.42 Dom Manuel I faced this situation in an 39

40

41 42

In the first letter that Francis Xavier sent from Portugal to his fellows in Rome, the Navarrese optimistically declared that ‘once the nobility is reformed, a great part of the kingdom will follow’; Francis Xavier to Ignacio de Loyola and Nicolás Bobadilla, July 13, 1540, in Francis Xavier, Monumenta Xaveriana (Matriti: Augustini Avrial, 1899–1900), vol. 1, doc. 3, 215. It was only in September that the order was officially confirmed by Bull Regimini militantis Ecclesiae of Paul IV. A valuable study on the cultural-religious reforms during the reign of Dom João III remains José Sebastião da Silva Dias, Correntes do sentimento religioso em  Portugal (séculos XVI a XVIII), 2 vols. (Coimbra: Universidade de Coimbra, 1960), Chapters 3–4. Vitorino Magalhães Godinho, Os descobrimentos e a economia mundial (Lisboa: Presença, 1982 [1963–71]), vol. 1, 508–509. The number of Jews having migrated from Castile during the reign of Dom João II is estimated between 100,000 and 200,000, so between 5 and 10 percent of the total population in Portugal; see Gotthard Deutsch and Meyer Kayserling, ‘Portugal’, in The Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 10, 135–141; Léon Poliakov, Histoire de l'antisémitisme, vol. 2 (Paris:

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ambiguous way, first acquiescing to the pressure coming from Castile and, later, after the massacre of 1506, largely tolerating the life of the christãos novos.43 Dom João’s policy regarding this group was to be quite different. The start of the Inquisition’s juridical machinery, which dealt nine times out of ten with the christãos novos, imposed a dogmatic and fixed definition of the model citizen, from which the Jews were excluded. As a consequence, in the course of the sixteenth century this group progressively abandoned the country or went underground. As a result of this migration Portugal lost not only between 5 and 10 percent of its overall population but a group that for centuries had been an important element in its socio-cultural fabric and economic framework. To compound the problem, many of the conversos and marranos chose as their new destination the Ottoman Empire, Portugal’s main challenger in the East.44 Last but not least, the years following Dom João’s succession to the throne were also marked by important changes in the wider geopolitical arena. Under Selim I (1512–1520) and Suleyman I the Magnificent (1520–1566) the Ottoman Empire achieved its greatest expansion. Ottoman conquests in Europe, including the Hungarian steppes and the Balkans, placed the Ottomans close to the center of Western Christianity. The battle of Vienna, fought in 1529, was the culmination of their advance westwards and seriously menaced Habsburg supremacy in Europe. Of more concern for Dom João’s kingdom, however, was the swift take-over of the crumbling Mamluk Egyptian state by the Ottomans, a development to which the Portuguese had indirectly contributed in no small degree.45 In 1517 Sultan Selim I

43

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45

Calmann-Lévy, 1961), 199, 235; Jorge Martins, Portugal e os Judeus, vol. 1: Dos primórdios da nacionalidade à legislação pombalina (Lisboa: Vega, 2006), 122. Albeit compelled by royal marriage to banish the Jews in 1496, Dom Manuel never gave free hand to popular anti-Judaic feelings. Thus, the dreadful massacres of April 1506, which revealed the popular hatred towards that group, also gave the king the opportunity to severely repress its instigators and, henceforth, to establish a policy combining segregation with tutelage of the christãos novos; see Azevedo, Historia dos Christãos Novos Portugueses, 61–62; Hermann Prins Salomon, ‘Quelques documents concernant l’expulsion des Juifs du Portugal décrétée par le roi Manuel I et la subséquente transformation de celle-ci en “conversion générale”’, in Les juifs portugais. Exil, héritages, perspectives: 1496–1996, ed. Aldina da Silva et al. (Montréal: Médiaspaul, 1998). For an assessment of the impact of the work of the Inquisition see Poliakov, Histoire de l'antisémitisme, 230–231, 240–249. A recent view, focusing on Jesuit attitudes towards Jews, has proposed the term ‘negotiated relationships’ to describe the ambivalent history of this group in Portugal; see Claude B. Stuczynski, ‘Negotiated Relationships: Jesuits and Portuguese Conversos-A Reassessment’, in The Tragic Couple: Encounters Between Jews and Jesuits, ed. James Bernauer and Robert A. Maryks (Leiden: Brill, 2013). It was the blockade of traffic between India and Egypt enforced by Portuguese dominion in the Indian Ocean that deprived the Mamluk state of its main source of revenue and led

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turned Egypt into a pashalik, an Ottoman province, and set up a navy at the Port of Suez. Gradually, the pashalik incorporated the main ports of the Red Sea: Sawakin was taken over in 1524 and hereafter became the administrative center of the province of Eyalet el-Habesh; Mocha fell in 1535 and Aden three years later.46 The Portuguese now faced a new and major challenge to their pretensions of dominance in the Red Sea and, to an extent, in the Indian Ocean. While the latter area was secured with the victories at Diu in 1538 and 1546, the Red Sea was eventually lost and the ambitious projects outlined by Albuquerque and Dom Manuel were given up for good. Such a poor geopolitical outlook could have led the king, as the historian Jean Aubin has proposed, to drop the ‘messianic’ projects of his father and to adopt a more reserved attitude towards the Ethiopian ally.47 The Preste’s New Clothes When the embassy of Rodrigo da Lima arrived in Lisbon in 1527 the atmosphere in the kingdom was therefore significantly different to that which he had experienced seven years earlier. In Portugal, news of the kingdom of the Prester John was probably received with the same level of interest shown during the visit of the Armenian Mateus, but officials of the Portuguese court now scrutinized the religious orthodoxy of the allied kingdom. The Ethiopian envoy who came to Portugal with da Lima, Ṣägga Zäʾab, in contrast to the earlier envoy, the Armenian Mateus, enjoyed a high status, for he held the title of liqä  kahǝnat and the official support of the nǝguś.48 However, in Lisbon he

46

47 48

it to economic ruin. See Carl F. Petry, The Cambridge History of Egypt, vol. 1: Islamic Egypt, 640–1517 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 316, 461, 466–467, 494. On Ottoman expansionism and their encroachment into areas claimed by the Portuguese, see Palmira Johnson Brummett, Ottoman Seapower and Levantine Diplomacy in the Age of Discovery (Albany, ny: State University of New York Press, ca. 1994), 6–7, 44–45, 172–174; and the more recent Giancarlo Casale, The Ottoman Age of Exploration (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2010). Jean Aubin, ‘Le Prêtre Jean devant la censure portugaise’, Bulletin des Etudes Portugaises et Brésiliennes 41 (1980): 35. Ṣägga Zäʾab is mentioned in Damião de Góis’s narrative as ‘episcopus’, which appears as a mistranslation of the title of liqä kahǝnat, i.e. ‘chief of the priests’, a high religious position in Christian Ethiopia and close to the metropolitan; see Damião de Góis, Fides, religio, moresqve Aethiopvm: svb imperio Pretiosi Ioannis (quem vulgo Presbyterum Ioannem vocant) degentivm (Lovanii: Ex officina Rutgeri Rescij, 1540), 93. Additionally, shortly before departing for Portugal he was made ‘ras Bugana’, governor of the province of Bugwǝna; see Alvares, Verdadeira informaçam, Chapter LV.

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experienced a rather hostile reception and had to maneuver in a much more difficult environment than his predecessor had done, whose reception in the Portuguese capital had in all likelihood been warm.49 Ṣägga Zäʾab’s visit, which originally should have represented just one further step in closing ties between the houses of Avis and Solomon, lingered on for about eleven years, during which the Ethiopian monk suffered a series of humiliations.50 He was excluded from participating in the Christian mass and instead obliged to defend the orthodoxy of his Christian faith with the court theologians Diogo Ortiz and Dr Pedro Margalho.51 Ortiz and Margalho were prominent figures at the court of Dom João III. Both had studied at the University of Paris and occupied important ecclesiastic and academic positions in Portugal and Spain. Diogo Ortiz de Vilhegas was nephew of the Spanish astronomer and theologian Diogo Ortiz de Vilhegas ‘Calzadilla’, who had participated in the preparation of Covilhã’s trip to Cairo and Ethiopia. During the 1520s he was dean of the royal chapel and instructor to the future king, Prince João, and to his brothers, the infantes Dom Luís and Dom Fernando. Later he was nominated bishop of São Tomé and Ceuta. Pedro Margalho (1471/73–1556) had been professor at Salamanca and Lisbon and in 1527 participated at the meeting of Valladolid that was convened to sit in judgment over Erasmus’s writings. Between 1529 and 1533 he was instructor at the court of Cardinal Infante Dom Afonso.52 In all likelihood the disputes with the two theologians took place between 1530 and 1533.53 As a result, Ṣägga Zäʾab composed in 1534 a passionate plea in 49

50

51 52

53

Aubin, ‘L’ambassade du Prêtre Jean’, 47. Although Mateus’s trip to Lisbon was not easy, since he had been a frequent target of suspicion and disdain in India, his stay at the Portuguese court was, according to all accounts, free from the problems faced by Ṣägga Zäʾab. On the change of attitude at the Portuguese court concerning Ethiopia, see also Marcocci, A consciência de um império, 179 and passim. These were at least the expectations of the Ethiopian envoy himself, as he declared it later: ‘I was not sent by most Potent Lord, the Emperor of Ethiopia, to the Roman Pontiff, and to the most Serene John king of Portugal, to quarrel and dispute, but to contract Friendship and Alliance between them’; Ṣägga Zäʾab, in Góis, Fides, religio, moresqve, 85. Ṣägga Zäʾab, in Góis, Fides, religio, moresqve, 78, 85. Luís de Matos, ‘O Ensino na Corte durante a Dinastia de Avís’, in O Humanismo Portugês: 1500–1600. Primeiro Simpósio Nacional (21–25 De Outubro De 1985), VV.AA. (Lisboa: Publicações do II Centenario da Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, 1988), 501. On Margalho see José Sebastião da Silva Dias, Os descobrimentos e a problemática cultural do século XVI (Lisboa: Presença, 1988), 24–33; and Marcocci, A consciência de um império, 152 and passim. The definitive arrival of Margalho in Portugal in August 1529 sets a date post quem and the composition of the treatise later published by Góis, signed 1534, a date ante quem; on this encounter, see also Soares, Pedro Margalho, 118.

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defense of his faith and sent it to Damião de Góis, whom he had befriended. The text, titled Haec sunt, quae de fide et religione apud nos Aethiopes habentur et observantur, was included as the main body of Góis’s famous treatise Fides religio moresque, published in 1540.54 Besides its inherent value as one of the first documents published in Europe by an Ethiopian, Ṣägga Zäʾab’s text is important to the present study because it helps in understanding what was discussed during the stay in Lisbon, an issue that apparently is otherwise not described in any Portuguese annals or sources.55 In the treatise the Ethiopian monk describes in the course of forty-one pages the chief features of Ethiopian Christianity and of the Christian Ethiopian state; he points to the errors implicit in the European use of the title Prester John, explains the alleged Solomonic roots of the Ethiopian monarchy and describes at length genuine features of Ethiopia’s Christianity central to which are the ‘Mosaic’ practices. The author provides elaborate explanations for circumcision, the Sabbath and the dietary prescriptions observed by Ethiopian Christians.56 He stresses that those practices contravene neither the Christian principles nor the ideas set up by St. Paul. In a passage further on in the text, the heart of the polemic is unfolded: What I have written concerning these traditions, I did not do out of a spirit of contention, but to defend my countrymen from the violent reproofs of those who paid so little respect to the most Potent Precious John and his subjects, as to load them with reproaches, calling us Jews and Mahometans, because we circumcise, and sanctify the Sabbath, in the manner of the Jews, and because we fast till sunset, as the Mahometans do. Likewise they accuse us with great bitterness that our priests marry as the laymen do; and that we don’t trust in the first and only Baptism, but we rebaptize yearly; and that we circumcise not only males but also females, which the Jews never

54 Góis, Fides, religio, moresqve, 54–96. For a similar analysis to the present one, see Marcocci, A consciência de um império, 192 and passim. 55 Although the text certainly did undergo an important number of modifications, beginning with a series of translations (from Ethiopian – probably Amharic – to Portuguese and later to Latin), it does appear to be the genuine work of Ṣägga Zäʾab, except for some modifications probably made in Italy by Góis and by the Humanist Paolo Giovio, who translated Góis’s Portuguese text into Latin; see Isabel Boavida, ‘Damião de Góis e “a frase caldaica e etiópica”’, in Damião de Góis na Europa do Renascimento (Braga: Publicações da Faculdade de Filosofia, Universidade Católica Portuguesa); and Marcocci, A consciência de um império, 200. 56 Góis, Fides, religio, moresqve, 67–72.

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did; lastly, that we strictly observe food prescriptions concerning meat; and that we call the children half- Christians before they are baptized.57 From this passage it emerges that the Portuguese were predominantly concerned with the ritual practices of the Ethiopians.58 Circumcision, primarily, but also the Sabbath and some dietary prescriptions, showed, in the eyes of the  Portuguese, that the Ethiopian church still respected the Mosaic Law. That the Portuguese theologians were concerned by these religious issues is further evinced by the Phisices Compendium, a treatise published earlier by Pedro Margalho. There the royal theologian presented the following unfavorable view of Ethiopian Christianity: And such land of Ethiopia is beyond Egypt and its inhabitants are called Ethiopians and Abyssinians: they have as a tradition to mark their face with a branding iron. They do not baptize with fire as some say; with the water of baptism they receive heretics and erroneously they admit dogmas and customs from the Old Law [which] together with our Law they observe; and they imitate the habits of other infidels in that they have several wives; they claim fabulously to come from Salomon and the queen of Sheba.59 The encounter between the Ethiopian envoy and his Portuguese hosts seems thus to have provoked a chasm between Christian Ethiopia and Portugal. From then onwards the perception of Ethiopian Christianity in Portugal changed dramatically for the worse. The Ethiopian monk was allowed to return home only in 1538, eventually dying in Cochin the next year. In 1539, Cardinal Infante Dom Afonso, one year before his death, sent a letter to the nǝguś Lǝbnä Dǝngǝl answering every one of the arguments set forth by Ṣägga Zäʾab in his plea and urging the Ethiopian ruler and his church to engage in full-scale religious conformity with Rome.60 The following year Góis’s treatise Fides, religio, moresque 57 Góis, Fides, religio, moresqve, 84 (English trans.: Geddes, The Church History of Ethiopia, 65–66). 58 I concur here with Jean Aubin who identified opposing interests in these debates: while the Portuguese queries dwelled mostly on ritualistic issues, the Ethiopians were interested in the attitude of the Portuguese towards the earlier church councils and in particular that of Nicaea; Aubin, ‘Le Prêtre Jean’, 48–49. 59 Pedro Margalho, Phisices Compendium (Salmanticae: Johannes de Porras, 1520), fol. 4v, quoted in Soares, Pedro Margalho, 118. 60 Cardinal Infante Alfonso to David [Lǝbnä Dǝngǝl], March 20, 1539, in raso x, doc. 3.

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was published in Leuven. The book, which was quickly translated into French and German was banned in Portugal and Góis was severely admonished by his friend, the Cardinal Infante Dom Henrique. In two letters sent in 1541 to Góis, the inquisidor geral of Portugal justified the decision. He wrote favorably on the first part of the book, where Góis summarized the early stages of EthioPortuguese relations, but criticized the second, which included Ṣägga Zäʾab’s text. According to Dom Henrique, the plea of the Ethiopian monk included an erroneous interpretation of the Holy Scriptures and had also failed to incorporate the criticisms leveled by Margalho and Ortiz.61 It is important to stress, as regard this controversy, that neither Ṣägga Zäʾab nor Góis were unveiling anything new to the learned European public. The Europeans had known for a long time that circumcision and other ‘Judaic’ rites were practiced by the Ethiopians.62 The scandal provoked in Portugal by Ṣägga Zäʾab was in only small measure related to what the defiant Ethiopian monk had said. Indeed, it had much more to do with the changing atmosphere in Portugal and the reformist trend that was transforming the country and its institutions. By the late 1520s and early 1530s the ‘Mosaic’ elements found in Ethiopian Christianity, which Leo X had once judged liberally, became a matter of debate.63 The idea of a church hosting within its core such ‘Judaic’ practices as circumcision and Sabbath manifestly embarrassed those who had pursued an aggressive policy of persecution towards Jews and christãos novos. As Dom Henrique himself put it in his letter to Góis, the Fides had to be banned because it represented a danger regarding the state’s policies towards the new Christians, ‘so that those who were mistaken in their faith would not take wrong ideas from the Ethiopians and persist in their own wrongdoing’.64 61

The two letters (July 28 and December 13, 1541) were edited by William John Charles Henry [Guilherme J.C. Henriques], Inéditos Goesianos, colligidos e annotados (Lisboa: V.  da Silva, 1896–1998), vol. 2, 45–46, 46–48; and later in Isaías da Rosa Pereira, ‘O  Ecumenismo De Damião De Góis’, in O Humanismo Portugês: 1500–1600. Primeiro Simpósio Nacional (21–25 de Outubro de 1985), VV.AA. (Lisboa: Publicações do II Centenario da Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, 1988), 91–93. 62 Thus for instance: Council of Florence, 11th Session, Bull ‘Cantate Domino’, February 4, 1442, in Wohlmuth and Alberigo, Dekrete, vol. 2, 567–583. 63 Leo X, for instance, gave a rather positive statement of Ethiopian Christianity in his Bull ‘Oratores Majestatis’: “in truth, bar for circumcision, they only disagree in a minor way from the observance of the Christian faith”; Bull Oratores Majestatis addressed by Leo X to Dom Manuel I, 1514, in Levy Maria Jordão et al., eds., Bullarium Patronatus Portugalliae. . . (Olisipone: Typographia Nationali, 1868–1879), vol. 1, 108–109, here 108. See also brief of Pope Leo X to Dom Manuel, 1514, in cdp, vol. I, 250. 64 Henry, Inéditos Goesianos, 47.

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Moreover, the discovery of a ‘heretical’ Christianity in Ethiopia also came hand in hand with the erosion of the myth of the Prester John. Indeed, the association of the Ethiopian nǝguś with the mythical Prester John began during these years to fade. Thanks to the Portuguese, the nǝguś had reached a privileged status in European courts. Its means may have been modest but the visits of its envoys to Lisbon and Rome, the treatises written by Portuguese agents and the missives dispatched by Ǝleni and Lǝbnä Dǝngǝl had an undeniable impact in European political centers and beyond. Renowned sixteenthcentury authors described the nǝguś and his lands. Leo Africanus, drawing from Alvares’s Verdadera Informação and from Góis’s Fides, described at length the provinces and kingdoms subject to ‘Neguz or Christian Emperour of Abassia’, and the French cosmographer Jean Bodin, also using Alvares’s account, praised the ‘great nǝguś or Prester John, the greatest lord of the whole Africa’ and his fifty ‘gouvernemens’; the Italian cosmographer Giovanni Boemo, meanwhile, increased to sixty the number of estates subject to the Ethiopian nǝguś.65 Yet, while the nǝguś entered into sixteenth-century political discourse with pomp, he also revealed his weakness: his embassies were much more modest than those styled by Dom Manuel and at every opportunity available the Ethiopian ruler revealed the shortcomings of his state with his repeated petitions to the Europeans for craftsmen and military aid. The association between this ‘new’ political figure and the mythical Prester John was at this point outdated. The ruler of Ethiopia gained, in European eyes, a resolutely earthly character. Evidence of this shift is provided in Góis’s works on Christian Ethiopia. The first of them, published in 1532 against the author’s will, was dedicated to the embassy of Lǝbnä Dǝngǝl headed by Mateus to king Dom Manuel I. The title of the book made reference to the Magni Indorum Imperatoris Presbyterii Ioannis, ‘the Prester John Great Emperor of the Indies’.66 The same formula was employed by Francisco Alvares in his travelogue. Eight years later, however, in the Fides, religio, moresque Aethiopum, Góis corrected the naming of the Ethiopian ruler to Pretiosus Ioannes (i.e. ‘Precious/Great John’) and clarified that the title Presbyterum Ioannem was incorrectly ‘used by the 65

66

Leo Africanus, A Geographical Histoire of Africa. . . [1526] (Amsterdam and New York: Da Capo Press & Theatrum Orbis Terrarum Ltd, 1969), 12–19; Jean Bodin, Les six livres de la République (Paris: Fayard, 1986 [Paris 1576]), liv. V, 126; liv. VI, 55; Giovanni Boemo, Gli constumi, le leggi, et l’usanze di tutte le genti, raccolte qui insieme da molti illustri scrittori (Venetia: Michael Tramezino, 1549), 7v–8r. Damião de Góis, Legatio Magni Indorum Imperatoris Presbyterii Ioannis. . . (Anvers: Joan Grapheus, 1532); see also Lefèvre, L’Etiopia nella stampa del Primo Cinquecento, 47–52.

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plebs’.67 This change was probably motivated by information provided by Ṣägga Zäʾab, who informed Góis that the title of Prester John was a simple misnomer, the actual name for the Ethiopian ruler being Jan Bellul – that is Joannes Pretiosus sive altus.68 It is apparent that the rephrasing of the concept Pretiosus Ioannes in the Fides reflected a more general shift in the European attitude towards the Preste. Thereafter, the idea that such an association was wrong became widespread in the contemporary Portuguese chronicles.69 By the time Góis that compiled the Fides, religio, moresque Aethiopum, distances between Ethiopia and Europe had been shortened by frequent Portuguese incursions in the Red Sea and diplomatic exchange allowed both parties to gather enough factual information for equivocal images to perish. The number of editions and the publicity enjoyed by Góis’s and Alvares’s accounts point to a growing desire in the Lusitanian kingdom and in Europe ‘to know’, as Góis himself would put it, ‘the truths about these things [from Ethiopia]’.70 After some three decades of contact, both the Indian and the religious associations with the name of Ethiopia’s ruler were disappearing, leaving room for a more down-to-earth image, more akin to the changing times. The nǝguś was turning into a modern African Prince, whose power had to be respected and whose Christian faith scrutinized.71 A political–religious worldview was replacing a mythical one.

67 Góis, Fides, religio, moresqve. 68 Ibid., 90; also in Id., Chronica do Feliçissimo rei dom Manuel, parte III, Chapter LXI. On the relation between the Ethiopian (Agäw) term ‘Žan’ and the European ‘Joannes’ see Alessandro Bausi, ‘Žanhoy’ in eae vol. 5, 139. 69 For instance, Fernão Lopes de Castanheda, História do descobrimento e conquista da India pelos portugueses [1551–61], ed. M. Lopes de Almeida (Porto: Lello & irmão, 1979), liv. III, Chapter XCVI; and Barros, Década III, liv. IV, Chapter I. 70 Góis, Chronica do Feliçissimo rei dom Manuel, parte III, Chapter LXI. 71 The fading of the myth was, however, progressive. The term Preste was used at least until the first half of the seventeenth century as synonymous for nǝguś. This occurred especially in narratives of a more popular character, beginning with Alvares, Verdadeira informaçam and Gaspar Correia, Lendas da India [ca. 1560], vols. 2–4 (Nendeln: Kraus Reprint, 1976). Yet a look into texts from the papal, Portuguese and Spanish chancelleries indicates that in official communication the equation between the mythical monarch and the African ruler was already broadly abandoned in the first quarter of the sixteenth century.

chapter 2

From Santiago to St. Paul Honestly, sir, I remain stunned and amazed, and when I saw it I could hardly believe that in this land our behaviour changes so promptly; so, those coming from Portugal adopt in India a new identity, a new style, a new way of life: those who arrived as simple soldiers suddenly pretend to be merchants, those arrived as merchants later decide to be involved in the things of war, thinking of themselves as true soldiers. The fidalgos and captains spend the whole time handling with the royal treasury.1

Evangelizing the Preste

The conflict provoked by Ṣägga Zäʾab’s visit to Portugal reflected a change in the attitude of the Portuguese court regarding its Ethiopian allies and stimulated the emergence of a project to reform Ethiopian Christianity. However, the latter was only fully accomplished as a result of two events in which personal ambitions and military adventurism played an important role: the self-proclaimed patriarchate of João Bermudez (ca. 1495–1570) and the military expedition led in 1541–1543 by Christovão da Gama in the Ethiopian highlands. The former gave way to a concept that enjoyed long-lived success, the Catholic patriarchate; in its turn, Christovão’s expedition set the ground for the emergence of a group that was of fundamental importance during the Jesuit mission, the mixed-race Ethio-Portuguese. These events, it should be stressed, had less to do with any defined projects enforced by the Conselho da India than with the  adventurous momentum that drove Portuguese expansion in the East.2 1 Dom João de Castro to Infante Dom Luiz, October 30, 1540, in João de Castro, Obras completas, ed. Armando Cortesão and Luís de Albuquerque (Coimbra: Academia internacional da ­cultural portuguesa, 1976), vol. 3, doc. 11, 29. 2 I join Winius’s insightful judgments on the role of Portuguese leadership during the expansion: ‘That servants of Manuel I were able to create a lasting presence on such distant strands seems almost a miracle in the light of the bungling leadership supplied from Lisbon’; George D. Winius, ‘Few Thanks to the King: The Building 0f Portuguese India’, in Studies on Portuguese Asia, Chapter XX, 484. Another interesting passage by him: ‘Studying metropolitan direction and its blunders is yet another way of showing that achievement lay with clever and opportunistic people in the colonies who were motivated to act on their own without much dependence upon their superiors in Europe’; ibid. 485. A nice articulation of historiographical

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004289154_003

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To understand the impact of these events it is first necessary to consider the political context both in Portugal and its dominions and in Christian Ethiopia. As the 1530s came to a close, Portugal remained at loggerheads with itself, its king seemingly unable to formulate a coherent response to the circumstances in the Red Sea. Diplomatic maneuvers that had defined the decades of the 1510s and 1520s stagnated as much as the Portuguese projects to control the Red Sea did. After Ṣägga Zäʾab’s tempestuous stay in Lisbon, king Dom João appears to have hesitated over what policy his kingdom was to adopt regarding Christian Ethiopia. Certainly, the controversy surrounding the Ethiopian monk had pushed the religious ‘errors’ of the African ally to the foreground. This, together with the reformist trend that began to dominate Catholic Europe following the sack of Rome (1527), could have convinced the king and his entourage that religion was the main issue to be dealt with in further encounters with the Ethiopians. However, the religious admonitions developing in Portugal did not immediately take the form of any concrete missionary project: in keeping with his generally hesitant outlook, the king did not take any relevant decision regarding Ethiopia for at least ten years and the repeated requests of Ǝleni and Lǝbnä Dǝngǝl for a concrete alliance and technical help thus remained unanswered. Dom João probably realized that his kingdom lacked the means to carry out the pronouncements of his father, and from the 1530s onwards the Portuguese were to concentrate most of their forces and energies on a much more realistic objective, the Persian Gulf. There they kept two important and lucrative possessions, Hormuz and Maskat. Furthermore, as the historian Winius critically pointed out, during his rule Dom João dilapidated most of the kingdom’s military resources in the North African campaigns, thus sparing few of its energies for the Asian theaters.3 What was certain was that in the 1530s Manuel’s costly diplomatic feats were a thing of the past. In Ethiopia, too, the time was not ripe for high-profile diplomatic endeavors either. In the years following Ṣägga Zäʾab’s embassy the Christian kingdom faced challenges of its own. A major one came in the person of the Muslim leader Aḥmad b. Ibrāhīm al-Ġāzī (called Aḥmad ‘Grañ’ in Christian Ethiopian and Portuguese sources), the son-in-law of imam Maḥfūz b. Muḥammad. Aḥmad Grañ (ca. 1506–1543) represented probably the most serious threat the discussions on the ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ sides of the Portuguese Empire is Malyn D. Newitt, ‘Formal and Informal Empire in the History of Portuguese Expansion’ Portuguese Studies 17 (2001). 3 Diffie and Winius, Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 282. On the financial troubles of Dom João III, see Almeida, Historia da Igreja em Portugal, vol. 3, parte I, 294–295.

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Christians had ever faced from their traditional rivals from the sultanate of ʿAdal. Amid a power struggle in the sultanate between the Walašma and the ‘religious’ factions, the latter guided by garād Aboñ b. Adaš, Aḥmad Grañ killed sultan Abū Bakr b. Muḥammad b. Āzar around 1525–1527 and, claiming the religious title of imam for himself, took de facto hold of the sultanate’s reins. Thereafter, reviving the aggressive policy followed earlier by his father-in-law, who was killed in battle against Lǝbnä Dǝngǝl in 1516 or 1517, he launched a djihad against the neighboring Christian kingdom.4 Although initially unsuccessful, from 1529 onwards Aḥmad Grañ came to subjugate large parts of the formerly Christian-dominated highlands, in Fäṭägar, Däwaro, Gafat and Damot.5 Repeatedly defeated in the field and weakened by the numerous defections of Christian highlanders who moved to the Muslim side, nǝguś Lǝbnä Dǝngǝl could only retreat and wait for better times. He died in 1540 at the fortified monastery of Däbrä Damo in Tǝgray, leaving behind a shattered realm and a broken family.6 The djihad of Aḥmad Grañ was not disconnected from the emergence of both Portuguese and Ottomans in the Red Sea waters. In 1517 the sack and burning of Zaylaʿ, the main outlet to the sea of the sultanate of ʿAdal, stimulated the sultanate’s expansionist policy. In their turn, since the 1530s the Ottomans had been providing valuable support to the armies of ʿAdal, thus replacing ʿAdal’s former allies from the Yemen and Hadramawt. They thus sent weapons, horses and slaves to ʿAdal and around 1540 they dispatched a company of soldiers from Zabid armed with firearms and artillery.7 An European 4 Franz Amadeus Dombrowski, Ethiopia’s Access to the Sea (Leiden [u.a.]: Brill, 1985), 17. 5 Ethiopian sources for this period are René Basset, trans., Études sur l’histoire d’Éthiopie, 1st  part: Chronique éthiopienne (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1882; repr. from Journal Asiatique 1881), 13 and passim (text), 103 and passim (trans.); and Sihabaddin Ahmad ibn ‘Abdalqadir [Arab-Faqih], Futuh al-Habasa. Histoire de la conquête de l’Abyssinie (XVIe siècle), ed., trans. René Basset, 2 vols. (Paris: Publications de l’École des lettres d’Alger, 1897). 6 Lǝbnä Dǝngǝl’s eldest son Fiqṭor was killed by the army of garād ʿUṯmān on April 7, 1539 and another son, Minas, was taken captive to Zabid, Yemen; Francisco Maria Esteves Pereira, trans., Historia de Minás, Además Sagad, rei de Ethiopia (Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional, 1888), 17–20 (text), 37–41 (trans.). 7 Alvares, Verdadeira informaçam, Chapter CXIII. Eventually, European agents in search of profitable business as well as powers that might have been threatened by the Portuguese rise in India seem to have also joined in such illicit trade with the ‘unbelievers’. Around 1517, for instance, three Catalans sold weapons in Zaylaʿ to the locals shortly after the town was set on fire by Lopo Soares de Albergaria; Barros, Década III, liv. I, Chapter V. Sources disagree on the size of the Turkish company serving in the Ethiopian highlands. A contemporary Yemenite chronicle puts the number at 500; see Serjeant, The Portuguese off the South Arabian Coast, 103.

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contemporary of the events who had a fine geopolitical grasp, Giovanni Botero, defined this development: ‘The push of the Portuguese had two negative consequences in these lands: one is that the Arabs have much fortified their ports [. . .] The other consequence is that the Turks have turned against the Preste’.8 It was against this backdrop, dominated by political weakness in Portuguese India and a serious territorial crisis in Ethiopia, that the figures of João Bermudez, on the one side, and Christovão da Gama and his peer, on the other, entered center stage. João Bermudez probably first arrived in Ethiopia as physician of the embassy headed by Rodrigo da Lima. Francisco Alvares mentions that as part of the train of Rodrigo da Lima’s embassy there was a ‘mestre João’.9 In 1526, when the embassy returned to Portugal mestre João was left behind in the hands of the Ethiopian nǝguś, together with the painter Lázaro de Andrade. Little information exists as to what occupied Bermudez during his years there. What is certain is that, thanks to his long stay, he became sufficiently acquainted with the country to be able to embark on a career that outshone that of any foreigner having previously served there. At the peak of Aḥmad Grañ’s expansion, Bermudez was allegedly appointed patriarch by metropolitan Marqos shortly before the latter’s death in 1535 and was entrusted by Lǝbnä Dǝngǝl with an embassy to seek European help. He reportedly reached Rome around 1536. There, he presented himself to Pope Paul III as ambassador of the nǝguś and patriarch of Ethiopia; he requested that the pope recognize his title and informed of Aḥmad Grañ’s invasion. Thereafter, the adventurer moved to Lisbon where he presented the same credentials to João III. As has been repeatedly underlined by other scholars, and as written evidence and common sense suggest, Bermudez’s grand claims were probably just a ‘tissue Portuguese accounts provide the figure of 900 musketeers (espingardeyros); Miguel de Castanhoso, História das cousas que o mui esforçado capitão Dom Cristóvão da Gama fêz nos reinos do Preste João com quatrocentos Portugueses que consigo levou [1564], ed. Augusto César Pires de Lima (Pôrto: Livr. Simões Lopes, 1936), Chapter XIII, XVI; d’Andrada, Chronica, parte III, Chapter LXXX; and Couto, Tratado dos feitos de Vasco de Gama, 166. Trimingham supplies the same figure of 900 Turks adding ten cannons; John Spencer Trimingham, Islam in Ethiopia (London et al.: Oxford University Press, 1952), 89; see also Dombrowski, Ethiopia’s Access, 19. 8 Giovanni Botero, Relatio Universalis [Roma, 1592–95] (Venetia: I. Giunti, 1640), 130. 9 Alvares, Verdadeira informaçam, Chapter IV, XLIV. The French historian Hervé Pennec is reluctant to connect the ‘mestre João’ active in the 1520s with the João Bermudez from the 1530s and 1540s, but his evidence does not seem strong enough; see Hervé Pennec, introduction to Ma géniale imposture: Patriarche du Prêtre-Jean, by João Bermudes, ed. Sandra de Rodrigues Oliveira (Toulouse: Anacharsis, 2010), 12–13. Indeed, all studied contemporary sources unmistakably associate the two figures.

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of lies’.10 No contemporary document, except Bermudez’s self-indulgent text written during the last years of his life in Lisbon and published in 1565, has hitherto been produced in support of his claims to the patriarchate; and nor, it appears, did Pope Paul III provide him with the necessary bulls and briefs to recognize the religious titles.11 Likewise, it seems implausible that Lǝbnä Dǝngǝl was then willing to break the age-old ties between Ethiopia and the see of Alexandria by creating an office – that of patriarch of Ethiopia – that was unknown in his country. The possibility remains that Bermudez was a simple envoy, who would have been sent, together with other Ethiopians, to Europe to search for allies in the serious political crisis affecting the Ethiopian Christian state.12 Owing to his extravagances Bermudez’s case has been derided by many historians and, in consequence, its importance in the foundation of a religious mission to Ethiopia has been minimized.13 However, the impact this figure had during his visit to Europe and his later trip to India seems to have been considerable. After all, lies have always been important historical factors. Indeed, thanks to Bermudez the Ethiopian dossier received a major boost. His visits to Rome and Lisbon coincided with the arrival of news reporting the preparation of a major fleet by the Ottomans and the Sultan of Khambay with the aim of attacking the Portuguese stronghold in Diu. In view of the central importance of this port for the Indian Empire the Portuguese king was compelled to respond rapidly. In 1538, Dom João dispatched the new governor and Viceroy Dom Garcia de Noronha to India aboard a substantial fleet of some twelve to fifteen large ships and between 2,000 and 4,000 men.14 Bermudez was included 10 11

12 13

14

A.H.M. Jones and E. Monroe, A History of Abyssinia (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1935), 86. The narrative is João Bermudez, Breve relação da embaixada que o Patriarcha D. João Bermudez trouxe do Imperador da Ethiopia vulgarmente chamado Preste João dirigida a el-Rei D. Sebastião [Lisboam: Francisco Correa, 1565] (Lisboa: Typographia da Academia, 1875). On this affair see Hugo Duensing, ‘Ein Brief des abessinischen Königs Asnaf Sagad (Claudius) an Papst Paul III. aus dem Jahre 1541’, Nachrichten der K. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. Philologisch-historische Klasse 1 (1904): 20–24; Marius Chaine, ‘Bermudez, patriarche de l’Ethiopie’, Revue de l’orient chrétien 4, 14 (1909); Francisco Rodrigues, ‘Mestre João Bermudes’, Revista de História 3 (1919). See Rodrigues, ‘Mestre João Bermudes’, 132. Among the severely critical historiographical judgments made of ‘Patriarch’ Bermudez, one had him as ‘the victim of a ridiculous narcissism’; Chaine, ‘Bermudez, patriarche de l’Ethiopie’, 329. Another of suffering from ‘a long crisis of megalomania’; Rodrigues, ‘Mestre João Bermudes’, 135. Francisco Maria Esteves Pereira, introduction to Miguel de Castanhoso, Dos Feitos de D. Christovam da Gama em Ethiopia [1564], ed. Francisco Maria Esteves Pereira (Lisboa: Imp. Nacional, 1898), xv. Also Georg Schurhammer, Franz Xaver, sein Leben und seine Zeit (Freiburg: Herder, 1955–73), vol. 1, 667.

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among them but could travel to the East only the following year, together with Ṣägga Zäʾab.15 Far from being removed of any responsibilities, mestre João from this time onwards turned to Dom João, was backed financially by the crown and was allowed to travel to Ethiopia. The adventure mounted by Bermudez was particularly significant in that, for the first time in his reign and more than thirteen years after the second of Dom Manuel’s embassies had arrived back in Lisbon, Dom João decided to act in what had been one of his father’s main fields of action. It is not clear, though, what the official duties of the ‘patriarch’ were. In several letters written by Dom João, Bermudez seems to be treated only as embaxador do Preste, while Bermudez and the chronicler Gaspar Correia claimed that he was in charge of a more important mission: to recruit a group of men in Goa to set up an army and bring it to Ethiopia to help the nǝguś in his internal struggle with Aḥmad Grañ.16 But, for the present discussion, there is another and more interesting detail. Bermudez reported in the Breve relação that four Dominican friars, one of them named Pedro Coelho, escorted him in the trip to India with the intention of proceeding further to Ethiopia.17 Besides, he was also allegedly in charge of carrying a letter addressed to the nǝguś by Dom 15 D’Andrada, Chronica, parte III, Chapter LXXII. 16 On Bermudez’s and Correia’s claims see Bermudez, Breve relação da embaixada, Chapter X; Correia, Lendas da India, vol. IV, 179. On suspicions by the monarch about Bermudez’s nomination to the Ethiopian patriarchate, see Rodrigues, ‘Mestre João Bermudes’, 123; Castanhoso, Dos Feitos de D. Christovam, 131–132. Schurhammer reports a letter of Emperor Charles V to Luís Sarmiento dated March 12, 1537 that states: ‘I am sending you what it seems are messengers of the Prester John [to Lisbon]; [one] came by land and wishes to close a partnership against the unbelievers; another is going to Portugal: check him!’; Georg Schurhammer, Die Zeitgenössischen Quellen zur Geschichte Portugiesisch-Asiens und seiner Nachbarländer. . .(Rom: Institutum Historicum S.I., 1962), doc. 195. Also in ags, ‘Secretaría de Estado’ 167 (371), 188 M. For further evidence of Bermudez’s contemporaries being suspicious of his claims to the patriarchate, see Juan Alfonso de Polanco, Vita Ignatii Loiolae et rerum Societatis Jesu (=Chronicon) (Matriti: Augustinus Aurial, 1897), vol. 6, 777–778. 17 Bermudez reports on a ‘frei Pedro Coelho’ and three other friars; Bermudez, Breve relação da embaixada, Chapter IV. The issue is also mentioned by the Dominican frey João dos Santos, Ethiopia Oriental e varia historia de cousas notaveis do Oriente (Évora: Manuel de Lyra, 1609), parte II, Chapter 1; and in a ‘Sumaria relaçam’ kept at Évora, probably compiled after dos Santos, in ame, Cod. CV/2–6, 2v. The Jesuit Gonçalves identified the other three Dominicans as Fr. João de Haro, Fr. Luis da Vitoria and Fr. João Alvim; Gonçalves, Primeira parte da Historia dos religiosos da Companhia de Jesus. . ., vol. III, 304. See also ‘Relação Sumaria. . . do que obrarão os Religiozos da ordem dos Pregadores na conuerção das almas e pregação do sancto Evangelho. . .’, in bnl, cod. 177 [F 3085], 322r–60r.

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Afonso in which the brother of Dom João and cardinal infante urged his Ethiopian friend to abandon the ‘errors’ exposed earlier in Lisbon by Ṣägga Zäʾab.18 It appears that none of the friars reached Ethiopia – the four stayed in Goa – and Dom Afonso’s religious admonitions – provided that they ever reached their destination – failed to convince the nǝguś of his alleged religious wrongdoing. Be that as it may, this evidence indicates that Bermudez’s mission incorporated a defined religious agenda in its military and diplomatic intentions. Indeed, this ‘patriarchal’ mission foresaw the main principles of the mission that the Society of Jesus successfully organized in the following years: the institution of the patriarchate of Ethiopia, a reliance on a learned religious order, and a strong Pauline commitment – represented in Dom Afonso’s letter.

Santiago’s Last Call

Another major episode that paved the way for the religious mission to the Preste was the expedition headed by Christovão da Gama that confronted Aḥmad Grañ’s army in the highlands of Ethiopia between 1541 and 1543. This famous chapter in Portuguese expansion, to which Luís de Camões dedicated a strophe, impacted upon the Portuguese contemporaries.19 It is described in detail by the Portuguese chroniclers of the day, such as Diogo do Couto, Gaspar Correia, Francisco d’Andrada and Manuel de Faria e Sousa, and is the subject of two chronicles by veterans of the expedition, Castanhoso and Bermudez.20 The Jesuits, in their annual letters and treatises, also dedicated ample descriptions to the episode.21 Moreover, brief references to the history of Bertugual

18 19 20

21

The letter dated 1539 appears in raso x, doc. 3. Os Lusíadas [Lisboa: António Gonçalves, 1572], ed. Emanuel Paulo Ramos (Porto: Porto Editora, 2000), Canto X, 96. Couto was also the author of an unpublished history on Ethiopia and a eulogistic narrative  of the exploits of Vasco da Gama’s sons in India: Historia do Reyno da Ethiopia, chamado vulgarmente Preste João, contra as falsidades, que nesta materia escreveo Fr. Luiz Urreta Dominicano and Tratado dos feitos de Vasco de Gama. See Charles R. Boxer, ‘Diogo do Couto (1543–1616), controversial chronicler of Portuguese Asia’, in Opera Minora, ed. Diogo Ramada Curto (Lisboa: Fundação Oriente, 2002), 122; Castanhoso, Dos Feitos de D. Christovam; Bermudez, Breve relação da embaixada. A comprehensive modern study is Schurhammer, Franz Xaver, vol. 2–1, 86–72, 498–512 (map in 499).

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(‘Portugal’) and Dongestobou (‘Dom Christovão’) scatter the contemporary Ethiopian royal and ‘Short chronicles’.22 The campaign of 1541–1543 was the result of a series of factors, among which the geopolitical improvisation characteristic of Portuguese India, colonial adventurism and a prophetical dimension counted in no small a degree. The expedition could have been initially conceived in Lisbon, as Bermudez reported in his narrative. The historical record, however, is inconclusive about this possibility.23 In all likelihood, as had happened with earlier endeavors such as those led by Albuquerque in Cochin, Goa, Malacca, Hormuz and Diu, which had been pivotal for the formation of the Estado da India, the timing, forces and way of approach were decided in India and by men who had practical experience in the East. Likewise, it can also be assumed that the expedition was funded by Portuguese India.24 Initially the Portuguese were rather hesitant with regards to the Preste. Following his failed campaign in Diu, the ageing and unable Viceroy Noronha agreed to send to the Red Sea a reconnaissance mission to enquire about the figure of Bermudez and the state of the nǝguś. The mission was led in 1539 by a Fernão Farto, a man whom sources describe as experienced in the area.25 Back in Goa, in May 1540, the Portuguese envoy reported on the shattered Christian kingdom. But with the death of the viceroy and the assumption of the governorship by Dom Estevão da Gama, things changed. The son of the discoverer of the sea route to India was a young and energetic man who, as captain of Malacca, had amassed experience and, more importantly, a considerable fortune.26 When he went to take possession of the governorship of the Estado da India he soon realized what was at stake. The moment was indeed critical. The Ottoman siege of Diu led by Hadim Suleiman Pasha in 1538 had proven to the Portuguese the seriousness of the Ottoman menace. Diu was a central 22 Basset, Études sur l’Histoire d’Éthiopie, 19–21 (text), 111–13 (trans); William El. Conzelman, ed., trans., Chronique de Galâwdêwos (Claudius), Roi d’Ethiopie (Paris: Emile Bouillon, 1895), Chapter LIV and passim; Jules Perruchon, ed., trans., ‘Notes pour l’Histoire de l’Ethiopie: Le règne de Galawdewos (Claudius) ou Asnaf Sagad’, Revue sémitique 2 (1894): 264; Francesco Béguinot (ed., trans.), La cronaca abbreviata d’Abissinia (Roma: Tipografia della casa editrice italiana, 1901), 27–28. 23 See anonymous, ‘Sumaria relaçam’, Biblioteca Municipal de Évora, Cod. CV/2–6. 24 Thus, for instance, the failed rescue expedition to the siege of Diu from 1538 was funded from loans collected in the main Portuguese cities of India; Correia, Lendas da India, vol. IV, 24–25. 25 D’Andrada, Chronica, parte III, Chapter LXXII; Bermudez, Breve relação da embaixada, Chapter V. 26 Castanhoso, Dos Feitos de D. Christovam, viii, xii–xiii.

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node in the trade network flowing across the Indian Ocean, with main axes in Malacca and the Red Sea; it was a place of strategic importance and – as time would tell – also a potential economic goldmine. The Ottoman siege ultimately failed, but only because of the enemy’s own indecision, as the fleet captained by Dom Garcia de Noronha had missed its opportunity.27 In the same expedition that gave way to the siege of Diu, the Ottomans conquered the port of Aden, a position long coveted by the Portuguese. To protect such assets, the entire forces of the Estado da India were mobilized. In the winter of 1540 Estevão gathered the Conselho de Estado and, with the support of the main fidalgos and the ecclesiastic authorities, set up a fleet for the Red Sea, one of the largest ever to be sent there.28 On January 1, 1541, the fleet left the port of Goa with a principal objective none other than the destruction of the imperial Ottoman Red Sea fleet and the arsenal in Suez.29 By then, in all likelihood, the fidalgos and the governor had already resolved to go to the Preste, since the enormous crew included the officious envoy ‘Patriarch’ Bermudez as well as enough soldiers and craftsmen to mount an inland campaign.30 However, as was usual in Portuguese warfare in India, the composition and leadership of the expeditionary corps were decided only at 27

This episode has been studied by Dejanirah Couto, ‘Les Ottomans et l’Inde Portugaise’, in Congrès International Vasco da Gama et l’Inde (Lisbonne-Paris: Fondation Gulbenkian, 1999), vol. 1, 181–200; and Casale, The Ottoman Age, 59–63. 28 The Conselho de Estado was an institution officially created in India only in 1563 but de facto active since the time of Albuquerque; see Diffie and Winius, Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 325. The names of most of these fidalgos are known: Estevão’s brother, Christovão da Gama, João de Castro, Gonçalo Coutinho, Ruy Lourenço de Tavora, Francisco de Sousa Tavares, Ruy Vaz Pereira, Dom Manuel de Lima, António de Lemos, Fernão de Sousa de Tavora, Francisco de Cunha, Dom Francisco de Menezes, Vasco de Cunha, Dom Garcia de Castro, Dom João de Mascarenhas, Garcia de Sá, João de Sepulveda and Dom Jorge de Tello; Castanhoso, Dos Feitos de D. Christovam, xxi. Although sources disagree, the number of vessels and men taking part in the expedition to the Red Sea was generally reckoned to be impressive; Correia mentions 88 sails – 77 fustas and catures and 3 galeotas – with some 2,000 remeiros and 3,000 sailors canarins (natives from Goa) and Arabs; Correia, Lendas da India, vol. IV, 162 and passim. Schurhammer, following Dom Manuel de Lima, mentions 84 sails and 2,300 soldiers; Schurhammer, Franz Xaver, vol. 2–1, 86–87. For the meaning of Portuguese marine lexikon, see Ibid., Anhang VIII. 29 A recounting of the same episode from the Ottoman perspective appears in Casale, The Ottoman Age, 69–72. 30 On the participation of craftsmen, Correia says that ‘with these people [the soldiers] came more than 70 artisans of all sorts, namely: cross-bow makers, blacksmiths, carpenters, masons, shoemakers, gunsmiths and other artisans that Bermudez had gathered in India’; Correia, Lendas da India, vol. IV, 201. See also d’Andrada, Chronica, parte III, Chapter LXXVI.

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the last moment. This occurred at Massawa, in May or June 1541, after part of the fleet had carried out a series of unsuccessful campaigns around Suez. There the Portuguese were contacted by the regional ruler of Tǝgray baḥǝr nägaš Yǝsḥaq, who was later to play a prominent role in securing the passage of the troop across the highlands.31 Yǝsḥaq informed the Portuguese of the advances made by Aḥmad Grañ’s armies and the daunting condition of the Christian state. Then the governor, after discussion with his fidalgos and captains, decided to send a military detachment to help the nǝguś. The soldiers formed a company of approximately 400 men, who were divided into six squadrons.32 Five squadrons were composed of fifty men and were placed under a captain each; a sixth unit contained 150 men and was given to Dom Christovão da Gama, who was also made the head of the whole detachment. The experience of challenging indigenous armies with squadrons of just a few hundred men was not new to the Portuguese in Asia. Afonso de Albuquerque had reportedly conquered Malacca in 1511 with 1,500 Portuguese men and 800 local allies and with a similar number of men is said to have taken Goa and Hormuz.33 In the winter of 1540 Christovão da Gama himself had attacked Cochin with a 600-man force and at about the same time, also in Malacca, his brother Estevão fought against the ruler of Ugentana with a 400-man strong force.34 Aḥmad Grañ himself had to thank the presence among his army of a small company – around 200 men – of arquebusiers from Yemenite Zebid for part of his successes.35 The Ethiopian expedition led by Christovão da Gama was, by all accounts, well armed and was also provided with all the offices necessary to make things roll.36 The Portuguese soldiers were also experienced warriors and made skilled use of modern military tactics, the use of Swiss 31

On the figure of Yǝsḥaq the best study remains Carlo Conti Rossini, ‘La guerra turco-­ abissina del 1578’, (Estratto) Oriente moderno 1, 10–11 (1923). 32 On the number of soldiers see Castanhoso, História das cousas, Chapter IV; Couto, Década V, liv. VII, Chapter IX. Correia refers to 397 men, including 130 slaves; Correia, Lendas da India, vol. IV, 345. A ‘Relatio anonyma’ dated December 8, 1541 informs of 500 men; raso x, doc. 4, 20. Moreover, the Portuguese seem to have originally offered baḥǝr nägaš Yǝsḥaq to send a larger force of 1,000 men; Schurhammer, Franz Xaver, vol. 2–1, 91, note 56. 33 Geoffrey Parker, Empire, War and Faith in Early Modern Europe (Bath: Allan Lane–The Penguin Press, 2002), 167, 202. 34 Castanhoso, Dos Feitos de D. Christovam, xviii; d’Andrada, Chronica, part III, Chapter XXVII. In all likelihood, a large number of those who fought in Asia with Christovão also volunteered for the campaign in Ethiopia. 35 Asa J. Davis, ‘The Sixteenth century Jihad in Ethiopia and the Impact on its Culture’, Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria 2 (1963). 36 Schurhammer, Franz Xaver, vol. 2–1, 91–92.

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headlong phalanx-like tactics being thus attested.37 We may now reasonably ask, who were these 400 men and what drove them to fight for an alien cause? Sources provide the names, and in some cases the status and occupation, of around 107 men. The leadership of the expedition was given to fidalgos – six are mentioned as such – some of whom were the sons of well-known families, such as the son of Vasco da Gama, Christovão. However, the main bulk of the army was composed of simple soldiers, probably young and with only brief experience in India.38 Their performance was variable. As with other scenarios in India, the campaigns in the Red Sea and Ethiopia showed a regrettable tendency for discipline to break down among the troops. Thus, during the halt at the bay of Ḥǝrgigo (Arquico), facing the island of Massawa, before any decision to go inland was taken, some 100 Portuguese, headed by the fidalgo António Correa, fled towards the highlands and were killed shortly afterwards by Muslim troops.39 Disagreements about leadership were also frequent during the whole campaign, beginning with the choice of the leaders of the troop.40 However, as the campaign unfolded the Portuguese proved to be able and decided men, skilled in the use of matchlocks and in logistics tasks, which included construction of vehicles to transport artillery and the preparation of gunpowder.41 The troop was also not moving entirely in hostile and unknown terrain. At least four veterans of the Preste who had participated in the earlier 37

This movement – mentioned in the sources as the Soiça – was practiced in the combats against Grañ. See e.g. Castanhoso, História das cousas, Chapter VII. For its importance in European warfare, see John A. Keegan, A History of Warfare (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993), 329 and D. Reichel, ‘Suisse’, in Dictionnaire d’art et d’histoire militaires, dir. André Corvisier (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1988). The adoption of this tactics in Portuguese warfare came by way of Spain, where Swiss military instructors were already active towards the end of the fifteenth century; Reichel, ‘Suisse’, 807. 38 The chronicler of Dom João III tells us that upon leaving for the Red Sea Estevão da Gama ‘refused to enroll married as well as old or weak men’; d’Andrada, Chronica, parte III, Chapter LXXVI. 39 ‘Relatio anonyma’, 1541, in raso x, doc. 4, 19. 40 According to Diogo do Couto, the appointment of Christovão da Gama as the leader of the expedition was the subject of debate, the soldiers seeing him as young and unfit for the role; Couto, Década V, liv. VII, Chapter IX. Bermduez also casts doubts on the decision to appoint Christovão as the leader; see Bermudez, Breve relação da embaixada, Chapter X–XI. For scenes of indiscipline among the Portuguese during the earlier expedition of Rodrigo da Lima, see Alvares, Verdadeira informaçam, Chapters LXXXV–LXXXVI. 41 Bermudez, Breve relação da embaixada, Chapter XXXIV. During the kǝrämt of 1541 (May to September), probably at Däbrä Damo, Portuguese woodworkers were able to construct twenty-four carts that were to carry 100 mousquets, six artillery pieces, gunpowder and munition; Castanhoso, História das cousas, Chapter VI.

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embassy of Rodrigo da Lima appear among its numbers: the already mentioned João Bermudez, the interpreter João Gonçalves, the mixed-race Ayres Dias and the fidalgo Jorge de Abreu. Their practical experience, rather than their social status, awarded them a position of leadership among the troop. By origin, besides the Portuguese, there were a few Spaniards and, although they are not mentioned in the sources, it is to be assumed that Italians and native Indians were also involved.42 Varying reasons pushed these men to fight for the nǝguś. A first issue to bear in mind is that this was not the first occasion on which Portuguese troops were engaged in alien causes in the Indian Ocean world. Besides the legion of lançados living in Africa and India, Portugal had embroiled its colonial forces elsewhere with the aim of helping local allies in their regional feuds. Such was the case of the policy followed on behalf of the Shah Ismail I (reigned 1502–1524), founder of the Safavid dynasty in Persia, whose army was empowered by a few hundred Portuguese soldiers to help him challenge the mounting Ottoman expansion in the Persian Gulf.43 A mixture of power and faith seems to have pushed the soldiers to the Ethiopian highlands.44 Concerning the first factor, 42

The presence of Italians within the Portuguese crews in India is often mentioned in s­ ixteenth-century sources. At least one name – Sangano – among those who participated in Christovão’s expedition seems to be of Italian origin. For its part, with the armada to the Red Sea traveled a company of lashkarins (i.e. Lascar), the indigenous forces enrolled in the service of the Portuguese; see Correia, Lendas da India, vol. IV, 161, 176, 199; Yule and Burnell, Hobson-Jobson, 507–509. 43 The lançados were the Portuguese and Europeans living ashore. For a discussion of their role in the context of West Africa see George E. Brooks, Landlords and Strangers: Ecology, Society, and Trade in Western Africa, 1000–1630 (Boulder u.a.: Westview Press, 1993), 137 and passim. The Ottoman advance in the Gulf was, however, unstoppable. In 1546 the Porte occupied Basrah, thereby securing the control of the northern Persian Gulf; see Salih Özbaran, ‘The Ottoman Turks and the Portuguese in the Persian Gulf, 1534–1581’, Journal of Asian History 6 (1972): 68. Another study argued, however, that the Portuguese fighting in the army of Shah Ismail were ‘mercenaries recruited by the agents of the Shah in Hormuz and India’ rather than agents of the Portuguese Crown; Jean Louis BacquéGrammont, Les Ottomans, les Safavides et leurs voisins. Contribution à l’histoire des ­relations internationales dans l’Orient islamique de 1514 à 1524 (Leiden: Nederlands Historisch-archaeologisch Institut te Istanbul, 1987), 170; also Casale, The Ottoman Age, 50, 88. For further evidence of Portuguese men and weapons serving local rulers, see W.G.L.  Randles, ‘Artilleries and Land Fortification of the Portuguese’, in Geography, Cartography and Nautical Science, W.G.L. Randles, Chapter XVII, 11–12. 44 On this particular, Bermudez informed that ‘when they [the soldiers] came to learn that the expedition could bring them honor and profits, this sparked their interest and pushed them to join it more than ever before’; Bermudez, Breve relação da embaixada, Chapter X.

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the Ethiopian campaign was a last opportunity for them to achieve the expectations aroused by the trip to the Red Sea, which, as it was coming to an end, had proved by all accounts deceiving from both military and economic standpoints.45 The second factor that needs to be considered is prophecy and providentialism. Portuguese sources and narratives are littered with episodes mixing faith with military deeds. In the European mindset, the Christian God and the saints gave the soldiers strength on the battlefield, provided guidance and ensured that the enemy was defeated, despite the often meagre number of men mobilized by the Lusitans in India. The two symbols that best represented this providentialism were the sign of the Holy Cross and the Apostle Santiago Matamoros (St. James ‘the Moor-Killer’). Both figures were pervasive throughout the expansion: they became the object of countless visions and were present in Portuguese victories. As a consequence, these two figures turned into the most used banners in the East.46 The Portuguese expeditions into the Red Sea and Ethiopia shared a similar providential fervor. Visions and prophecies circulated profusely. During the first Portuguese incursion beyond the ‘Strait of Mecca’ (i.e. Bab-el-Mandeb), Albuquerque and his crew reported having seen 45 46

Casale sees the Red Sea expedition as ‘a failure of spectacular proportions’; Casale, The Ottoman Age, 70, 73. The Holy Cross gave its name to the first two lands ‘possessed’ by the Iberians in America (the coasts of Mexico and Brazil were initially christened as ‘Veracruz’ and ‘Santa Cruz’, respectively). Albuquerque himself, during the expedition to the Red Sea of 1513, gave to an island off the strait of Bab-el-Mandeb – probably Perim – the name of ‘Santa Cruz’. In its turn, the importance of Santiago Matamoros for the Iberian expansion, especially in the first half of the sixteenth century, is witnessed in the number of forts, bastions – some later becoming major towns – and towns named for Santiago, in both the Western Indies (Santiago in Republica Dominicana [1494], Santa Cruz de Santiago de Tenerife [1496], Santiago de Fernandina, later Cuba [1514], island of Santiago of Cabo Verde, Santiago de Chile, Santiago de Cali [1536], Santiago de Guayaquil [1543], Fort Santiago at Salvador de Bahia, Santiago de Panamá) and Eastern Indies (bastions of Santiago at São Jorge del Mina, Quiloa [Kilwa Kisiwani], Tete [Moçambique, 1575], Macão, Malacca, Manila and Diu). Further evidence is provided in the ships’ names; São Tiago was the flag ship that in 1506 took Tristão da Cunha to India as well as the huge royal galeão from 1541 under the command of Affonso de Sousa that took Francis Xavier to India; see Schurhammer, Franz Xaver, vol. 2–3. Successive galleons bearing that name were recorded as active in 1552, 1585 and 1602; Charles R. Boxer, Portuguese Conquest and Commerce in Southern Asia, 1500–1750 (London: Variorum Reprints, 1985), Chapter V; Schurhammer, Franz Xaver, vol.  2–2, 527. On the importance of the Apostle in the Iberian Peninsula see Américo Castro, La realidad historica de España (México: Porrua, 1954, 1980), 95, 386–98; Nicolás Cabrillana Ciézar, Santiago Matamoros. Historia e imagen (Málaga: Diputación de Málaga, 1999); and Thomas. D. Kendrick, Saint James in Spain (London: Methuen & Co, 1960).

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the sign of the Cross ‘towards the lands of the Prester John’ and around 1520 one ‘Coptic patriarch’ (probably Marqos) allegedly recounted to Francisco Alvares a local prophecy that said that after having its 100th metropolitan the Ethiopians would receive their religious leaders from Rome.47 During the expedition of 1541–1543 prophecy seems to have attained its peak and military clashes became fertile terrain for the intervention of the supernatural. The Apostle Santiago, invoked by the soldiers at every encounter with the Muslims, reportedly appeared in the battlefield charging the Muslim troops.48 The death of Portuguese soldiers, especially the ‘martyrdom’ of their leader Christovão da Gama, also became motifs for supernatural episodes.49 The outcome of the expedition is well known. The small Portuguese company contributed substantially to stopping the Muslim advance. Over the two year course of the campaign, they faced at least four times the Muslim troops and liberated two important positions, one at Amba Sänayti and the other in the Sǝmen province. In August 1543 Aḥmad Grañ was killed and the Muslim djihad dissolved ‘like the smoke and the ash of an oven’, as the royal Ethiopian chronicle poetically put it.50 But the war also had costs for the Christian side. Nǝguś Gälawdewos had lost control of some important provinces, such as Šäwa, Tǝgray and Damot, and in the years to come he was to face no smaller challenges: in the north, the occupation by the Ottomans of Massawa and Dǝbarwa and the de facto independence of baḥǝr nägaš Yǝsḥaq, ruler of 47

Affonso de Albuquerque to Duarte Galvão, [1614], in Affonso de Albuquerque, Cartas de Affonso de Albuquerque seguidas de documentos que as elucidam, ed. R.A. de Bulhão Pato (Lisboa: Typographia da Academia Real das Sciencias, 1884), 399; also in Correia, Lendas da India, vol. IV, 731. The prophetical scene, which is somewhat incoherent since the Ethiopian church was not ruled by a papas (‘patriarch’) but by a bishop-metropolitan, appears in Alvares, Verdadeira informaçam, Chapter XCIX. It was also reported in Couto, Década VII, liv. I, Chapter I. 48 Bermudez, Breve relação da embaixada, Chapter XVI; and Castanhoso, História das cousas, Chapter XV. 49 At least on one occasion sources tell of the incorruptibility of the dead bodies of Portuguese soldiers; see Couto, Década VII, liv. VII, Chapter VI. The miracles attributed to Christovão’s death are described in Bermudez, Breve relação da embaixada, Chapter XXIII; Castanhoso, História das cousas, 1936, Chapter XX; Couto, Década VII, liv. I, Chapter I. 50 I translate from the French version; Basset, Études sur l’histoire d’Éthiopie, 20 (text), 112 (trans.). Concerning the death of Aḥmad Grañ, conflicting sources exist. Portuguese sources attribute it to a Portuguese arquebusier named Pedro Leão; Bermudez, Breve relação da embaixada, Chapter XXXIV. The Ethiopian royal chronicle, rather, tells us that the Muslim leader was killed by a servant of the king; Conzelman, Chronique de Galâwdêwos, 26 (text), 136 (trans.).

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Tǝgray; in the south, the expansion of the Mäčča Oromo beginning in 1546.51 Of the Portuguese who survived the two years of campaigns – about onethird of the initial number – most of them decided to stay, while a few, probably those with more interests in India and Portugal, took the route for home.52

Paul’s Momentum

At the same moment that Portuguese military presence in the Red Sea was fading away, things began to move in Rome as well. Until then, the papal capital had been of secondary significance in the contacts with the nǝguś. The Medici popes had looked favorably upon the Portuguese diplomatic maneuvres in the East and granted them, via bulls and briefs, juridical cover. They also had taken some initiative. Thus, Leo X sent the Florentine Andrea Corsali to enquire about the Ethiopian Christian state and addressed two letters to the nǝguś in 1514 and 1521.53 Corsali eventually reached the Red Sea and met the armada that in 1520 took Rodrigo da Lima and his train to Ethiopia.54 In January 1533, during his second encounter at Bologna with the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Clement VII received Francisco Alvares, then acting as ambassador of nǝguś Lǝbnä Dǝngǝl. However, the Medicis’ early policy regarding Ethiopia was not very fruitful; the first pope was too concerned with leading a life of pleasure and artistic patronage, while the second had to cope with the menace of the Roman Emperor throughout his whole papacy. The Holy See was at the time, indeed, hardly ready to engage in ambitious projects, as the leisurely Leo X and the thoughtful, but ineffective, Clement VII had left the institution 51 52

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Michael Kleiner, ‘Gälawdewos’, in eae vol. 2. Repatriation – in total about fifty men – occurred in two movements: on February 16, 1544, a group of a few dozens (Couto says they were about fifty), including Miguel de Castanhoso, left for India in a fusta of Diogo de Reinoso. Later, during the rule of Viceroy Dom Constantino de Bragança (1558–1561) another group of about ten men left; Castanhoso, História das cousas, Chapter XXVIII–XXIX. The number of Portuguese who stayed in Ethiopia was between 120 and 150; Couto, Década V, liv. IX, Chapter IV; Couto, Tratado dos feitos de Vasco de Gama, 180; Bermudez, Breve relação da embaixada, Chapter XLVIII. See Renato Lefèvre, L’Etiopia nella stampa del Primo Cinquecento, 24. See Corsali’s missives in Gio. Battista Ramusio, Primo volume e terza editione delle Navigationi et viaggi. . . (Venetia: de Giunti, 1563), 176r–88v; also Lefèvre, L’Etiopia nella stampa del Primo Cinquecento, 24–35; Richard Pankhurst, ‘Corsali, Andrea’, in eae vol. 1; Cortesão and Thomas, Carta das novas, 40–41.

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financially and morally bankrupt and its political and religious might dramatically anaesthetized by conflicts with transalpine monarchs.55 But from the late 1530s onwards the eternal city became a privileged environment for the European projects in Christian Ethiopia. This happened, to a large extent, under the auspices of the pope credited with the beginning of the church’s renewal in early modern times, Paul III (1534–1549).56 It was in the ­circle of the Farnese pope that two figures who gave the Ethiopian dossier a new élan converged: Täsfa Ṣǝyon and Ignatius of Loyola. Täsfa Ṣǝyon (1510?–1550) or ‘Fra Pietro l’Indiano’, as he was known in Italy, was an Ethiopian Orthodox monk who had fled the destruction in 1533 of his home monastery, Däbrä Libanos, one of the most important in Ethiopia.57 He first went to Jerusalem and towards 1537 arrived in Rome, where he became the leading figure of a group of Ethiopians living in the pope’s entourage. He proved to be highly skilled at moving within the courtiers’ milieu as well as deeply engaged in the intellectual life and reformed spirit of the city. Täsfa Ṣǝyon befriended influential figures close to the pope, such as the theologian Pietro Paolo Gualtieri, the Humanist Ludovico Beccadelli and a niece of the Farnese pope himself, and became the main source of information on Ethiopia in a city ever more interested in the Eastern churches.58 It was also thanks to him that the semi-­ abandoned Ethiopian hospice of San Stefano dei Mori was restored and 55

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It was at that time that, one after another, the northern European powers became alienated from the control of the church: France was the first, with the Concordate of Bologne in 1516 that granted ample church powers to the King Francis I; then Germany followed, being the focus of the Reformation movements from 1517; and finally came England where Henry VIII declared his Acts of Supremacy in 1534. Moreover, in 1527, the sack of Rome at the hand of the Imperial troops and the virtual imprisonment of the pope at St. Angelo became a symbol of the dramatic condition of the papacy. For biographies of the two popes see Marco Pellegrini, ‘Leone X’, in Enciclopedia dei Papi, vol. 3 (Roma: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 2000); and Adriano Prosperi, ‘Clemente VII’, Ibid. A valuable and recent assessment of the figure of the Farnese pope appears in John O’Malley, A History of the Popes: From Peter to the Present (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010), Chapter 19: ‘Paul III: A Turning Point’. According to Chaine Täsfa Ṣǝyon would have died at the age of 40, which would put his birth date around 1510; Marius Chaine, ‘Un monastère éthiopien à Rome au XVe et XVIe siècle: San Stefano dei Mori’, Mélanges de la Faculté Orientale, Beyrouth 5, 1 (repr. 1973): 17. See Renato Lefèvre, ‘Documenti e notizie di Tasfa Ṣǝyon e la sua attività romana nel sec. XVI’, Rassegna di Studi etiopici 24 (1971): 74–77. Paolo Giovio used Täsfa Ṣǝyon’s information to draw a somewhat idyllic portrait of Ethiopia in his Histoire sui temporis [Fiorenza: Lorenzo Torrentino, 1551–53] (Vinegia: Domenico de’Farri, 1555). Beccadelli did the same in an abridged and unpublished version of Alvares’s book; Lefèvre, ‘Documenti e notizie di Tasfa Seyon’, 78–79.

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provided with funds by Paul III.59 This gave new vigor to the institution, which henceforth increased the number of its guests and received, in 1551, one year after the death of the Ethiopian monk, its first fixed rules. Fra Pietro also prepared works that, after those published a few years earlier by Góis and Alvares, had an impact in making Europe aware of Ethiopia’s Christianity: an Ethiopian version of the New Testament that was the first ever to be printed and which enjoyed great success; an Ethiopian–Latin edition of Paul’s thirteen epistles; and, with the help of Bernardino Sandri, a treatise on Ethiopia’s Christian traditions.60 Täsfa Ṣǝyon’s career in Rome was not dissociated from the renewal the city experienced during Paul III’s long rule and later. In the 1530s the papal capital recovered swiftly from the decay resulting from the sack of 1527: its population almost doubled and it experienced the first modern urban planning. Its aim in these years was to become the true and active center of Christianity. Attracting the members of the Oriental churches thus became a central theme in Rome’s agenda.61 The Sees of Armenia and Rome closed ties. Bishop Stephan V Salmastetzì (1545–1567), Catholicos of the Armenian Catholic church, presented his submission to Pope Paul III and, later, his successor in office, Catholicos Michael I da Sebaste, sent an embassy to Pius IV.62 In 1553, Yohannan Sulaqa was consecrated first Uniate patriarchate of Mesopotamia with the 59 60

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Renato Lefèvre, ‘Riflessi etiopici nella cultura europea del Medioevo e del Rinascimento (Parte Terza)’, Annali Lateranensi 11 (1947): 260 and passim. The New Testament edition was Testamentum novum cum Epistola Pauli ad Hebraeos tantum, cum concordantijs Euangelistarum Eusebii et numeratione omnium verborum eorundem. . . (Romae: Valerium Doricum et Ludovicum Fratres Brixianos, 1548). The pope offered this edition as a present to leading contemporary personalities; Chaine, ‘Un monastère éthiopien à Rome’, 15. See also Ludovico Pastor, Historia de los papas desde fines de la Edad Media, tomo V: Historia del Papa Paulo III (1534–1549) (Barcelona: Gustavo Gili 1911), 439. On the other works: Epistolae XIII Divi Pauli eadem [aethiopica] lingua cum versione Latina, 1549, printed and binded together with the Testamentum novum; Modvs baptizandi, preces et benedictiones quibus Ecclesia Ethiopum utitur. . . (Romae: apud Antonium Bladum, 1549). See Pierre Hurtubise, ‘Rome au temps d’Ignace de Loyola’, in Ignacio de Loyola y su tiempo. Congreso internacional de historia (9–13 Septiembre 1991), ed. Juan Plazaola (Bilbao: Mensajero, 1992), 446–47. Visits of Ethiopians to Rome, however, did not begin with Paul III but had older roots; a large survey are the studies by Lefevre: ‘Riflessi etiopici nella cultura europea’ (Parte Seconda e Terza); ‘Roma e la comunità etiopica di Cipro nei secoli XV e XVI’, Rassegna di Studi Etiopici 1, 1 (1941): 71–86; and ‘Note su alcuni pellegrini Etiopi in Roma al tempo di Leone X’, Ibid 21 (1965). Garabed Amaduni, ‘Armenia: III- La chiesa Armena’, in Enciclopedia Cattolica, ed. Giuseppe Pizzardo, vol. 1 (Città del Vaticano: L’Enciclopedia Cattolica, 1948), col. 1968.

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name of Mar Shimun VIII; with this the Chaldean Nestorian Catholic church was created.63 Under the Farnese pope a large number of new or reformed orders, called to give new vigor to the shattered church, found protection and support there: the Capuchins, Barnabites, Jesuits, Theatins, the Somaschans, the Confraternity of the Ss. Sacramento and the Ursulines.64 It is with the most important group among this new wave of religious orders that the Ethiopian monk entered into close relations. Ignatius of Loyola’s acquaintance with the deeds of the Portuguese in Ethiopia came within the decade following his arrival in Rome, in November 1537. During this period the Society of Jesus was an untried order formed by a few learned and intelligent men who gathered around the charismatic figure of Ignatius; they were committed to the reform cause and had powerful toolsto-be – such as the Spiritual Exercises – and ideas to offer, but little experience.65 In Rome, rather than breaking new ground, Ignatius and his peer tried to respond to the petitions of the society that hosted them and worked at tasks where demand was high, such as teaching at the university, preaching, catechism to children and spiritual advice.66 It was in part through these improvised beginnings that the order was to define its famous modo nostro and to come to focus on fields where its members were to become true masters, such as casuistry, education, preaching and counseling to kings and nobility.67 Historical evidence attests that it was during these early years that the Jesuit founder read the accounts by Francisco Alvares and Damião de Góis and also befriended Täsfa Ṣǝyon, who was reportedly to play an important role in 63 Pastor, Historia de los papas, tomo VI, 292 and note 4; and Commendador-mor to El-rei, January 10, 1554, in cdp VII, 311–12. On relations between Rome and the oriental churches under Gregory XIII see Giorgio Levi Della Vida, Documenti intorno alle relazioni delle chiese orientali con la S. Sede durante il pontificato di Gregorio XIII (Città del Vaticano: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1948); for Ethiopia, see 26, 35, 37, 108–111, 122. 64 Gino Benzoni, ‘Paolo III’, in Enciclopedia dei Papi, vol. 3, 101. 65 It is also important to bear in mind that the guiding texts of the order did not reach complete form for years after the first Jesuits set foot in Rome. The Constitutions, whose first draft dated to 1550, was first aproved in the first general congregation of 1558 and modified for the last time in 1594; San Ignacio de Loyola, Obras, ed. Ignacio Iparraguirre et al. (Madrid: Biblioteca de autores Cristianos, 1997), 445–446. The Ratio Studiorum was first printed in 1581 and given final form only in 1599; Compagnia di Gesù, The Jesuit Ratio Studiorum of 1599, trans., ed. Allan P. Farrell (Washington D.C.: Conference of Major Superiors of Jesuits, 1970), i. 66 Hurtubise, ‘Rome au temps d’Ignace de Loyola’, 467. 67 John W. O’Malley, The First Jesuits (Cambridge Mass and London: Harvard University Press, 1993), 50 and passim.

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opening Paul III’s court to the new order.68 A testimony of the latter is a painting the Jesuits commissioned in the 1610s for their mother church of Il Gesù. In the painting, today shown in the antesacristy of the Roman church, the Ethiopian monk Täsfa Ṣǝyon is seen standing behind Pope Paul III while the Jesuits offer the latter the Formula of the Institute.69 Further news about the situation in Ethiopia must have reached Rome from Portugal, where, since about June 1540, two of Ignatius’s companions, Francis Xavier and Simão Rodrigues, were active.70 In May 1542 Francis Xavier arrived in Goa with, among other commitments, that of reaching ‘the land of the Preste’.71 Although such a desire was never fulfilled, the future Apostle of the Indies kept alive hopes to go to Ethiopia during his years of wandering in the Orient.72 The first concrete steps of the Jesuit mission to Ethiopia must have been taken in the central years of the 1540s, around 1544 or 1545, at the time of the opening of the Council of Trent, which was formally convoked on May 22, 1542 and opened on December 13, 1545. In 1543 the war between Christian Ethiopia and Aḥmad Grañ came to an end. By the beginning of the following year the first survivors returned to Goa, bringing with them the news about the success of the military campaign as well as Bermudez’s failure to have his ‘patriarchate’ approved by the nǝguś. The fate of the pseudo-patriarch, as Ignatius of Loyola called him, must have been received with dismay by the Portuguese monarch, which is all too apparent in the king’s letters questioning Bermudez’s titles and behavior.73 Thereafter, stimulated by these events, Rome, Lisbon and the Jesuit leadership began to join forces in order to set up a grand mission to Ethiopia headed by a solemnly chosen patriarch. The aim was to provide the Ethiopian church with a new ecclesiastic hierarchy that enjoyed true authority over Christian Ethiopian society. 68

69 70 71

72 73

See Jean Aubin, ‘Le Prêtre Jean devant la censure portugaise’, 57; Ignatius of Loyola to Ludovico de Grana, January 17, 1549, in Ignacio de Loyola, Monumenta Ignatiana, series prima: Sancti Ignatii de Loyola S.J. fundatoris Epistolae et instructiones (Matriti: Gabrielis Lopez del Horno, 1903 seq), vol. 2, doc. 540, 304–305. For the image, see Guerrino Pelliccia and Giancarlo Rocca (dir.), Dizionario degli istituti di perfezione, vol. 2 (Roma: Edizioni Paoline, 1975–2003), 1288 face. See Francis Xavier to Ignatius of Loyola and Nicolás Bobadilla, July 13, 1540, in Francis Xavier, Monumenta Xaveriana, vol. 1, doc. 3, 213 note 4. Francis Xavier to Francisco Mansilhas, March 21, 1544, Manapar, in Francis Xavier, Monumenta Xaveriana, vol. 1, doc. 21, 316; also Francis Xavier to Francisco Mansilhas, November 10, 1544, Manapar, ibid., doc. 42, 348. This is explicit in a letter written in 1549, when Xavier had already made the decision to go to Japan; Francis Xavier to Simão Rodrigues, January 20, 1549, ibid., doc. 73, 490. For instance, João III to Batlhasar de Faria, August 27, 1546, in cdp, vol. VI, 69–72, 71.

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However, the origins of the project lay solely neither in the adventurous career of Bermudez nor in the missionary push of Rome, Lisbon and the Jesuits. After all, these centers of power were officially responding to the ‘call’ of a church that had provided signs enough – so the Europeans thought – of their will to accept the Catholic predicaments. In the mid-sixteenth century Ethio-European contacts reached a crescendo. The Ethiopian rulers had welcomed the Portuguese envoys and reciprocated by sending their own agents and missives. The diplomatic correspondence during the first half of the century is impressive. Between 1509 and 1546 Christian Ethiopia and Europe exchanged at least twenty-two official letters, of which fifteen corresponded to letters sent to and from Rome and nine originated in the Ethiopian court. Standing out among these letters are the texts that Lǝbnä Dǝngǝl sent in 1526 via his improvised envoy Francisco Alvares, two letters to Pope Clement VII, together with an Obedientia. The missives, which reached their destination only in 1533, continued the perennial request for trained personnel (theologians, painters, smiths and masons), while the third text offered obedience to the pope. They had an impact: solemnly handed by Alvares to Clement VII on January 29, 1533 at Bologna, they were published in the same city in two editions – Latin and Italian – shortly after the episode.74 Although their genesis, composition and transmission seem to have been, as in many other instances, in the hands of the Europeans who were in the service of the nǝguś – Alvares himself helped in composing the first two texts while the letter of obedience is nowhere mentioned as among those having been written in Ethiopia – to Rome they meant the readiness of the Ethiopians to conform to the new reformed standards being defined by the Catholic church.75 Obedience, 74

75

The letters were embedded in two booklets – probably the work of the editor Giacobo Keymolen – that informed on the papal reception to Alvares; one, contained a Latin version, probably the work of Paolo Giovio, of the epistles; another, the Italian version; [Giacobo Keymolen], Legatio David Aethiopiae regis ad Sanctissimum D.N. Clementem papa VII (Bononiae: Jacobum Kernolen Alostensem, 1533); Id., L’ambascieria di David Re dell’Etiopia al Santissimo S.N. Clemente papa VII. . . (Bologna, Giacobo Keymolen Alostese, 1533); a reedition of the Latin version in Antwerp appeared as Legatio David Aethiopiae Regis, ad Sanctissimum D.N. Clementem Papam VII. unà cum obedientia. . . (Antuerpiae: Guilelmum Vorstermannum, 1533). For a modern reedition of the epistles, see Osvaldo Raineri, Lettere tra i pontefici romani e i principi etiopici (sec. XII–XX). Versioni e integrazioni (Città del Vaticano: Archivio Segreto Vaticano, 2005), docs. 11 and 12. For a summary of the encounter by a contemporary witness, see Marin Sanudo, I Diarii di Marino Sanuto: 1496–1533, ed. Nicolò Barozzi and Mario Allegri, vol. 57 (Venezia: Federico Visentini, 1901), 485; see also Lefèvre, L’Etiopia nella stampa del Primo Cinquecento, 53–71. See Alvares, Verdadeira informaçam, Chapter CXV; Lefèvre, L’Etiopia nella stampa del Primo Cinquecento, 70–71.

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henceforth, became the object of frequent reference in the correspondence with Christian Ethiopians.76 Even if Rome and Portugal were misled by their own agendas or by the tricks of diplomatic rhetoric, it can be assumed that by the 1540s – be it thanks only to spurious diplomatic exchanges – the Ethiopian and European Christianities were closer than they had ever been before. A second external aspect that probably stimulated the idea of a mission was the prophetical momentum in Christian Ethiopia. Portuguese and Ethiopian sources reported numerous scenes where prophecies intervened in human action. In addition to the story about the sending to Ethiopia of bishops from Rome, early sixteenth-century sources report on the coming of Christian soldiers that would help the Ethiopians destroy the main sites of Islam in Jiddah, Tir and Mecca.77 Other sources recorded similar prophecies during the campaign of Christovão da Gama in 1541–43.78 Although it is to be assumed that, here again, the Portuguese over-encouraged native stories to excess, these scenes may not have been entirely the invention of Europeans. Contemporary Ethiopian chronicles are littered with prophetical scenes and it could be assumed that the two Christian societies that met in the Red Sea shared, to a degree, similar prophetical narratives. More importantly, these stories had a significant impact in Portugal and Portuguese India. They were mentioned in the main Portuguese chronicles and circulated among the Portuguese soldiery and decision-making centers.79 Ignatius of Loyola himself recalled some of them in one of the instructions he wrote for the missionaries for Ethiopia.80 76

For instance, Francisco Barreto to Gälawdewos, January 2, 1557, in raso x, doc. 21, 83; King Sebastião to Constantino de Bragança, viceroy of India, March 1558, in raso x, doc. 23, 94; brief of Pius IV to Minas, August 20, 1561, in ibid., doc 32, 126; Ioannis Petri Maffei, Historiarum Indicarum (Lugduni: ex Officina Iuncta, 1589), 389. 77 Alvares, Verdadeira informaçam, Chapter XCIX. On the phenomena of millenarism in Ethiopian society see Robert Beylot, ‘Le millénarisme, article de foi dans l’Eglise Ethiopienne au XVe siècle’, Rassegna di Studi Etiopici 25 (1974); and Merid Wolde Aregay, ‘Millenarian Traditions and Peasant Movements in Ethiopia, 1500–1855’, in Sven Rubenson (ed.), Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference of Ethiopian Studies. Addis Abeba (East Lansing: Institute of Ethiopian Studies; African Studies Center, Michigan State University, 1984). 78 Castanhoso, História das cousas, Chapter VII; also recorded in Correia, Lendas da India, vol. IV, 352. 79 Barros, Década III, liv. III, Chapter X; Couto, Década VII, liv. I, Chapter I. 80 Ignatius wrote that ‘you should know that they host a prophecy about a king from the West [added: and here they do not think, so it seems, in any other ruler than the King of Portugal] who, during this time, should destroy the moors’; Ignacio de Loyola, 1551–53, in raso i, parte III, doc. 2, 251.

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But let us go back to Rome. In a brief dated 1544 the pope informed the Ethiopian nǝguś Lǝbnä Dǝngǝl that before sending a patriarch he was planning to send learned men to instruct them in religious issues.81 Two years later king Dom João urged his ambassador in Rome, Balthasar de Faria, to press towards the election of a Jesuit as the new patriarch of Ethiopia. From that year on the Jesuits became the third main axis of the ambitious patriarchal mission to Ethiopia. During this period Täsfa Ṣǝyon worked also as an active lobbyist for the patriarchal cause in the eternal city.82 It must be stressed, however, that if compared with other contemporary missions managed by the Society of Jesus overseas, such as those in India (started in 1542), Molucas (1546), Congo (1547), Brazil and Japan (both 1549), the initial Jesuit involvement in this enterprise was neither swift nor easy. There were several reasons for this. First, the Jesuit order was not the only order that was at stake when it came to sending religious men to Ethiopia. In fact the Dominican order held a certain advantage regarding Ethiopia for it could claim century-old connections with Ethiopian Christianity, some of them imagined and some true. The Dominican friars were also the traditional ‘protectors’ of the Ethiopians on pilgrimage to Europe. It is, therefore, not by chance that during the initial and confusing years of mission to the Preste, the first to be mobilized were mendicant friars. In 1539, as was mentioned earlier, four Dominican friars escorted Bermudez towards Ethiopia, though they were never to reach their destination.83 Still, in March 1546, the ambassador in Rome, Balthasar de Faria, informed João III of a Castilian friar pursuing a cause in the Holy City for the nomination of two bishops for Ethiopia. This was probably Fray Francisco Vázquez, to whom the pope granted, one year later, in the brief Cum sicut nobis, permission to go to Ethiopia and India.84 But the friar

81 82

83

84

Paul III to Claudius [Gälawdewos], May 23, 1544, in Schurhammer, Die Zeitgenössischen Quellen, doc. 1241. The Jesuit Pierre Favre commented: ‘This fray Pedro [Täsfa Ṣǝyon] began to speak of the several things that were in need in the lands of the Prester John in order that as quickly as possible many souls could be saved. So, he and the others reached their goal, namely that five bishops were sent to Ethiopia so that the Prester John could choose one of them to be the patriarch’; Pierre Favre to the rector in Coimbra, January 17, 1549, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 1r. Yet Bermudez mentions in his account that his provisor (i.e. purveyor, treasurer) during the expedition to Ethiopia was a frey Diogo da Trinidade; Bermudez, Breve relação da embaixada, Chapter XXIII. Paul III, brief Cum sicut nobis, March 8, 1547, in Schurhammer, Die Zeitgenössischen Quellen, doc. 2880a.

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never reached his destination and his attempt seems to have marked the last moment when Dominicans were associated with this mission.85 Additional difficulties surrounding the Ethiopian project were related to the institution of the patriarchate of Ethiopia. Since Bermudez’s adventure this institution had been at the center of all discussions about Ethiopia. Probably born in the mind of a Portuguese adventurer, the idea of an Ethiopian patriarchate became, during the years when Bermudez struggled in Ethiopia to gain recognition from nǝguś Gälawdewos, a sine qua non of the mission.86 Decision makers in Rome and in Portugal were convinced that no matter who was to be in charge of this mission the head was to be a patriarch with full authority over the Ethiopian church and directly obligated to the pope. Yet, such an institution was almost untested in the Catholic world and it presented a challenge to the Society of Jesus.87 Although in the 1540s the Society was still halfway through its formation, Ignatius had made the refusal of ecclesiastic dignities one of its defining features.88 Accordingly, he repeatedly refused the bishoprics and red hats that were offered to his first companions Claudio Jayo, Francisco de Borja, Peter Canisius, Pascal Broet, Diego Laínez, Nicolás Bobadilla and Simão Rodrigues. With the Ethiopian patriarchate he initially showed a similar skepticism, as letters he wrote in 1546 attest.89 However, he soon came to adopt a more pragmatic position; with his usual skill, he twisted the terms and assumed that the patriarchate was more of a burden than a dignity, that it called for ‘fatigues and hardships’ instead of for ‘pomp and rest’, as he wrote the same year to his companion Simão

85

86

87

88

89

Yet, also in 1559, Nunes Barreto commented that ‘a vicar of St. Dominic offered himself to go there’; Melchior Nunes Barreto to Diego Laínez, November 22, 1559, in arsi, Goa 10 II, 458v. Earlier hints at sending a patriarch date, though, to the papacy of Leo X. In a letter to Manuel I, who came just from receiving Mateus and was about to send to Ethiopia his friend Duarte Galvão, the pope suggested: ‘it is desirable to that purpose to intervene at the death of the same patriarch Marqos and to elect a successor, so that the brethens do not suffer at their loss’; Leo X to Manuel I, 1514, in cdp, vol. I, 248–250, 249. There existed, however, the so-called ‘minor patriarchates’, such as that of Venice and the ‘Patriarchate of the West Indies’, instituted by Leo X in 1520 for the Spanish territories in Mexico and enjoying a mere testimonial character. The position of Ignatius and the Jesuits on this issue and a survey of the ecclesiastic dignities enjoyed by Jesuits has been the object of a study by Angel Santos Hernández, Jesuitas y obispados (Madrid: Pontificia Universidad de Comillas, 1998–2000). The documents are compiled in Angel Santos Hernández, Jesuitas y obispados, vol. 1: La Compañía de Jesús y las dignidades eclesiásticas, 57.

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Rodrigues.90 Once the moral issues had been settled he thus accepted the challenge and began to work at full strength for its completion.91 The acceptance of the patriarchate had important consequences for the overall missionary projects managed by the Society in the East Indies for it instituted the practice, followed ever since, of receiving dignities for the companions destined to work in the East.92 The Ethiopian project had a prominent place on the agenda of the Society and it became an obsession of its first superior general. Between 1546 and 1556 Ignatius and his able secretary Juan Alfonso de Polanco touched on that issue in about 150 letters – during the most active years, from 1553 to 1556, the letters hinting at this project were over a hundred.93 The focus of most of these missives was to press Dom João – whose Padroado rights included the nomination of ecclesiastic dignities within his domains – not to forget about it and to push this cause before the Portuguese ambassador in Rome and the Holy See. With the same purpose, Ignatius secured the support of prominent figures in Italy and Spain. Among those approached by the superior general and who gave their support to this project were such influential cardinals as Giacomo Puteo, cardinal of St. Simeon in Posterula, Marcello Cervini, cardinal of Santa Croce in Jerusalem and future Pope Marcellus II, and the Dominican Juan Álvarez de Toledo (1488–1557), cardinal-archbishop of Compostela and son of the duke of Alba. Furthermore, he obtained the backing of such influential theologians as Filippo Archinto and the Dominican Fray Luís de Granada (1504–1588) as well as of the duke of Gandia, Francisco de Borja, then the secretary of Charles V 90

91 92 93

Ibid. 59. Another letter by Ignatius on the same issue: ‘God brings in you even more deeply the love for the low things and the cross of Jesus Christ when one’s own elevation of status and dignity needs them more to expell any feeling of ambition’; quoted in Dominique Bertrand, La politique de Saint Ignace de Loyola (Paris: Cerf, 1985), 199 note 74; see also Ignacio de Loyola, Monumenta Ignatiana, vol. 8, 452–32, note 5201. See Ignacio de Loyola to João III ex comm., January 18, 1554, in Ignacio de Loyola, Monumenta Ignatiana, vol. 6, doc. 4083. Constituciones, part X, §6, ‘Aclaración A’. The theme is developed in Santos, Jesuitas y obispados, vol. 1, 56–66. I counted the following documents concerning the Ethiopian project in the Monumenta Ignatiana: Ignacio de Loyola, Monumenta Ignatiana, vol. 1 (5 letters); Ibid., vol. 2 (8 letters); Ibid., vol. 3 (1 letter); Ibid., vol. 4 (2 letters); Ibid., vol. 5 (5 letters); Ibid., vol. 6 (36 letters); Ibid., vol. 7 (34 letters); Ibid., vol. 8 (25 letters); Ibid., vol. 9 (7 letters); Ibid., vol. 10 (3 letters); Ibid., vol. 11 (3 letters); Ibid., vol. 12 (4 letters). For the involvement of Jerónimo Nadal in the Ethiopian dossier see Jerónimo Nadal to Ignatius of Loyola, July 24, 1553, in Jerónimo Nadal, Epistolae P. Hieronymi Nadal Societatis Jesu, ab anno 1546 ad 1577, vol. 1 (Matriti: Typis Augustini Avrial, 1898), doc. 55, 178; Id. ad eundem, May 14, 1554, in Ibid. doc. 66, 263.

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and later third Jesuit superior general (1510–1572).94 Last but not least, some of the letters sent on behalf of the Ethiopian mission became important foundational documents of the Jesuit order. So one of Ignatius’s famous letters of obedience, that sent on February 1, 1553 to Diego Mirón, buttressed its arguments to make the obedience effective on the need to ‘succeed in the Ethiopian project’.95 The election of candidates for the patriarchate and bishoprics of Ethiopia was the source of intense discussion. The particular requirements demanded of the candidates and the limited number of Jesuits then available made it a difficult issue. In 1546 João III had proposed as a candidate Pierre Favre from the duchy of Savoy, one of Ignatius’s early companions, but it soon emerged that he was not fit for the office. Moreover, the Jesuit leaders emphasized that the patriarch was to have a good appearance, enjoy a healthy constitution and command sufficient experience and knowledge.96 Initially the group aiming for Ethiopia should be formed of twelve men – in imitation of the apostles – from Italy, Spain and Portugal. Besides those who were finally chosen, some of the men who for some time were seriously considered included an international selection of Jesuit companions such as the Flemish Joannes Bocchiu 94

95

96

See Juan Alfonso de Polanco (ex comm.) to João III, January 18, 1554, in Ignacio de Loyola, Monumenta Ignatiana, vol. 6, doc. 4083, 208; cardinal of Compostela [Juan Alvarez de Toledo] to Dom João III and Paul III, in Schurhammer, Die Zeitgenössischen Quellen, doc. 6040; also in cdp, vol. XI, 554–55. Alvarez de Toledo was also responsible for approving the Spiritual Exercices in 1547. On Fray Luis de Granada, Andrés de Oviedo to Francisco Rodriguez, June 3, 1566, in raso x, doc. 52, 195, informs that ‘in my opinion Frai Luis de Granada was not all that wrong when he thought that the mission in Ethiopia was among the most glorious undertakings on the face of the earth, because from it depended the conversion of so many people to the Roman Church’. Further information on this Dominican figure appears in Eduardo Javier Alonso Romo, ‘Andrés de Oviedo, Patriarca de Etiopía’, Península. Revista de Estudios Ibéricos 3 (2006): 224. Ignatius to Diego Mirón, February 1, 1553, in Ignacio de Loyola, Monumenta Ignatiana, vol. 4, doc. 3220, 626. On the letters of obedience see the analysis in Bertrand, La politique, 74 and passim; and Santos, Jesuitas y obispados, vol. 1, 66. Alfonso Salmerón, for instance, was discarded because of his ‘childish and beardless face’ and doctor Torres (maybe Miguel de la Torre or Turrianus) because of ‘some blemish in his eyes’; Ignatius to Simão Rodriguez, October 26, 1547, in Ignatius of Loyola, Monumenta Ignatiana, vol. 1, doc. 202, 599; and also in Schurhammer, Die Zeitgenössischen Quellen, doc. 2467; Ignatius of Loyola, ‘Minuta dell’informazione che S. Ignazio fece dare al re Giovanni III di Portogallo intorno alle persone, tra cui scegliere un Patriarca per l’Etiopia’ [1551–53], in raso i, parte III, doc. 1, 234; also in arsi, Goana, Hist. Aeth. 1549–1629, doc. VI, 14–15; Ignatius of Loyola to João III, December 28, 1553, in Ignatius of Loyola, Monumenta Ignatiana, vol. 6, doc. 4011, 101.

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(Brockyu), the Castilians Juan de Santa Cruz, Pedro Domenech, Bernardo Casellas, Jacobo Mirón and Cornelius Gomes, the Catalan Miguel Barul, the Neapolitan Tommasso Pasitano and the Portuguese António de Quadros and António de Acosta.97 Around 1553, after several men had refused the position and several candidates had been discarded, João III and Ignatius came to a positive conclusion. The choice fell solely on Iberian Jesuits, who, significantly, were not founders of the Society but had nonetheless joined during the first years: João Nunes Barreto (joined 1544) was nominated patriarch of Ethiopia, Andrés de Oviedo (joined 1541) future bishop of Hyerapolis and Melchior Carneiro (joined 1543) was appointed bishop of Nicaea, the latter two with rights to succeed Barreto in the patriarchate.98 All three were professed of four vows, the highest status in the Society’s hierarchy.99 Two of them were experienced administrators. Oviedo, a close friend to Francisco de Borja, had been appointed first, in 1542, rector at Gandia and then, in 1551, at Naples. Carneiro had been appointed in 1551 the first rector of the College of Évora and, shortly after, was transferred to the rectorship of the College of Lisbon. The third prelate, Nunes Barreto, had extensive experience as a missionary: between 1548 and 1554, he had preached in Tetuan among the slaves and captives. In July 1553 Ignatius’s mediation bore the first results, as Dom João formally requested from him priests for the patriarchate and the bishoprics of Ethiopia. Following this, in a series of texts written in 1554 and 1555 Ignatius gave the 97

98

99

On the number of twelve envoys, see Ignatius to Andrés de Oviedo, December 17, 1553, in Ignacio de Loyola, Monumenta Ignatiana, vol. 6, doc. 3996, 70; Ignatius to Hieronymo Domenecco, December 22, 1553, ibid. doc. 3997, 72; Ignatius to João III, December 28, 1553, ibid. doc. 4015, 96–97; Ignatius to Hieronymo Nadal, January 1, 1554, ibid. doc. 4030, 129; Ignatius to Alfonso Salmeron, June 24, 1554, ibid. vol. 7, doc. 4567, 169; Ignatius to Comitus de Melito, July 21, 1554, ibid. doc. 417, 260–61; Ignatius to Diego Mirón, September 15, 1554, ibid. doc. 4783, 522–523; Ignatius to Francisco de Borja, October 26, 1554, ibid. doc. 4890, 688–689. A contemporary account of the preparations for the mission appears in Polanco, Vita Ignatii Loiolae, vol. 5, 605 and passim. Oviedo seems to have shown some concern about his new diocese, for on February 27, 1556 Ignatius wrote to him that: ‘We ignore where the bishopric of Hierapolis is situated, but we don’t even need to know it for the intention of His Holiness was that it served simply as a title’; in Ignacio de Loyola, Monumenta Ignatiana, vol. 10, doc. 6243, 57–58. The candidates for the prelacies in Ethiopia were listed by Ignatius in a letter to the Portuguese ruler; see Ignatius to João III, December 28, 1553, in Ignacio de Loyola, Monumenta Ignatiana, vol. 6, doc. 4016, 99–101 and doc. 4016bis (João III’s answer in doc. 4016 Ier, 103–105); Ignatius to Diego Mirón, September 15, 1554, ibid. doc. 4783, 524.

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missionaries aiming for Africa precise guidelines.100 These were unique documents. Not only were they the only concrete instructions the Jesuit superior general was ever to write on a specific mission but they provided a synthesized picture of Ignatius’s overall missionary strategy. Soon, official bulls from Pope Julius III, successor of Alessandro Farnese, followed.101 The project of a patriarchate for Ethiopia was coming of age and the Jesuits were sparing no efforts in pushing it forward. They were conscious that they were overstretching their capacities but they counted on this as their most promising mission.102 In the meantime, preparations in Lisbon gained pace and, in 1555, the first convoy of missionaries to Ethiopia embarked, headed by Barreto and the two coadjutors, Carneiro and Oviedo. In another sign of its exceptional placement within the Society’s agenda, the Ethiopian mission formed a province of its own, directly depending on the Jesuit superior general, although effectively it was part of the province of Goa (created in 1549) and of the Portuguese Assistancy. After years of arduous negotiations, the Jesuit adventure to the Preste had officially begun.

100 For the documents see Ignacio de Loyola, Monumenta Ignatiana, vol. 8, Appendix ‘De rebus Aethiopicis’, 675 and passim. 101 Bull ‘Cum nos nuper’, Julius III, January 24, 1554, in raso x, doc. 9. A closely similar text is Bull ‘Divina disponente clementia’, Julius III, February 10, 1554, in cdp, vol. XI, 558–560. 102 This is apparent in Ignatius to Jerónimo Domenech, January 16, 1554, in Ignacio de Loyola, Monumenta Ignatiana, vol. 6, doc. 4074, 192.

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Native Networks The missionaries bring the faith to the far off kingdoms, and trade brings the missionaries to the coasts.1

The Carreira to the Preste The mission to Ethiopia was in many aspects a unique enterprise: its patriarchal foundation, the aim to convert the ‘Prester John’ and the direct involvement of Ignatius of Loyola placed it in a prominent position amongst the projects that the Society of Jesus and the Crown of Portugal were setting up during the first decades of what was to be a lengthy engagement. At the same time, reaching Christian Ethiopia was not an easy task and this confronted the mission, over its eighty years of existence, with significant logistic problems. While the Jesuit mission was being approved in Lisbon and Rome things had not improved much for nǝguś Gälawdewos (1540–1559). Following the fall of Aḥmad Grañ the center of the Christian kingdom once again moved southwards, towards the fertile regions south of the Abbay.2 However, the eighteen years of Gälawdewos’s reign were not peaceful. The Christian kingdom was concentrated along a relatively narrow stretch of land covering the provinces of Damot, Šäwa, Goǧǧam, Tǝgray, Bägemdǝr and Dämbǝya. It was a landlocked polity, surrounded largely by Muslim states. The sultanate of ʿAdal, itself facing an internal crisis, continued to dominate the whole territory to the east of Šäwa; in the north the Christian state was bordered by Muslim Beǧa tribes and, since the 1530s, the Ottomans; in the west lived poorly centralized Gumuzspeaking and Berta tribes who were traditionally the raiding targets of the Christian military; and, to the south of the areas historically linked to the Christian state, largely Muslim, such as Gurage, Kambaata and Ǝnnarya, the different Oromo divisions pushed their massive expansion northwards. For the Christians access to the outer world was, therefore, largely dependent on its neighbors. The Red Sea and Indian Ocean shores were difficult to reach and 1 António Vieira, História do futuro [1664], ed. Maria Leonor Carvalhão Buescu (Lisboa: António Pedrozo Galram, 1718; Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, 1982), 322. 2 See Mordechai Abir, Ethiopia and the Red Sea: The Rise and Decline of the Solomonic Dinasty and Muslim-European Rivalry in the Region (London: Frank Cass, 1980), Chapter 4.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004289154_004

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the baḥǝr nägaš, a regional ruler subject to the nǝguś, had no effective control over the main ports of Massawa and Ḥǝrgigo (Arquico). Aḥmad Grañ’s death in 1543 brought only short relief to the Christians because soon afterwards the ʿAdali attacks resumed. Gälawdewos himself was murdered in February 1559 by Nūr b. Muǧāḥid, sultan of ʿAdal.3 His brother and successor, Minas (royal name Admas Sägäd), died in 1563 of fever during a campaign against the northwards advance of the Oromo.4 The arrival of the Portuguese in India did little to improve this state of affairs. For some decades the dispatch of regular armadas to the Estreito secured a route connecting Christian Ethiopia with Portuguese India. This option was used by the Christian state to send the envoy Ṣägga Zäʾab in 1526 and a series of letters to Europe.5 But, around the end of the 1550s, as was indicated above, the frequent patrolling of the area was discontinued and thereafter only a few Portuguese vessels made sporadic visits to the area. The acquisition of Diu in 1535 and its fortification after the siege of 1546 granted the Portuguese a secure grasp over this strategic port and thus rendered their costly armadas to the Estreito, such as the one commanded by Estevão da Gama in 1541, unnecessary. An important consequence of the Portuguese military incursions in the Red Sea was the erection by local polities of a series of fortifications in the region. Traditionally, as the use of modern artillery was largely unknown, the ports of the region lacked any serious defenses. The arrival of the heavily gunned Portuguese caravels and galleys was a novel development in regional warfare and obliged the local polities to stand up to the challenge. Thus, around 1506– 1507, the Mamlukes fortified Jiddah, probably following news of Portuguese ravages in the Indian Ocean, and, in 1515 or 1516, after Albuquerque’s shortlived occupation, the Egyptians built a fort on Kamaran Island.6 The port of Aden, at the time the position most coveted by the Portuguese, which had grown in importance since the Portuguese began obstructing Red Sea-India traffic, saw its fortifications reinforced after the sieges laid by Albuquerque and 3 Conzelman, Chronique de Galâwdêwos, 101–102 (text), 178–179 (trans.); Pereira, Historia de Minás, 26 (text), 44 (trans.); Manuel Fernandes to Diego Laínez, July 29, 1562, in arsi, Goa 11 I, 58r. 4 Pereira, Historia de Minás, 34 (text), 51 (trans.). Mohammed Hassen claims that Minas went to fight the Mäčča section of the Oromo; Mohammed Hassen, The Oromo of Ethiopia: A History 1570–1860 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 25. 5 Mateus, on the contrary, seems to have taken the traditional path followed by trade routes – mostly in the hands of Muslims – embarking for India in the port of Zaylaʿ aboard a Muslim ship; see Correia, Lendas da India, vol. II, 584. 6 Serjeant, The Portuguese off the South Arabian Coast, 49, 162.

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Lopo Soares de Albergaria in 1513 and 1517 respectively.7 In 1520 the arrival of an armada under governor Diogo Lopes de Sequeira, the same that landed Rodrigo da Lima at Massawa, pushed the Ottomans to take Sawakin and Zaylaʿ. In 1557 the Ottoman army of Ozdemir Pasha took Ḥǝrgigo and, two years later, his forces penetrated the Eritrean highlands and occupied the capital of the baḥǝr nägaš region, Dǝbarwa.8 Therefore, in the 1550s, although the Portuguese could claim to dominate the Indian Ocean trade and had consolidated the conquests of the generation of warmongers headed by Affonso de Albuquerque, they also definitively lost control over the Red Sea. That the men enforcing the patriarchal mission to Christian Ethiopia were not deterred by such an unfavorable context is witness to the importance they accorded the project as well as the confidence they had in their own capacities. After all, this was a period when no destination – in America, Africa or Asia – seemed difficult enough for the spiritual sons of Ignatius of Loyola and their main sponsor, João III. The Jesuits’ philosophy of action likely contributed to this sense of over-confidence. Strongly inspired by Paul the Apostle, it was imbued with the idea that, as Jerónimo Nadal expressed, ‘the world is our house’.9 A further factor in stimulating mission plans was the optimistic news that arrived from Ethiopia in the early 1550s. Gälawdewos had by then incorporated remnants of Christovão da Gama’s army in his service – who must have been a few dozen soldiers – and pursued an ambiguous game with Europe. Via the Portuguese soldiers he sent a number of friendly letters to Europe and, while 7 This development had already been observed by João de Barros, who commented: ‘With our arrival in India Aden became more prosperous and powerful’; Barros, Década II, liv. VII, Chapter VIII; see also Correia, Lendas da India, vol. II, 360. 8 The only thorough study of Ottoman colonization of what today is Eritrea’s hinterland remains the work written in Turkish by Cengiz Orhonlu, Osmanli Imparatorlugu’nun güney Siyaseti. Habes Eyaleti [‘The Southern Policy of the Ottoman Empire: The Eyalet of Habesh’] (Istanbul: Edebiyat Fakültesi Matbaasi, 1974); Casale offers some valuable hints to the same episode, though relying for the most part on Orhonlu’s work; Casale, The Ottoman Age, 107–108. 9 Nadal quoted in O’Malley, The First Jesuits, 46. The same point of view is a constant focus of Ignatius’s epistles. Thus, in a famous letter he addressed to Diogo Mirón, he wrote: ‘For if we were only interested in carrying out safe tasks and we tried to defer good deeds so as to be protected from any potential harm, we would not be able to live with and speak to the people. Yet, according to our vocation, we have to speak to everybody and, following the words of St. Paul, “We have to become all things to all men, to win them all to Christ”’; February 1, 1553, in Ignacio de Loyola, Monumenta Ignatiana, vol. 4, doc. 3220, 627. The quotation of St. Paul is 1 Cor 9:22: ‘I became all things to all men, that I might save all’ (also 1 Cor 10:33). See also O’Malley, The First Jesuits, 73.

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dismissing Bermudez’s claims to a patriarchate with the request of a metropolitan to the see of Alexandria, also had time to court the Portuguese from Ethiopia and India, probably to strengthen his political position at home.10 The Jesuits, in their turn, had been gathering intelligence on the nǝguś from the Portuguese veterans and in 1551 one of Francis Xavier’s first companions, the Flemish Gaspar Barzeo, came to the optimistic and bold conclusion that the Preste ‘was ready for a mission’.11 Last but not least, the military failure to control the Red Sea probably also contributed to the strengthening of the project of a mission to Ethiopia. There is room to argue that with the opening of the missionary era in Ethiopia Portuguese ambitions for the area were not abandoned but manifested themselves in other ways. The armadas stopped sailing to Bab-el-Mandeb but the Jesuits were no less aware of the geopolitical implications of their presence in the area. Throughout their stay in Ethiopia they laid plans to send a fleet to occupy Massawa and repeatedly requested to the Goan and Lisboan authorities to provide the necessary military means. Next to ‘intelligence’ reconnaissance, the missionaries’ most important geopolitical contribution was likely their very attempt to convert the nǝguś. With this they would render him a direct ally of Portugal and by way of their skills in statesmanship also form a modern powerful Prince in the heart of Africa. Portuguese decision-makers might have thought that, with the religious subtleties of the Jesuit priests, the Estado da India would indeed be able to reach further than with the hands of soldiers; their zeal and ambition to convert the natives could be a solution to  the chronic shortage of people, means and resources in India. The mission  could have been, therefore, the continuation of politics and war by ­alternative means. Be that as it may, when the mission set out the route to the Red Sea was blocked to the Portuguese. As the Jesuit Barzeo put it in 1551, the ‘[Ethiopian] king cannot navigate by sea and the Portuguese from Ethiopia wishing to go to India are obliged to wait upon our armadas travelling to the strait’.12 The Jesuits would ultimately settle this problem and during their some eighty years in 10 11

12

The new metropolitan, Yosäb, arrived in Ethiopia in 1547. In 1551 Gaspar Barzeo produced in India a report on the state of Ethiopia based mostly on hearsay from Portuguese soldiers in which he optimistically came to the conclusion that ‘the king is keen in learning about the true faith and wishes to discuss about such things’; Gaspar Barzeo, ‘Relatio de statu politico et religioso Aethiopiae…’, 1551, in raso x, doc. 6, 29. The role of the Portuguese living in Ethiopia could not have been unimportant in pressing the nǝguś towards a more Catholic-friendly policy. Evidence for this might be gathered in Gaspar Calaça to superior general, April 30, 1556, ibid., doc. 16, 61. Barzeo, 1551, in raso X, doc. 6, 34.

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Ethiopia they mostly used the century-old trade route linking the Gujarat with the Red Sea. The Gujarat-Red Sea route was never a completely safe one but, as time proved, it was the only one available to Christian missionaries in Muslimdominated territories. Before an explanation of how it functioned, a look into alternative ways explored during the mission is in order. The Gujarat-Red Sea route used by the missionaries did indeed have some drawbacks which accounted for the existence of the project, never completely abandoned, to reach Christian Ethiopia by following other routes. Possibilities left open to the Portuguese were scant, however. The route that fifteenth-century and earlier Europeans had used to reach Ethiopia, across the Mediterranean, Cairo and the Sudanese desert, was never properly undertaken. As a matter of fact, in the early years of the mission the Portuguese and Jesuits had agents in Egypt involved in the Ethiopian project. In 1561 one António Pinto, a Portuguese merchant and a former captive of the Ottomans, was commanded to bring a brief from Pope Pius IV to Gälawdewos via Cairo.13 In the letter of instructions to Pinto, Lourenço Pires de Tavora, Dom Sebastião’s ambassador in Rome and a former soldier in India, requested that the envoy check new routes through Cairo and the Banadir Coast (in the sources ‘Malindi coast’).14 Pinto reached Cairo in November 1562 but could not proceed further owing to political instability in Ethiopia.15 At about the same time two Jesuits, Cristóbal Rodríguez and Giovanni Battista Eliano, were active in the Egyptian capital, where they were involved in a different undertaking that was, nonetheless, related to the Ethiopian project: the conversion – which ultimately failed – of the Coptic Patriarch Gabriel VII Minchawi.16 Generally hostile conditions in Egypt made it nearly impossible or at least too expensive to secure passage for Catholic 13 14

15 16

The brief is Pius IV to Minas, August 20, 1561, in raso X, doc. 32. On the adventurous figure of Pinto, see Lourenço Pires de Tavora to the King, July 21, 1559, in cdp, vol. VIII, 171–175. On the routes for the mission, see: id. ad eundem, July 19, 1561, in cdp, vol. IX, 300–303; id. ad eundem, August 12, 1561, ibid. 313–318; id. to António Pinto, August 23, 1561, ibid. 329–335 (also in raso X, doc. 31); id. to Dom Sebastião, September 26, 1561, in cdp, vol. IX, 356–359; Dom Alvaro de Castro to Lourenço Pires de Tavora, December 22, 1562, in cdp, vol. X, 47; Lorenço Perez de Tavora to Minas, August 1561, in raso X, doc. 30, 117 and doc. 31. Fulgencio Freire to superior general, November 30, 1562, ibid., doc. 40, 157. The episode has been studied in Mario Scaduto, ‘La missione di Cristoforo Rodríguez al Cairo (1561–1563)’, Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu 27 (1958); and more recently in Maryks, The Jesuit Order as a Synagogue of Jews, 66–68. Late in 1568, Eliano was also considered as a candidate for the Ethiopian mission; Melchior Nunes Barreto to Francesco Borja, January 25, 1568, in arsi, Goa 8 III, 641v.

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missionaries. Thereafter, the route crossing Egypt was used only sporadically, in particular for correspondence sent to and from Italy (such was the case, it seems, with the numerous letters exchanged between Susǝnyos and the popes in the 1610s and 1620s). In 1627, four Jesuits attempted to reach Ethiopia following this route but failed as well.17 It was only towards the end of the mission, in the mid-seventeenth century, that Franciscan and Capuchin missionaries, well protected by a good friend of the Porte, France, could use this route once more to reach the Ethiopian highlands. Another of the alternative routes considered led across the Western African mainland. This was the route that João Afonso Aveiro had attempted in the fifteenth century under the rule of Dom João II.18 In March 1546 Dom João III informed the Portuguese soldiers in Ethiopia of the possibility – which he requested they further explore – of finding a route between Ethiopia and the Banadir Coast. In the same text, reminding us of the projects enforced by Dom João II in the previous century, the king also hinted at other routes through Manikongo – a kingdom with which the Portuguese were in contact through their outposts in Angola – or following the rivers that were believed to connect the Nile with the Cape of Good Hope.19 The imperfect hydrographical and cartographical knowledge of the interior of the African continent misled the king and, for that matter, his cartographers as regards the potential of the last two proposals. At the time the mission began, the borders of the continent were well known and accurately drawn in maps, but the interior of the huge African landmass was largely terra incognita at which the cartographers had to guess using the scant factual information at their disposal and their own imagination. Map-makers were then still influenced by the myth of the Nile river that characterized it as the ‘backbone’ of the whole African continent and still considered that Christian Ethiopia (Abyssinia or the Preste) was the continent’s most powerful and dominant polity (Plate 1).20 17 18

19

20

Aimarus Guerinus to superior general, September 14, 1627, in raso XII, doc. 64, 224; Gabriel Fernolux to superior general, March 25, 1628, ibid. doc. 69, 234. Similarly, as late as 1609, a Florentine agent recommended to the pope that the safest way to Ethiopia was by crossing the kingdom of Congo; Jeronimo Vecchietti to Paul V, 1609, in raso XI, doc. 26, 180 and passim. See João III to the Portuguese in Ethiopia, March 15, 1546, Almeirim, in Miguel de Castanhoso, The Portuguese Expedition to Abyssinia in 1541–1543 as Narrated by Castanhoso…[1564], ed., trans. R.S. Whiteway (Nendeln/Liechenstein: Kraus Reprint Ltd., 1967 [Hakluyt Society, 2nd series, n. X, ed. orig. 1902]), 114–115, 115. On the inaccuracy of early modern cartography the historian Randles wrote: ‘The notion of a vast African continent inhabited by primitive politically organised negro tribes was something Europe had still to grasp. If the vast length of the African coastline, in

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A few years after João’s letter exploration efforts became more realistic. The Portuguese living in India and Ethiopia tried to find routes connecting the southern Ethiopian highlands with the coast north of Cape Delgado, along the Swahili and Somali coasts. In these regions the Portuguese controlled a series of posts that secured them a loose military dominion: since 1503 they had been at Zanzibar; in 1499 they had established a trading post in Malindi, and later occupied Kilwa and Mombasa, where in 1593 they built the imposing Fort Jesus. In 1551 Barzeo mentioned Portuguese living in Ethiopia who claimed to know about rivers flowing towards Mogadishu, probably referring to the Shebelle (Webi Shabeelle) and Jubba rivers.21 During the second missionary period (1603–1632) the search for a safe route along the Swahili coast resumed. Around 1591, just before the two last missionaries from the first period passed away, an envoy of nǝguś Śärṩä Dǝngǝl (1563–1597), the monk Täklä Maryam, reached Rome bringing news from his land and some requests for the pope and Philip II of Spain. The monk also related optimistic prospects about reaching Ethiopia from Baraawe and Mogadishu.22 The Portuguese secretary to Philip II of Spain – and later also to his successor, Philip III – Miguel de Moura, seems to have taken notice of this and, between 1593 and 1617, in a series of letters, he pressed the Goan authorities on this subject.23 In turn, in 1613, Susǝnyos commissioned the Jesuit António Fernandes (1571–1642), a skilled missionary with nine years’ experience in the country, with a secret diplomatic mission to the pope and Philip III of Portugal. The envoys were meant to avoid the areas dominated by the Ottomans along the Red Sea shore and thus headed southwards, hoping to reach the port of Malindi. Ultimately, Fernandes and his aides traveled as far as the regions of Ǝnnarya, Kambaata, Ǧanǧäro and Hadiyya

21 22 23

comparison with that of Europe, was being slowly appreciated, there was no comparable appreciation of the immense unknown in the interior. Thus Abyssinia was stretched down to fill the vacuum, and the consequences of this are to be seen in maps of Africa well into the 18th century’; W.G.L. Randles, ‘South-east Africa as Shown on Selected Printed Maps of the Sixteenth Century’, in Id., Geography, Cartography and Nautical Science, Chapter XX, 74. Barzeo, 1551, in raso X, doc. 6, 32. Tecla Mariam [Täklä Maryam], ‘Relatio’, [1598], in raso X, doc. 146. For instance: Philip II to Governor of India, February 15, 1593, in raso X, doc. 125; id. ad eundem, November 21, 1598, ibid. doc. 147; Philip III ad eundem, March 21, 1617, in raso XI, doc. 47; and id. ad eundem, March 27, 1620, ibid. doc. 56. Moura was an experienced civil servant, for he had started his career as a escrivão da fazenda of João III and served three more rulers – Doña Catarina de Áustria, Dom Henrique and Dom Sebastião – before working for the Habsburg kings.

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but failed to achieve their objective.24 Some ten years later, with the impending arrival of Afonso Mendes, elected new Patriarch of Ethiopia, geographical examinations resumed. In 1624 the Jesuit Jerónimo Lobo made a trip to reconnoiter new routes crossing the areas of Pate-Jubo, ‘Macada’ (probably Merca) and Baraawe-Mogadishu and, towards the end of the decade, two Jesuits attempted to reach Ethiopia from Angola and the Congo.25 Lobo concluded that these alternatives would mean a ‘flood of expenses’ for the mission because on crossing every clan-dominated territory the Europeans were obliged to offer costly payments and gifts.26 Thus, in the end, these routes were abandoned.

Diu and the Banyans

The Gujarat-Red Sea route was thus the only practicable way left to the Portuguese and Jesuits who wanted to reach the Horn of Africa. From the first trip in 1555, made by mestre Gonçalo in a reconnaissance mission, to the last trip of the mission in 1630 by the Bishop Apollinar de Almeida, along with two companions, this was the route undertaken by nearly all the missionaries who worked in Ethiopia (Table 2) – the so-called via (or viagem) ordinaria. A look at how it worked will help us to understand some developments in the mission, 24 25

26

Annual letter of the Indian Province, 1613, in raso XI, doc. 36, 305–309. Juan de Velasco to André Palmeiro, July 25, 1624, in raso XII, doc. 32. For a summary of these attempts, see P.M. Gonçalves da Costa, ‘Caminhos para o Preste João’, from his excellent introduction to Jerónimo Lobo’s Itinerário e outros escritos inéditos [ca. 1668], ed. P.M. Gonçalves da Costa (Barcelos: Livraria Civilização, 1971), 22–31; also Miguel Affonso to superior general, May 24, 1630, in raso XII, doc. 106, 418; Juan Vogado to superior general, May 24, 1630, ibid. doc. 108, 421. Juan de Velasco to André Palmeiro, July 25, 1624, in raso XII, doc. 32, 80. According to an informant of the Jesuits in Goa, the costs the missionaries would have incurred when following one of these routes was 6,000 to 7,000 pardãos (18,000/21,000 reis); ibid. 77. This was an important sum if we consider that the income of the College of São Paulo in Goa, the wealthiest in India, in 1575 was 13,000 xerafims; Osswald, Written in Stone, 57. For a detailed description of the difficulties surrounding this route, see Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VII, Chapter VIII. Another source raises the costs to 750,000 reis. The importance of this sum can be better appraised by considering that, towards the end of the sixteenth century, the cost of sending a missionary to India from Lisbon was 640,000 reis; Alden, The Making of an Enterprise, 325. Similarly, in the early seventeenth century transportation costs for missionaries bound for America, all expenses included, amounted to 24,000 maravedies (about 211,202 reis); Carlos Martínez Shaw, La emigración española en América (1492–1824) (Gijón: Archivo de Indianos, 1994), 71.

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Routes

Routes undertaken by the Jesuits to Ethiopia, 1555–1630

Journeys Attempted Successful

Cairo-Sudan 3 Goa-Massawa 2 Banadir Coast 2 Diu-Massawa/ 3 Sawakinb Diu-Massawa/ 9 Sawakinc Diu-Danakil/Zaylaʿ 2 Total 19

Men reaching Cost per the mission mana

0 2 0 1

0 8 0 1

9

23

1 13

7e 39

750,000

 20,000d

Incidents

1 killed, 2 captive

2 killed

Legend: a in reis, estimated b without banyan and Ottoman involvement c with banyan and Ottoman help d estimated from the presents given at Sawakin and Massawa in 1623 and 1624 (Almeida paid at the customs of Sawakin ca. 17,800 reis) e the expedition included also thirteen servants. Sources: raso III; raso VI, 372–374, 462; raso XII, 77, 80, 110, 152, 295.

not only showing us how the missionaries moved within a generally hostile environment but also shedding light on alliances set up by the Jesuits at Diu, Massawa and Sawakin, which indirectly determined some missionary strategies and practices employed in Ethiopia. At the time the Portuguese reached India Gujarat was, as the historian Jean Aubin remarked, the ‘keystone of the commercial structures of the Indian Ocean’, and Diu was its center.27 Diu was both a transhipment hub and an 27

Jean Aubin quoted in Edward A. Alpers, ‘Gujarat and the Trade of East Africa, c. 1500– 1800’, The International Journal of African Historical Studies 9, 1 (1976): 24. An historical perspective on the Asian trade system and the role of the Gujarat ports is provided in James Innes Miller, The Spice Trade of the Roman Empire: 29  b.c. to a.d. 641 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), map 5; Neville Chittick, ‘Indian Relations with East Africa before the Arrival of the Portuguese’, Journal of the Royal African Society 2 (1980); Archibald Lewis, ‘Maritime Skills in the Indian Ocean: 1368–1500’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 16, 2–3 (1973); Pearson, Coastal Western India; M.D.D. Newitt, ‘East Africa and Indian Ocean Trade: 1500–1800’, in India and the Indian Ocean, 1500–1800, ed. A. Das Gupta and M.N. Pearson (Calcuta: Oxford University Press, 1987).

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exporting center. Most of the traffic – including the pilgrimage to Mecca – between Malacca, the Far East and the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf called at this port. The port also handled the bulk of exports of clothes from Gujarat, which, together with Bengal and the Coromandel Coast, was one of India’s three major textile areas. A few groups were active in leading trading activities: banyans, professing both Hindu and Jain religions, Arabs, Egyptians and Turks. Additionally, Armenian merchants were also involved in trading activities since earlier times. These socio-religious groups provided the complex set of offices and skills necessary for the trade and movements to flow: from the technical skills required to navigate (captains, sailors, pilots) to the merchant and capitalistic framework (shipbuilding, purchasing merchandise, banking, hospitality). One of the most actively engaged groups was the banyan, which had trading offices all over the Asiatic trade. Banyan trading offices were ­typically in charge of the xabandar, i.e. ‘ruler of the port’, and they were present in such important ports as Malacca, Massawa, Sawakin, Aden, Diu, Goa and Zaylaʿ.28 The Portuguese were aware of Diu’s strategic importance and soon made of it one of their central objectives.29 Moving the capital from Cochin to Goa would have been motivated, in part, by the intention to be closer to Diu.30 There, on February 3, 1509, they waged one of the fiercest naval battles of the century against a joint fleet of the Mamluk sultanate, the Ottoman Empire, Calicut and the Sultan of Gujarat.31 In 1535, the Viceroy Nuno da Cunha signed a treaty allowing the Portuguese use of the port. Subsequently, the Portuguese built a fortress and withstood two major sieges in 1538 and 1546. Finally, in 1553, Dom Diogo de Noronha assumed the government of the whole island, 28

On the office of the xabandar see Yule and Burnell, Hobson-Jobson, 816–817. On banyan presence in Zaylaʿ, see Bernardo Pereira to provincial in Goa, June 1, 1624, in raso XII, doc. 29, 65. 29 The first to inform the Portuguese of the conditions of the Asian trade were Italians merchants and agents. One of the first was probably Ludovico de Varthema, author of a famous Itinerario [ca. 1503]; see in particular Ludovico de Varthema, Itinerario [ca. 1503], ed. Paolo Giudici (Milano: Alpes, 1928); also Giovanni da Empoli, § Second Letter to his father, 1514, in Noonan, John of Empoli, 25–26, 149–179. An interesting work summarizing the century-old dynamics the Portuguese met in Asia is: Francisco Roque de Oliveira, ‘Os portugueses e a Asia marítima, c. 1500–c. 1640: contributo para uma leitura global da primeira expansão europeia no oriente. 1ª parte: os mares da Asia no início do século xvi’, Geo Crítica-Scripta Nova [Revista electrónica de geografía y ciencias sociales] 7, 151 (2003), accessed: October 15, 2013, url: http://www.ub.edu/geocrit/sn/sn-151.htm. 30 See Serjeant, The Portuguese off the South Arabian Coast, 18. 31 Casale, The Ottoman Age, 27.

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including its lavish custom duties. Although never evolving into a major Portuguese settlement, thereafter Diu became, with Hormuz, Baçaim (Vasai) and Goa, one of the four main sources of income for the treasury of the Estado da India.32 Its occupation also changed the way the Estado was organized: the Portuguese policy of diverting the entire Asian spice trade to the Cape of Good Hope was abandoned and the century-old routes flowing to the mare Rubro resumed.33 The Portuguese came to learn that it was much more realistic and financially rewarding to participate in the profits of regional trade with the system of cartazes and by individual commercial joint ventures than to try to eliminate it for the sake of Christendom.34 The Jesuits, active in India since 1541, appear to have been rather inexperienced initially at moving both in the Ethiopian highlands and in the Indian Ocean waters. In 1555 a first convoy of missionaries, formed by the Portuguese ambassador Diogo Dias and the Jesuit envoys mestre Gonçalo and Fulgencio Freire, reached Ethiopia aboard a ship escorted by a small fleet from Goa. In 1556 two small ships (fustas) captained by António Peixoto landed at Massawa and took João Bermudez, ten Portuguese soldiers and the two Jesuit fathers back to Goa.35 The following year, on March 29, a second convoy of missionaries called at Massawa. It carried Bishop Andrés de Oviedo, Fathers Manuel Fernandes and Andrés Gualdames and Brothers Francisco Lopes, Gonçalo Cardoso and António Fernandes (1532–1593).36 However, on April 20, 1557, just 32 Godinho, Os descobrimentos e a economia mundial, vol. 3, table: ‘Situação financeira do império oriental português em 1574’. 33 Magalhães Godinho dates the revival of the trade route crossing the Red Sea to the 1550s and 1560s, when this route was on a par with the Lisbon-Cape of Good Hope route; Godinho, Os descobrimentos e a economia mundial, vol. 3, 132–133. Earlier, Frederic C. Lane reached the same conclusion, ‘The Mediterranean Spice Trade: Its Revival in the Sixteenth Century’, in Id., Venice and History. The Collected Papers of Frederic C. Lane (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1966), 25–34. 34 On the cartaz system see Malyn Newitt, A History of Portuguese Overseas Expansion, 1400– 1668 (London and New York: Routledge, 2005), 70, 103; George D. Winius, ‘Few Thanks to the King: The Building of Portuguese India’, in Studies on Portuguese Asia, Chapter XX, 491–492; and Diffie and Winius, Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 274, 321, 416, 420, 431. 35 Gonçalves, Primeira parte, vol. II, 139. 36 Manuel Fernandes et al. to Laínez, July 29, 1962, in raso X, doc. 39, 147. As regards António Fernandes, there were, throughout the mission period, three Jesuit companions who bore that name. The most relevant was the second to have reached the mission, António Fernandes (1571–1642). The first to arrive has been mentioned above and the third, António Fernandes (1602–1635), played only a marginal role. Unless specified, whenever the name appears in the text I will be referring to the second missionary.

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a few days after that trip, the Ottomans under Ozdemir Pasha occupied Ḥǝrgigo and thereafter made traveling to the Red Sea a hazardous undertaking for the Portuguese fleets. The six Jesuit missionaries who had reached Ethiopia thus remained isolated for decades to come: communications between Christian Ethiopia and Portuguese India were almost entirely blocked and the mission received very few of the materials – books, church paraphernalia, images – and funding necessary for its development and renewal.37 Against this backdrop authorities in Goa and Rome shifted their attention to the military. So in 1562 Father Melchior Carneiro, bishop coadjutor for Ethiopia but residing in Goa, discussed with the Superior general Diego Laínez the plan to send a military force of 1,000 men to the Red Sea.38 A few months later, Father Melchior Nunes Barreto, who was the superior of those aiming for Ethiopia, insisted on the same idea before the superior general and the Portuguese authorities.39 The plan lingered for some decades and even achieved some backing from the lords of Portuguese India, but it was never put into practice.40 Without having been able to push forward their military plans, towards the end of the century the Jesuits made four more attempts to reach Ethiopia, all but one of which was unsuccessful. In 1560 the coadjutor Fulgencio Freire, during his second trip to Ethiopia, was taken captive by Ottoman forces near Massawa and was sent as a prisoner to Cairo.41 Two years later the Ottomans at Ḥǝrgigo killed the priest Andrés Gualdames, who had earlier requested permission to abandon the mission and was on his way back to India.42 In 1589 the Castilian Pedro Páez and the Catalan Antonio de Montserrat departed from Muscat, then a Portuguese possession, for Ethiopia. They were, however, captured in Dhofar and spent six years in captivity in different places in Hadramawt and Yemen.43 On April 30, 1595, at Massawa, it was discovered that Abraham de 37

In 1580, for instance, the powerful Jesuit visitor Alessandro Valignano wrote that ‘it was not possible to send from India [to Ethiopia] neither funding nor any other thing to the fathers…’; Alessandro Valignano, August 1580, in DI, vol. XIII, doc. 2. Evidence, however, attests that during this period information circulated between Ethiopia and Rome through Cairo; for instance, Juan de Polanco to Jerónimo Nadal, May 4, 1563, Trento, in Nadal, Epistolae P. Hieronymi Nadal, vol. 2, doc. 274, 271 note 5. 38 Melchior Carneiro to Diego Laínez, November 30, 1562, in di, vol. V, doc. 84. 39 Melchior Nunes Barreto to Diego Laínez, January 24, 1563, in di, vol. V, doc. 113. 40 See Melchior Nunes Barreto to Diego Laínez, January 10, 1564, in di, vol. VI, doc. 28; Alessandro Valignano to Everardo Mercuriano, November 10, 1576, in di, vol. X, doc. 43. 41 Manuel Fernandes et al. to superior general, July 29, 1562, in raso X, doc. 39, 155. 42 Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso III, liv. III, Chapter XII. 43 See C.F. Beckingham and R.B. Serjeant, ‘A Journey by Two Jesuits from Dhufār to San’ā in 1590’, The Geographical Journal 115, 4/6 (1950).

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Georgiis, a Maronite priest who had left Diu for the Ethiopian mission, was a missionary and he was killed on the spot.44 Only in 1598 did a Jesuit of Indian origin, Melchior da Sylva, manage to reach Ethiopia safely via Diu. By then, all the missionaries in Ethiopia had died and da Silva remained isolated in Fǝremona, ministering to the Ethio-Portuguese mixed-race group. Things changed with the establishment of the Jesuit College of São Paulo at Diu. Unlike the cases of most of the other Jesuit settlements in India, the motivation behind coming to this town was purely strategic. The town hosted only a small Christian community and the residence was principally intended to open up the way for Ethiopia.45 In 1575 Alessandro Valignano had sent Father Domingo da Silva on a reconnaissance mission to the Gujarati port to assess its suitability as a jumping-off point for Ethiopia.46 By the turn of the century Jesuit visitor Nicolão Pimenta had opened a residence in Diu with the decisive support of Viceroy Aires de Saldanha, who had provided about 3,000 ducados (990,000 reis) for the purchase of lands.47 In ca. 1602 Soares arrived at the port together with a temporal coadjutor, presumably João Martins. Thereafter works at the church of São Paulo, where in the initial stages Pedro Páez was also involved, began.48 The completion of the church and the adjoining college, which eventually turned into one of the most impressive architectonic works of the Society of Jesus in the East, was the responsibility of the temporal 44

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On the Maronite Abraham de Georgiis there remain doubts about his Jesuit identity. Written evidence could suggest he was not a full member of the Jesuit order but a simple lay priest who due to his dark skin was coopted for the Ethiopian project; so, in a letter sent by Hieronymo Xavier to the superior general concerning the envoy of Melchior da Sylva and Abraham de Georgiis to Ethiopia, Xavier expressed his opposition to sending a ‘secular priest’; Hieronymo Xavier to Claudio Acquaviva, August 13, 1598, in arsi, Goa 46 I, Mogur 15550–1680, 39r. The same Georgiis authored a report dated December 30, 1593 on the errors of the Thomas Christians; see di, vol. XVI, 12*, 53*. In the period 1621–1633, there were about sixty Portuguese couples and 100 local Christians in Diu, in contrast to the some 3,000 Portuguese of Goa and 2,000–4,000 in Cochin for the same period; Vitorino Magalhães Godinho, Ensaios II: Sobre história de Portugal (Lisboa: Sá da Costa, 1968), 211. Domingo da Silva to Everardo Mercuriano, November 20, 1575, in di, vol. X, doc. 9, 117. See Gaspar Soarez to Nicolão Pimenta, May 3, 1600, in Robert Streit and Johannes Dindinger (eds.), Bibliotheca Missionum, vol. 16 (Freiburg: Herder, 1952), doc. 2220 (summary); Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso III, liv. IV, Chapter III; Guerreiro, Relaçam annal, 270v; Pedro Páez to Tomás de Ituren, September 2, 1601, in raso XI, doc. 7, 30; Manoel de Almeida to superior general, September 7, 1623, in raso XII, doc. 12, 23. Pedro Páez to Tomás de Ituren, November 2, 1601, in raso XI, doc. 7, 30; Bartholomé Alcazar, ‘Chrono-historia de la Compañía de Jesús en la Provincia de Toledo, Decada V’, ca. 1710, Biblioteca Histórica, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Ms 559, 97v.

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coadjutor João Martins ‘Junior’.49 Henceforth, as a result of an intervention by King Philip III of Spain (1598–1621), the Jesuits received full institutional support in their new outpost. The governors Aires de Saldanha (1600–1605) and his successor Martim Afonso de Castro (1605–1607) granted them a series of privileges: a levy of 0.5 percent on all the goods intended for the fortification of the fortress and a yearly payment of 100 pardãos de larins (30,000 reis) from the port customs for the maintenance of the schools in Ethiopia.50 Portuguese society in India also contributed to the budget and the influential archbishop of Goa, Dom Frei Alexo de Meneses (1595–1610 and 1559–1617), who had also funded the trip of Abraham de Georgiis and Melchior da Sylva to Ethiopia, gave a grant of 1,000 cruzados (360,000 reis) yearly and another of 300 pardãos (90,000 reis) to the Jesuits in Diu. In addition, the priests also received voluntary donations from the banyan community for the construction of their houses.51 To all intents and purposes, therefore, the Ethiopian mission found, at Diu, an important gateway. The port, which by the time the Jesuits arrived was at the peak of its prosperity, offered them regular communication with the Red Sea, a considerable source of revenue as well as credit and, as will be shown later, an inspiring socio-cultural milieu that had an impact on the mission culture implanted in Ethiopia.52 49

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In Chapter Six, a more detailed summary about João Martins ‘Junior’ is provided; on his involvement in the construction of the church and college of Diu, see arsi, Goa 24 II, ‘Goana Brev et Trienn. 1552–94’, 421r, 454v; arsi, Goa 27, ‘Ctlg. Breves Prov. Goanae, 1609– 1752’, 21r, 23v, 26r. According to Godinho, les jésuites étaient charges d’administrer tout ce qui concernait les 0.5% et les fortifications; Vitorino Magalhães Godinho, Les finances de l’état portugais des Indes Orientales (1517–1635). Matériaux pour une étude structurale et conjoncturelle (Paris: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 1982), 75; see also Philip III of Spain to the viceroy, March 28, 1608, in Raymundo A. de Bulhão Pato (dir.), Documentos remettidos da India ou livros das monções, tomo I (Lisboa: Typographia da Academia Real das Sciencias, 1885), doc. 82 (also in raso XI, doc. 23); Id. to Ruy Lourenço de Tavora, March 12, 1611, in Ibid. tomo II (Lisboa: Typographia da Academia Real das Sciencias, 1884), doc. 200. Almeida informed that towards the last decades of the sixteenth century the Portuguese Crown had assigned for the Ethio-Portuguese an annual payment of 1,000 pardãos (300,000 reis), a sum that should be obtained from the revenues of the customs in Diu; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso V, liv. IV, Chapter XXIV. This later privilege was strongly contested by the king because it diminished royal revenues and could cause trouble with the local merchant community; see Philip III of Spain to the viceroy of India, March 28, 1608, in Pato, Documentos remettidos da India, tomo I, doc. 82; Philip III of Spain to the viceroy of India, December 23, 1609, Ibid. doc. 95; Philip III of Spain to Ruy Lourenço de Tavora, February 4, 1610, Ibid. doc. 107. Alpers, ‘Gujarat and the Trade of East Africa’, 32.

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Throughout the unfolding of the second missionary period (1603–1632) Diu maintained its status as a ‘connecting residence’ with the Ethiopian mission. The banyan-funded church of São Paulo became an imposing example of Indo-Jesuit art but the activities at the residence were very limited, a shadow of those in other Indian centers presided over by the Jesuits. The school had just a few children and the house hosted mostly missionaries who were moving to and from Ethiopia. The hosts of the house spent most of time preparing for the mission and learning Ethiopian languages.53 The rectors at Diu were delegates (procuradores) of the Ethiopian mission and their principal duty was to take care of the payments and shipments for Ethiopia. With time, however, this dual goal also resulted in conflict and dispute, as will be seen in Chapter 6. In 1603 Pedro Páez inaugurated the first in a series of successful missionary expeditions to Ethiopia that took the main trade route linking Diu with Massawa and Sawakin (see Table 2). Until the fall of the mission in 1632, nine trips ran almost unmolested along this route, with no reported serious incidents.54 It is now appropriate to examine how this route worked. The route to Ethiopia was, above all, dependent on travel conditions in the Indian Ocean, which were directly determined by the monsoons. The dry monsoons blow north-east to southwestwards, affording travel in that direction from September to March; the wet monsoons moved in the opposite direction between June and September. The first Red Sea-bound ships sailed in November or December and the last ones between March and April.55 We know that the missionaries preferred to leave Diu with the last convoys, a choice probably related to the distance between Diu and the main Jesuit 53 54

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For instance, in 1608 two Jesuits in Diu were said to be ‘learning the [Ethiopian] language’; Annual letter of the Indian Province, 1608, in raso XI, doc. 22. On Páez’s role at ‘opening’ the route from Diu to the Red Sea see Barradas, Tractatus tres historico-geographici, in raso IV, Chapter III, where it is apparent that Páez initially arranged things with Ottoman merchants without formal approval from the Jesuit provincial Manoel de Veiga. At the same time, Páez’s long captivity in Yemen and years of wandering across the Red Sea must have been fundamental in providing him with the knowledge and skills to organize the travel system to Ethiopia. In 1589, when he was barely 25 years old and largely inexperienced, he accepted the reckless proposal made by an Armenian merchant to take him and Montserrat to their destination via Baçora (Al Bashrah) and Cairo; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. V, Chapter I. Such a proposal would have appeared to him, ten years later, as completely unrealistic. Michael N. Person, Pilgrimage to Mecca. The Indian Experience, 1500–1800 (Princeton: Markus Wiener Pub., 1966), 101. Missionary sources speak of an average of 20 naos reaching every year Diu from Massawa, Sawakin and Mocha; Annual letter, 1606, in raso XI, doc. 17, 74.

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centers in central India; most of the missionaries lived in Goa, Baçaim, Rachol, Chaul and Cochin and the journey from these regions to Diu was long, up to two or three months, and was regularly obstructed by both local bandits off the Malabar coast and Dutch and British pirates (corsairos), so the trips had to rely on the escorts provided by the so-called armada do norte.56 Moreover, as the missionaries traveled to Diu only once the local Jesuits from Diu had arranged the trip they necessarily had to miss the first convoys to the Red Sea. Finally, an additional factor could have been the time-consuming dealings with local merchants at Diu.57 The final journey to the Red Sea lasted between three weeks to two months, depending on the winds and the calls made along the Omani and Hadramawt coasts. Accordingly, the missionaries usually reached the ports of Massawa and Sawakin between May and July.58 The vessels taking the reverse trip began sailing in May, but most of the ships apparently departed towards early September. During the journey to the Red Sea the Jesuits penetrated areas far removed from the control of the Estado da India and therefore could not count on any military support whatsoever. Instead, to successfully reach their destination unmolested they had to rely on the trust and friendship gained of merchants in Diu and Ottoman officials in the Red Sea. A central factor that rendered this possible was the privileged position they enjoyed at Diu. At the Gujarati port the Jesuits acted as mediators on behalf of Ottoman officials, merchants and sailors, obtaining for them favors and privileges.59 This arrangement was paid back to them during the trips to Ethiopia, as frequently hinted at in the annual 56

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Manoel de Almeida, for instance, took two months to reach Diu from Baçaim; Almeida, 1623, in raso XII, doc. 12, 20. The most descriptive account of the trip from the area of Goa to Diu and Massawa remains that from 1623–1624 by Manoel de Almeida himself and three other fellow Jesuits; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter I; see also Almeida, 1623, in raso XII, doc. 12, 20. On Dutch activities in India and their effects on the Jesuits since the early seventeenth century, see Alden, The Making of an Enterprise, 159 and passim. For the destruction in 1612 of thirteen banyan vessels by the Dutch in the Red Sea, see Annual Letter, 1613, in raso XI, doc. 36, 308. On this procedure see Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter XV. During the 1623 trip the winds were weak enough to oblige the vessel carrying the four missionaries – Manoel de Almeida, Manoel Barradas, Francisco Carvalho and Luís Cardeira – to stop at Dhofar and wait until the monsoons of the next year; Almeida, 1623, in raso XII, doc. 12, 21. On the role of the Jesuits as middlemen see Annual letter, 1606, in raso XI, doc. 17, 75; Annual letter, 1608, ibid. doc. 22; Manoel Barradas to superior general, May 20, 1631, in raso XII, doc. 113, 444.

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letters.60 The captains of the ships, Ottoman officials, the pashas of MassawaSawakin and the banyan merchants were reported to be on friendly terms with the Jesuits.61 The Ottoman pashas granted the missionaries the necessary passports or formãos to reach Massawa and Sawakin and in general offered the missionaries an atmosphere of security.62 However, not all movements were easy. Some incidents are specifically mentioned, such as one in 1607 when Jesuits from India complained of the exactions exerted on the banyans by an Albanian named ‘Senam Pasha’ (probably Yemen Bayerlebi Hasan Pasha), then residing in Mocha, which, with Massawa and Sawakin, was one of the three ports where these officials initially resided. Senam Pasha was also accused of having stolen the royal contribution for the mission. To remedy the situation the Porte, itself interested in keeping peaceful relations with the Europeans, was said to have ‘sent one official to command over all the rest’.63 In 1609 the pasha staying at Sawakin (Murtaza Pasha) reportedly stole the pieces of fabric the Crown of Portugal had sent for  the Ethio-Portuguese children in Ethiopia. However, the fact that Páez 60

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Guerreiro summarized it in his chronicle: ‘Because from this town and harbor our companions depart in ships owned by Turkish or Muslim merchants, who, since they are in debt with us for all the favors they receive in Diu when doing their business, take them [the fathers] safely to Ethiopia’; Guerreiro, Relaçam annal, 270v. The names of captains and navigators friends of the missionaries are seldom mentioned. In a letter from 1560 two nacodas from Diu and Cairo are mentioned as being on friendly terms with the Jesuits; Fulgencio Freire to João Nunes Barreto, August 12, 1560, in raso X, doc. 27, 103–112. In 1603, Gaspar Suarez informed that Páez traveled in the ship of one ‘Megapareca’; Suarez to provincial in Goa, March 23, 1603, in raso XI, doc. 12, 43. Nacoda was a title of Persian origin used in the Orient for skipper, master of a native vessel, owner of the ship; Sebastião Rodolfo Dalgado, Glossário Luso-Asiático (Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade, 1919–21; repr. Hamburg: Buske, 1982), vol. 2, 88–89. Also Yule and Burnell, Hobson-Jobson, 612. Formãos, from the Turkish ferman or firman, written permission issued by the Ottoman officials. For evidence see Almeida, 1623, in raso XII, doc. 12. Ali Pasha, an Ottoman official born in Sevilla, mediated in 1595 at Mocha for the liberation of Monsterrat and Páez; Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso III, liv. III, Chapter XX. Páez also secured his trip of 1603 thanks to his friendship with the officers of the pasha of Massawa and Sawakin (Ali or Ibrahim Pasha), one of them being ‘Raçuân Agâ’; Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso III, liv. IV, Chapter II and Chapter III. See also Annual letter of the Indian Province, 1606, in raso XI, doc. 17, 75. A missionary source further comments that in ca. 1620 the acting pasha in Sawakin (Ahmed Pasha?) was so sympathetic with the Portuguese that he would have thought of converting to Catholicism; see Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VII, Chapter XXIX. Annual letter of the Indian Province, 1607, in raso XI, doc. 19, 81; Luís de Azevedo to provincial in Goa, ibid. doc. 24, 157.

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energetically complained to the then governor of Tǝgray, Amsalä Krǝstos, about it – and the latter eventually to the pasha himself – could indicate that this action was a rarity rather than the norm.64 Furthermore, in the mid-1620s, some developments strained the relationship between the Catholic missionaries and the Ottomans. The appointment of the Latin patriarch Afonso Mendes was indubitably a major factor. His appearance on the scene automatically deprived the Sawakin customs of the lavish fees – estimated at 40,000 to 50,000 cruzados (14,400,000 to 18,000,000 reis) – that the nǝguś of Ethiopia paid to obtain passage for the Coptic metropolitans sent from Cairo.65 So, towards 1623, the Jesuits began having problems in obtaining the ferman and the subsequent convoys of missionaries that were deprived of it traveled at their own risk hoping to request the document at Massawa. The situation became worst towards 1624, as the banyan merchants refused to furnish ships to Sawakin and Massawa owing to the harassment they had been receiving from the Ottomans at Mocha in 1622 and 1624.66 These inconveniences prompted the Jesuits, as I have shown above, to resume old explorations for an alternative port connecting Christian Ethiopia to India. In 1624 two missionaries, Francisco Machado and Bernardo Pereira, landed at the main port of the Muslim sultanate of ʿAdal, Zaylaʿ, which they might have mistaken for the port of Baylul, more to the north-west. They were taken captive and executed despite the repeated offering by Ethiopian Christian authorities to pay a generous ransom.67 The following year an expedition that included the Patriarch Afonso Mendes was more fortunate. It left Diu on April 1 aboard two galliotas arranged by captain Lopo Gomes de Avreu for the occasion; on May 3, it reached the small port of Baylul (Baylur), today in Eritrea, thereafter crossing the Danakil desert, and by June it had safely arrived at Fǝremona.68 This expedition, eventually the largest ever to be sent, which comprised seven missionaries and at least thirteen servants, was a diplomatic 64 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VII, Chapter X. 65 Sebastião Barreto, Annual letter of the Indian Province, in raso XI, doc. 67, 516. 66 Afonso Mendes to Brothers of the Portuguese Province, July 9, 1625, in raso XII, doc. 47, 138, 141. The reaction of banyans at this crisis fits with their general avoidance of conflict, as reported by Newitt: ‘Indian merchants did not settle in areas of political instability’; Newitt, ‘East Africa and Indian Ocean Trade’, 217. Yet, earlier encounters with the Dutch – who, around 1612, sacked thirteen banyan vessels – do not seem to have posed a problem to the annual convoys; [Francesco Antonio de Angelis], Annual letter, 1613, in arsi, Goa 39 I bis, 103–10v (a Latin copy in raso XI, doc. 36), 109v. 67 Gaspar Paes, Annual letter, June 15, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 241v, 246r. See also Merid, ‘Southern Ethiopia and the Christian Kingdom’, 485–487. 68 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter XVI, XVII.

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achievement of its own. It owed its success to the important diplomatic efforts made by Susǝnyos, Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos and the then governor of Tǝgray, the proJesuit Qǝbʾä Krǝstos, before the Danakil sultan, who, it is to be assumed, also received a lavish reward. Yet, the crossing of the Danakil desert from 1625 was the first and last of its kind, a fact that highlights its exceptionality. The costs of such a journey might have been deemed too large and the truthfulness of the ʿAfar inhabiting the Danakil too frail to be ever attempted again. The banyans, who provided most of the financial backing for Portuguese enterprise and the Estado da India, were also the Jesuits’ main creditors.69 In 1560 local merchants, one nacoda Abda Raman and one nacoda Ismael are mentioned as potential creditors in paying for the rescue of a group of Portuguese – among whom was the missionary Fulgencio Freire – imprisoned in Cairo.70 In 1596 a local merchant provided the 1,000 cruzados (360,000 reis) to set Páez and Montserrat, then in captivity in Mocha, free. He acted against the agreement by the Portuguese viceroy that he would be reimbursed in India.71 Over three decades later, on the occasion of the expulsion of the Jesuits from Ethiopia, the banyans from Sawakin provided them with the capital to buy their ransom while captive of the pasha. Besides that, it is likely that the same source of credit was used to pay for passage, for the purchase of material at Diu and for the expedition of letters. A third partner the missionaries counted on were the Portuguese who were involved in trade. Although their role was secondary when compared with the groups mentioned above, in the first decades of the mission they appear to have made a significant contribution to this undertaking. During this period it was Portuguese merchants who fleeted special boats at their own cost and risk 69

Compare with Newitt, ‘East Africa and Indian Ocean Trade’, 210, 214, 216. For evidence on emprestimos (‘loans’) made to the banyans: Philip III of Spain to Dom Jeronymo de Azevedo, February 14, 1613, in Pato, Documentos remettidos da India, 1884, tomo II, doc. 314, 322: ‘Requests to open an investigation on the loan that was taken from the banyans and the locals during the government of Archbishop Dom Frey Aleixo de Meneses [1607– 1609]’; and Id. ad eundem, March 14, 1616, in Ibid., 1885, tomo III, doc. 743, 479: ‘From the inquiry I have been informed that the chief judge, Diogo Lobo Pereira, received loans that had been previously requested to the banyans by Dom Pedro Coutinho, Dom Henrique de Noronha and Dom Jorge Castel Branco, when these were captains of this fortress; these [the banyans] satisfied their petitions thus suffering a great loss’. Insightful comments on the banyans’ paramount role as financers and creditors in the Red Sea area appear in Jonathan Miran, Red Sea Citizens: Cosmopolitan Society and Cultural Change in Massawa (Bloomington [u.a.]: Indiana Univ. Press, 2009), 71, 136–144. 70 Fulgencio Freire to João Nunes Barreto, August 12, 1560, in raso X, doc. 27, 111. 71 Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso III, liv. III. Chapter XXI.

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to take missionaries and merchandise to the Ethiopian shore. Thus, one Toralva went to Ethiopia in ca. 1561, probably to meet the Ottomans at Massawa and to negotiate for the liberation of the Portuguese captives in Cairo.72 Another Portuguese who reportedly played a leading role during the first decades was Luís de Mendoça. Described as a Portuguese casado from Diu, for some years Mendoça oversaw the traffic of letters between the mission and India. In 1589 he asked the king for payment for such service and, with the help of banyan traders, also arranged the fateful trip to Ethiopia of Montserrat and Páez.73 Friendship and trust ensured both safe passage for most of the missionaries who traveled to the Horn of Africa and the exchange of goods and letters between Diu and the Red Sea. Thus, between 1603 and 1630 no missionary was killed or detained while using the via ordinaria and letters and goods appear to have reached their destination on schedule.74 However, Diu was a sort of frontier for the Portuguese in India; beyond that port began foreign territory. Officials there were Portuguese, but almost all the traders, merchants and locals the missionaries interacted with were not.75 The missionaries had to travel in small groups and aboard Indian or Arab-owned ships that were frequently loaded with Muslim pilgrims to Mecca and consequently some precautions were in order. The Jesuits tended to travel undercover and at Diu they bought cabayas, tocas and ‘turbans’ and adopted an Eastern look. The disguise that seems to have prevailed was that of an Armenian.76 The reason for such a 72 73

Manuel Fernandes to Fulgencio Freire, July 28, 1562, in raso X, doc. 38, 144. The memorial describes his job as ‘forwarding the letters for our Fathers in Ethiopia, for the Portuguese, and the King’; ‘Relación del P. Provincial de la Compañia Oriental a El Rei Nsso. Sr.’, November 10, 1589, in ags, Libro 1551, 738r–v; also ‘Relación sobre las cosas de la India’, November 28, 1587, Ibid. 34–43r, 39r. This is also corroborated by Almeida in História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. V, Chapter I; Alessandro Valignano to Philip I of Portugal, December 3, 1587, in di, vol. XIV, doc. 102, 684. 74 News did not take more time to reach the Ethiopian mission than other missions. Thus, news of the canonization of Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier reached the Ethiopian court in Dänqäz in March 1624, mere months after they had arrived in Goa (about September 1623); see Georg Schurhammer, ‘Die Heiligsprechung Franz Xavers. Zum 12. März 1922’, in Id., Gesammelte Studien, vol. IV: Varia, I: Anhänge (Roma – Lisboa: Institutum Historicum S.I. and Centro de Estudos Históricos ultramarinos, 1965), doc. 139, 493. 75 On more than one occasion the missionaries revealed their embarrassment at, once aboard the vessels, having to contemplate the Hindu and Muslim ceremonies the navigators officiated as good omens for the journey e.g. Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapters I–II. 76 Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso III, liv. IV, Chapter III; Bernardo Pereira to provincial in Goa, June 1, 1624, in raso XII, doc. 29, 65; Barreto, 1623, in raso XI, doc. 67, 513. Patriarch Mendes was not spared from this compulsory practice; see ‘Noticias que o Provincial da

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preference is never detailed, but we may speculate. Armenians were Christian merchants who played an important role in the Asian trade. Moreover, they looked relatively Mediterranean and shared with the Jesuits an abhorrence for the widespread practice of circumcision in the region.77 These reasons made them a reasonable choice. An alternative disguise is reported for 1623, during the trip of the visitor Manoel de Almeida and three other companions. Then the missionaries did not use the blue color distinguishing the Armenians but were dressed as Ottoman Sodagares, which, as the source implied, was a complicated stratagem to appear as Armenians in disguise.78 Another precaution the missionaries took while on board was to distance themselves from their protectors, the nacodas and banyan traders, showing no signs of friendship towards them.79 Revealing a connivance with the traders and the convoy leaders would surely have aroused suspicion about their true identity. Additionally, sources record that banyan commanders tried to pass Bab-el-Mandeb at night in order to avoid the control of the Ottomans at Mocha, who extorted, it seems, exaggerated customs fees.80 Comprehensive costs of the journeys to Ethiopia are nowhere fully reported, and even less so the expenses of shipping all the material the Jesuits sent from India as well as the correspondence exchanged between India and Ethiopia. For the journeys proper there is no written evidence of any payments. This, however, does not seem to be a sign of omission. Jesuits were – especially from the 1610s onwards – quite tedious in reporting the smallest details about their journeys and whereabouts. Therefore, it must be assumed that if they had paid they would have recorded the costs for at least one of the six occasions they

77

78

79

80

Companhia de Jesus da Provincia de Goa manda a Real Academia de Portugal…’, ca. 1720, in bnl, cod. 176 [F. 2527], 42r–78v, 52r. However, there is evidence that this practice had been endured previously by Portuguese agents in the East. In a letter from 1514 Albuquerque inquired: ‘those whom you sent there, were not dressed like moors and, besides, was not one of them circumcised in Malindi?’; October 25, 1514, in Affonso de Albuquerque, Cartas de Affonso de Albuquerque, Carta LXXIV, 316. ‘With two shirts, turbans, Moorish-like trousers, feigning to be what they were not. So, in this way the rumor spread that they were Armenians’; Barreto, 1623, in raso XI, doc. 67, 513. This appears clearly in a statement by the procurador Soarez, who explains the need to breach the code of security with some officials: ‘for it was necessary to warn some people of the departure, namely the captain of this fortress, the captain of the ship where the father travels, and a banyan who handled with the Turks, and another who has his agents in Dahlak, and another one who deals with the things and letters of Ethiopia; so far all these men have shown to be loyal’; Soarez, 1603, in raso XI, doc. 12, 41. Pedro Páez to provincial in Goa, July 24, 1603, in raso XI, doc. 14, 49.

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approached the Red Sea between 1620 and 1630 (in 1620, 1623, 1624, 1625, 1628 and 1630). The silence in this respect could be an indication that the missionaries did not pay at all for the journeys proper or that costs were unimportant enough as to be unrecorded. That the banyans and, in minor measure, some Portuguese merchants offered free of charge passage to the Jesuits seems to be corroborated by the frequent positive comments the missionaries directed to their hosts aboard.81 On board, the Jesuits likely used the ‘credit’ they obtained from their mediations at the departing port of Diu and the same system probably worked for the shipment of the correspondence that circulated between India and Ethiopia.82 A different situation was encountered when the missionaries reached the Red Sea ports. Jesuit mediation on behalf of Ottoman interests at Diu secured them protection but no easy deals at the two ports that the Ottomans mastered. If we trust missionary sources the expenses there were considerable. From the moment they landed at Sawakin until they left Massawa for the Ethiopian highlands missionaries were obliged to engage in a seemingly ritualized process of tax-paying and gift-giving to Ottoman and local officials. Manoel de Almeida’s account of his own journey is illustrative. On arrival in Sawakin, although he was formally exempted from paying the official tax, he still had to pay six to seven patacas (1,800–2,100 reis) to the pasha. The day after paying that sum Almeida and his three companions offered the pasha the traditional sagoate [saguate].83 The present included a long list of luxury objects: ‘a quilt, bed-spread [cubertor] from China, a bed-spread made of cotton-silk [colcha de cutonia de seda] that was finely embroidered, a large velvet carpet, a marquetry desk from Diu, half a dozen fine pieces of bafta [probably a misreading for taffeta, crisp, smooth, plain woven fabric made from silk], some flags and washbowls from China, and pendants made of corjas de chavanas’.84 Thereafter, the missionaries offered presents to the aide of the pasha (quequea), to the head of the customs (amim) and to a number of subordinates. At this 81

See the case of a fidalgo, Lopo Gomes de Avreu, who took Mendes and his train to Beylul aboard galiots fleeted apparently at his own expenses; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter XVI. On that occasion the viceroy helped in stirring private generosity to the mission with a general permission to capture vessels not provided of the due cartazes; ibid. 82 On this see Soarez, 1603, in raso XI, doc. 12, 41. 83 See ‘Saguate, saugate: present, gift…offered particularly in festive occasions or as a sign of hommage’; Dalgado, Glossário Luso-Asiático, vol. 2, 271–272. 84 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter II. Another account reports instead a present of ‘two Chinese carpets’; António Roiz to Muzio Vitelleschi, February 13, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 220r.

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point the missionaries might have been desperate for Almeida commented that ‘because those taking care of our things are plenty: secretaries, door keepers, guards, all of them want to make a profit, and steal as much as they can’.85 On top of that the missionaries had to pay a tax on 16 percent of the fabric transported, which was itself overvalued at 50 percent to increase the amount payable.86 A similar ‘ritual’ was repeated at Massawa, although it is probable that the group of officials that it was necessary to bribe was smaller here. The tax imposed on fabrics and clothes seems to have been a standard procedure at the customs but its amount varied in accordance to the pasha in charge. At the time of Mahmud Pasha in the late 1610s the charge rate was one piece every twenty-five pieces of cloth (panos) imported.87 In all, between 1623 and 1624, when eight more recruits joined the mission traveling along the traditional route, the Society of Jesus spent between 4,000 or 5,000 patacas (1,200,000–1,500,000 reis) on ‘presents’ at the Red Sea ports.88 Finally, the Ottoman pashas received regular presents from the mission’s Ethiopian counterparts. These probably consisted mostly of payments and victuals, but the offering of exotic presents has also been recorded. Hence, in 1624, Susǝnyos sent a zebra to the Ottomans stationed in Massawa to smooth the expected arrival in the Red Sea of an expedition with four missionaries. The lucky animal was reportedly then forwarded to Istanbul, probably for the amusement of the sultan and his harem. Another such animal had been sent earlier and was sold by the Ottomans to agents from the Mughal Emperor.89

Massawa, Fǝremona and the Ethio-Portuguese

When the missionaries landed at Sawakin they visited the pasha, offered him gifts and within a week or two could expect to catch a gelba for Massawa.90 If, instead, they had directly landed at Massawa, they had either to travel anew to Sawakin, which for some time was the headquarters of the pasha, or send an emissary to obtain the ferman granting passage to the interior. At Massawa 85 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter II. 86 Almeida, 1623, in raso XII, doc. 12, 22. 87 Gaspar Paes, Annual letter, June 30, 1626, in arsi, Goa 39 II, 302r–21r, 304r. 88 Afonso Mendes to provincial in Goa, December 26, 1624, in raso XII, doc. 41, 110. 89 Gaspar Paes, Annual letter, June 15, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 246r; and Annual letter of the Indian Province, 1624, in raso XII, doc. 43, 118. 90 Annual letter, 1624, in raso XII, doc. 43, 116; Diogo de Mattos to superior general, June 2, 1621, in raso XI, doc. 61, 469–473.

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they also met the amil (head of customs) and the governor of Ḥǝrgigo.91 There the missionaries engaged again in a delicate diplomatic game, visiting certain officials, offering gifts and promising to report back to Diu on the good treatment received. In both ports the Jesuits counted upon the help of the xabandar, the leader of the local community of banyan merchants, who likewise seems always to have been on their side. Indeed, it was the banyans who often played the role of guides and advisors for the inexperienced fathers: they hosted them, informed them of the procedures to follow before the Turkish officials and with the locals and taught them the basics necessary in order to pass on unmolested.92 Arrival to the shores of what today is Eritrea was, however, by no means a relief to the missionaries. Although the Ottomans were generally protective, they had no control of the Eritrean hinterland, and neither could the nearest Christian lord, the baḥǝr nägaš, offer them protection as far as to the coast. The passage from the coast to the haven of Dǝbarwa, some eighty-seven kilometers south-westwards, was difficult and the missionaries were obliged to rely on the protection of a series of regional groups. During the journey between Massawa and Dǝbarwa the missionaries often traveled with an escort or in a caravan. The Turkish officials were primarily interested in keeping missionary traffic 91 The amil was the official in charge of the collection of the taxes and the chief administrative official of government in an area, dispensing justice and readying troops for service; A.A. Duri, ‘Amil’, in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition, ed. H.A.R. Gibb et al., vol. 1 (Leiden and London: Brill-Luzac & Co, 1960). 92 A few names of banyan figures active in the Red Sea are provided in missionary sources. In 1595, Melchior da Sylva, who spoke himself Marathi and probably Konkani or Gujarati, used the services of one tandel or sarangue (i.e. pilot) named ‘Ismal’ (Ismail?) from Diu to reach Ethiopia and he commented that the banyan contact of the Portuguese in Massawa was one ‘Quica’; Melchior da Sylva to the archbishop of Goa, August 5, 1595, in raso I, 419–420. See also Dalgado, Glossário Luso-Asiático, vol. 2, 296, 354–355. In 1603, Páez informed of one ‘Martaban’ (actually the name of a town in Burma, today Mottama; perhaps rather Mar Tabaan?) holding the office of xabandar at Massawa; Páez, 1603, in raso XI, doc. 14, 49. In 1605, this position fell on one ‘Veidamano’ (Wajida Mano?), who was also in charge of managing the affairs of the Jesuits; Luís de Azevedo to superior general, July 12, 1605, in raso XI, doc. 15, 61; see also Bernardo Pereira to provincial in Goa, June 1, 1624, in raso XII, doc. 29, 66. In ca. 1610, the chief banyan in the same port was ‘Rupigius’; Pedro Páez to Nicolão Pimenta, [1610], in raso XI, doc. 30, 192. In 1634 a representative of the banyans also in Massawa was ‘Quica Pareca’; Afonso Mendes, 1648, in raso XIII, doc. 95, 305. In the same year, one xabandar ‘Enseragetari’ (Ansar Al-getari?) from Khambay provided credit in Aden to three Jesuits (Manoel de Almeida, José Giroco and Damião Colaça) fleeing Ethiopia; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VII, liv. X, Chapter XIII; Mendes, Expeditio Aethiopicae, in raso IX, liv. III, Chapter XIII.

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active because they received from the highlands provisions and merchandise to be taxed at their customs, as well as presents.93 Therefore, they offered the Jesuits the assistance necessary to continue their journey unmolested. Almeida comments that his train – probably one of the most important in the amount of things transported – was escorted to one of the first Christian outposts, Asmära, by the whole Turkish detachment of Ḥǝrgigo, which comprised seventy musketeers (espingardeiros). In the surrounding regions of Massawa other figures offered protection to the missionaries, such as the banyans and a local sheikh friend of the banyan captain at Massawa.94 The missionaries found further protection in a few estates in the north which the Christian ruler had granted them as way stations between Massawa and Dǝbarwa. Almeida mentions as such ‘secure’ estates in their possession the villages of Ṣälot and Asmära in the Ḥamasen region.95 Further south into the highlands, at Dǝbarwa, the most difficult part of the journey ended for the missionaries. Dǝbarwa, on the northern border of Säraye province, was the capital of the baḥǝr nägaš, a local lord who was theoretically subject of the nǝguś and under whose protection the Jesuits could feel safe. It was also at this settlement where, around 1626, the missionaries founded a residence.96 Therefore, it was often at that point when most of them changed from the Eastern attire they had been wearing since leaving Diu back to the Jesuit dress.97 From Dǝbarwa the missionaries had to travel some three more days before reaching Fǝremona, the fortress inhabited by Ethio-Portuguese families in Tǝgray. The Ethio-Portuguese mixed-race group played a crucial role for the missionaries during their arrival and stay. By the time the Jesuits had begun to send missionaries regularly, those Portuguese who had come with Christovão da Gama in 1541 had married or mixed with local women, establishing racially mixed families. Most of the Portuguese chose to use their military skills and experience and become an elite unit in the nǝguś’s army, serving as both a sort of pretorian guard and a vanguard unit. Two soldiers active around 1545, the mercenary of mixed-race origin Ayres Dias and Gaspar de Sousa, were the first in a series of Portuguese working as ‘Portuguese captains’ in the royal kätäma 93 See evidence in Annual letter of the Indian Province, 1624, in raso XII, doc. 43, 117. 94 Páez, 1603, in raso XI, doc. 14, 51. 95 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso V, xv and note 1. 96 See Annual letter of 1607, in raso XI, doc. 19, 153; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, 496. 97 Páez did this on arriving in Fǝremona: ‘before entering the village I put on the black robe, a coat and a beret, which I had carried hidden in my luggage’; Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso III, liv. IV, Chapter III.

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and within the army of the nǝguś.98 Eventually, for a short period, some Portuguese soldiers also served the regional lord baḥǝr nägaš Yǝsḥaq. Moreover, the Portuguese soon formed families and by the third decade in the country they were said to number about 1,200. Thereafter the number of those having or claiming a ‘Portuguese’ origin grew, reaching a peak of between 2,000 and 3,000 people in the first decades of the seventeenth century (Table 3).99 Table 3

The population of Ethio-Portuguese mixed-race in Ethiopia, numbers and leaders, 1541–1646

Year

Population

1541 1543 1545 1550 1554 1555 1559 1561 1567 1575 1590 1593 1594 1595 1598 1602 1603 98

99

400 130

1,200

450 1,000 1,000 1,000 1,000

3,000

Leaders (capitãos) Christovão da Gama Ayres Dias Gaspar de Sousa Afonso Cardeira Diogo de Figueiredo Lopo de Almança/Gaspar de Sousa Francisco Jacome Gaspar de Sousa Francisco Jacome

António de Goes (as capitão mor), António Guerra, Mezquita, Luiz Teixeira Dinis de Lima Mauriçio Soares João Gabriel

Both names are mentioned in Letter of Gälawdewos to Dom João III, December 6, 1550, in Castanhoso, Dos Feitos de D. Christovam, doc. VII. On Ayres Dias see Andreu Martínez, ‘Dias, Ayres’, in eae vol. 2. See Andreu Martínez d’Alòs-Moner, ‘Early Portuguese Emigration to the Ethiopian Highlands: Geopolitics, Mission and Métissage’, in Reinterpreting Indian Ocean Worlds: Essays in Honour of Kirti N. Chaudhuri, ed. Stefan Halikowski Smith (Newcastle Upon Tyne: co, 2011): 8–13. It must be emphasized that this foreign community also comprised nationals other than Portuguese, such as Italians and Spaniards; see Andrés de Oviedo to viceroy of India, May 11, 1567, in arsi, Goa 11 II, 323v.

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Population

1608 1612 1615 1617 1619 1627 1633 1635 1638 1639 1646

2,000 700 1,000 1,000 3,000 3,500 2,000 2,000 3,000

Leaders (capitãos)

Basilio Gabriel João Gabriel Rafael Fernandez

Damo Teixeira

Sources: Bermudez, Breve relação da embaixada, ch. XXII, XLIV; Couto, Década VII, liv. VII, ch. IV–V; Década VII, liv. VIII, ch. IX; DI, vol. X, doc. 43, 686, doc. 45, 773–774; di, vol. XVI, doc. 53, 347; raso I, 378, 430; raso VII, 243; raso X, 122, 135, 264–265, 279, 362, 393, 403; raso XI, 142, 217, 382, 424; raso XII, 81, 86, 228; raso XIII, 138, 266.

During the early decades in the Ethiopian highlands some of the Portuguese and their families were reportedly sent by nǝguś Gälawdewos to such border regions as Däwaro, Damot, Amhara and Goǧǧam to serve as frontier garrisons.100 However, a significant number might have also remained near the court. In 1555, when the Jesuit mestre Gonçalo went to meet the nǝguś in the province of Gurage, he found at the court ninety-three Portuguese under the command of one Captain Gaspar de Sousa.101 Names such as Afonso de França Moniz, Diogo de Alvelos da Azinhaga, Simão do Several and Alvaro da Costa de Covilhão are also mentioned as important soldiers of Gälawdewos.102 This unit participated in at least two important campaigns in the army of the nǝguś: in Bale against the Oromo and in 1559 against the company of Mälasay of Nūr b. Muǧāḥid of ʿAdal, where Gälawdewos eventually perished.103 Around 1555 there is also mention of a Christian agent of the Portuguese staying in Ḥǝrgigo to forward the funding arriving from India.104 The Ethio-Portuguese were given land-grants and they also seem to have received payments. Thus, 100 Bermudez, Breve relação da embaixada, Chapter XLVI. 101 Couto, Década VII, liv. I, Chapter VIII. 102 Ibid. liv. IV, Chapter XI. 103 Ibid. liv. VII, Chapter IV, and VI. 104 Gonçalo Rodríguez to Balthazar Díaz, March 12, 1555, in raso X, doc. 13, 51.

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when in 1557 Andrés de Oviedo went to meet Gälawdewos the latter ordered that a golden mark should be given to the bishop and an ounce to every Portuguese soldier and servant, a quantity that reportedly was deemed ‘more than enough considering the cheaper living costs in the land’.105 Similarly, sources also report a few Portuguese being granted large states. Towards the end of the 1550s and in the early 1560s those who had been settled in the south to fight against the Oromo re-settled in ‘safer’ provinces, mostly in Bägemdǝr, Goǧǧam and Dämbǝya, where the nǝguś established his kätäma, and in Tǝgray. Fǝremona in Tǝgray turned into the most important haven for the EthioPortuguese. The background to its foundation was the political crisis that ensued at Gälawdewos’s sudden death and the open confrontation between his successor, Minas (1559–1563), and baḥǝr nägaš Yǝsḥaq. Minas alienated part of the Portuguese group with his harsh treatment of both this mixed-race group and the missionaries. As a consequence, part of the group fled to Tǝgray, where they benefited from the protection of Yǝsḥaq. By then Yǝsḥaq was already a senior lord. In the 1540s he had dealt with the Portuguese troops who had arrived with Christovão da Gama and between 1560 and 1562 a group of Portuguese soldiers took part in the coalition of Yǝsḥaq and Ozdemir Pasha against Minas.106 Shortly after this episode some families settled in the ʿAdwa plateau and were soon joined by the Jesuit missionaries. The two groups chose the strategic hill of Fǝremona as the site of a residence.107 Henceforth, Fǝremona was to be associated with the missionaries and the Ethio-Portuguese for the next 130 years. It was there that the largest number of Catholics and Portuguese were concentrated and in the years to come it became the connecting point between the southern residences and the coast. In spite of the upheavals provoked by Minas’s anti-foreign agenda, a group of Portuguese stayed faithful to him and, under his service, fought alongside one of Minas’s most famous military leaders, Hamälmal, against the Oromo.108 News of their exploits come again under nǝguś Susǝnyos, when the community was in its third and fourth generation. Among the prominent figures mentioned in sources then are João Gabriel and his son Basilio Gabriel. The former grew up with Patriarch Andrés de Oviedo and met the three generations of Jesuits who worked in Ethiopia. Missionaries such as Pedro Páez and Manoel de Almeida benefited from his skills as interpreter and soldier. João Gabriel’s 105 Couto, Década VII, liv. VII, Chapter IV. 106 Ibid. liv. X, Chapter VI; ‘La guerra turco-abissina’, 10–11. 107 The settlement was on land given as gwǝlt by baḥǝr nägaš Yǝsḥaq; Annual letter of the Indian Province, 1612, in raso XI, doc. 35, 292. 108 Couto, Década VII, liv. VII, Chapter XII.

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son, Basilio, also served as interpreter of nǝguś Susǝnyos and occupied prominent military positions before dying during an expedition in Agäw land.109 As far as the religious affiliation and cultural features of the Ethio-Portuguese are concerned sources do not allow us to draw a clear cut picture. Throughout their presence in Ethiopia the Jesuit missionaries emphasized the ‘Portuguese’ identity of this group. Moreover, the Ethio-Portuguese were also considered as subjects of the Portuguese king, who felt obliged to send an annual contribution for their well-being and missionaries to preach to them. Yet, besides this institutional coverage, the historical evidence points to the Ethio-Portuguese rapidly assimilating most of the cultural features of the host societies. An indicative report could be the one produced by Melchior da Sylva in Ethiopia towards the end of the sixteenth century, a moment when the Ethio-Portuguese were in their third and fourth generation. Da Sylva informed that ‘our Catholic fellows are adopting more and more costumes of those peoples’ adding that ‘all of them are Abyssinian in their language and in their costumes’; among the local costumes da Sylva referred to were circumcision, the observance of the Sabbath and the weekly fasting habits.110 The chief task of the Jesuits during their first decades in Ethiopia will be to stop this process of dilution of an imagined ‘Portuguese identity’. While they may not have been successful in bringing back the mestiços to their ‘Portuguese’ identity, they created the conditions for the emergence of a hybrid Catholic-Ethiopian society.

109 Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso III, liv. IV, Chapter III; L. de Azevedo to provincial in India, July 3, 1619, in raso XI, doc. 54, 424, 432. 110 Melchior da Sylva to archbishop of Goa, August 5, 1696 [sic; probably a misreading by Beccari], in raso I, 415–439.

Part 2 From Fǝremona to Gorgora

∵

N

Massawa

Red Sea

Asmära

HAMASEN Debarwa/Adegada

Märäb

Täkkäze R.

At ba

ŠIRE

BUR

R.

Feremona Aksum

ra R

.

TEGRAY

SINNAR

ENDÄRTA Lämälmo

SEMEN

WÄGÄRA Gännätä lyäsus QWARA Gorgora TAQUSSA

Tana Lake AGÄW

Tänka? Särka? Näfaša?

ŠANQELLA

Dänqäz

Leggä Negus? MÄTÄKKÄL

WAG

Dekana Däbsan Qoga

Atkäna?

BÄGEMDER

LASTA ANGOT

Tis Abbay bridge Qwälläla Hadaša Ennäbäse

GOGGAM

AMHARA

DAMOT (NEW)

e Blu ay (

) R.

Nile

Abb

DAMOT (OLD)

0

Map 2 

50

100 km

GAFAT

ŠÄWA

Legend Jesuit residence

Kätäma Other location

The Jesuit missionary network in Ethiopia: residences and kätäma, 1560–1632 Credits: 2014, Eduardo Martín Agúndez

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Mission Metrics Dost thou wonder? Nothing great [magnum] is there that Eutropius does not conceive in his heart. He ever loves novelty, ever size, and is quick to taste everything in turn. He fears no assault from the rear; night and day he is ready with watchful care; soft, easily moved by entreaty, and, even in the midst of his passion, tenderest of men, he never says ‘no’, and is ever at the disposal even of those that solicit him not. Whatever the senses desire he cultivates and offers for another’s enjoyment. That hand will give whatever thou wouldst have. He performs the functions of all alike; his dignity loves to unbend. His meetings and his deserving labours have won him this reward, and he receives the consul’s robe in recompense for the work of his skillful hand.1

1555–1603: Difficult Beginnings

The first missionary period in Ethiopia was inaugurated with the arrival of two convoys of fathers between 1555 and 1557. In 1555 mestre Gonçalo Rodrigues, Brother Fulgencio Freire and a veteran of Christovão da Gama’s expedition, Diogo Dias, led an expedition to reconnoiter.2 Around May 1555 mestre Gonçalo and his companions reached the royal kätäma, met nǝguś Gälawdewos at his court and soon realized that the path of a religious mission was not going to be easy. Reportedly, Gälawdewos was friendly to the foreign convoy but, as was to be expected, he was also determined in holding to the traditional Christian Ethiopian faith.3 After this encounter the missionaries returned home, but, despite this initial setback, the Jesuit order and the Portuguese Crown carried on with the planned shipment of more missionaries. The appointed Catholic Patriarch of Ethiopia, Dom João Nunes 1 Claudian, Against Eutropius [ca. 399 c.e.] in Maurice Platnauer, trans., Claudian (London: William Heinemann et al., 1963) (The Loeb Classical Library), Book I, lines 358–370, pp. 164–167. 2 An extended and valuable, although biased, narrative remains the chapter Polanco dedicated to it in his Chronicon; Polanco, Vita Ignatii Loiolae, vol. 5, 685–707. 3 The episode, recounted from the missionaries’ point of view, appears in Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso III, liv. III, Chapter IV.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004289154_005

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Barreto, stayed at the College of São Paulo in Goa together with the lavish collection of objects that was meant for the Preste, while the appointed Portuguese ambassador to Christian Ethiopia, Fernão de Sousa e de Castello Branco, had died during the trip to India. Yet, in early 1557, four galiots were made ready in Goa, aboard which were to travel six Jesuit missionaries, including Bishop Andrés de Oviedo, and about twenty men appointed for their service.4 On May 26, 1557 the Jesuit missionaries reached the Ethiopian court. Once again sources are unequivocal: the padres were well received by the nǝguś but the ruler was forthright in rejecting the project of union with Rome.5 The Ethiopian royal chronicle portrays this episode as an attempt by the foreigners, called ‘Sons of Yafet’ in the text, ‘to discredit the true faith that had come from Alexandria’.6 Andrés de Oviedo does not seem to have adopted the recommended diplomatic attitude and was blunt in his speech when addressing the nǝguś.7 Gälawdewos, in his turn, stayed firm in his religious beliefs. It was as a consequence of successive encounters with the missionaries that he wrote the famous text later known as Confessio Claudii.8 The royal chronicle thus informs us that the ruler composed a ‘homily’ (dǝrsan) in which he ‘rebated their arguments by using the very words taken from the Catholic canons (ḥǝg katolikawi) and thus confused and covered them of shame’.9 The firm attitude of the nǝguś and the uncompromising strategy of the missionaries forced the foreigners to 4 D’Andrada, Chronica, parte IV, Chapter XX. Evidence for the number of Portuguese who served in Oviedo’s train comes in the latter’s official biography: Antonio de Arana, ‘Historia de la Santa vida, muerte y virtudes de el Santo P. Andres de Oviedo…’ [written at the Jesuit College of Palencia, July 24, 1631], bnl, cod. 4473, 56; Almeida, on the contrary, speaks of between six and eight Portuguese traveling with the Jesuits; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso V, liv. IV, Chapter XXIV. 5 Gälawdewos’ opposition to the mission is well reflected in a letter by mestre Gonçalo Rodrígues, reproduced in Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso III, liv. III, Chapter IV. 6 Conzelman, Chronique de Galâwdêwos, 63 (text), 158 (trans.). 7 During this time the missionaries allegedly composed two treatises against Ethiopian Christianity that seem to be lost. One would have been written by mestre Gonçalo and the other by Oviedo; see de Angelis, 1613, in arsi, Goa 39 I bis, 106v; Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso III, liv. III, Chapter IV. 8 The text was first translated by Ludolf; Hiob Ludolf, Iobi Lvdolfi aliàs Leutholf dicti ad suam Historiam aethiopicam antehac editam commentarivs…(Francofurti ad Moenum: J.D. Zunneri, 1691), 237–241; and later on by Lino Lozza, ‘La confessione di Claudio re d’Etiopia’, Rassegna di Studi Etiopici 5 (1946); and Edward Ullendorff, ‘The Confessio Fidei of King Claudius of Ethiopia’, Journal of Semitic Studies 32, 1 (1987). 9 Conzelman, Chronique de Galâwdêwos, 82 (text), 169 (trans.). A missionary narrative on this episode appears in Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso V, liv. IV, Chapter IX.

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a retreat, although the missionaries’ stay at the court continued for over a year. Sometime in late 1558 or early 1559, however, they abandoned the court and settled, together with a small Ethio-Portuguese group, in the northern province of Tǝgray.10 The rise to power of Gälawdewos’s brother, Minas (1559–1563), did not improve things for the missionary project. Although Gälawdewos had stayed faithful to his traditional religious beliefs, he had also tolerated the presence in his kingdom of a large group of foreigners and had approved the internal ‘exile’ of the Jesuit priests. Minas, in contrast, took all possible moves to reverse the policies of his brother. He thus revoked the liberal regime created by Gälawdewos on behalf of the Ethio-Portuguese and forbade any Ethiopianborn from visiting Portuguese churches.11 A severe racial segregation policy was implemented: the two communities, Ethio-Portuguese and native Ethiopians, were deterred from mixing and the Catholics were forbidden from transmitting their faith to their offspring. Further measures included the expropriation of land belonging to Portuguese men and even the public persecution of a few of them.12 Minas’s policies provoked a split within the EthioPortuguese group. A group of Ethio-Portuguese soldiers remained faithful to the Ethiopian ruler but another group joined his rival baḥǝr nägaš Yǝsḥaq in Tǝgray. Yǝsḥaq was an old acquaintance of the Portuguese, for back in 1541 he had welcomed the armada of Estevão da Gama at Massawa.13 Until the late 1550s he was loyal to the central ruler. Things changed, however, at the turn of the decade, when Yǝsḥaq rebelled against Minas. The spark might have been, as Conti Rossini suggested, the intention of Minas to concentrate power in his hands, thus threatening the local lords.14 Yǝsḥaq took it on himself, then, to challenge the ruler and attempted to place on the throne two puppet kings, Täzkäro and Marqos, both the offspring of abetohun Yaʿǝqob, a brother of Minas himself.15 From 1560 to 1562 military clashes between the two leaders ensued. By 1562, Yǝsḥaq had formed a triple alliance with the Ottomans, his former enemies, and influential Ethio-Portuguese leaders, among them 10 Manuel Fernandes to Diego Laínez, July 29, 1562, in arsi, Goa 11 I, 58r. 11 Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso III, liv. III, Chapter VII. 12 See Manuel Fernandes et al. to Laínez, July 29, 1562, in raso X, doc. 39, 151–152; Manuel Fernandes to Patriarch Nunes Barreto, March 31, 1563, in raso X, doc. 45, 171; Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso III, liv. III, Chapter VII. 13 On Yǝsḥaq’s figure, see Conti Rossini, ‘La guerra turco-abissina’, 4 and passim. 14 Ibid. 11–12. 15 Dombrowski, Ethiopia’s Access, 22; Manoel Fernández et al. to Laínez, July 29, 1562, in raso X, doc. 39, 152.

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Francisco Jacome.16 On April 20, in the province of Ǝndärta, the two armies faced each other. The historical record disagrees about the outcome of the battle. Yet, the most likely scenario is that it ended in a stalemate, which to all intents and purposes was an unfavorable outcome for Minas.17 It was probably after the battle between Minas and Yǝsḥaq that the Jesuits decided to establish a permanent settlement in Tǝgray. They settled temporarily in Dǝbarwa and, towards the end of 1562 or at the beginning of 1563, they moved to the ʿAdwa plateau, on a hill they were to christen Fǝremona.18 In Fǝremona the Catholic group had the full support of the rebel baḥǝr nägaš, who by befriending the foreigners was probably seeking to establish amicable relations with Portuguese India. Yet, by relocating far away from the central court the Jesuit mission was failing in its primary goal, to convert the nǝguś. In Tǝgray the missionaries’ tasks were modest. They moved around in the surrounding areas and visits to such places as Aksum, Ǝnda Abba Gärima and Däbrä Damo seem to have been frequent. Yet, the core provinces of the Christian kingdom, Goǧǧam, Damot, Dämbǝya and Bägemdǝr, remained untapped. Minas’s successor, Śärṩä Dǝngǝl (1563–1596), was more favorably inclined towards the Europeans. His long reign was not devoid of challenges, but it represented an era of relative stability after decades of turmoil. Around 1574, as a response to mounting insecurity and repeated Ottoman incursions in Tǝgray, a large group of Ethio-Portuguese and Catholics was given permission to settle in the province of Dämbǝya, probably somewhere near the Gorgora Peninsula. In 1575 Oviedo sent to minister to this group Fathers Gonçalo Cardoso and Francisco Lopes. Cardoso was killed by šǝfta on his way to Lake Ṭana but Lopes settled with the Catholics in Dämbǝya and remained with them until his death in 1593.19 Soon thereafter, Lopes was to be joined by Manoel Fernandes. Considering the large number of Catholics relocating in Dämbǝya – over 1,000 fellows according to the historical record – and their closeness to the royal kätäma of Śärṩä Dǝngǝl, which since 1571 was at Gubaʾe (near Ǝnfraz and some 16 Couto, Década VII, liv. X, Chapter VI; Conti Rossini, ‘La guerra turco-abissina’, 11–12. 17 Béguinot, La cronaca abbreviata d’Abissinia, 34; Jules Perruchon, ed., trans., ‘Notes pour l’Histoire de l’Ethiopie: Le règne de Minas ou Admâs-Sagad (1559–1563)’, Revue sémitique 4 (1896): 89 (text), 90 (trans.); Pereira, Historia de Minás, 32 (text), 50 (trans.); Basset, Études sur l’histoire d’Éthiopie, 23 (text), 116 (trans.). See also Conti Rossini, ‘La guerra turco-abissina’, 11. 18 Manuel Fernandes, July 29, 1562, in raso X, doc. 39, 154; Manuel Fernandes, March 31, 1563, in raso X, doc. 45, 175–176. 19 See Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso III, liv. III, Chapter XII; Letter of Portuguese in Ethiopia to the governor of Portugal in the Red Sea [sic], June 29, 1575, in raso X, doc. 80, 254; and Arana, ‘Historia de la Santa vida’, 120.

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fifty kilometers to the east of Gorgora), this episode can be interpreted only as a sign of appeasement by the nǝguś on behalf of the Jesuit mission.20 In 1593, late into his reign, the ruler sent one Täklä Maryam, an Orthodox monk, to Rome to request military help from Portugal and Spain.21 Further details of this mission are not known. In all likelihood it was conceived in connivance with Father Francisco Lopes. Moreover, in a statement from 1595, Lopes himself, by then the only remnant of the mission, asserted that ‘[the King] does not do any harm to us nor he hosts negative thoughts about our faith; he shows sympathy for us and in some aspects he acts according to our faith, which his forerunners never did’.22 Śärṩä Dǝngǝl’s positive attitude towards the foreigners could be, to some extent, seen as an announcement of what was to come at his death during the reigns of Zädǝngǝl and Susǝnyos. However, in spite of a relative improvement of its state, under Śärṩä Dǝngǝl’s reign the missionary project did not make significant progress: conversions were few and the group of Catholics ministered to by the Jesuits remained stable and politically irrelevant. As Manoel de Almeida put it, with his usual wit, the head of the mission Andrés de Oviedo was ‘at first badly received by Gälawdewos, then persecuted by Minas, and he was forgotten by his son Mäläk Sägäd [Śärṩä Dǝngǝl] and obeyed by none’.23 But the first mission also had problems related to the human personnel chosen. The group of men sent to Ethiopia in 1555 and 1557 belonged to the first and second generation of Jesuits and, when compared with successive generations, a number of them joined the Society relatively late in their lives (Table 4). João Nunes Barreto, first Patriarch of Ethiopia, joined the Jesuits only 20

According to a Portuguese source, the nǝguś had settled a kätäma in Damot, a few hundred kilometers to the south of Gorgora and around 1575 he decided to relocate to the north-eastern shore of Lake Ṭana, at Gubaʾe; it was at this moment that he called the Catholics to settle in Dämbǝya; Letter of Francisco Jacome to Portuguese governor in the Red Sea [sic], in raso X, June 29, 1575, doc. 81, 257. 21 The Ethiopian envoy seems to have reached the eternal city. There he was hosted at the house of the cardinal of Santa Severina, Giulio Antonio Santorio (1532–1602), president of the Congregation ‘super negotiis Sancta Fidei et Religionis Catholicae’, instituted in 1599 and precursor of the Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide. He also received the visit of the Jesuits Juan Alvarez and Sebastião Rodriguez, secretary to the Superior general; Guerreiro, Relaçam annal, 272v; also Täklä Maryam, 1598, in raso X, doc. 146, 405. 22 Francisco Lopes to Visitor Alessandro Valignano, March 21, 1584, in raso X, doc. 110, 333. A letter dated 1614 further informed of an edict published by Śärṩä Dǝngǝl granting the missionaries permission to preach; de Angelis, 1613, in arsi, Goa 39 I bis, 106v. 23 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter XV. Similarly, Oviedo’s hagiographer wrote that the patriarch spent his last years ‘neither having seen the face of any Emperor of Ethiopia nor having ever been at his court’; Arana, ‘Historia de la Santa vida’, 97.

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Table 4

Age of missionaries in Ethiopia on joining the Society of Jesus, 1555–1632

Years

1555–1598 1603–1623 1624–1632 Total

Number of missionaries

Average age at joining the order

10 11 20 41

26 16 19 20

Sources: see Figure 1

in 1544, when he was twenty-seven years old; in his previous religious life he had been abbot of a church.24 Andrés de Oviedo was also one of the first recruits of the Society of Jesus – he joined it in 1541 – and Ignatius of Loyola directly supervised his career.25 The rest of the companions joined the Society of Jesus during the 1550s, its second decade of life. So, the order chosen for the conversion of the ‘Prester John’ was in the process of formation and its members were still largely unproved in missionary terrains. Besides, as the Jesuit curriculum had not been established yet, the first members did not go through the training process that later candidates for the missions had to follow.26 They had not been fully shaped according to the Jesuit modo nostro and, intellectually speaking, they might have been poorly prepared to work in difficult and distant latitudes. Another problem the Jesuits faced, one Jerónimo Nadal once complained about, was recruitment.27 Following its foundation, the Society of Jesus enjoyed steady growth. In 1556 it already had 1,500 members in Europe, India and the Americas, but the largest expansion came later, under the rules of Acquaviva and Vitelleschi. In 1579 the number of operatives reached 5,164, in 1600 it was 24

25 26

27

Barreto received the vows to join the Society from one of its first members, the Swiss fellow Pierre Favre; Anonymous (with participation of Luís Gonçalvez da Camara), Relaçam da Vida e morte e virtudes do Padre Joam Nunez da Companhia de Jesu o qual foy Patriarcha do Preste Joam…, December 1597, in bnl, cod. 8122. Arana, ‘Historia de la Santa vida’, 12, 23. The Jesuit curriculum for novices and professed began to take shape in the 1550s with Jerónimo Nadal’s plan for the college at Messina (1551), with the accomplishment of the fourth part of the Constitutions by Ignatius of Loyola and with James Ledesma’s De Ratione et Ordine Studiorum Collegii Romani (1564–1565). It culminated with the approval of the definite text of the Ratio Sturiodrum in 1599; Farrel, The Ratio Studiorum, i. Quoted in O’Malley, The First Jesuits, 61.

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8,519 and eight years later it was 10,641.28 The same pattern applied to India (including The Moluccas, China and Japan), where the Jesuits counted only 45 members in 1549. In 1582, their numbers had jumped to 167 and five years later the original number had increased almost ten-fold to 387.29 The take-off of the Society occurred, thus, in the last two decades of the century, with recruits that belonged to the third and fourth generation of novices (Figure  1). The low number of professed Jesuits during the first years, however, meant that the choice of candidates for missions was limited. As a consequence, those who were sent were sometimes not best suited for the role. The Ethiopian mission in particular was less subject to this problem; since the Preste was one of the Society’s most cherished projects, candidates for Ethiopia were not lacking. Indeed, in 1554 Polanco informed his companion Salmerón that ‘all the house 25

600 500

20

400 15 India (in 100s)

300

10 200

Ethiopia (in 10s)

5

100 0

1549

1559

1571

1582

1587

1601

1607

1617

Figure 1  Growth of Jesuit operatives in India and Ethiopia, 1549–1632.

1627

1632

0

Sources: Alden, The Making of an Enterprise, 46; António Franco, Imagem da virtude em o noviciado da Companhia de Jesus do Real Collegio do Espirito Santo de Evora… (Lisboa: na Officina Real Deslandesiana, 1714); Id., Imagem da virtude em o noviciado de Coimbra (Coimbra: no Real Collegio das Artes, 1719); Id., Ano santo da Companhia de Jesus em Portugal (Pôrto: Biblioteca do ‘Apostolado da Imprensa’, 1931); raso X, XI, XII.

28 Alden, The Making of an Enterprise, 17. 29 Ibid. 46.

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and college [of Rome] is full with companions wishing to go there’.30 Yet, even for this project it is apparent that an optimal selection of operatives was not met. Some incidents experienced during the first mission period are telling. Around 1562 one of the five missionaries who had reached Ethiopia with Andrés de Oviedo, the Spaniard Andrés Gualdames, requested permission to abandon the mission. Although the reasons for his decision are not revealed in missionary correspondence, his superior Oviedo granted his request to leave and also warned Jesuit authorities in Goa not to trust what Gualdames was eventually to say.31 His warnings, however, were ultimately unnecessary because Gualdames was murdered by the Ottomans at Massawa when waiting for a convoy for India.32 A further case worth highlighting is that of Andrés de Oviedo himself. Oviedo had been an important figure among the early disciples of Ignatius of Loyola. In 1541, at the request of the superior general, he went to Paris to complete his studies and, in 1544, he moved to Portugal to help organize the first Jesuit college in Coimbra. A year later he was appointed first rector of the College of Gandia, institution later elevated to the status of University. In 1550 Oviedo was in Rome during the communication of the Constitutions by Ignatius, where he also received a doctorate in theology, and in 1551 he moved to Naples to take care of the college there. However, Oviedo’s choice as the leader of the mission – since Patriarch João Nunes Barreto never set foot in Ethiopia – might not have been all that wise. The Castilian was certainly a competent administrator and organizer but, as the polemic he was involved in during his stay in Gandia showed, he lacked many of the qualities a missionary needed. Between 1547 and 1549, when he was rector at Gandia, under the influence of the Franciscan Fr. Juan de Tejada, Oviedo and his 30 31

32

Jerónimo Nadal to Alfonso Salmerón, quoted in Nadal, Epistolae P. Hieronymi Nadal, vol. 1, 263 note 2. Oviedo informed his superiors that Gualdames had left ‘incensed’ (va tintado) and that his fellows in India should not give much credit to his words; Andrés de Oviedo to Fulgencio Freire, July 27, 1562, in raso X, doc. 37, 142; also Manoel Fernández et al to Laínez, July 29, 1562, in raso X, doc. 39, 155. Another early envoy to Ethiopia, mestre Rodrigues (Rodríguez), was said to be ‘not very fit’ for the mission; Juan Alfonso de Polanco to Jerónimo Nadal, January 20, 1561, in Nadal, Epistolae P. Hieronymi Nadal, vol. 1, doc. 101, 371. Interestingly, the episode was later censored and embellished by the missionaries from the second mission period. On Gualdames Páez thus wrote that ‘this father was sent by the Patriarch to India upon recommendation of the other fathers in 1562 so he could inform of the state of things in Ethiopia’; Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso III, liv. III, Chapter XII.

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companion Francisco Onfroy developed a strong spiritual inclination. The two fathers shared ascetic practices, spent hours praying and practicing retirement and refused to be involved in administrative and public tasks, as their order obliged them to.33 This attracted the positive attention of the then Duke of Gandia, Francisco de Borja, but also caused trouble for Ignatius and his secretary Polanco.34 The well-known Jesuit idea of obedience was first developed by Polanco in 1548 in response to Oviedo’s odd request to spend seven years in ‘retirement and solitude’.35 Such a monastic leaning would have been transposed to the Ethiopian mission. According to Melchior Carneiro, during his stay in Goa the Spaniard confided in him that ‘God had called him to the distant deserts of Ethiopia to live there a life of contemplation’.36 This monastic penchant was not only contrary to the general spirit of the order, which Nadal defined as contemplativus in actione, but also highly problematic when leading a mission. Oviedo’s – and the mission’s – erratic path until the retreat at Fǝremona seems to indicate, indeed, that such a penchant was partly responsible for the early failure of the mission.37 Furthermore, the bishop’s upfront and harsh attitude towards Gälawdewos during his encounter in 1558 was not the best strategy to use with the self-assertive and proud

33

34

35

36 37

Oviedo confided to Ignatius his vocational doubts in a letter from 1548. There he said: ‘often I have been stricken by the desire to be alone, like in a desert or isolated place’; Andrés de Oviedo to Ignatius of Loyola, February 8, 1548, in Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu, Epistolae Mixtae, vol. 1: 1537–1548 (Matriti: A Avrial, 1898–1901), doc. 142. For a possible messianic inclination in Oviedo, see A. Milhou, ‘El manuscrito jesuitamesiánico de Andrés de Oviedo dirigido a Francisco de Borja (1550)’, Caravelle 76–77 (2001). See Miquel Batllori, Obra completa, vol. 6: Les reformes religioses al segle XVI, ed. Eulàlia Duran (València: Climent, 1996), 553; Mario Scaduto, L’epoca di Giacomo Lainez: Il governo (1556–1565) (Roma: La Civiltà Cattolica, 1964), 112; Manuel Ruiz Jurado, ‘Un caso de profetismo reformista en la cj. Gandia 1547–1549’, Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu 43 (1974); Antonio Astrain, Historia de la Compañía de Jesús en la Asistencia de España, tomo 2: Laínez – Borja, 1556–1572 (Madrid: Impresores de la Real Casa, 1905), 413–417. Ignacio de Loyola (Juan Alfonso de Polanco) to Andrés de Oviedo, March 27, 1548, in Ignacio de Loyola, Monumenta Ignatiana, vol. 2, doc. 295; the passage is quoted in O’Malley, The First Jesuits, 352; see also Bertrand, La politique, 72, 78. Melchior Carneiro to Francisco de Borja, December 3, 1565, in DI, vol. VI, doc. 86, 585. On Nadal, see Pedro Arrupe, Nuestra vida consagrada (Madrid: Apostolado de la prensa, 1972), 53. Oviedo’s ascetic apostolate in Ethiopia is reflected in most of the texts dedicated to him. Although some of them, such as Arana’s, have a clear hagiographic character, others appear as truthful accounts of his life in Fǝremona; see e.g. Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso III, liv. III, Chapter XI.

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Christian Ethiopians. His attitude alienated the mission from a ruler who had shown signs of sympathy for the foreigners living in Ethiopia since 1541. The problems in Ethiopia were soon apparent and from the moment when, as a result of the death of Nunes Barreto (December 22, 1562) Oviedo became the patriarch the authorities in India and Europe decided to dismantle the mission.38 In a letter dated 1563 Melchior Nunes Barreto, Jesuit provincial in India and brother of the former patriarch of Ethiopia, confided his skepticism to the Superior general Diego Laínez. He emphasized that, ‘the project of the Preste is in a dire situation’ and concluded, pessimistically, that a military expedition to the Red Sea ‘will be never put in practice’.39 In 1564 the two Jesuits exchanged a second letter in which Barreto suggested moving the mission to Japan, with all ‘its ornaments and fathers, and with Mestre Andrés being appointed bishop of Japan’.40 In the next two years, the new superior general, Francisco de Borja, and his secretary Polanco were to insist on the same idea.41 At about the same time Polanco told his companion Juan de Mesquita that ‘the provincial could use as he sees fit the men who were initially destined for Ethiopia’.42 Finally, after pressing on that issue in Rome, the Jesuits convinced Pope Pius V to send a brief to Oviedo in which he was admonished to go ‘to the island of Japan and the Province they call China’.43 Oviedo, as his companions had imagined, refused to obey the papal instructions and stayed in Ethiopia.44 Among the reasons the patriarch listed for 38

39

40 41

42 43

44

In the early years of the decade, however, false information on Minas having given obedience to Oviedo still invited Jesuit authorities to optimism; see e.g. Diego Laínez to Cristóbal Rodríguez, July 29, 1561, in Diego Laínez, Lainii monumenta; epistolae et acta…, vol. 5 (Matriti: Gabrielis Lopez del Horno, 1915), doc. 1558, 648–649. Melchior Nunes Barreto to Diego Laínez, January 24, 1563, in DI, vol. V, doc. 113, 757. In the same year, a letter sent from Hormuz to Rome informed of rumors of Oviedo having been killed; Vincente Tonda to Diego Laínez, April 3, 1563, in arsi, Goa 8 II, 390r. Melchior Nunes Barreto to Diego Laínez, January 10, 1564, in DI, vol. VI, doc. 28, 163. Francisco de Borja to Leon Henriques, provincial of Portugal, November 29, 1565, Ibid. doc. 82, 521; Juan de Polanco to Juan de Ribera [Archbishop and Patriarch of Valencia], January 11, 1566, Ibid. doc. 104, 667; Francisco de Borja to Melchior Carneiro, December 20, 1565, in Francisco de Borja, Sanctus Franciscus Borgia (Matriti: Gabriel López, 1910), vol. 4, doc. 413, 154; Id. to Jerónimo Nadal, October 9, 1567, in Nadal, Epistolae P. Hieronymi Nadal, vol. 3, doc. 497, 530. Juan de Polanco to Juan de Ribera, January 14, 1566, in DI, vol. VI, doc. 105, 669. Arana, ‘Historia de la Santa vida’, 107–108. On the Jesuits pressing the pope to force the patriarch to leave Ethiopia, see Melchior Carneiro to Francisco de Borja, December 3, 1565, in DI, vol. VI, doc. 86, 585. The Superior general Francisco de Borja abided by Oviedo’s decision in a letter dated January 7, 1569, in Borja, Sanctus Franciscus Borgia, vol. 5, doc. 692.

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j­ustifying the refusal were the hazards of sailing back to India through Ottoman-ruled Massawa as well as his wish not to leave the local Catholic group without spiritual guidance.45 Additionally, the patriarch was still convinced that the whole project, and for that matter the political fragility of the Christian state too, could be solved by sending a military expedition from India. In 1566 he wrote to the Superior general Francisco de Borja that ‘the solution to [the problems of] Ethiopia and of its reduction and obedience to the Roman church lays in the coming of Portuguese soldiers […] and 500 or 600 men are enough to reduce Ethiopia to the Catholic Faith’.46 This military project was to have a long life indeed. Alessandro Valignano picked up on it during his time as visitor of the Eastern provinces and throughout the second missionary period the Jesuits drew recurrently on it. A further factor explaining the stagnation of the mission was connected to the Ottoman blockade of Massawa and Sawakin. The impossibility of sending more convoys of missionaries after 1557 precluded the renewal of missionary personnel, which was an important precondition for the success of any mission. This was particularly pressing in Christian Ethiopia, where living conditions were extremely hard. Accounts of sickness and the scarcity of food and clothing punctuate missionary correspondence over the entire mission period. On top of that, communications were difficult. The distances between India and Ethiopia and within Ethiopia itself were enormous; travel conditions were equally harsh, with frequent bandit activity and difficult roads, which in the Ethiopian highlands were blocked during the seasonal rains. Life expectancy in the mission – 49.3 years – was also significantly lower than that in India – 59.6 years – so only young, physically fit and strong men could carry out all the tasks that missionary work demanded.47 To be sure, the average 45

46

47

The extent to which this part of the Portuguese flock mattered to the Jesuits and Portuguese can be appraised by the project that Oviedo had conceived in case the mission was to be abandoned. Accordingly, he suggested that the pope migrate the whole Ethiopian Catholic community to India: ‘your Highness could write [to the king of Portugal] so that at least he sends an armada large enough to take away all the Catholics… so that if we leave at least the Catholics won’t die away and won’t get lost living among unfaithful and heretics’; Arana, ‘Historia de la Santa vida’, 113. See also Oviedo to Pius V, June 15, 1567, in raso X, doc. 60 and doc. 61. Andrés de Oviedo to Francisco de Borja, July 3, 1566, in Arana, ‘Historia de la Santa vida’, 102 and also 110; some ten years later Oviedo was still eager about this idea: Oviedo to António de Noronha, September 22, 1575, in raso X, doc. 83, 260. See Figure 1; Alden, The Making of an Enterprise, 279, provides data on India only for the period 1625–1716.

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Table 5

Average age of missionaries arriving in Ethiopia, 1555–1630

Year of arrival

1555 1557 1595–1598 1603 1604 1605 1620 1623 1624 1625 1628 1630 Average

Number of missionaries

Age of missionaries

Age of prelates and visitors

2 6 2 1 2 2 2 4 6 7 5 2

28 35,2

39

39 37,5 34,5 35,5 44,5 37,3 34,8 31,2 35,8

44 46 43 43

Sources: Alden, The Making of an Enterprise, 46; Franco, Imagem da virtude em o noviciado da Companhia de Jesus; Id., Imagem da virtude em o noviciado de Coimbra; Id., Ano santo da Companhia de Jesus em Portugal; raso X, XI, XII.

age of the six missionaries who reached Ethiopia in 1557 was lower than that of missionaries who arrived during the seventeenth century (Table 4), but two decades after having landed in Massawa the average age in the mission had risen dramatically. In 1577 the remaining four missionaries were over sixty and were unable to do little more than to preach in the areas around Fǝremona. Matters could have changed had Pedro Páez and Antonio de Montserrat (then twenty-five and fifty-three years old, respectively) been able to reach Ethiopia in 1589.48

48

The choice of the aging Montserrat was an odd one considering the need the mission had for young recruits. Accordingly, it was openly criticized within Jesuit circles at the time. Thus, Alessandro Valignano complained to Superior general Acquaviva: ‘I am extremely disappointed that the Father provincial has sent Father Montserrat to Ethiopia, for which position he had neither the disposition nor the conditions’; Alessandro Valignano to Rodolfo Acquaviva, September 22, 1589, in DI, vol. XV, doc. 46, 327.

Mission Metrics

95

In the 1590s the Archbishop Dom Alexo de Meneses, together with political authorities in India, the Viceroys Mathias de Albuquerque and Francisco da Gama, mobilized their own treasury to fund the journey of two priests to Ethiopia. This semi-official mission, however, proved to be little help. The first envoy was the Maronite Abraham de Georgiis, who, initially, was to travel with the Portuguese Diogo Gonçalves. For strategic reasons, however, Gonçalves was not sent and eventually arrived instead in the Malabar mission, where he became famous as the author of the História do Malavar.49 De Georgiis reached Massawa in about March or April 1595 but he was soon discovered by the Ottomans and was shown the razor blade. The fact that he had a good command of Arabic, as a memorial to him stated, and ‘the appearance and the face of an Asian, similarly to the blackness of the Ethiopians, and did not look like a European’, proved to be of no protection against the well-informed Ottoman officials.50 The second envoy was more successful. The priest Melchior de Sylva reached the mission in 1598 and for six years ministered to the Catholic group in Fǝremona.51 Among the remarkable things that happened during his lonely apostolate was a series of meetings he organized with Ethio-Portuguese leaders in order to prepare for the arrival of new Jesuit recruits. In a report dated 1602 and prepared jointly with senior Ethio-Portuguese leaders, including Francisco Dias Machado from Setubal, André Gonçalvez from Porto and Jorge Vaz from Covilham, as well as men born in Ethiopia, such as Luis Machado, Mauricio Soares and João Gabriel, alternative routes to reach Ethiopia were discussed. The conclusion of the meeting was that a secure way was landing at Baylul and from there, across the Danakil desert, reach the Tǝgray, then ruled by the friendly figure of Kǝflä Waḥed.52 But when these meetings were celebrated the arrival of a new generation of young missionaries was already on its way.

49

50

51

52

Diogo Gonçalves, História do Malavar [1615], ed. Josef Wicki (Münster/Westfalen: Aschendorfersche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1955), ix; Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso III, liv. III, Chapter XXII. ‘Vita del P. Abram Giorgio, Maronita et Aluno del Collegio de Maroniti in Roma e poi Religioso della Comp. di Giesù e Martire nell’Etiopia’ (1595), in arsi, Missiones apud infideles 720/I/6/11,l ‘Del ministerio delle Missioni’, 4r. De Sylva was of Brahmin caste and had received education at the College of São Paulo in Goa; see Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. V, Chapter IX; Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso III, liv. IV, Chapter II; Melchior da Sylva to the archbishop of Goa, August 5, 1595, in raso I, 415–439. See Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso III, liv. IV, Chapter II. See also João Gabriel and Belchior da Sylva, March 17, 1604, in adb, Legajo 779, 2–17v.

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1603–1623: Setting up a Local Missionary Network

In 1603 the Castilian Jesuit Pedro Páez landed on the Eritrean shore. In the subsequent two years, four other companions joined him. With these new arrivals a new missionary era in Ethiopia was opened. The five men gave new vigor to an undertaking that for decades had seen no progress. While the first mission opened in a grand manner, with the expedited nomination of a patriarch and two coadjutor bishops, this second mission period was initially put in the charge of simple priests. As it turned out, they also proved to be able missionaries. Born in 1564, Páez was probably the first missionary to reach Ethiopia who was fully aware of a distinct Jesuit identity; when, in 1582, he joined religious life the Society of Jesus was fully formed and counted with a worldwide network of houses, colleges and missions.53 Thereafter, he pursued studies at the College of Belmonte and at the University of Alcalá de Henares before, in 1588, he reached India. Páez’s companions, Francesco Antonio de Angelis, António Fernandes, Luís de Azevedo and Lorenzo Romano, shared a similar profile. They had also joined the Society at an earlier age, when they were between fifteen and nineteen (see Table 5), and came to the mission after years spent studying, training and working in different Jesuit houses. So, while the missionaries that arrived in Ethiopia in the previous century had averaged as little as ten years as members of the Society – some, such as Cardoso, Gualdames and Manuel Fernandes, had not reached even half this time – those who came later had spent double that amount of years within Jesuit houses (Table 6) and were thus well tested by the rigors of the order. They had received a thorough grounding at the European and Indian colleges and had incorporated the Jesuit ethos. They shared the same esprit de corps and acted according to the Jesuit ‘way of proceeding’ or, as Afonso Mendes himself would proudly put it in late 1625, ‘in them it is found the spirit of the Society’.54 The second mission unfolded in a favorable political climate both at home and in Ethiopia. The dynastic change that Portugal suffered in 1581 and its incorporation into the Spanish Crown had played in favor of the Ethiopian 53

The bibliography on Páez is abundant. Philip Caraman’s The Lost Empire: the Story of the Jesuits in Ethiopia 1555–1634 (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1985) is largely dedicated to the Castilian priest and is the nearest to an academic monograph on this figure, although regrettably, it presents too many inaccuracies. Another book, but of lesser value is George Bishop, A Lion to Judah. The Travels and Adventures of Pedro Paes, S.J., the River Finder (Anand: Gujarat Sahitya Prakash, 1998). For the whole list of titles dedicated to Páez up to 2005 see Leonardo Cohen and Andreu Martínez d’Alòs-Moner, ‘The Jesuit Mission in Ethiopia: An Analytical Bibliography’, Aethiopica 9 (2006). 54 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter XX.

97

Mission Metrics Table 6

Mean length of service in the Society of Jesus for the missionaries in Ethiopia, 1555–1632

Period

Years

1555–1557 1598–1632 (missionaries) 1598–1632 (prelates)

10 17.8 28a

Note a: the bishops João da Rocha and Diogo Seco, who never reached Ethiopia, have been included (computed at their year of arrival in India). Sources: see Figure 1

project. The leadership problems that Portugal suffered after Dom João’s death had left major themes in the overseas agenda of the kingdom dormant. Cardinal infante Dom Henrique, who ruled in Portugal for different periods between 1557 and 1580, was never as enthusiastic about the Ethiopian mission as his brothers king João III and Dom Afonso had been.55 Under the new dynasty the Ethiopian mission was dealt with differently. Although Philip II of Spain was, like his father Charles V, not a great friend of the Jesuit order, when he became King of Portugal as Philip I he tried to put new energy into Portugal’s Red Sea policies.56 He thus invested in cutting the Red Sea route and reopened diplomacy with the Ethiopian nǝguś.57 His heirs, Philip III and Philip IV, who were more inclined towards the Society of Jesus, pushed forward diplomatic and missionary ties between the two nations. Henceforth, the cause of Ethiopia became once more a major theme in the missionary policy of Portugal.58 55

It is to be noted, though, that during Dom Henrique’s regency (1562–1568) he also opposed the idea of moving the missionaries to Japan; see Juan de Polanco to Melchior Nunes Barreto, January 10, 1566, in DI, vol. VI, doc. 101–102, 661; Polanco to Juan de Ribera, January 11, 1566, in Ibid., doc. 104, 667. See also Ibid., doc. 13, p. 67. Dom Henrique’s positioning, however, was probably motivated more by financial than by ideological reasons. 56 Julián J. Lozano Navarro, La Compañía de Jesús y el poder en la España de los Austrias (Madrid: Cátedra. 2005), 117; José Martínez Millán and Carlos Javier de Carlos Morales, Felipe II (1527–1598): la configuración de la monarquía hispánica (Salamanca: Junta de Castilla y León, 1998), 264–266. 57 Lane, The Mediterranean Spice Trade, 34. 58 It was also under the aegis of the Habsburgs that the Society of Jesus expanded in the Spanish overseas colonies. See Teófanes Egido et al. (eds.), Los jesuitas en España y en el mundo hispánico (Madrid: Fundación Carolina and Marcial Pons, 2004), 186 and passim. Unfortunately, there is not much literature on the relations between the Habsburg monarchs and the Jesuit

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Between 1585 and 1634 the Habsburg rulers exchanged at least nineteen letters with the governors of India in which they pressed them to support the mission.59 The kings also took care that the annual contribution sent to the EthioPortuguese reached its destination, a practice that seems to have been interrupted on several occasions under the previous dynasty. The Spanish royal chancellery did not forget the nǝguś either. In the 1580s Philip II addressed two letters to Śärṩä Dǝngǝl and in 1609 and 1617 Philip III sent two more missives to Susǝnyos. Additionally, it can be assumed that the delegate (procurador) that since 1572 the Society of Jesus had in the Spanish court in Madrid acted in favor of the interests of the mission.60 Moreover, the political and dynastic crisis that dominated Ethiopia at the turn of the century might also have worked in favor of the mission. The death of Śärṩä Dǝngǝl in 1597 without a designated heir sparked a dynastic dispute that continued for over ten years. Until the arrival to power of Susǝnyos in 1607 there were four changes at the head of the Solomonic kingdom. Within royal lines violent feuds undermining royal authority broke out and power fell into the hands of court officials and members of the royal family. Powerful figures during this period were Śärṩä Dǝngǝl’s widow Maryam Śǝna, wäyzäro Wälättä Giyorgis and ras Atnatewos. Therefore, the figure of the nǝguś was highly volatile and weak. It was probably such weakness that stimulated the sudden and open interest that the three rulers who had strenuously fought each other during the decade following Śärṩä Dǝngǝl’s death took in approaching the second shift of Jesuit

59 60

order. See Lesmes Frías, ‘Tres cartas de Felipe II recomendando la Compañía a los reyes cristianísimos (1565–1567)’, Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu 5 (1936), which deals with the intervention of Philip II on behalf of the persecuted Jesuits from Paris. Additional titles are Javier Burrieza, ‘La Compañía de Jesús y la defensa de la Monarquía’, in Guerra y sociedad en la monarquía hispánica. Política, estrategia y cultura en la Europa moderna (1500-1700), Congreso de Historia militar, March 9–12, 2005, unpublished paper; and Félix Zubillaga, ‘El procurador de la Compañía de Jesús en la corte de España’, Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu 16, 1–2 (1947); Martínez Millán and Morales, Felipe II, 269–272. Manoel de Almeida concludes that it was the coming to power of Philip II of Portugal that gave new vigor to the Ethiopian project; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. V, Chapter I. The office of the procurador was fully implemented in 1572, once the polemic between Philip II and Franisco de Borja had been resolved. The procurador played an important role in boosting Spanish support for Jesuit missions, since ‘with him the Spanish provinces had the court at hand, being this a crucial agent who pushed forth the apostolic ministries of the Society of Jesus in all of its aspects’; see Zubillaga, ‘El procurador de la Compañía de Jesús’, 41–43. During the time when the Ethiopian mission was active this role was carried out by Father Miguel Garcés and later Luís Pinheiro (died 1620).

Mission Metrics

99

missionaries. First Zädǝngǝl (regnal name ʿAṭänäs Sägäd), and later Yaʿǝqob (regnal name Mäläk Sägäd) and Susǝnyos (regnal name Sǝlṭan Sägäd) could thus have seen in Páez and his peers men capable of providing the needed reforms for the kingdom. Moreover, the Ethiopian lords may have assumed that the foreign priests could serve as agents to broker strategic alliances with Portuguese India. During the second mission period organizational and logistic aspects were also improved from those of the first period. Missionary organization blended autocracy with democratic procedures, obedience with consensus.61 As in other Jesuit undertakings, the Ethiopian mission had a chief supervisor, which in European sources typically appears as superior da missão. The principal responsibilities of the superior were the distribution of tasks and duties to the small troop, the setting up of a strategy of action and the maintaining of order. The superior took care that residences had enough personnel and that they had tasks to fulfill. During most of the period considered here this role fell on Pedro Páez. Around 1619, probably owing to the attention he devoted to writing his opera magna, the História de Etiópia, Páez was replaced by his companion António Fernandes. The latter carried out this duty until the arrival of the visitor Manoel de Almeida in early 1624 and of Patriarch Mendes in 1625. Both took over commanding decisions in the late 1620s but Fernandes was to keep the position of chief consultant and had considerable ascendancy over Mendes.62 A few instances gleaned from the missionary record illustrate how authority was exerted and decisions taken. In 1605, upon the arrival of two missionaries to Ethiopia, it was Páez who reorganized the missionary tasks: he thus ordered 61

62

On the importance of obedience in the Society, see O’Malley, The First Jesuits, 352. An interesting study of dissent in the Jesuit order is Michela Catto, La compagnia divisa: il dissenso nell’ordine gesuitico tra ’500 e ’600 (Brescia : Morcelliana, 2009). See also Nigel Griffin, ‘“Virtue Versus Letters”: The Society of Jesus 1550–1689 and the Export of an Idea’, European University Institute Working Papers 95 (1984), 9, 28 and passim. Jesuit sources leave little doubts about Fernandes’s commanding position throughout the 1620s. In 1628, he reported that while not wishing to accept the title of general vicar, owing to the formal prohibition that professed members of the Society attain this position, he still had to cope with ‘all the burdens of his [the Patriarch’s office]’ and that Mendes ‘placed him in charge of all the things and does nothing without letting me know […] helping [Mendes] as an adviser, secretary and coadjutor’; António Fernandes to superior general, June 25, 1628, Ǝnfraz, in raso XII, doc. 77, 290–291. Three years later Mendes informed the superior general that Fernandes ‘takes care of most of the tasks, the examination and instruction of the priests and monks who will be ordained, he deals with their petitions [?] on ecclesiastic causes. The father shows particular zeal in sending priests and monks who had been properly instructed to different parts so they can baptize and confess and give the communion to those they can reach’; Afonso Mendes to superior general, July 8, 1629, in raso XII, doc. 97, 400.

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two of his men to stay in Fǝremona and the other two to go with him to the newly founded residence of Märäba. In 1613, when Susǝnyos rejected Páez’s own candidature to lead a secret expedition to the pope, it was also Páez who chose António Fernandes as his substitute.63 He must, too, have been the one who set up the clever strategy the mission was to follow: focusing on royal power, earning the trust of important personalities and never confronting hostile subjects directly. However, in spite of the strict rules within the religious order cases of dissent also occurred. One such case that made it into the historical record concerned the missionaries Lorenzo Romano and Luís de Azevedo in the early 1610s. The two had been working together in the residence of Fǝremona and they seem to have strongly disagreed on the way in which children should be educated at the local school. In a letter addressed to the provincial in Goa, Páez opens by explaining the way he chose to nip the problem in the bud: On the dispute between Father Luís de Azevedo and Father Lorenzo Romano, some time ago, I twice warned Father Luís de Azevedo that if he had something to say about it he should not write to anybody but send his plea to me so that I report on it. I also warned Father Lorenzo not to interfere in the decisions undertaken by Father [Azevedo] on behalf of the children without first telling me; this is the way I settled this problem. I passed on your congratulations to Father Luís de Azevedo for his good work at the school, which pleased him very much. A few days ago, I also reprehended Father Lorenzo Romano because he was neglecting his duties there and now I have been told he is teaching diligently.64 The passage illustrates how authority was exerted and obedience imposed. The mission was, thus, organized in a similar way to that of the whole Society of Jesus. The duties of the superior in effect reproduced those of the Jesuit superior general. It was expected that individual polemics and quarrels, when they could not be avoided, would be conducted away from the public gaze and would not interfere with the well-being of the mission. The concept of obedience was also subtly used by the superior to enforce decisions and full dedication to the common project. In 1624, when Manoel de Almeida joined the mission, a more hierarchical rule was implemented. In the early 1620s Almeida had meet the pope in Rome and consulted on issues relating to the mission with the Superior general Muzio Vitelleschi, so it can be assumed that he 63 64

[Francesco Antonio de Angelis], Annual letter, 1613, in arsi, Goa 39 I bis, 108v. Pedro Páez to Francisco Vieira, July 4, 1615, in adb, Legajo 779, 152r.

Mission Metrics

101

brought to Ethiopia their precise instructions for the mission. The extent to which these instructions diverged from the ongoing missionary policy on the ground was not reported. Unfortunately, the annual letters are always more keen to emphasize successful assignments than to reveal any discussions that might have emerged. Thus, concerning the arrival of Almeida Gaspar Paes wrote that the visitor ‘had dispatched some issues concerning the well being of the mission and of the fathers’; and, he added, ‘all happened with such agreement, love, and plainness and with much respect on behalf of the opinion of all the fathers, in particular the veteran ones’.65 But consensus also played a role in missionary decision-making. The main instrument used to guide missionary activities was the annual meeting or junta, which was held at the residence of Gorgora, apparently without interruption until the expulsion. It consisted of a general assembly that was attended by the head of the mission and a representation of missionaries from the different residences and areas of action. The meeting, which could go on for several days, had spiritual as well as practical aims. According to Almeida, it was an opportunity for the missionaries to renew ‘Jesuit community life’ and to practice the Spiritual Exercises. In the words of another Jesuit, the meeting served two purposes: to deal with the ‘reformation of the missionaries’ and their houses and to establish common policies in teaching and doctrinal methods.66 On the one hand, thus, the junta helped the Jesuits to reproduce a sense of community and of belonging to a common project. On the other, and more importantly, it worked as a decision-making body in which the information from the different areas was exchanged and decisions taken accordingly.67 Thus, Almeida noted that the important decision reached that Patriarch Mendes confer orders sub conditione to Ethiopian priests was taken during a junta celebrated in 1625. On the same occasion, ‘some important issues for the well being and increase of that Christianity’ were also discussed.68

65 Gaspar Paes, Annual letter, June 15, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 246r–v. 66 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter XI. See also Lobo, Itinerário e outros escritos inéditos, 462; Manoel de Almeida to superior general, June 16, 1628, in raso XII, doc. 76, 275. 67 Almeida described this in a clear way, stating that the principal purpose of the junta was to discuss and deal with ‘the most effective ways to proceed for the conservation of our ideals and for the work of the reduction that maintained us occupied all year long’; Ibid. 68 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter XXI. See also Manoel de Almeida to Muzio Vitelleschi, April 17, 1627, in arsi, Goa 39 II, 423v. The idea to confer orders sub conditione had been, however, already suggested earlier by Mendes when he was in India; see Afonso Mendes to superior general, October 9, 16124, in raso I, 134.

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Another important dimension of missionary management was communications. The Society of Jesus was organized through a network of houses, ­colleges and missionary residences and relied on a sophisticated system of communications. This system began to be implemented from the order’s early beginnings and grew in complexity and scope in parallel with the growth and expansion of the order.69 In Ethiopia the Jesuits built an effective communications system only during the second mission, when annual letters began to be written systematically and a regular exchange of information was established between Ethiopia, India and Europe. From about 1605 until the demise of the mission, there was constant flow of information between the different residences in Ethiopia and between Ethiopia and the decision-making centers in India and Europe. As far as internal communications are concerned, the Jesuits used local networks to keep the two main houses of Gorgora and Fǝremona informed. The role of the Ethio-Portuguese, who seem to have been highly mobile within the land, was here once again crucial. In 1614, for instance, Páez reported that letters António Fernandes had sent from the southern province of Ǝnnarya had been carried by a ‘Portuguese’ man.70 In addition, since a number of residences were located along major caravan routes (chiefly Fǝremona, Gännätä Iyäsus and Qwälläla) the internal exchange of letters may have also used the caravans linking the different Ethiopian provinces as well as other traditional forms of communication. These, although not well documented, seem to have been well structured at that time and Jesuit sources do hint at a royal system of communications, that, within a few days, could connect the capital with the most distant provinces. Concerning the exchange of information with the Jesuit centers in India and Europe, couriers were slow and always menaced by eventual blockades of maritime traffic in the Red Sea (Table 7). The missionaries typically used the kǝrämt season to compile their annual digests, the cartas anuas, a task that could go on for a few weeks, as local reports had also to be sent from distant regions. The annual letters were bulky documents, often comprising dozens of 69

70

See João Pedro Ferro, ‘A epistolografia no quotidiano dos missionários jesuítas nos séculos XVI e XVII’, Lusitania Sacra ser. 2, 5 (1993); Jörg Zech, ‘Die litterae annuae der Jesuiten: Berichterstattung und Geschichtsschreibung in der alten Gesellschaft Jesu’, Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu 77, 153 (2008). An original contribution to the study of Jesuit epistolography are the studies by Steven J. Harris, ‘Confession-building’; Id., ‘Long-Distance Corporations’; Id., ‘Jesuit Scientific Activity’. Some insights in Griffin, ‘Virtue Versus Letters’, 20 and passim. Páez, 1614, in raso XI, doc. 39, 331.

103

Mission Metrics Table 7

Speed and main routes of communication for the mission, 1557–1632

Origin – Destination

Duration

Couriers and route

Residence to residence in Ethiopia Ethiopia to India Ethiopia to Spain/Portugal

a few days/weeks

Caravans, Portuguese

2/4 months 1,5/2,5 years

Ethiopia to Rome

5/7 months

Banyans; Massawa-Diu Banyans, Portuguese; Goa-Lisbon Caravans, Cairo

Sources: raso VI, 449–450; raso XI, 188, 213, 400; raso XII, 230; O’Malley, The First Jesuits, 63; Lobo, Itinerário e outros escritos inéditos, 18–20; Schurhammer, Franz Xaver, vol. 2/2, Anhang V.

pages of information, and were ready to be sent by June or July. For shipping the letters to India or Portugal the mission used a similar system to that taking its operatives and missionary material (books, victuals, clothes) to Ethiopia. Missionaries sent the letters in the months of July or August so that they could be transported in the ships that sailed for India from Massawa and Moca – which, towards the 1620s, gained importance as ports of transshipment. The men taking care of this trade were banyans, although Muslim agents are also mentioned as carrying out these duties.71 Delicate diplomatic games between the Ottomans and Ethiopian lords seem to have secured smooth passage for the mail, although some incidents suggesting the contrary were reported.72 Mail between Ethiopian and Italy typically used the route through Egypt and Cairo but on that route little information is available.73 In optimal conditions a letter could reach the mission within a year and a half of being sent from the Iberian Peninsula, and about half a year if it was coming from Rome.74 This means that a response to Europe could be received 71

72

73 74

Annual letter, 1606, 75; in 1619, Azevedo also noted a ‘moor from Diu’ who took the ordinaria (the regular payment to the mission made by the king of Spain) to Ethiopia and also helped the fathers in the trip from Massawa to the interior; Azevedo, 1619, in raso XI, doc. 54, 417. In 1615 Páez complained that in twelve years he had received only two letters from the Jesuit general; Pedro Páez to Tomás de Ituren, June 20, 1615, Dämbǝya, in raso XI, doc. 41, 337. In 1617 an incident was reported in which incoming letters were detained at Moca; Páez, 1618, in raso XI, doc. 53, 410. For evidence see e.g. Nadal, Epistolae P. Hieronymi Nadal, vol. 2, 271 note 3. In the most optimistic scenario, a letter from Portugal or Spain bound for Ethiopia should reach Lisbon by March/April of year 1 in order to be shipped in the armada for India. The

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three or four years after the original letter was sent to Ethiopia.75 On the one hand, this gave autonomy to the mission, for day-to-day policies were at the hands of the missionaries themselves. On the other hand, however, it slowed decision-making processes in important matters where the approval of the superiors in Europe was needed. This was particularly evident when the missionaries hastened to receive a patriarch. Although the project had already been formulated on the occasion of Fernandes’s trip of 1613 to Ǝnnarya and the last Egyptian metropolitan, Yǝsḥaq (Isaac), died in 1620 or 1621, the arrival of Mendes occurred only in 1625, after a long and tedious exchange of letters, intelligence gathering and diplomatic maneuvers. Another important change that the second mission brought about was the break from the isolation that had characterized the patriarchate of Andrés de Oviedo and the foundation of a number of residences throughout the country. Although the boom of residences and stations occurred only in the 1620s, it was under the leadership of Pedro Páez, first, and António Fernandes, later, that a network of residences was first set up. The first residence to be founded during the second period was Märäba, in Sǝmen. Here, the same pattern that motivated the foundation of Fǝremona was repeated and the residence was associated both with royal power and with the Ethio-Portuguese. Reportedly, a number of Ethio-Portuguese had been resettled by nǝguś Yaʿǝqob from Goǧǧam to Märäba probably with the intention of serving as a ‘cushion’ garrison to keep the Fälaša rebels from Sǝmen at bay.76 It was also at Yaʿǝqob’s

75

76

letter would be expected to reach Goa in August/September of the same year and then reach Diu in October. If catching the ‘monsoon’ fleets to the Red Sea, the letter could be in Massawa in March of year 2, Fǝremona in April/May and Gorgora in June/July. If a response was rapidly prepared, it could be expected to reach Massawa in September when the last ships left for Diu. From Diu correspondence was forwarded to Goa, where Indiamen convoys departed for Lisbon between December and February; the trip finished in Lisbon between July and September of year 3. According to O’Malley, four years were required for a letter and response between Rome and India, a time that might have been slightly reduced in exchanges targeting Portugal; O’Malley, The First Jesuits, 63. As a way of example, the second letter sent by Susǝnyos to Philip III (dated July 2, 1615) was announced as received by the viceroy of Portugal on February 21, 1617; Philip III to Archbishop of Lisbon, in raso XI, doc. 46, 380. Slightly shorter periods are nonetheless also recorded; thus, a letter written by the Jesuit general in January 1617 was received in Ethiopia eighteen months later, in July 1618; Susǝnyos to Muzio Vitelleschi, July 13, 1618, in raso XI, doc. 51, 400. Luís de Azevedo to provincial in Goa, July 26, 1617, in raso XI, doc. 20, 135. The Sǝmen mountains, where a large population of Fälaša lived, had been in the previous decades, in particular during Śärṩä Dǝngǝl’s rule, the scene of severe punitive expeditions led by the

Mission Metrics

105

request that in 1605 two Jesuits moved there. The small settlement was, however, soon abandoned, probably as early as 1607. Thereafter, the Portuguese moved back to their main settlements in Dämbǝya and Tǝgray and the Jesuits did likewise. After abandoning the site of Märäba the missionaries must have either reoccupied their old residence, situated somewhere in Dämbǝya, or founded a new settlement on Gorgora peninsula (henceforth Gorgora Velha).77 Given time, Gorgora became the focal point of the mission; until his death Páez used it as his main residence, and Luís de Azevedo and António Fernandes resided there at length. With this foundation the missionary center moved definitively to the Lake Ṭana area, closer to royal power. The exact location of Gorgora Velha remains to date unknown, but it must have been situated near the present-day village of Mange, perhaps at the site today known as Kendo Nora or Nora Mikaʾel, where a ruined structure of limestone has been recently discovered.78 The rocky peninsula of Gorgora was situated at the western edge of the province of Dämbǝya, which had gained political importance during the previous decades. Since the reign of Śärṩä Dǝngǝl the northwards advance of Oromo groups towards Šäwa and Goǧǧam had forced the Christian rulers to seek safer havens in the northern provinces. Śärṩä Dǝngǝl spent the first decades of his reign mostly in the ‘central’ provinces and, from 1573, his royal chronicle considered the region of Šäwa ‘the center of the kingdom’.79 However, towards the 1580s the ruler was forced to move northwards and in 1586 he built a residence in Gubaʾe, east of Lake Ṭana in Bägemdǝr province.80 Thereafter, Dämbǝya and neighboring Bägemdǝr

77

78 79

80

central power. See Conti Rossini (trans.), Historia regis Sarṣa Dengel, 102, 153 (text), 116, 170–171 (trans.). Reportedly, Śärṩä Dǝngǝl had given a gwǝlt around Gorgora to the Ethio-Portuguese and the right was confirmed later by Yaʿǝqob and Susǝnyos; Azevedo, 1608, in raso XI, doc. 24, 145. See Fernández, The Archaeology and Architecture. Carlo Conti Rossini (trans.), Historia regis Sarṣa Dengel (Malak Sagad), accedi Historia gentis Galla, interpreti I. Guidi (Lipsiae: Otto Harrassowitz, 1907), 44 (text), 51 (trans.). Azevedo added that, ‘este reino dizem ser o coração do imperio e aqui era a corte antigamente ainda no tempo que ca chegou o Patriarcha’; Luís de Azevdo to provincial in Goa, July 22, 1607, in raso XI, doc. 20, 132. On the royal camp at Gubaʾe, see Conti Rossini, Historia regis Sarṣa Dengel, 43, 83, 117 (text), 50, 95, 133 (trans.). Conti Rossini in his translation calls the structure a ‘palace’; in the original text the terms employed are ṣǝrḥ mängǝśtu (i.e. ‘chamber, palace, fortress of the government’) and maḫfädu (‘tower, fort, fortress, citadel, temple’); Wolf Leslau, Comparative Dictionary of Geʿez (Classical Ethiopic) (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1991), 338, 563. The site of Gubaʾe has been a source of intense discussion because several scholars

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Dänqäz

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äro

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Missionary sites north of Lake Ṭana, 1603–1632 Credits: 2014, Eduardo Martín Agúndez

were the provinces chosen to locate most of the royal kätäma. This tendency reached its peak under Susǝnyos, who set up a series of camps in the areas to the east and north of Lake Ṭana: at Qoga, which had been previously a residence of Yaʿǝqob, in 1607–1609 and again in 1613; at Dǝḵana (Dekhana) from about 1610 to 1618; at Kund Amba, where the Jesuits later established their residence of Gorgora Nova, in 1611–1612 and 1614–1617; at Dänqäz (initially referred to in sources with the region’s name, Libo) in 1615–1617, 1618–1623 (?) and 1625– 1632; and at Fogära in 1624.81 Once Gorgora was consolidated, in about 1611 the missionaries established a third residence at Qwälläla (Qollela), in Goǧǧam. If the earlier foundation was associated with nǝguś Susǝnyos, Qwälläla was linked to his brother ras Śǝʿǝlä

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have claimed, with little evidence thereof, that it is one and the same as the famous gǝmb of Guzara near Ǝnfraz; for a review of the discussion, see Clair Bosc-Tiessé, ‘Gubaʾe’, in Uhlig, Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, vol. 2. The different locations of Susǝnyos’s wandering kätäma have been studied in Hervé Pennec, Des jésuites au royaume du Prêtre Jean (Ethiopie): Stratégies, rencontres et tentatives d’implantation (1495–1633) (Paris: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian and Centre Cultural Calouste Gulbenkian, Paris, 2003), 203 and passim.

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Krǝstos, who, since 1609, had been the governor of Goǧǧam. The residence was put in the charge of the Italian Francesco Antonio de Angelis and became the main gate to a region hitherto unexplored by the missionaries. With this foundation the mission was present in three important terrains of action of the Ethiopian state – Tǝgray, Dämbǝya and Goǧǧam – and was also within close reach of three similarly strategic areas, Agäw Mǝdǝr, Damot and Bägemdǝr. After this, expansion halted for a few years as, with only five Jesuits, the mission could not afford to manage more residences. However, in 1618, at the request of Susǝnyos, de Angelis, then the principal at Qwälläla, moved to the Agäw region and opened a residence at Ankaša. Later, it was to become a focal point of missionary proselytism among the Agäw.82 Further expansion occurred only when new recruits arrived during the 1620s. In 1620, Antonio Bruno and Diogo de Mattos joined the mission, increasing its operatives to seven members. As a result, in the following year the Jesuits opened a residence in Azäzo, that can be considered as the culmination of the missionaries’ influence over the political leaders of Christian Ethiopia.83 On November 1, 1621, to formalize the ideological shift, blattengeta Mälkǝʾa Krǝstos made the first public declaration of Catholic faith by rebuking the Orthodox doctrine of the unique divine nature of God.84 Following this, on November 9, a date chosen to coincide with the Dedication of St. John Lateran in Rome according to the Roman calendar, Páez and Susǝnyos formalized the foundation of the new settlement at Azäzo. Christened as Gännätä Iyäsus, the ‘Paradise of Jesus’, the settlement was to serve a dual purpose: as royal kätäma during the winter season – when temperatures at the kätäma of Dänqäz dropped – and as the royal residence of the mission. The site was, architectonically speaking, the most ambitious of all missionary or royal settlements and its complex of buildings and structures are analyzed in Chapter 6. The second mission period also unfolded according to a more calculated, longterm approach. The goal was to befriend royal power but, this time, the padres tried to proceed with caution. So, from 1603 to about 1617, the missionaries kept their distance from Ethiopian internal religious affairs. Until the turning point of the battle of 1617, when a traditionalist uprising was defeated, none of the five missionaries appears to have been directly involved in any open religious debate. 82 Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso III, liv. IV, Chapter XXXVII. It must be reiterated that Susǝnyos was himself half Agäw from his mother’s side; see Andreu Martínez d’AlòsMoner, ‘Ḥamälmal Wärq’, in eae vol. 5. 83 Details on this foundation are provided by Páez, who, does not mention the name, however, and only informs us of its invocation to Jesus; Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso III, liv. IV, Chapter XXII. 84 Ibid.

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The missionaries thus, proceeded with moderation and discretion, avoiding open confrontation with the clergy. In parallel, however, they also approached to selected figures and lost no time in trying to put the Society on a secure footing. Páez began to apply this method early.85 Shortly after his arrival he made efforts to meet nǝguś Zädǝngǝl (1603–1604), who, according to the missionary’s own record, held the foreigner in high esteem.86 The two met in mid-1604 on the northern shore of Lake Ṭana, where for over a month the foreign priest held discussions with royal clergy on religious matters and even officiated over Latin masses in the court. Páez is eager in his own account to stress the favorable impression he made on the nǝguś and informs of a proposal from the ruler to become patriarch.87 Yet, when Zädǝngǝl decided to join Catholicism and hastened to forbid the observance of the Sabbath, Páez recommended that he take a more guarded approach: ‘Lord, I do not think that the people are yet ready to accept so many prohibitions. If Your Majesty acted with less rush in introducing the reforms, in my opinion these would be better accepted’.88 When Zädǝngǝl was killed in battle on October 12, 1604 Páez persisted in his approach. Ably assisted by Ethio-Portuguese aides, he witnessed Susǝnyos’s near arrival to power in 1605 and in Gubaʾe, with his companions Francesco Antonio de Angelis and António Fernandes, encountered the queen dowager Maryam Śǝna and the reinstalled Yaʿǝqob. The story somehow repeated itself once more. Reportedly, the nǝguś was interested in the foreign missionary and was curious of ‘the things from India and Portugal’.89 Yet, falling victim to another rebellion, he was killed in battle. During the same campaign Páez also had time to befriend ras Atnatewos, a behind-the-scenes ruler during the stormy years that concluded with the rise of Susǝnyos; the missionary record stressed that Atnatewos had asked Páez ‘to become his theologian and 85

Páez’s strategical skills are reflected in several passages from his biography; one must suffice to illustrate it. In October 1604, following the death in battle of nǝguś Zädǝngǝl, and the uncertainty about the next-ruler-to-be, the Spaniard decided to abandon the camp of ras Atnatewos, supporter of Susǝnyos as candidate to the Solomonic throne against the other contender, Yaʿǝqob – backed himself by ras Zäśǝllase – ‘in order to better approach the one who would succeed’; Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso III, liv. IV, Chapter IX. An earlier analysis of this method appears in Tewelde, ‘La politica cattolica de Selṭan Sägäd I’, 16 and passim. 86 See Pedro Páez to Tomás de Ituren, September 14, 1612, in raso XI, doc. 34, 221 and passim; Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso III, liv. IV, Chapter VI and passim. 87 The nǝguś’s Catholic penchant would have cost him an excommunication from metropolitan Ṗeṭros; see Cohen, The Missionary Strategies of the Jesuits, 126. 88 Páez, 1612, in raso XI, doc. 34, 235. 89 Ibid.

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master’.90 In around 1606 the future royal chronicler Mǝhǝrka Dǝngǝl (abba Marca) joined the circle of the missionaries and thereafter became one of the mission’s staunchest advocates.91 With the rise of Susǝnyos to power the Spaniard was introduced at his court and within a short time he acquired a position probably rivaling that of the royal eunuchs.92 Manoel de Almeida reported that when the nǝguś had his kätäma at Kund Amba ‘there were frequent exchanges and great familiarity between our fathers and those at the court. A number of them cherished coming to our house and a father was always present at the court. In this way, the principles of our holy faith were more easily transmitted and taught’.93 Until his death in 1622 Páez became one of the leading personalities in the kingdom. He made frequent visits to the court, advised on reforms, helped in the government of the state and followed the ruler during the seasonal military campaigns. In his letters the missionary often recalled the high esteem in which he was held at the court. Thus, in 1616 he wrote ‘the emperor makes me stay at his court almost the whole time, and when he goes away he rarely separates from me’.94 Yet, as he had already done with the earlier rulers, Páez urged the ruler to be patient; the mission’s opponents would be eventually won over either with the help of religious arguments or, when power was secured, with the use of force.95 So contrary to a widely held opinion, Páez and his companions did not adopt a ‘tolerant’ approach out of genuine conviction. The missionaries considered the use of power and force and they were careful enough to neither put this as the first option nor make it explicit. Páez hinted at the idea of a military expedition from India in a letter addressed to the Jesuit general dated 1614 and evidence indicates that this issue was amply discussed in private conversations with Susǝnyos. In 1618 he also commented that the nǝguś knew that the reformation of Ethiopia ‘could not be accomplished without the help he had already requested’, implicitly referring to a request for military assistance to Portuguese India.96 90 91

Páez to provincial in Goa, July 29, 1605, in raso XI, 70. Luís de Azevedo to the provincial in India, July 30, 1608, in raso XI, doc. 24, 146; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VII, Chapter XX. 92 For an overview of the role of eunuchs in African monarchies see Claude Meillassoux, ‘La cour divine’, Les Temps Modernes 42, 782 (1986). An interesting analysis of this group within the Roman empire remains Keith Hopkins, Conquerors and Slaves (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1978), 172 and passim. 93 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VII, Chapter XI. 94 Páez, 1616, in raso XI, doc. 44, 376. 95 Pedro Páez to superior general, July 2, 1614, in raso XI, doc. 39, 326. 96 Pedro Páez to Muzio Vitelleschi, June 16–23, 1618, in raso XI, doc. 53, 410. In an earlier document he referred to the same subject in such vague terms as esso, y V.P. ya sabe or as

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During this early phase the patriarchal project was not forgotten. A few scenes gleaned from the missionary record highlight the existence of a hidden patriarchal agenda from the outset of the second Jesuit mission. Páez, for instance, shortly after his arrival, requested that the body of Patriarch Andrés de Oviedo be exhumed from its grave in Fǝremona and thereafter he sent the head of Oviedo to the provincial in Goa.97 This may be an early indication that the Jesuits were fostering a memory of Oviedo’s patriarchate and thus creating symbols to sponsor a second patriarchate. The same missionary mentioned on another occasion that nǝguś Zädǝngǝl had intended to remove the ‘schismatic’ metropolitan from office and replace him with Páez.98 Furthermore, in 1607, the Jesuit delegate at the court in Madrid, Father Luís Pinheiro, informed the superior general about a letter that had been sent by Zädǝngǝl to Philip II of Portugal. Pinheiro stressed that the document Neither refers to the cause of the patriarch nor to that of the bishop, and the courier did not bring [the letter] for the Nuncio that Your Paternity had told me about, which was dealing with that particular or with the nomination of a patriarch, which Your Paternity so wishes; the nomination should fall on a member of the Society. I wish you could read it, for I am convinced that these men hold us in great esteem and are ready to help us carry out everything as planned.99 In the same document Pinheiro mentioned that the Ethiopian patriarchate and the bishopric of Japan were the two most pressing projects of the Society of Jesus in the East.100 However, the idea of the patriarchate lingered for some years. In Spain and Portugal the memories of the first mission’s failure likely made political leaders cautious about the subject. Thus, when an enthusiastic nǝguś Susǝnyos began to send letters to the Spanish king in Madrid concerning that particular, answers to Ethiopia arrived late and included only vague words, to the despair of his close adviser Pedro Páez.101 In fact, there were also important obstacles in the following quotation: ‘They will not be able to […] offer obedience to His Holiness but only with the help of what they cherish and that Your Paternity already knows’; Pedro Páez, 1614, in raso XI, doc. 39, 333. 97 Páez, 1603, in raso XI, doc. 14, 58. 98 Páez, 1605, in raso XI, doc. 16, 69. 99 Luís Pinheiro to superior general, February 26, 1607, in raso XI, doc. 18, 77. 100 Ibid. 101 Páez complained about that to the superior general when he said that the requests made by Susǝnyos had no answer: ‘In Spain they seldom answer to our letters’; Páez, 1612, in raso XI, doc. 34, 273–274.

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to be surmounted in Ethiopia. Despite the partiality of Susǝnyos and a few other influential figures for Páez and the rest of missionaries, the kingdom was not yet ripe for such a project. During the first five years of his reign, Susǝnyos was busy enough strengthening his power and suppressing local uprisings and dissenting movements; thus, Manoel de Almeida counted between sixteen and eighteen ‘rebellions’ during the first two years of his kingdom alone.102 The relative weakness of the kingdom did not allow its ruler to take part in grand political and religious projects. Páez summarized this situation in a letter he sent in 1612 to his former teacher and friend Tomás de Ituren: The Emperor appears every day more affectionate to our things, and he never misses an opportunity to praise them in front of his people. He often tells them: ‘Why shouldn’t we join the Portuguese? What wrongdoing do you see in their law [?]’. Yet, in spite of it he does not dare to take certain steps and rather is fearful of incurring in the same fate as the good Emperor [Zädǝngǝl] who was killed […]; and a few days ago as the captain of the Portuguese asked him if he would give obedience to the pope, he answered: ‘I wish to have already settled everything twelve [sic] or six years ago, since I rule in the Empire, and thereby be able to do whatever it pleases me, without having any trouble with these men’.103 In the early 1610s Páez, Fernandes, de Angelis and Azevedo began to gather the first fruits of their strategy in approaching intellectual figures and political elites. Around 1611 Fǝqur Ǝgziʾǝ, whom Almeida late in the 1620s described as ‘one of the first who knew and received the holy faith’, joined the missionaries’ circle.104 About the same time or shortly after the padres brought to their cause influential political and ecclesiastical figures. Most prominently, these included nǝguś Susǝnyos himself and his half-brother ras Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos.105 102 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VII, Chapter V–VII, XX–XXIII. 103 Páez, 1612, in raso XI, doc. 34, 271. On the figure of Ituren see Antonio Pérez Goyena, Un eximio teólogo y escritor navarro, Tomás de Iturén (París: Eusko Ikaskuntza, 1931), 31. 104 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VII, liv. IX, Chapter IX. 105 It cannot be determined when exactly Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos and Susǝnyos began to ‘convert’, because, as the missionaries understood it, ‘conversion’ was a process that could take years rather than an isolated act. However, the crucial period when both political lords might have adopted Catholic positions should have been during the early 1610s, when Susǝnyos had assumed a fair degree of control of the kingdom and during the first years of Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos’s rule in Goǧǧam (1610–1612). Thus, towards 1612 Páez reported that he was eating with Susǝnyos, an unusual physical proximity that might reflect deep ideological sympathies; Páez, 1612, in raso XI, doc. 34, 251. In 1614 Susǝnyos wrote a letter to the Jesuit general Acquaviva in which he expressed unequivocally his religious convictions:

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Additional important figures joining their cause were abetohun Bǝʿǝlä Krǝstos (Bellachristos), a cousin of Susǝnyos, Amsalä Krǝstos, governor of Tǝgray, abetohun Zädǝngǝl, Zämanuel, abbot of the monastery of Däbrä Ṣǝlalo (Sellalo, Çalalo, Zalalo) in Goǧǧam, the royal chronicler azzaž Ṭino (a nickname meaning ‘small one’, his real name being Wäldä/Zäkrǝstos), fitawrari Zäśǝllase, blattengeta and Goǧǧam nägaš Aderom and the monk Gäbrä Mädḫǝn.106 Soon, a pro-Jesuit Ethiopian élite took shape at the court and in the areas adjoining the Jesuit residences in Goǧǧam and Dämbǝya. During the 1610s, the members of this group grew in number and also in confidence. Catholics are heard for the first time speaking up in favor of Roman Catholicism. So, in ca. 1613–1614, Páez stated that ‘as soon as the Catholic faithful realized that they had on their side so many important lords, they turned to openly profess their faith and to abandon and condemn the wrong practices of Euthyches and Dioscorus’.107 Around that time Susǝnyos’s ambitious half-brother, Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos, became an outspoken Catholic polemist, or, as Almeida put it, ‘the strongest [Catholic] spear in Ethiopia’.108 Likewise, together with his brother, he became the mission’s main benefactor. The Jesuit residence of Qwälläla that he funded became an important missionary center and his nearby kätäma of Särka was, probably, also the first place in Ethiopia where Catholicism began to be publicly professed. Inevitably, the two religious parties clashed in the public arena. In the early 1610s a series of religious debates took place in which local Catholics and traditionalists challenged each other. Reportedly, the first debates to be celebrated were at the royal kätäma in Gorgora, at Särka and in Ačäfär, to the southwest of Lake Ṭana. The Jesuits are adamant that they became aware of these debates almost accidentally. Hence, Almeida emphasized that at the opening of the first debate ‘father Pedro Páez and Father Luís de Azevedo were present only

‘for that reason we won’t move away, and this until the day of our death, from the precepts of the Holy Roman See of St. Peter, whom we venerate as if it was our mother’; Susǝnyos to Claudio Acquaviva, July 3, 1614, in raso I, doc III–2. On Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos’s leaning for the Jesuits see Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso III, liv. IV, Chapter XXVIII. 106 See Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso III, liv. IV, Chapter VI; Lorenzo Romano to Muzio Vitelleschi, July 11, 1613, in raso XI, doc. 37, 318; Páez, 1614, in raso XI, doc. 39, 331–333; Páez, 1616, in raso XI, doc. 44, 375; Mattos, 1621, in raso XI, doc. 61, 490; de Angelis, 1613, in arsi, Goa 39 I bis, 104r, 106v; Azevedo, 1608, in raso XI, doc. 24, 146; also Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VII, Chapter XX. 107 Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso III, liv. VII, Chapter XX. The passage was later paraphrased in Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VII, Chapter XX. 108 Ibid. liv. VII, Chapter XXI.

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by chance’.109 During the second debate in Ačäfär, however, another narrative emerges. There Páez played a more active role. He met with the Catholic neophytes and taught them ‘the solution to some doubts and weak formulations that the opponents defended’.110 Discussions continued in Särka, at the kätäma of Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos. On that occasion Father de Angelis emphasized his joy at witnessing how his disciple was able to argue ‘about very difficult issues and, with the help of Catholic dogmas, he tore apart false religious dogmas he had himself professed before’.111 But even then the intention of the padres seems to have been to avoid an open confrontation with the traditionalists. Thus, in 1612 Páez recommended that an enthusiastic Susǝnyos slow down the religious reforms and, the next year, against the backdrop of the religious debates, the ruler was reprimanded because at the court he had started a discussion about the filioque, which did not belong in the missionaries’ agenda.112 As religious discussions unfolded, metropolitan Sǝmʿon moved to the court. Initially, the religious leader challenged the dogma of the double nature of God, which was becoming more and more attractive for a sector of the court. Subsequently, however, the debate shifted to a discussing of missionary proselytism and the status of the Ethio-Portuguese. Harking back to the segregating policies of Minas, Sǝmʿon argued that it was not the right of the padres to convert to Catholicism the wives of the Ethio-Portuguese men. But when Susǝnyos decided to grant the missionaries the same freedom as they had enjoyed under Śärṩä Dǝngǝl, the metropolitan closed the controversy by excommunicating those who listened to the foreigners.113 By then the court was split. As the group of those friendly to the missionaries grew, so did the ranks of the traditionalists on the side of Sǝmʿon. These included ras Yämanä Krǝstos (Emanâ Christôs), half-brother of Susǝnyos and Yolyos (Iulios), Susǝnyos’s son-in-law and governor of Tǝgray, who initially had been on friendly terms with the m ­ issionaries.114 109 110 111 112

Ibid. Chapter XX. Ibid. Chapter XXI. De Angelis, 1613, in arsi, Goa 39 I bis, 104r and passim. Páez, 1612, in raso XI, doc. 34, 234; Páez, 1614, in raso XI, doc. 39, 327–328. Towards the end of 1613 Páez told Susǝnyos that ‘since the enemies did not accept reason but force, and since neither the Emperor nor the Catholics were powerful enough to face so many heretics, it was better to divert the problem and to say that as positions were so opposed the time had not come yet to resolve so important an issue; and also that the books should be carefully read. In the meantime the war against the Agäw would be over and later there would be time to resolve this problem’; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VII, Chapter XXII. 113 De Angelis, 1613, in arsi, Goa 39 I bis, 105r–06v. 114 Yämanä Krǝstos helped the Jesuits acquire lands for Gorgora in 1607 and was initially also  in favor of calling a Portuguese military expedition in Ethiopia; Almeida, Historia

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Additional figures were blattengeta Kǝflo (Cafelo, Caflô), a powerful eunuch at the court, and queen mother ǝtege Ḥamälmal Wärq. It can be assumed that, by the mid-1610s, the traditionalist party began to plot to thwart the kingdom’s progressive drive towards Catholicism. In 1614 further debates between the religious parties ensued. The Jesuits, once in the background, seem to have been more and more involved in public activities. They also began for the first time to minister and give communion to the Ethiopians. At the court the situation was becoming untenable. Jesuit sources tell of two failed plots to murder Susǝnyos during the years 1613 and 1614.115 The nǝguś, for his part, enforced the first repressive measures against those who sustained traditionalist views about the true nature of Christ.116 By then it was clear to both sides that a settlement of the crisis was out of reach. Not without reason, the historian Tewelde Beiene dubbed this period as ‘the first stages of a war of religion’.117 As a consequence of the growing tension in the kingdom, the Jesuits and their political counterparts started to work in a more decided, though still secret, way for the patriarchal cause. A first clear hint at this is the secret mission that should have taken António Fernandes and the ambassador Fǝqur Ǝgziʾǝ to Europe. The expedition was mounted in 1613 in the highest secrecy and to divert suspicion its planners made it take an unusual route: instead of using the ports of the Red Sea, the expedition would go across the southern regions and reach the Benadir coast.118 Its aims were to offer Susǝnyos’s obedience to the pope and to obtain military help from Spain.119 The expedition

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Ethiopica, in raso VI, liv. VII, Chapter II and III. Yolyos had a prominent role as a military leader during Susǝnyos’s defeat of Yaʿǝqob and rise to power, and appears in documents as hostile to the missionaries only from about 1613 onwards. Páez, 1614, in raso XI, doc. 39, 321; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VII, Chapter XXIII. Following discussions in 1614 on this issue, a secular scholar was imprisoned; Páez, 1614, in raso XI, doc. 39, 324. Tewelde, ‘La politica cattolica de Selṭan Sägäd I’, 90. A letter from 1614 stated that the metropolitan was made to believe that Fernandes had gone south only to preach in the kingdom of Ǝnnarya; Páez, 1614, in raso XI, doc. 39, 316. In a speech by Susǝnyos from 1613 reported in an Annual letter, the nǝguś declared: ‘I have decided to profess the same faith as the Portuguese King, who is my ally in the power of arms and to commit this church to the Roman pope, and to receive with the greatest reverence the Patriarch that he shall send me, who, correcting the errors of Ethiopia, shall rule on everything according to the rites and traditions of the Roman church’; de Angelis, 1613, in arsi, Goa 39 I bis, 109r.

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turned into a consuming experience for its leaders; it lingered for nineteen months in southern provinces and eventually failed. This notwithstanding, in the following years the royal chancellery was the center of intense diplomatic activity. With Páez, his fellow Jesuits and pro-Catholic figures such as Fǝqur Ǝgziʾǝ well placed at the center of royal affairs, the demands on Rome and Spain became more pressing. Thus, between 1613 and 1621, Susǝnyos and Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos signed at least twelve letters to the kingdom of Spain and to Rome. In these letters the political leaders pushed their requests for military help from Portuguese India to help them secure the Red Sea coast and pressed their European counterparts to speed up the issue of the patriarchate.120 The situation came to a head a few years later, when a coalition of powerful figures, headed by metropolitan Sǝmʿon, Yolyos, Yämanä Krǝstos, Kǝflo and ras Atnatewos, challenged in open battle the pro-Catholic forces guided by Susǝnyos and Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos. The battle, which reportedly took place on May 5, 1617 at Ṣädda, north-east of Lake Ṭana, had devastating effects for the traditionalists.121 The metropolitan Sǝmʿon and the chief rebel leader Yolyos were beheaded. A number of Yolyos’s lieutenants, such as Zägǝrum, Dämo, Läbasi, Nasrani, Qǝbʾäto, Lǝbso and Aṣfo, were sentenced to death but eventually their sentence was commuted. Finally, another group of rebel leaders were sent into exile, including ras Atnatewos, exiled to the Amhara province, and Yämanä Krǝstos, exiled to an unspecified mountain in Goǧǧam.122 Barely a month after this major uprising, another plot against Susǝnyos organized by Kǝflo was diverted and the once influential eunuch and blattengeta was executed.123 However, tension was not relieved by this success of the Catholic party. During the celebrations of Lent in 1620 a troop of some 400 monks, nuns, scholars and courtiers led a protest at the court. Their target this time was ras Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos, who had already made Särka into a Catholic stronghold. The ras of Goǧǧam had de facto adopted Catholicism as the official faith in his kätäma and forbade the practice of the Sabbath. The Jesuit De Angelis commented 120 In a letter from 1618, Philip III said that ‘The Emperor requested me to send a Patriarch’; Philip III to viceroy of India, March 18, 1618, in raso XI, doc. 52, 401. 121 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VII, liv. IX, Chapter XXI. 122 Pedro Páez to Tomás de Ituren, July 6, 1617, in raso XI, doc. 48, 385, 386; Azevedo, 1619, in raso XI, doc. 54, 432. Susǝnyos’s royal chronicle dwells on the uprising but without mentioning its religious background; abba Mǝhǝrka Dǝngǝl et al, Chronica de Susǝnyos, Chapter XLVII. 123 A biographical sketch on Kǝflo is provided by Páez; Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso III, liv. IV, Chapter XX. Few details, however, are given about his death, which Páez places forty days after the battle of Ṣädda – that is, on June 14, 1617; see also Francisco Antonio de Angelis to Nuno Mascarenhas, July 26, 1622, in raso XI, doc. 62, 503.

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that the intention of the protesters was to lead the Catholics into an open confrontation that would have rapidly spread across the kingdom. Conflict was averted, however, when, following the padres’ advice, Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos reversed his pro-Catholic decisions.124 In spite of these tensions, in the early 1620s the prospects for the mission invited optimism. Sources say that in 1620 Catholic communion was still held in secret but several important personalities had already joined the Catholic party.125 By then the missionaries had no intention of reaching a compromise with traditionalists, as demonstrated by an anecdote from the historical record wherein local priests would have allowed the Catholics to communicate according to the Alexandrian rite and their opponents would do the same with the Roman Catholic rite, a proposal that was coldly received by the padres.126 That same year, de Angelis informed Nuno Mascarenhas, the Jesuit provincial in Portugal, that ‘the project of the conversion [of Ethiopia] is at its climax’, and the following year his companion Diogo de Mattos, who had just joined the mission, shared the same optimistic view.127 In 1621 nǝguś Susǝnyos took some public steps in favor of the Catholics. Extending a privilege he had earlier granted to the Ethio-Portuguese, he exempted all Catholics from paying taxes at the customs post in Lämälmo, which surveyed the road between Šire and Dämbǝya.128 Most importantly, after a series of theological debates between the two parties, he pushed forward measures against the celebration of the Sabbath.129 In early November of the same year the nǝguś made an open profession of Catholicism. After this step, there inevitably ensued an official persecution of the traditionalists. During this period fortune seems to have been on the side of the Catholic party too. When Sǝmʿon fell in battle Susǝnyos had already decided not to 124 Luís de Azevedo to superior general, July 8, 1620, in raso XI, doc. 58, 461; Francesco Antonio de Angelis to Nuno Mascarenhas, July 13, 1620, Ancaxa, ibid. doc. 59, 459 and passim. 125 See Mattos, 1621, in raso XI, doc. 61, 487. 126 Luís de Azevedo to superior general, July 8, 1620, in raso XI, doc. 58, 462. 127 De Angelis, July 13, 1620, in raso XI, doc. 59, 463; de Angelis, 1620, in raso XI, doc. 59, 464; Mattos, 1621, in raso XI, doc. 61, 483. A further indication of the favorable context of the Jesuit mission was that in 1620 its leader, Pedro Páez, took a rest at Gorgora. Probably having seen that part of the job was done and that work was less pressing at the court, Páez began then compiling his masterwork, the História de Etiópia; ibid. 484. In 1620, however, the viceroy of India, Fernando de Albuquerque, wrote to Philip III that conditions in Ethiopia were still not fitting to receive a patriarch Fernando de Albuquerque to Philip III, February 7, 1620, in raso XI, doc. 55, 440. 128 Mattos, 1621, in raso XI, doc. 61, 477. 129 Ibid. 480–481.

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request another metropolitan from the Coptic hierarchy in Cairo.130 Yet, this notwithstanding, some ecclesiastics or members of the court had managed to call for a replacement and in 1619 or 1620 a Coptic bishop, Yǝsḥaq, was on his way to the upper Nile with the aim of occupying the empty see of Ethiopia.131 However, the metropolitan never reached his destiny. He died somewhere in the Sudan desert, perhaps at the hands of Rabat I, ruler of Sinnar, who was diplomatically close to Susǝnyos.132 From then on the Jesuits set themselves wholeheartedly to lobby for the sending of a Catholic patriarch and bishops with rights to succession.133

1623–1632: The Catholic Patriarchate and the Expansion of the Network

Although by the early 1620s the mission was in an enviable position, its human personnel showed every sign of exhaustion. After nearly two decades of work, the men were drained. The secret mission led by António Fernandes to southern Ethiopia, carried out when he was already forty-six years old and which continued for nineteen months in extreme conditions, remains a symbol of what the mission demanded from its main actors. Some of the symptoms described in the sources indicate that the seventeenth-century missionaries were battered by the same diseases that make Ethiopia today a country with one of the lowest life expectancy rates in the world. The Jesuits thus suffered 130 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VII, Chapter XXVI. 131 Most probably the one who had requested a new bishop in substitution to Sǝmʿon was a member of the Solomonic family and was placed high in the hierarchy of the kingdom A similar scene repeated under the rule of Fasilädäs, when two Egyptian bishops, Mikael and Yoḥannǝs, met in Ethiopia. The first had been called by the nǝguś and the latter by his brother and rival Gälawdewos; see Béguinot, La cronaca abbreviata d’Abissinia, 51. 132 There are two conflicting accounts of Yǝsḥaq’s fate. A Jesuit source reports that as he approached Ethiopia, he fell ill in the land of the Bälaw, in the hinterland of Sawakin, where he eventually died; Azevedo, 1619, in raso XI, doc. 54, 432. In the chronicle of Susǝnyos, which was partially reproduced by Páez, however, Yǝsḥaq is said to have died while a prisoner of Rabat (Rubat); Mǝhǝrka Dǝngǝl et al., Chronica de Susǝnyos, Chapter XXII; and Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso III, liv. IV, Chapter XX. 133 De Angelis, 1620, in raso XI, doc. 59, 465. In 1622 de Angelis wrote: ‘All we demand is a Patriarch, everybody shouts aloud for a Patriarch; for, if he doesn’t come, our suffering will have been in vain, and so will all wars and the blood spilled by Christians and monks’; Francesco Antonio de Angelis to Nuno Mascarenhas, July 26, 1622, Goǧǧam, in raso XI, doc. 62, 503. A passionate plea for the patriarch appears also in a letter sent by Luís de Azevedo to the visitador from 1622; compiled in Barneto, 1623, in raso XI, doc. 67, 522.

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from eye diseases (probably caused by Onchocerciasis and Trachoma), which affected de Angelis, Azevedo and Juan de Velasco, and from fistulas.134 In 1621 Lorenzo Romano died from an illness after seven months of ‘excruciating pains’ and the next year Páez and de Angelis took the same path, both following severe fever and probably as a consequence of malaria.135 Furthermore, successes at the court and in areas such as Goǧǧam and Dämbǝya had also overstretched the mission’s capacities. The growing number of brethren in the main missionary centers of Qwälläla, Gorgora and Fǝremona could hardly be attended to. To make matters worse, missionaries could not be sent to such promising areas as Agäw land and further south, Ǝnnarya, where the Jesuits thought there were legions of potential converts to be made.136 In 1621 Diogo de Mattos stated that the mission of the Agäw itself could provide work for fifty missionaries.137 Although the first five missionaries worked intensively towards forming a local Catholic hierarchy, including aides who would join in apostolic tasks, the Jesuits could not yet rely entirely on them.138 They considered that a Jesuit leadership was still needed. To remedy this situation and to prepare the ground for the arrival of the Catholic patriarch, towards the late 1610s and early 1620s the Jesuits pressed their companions in Portuguese India and Europe to obtain more men. In 1618 Páez wrote to Vitelleschi ‘we urgently need more companions’ and, two years later, his companion Azevedo went further by emphasizing the shattered state of most of the missionaries.139 In June 1620 two more men, the Portuguese Diogo 134 Velasco eventually had to go back to India in ca. 1629 due to the illness and died in 1630 in Goa; Almeida, 1627, in arsi, Goa 39 II, 420v; raso XII, 75, note 1. A type of disease reported resembles the symptoms of the Labyrinthine fistula; see Azevedo, 1607, in raso XI, doc. 20, 84–85. The disease is today especially prevalent in Tǝgray, the same region mentioned in the source; see Biniam Gebremedhin et al., ‘Diseases’, in eae vol. 2. On Azevedo’s illness, see Diogo do Mattos to superior general, June 2, 1621, in raso XI, doc. 61, 489. 135 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VII, Chapter XXXIV; Mattos, 1621, in raso XI, doc. 61, 499; Barneto, 1623, in raso XI, doc. 67, 511, 516–517, 524. 136 Azevedo, 1619, in raso XI, doc. 54, 419. On possible – though always sporadic – visits by Jesuit missionaries to Ǝnnarya, see Werner J. Lange, History of the Southern Gonga (Southwestern Ethiopia) (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1982), 27. The area had been the focus of intense religious proselytism during the rule of Śärṩä Dǝngǝl; see Lange, History of the Southern Gonga, 25–26. 137 Mattos, 1621, in raso XI, doc. 61, 493. 138 Local aides were often called ministros; most of them were recruited from among the best pupils at the schools of Gorgora, Qwälläla and Fǝremona. On their engagement in apostolic tasks see Fernandes, 1620, in raso XI, doc. 57, 443. 139 Páez, 1618, in raso XI, doc. 53, 411; Azevedo, 1620, in raso XI, doc. 58, 458.

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do Mattos and the Italian Antonio Bruno, joined the mission. Theirs was, however, just a temporary relief and in a letter dated 1622 de Angelis urged the provincial from Portugal to send a hundred men. More realistically, in the same year his companion António Fernandes, by then already the superior of the mission, requested from India twenty more men and insisted that ‘the need for the arrival of a patriarch and more priests is extreme as well as a spiritual necessity’.140 The calls coming from Ethiopia were soon heard. By about 1621 the Jesuits in Rome and Portugal had already made their pick for the patriarchal See in Ethiopia. Their choice fell on a high profile person: the holder of the chair of Holy Scriptures at the University of Évora, Afonso Mendes.141 Like many of the Portuguese recruits of the Society of Jesus, Mendes came from rural Portugal; he was an ‘alentejano’, an origin that a few other missionaries in Ethiopia also shared, and had profited of the Jesuit education system to rise to a prominent position.142 But Mendes was above all a man of letters, not of action, one with no experience whatsoever in the missions but with a long career in the classroom, first at Coimbra and later at Évora, teaching humanities, philosophy, theology and Holy Scriptures.143 The election of a man with such a profile, however, should not be seen as a rupture with the policy set up since the early 1610s by the likes of Pedro Páez and António Fernandes. Contrary to what is often thought, Mendes did not set up a radical breach with the policies of his older 140 De Angelis, 1622, in raso XI, doc. 62, 503; António Fernandes to superior general, December 3, 1622, in raso XI, doc. 63, 505; Id. ad eund., April 30, 1623, in raso XI, doc. 66, 510. 141 Jesuit historiography has granted to King Philip IV of Spain an active role in the election of Mendes as patriarch; see Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter XV; Afonso Mendes to fellows in Portugal, July 9, 1625, in raso XII, doc. 47, 128; Mendes, Expeditio Aethiopicae, in raso VIII, v and liv. I, Chapter XIII; Afonso Mendes, Bran Haymanot: Id est lux fidei in Epithalamium Aethiopissae, sive in Nuptias Uerbi et Ecclesiae (Coloniae Agripinae: Balthazaris ab Egmond et Sociorum, 1692), i; see also Diogo Barbosa Machado, ‘D. Affonso Mendes’, in Bibliotheca Lusitana: Historica, Critica, e Cronologica…ed. Diogo Barbosa Machado, vol. 1 (Lisboa: Antonio Isidoro da Fonseca, 1741–1759), 42. 142 Afonso Mendes’s fellows in Ethiopia coming from the Alentejo province were Tomé Barneto (Évora), Manuel Barradas (Monforte), Luís Cardeira (Beja), Manuel Fernandes (Olivença), António Fernandes (III) (Viana do Alentejo), Manoel Lameira (Estremoz) and Francisco Lopes (Fronteira). 143 Although the target of significant criticism for his work in Ethiopia, Afonso Mendes has not been the object of any thorough analysis so far; for his biographical data I rely on primary sources, some unpublished as well as on Camilo Beccari’s introduction to Mendes’s work Expeditio Aethiopicae; raso VIII, iv and passim and liv. I, Chapter XIV; also ‘Noticias que o Provincial’, ca. 1720, in bnl, cod. 176 [F. 2527], 52r.

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companions.144 In fact, men such as Páez, Azevedo or Fernandes had already given up using the accommodation methods that their companions were successfully applying in other mission fields in the East and chosen a more intransigent path aimed at a wide scale transformation of Ethiopian Christianity (see Chapter 5). Scriptural prowess, theological preparation and an emphasis on hierarchy and authority were the keywords long chosen for the Ethiopian mission and Mendes was the man to push them forward. Thereafter, the Spanish royal chancellery pulled the strings to speed up the patriarchal dossier. In late 1622 the Habsburg ambassador in Portugal, Carlos de Borja Barreto y Aragón, Duke of Villa Hermosa and Count of Ficalho (1580– 1647), pressed the Estado da India to provide for the shipment of the patriarch and the other prelates to Ethiopia.145 The same month, in secret consistory, Pope Urban VIII confirmed the election of the prelate.146 The next year, on March 6, 1623, also in secret consistory, the Barberini pope approved the election of Diogo Seco and João da Roca as coadjutor bishops of the 144 Historiographical discourse has tended to view Mendes as the nemesis of Páez; James Bruce was probably the first to portray Páez’s mission as one defined by ‘moderation, charity, perseverance, long-suffering and peace’ as opposed to the ‘tyranny of the patriarch Alphonso Mendes’; Bruce, Travels to Discover the Sources of the Nile, vol. 2, 397–398, see also 344 and passim. Conti Rossini produced a similar judgment: Mendes was too authoritarian and lacked a flexible hand; Conti Rossini, ‘Portogallo ed Etiopia’, 348. In more recent studies this paradigm has not changed. Thus, Paul Henze described Páez as ‘gentle, learned, considerate of the feelings of others’ and Mendes as ‘haughty’; Henze, Layers of Time: a History of Ethiopia (London: Hurst & Company, 2000), 95, 97. Similarly, in an introductory text on Ethiopian Christianity it is said, ‘[Mendes] lacked the tact and learning of his predecessor, Pero Paez’; David Appleyard, ‘Ethiopian Christianity’, in The Blackwell Companion to Eastern Christianity, ed. Ken Parry (Singapore: Blackwell, 2007), 123; see also Abir, Ethiopia and the Red Sea, 222. The Ethiopian scholar Merid Wolde Aregay has proposed a more complex and probably more historically accurate narrative: ‘In the opinion of this writer Mendez has been unjustly held responsible for a situation which was created by Paez’s policy of complete Latinization of the beliefs and rites of Ethiopian Christians, and by Si’ile Kristos’s energetic persecution of both clergy and laity’; in Mendes’s favor, he further added that he was ‘a highly educated and, what was more important, a very reasonable man’; Merid Wolde Aregay, ‘The Legacy of Jesuit Missionary Activities in Ethiopia from 1555 to 1632’, in The Missionary Factor in Ethiopia: Papers from a Symposium on the Impact of European Missions on Ethiopian Society. Lund University, August 1996, ed. Getatchew Haile et al. (Frankfurt, New York, and Wien: Peter Lang, 1998), 50 and 53. 145 Philip III to Governor of India, December 7, 1622, in raso XI, doc. 64, 506. 146 Urbanus VIII confirmat electionem p. Alfonsi Mendez, December 19, 1922, in raso XII, doc. 3.

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patriarch.147 The two bishops shared with Mendes a similar intellectual profile; Seco, elected bishop of Nicaea, was professor of theology in Rome and Rocha, appointed bishop of Hierapolis, had been Mendes’s disciple and had taught at Coimbra and Évora.148 Eventually, the complete process of selection, approval (in Portugal and Rome) and shipment of the patriarch was to occupy some four years. In 1623 four missionaries, including the visitor Manoel de Almeida, Luís  Cardeira, Manuel Barradas and Francisco Carvalho, left Diu bound for Ethiopia. However, after a troubled trip, they reached their destination only in January the following year. In 1624 the superiors in India chose eight more men for the mission, which brought the numbers up to the twelve initially requested by the Superior general Vitelleschi.149 The Jesuit convoy split: a group of four men, including Manoel Lameira, Tomé Barneto, Gaspar Paes and Jacinto Francisco, took the viagem ordinaria and landed safely at Massawa; two more men, Francisco Machado and Bernardo Pereira, were sent to the Somali shore, from where they aimed to cross the Danakil region towards the Ethiopian highlands. They were, however, less successful. They were imprisoned at Zaylaʿ, the main port of the sultanate of ʿAdal (Awsa), and, after a period of captivity, they were killed.150 A third group, including Juan de Velasco and Jerónimo Lobo, intended to reach the mission via Malindi but failed and had to return to India. Finally, in 1625, the largest contingent of men arrived; it comprised the Patriarch Afonso Mendes, six other Jesuit companions, some ten servants and probably a considerable number of slaves.151 The selection of personnel for missionary-related projects was an issue given particular attention within the Society of Jesus. The dynamics of personal vocations, the needs of the local mission and the prospects and strategies fostered 147 Urbanus VIII eligit in Episcopos coadiutores patriarchae Mendez pp. Didacum Seco et Ioannem da Rocha, March 6, 1923, in raso XII, doc. 5. 148 Afonso Mendes to Muzio Vitelleschi, January 29, 1622, in raso XII, doc. 1, 5 note 1, 6. 149 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter VIII. 150 raso VI, liv. VII, Chapter IX; Gaspar Paes, Annual letter, June 15, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 241v. According to Merid, this dramatic episode occurred against the backdrop of a major crisis between Christian Ethiopian and the sultanate of Awsa; the sultan of Awsa, ʿUmaraddīn al-Madayti, would have imprisoned and eventually murdered the foreign priests in retaliation for Susǝnyos’s restriction on slave trade involving Muslim subjects; Merid, ‘Southern Ethiopia and the Christian Kingdom’, 485–487. 151 The missionaries traveling with Mendes were: Fathers Jerónimo Lobo, Bruno Bruni, Juan de Velasco, Francisco Marques, brothers Manuel Luís and João Martins. Among the servants, two lay priests are known as specifically serving the Patriarch: Salvador de Menezes from Salcete (Goa) and Dominguos de Azevedo from Baçaim; Manoel Barradas to Antonio Gonçalves, 1623, Maskat, in raso XIII, doc. 5, 14.

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in Rome and other decision-making centers were the main factors directing it. Firstly, men were chosen for the mission because, in one way or another, they had made the request themselves, although this did not always apply.152 The attachment of Jesuit novices to specific missions was grounded in personal preferences and mainly resulted from the novices’ becoming familiar with the different missionary achievements of the Society of Jesus. This occurred, specifically, as a result of a reading of annual letters, a common practice in Jesuit houses in Europe and overseas since at least the 1570s.153 As far as its visibility and appeal in Europe and India are concerned, the Ethiopian mission was well placed over its ‘concurrent’ missions. Together with the mission to Japan, it was probably one of the most popular Jesuit undertakings during the first half of the seventeenth century. Indeed, the Jesuits used printing media lavishly to disseminate reports on their successes in the Horn of Africa. The series Annuae Litterae Societatis Jesu included regular summaries on that mission since the first edition of 1583. For its part, the Historiarum Indicarum, the first attempt to summarize the Jesuit global mission by Giovanni Pietro Maffei, reported on it at length.154 Furthermore, such ‘heroic’ deeds as Andrés de Oviedo’s patriarchate and the ‘martyrdom’ of the Maronite de Georgiis secured constant attention in Europe. Finally, in 1615, Nicolão Godigno, who was in charge in Rome of revising the letters sent from India, published a history written in Latin on Ethiopia and the Portuguese and Jesuit activities.155 Given these elements, it can be assumed that requests to go to Ethiopia were plentiful. These normally occurred through the standardized system of writing indipetae, but could also take the form of informal requests to the superiors in the Jesuit houses.156 152 However, the selection of missionaries who did not ask for the mission eventually also occurred. Such was the case of Francisco Machado and Jacinto Francisco; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VII, Chapter IX; Andrés Palmeiro to superior general, January 24, 1624, in raso XII, doc. 16, 36. See also de Almeida, 1623, in raso XII, doc. 12, 21–22. 153 Although the famous litterae annuae had circulated in manuscript and oral form earlier, the Jesuits began publishing a digest of annual letters in 1583: Annuae Litterae Societatis Jesu, Anni M D L XXXI Ad Patres et Fratres eiusdem Societatis (Romae 1583). The series, originally published in Latin, continued, in different forms, up to the eighteenth century and enjoyed widespread success with versions in Italian, French, Portuguese, German and Spanish. On the magnetic effect of these letters in Europe see also Block, Mission Culture 109. 154 Maffeii, Historiarum Indicarum; for passages on the Portuguese and Jesuits in Ethiopia see ‘Liber Primus’, 17–19, 389–396. 155 Nicolão Godigno, De Abassinorum rebvs deque Aethiopiae Patriarchis I.N. Barreto & A. Oviedo (Lugduni: Sumptibus Horatij Cardon, 1615). 156 See Gian Carlo Roscioni, Il desiderio delle Indie (Turin: Einaudi, 2001).

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However, although the personal engagement of every missionary was important, so were the actual needs in the field. Every mission was a special case and required certain missionary profiles. Decision-makers in Europe and India tried, as much as possible, to fulfill the needs voiced from the Ethiopian field. This was true for the number as much as for the type of men sent. The envoy of  about seventeen men – together with at least thirteen servants of the ­patriarch  – between 1623 and 1625 satisfied earlier requests by António Fernandes.157 The Jesuits in India seem, indeed, to have made all efforts to comply, given their resources, with the needs of the mission.158 The profile of those sent to Ethiopia corresponded well with what the mission actually needed. Firstly, the missionaries met the physical requirements of healthy and youth that Francis Xavier had established as needed in India back in the 1540s.159 Thus, the men sent between 1623 and 1625 were relatively young, most being in their mid-thirties (see Table 5).160 The missionaries’ performance in Ethiopia also proved that they had the constitution to withstand the strenuous

157 See António Fernandes to superior general, February 18, 1624, in raso XII, doc. 20, 40. 158 The Ethiopian mission would have enjoyed a certain priority over other projects. In 1624, for instance, the Jesuit visitor in India, Andrés Palmeiro, complained to the superior general that to comply with the needs of the Ethiopian mission the Jesuits in India had assigned a missionary for Africa, Jacinto Francisco, who had been initially destined to Japan; Palmeiro, 1624, in raso XII, doc. 16, 36. Palmeiro eventually accepted the deal only because the missionary in question was of mediocre aptitudes and his contribution, therefore, would be hardly missed in Japan. 159 In Francis Xavier’s words, missionaries ‘should be young, healthy and neither ill nor old’; Francis Xavier to Ignacio de Loyola, January 27, 1545, in Francis Xavier, Monumenta Xaveriana, vol. 1, doc. 47, 363. 160 The average age for the convoy from 1623–1624, the one headed by Manoel de Almeida, appears ‘distorted’ by the presence of an unusually old missionary, Manuel Barradas, then fifty-one years old, about which the visitor Almeida complained. He thus declared to the superior general that Barradas was not fit for the mission ‘because he was over fifty’ and that the missionaries in Ethiopia had emphasized that ‘old men are helpless because they cannot learn the languages of Ethiopia’. Moreover, another missionary, Miguel de Paz, who, in the end, never reached Ethiopia, was dismissed owing to concealed ‘scandals’; Manoel de Almeida to superior general, September 7, 1623, in raso XII, doc. 12, 22. See also Manoel de Almeida to Muzio Vitelleschi, May 8, 1624, in raso XII, doc. 24, 49–50. Two further candidates destined for Ethiopia who had not asked to go were Jorge d’Almeida – Manoel de Almeida’s own brother (see Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter I)– and Luís Cardeira. The first never made it to the mission but the second became one of its most important men in the late 1620s; Almeida, 1623, in raso XII, doc. 12, 21–22.

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life conditions in the highlands, for only one of them, Juan de Velasco, had to abandon the mission due to serious illness. Secondly, the profile of the recruits appears also to have been adequate.161 The emphasis in Ethiopia was on a workforce combining organizing skills, theological sophistication and technical and artistic skills. Thus, the number of members professed of the four solemn vows serving in Ethiopia was high, which meant that most of the missionaries belonged to the highest status within the order and had enjoyed an excellent preparation. The missionary record also attests that a large number of the men active in Africa had training and teaching experience in theology and philosophy. Besides the prelates, among companions defined as teologos or lentes de teologia in sources were Manoel de Almeida, Diogo de Mattos, Antonio Bruno, Juan de Velasco, Manoel Barradas, Francisco Machado and Bernardo Pereira. Additionally, a number of them had taught at the Jesuit schools in the East and some had considerable experience in guiding novitiates and colleges. In fact, a solid experience at the Indian schools seems to have been a necessary requirement for the candidates to be sent to Ethiopia. Thus, Luís de Azevedo, who instructed children for more than two decades at Fǝremona, Gorgora, Qwälläla and Gännätä Iyäsus, had been school master (mestre de noviços) at São Paulo Novo. The visitor Manoel de Almeida and Father Tomé Barneto had both been rectors of the College of Baçaim. Manoel Lameira had occupied the same position in Thana and had also been the head of the novitiates of Goa and Diu. Juan de Velasco had been mestre de noviços at Cochim and Antonio Bruno minister at São Paulo Novo in Goa. Father Diogo Rodriguez, a Jesuit sent in 1624 with Tomé Barneto but who, in the end, did not reach Ethiopia, had been also rector of the Colleges of Moçambique and Baçaim.162 Finally, among the missionaries arriving in the 1620 there were also those skilled in preaching, such as Jacinto Francisco and Jerónimo Lobo.163 Yet, as will be seen in Chapter 6, the new recruits included men with technical and artistic skills. Luís Cardeira, who carried out indefatigable work in the mission, was portrayed as an ‘able theologian, mathematician and musician’ as well as skilled in Amharic, Gǝʿǝz and probably 161 In 1623 António Fernandes wrote to Goa and Rome: ‘It seems also necessary that Y.P. send us for the time being twenty fathers (even though the Emperor asked for 200) and that these fathers be good fellows; in addition, it would be a great help if these fathers were skilled in singing, playing instruments and painting, so to teach the 100 boys that we have here in the seminary’; Fernandes, 1623, in raso XI, doc. 66, 510. 162 Of Velasco André Palmeiro once said: ‘it was my hands and feet’; Palmeiro, 1624, in raso XII, doc. 16, 35; Palmeiro, 1624, in raso XII, doc. 16, 35. 163 Annual letter of the Indian province, December 11, 1623, in raso XI, doc. 67, 515.

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Hindi.164 Three other companions, Bruno Bruni, Manoel Lameira and Brother João Martins, had been trained or possessed skills in artistic and building tasks. Seven more Jesuits reached the mission in 1628 and 1630, before its eventual demise in 1632. All them responded to similar profiles to those who came around 1625. One of them, Francisco Rodriguez, was said to possess building skills. In his turn, the bishop with right of succession to the patriarchate, Apollinar de Almeida, had earlier on replaced Mendes at the chair of Holy Scriptures at the University of Coimbra and two other companions, Damião Colaça and José Giroco, had some form of theological training.165 The national origin of the missionaries shows a predominance of Portuguese and of other nationalities trained in Portuguese centers. This was a pattern common in all the eastern missions of the Society of Jesus, which fell in areas of the Portuguese Padroado real. However, it is interesting to note a contrast between the two missionary periods in terms of the number of non-Portuguese Jesuits. In the first period (1555–1698) there were no Italian nationals but two Spaniards, including Oviedo, who was elected bishop successor to the patriarchate. In the second period (1602–1632) the presence of Spaniards was reduced and the number of Italian recruits gained prominence, becoming the second group after the Portuguese. Such a development corresponded to a general trend in the Portuguese Assistancy. From around 1581 onwards, Italy provided about 27 percent of the missionary workforce of the Society of Jesus while the number of Spaniards decreased dramatically. This happened during the rule of the Habsburg rulers when the crowns of Portugal and Spain were united and can be largely explained because at the time of union the already fierce rivalry between the two nations grew along with the susceptibilities of decision-makers. The years from 1564 to 1581 were marked by conflict between the governments of Spain and Portugal over the jurisdiction over the Philippine and the Moluccas islands, which had been occupied by the Spaniard Diego de Legazpi in 1564. Moreover, the political union of 1581 had stirred anti-Spanish feelings in the wider Portuguese world. Thus, Spanish nationals working within 164 Manoel de Almeida says that Cardeira ‘in India learnt the [language] of the north’; this hint, combined with the fact that Cardeira had worked earlier in the Mughal mission, could point to the Hindi language, the most widespread language in north India; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VII, liv. X, Chapter XL; Almeida, 1623, in raso XII, doc. 12, 21–22. In 1623 the Jesuits in Ethiopia requested missionaries who would ‘know to sing, play music and paint so that they could teach the 100 boys in the seminary’; Fernandes, 1623, in raso XI, doc. 66, 510. 165 On Almeida see Mendes, Expeditio Aethiopicae, in raso VIII, liv. I, Chapter XIV; on Colaça, ‘Noticias que o Provincial’, ca. 1720, in bnl, cod. 176 [F. 2527], 49v; on Giroco, Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VII, liv. X, Chapter XIII.

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the Portuguese Assistancy were the target of suspicions as potentially being agents of their nation. A case in point were the discussions that unfolded when in 1593 Jerónimo Xavier, an able missionary of Navarrese origin (he was the grand-nephew of Francis Xavier), was appointed to the influential position of superior (preposito) of the Professed House in Goa.166 Since this office typically led to a later appointment as head of the Indian Province, Portuguese nationals managed to block Xavier’s career and have him sent to the Mughal mission. In 1597, Alessandro Valignano commented on ‘the little union that exists among our Portuguese and Castilian confreres’ and urged them to work towards friendship and unity.167 The decision-makers in Rome and India probably tried to avoid points of conflict and thus emptied the Eastern missions under Portuguese Padroado of Spanish nationals. So, although a few Spaniards worked in the Indian missions from 1580 onwards, in Ethiopia and elsewhere cases such as those of Oviedo or Páez were never to be repeated. The ruling positions of those carrying ecclesiastic dignities were henceforth reserved to Portuguese nationals. Thus, the Patriarch of Ethiopia, Afonso Mendes, his three bishop coadjutors with rights of succession, Diogo Seco (who died on the way to India), João da Rocha (who was considered unfit for the mission and stayed in India) and Apollinar de Almeida, and the superiors and visitors of the mission, António Fernandes and Manoel de Almeida, were all Portuguese. Witnessing the full enforcement of this policy, in 1622 Afonso Mendes suggested to the Superior general Muzio Vitelleschi the possibility of nominating an Italian as bishop for Ethiopia, ‘so that people don’t accuse us that all the positions of honor and high status go to Portuguese fellows’.168 Significantly, in his plea for a more multinational hierarchy within the Jesuit Indian Province, Mendes omitted to name Castilians and pointed only to the Italians. Indeed, as Spanish nationals disappeared, the Italians replaced them. After a dormant period in the central years of the sixteenth century in which none of the founding Jesuits were Italian, the Italian Province of the Society of Jesus witnessed significant development during the last decades of the sixteenth century. The arrival in 1581 to the generalate of Acquaviva and later of Vitelleschi strengthened the centrality of this province within the order. 166 See José Luis Orella, ‘La família y la patria de Jerónimo Javier (1549–1617)’, in Fuente de Vida: Tratado Apologético dirigido al Rey Mogol de la India en 1600 (San Sebastián: Universidad de Deusto, Instituto Ignacio de Loyola, 2007), 28 and passim. 167 Alessandro Valignano, March 28, 1597, in arsi, Goa 38 I, 76r–77r. For discussion of this topic see Osswald, Written in Stone, 271; Batllori, Les reformes religioses, 550. 168 Afonso Mendes to Muzio Vitelleschi, January 29, 1622, in raso XII, doc. 1, 4.

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Henceforth, Jesuit missionary vocations gained momentum in the peninsula and its numerous colleges became excellent places for the provision of ‘neutral’ recruits. The East Indies became particularly cherished by young Jesuit recruits and, from the 1580 onwards, a number of Italian missionaries (Valignano, Ricci, Acquaviva, de Nobili) strongly contributed to the development and expansion of the Jesuit global network in the East.169 A final aspect to underline regarding the missionary personnel is the importance India played in the choice and training of most of them. In contrast to the earlier period, the second mission period in Ethiopia unfolded when Portuguese India had reached its full maturity. In India the Jesuits owned several colleges, which mirrored in excellence those in Portugal. The College of São Paulo in Goa (in 1610 transferred to São Paulo Novo), created in 1543, was able to offer a full academic curriculum and was called to train generations of missionaries and administrators. When, towards the last decades of the sixteenth century, the missions boomed and the need for men was more pressing, Jesuit novices reached India at earlier ages than their predecessors and completed their novitiate and higher education in Goa. This was reflected in the Ethiopian mission, too. So, while those from the first mission period had stayed for only a short period in India (2.1 years on average), the ones who came later resided on average 8 (1603–1622) and 9.7 (1624–1630) years there (see Table 11). By then, India was already able to offer a pool of professed Jesuits from which the superiors could choose able candidates for the mission. A further consequence was that Portuguese India became a vector of missionary patterns and methods that strongly influenced local missionary action. So, shortly after his arrival in Ethiopia, Afonso Mendes was able to deliver a positive assessment of his workforce to the head of the Portuguese Assistancy, Nuno Mascarenhas. He wrote: ‘the missionaries who are here, save for one, have been very well chosen and have all the right profiles to help in the progress of this church’.170 The statistics support his judgment, for none of the missionaries abandoned the mission before a pre-arranged time span. Moreover, missionary sources, generally accurate in informing the superiors about issues, report only a few minor internal conflicts. 169 See Roscioni, Il desiderio delle Indie. The role played by Italian Jesuits in pushing forth accommodation methods has been suggested in Andrew C. Ross, ‘Alessandro Valignano: The Jesuits and Culture in the East’, in The Jesuits. Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts: 1540–1773, ed. John W. O’Malley et al. (Toronto et al.: University of Toronto Press, 1999, repr. 2000), 349. 170 Afonso Mendes to Nuno Mascarenhas, June 11, 1626, in raso XII, doc. 54, 170. The man whom Mendes described as not fitting for the mission was in all likelihood Barradas, who was old and unable to cope with the physical tasks.

30 60 11 3,200 1,000 5,000 4,110 8,000

30 35 20

Tǝgray

500

4,000 5,000

100

7 5 25 20 40 107 25

Gorgora/ Dämbǝya

1,500 77,350 4,300 59,696

Bägemdǝr

The evolution of conversions in Ethiopia, 1605–1630

10,000

530 3,500

Agäw

20,000 20,000

100 200 214

5

Goǧǧam

2,700

6,065 40,000 3,000

Other areas

10,000 65,794

Damot

30 42 30 25 20 40 237 815 3,725 3,300 1,000 16,500 157,319 47,300 119,696 6,200 356,279

Total year

Sources: Afonso Mendes to Muzio Vitelleschi, June 1626, in arsi, Goa 39 II, 285r–300v, 297r; Paes, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 244v, 248r, 251rv; raso III, 507; raso VI, 347, 350, 375; raso VII, 7, 23, 33–34, 69, 382, 389–390, 393, 396; raso VIII, 201; raso XI, 86, 149, 287, 310, 367, 395, 433, 444, 458, 488, 492; raso XII, 181, 207, 267, 281, 287, 360, 397, 400, 441–442, 475.

1605 1607 1612 1613 1615 1618 1619 1620 1621 1624 1625 1626 1627 1628 1629 1630 Total

Table 8

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The arrival of about sixteen more fathers within a time span of three years gave a boost to the mission. In 1625, when Mendes finally arrived in Ethiopia, there were eighteen Jesuits active in Ethiopia. Such an increase – almost fourfold between 1620 and 1625 – posed important logistic and managerial problems. New recruits typically reached Fǝremona first and, once there, received instructions on their new assignments. These focused on the mission’s three main areas of activity: the main residences (Fǝremona, Gorgora and Qwälläla); the royal settlements (Gännätä Iyäsus and Dänqäz) and the areas of expansion of the state (Agäw and Damot). Particular care was taken that the three most important residences, those with active schools in Fǝremona, Gorgora and Qwälläla, received a large enough workforce. As the number of children to teach and Catholics to minister to grew, so did administrative and supervision tasks, including teaching, upkeep of residences, and ministry. Moreover, intellectual duties, such as the translation and writing of theological works, called for a growing number of men. The Jesuits typically placed two or three men in these residences. With the help of an extended group of aides and novices, this seems to have been an optimal number to give dynamism to the demands of the residences. Having two missionaries in each residence was also important for spiritual reasons, since without the company of another companion Jesuits could not confess.171 Being first assigned to these missionary centers also enabled the new arrivals to learn local languages and to get acquainted with the new landscape. Manoel de Almeida, for instance, explained that around 1625, once he had delivered instructions from Rome, he settled at Gorgora and began to learn the Amharic language in the company of Luís Cardeira.172 It can be assumed that the other newcomers did likewise. Besides learning the languages, they must also have been briefed by veteran companions and novices at the Jesuit schools on religious, political and social aspects. For the same reason, the newcomers seem to have spent their first months in the mission in the company of veteran fellow Jesuits. Thus, at his arrival in early 1624, Francisco Carvalho was taken to his first missionary destination, Tanḵa, in Agäw land, by Luís de Azevedo and Manoel de Almeida spent first some time with António Fernandes at the court of Dänqäz.173 Attention was also paid to the settlements around the royal court. Initially this was secured with the work of António Fernandes, who, as superior of the 171 This need was explicated by Almeida on behalf of de Mattos’s long and solitary stay in Fǝremona, between 1621 and 1624; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter III. 172 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VII, Chapter X. 173 Ibid.

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mission, spent most of the time at the kätäma of Dänqäz. With the arrival of Patriarch Mendes the Jesuits opened a new residence at Ǝnfraz (Däbsan), which was within close reach of both Dänqäz and Gännätä Iyäsus. From there, Patriarch Mendes was meant to lead the reform of the Ethiopian church. Finally, as the mission expanded south, the new arrivals were frequently sent to the provinces of Goǧǧam, Damot and Agäw. During the 1610s, while he was head at Qwälläla, Francesco Antonio de Angelis focused upon Agäw lands as a potential expansion area. He began preaching there and during the decade succeeded in the first conversions to Catholicism. In 1619 Luís de Azevedo stated that the Agäw areas around the present-day towns of Dangǝla and Bure, in Kwäkwǝra (Cacura), Čära (Chara), Bandea (Bänǧa?), Zäläbasa (Zalabaca), Ateta, Chagussa (Ṭaqwǝsa?) and Dangǝla had shown welcoming signs towards the Jesuit priests.174 Thereafter, the expansion in Goǧǧam, the Agäw lands and Damot was smooth. In the course of 1624–1625 the Jesuits opened five more residences there (Table 9). To cope with the work, Francisco Carvalho, Antonio Bruno, Tomé Barneto and Manoel de Almeida were first sent out there. In Goǧǧam they initially opened a station at the kätäma of the then governor Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos in Särka and then two more residences at Ǝnnäbǝse and Hadaša. In Agäw land the missionaries founded Näfaša, Tanḵa and Ankaša. In Damot, they responded to the call of its governor, the pro-Catholic Bukko (Buqqo), and founded a residence in Gäbärma, which was soon abandoned for a better location in a place called Lǝǧǧä Nǝguś.175 The Jesuits, however, also tried to reach beyond these areas. In around 1625 Gaspar Paes launched a mission in the province of Bägemdǝr, where subsequently his companion Jacinto Francisco founded a residence at Atḵäna. The settlement was granted lands that once belonged to azzaž Wäldä Krǝstos but it remained active only for a short time and in about 1630 it was abandoned. Another residence opened towards 1626 in Goǧǧam, Hadaša, also had to be 174 Azevedo, 1619, in raso XI, doc. 54, 437. For the location of some of these sites see Huntingford, The Historical Geography of Ethiopia, 146, 161, 164, 243. The site of Chagussa could be the Lower Ṭaqwǝsa pointed to in Huntingford; Ibid. 243. On Jesuit missions among the southern Agäw see also Carlo Conti Rossini, ‘Note sugli Agau: II: Appunti sulla lingua Awiyā del Danghelà’, Giornale della Società Asiatica Italiana 18 (1905): 104 and passim, 116. 175 The exact spelling of Lǝǧǧä Nǝguś is confusing because the Jesuits were not consistent here; alternative spellings employed in their texts were Leg Negus and Liqä Negus. I  decided for the variant of Lǝǧǧä Nǝguś on the basis of the information provided by Mendes, who said that ‘Ligenegus’ meant ‘“Sons of the Emperor,” for in former times his sons were kept there’ (Ligenegus, idest, Filiorum Imperatoris [quod aliquis antiquorum suos ibi locaverit]); Mendes, Expeditio Aethiopicae, in raso VIII, liv. II, Chapter V.

Alternative name

May Gwagwa Maraba Ombabaqha Qollela

Hancaxa Azäzo Kund Amba Tumḫa Sarca

Däbsan Nefaça Gabrama Atqhana Märṭulä Maryam Liqä Nǝguś Barua

Fǝremona Märäba Gorgora Velha Qwälläla

Ankaša Gännätä Iyäsus Gorgora Nova Tanḵa Särka

Ǝnfraz Näfaša Gäbärma Atḵäna Ǝnnäbǝse Lǝǧǧä Nǝguś Dǝbarwa

Bägemdǝr Agäw Damot Bägemdǝr Goǧǧam Damot-Gafat Tǝgray

Agäw Dämbǝya Dämbǝya Agäw Goǧǧam

Tǝgray Tämben Dämbǝya Goǧǧam

Location, historical

Bägemdǝr Goǧǧam Goǧǧam Bägemdǝr Goǧǧam Goǧǧam Tǝgray

Goǧǧam Dämbǝya Dämbǝya Goǧǧam Goǧǧam

Tǝgray Sǝmen Dämbǝya Goǧǧam

1625 1625 1625 1625 1626 1626 1626

1618 1621 1622 1624 1624–1625

1561–1566 1605 1607 1611

Location, present Founded

Jesuit residences in Ethiopia, 1561–1632 (listed by year of foundation)

Name

Table 9

1632 1632 1626 1630 1632 1632 1627

ca. 1620 1632 1633 1632 1632

1640 1607 1622 1632

Abandoned

Annunciation of the Virgin –

Jesus Jesus

St. Mary – St. Mary St. Ignatius of Loyola

Invocation of its church

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Adaxa

Hadaša Adegada Dänqäz

Goǧǧam Tǝgray Bägemdǝr

Location, historical Goǧǧam Tǝgray Bägemdǝr

1626 1627 1628

Location, present Founded

1628 1631 1632

Abandoned

Jesus

St. Francis Xavier

Invocation of its church

Sources: António Roiz to Muzio Vitelleschi, February 13, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 220r–30r, 222r–v; Arana , ‘Historia de la Santa vida’, 113; Gaspar Paes, Annual letter, Tamqha, June 15, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 236r–59v, 246v, 254v; Gaspar Paes, Annual letter, June 30, 1626, in arsi, Goa 39 II, 303r; Manoel de Almeida to superior general, April 17, 1627, in arsi, Goa 39 II, 423v; raso III, 387; raso IV, 16, 32, 52; raso VI, 233, 435, 442, 493, 495–496; raso VII, 34; RASO X, 264; raso XI, 135, 138, 153, 414, 430, 436, 473, 486; raso XII, 266, 279, 284, 439, 458, 472.

Dancas

Alternative name

Jesuit residences in Ethiopia, 1561–1632 (listed by year of foundation) (cont.)

Name

Table 9

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abandoned in 1628.176 In Tǝgray the Jesuits suffered a similar blow. The settlement they had opened in 1626 at the capital of the baḥǝr nägaš, Dǝbarwa, was abandoned after only one year of activity. The residence was relocated in a nearby location, at Adegada (ʿAddi Gwaʾdad?), but, again, not for long time. In 1628, the houses built by Manuel Barradas were torn down, reportedly on the orders of Susǝnyos. The ruler, according to Barradas, would have acted out of fear that if the Ottomans or Ethio-Portuguese had taken over the houses they would have used them as fortresses.177 Towards the end of the 1620s missionary expansion in Ethiopia had been largely successful and, yet, the whole undertaking showed signs of having reached its limits. Expansion and successful stories were confined to the regions inhabited by the Ethio-Portuguese and to the areas under local friendly rulers such as Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos (Goǧǧam), Bukko (Damot) and Qǝbʾä Krǝstos (Tǝgray). Beyond these areas the mission failed in establishing permanent positions. Moreover, the difficulties encountered in the 1620s concerning missionary expansion were different to those encountered earlier. In the 1610s problems came because of the mission’s lack of personnel. In the late 1620s, however, problems emerged less as a result of the lack of personnel than because of a shift in the political forces. The fate of the residences in Bägemdǝr and Tǝgray reflected the deterioration of the relations between the padres, on the one side, and Susǝnyos and part of the nobility, on the other. Somehow these mishaps prefigured the sudden fall of the whole missionary project at the beginning of the next decade. 176 Barradas, Tractatus tres historico-geographici, in raso IV, 16; Almeida, 1628, in raso XII, doc. 76, 279; Barradas, 1631, in raso XII, doc. 113, 429; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter XIII. 177 Barradas, Tractatus tres historico-geographici, in raso IV, 32, 52; Almeida, 1628, in raso XII, doc. 76, 284–285.

chapter 5

Mission Politics In the course of the global confrontation between Eastern and Western Christianity the fight took the form of placing Paul against St. Paul.1 Today, the missionaries who worked in Ethiopia are mostly remembered in Europe for their accurate ethnographic and historical accounts of the country. Yet, they went to and described Ethiopian societies and geography in order to redress the country’s ‘errors’. Although once in the field the missionaries had to improvise, adapting to local conditions and local reactions to their presence, they also responded to ideological concepts. The tools missionaries employed to observe indigenous practices were ethnographic observation and cultural comparatism, but the parameters by which they judged them were religious dogmatics and European theology. In judging the natives’ way of life, the missionaries responded to the scholastic tradition, to their own national customs of thought and, above all, to the principles of what the historian John O’Malley termed ‘Early Modern Catholicism’.2 The European missionaries had a strong confidence in their project and an idea of what was wrong with Ethiopian Christianity. Although such an idea was nothing like a clear-cut ‘image’ of this church, its traces can be gleaned from missionary literature. Drawing from the studies by Tewelde Beiene and Leonardo Cohen and from the historical record I will try to reconstruct the mission’s practical theology.3 Additionally, the padres shared a ‘positive’ project. The Jesuits wanted to replace the ‘wrong’ with the ‘lawful’ and to introduce new patterns then absent from Ethiopian society. This was indeed a major endeavor. The changes the missionaries wanted to enforce in Ethiopia did not affect only the ‘religious’ fabric, but also had an impact on political and social life, as these spheres are not easily separated in practical life. To identify and define these changes and how they were enforced will be the second task. Finally, the next chapter will try to shed light on the ‘cultural’ transformations the mission partially brought about and study the emergence, ephemeral as it was, of an Ethiopian Catholic culture. 1 Ernst Benz, ‘Das Paulus-Verständnis in der morgenländischen und abendländischen Kirche’, Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte 3 (1951): 308. 2 See John W. O’Malley, Trent and All That. Renaming Catholicism in the Early Modern Era (Cambridge Mass. and London: Harvard University Press, 2000). 3 Tewelde, ‘La politica cattolica de Selṭan Sägäd I’, in particular from page 80 onwards; Cohen, The Missionary Strategies of the Jesuits, in particular Chapters 3 to 6. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004289154_006

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The Redução of Christian Ethiopia Between St. Paul and St. Leo the Great As Ward Holder emphasized ‘the sixteenth century was a Pauline age’.4 Western Christianity had largely drawn on St. Paul (ca. 10–65) in order to define its Christology and ritual system and in the sixteenth century Protestant and Catholic Reformations gave this figure new vigor.5 Within the Catholic constituency, the Jesuit order was probably the first to catch up with the Protestant appropriation of St. Paul.6 The fondness of the Society for this figure had existed since its formative years and was never to fade. It was at the Basilica of San Paolo Fuori le Mura in Rome, the place St. Paul had allegedly been killed, where the founding six companions made the first solemn profession, on April 22, 1541. The Apostle was also, by far, the first Scriptural source used in Jesuit correspondence, sermons and theological treatises.7 A look into St. Ignatius’s enormous correspondence provides a glimpse of how influential the texts of the Apostle were in the mind of the founder and his secretary, Juan Alfonso de Polanco. At the turn of the seventeenth century two among the most prominent Jesuit theologians,

4 R. Ward Holder, ‘Introduction – Paul in the Sixteenth Century: Invitation and a Challenge’, in A Companion to Paul in the Reformation, ed. Ward Holder (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 1. 5 See Daniel Boyarin, A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 10 and passim. 6 On the importance of Paul for the early Protestant Reformation see David C. Steinmetz, ‘Calvin and Abraham: The Interpretation of Romans 4 in the Sixteenth Century’, Church History 57 (1988), 443–444 and Mark A. Powell, Introducing the New Testament: A Historical, Literary, and Theological Survey (Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic, 2009), 270. Steinmetz rightly complained of the small amount of attention the figure of Paul had hitherto been given despite the fact that the Epistle to Romans ‘was commented on in the sixteenth century by more than seventy theologians’. This historiographical lacuna hinted at by Steinmetz has been recently corrected with the work edited by Ward Holder, A Companion to Paul in the Reformation (Leiden: Brill, 2009); see in particular Chapter 1 by Ward Holder: ‘Introduction – Paul in the Sixteenth Century: Invitation and a Challenge’ and Chapter 2 by Karlfried Froehlich, ‘Paul and the Late Middle Ages’. An essential reading remains Krister Stendahl, ‘The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West’, The Harvard Theological Review 56, 3 (1963). On Paulinism in the Ethiopian mission see my earlier study: Andreu Martínez d’Alòs-Moner ‘Paul and the Other: The Portuguese Debate on the Circumcision of the Ethiopians’, in Ethiopia and the Missions: Historical and Anthropological Insights, ed. Verena Böll et al. (Münster: Lit, 2005), 37–38. 7 St. Paul’s importance in Jesuit thought and action has, surprisingly, attracted relatively little scholarly attention; see, however, O’Malley, The First Jesuits, 73, 107–109. In the context of Jesuit activities in Germany see Jeffrey Chipps Smith, Jesuits and the Art of the Early Catholic Reformation in Germany (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2002), 15, 71, 89, 139, 142.

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Francisco de Ribera and Francisco de Toledo, wrote erudite comments on two of Paul’s most widely quoted epistles, Romans and Hebrews.8 However, among the Jesuits’ many facets, nowhere was Paul more prominent than in the missions. The contact with non-Christian societies in the East pushed the Jesuits to a full identification with the thinking of the Apostle. The long sea trip to India seems to have been a favorite place for the immersion into Pauline thought.9 The Jesuits demonstrated a deep knowledge of the Pauline epistles, which were avidly read during their formative years in Europe and in India.10 Significantly, nearly every first college founded by the Society in their overseas provinces was consecrated to the Apostle.11 Moreover, Paul was a preferred name given to some famous early converts in Asia. Thus, the celebrated Japanese Anjirô, the son of a Samurai family, was baptized on May 20, 1548 with the name Paulo da Santa Fe (‘Paul of the Holy Faith’) and the same name was given to a Buddhist leader (yogi) from Hormuz at his conversion in 1550 at the hands of Gaspar Barzeo.12 8

Francisco de Ribera, in epistolam B. Pauli apostoli ad hebraeos commentarij…(Salmanticae: Petrus Lassus, 1598); Francisco de Toledo, Commentarij & annotationes in Epistolam beati Pauli Apostoli ad romanos: quibus ac-cesserunt eiusdem cardinalis sermones…(Venetiis: Robertum Meiettum, 1603). 9 In a document from the first decade in India, a Jesuit Father wrote that aboard the Indiaman mestre Melchior Carneiro – initially destined for Ethiopia as bishop of Hierapolis – read him excerpts from St. Thomas’s Summa and the Epistle to the Hebrews; António de Heredia to Ludovico Gonçalves da Camara, November 25, 1552, in di, vol. II, doc. 98, 410. For further evidence, see Schurhammer, Franz Xaver, vol. 2–3, 447. 10 For evidence on the importance of St. Paul during the early Jesuit period in India (references are divided by the thematic): a) Devotion and imitation: di, vol. II, 27, 59, 347; di, vol. V, 89; di, vol. VII, 18, 124, 354, 358–359, 361; di, vol. VIII, 581, 586; b) Conversions: di, vol. III, 533; di, vol. IV, 340, 651, 689; di, vol. VII, 418, 556; c) Used as source of authority: di, vol. VI, 163. 11 An exhaustive list of the Jesuit colleges, houses and churches named after the Apostle follows, sorted by year of foundation: College of São Paulo in Goa (India, 1543, became São Paulo Novo in 1603), church of São Paulo in Hormuz (Persia, ca. 1553), São Paulo de Piratinga (Brazil, 1554), São Paulo de Luanda (Angola, ca. 1555), São Paulo in Salvador de Baia (Brasil, today church of Brotas, ca. 1559), House and College of São Paulo, Bungo (Japan, ca. 1560), Colegio Máximo de San Pablo, Lima (Perú, ca. 1568–1581), São Paulo in Macao (1572), Colegio Máximo de San Pedro y San Pablo (México City, 1572), House of São Paulo in Diu (1603). This praxis seems also to have been followed in a few Jesuit residences placed in ‘frontier’ areas in Europe: hence in the Colleges of S. Pablo in Granada (Spain, 1553), formerly a Muslim dominion, and of S. Pauli in Regensburg (Germany, 1589), which bordered with the Protestant areas of northern Germany. 12 Schurhammer, Franz Xaver, vol. 2–2, 234 and vol. 2–3, 417–418, 417 note 124; Id., Die Zeitgenössischen Quellen, num. 4538; Francis Xavier to Simão Rodrigues, January 20, 1549,

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Additionally, the Jesuits were soon to be known in Goa by the term Paulistas and their first missionary, Francis Xavier, was to be posthumously compared to St. Paul and renamed the Apostle of the Orient.13 During the course of the Ethiopian mission, St. Paul became a familiar figure. The missionaries frequently compared conversions in Ethiopia to the one that had turned Saul into Paul.14 The imitatio Pauli was the main factor stimulating missionary action and shaping the perception the missionaries had of their own work. The Apostle’s reflections formed the backbone of the sermons, conversations and discussions held without interruption from the refoundation of the mission in 1603. Examples are almost too numerous to cite but the following are typical: in 1603, during his first interviews at the court of nǝguś Yaʿǝqob, Páez dismissed the practice of circumcision by pointing to the classic passage, repeated also on later occasions, from Galatians.15 Around 1608, during discussions with the wife of the baḥǝr nägaš at the residence of Fǝremona, a Jesuit missionary – probably Lorenzo Romano – read an epistle of St. Paul.16 In 1612, in a letter addressed to his friend Ituren, Páez made a survey and criticism of the Ethiopians’ ‘abuses’ largely based on the reading of Apostle, with arguments he was to repeat two years later.17 In 1613, during the first public religious debate at the court, ras Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos in the role of plaintiff of the in Francis Xavier, Monumenta Xaveriana, vol. 1, doc. 73, 493. A similar name was recorded for Ethiopia, where a local Catholic priest was named Paulo da Santa Cruz. During the period of anti-Catholic persecution, around 1633, he officiated the Latin Mass to the Catholic group; see Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VII, liv. X, Chapter XLI. 13 The Imago Primi Saeculi (1640), the book that commemorated the first centenary of the Society, gave official expression to this by comparing Loyola to St. Peter and Xavier to St. Paul; Osswald, Written in Stone, 235. Later, the Baroque prose of António Vieira further enhanced the parallelisms between the two figures in his books Xavier dormindo e Xavier acordado, see ‘Sonho Segundo’, Section V (127 and passim), vol. XVIII, Sermão 12, sec. I, in António Vieira, Sermões [1694], ed. Federico Ozanam Pessoa de Barros (São Paulo: Editóra das Américas, 1959). 14 For instance, an annual letter dated 1620, copied in Goa by Jeronimo Majorica, said of a man who had recently converted in Goǧǧam that ‘from Saul he was made Paul’; Hieronymus Majorica, Annual letter, 1620, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 176v; in 1627, Manoel de Almeida commenting on the progresses of conversions among the Agäw added that ‘many Sauls become Pauls’; Manoel de Almeida to Muzio Vitteleschi, April 17, 1627, in arsi, Goa 39 II, 418r–41r, 424v. Further references: Azevedo, 1607, in raso XI, doc. 20, 88–89; Annual letter, 1612, in raso XI, doc. 35, 285. 15 The passage is misquoted by Páez as ‘Gal 3’ when it is Gal 5:1; Pedro Páez to superior general, July 24, 1603, in raso XI, doc. 14, 56. 16 Azevedo, 1608, in raso XI, doc. 24, 158. 17 Páez, 1612, in raso XI, doc. 34, 214–229 and Páez, 1614, in raso XI, doc. 39, 324–325.

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Catholic position used the Pauline and Leonine ideas of unity and uniformity – Una la fede, et uno il battesimo – which he had doubtlessly heard during private discussions with the missionaries.18 Later on, one of the students at the school of Gorgora justified the prohibition of circumcision with the Pauline understanding that it was a ‘ceremony of the Jews’ and Gaspar Paes, discussing the same issue, reported having read an epistle of Paul to one of the daughters of Susǝnyos.19 The Catholic Patriarch Mendes also drew largely on the Pauline epistles. In the speech that he delivered on February 11, 1626 on the occasion of the acceptance of obedience to Urban VIII by Susǝnyos, the patriarch paraphrased a passage from the First Epistle to the Corinthians comparing his role in Ethiopia to that of an architect.20 In the same year he also mentioned the Second Epistle to the Corinthians in a letter to the Superior general Vitelleschi.21 Further into his ministry, Mendes used the same apostolic source during a conversion with two noble-women at the court, an aunt of Susǝnyos (Amätä Krǝstos?) and the mother of blattengeta Mälkǝʾa Krǝstos.22 The constant reference to Paul was not gratuitous, and neither it was a simple display of erudition and authority. Paul’s ideas on Christ, faith, the church and the body provided the Jesuits with a framework with which to classify and to judge Ethiopian Christianity. I contend that Pauline ideas helped the Jesuits to draw an image of Ethiopian Christianity in a dichotomic way (Table 10). Paul’s ‘anthropological dualism’, as the rabbinical theologian Daniel Boyarin dubbed it, 18

19

20 21

22

De Angelis, 1613, in arsi, Goa 39 I bis, 104r. Further evidence for the use of St. Paul during these debates can be found in Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VII, Chapter XXII. It is interesting to note that a similar phrasing to Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos is to be found in a letter that Oviedo had sent to Gälawdewos dated 1557; there the bishop wrote ‘Cum enim fides Christi una sola sit, sicut dicit Paulus: “unus Deus, una fides, unum baptisma”’; Oviedo to Gälawdewos, June 22, 1557, in Jordão, Bullarium Patronatus Portugalliae…, vol. 2, 305–306. Fernandes, 1620, in raso XI, doc. 57, 443–444; Paes, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 258r. On another occasion the same source informs us that ‘some days a week, during dinner and until late in the night, a servant reads […] aloud the Four Gospels and Paul’s Epistles’ to a niece of Susǝnyos who was gran catolica, i.e. fervently Catholic; Gaspar Paes, quoted in Gouveia, Jornada do Arcebispo de Goa, 54r–v. The lady Paes met at the residence of Tanḵa could have been Wängelawit, married then to the governor of Bägemdǝr Zäkrǝstos. The passage was 1 Cor 3:10; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter XXII; also in Gouveia, Jornada do Arcebispo de Goa, 83v–84r. Mendez’s Latin passage reads: ha vero sunt, assiduae ad Deum preces, ut quod coepit, ipsie perficiat. The passage goes back to 2 Cor 8:6, ‘so that we were able to ask Titus to visit you again, and finish this gracious task he had begun, as part of his mission’; Afonso Mendes to Muzio Vitelleschi, June 1626, in arsi, 39 II, 285r–300v, 285r. Almeida, 1627, in arsi, Goa 39 II, 421r.

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The Pauline framework

Roman Catholicism

Alexandrian Christianity

New Law spiritual interpretation of the Scriptures allegory baptism spiritual sacrifice efficacious emphasis on the soul original, pure inclusive universal

Old Law literal interpretation of the Scriptures literalism circumcision physical sacrifice superfluous emphasis on the body alien, contaminated exclusive particular, ethnic

was the departure point to constructing a binary opposition between Ethiopian Christianity and Western Catholicism.23 The Ethiopian church was characterized by observing the Old Law, circumcision and the other ‘Mosaic’ prescriptions, and was opposed to the New Law, Baptism and the Paulinist prescriptions as followed by Western Christianity. Similarly, Ethiopian traditional beliefs and practices were considered to rely on a literal interpretation of the Scriptures, one that emphasized bodily signs and physical suffering. The Catholic faith, in contrast, propounded a more symbolic and metaphorical approach to religion, wherein ‘desire and ethnicity’, as Boyarin characterized Paul’s most radical message, were fully suppressed.24 Representation and allegory should replace the literal form; circumcision should be subsumed into baptism. Back in the previous century Ignatius had already emphasized in his letters aimed at the mission the need to change ‘the hardness that [Ethiopians] use in fasting and other corporal exercises’, which could be achieved ‘with the help of the Scriptures, lauding more the spiritual than the corporeal exercises’.25 23 Boyarin, A Radical Jew, 7. 24 Ibid. 69. As Boyarin stressed, however, the Christian (he focuses solely on the ideas of Luther and Protestantism) reading of Paul’s thought must be distinguished from Paul’s thought itself; see ibid. 209 and passim. Therefore, in my text whenever Paulinism appears it refers to that particular Paulinism embedded in Christian theology and specifically to the reading of Paul during Protestant and Catholic Reformations. 25 Ignacio de Loyola, 1551–53, in raso I, parte III, doc. 2, 243. The Jesuit criticism of Ethiopian bodily expiation practices was a variation of the Society’s strong rejection of monastic life

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Although it cannot be claimed that Paul had not defined Ethiopian Christianity, the ritual system of the Ethiopian church nevertheless diverged to a great extent from Western Paulinism. Ethiopian Christians observed what in the view of the Europeans were a number of ‘Mosaic’ Laws, such as the Sabbath, circumcision, the levirate and food prescriptions and prohibitions.26 In Europe this was seen as profoundly un-Christian and un-Pauline. Circumcision in particular was deemed a superfluous and ‘superstitious’ rite, because the Mosaic benefits of the rite had been superseded by the ‘spiritual circumcision’ of Baptism. The same idea was strongly advocated by St. Paul in passages such as Gal 5:2 and it was later summarized in literary form by Philo (I cent. b.c.e.–I cent. c.e.).27 Further into the first millennium c.e. the rite received new interpretations. Patristic theology saw circumcision as a real threat to salvation; the last true circumcision had been the one performed on the body of Christ, which, as the art historian Leo Steinberg explained, in Catholic theology was interpreted as a ‘first installment, a down payment on behalf of mankind. It is because Christ was circumcised that the Christian faithful no longer needs circumcision’.28 In consequence, continuing the practice was seen as a denial of the efficacy of Christ’s sacrifice through circumcision.29 In keeping with Middle Age and Renaissance traditions, the circumcision of Christ became a popular Jesuit theme. The name of Jesus, which gave name to the order and to a number of its chief churches, had been given to Christ during his circumcision and, consequently, the pictorial reproduction of this scene was highly revered within the Society: the high altar of Il Gesù in Rome is dedicated to the Circumcision and in 1605 Rubens painted a Circumcision for the Jesuit church in Genoa.30 Additionally, the Jesuits were ardent advocates of the suppression of human circumcision by the rite of baptism and their more spiritual methods. The Constitutions stressed that ‘the self-punishment of the body should not be excessive, nor it should contain exaggerate abstinences and deprivation of sleeping and other interior expiations and exercises that are harmful and that prevent [the person] from achieving greater goals’; Constituciones, part III, § 300. 26 On the issue of Ethiopian food norms see Thomas Guindeuil, ‘Alimentation, cuisine et ordre social dans le royaume d’Éthiopie (XIIe–XIXe siècle)’ (PhD diss., Université Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris, 2012), 227–240. 27 See Philo, On the Special Laws (De Specialibus legibus), trans. by F.H. Colson, The Loeb Classical Library, vol. VII (London and Cambridge Mass.: William Heinemann and Harvard University Press, 1958), 103–107. 28 Steinberg, The Sexuality of Christ, 50. 29 Ibid. 52. 30 See Howard and Fraser, ‘Jesuit Order’, 509. On the emergence of circumcision as a subject of Renaissance art see Steinberg, The Sexuality of Christ, 50 and passim.

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(conceived thus as a ‘spiritual circumcision’) and tried to impose this dogma on every missionary front. Besides St. Paul, St. Leo the Great (440–461) was the other church figure that influenced the Jesuit image of Ethiopia and their missionary strategy. Like St. Paul, St. Leo had been a man of action, whose ideas were transmitted through epistles rather than in theological treatises, and his chief aim was to achieve a universalis Ecclesia, a united and universal church under the primacy of the bishop of Rome.31 Indeed, Leo carried out an immense program of centralization and standardization in the two parts of the Roman Empire. In the East he also became famous for his letter Tomus ad Flavianum (Epistle XXVIII), intended to condemn the Monophysite doctrines defended by the monk Eutyches about the unique Divine nature in Christ. The issue was discussed openly, first at the Council of Constantinople (449), and was eventually resolved in favor of the duophysites at the Council of Chalcedon (451), which also took Leo’s dogmatic epistle to Flavian as an expression of the Catholic Faith concerning the Person of Christ.32 The Ethiopian church, which was tied to the see of Alexandria, chose the way of Monophysitism and henceforth became a strong opponent of Rome’s primacy in general and of Leo’s figure in particular.33 Like St. Paul, St. Leo punctuates missionary narratives from Ethiopia. In 1612, a Jesuit fellow wrote of the missionaries in Ethiopia as being the ‘sons of Leo’.34 Over ten years later, in February 1626, during the solemn reception offered to Afonso Mendes at the royal court of Dänqäz, Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos reportedly welcomed the patriarch presenting him as the representative of St. Leo and the Roman pope.35 Similarly, Jesuit preaching activities emphasized this figure. As Leonardo Cohen remarked, the choice of a figure such as St. Leo, one that was highly controversial for Ethiopian Orthodoxy, was a deliberate one. Reclaiming this pope was one step further in the Jesuits’ strategy of enforcing a counter-Christianity that was, but for a few elements, opposed to the local 31

I draw from P. Batiffol, ‘Léon Ier (Saint)’, in Dictionnaire de théologie Catholique, ed. A. Vacant et al. (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1926), vol. 9, cols. 218–301. For a view on Leo’s role in the first church councils from an Orthodox perspective, see Anthony McGuckin, St. Cyril of Alexandria. The Christological Controversy. Its History, Theology, and Texts (Leiden et al.: Brill, 1994), 231–241. 32 See Lionel R. Wickham, ‘Eutyches/Eutychianischer Streit’, in Theologische Realenzyklopädie, ed. Horst Robert Balz et al. (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1982), vol. 10; Id., ‘Chalkedon’, ibid. vol. 7. 33 For a reference to Leo in a contemporary Ethiopian text, see Conzelman, Chronique de Galâwdêwos, 64 (text), 159 (trans.). 34 Páez, 1612, in raso XI, doc. 34, 269. 35 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter XXI.

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church.36 The padres’ emphasis of St. Leo is nowhere better illustrated than in their strong commitment to the ideal of the unity of the church under the supremacy of the Roman See. Indeed, in the missionaries’ view, the Ethiopian church originally belonged to the body of Rome and had been only accidentally subjected by the see of Alexandria. As Cohen already observed, this was an idea with old roots in the mission’s history. Back in 1555, Ignatius had already touched on it in his letter to Gälawdewos.37 There he famously described the Alexandrian See as a ‘severed and rotten member of the mystical body of the church’.38 His companions active in Ethiopia during the second mission period did not go beyond this simplified view of Ethiopian Christianity. To account for the ‘separation’ between the two churches and their obvious discrepancy in Christological matters the Jesuit missionaries elaborated narratives that blended historical erudition with a teleological goal: the aim was to prove through historical diffusionism that the two churches had originally been united. The padres typically emphasized the agency of individual historical religious and political leaders. Among the figures that would have corrupted and contaminated the Ethiopian church were Eutyches and Dioscorus, the Mamluk rulers of Egypt, and great Ethiopian statesmen such as Zärʾa Yaʿǝqob. Thus, Páez, in his História de Etiópia, wrote that such ‘heretic Alexandrian patriarchs’ as Theodosios (Theodosios I) had introduced a handful of errors within Ethiopian Christianity. The champion of the theological doctrine of Miaphysitism was accused of having brought to Ethiopia the dogma denying the double nature of Christ.39 Manoel de Almeida, who arrived to Ethiopia some twenty years after Páez, dedicated a chapter of his monumental História de Etiópia a Alta ou Abassia to the ‘the reasons why the Ethiopians followed a schismatic faith’.40 In the text the Jesuit father argued that Ethiopia had remained ‘free from heresies’ until about the year 610 or 620. In the missionaries’ view, the situation became worse when important political leaders widened the gap between Rome and Ethiopia. Thus, one of Páez’s earliest companions, Luís de Azevedo, described nǝguś Zärä Yaʿǝqob as the 36 Cohen, The Missionary Strategies of the Jesuits, 85. 37 Ibid. The letter has been reproduced several times; for a study of the document, see J. Deramey, ‘Une lettre de Saint Ignace de Loyola à Claudius, roi d’Ethiopie ou d’Abyssinie’, Revue de l’histoire des religions 14 année, 27 (1893). 38 Ibid. 48. 39 Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso II, liv. II, Chapter III. On Miaphysitism, see Hannah Hunt, ‘Byzantine Christianity’, in The Blackwell Companion, 88. 40 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VI, Chapter II. A similar analysis is developed in Cohen, The Missionary Strategies of the Jesuits, 51 and passim.

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leader who had ‘spoiled’ the Ethiopian church and turned it ‘half-Jewish’.41 In 1624 this historiographical-theological narrative received an official sanction in a letter authored by nǝguś Susǝnyos and addressed to his nation.42 The letter was issued at a critical moment, when major religious dissent had been crushed and the arrival of the Catholic Patriarch was imminent. As Cohen has emphasized, in this document past Coptic metropolitans were once and for all defined as the ‘heirs of an old heretical and schismatic tradition’.43 The letter was indeed a violent and upfront invective against the church leaders of the past, who were accused of several sins, including simony, breach of chastity and cruelty. This historical narrative served to legitimize the Jesuit undertaking in two ways. On the one hand, it made Catholic doctrine appear not as imposing an alien faith but as aiming at the ‘restitution’ of an original bond. As Mendes put it during his speech at the court of Dänqäz in 1626, the missionaries’ purpose was ‘to bring back to its see those who had been separated from it’.44 Thereby, the Jesuits presented their mission as the ‘restoration’ of an original bond and the Catholic patriarchate served exactly that purpose: it was a powerful instrument with which to sever Ethiopia’s historical ties with Alexandria and ‘reconnect’ it to Rome. Such an assertion seems to have been fully assumed by Susǝnyos and part of the court and probably contributed to their conviction to push forward with full strength Catholic reforms; reportedly, on one occasion in reply to accusations launched by traditionalists Susǝnyos said ‘I do not change of faith’.45 On the other hand, this narrative meant that the padres, as representatives of the only ‘true’ Apostolic See, carried out a work of purification of the Ethiopian church from ‘alien’ elements that allegedly had contaminated it and had rendered it strange to its original ‘Catholic’ Church. The program of reform the missionaries wanted to enforce was hence presented as a purifying one, of deliverance and renewal. For the reasons cited above the possibilities for practicing the accommodation were severely restricted in Ethiopia.46 Indeed, the padres working in 41

Azevedo, 1608, in raso XI, doc. 24, 146. Similar accusations against the same ruler appear in Id., 1609, in adb, Legajo 779, 40v. 42 The letter, bearing the title ‘Carta do Emperador Seltan Sagued, chegue a todo o mundo do nosso imperio’, was reproduced in Paes, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 237v–39r and again in Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter VII. 43 Cohen, The Missionary Strategies of the Jesuits, 57. 44 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter XXII. 45 Mattos, 1621, in raso XI, doc. 61, 482. Also mentioned in Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VII, Chapter XXX. 46 On the importance of this concept in Jesuit missionary praxis, see Županov, Disputed Mission.

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Ethiopia proved to be far more severe and dogmatic than their companions in other missionary areas in the East. After all, in the Catholics’ view Christian Ethiopians had in one way or another ‘failed’ in keeping the ‘true’ Christian message and thus deserved a tougher approach to that reserved for the pagan peoples. They were seen as having been ‘corrupted’ by the Alexandrian faith, which Ignatius had once defined in a letter addressed to Gälawdewos as ‘a rotten member separated from the mystical body of the church’.47 In Ethiopia the missionaries did not work among a ‘barbaric’ yet innocent society but, as Mendes declared, one with a ‘monstrous body’. Christian Ethiopia thus fitted with those lands defined by the Jesuit Constitutions as places where ‘the enemy of Christ has spread hatred’, and there the Jesuit fathers needed to ‘be more intransigent’.48 The redução of the Ethiopians A concept important to understanding Jesuit thought and missionary praxis is the idea of reducción or redução (i.e. ‘reduction’). During at least the first 200 years of the order, the practice to evangelizing and reforming peoples was generally referred to by terms other than ‘conversion’. Particularly in the frontier areas the Jesuit missionaries typically described the act of converting individuals with such expressions as está muy reducido or es muy nuestro (‘he is much reduced’, ‘he is all ours’). To understand the nuances implicit in the term reducción we may profit from looking at how Ignatius of Loyola used the concept. In his classical study on Loyola’s political ideas Dominique Bertrand counters the modern ‘negative’ meaning of reducción – i.e. to decrease, lessen, diminish, transform, dominate, constrain – and instead brings it closer to the sense found in Aristotelian–Thomistic theology.49 The Ignatian reducción thus emphasizes a process in which a reality in potency becomes an act, wherein disorder and confusion are addressed towards unity and order.50 Bertrand summarizes the function of Ignatian reducción in two

47 48

49 50

J. Deramey, ‘Une lettre de Saint Ignace de Loyola à Claudius’, 48. Constituciones, part VII, Chapter 2, §622. A similar expression was employed in 1628 by Manoel de Almeida, who instructed that with the local practice of circumcision ‘it is necessary to be especially severe’; Almeida, 1627, in arsi, Goa 39 II, 425v. Dominique Bertrand, La politique de Saint Ignace de Loyola (Paris: Cerf, 1985), 87. Bertrand also points to the dictionary of Covarrubias from 1614, wherein reducción is described as: ‘to be brought by conviction towards a better order’; Sebastián de Covarrubias Orozco, Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, ed. Felipe C.R. Maldonado (Madrid: Castalia, 1994 [Madrid 1611]), 854.

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points: ‘to overcome the dispersion of forces within a community, no matter what kind of community, and to achieve, as being above oneself, the right government’.51 A few important points can be gleaned from the Ignatian meaning of reducción. Firstly, it conveys the idea that hierarchy and power, when well exerted, are necessary for the well-being of the society and the church. A good government requires order, organization and agreement between the different parts and institutions into which a society or nation is divided. Another aspect relevant for the present discussion is that Jesuit reducción is a process encompassing individual as well as social life: reducción was a set of techniques of discipline enforced onto individuals and onto the social and political structures wherein the Jesuits ministered.52 The Society of Jesus itself was probably the first institution in which these goals were first experimented with and achieved: the long years of novitiate and probation of the Jesuit candidates can accordingly be seen as a crucial formation process that led the interns towards a transformation of their self in the terms the Ignatian reduction demanded: discipline, virtue, obedience, devotion and commitment to a cause. Similarly, the high level of organization, the effectiveness and the achievements of the Society of Jesus can be seen as examples of a successful reduction at the institutional level. I contend that, in the missionary arena, the Aristotelian concept of reducción set a method and a goal. On the one hand, it provided the Jesuits and the missionaries with powerful working tools, such as effective organization, obedience, discipline, self-confidence, focus and endurance. On the other hand, the reducción method set concrete goals for action: centralization of government, standardization of practices, adherence to an order and submission to a superior will. Therefore, the idea of reduction merged political, social, cultural and religious goals towards a single aim, the global improvement of individual and social life.

51 Bertrand, La politique de Saint Ignace de Loyola, 88. In missionary historiography the term doesn’t seem to have received the attention it deserved. A valuable recent contribution, however, is Bryan D. Bryan, ‘Forging an Ascetic Planet: Jesuit Lives and Virtues on the Mission Frontier of Eighteenth-Century New Spain’ (PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 2012), 31, 37 and passim. 52 The concept found its social reflection in the practices of social disciplining to which the Jesuits strongly adhered through the system of rural missions in Europe; see Federico Palomo del Barrio, Fazer dos campos escolas excelentes. Os jesuítas de Évora e as missões do interior em Portugal (1551–1630) (Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian-Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, 2003); Marcello Fantoni (ed.), The Jesuits and the Education of the Western World (Roma: Bulzoni 2004).

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The reducción of Ethiopia was not a simple conversion by way of a subjection of the Ethiopian church to the Roman See. As Ignatius and his peers saw it, this was a complex and long-term process aimed at changing the very nature of Ethiopian Christianity. Reducing was ‘rendering uniform’ the Ethiopian church with Rome and re-shaping the socio-political framework that sustained the church.53 Ethiopia’s traditions had to be tamed, the rituals reframed according to the Catholic ideals and its art and architecture renewed. Moreover, the organization of the state had to be re-shaped and the political government reinforced, albeit not in the terms of an absolutist monarchy, as I will show below. Therefore, it can be argued that Jesuit goals in Ethiopia were neither solely political nor solely religious but a mixture of both; in the Jesuit understanding the change of faith affected both the socio-political and religious spheres. Similarly, in the missionaries’ view the gains were twofold for the natives: the adoption of Catholicism by the Ethiopians should provide them salvation and also strengthen the political and military basis of their kingdom.54 Trent and the Mission Although staged at the eve of the largest missionary expansion ever to be accomplished by the Catholic Church, the Council of Trent, where such Jesuit theologians as Alfonso Salmerón, Diego Laínez and Juan Alfonso de Polanco played a prominent role, had no words for the missions.55 As the Jesuit historian O’Malley emphasized, ‘Trent had a remarkably narrow, ‘local’ pastoral focus as it dealt with ‘reform of the church’ precisely in the technical sense that Jedin correctly gives it, that is, reform of bishops and pastors 53

54

55

Ignacio de Loyola, 1551–53, in raso I, parte III, doc. 2, 249. Other references to reducir in the same text p. 254 and in the title, ‘Recuerdos que podrá ajudar para la reducción de los reynos del Preste Juan a la unión de la yglesia y religión catholica’; Ibid. 237. An example from Ignatius’s instructions clarifies this point once more. In one of the texts Ignatius touched on, as he saw it, the ‘exaggerated’ piety and the frequent fasting periods of Christian Ethiopians. Drawing on his well-known penchant for moderation and selfcontrol, he saw these features as religious excesses that not only contravened the Paulinist spirit but also rendered the faithful physically ‘weak to carry out the necessary works’ and, potentially, also easy prey to whichever enemy wanted to attack them. According to Ignatius, if the Ethiopians were to abandon their ‘useless’ Orthodox traditions they would render political power more efficient and religious salvation closer to hand; Ignacio de Loyola, 1551–53, in raso I, parte III, doc. 2, 243. See John W. O’Malley, Trent and All That. Renaming Catholicism in the Early Modern Era (Cambridge Mass. and London: Harvard University Press, 2000), 52 and Id., Trent: What Happened at the Council (Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2013), 5, 118, 216.

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of parishes’.56 I contend that the Council did in fact have an impact in the mission, though it was not a direct one and it came late. It is true that Trent did not provide instructions focusing on the union with the Ethiopians and the missionaries were not initially as committed in enforcing the application of its decrees in Ethiopia as were the bishops of Portuguese India in the territories under their jurisdiction.57 The first missionary period evolved in parallel with the celebration of the Council. When Oviedo landed at Massawa in 1557 the Council was in the twelfth year of its proceedings and still had five more years to go. In 1561 optimistic views with regards to the Ethiopian church pushed Pope Pius IV to write to the Ethiopian ruler, then Minas. In the document, which must have reached Ethiopia by way of the Portuguese agent António Pinto, the pope invited the nǝguś to send his own ambassadors to the council.58 Minas, however, might have had little intention of accepting the invitation, as he was persecuting Catholicism at home. It is during the second missionary period that the influence of the Council of Trent can be more easily perceived. During the phase of the strongest Catholic influence in Ethiopia, between Susǝnyos’s profession of faith in 1621 and Mendes’s first years of patriarchate, Trent inspired a number of the reforms imposed by the Jesuits. The Portuguese religious historian António da Silva has summarized the main goals of the Council ‘as catechetic theologisation, liturgical uniformisation and authoritative centralisation’.59 Now these goals seem also to define the main guidelines of the missionary project in Ethiopia. On the one hand, as Leonardo Cohen has already argued, a major Tridentine theme was stressed by the missionaries in pursuing the uniformization of the Ethiopian church, chiefly through a reform of its liturgy and 56 O’Malley, Trent and All That, 68–69. 57 The archbishopric of Goa began soon to held regular provincial councils (the first dating to 1567) in order to enforce the Tridentine decrees; see J.H. da Cunha Rivara (ed.), Archivo Portuguez-Oriental (New Delhi and Madras: Asian Educational Services, 1992; Nova Goa: Imprensa Nacional, 1862), fasciculo 4, 1 and passim and A. da Silva, Trent’s Impact on the Portuguese Patronage Missions, trans. Joaquim da Silva Godinho (Lisboa: Centro de Estudos Históricos Ultramarinos, 1969), 67. 58 Pius IV, brief ‘Beatissimi Apostolorum’, August 20, 1561, in raso X, doc. 32; also in Raineri, Lettere tra i pontefici romani, doc. 18 and cdp, vol. IX, 321–325. The affair is further dealt in the following documents: a) Pope Pius IV brief ‘Audimus te’ to Andrés de Oviedo, August 20, 1561, in Jordão, Bullarium Patronatus Portugalliae…, vol. 1, 202; Pius IV to Andrés de Oviedo, August 23, 1561, in raso X, doc. 33; Raineri, Lettere tra i pontefici romani, doc. 18a; b) Lourenço Pires de Tavora to Dom Sebastião, July 19, 1561; c) Id. ad eund., August 12, 1561, both in cdp, vol. IX, 300–303, 313–318, respectively. 59 Silva, Trent’s Impact on the Portuguese Patronage Missions, 61.

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rites.60 The Jesuits considered that Ethiopian Christianity was punctuated by a mixture of loose practices and tight rituals that set it apart from the Christian ideal. Frequent targets of their invectives were the local form to dispense the sacraments and the ordination of priests by previous metropolitans.61 Imitating the religious reforms carried out in Europe and in their colonial domains half a century earlier, the missionaries in Ethiopia aimed at cleaning and purifying the local church from these ‘errors’ and standardizing costumes. On the other hand, the influence of Tridentine doctrines can be observed in the emphasis of the Jesuit mission on large-scale social reform. As they also did in the Japan mission, Jesuit missionaries insisted on disciplining such social institutions as local marriage. Being faithful to the definition that Trent had made of matrimony as a sacrament, they interpreted marriage practices in Ethiopia as being too flexible or falling into abuses.62 Similarly, they were particularly disapproving of the practice, common in Ethiopia, of marriage unions between close relatives, similar to the Jewish custom of the levirate. Finally, the Professio fidei Tridentina reached Ethiopia towards 1630 after it had been modified by the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide.63

Observation, Deconstruction, and Replacement of Ethiopian Christianity

The Jesuit reducción of Ethiopia can ideally be described as a three-step process. The first step focused on the observation and description of the country; the second aimed at the deconstruction of its ‘heretical’ and ‘corrupt’ features; the third aimed at the replacement of local religiosity by Western Catholic forms. The three steps overlapped in time, although I argue that each one of them was particularly strong during a different period. The period of observation and

60 61

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See Cohen, The Missionary Strategies of the Jesuits, 99, 163. See Leonardo Cohen, ‘The Jesuits in Ethiopia and the Polemics over the Sacrament of the Eucharist’, in Les deux réformes chrétiennes: Propagation et diffusion, ed. Myriam Yardeni and Ilana Zinguer (Leiden: Brill, 2004). Council of Trent, 24th Session, ‘Canones super reformatione circa matrimonium’, November 11, 1563, in Wohlmuth and Alberigo, Dekrete der ökumenischen Konzilien, vol. 3, 755–759; see also O’Malley Trent: What Happened at the Council, 224–228. The text was the ‘Professio fidei ab Aethiopibus emittenda’, 1629, published in raso XII, doc. 103. In itself it was an adapted and extended version of ‘Professio fidei trindentina’, Council of Trent, 3rd Session, February 4, 1546, in Wohlmuth and Alberigo, Dekrete der ökumenischen Konzilien, vol. 3, 662.

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description can be dated back to the years up to the late 1610s and early 1620s, a period that was strongly marked by the figure of Pedro Páez and the writing of his opus magnum, the História de Etiópia. De-construction gained momentum during the superiorship of António Fernandes as head of the mission (1619–1625) and was exemplified by Fernandes’s amendment of Christian Ethiopia’s main literary bulwark, the Haymanotä Abäw, ‘The Faith of the Fathers’. Finally, the phase of replacement was largely confined to the short-lived patriarchate of Afonso Mendes (1625–1632), which was the period of strongest enforcement of Catholic reforms.

The Observation and Description of Ethiopia: Between Admiration and Contempt Although the main goal of the religious mission was to reshape local Christianity according to Catholic Roman tenets, the Jesuits proved, nonetheless, to have a genuine interest in it. Indeed, their texts underscore a wish to inform the European public about the wonders they were seeing and experiencing.64 At times they had positive words to say about Ethiopian Christianity. Their narratives convey an image of a primitive Christianity ‘deviated’ in some practices due to ‘external’ (Alexandrian) influences but also blessed by innocence and a sense of piety. Towards 1608, Luis de Azevedo transmitted the following laudatory portrait of Ethiopian religiosity to his superior in Goa: Although the Abyssinians host many and great errors in their faith, it is, however, true that, leaving apart their errors and schism, they still show in the present an excellent character and a natural disposition towards piety and the virtues. Moreover, as the [Jesuit] fathers have seen, even today the Ethiopians fall less often in sins than in other regions, such as Europe, where the Catholic Faith is found. Generally, the people are sincere, honest and innocent; they are also much fond of fasting, which is as rigorous as in all the Eastern churches: they only eat when the sun has set […] They are very keen in suffering penances and often deem the worst penances their confessors oblige them to as too soft; for that they always call for more severe penances […] Finally, the Abyssinians have all the chances to become one of the most perfect Christianities in the world, if

64

That the missionaries perceived their activities in this sense is revealed by some hints from the main works they composed. For instance, in the História de Etiópia Páez avoided describing Rodrigo da Lima’s visit to Ethiopia because it had already been dealt with at length in Alvares’s account and thus focused in other things ‘of which in Europe there is less awareness’; Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso II, liv. III, Chapter II.

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they were to receive the true light of the pure faith, with which they already blossomed during the times of the primitive church.65 Insisting on the same tropes of an innocent Christianity, Gaspar Páez was reported as saying that Ethiopians ‘are wonderfully fond of divine things’ and ‘have always kept alive the small spark of faith’.66 So, while in some instances local religious devotion was considered too ‘physical’ and un-Pauline, in other cases, as will be seen below, Jesuits came to imitate local religious practices. Additionally, the missionaries established good relations with some important local monastic circles.67 During Oviedo’s patriarchate the Jesuits befriended the abbot of Ǝnda Abba Gärima, an important religious center in Tǝgray. When the mission expanded southwards, a similar scenario repeated. The missionaries appear to have been particularly successful in Goǧǧam, and also gained some footing in the monasteries around Lake Ṭana (Table 8).68 A case in point was the monastery of Däbrä Ṣǝlalo, situated some twelve kilometers to the northeast of the residence of Qwälläla, that once had been under the influence of the powerful Ewosṭatean movement (See Map 4).69 Reportedly, for a few  decades the monastery was guided by abbots who openly supported Catholicism; three of them appear frequently in the missionary record as ‘friends’ of the Jesuits: Zäʾamanuʾel, Abalä Krǝstos and Zäśǝllase.70 65 66 67

68 69

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[Luís de Azevedo] in Guerreiro, Relaçam annal, 38r–39r. Also in Azevedo, 1607, in raso XI, doc. 20, 111. Quoted in Cohen, The Missionary Strategies of the Jesuits, 178. In approaching local clergy and monasteries, Ignatius of Loyola recommended: ‘Visit the churches of canonigos and monasteries of religious from both sexes and see what needs to be reformed and act accordingly’; Ignacio de Loyola, 1551–53, in raso I, parte III, doc. 2, 253. See Taddesse, Church and State in Ethiopia, 201–205. On the Ewosṭatean movement, which was particularly active in northern Ethiopia during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, see Gianfrancesco Lusini, ‘Per una storia delle tradizioni monastiche eritree: le genealogie spirituali dell’ordine di Ewostatewos di Dabra Sarabi’, in Aegyptvs Christiana: Mélanges d’hagiographie égyptienne et orientale dédiés à la mémoire du P. Paul Devos bollandiste, ed. Ugo Zanetti and Enzo Lucchesi (Genève: Cramer, 2004); Id., ‘Problèmes du mouvement eustathéen’, in Etudes Ethiopiennes (Proceedings of the 10th International Conference of Ethiopian Studies, Paris, 24–28 août 1988), ed. Claude Lepage (Paris: Société française pour les études éthiopiennes, 1994). raso I, 159; Barradas, Tractatus tres historico-geographici, in raso IV, 72; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. V, Chapter VII, liv. VII, Chapter X–XI, XX, liv. VIII, Chapter XI–XIII; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VII, liv. IX, Chapter II, XX; Pedro Páez to the superior general, June 22, 1616, in raso XI, doc. 44, 375; Manoel de Almeida to superior general, June 16, 1628, in raso XII, doc. 76, 263, 287; Afonso Mendes, June 31, 1631, in raso XII, doc. 114, 492; Diogo de Mattos to superior general, September 22, 1635, in raso XIII,

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The naming of the Jesuit residences also reveals the intention the missionaries had to follow, to an extent, local traditions (Table 9). Unlike in other scenarios, the Jesuits in Ethiopia tended to use local names for their residences. Their first settlement was named after Fǝremonatos (known in Ethiopia also as Sälama Käśate Bǝrhan), one of the fathers of Christianity in Ethiopia, and a similar ­practice was followed during the second mission period.71 The introduction of

71

doc. 10, 62, 64, 69; Afonso Mendes to Muzio Vitelleschi, June 1626, in arsi, 39 II, 286r; Paes, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 240v; [Francesco Antonio de Angelis], Annual letter, 1613, in arsi, Goa 39 I bis, 104r, 106v, 108v. Other monks and local priests friendly to the missionaries included Akalä Krǝstos, who assisted in translation works at Gorgora, and Bäträ Śǝllase; Luís de Azevedo to superior in India, July 3, 1619, in raso XI, doc. 54, 415, 420–422, 428; Diogo do Mattos to superior general, June 2, 1621, in raso XI, doc. 61, 478, 490. The name of Fǝremona almost certainly predated the presence of the missionaries, as indicated by early sixteenth-century Italian itineraries compiled in O.G.S. Crawford, Ethiopian Itineraries Circa 1400–1524 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958), 140; and in a couple of comments from Almeida’s treatise: Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso V, liv. IV, Chapter XV and VI, liv. VIII, Chapter III. The French historian Hervé Pennec, however, argues that the name was first used by the Jesuits in order to bind the new foundation to Ethiopia’s Christian heritage; Hervé Pennec, Des jésuites au royaume du Prêtre Jean, 154–159.

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foreign names came only later, when the mission enjoyed legitimacy and power was solid, and eventually affected only a couple of residences. Thus, when news of the canonization of the two Jesuit founders reached Ethiopia, the missionaries dedicated the residence of Qwälläla (founded in 1611) to St. Ignatius, although they used to refer to it by its local name.72 In addition, they planned to dedicate a church in Hadaša to St. Francis Xavier, but here again they tended to use the local name.73 Finally, the Jesuits displayed an emphasis on compiling all available information on Ethiopia and producing the regular reports that modern historians and anthropologists have found so useful. As the studies of Steven Harris have shown, compiling, circulating and producing information across a wide transnational network has been a defining feature of the Society of Jesus since its formation and one of the order’s main assets.74 European colleges, overseas mission stations and communication networks were skillfully used to disseminate and produce information and knowledge at a global scale.75 The Ethiopian missionaries benefited from the global Jesuit network and, for some time, were active contributors to it with fresh information from the field. It appears that the compilation of information on Christian Ethiopia took place, initially, in Europe and when the Jesuit Indian province reached maturity the same task was also carried out in India. The texts by Francisco Alvares and Damião de Góis are reported as being on the shelves of the mother house of São Paulo in Goa by the mid-1540s, shortly after publication.76 It is likely that the same occurred with works rich in information on Ethiopia that appeared thereafter, such as Couto’s Décadas and Correia’s Lendas da India, as well as the travelogues authored by Castanhoso and Bermudez. Moreover, the anti-Jesuit pamphlet written by the Dominican Luís de Urreta (1610) is reported as having 72

Barradas, 1631, in raso XII, doc. 113, 458. This must have been one of the first Jesuit churches worldwide to be dedicated to its founder, the very first being the Jesuit church in Antwerp (1615–1621); see H. Pfeiffer, ‘Arte en la Compañía de Jesús’, in Diccionario Histórico de la Compañía de Jesús biográfico-temático, ed. Charles E. O’Neill and Joaquín M. Domínguez (Roma: Institutum Historicum, S.I. and Madrid: Universidad Pontificia Comillas, 2001). 73 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter XIV. 74 Harris, ‘Confession-building’; Id., ‘Long-Distance Corporations’; Id., ‘Jesuit Scientific Activity’. 75 Harris, ‘Jesuit Scientific Activity’. 76 See Miguel Vaz [Vicar General of India] to João III, end 1545, in di, vol. I, doc. 10, 89. On the use of the treatises written by Alvares and Castanhoso by Páez and Manoel de Almeida, see Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso II, xxxiii–xxxiv; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, viii.

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reached Goa in the early 1610s and it was in the hands of Pedro Páez in Ethiopia by 1615, at the latest.77 The College of São Paulo seems to have also been a meeting place for Europeans having lived in Ethiopia. João Bermudez spent some ten months there before going back to Portugal and probably a number of veterans of the Preste shared their views with the Jesuit priests in the same place.78 The circulation and production of information had several practical uses. Firstly, in Europe it was used to compile summaries that had ‘edifying’ and propaganda purposes and probably also helped in designing missionary strategies. Moreover, information served to instruct the candidates for the mission and to provide them with a basis knowledge of the country and of its religious ‘shortcomings’. All things considered, Jesuit confreres seem to have been well informed on Ethiopia. Ignatius of Loyola, for instance, displayed an accurate knowledge of Ethiopian Christianity in his instructions.79 As far as the candidates for the mission are concerned, before reaching their destination, they went through a preparatory period at the Jesuit houses in Goa and Diu; they learnt notions of Ethiopian languages, probably with an emphasis on Gǝʿǝz and Amharic, and received information on the land and its history.80 In the field, the missionaries carried out considerable work studying and describing the country.81 The learning of local languages was apparently considered a priority and once the men arrived in Ethiopia they continued with their instruction in Gǝʿǝz and Amharic. Additionally, when local context demanded it, they may have learned Tǝgrǝñña and one of the Agäw dialects. Although not all the missionaries displayed the same proficiency, some managed to master one or more indigenous languages. António Fernandes used the help of local scribes and intellectuals to compose several theological treatises and translations into Gǝʿǝz. The Italian Francesco Antonio de Angelis was said 77

78

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Fray Luys de Urreta, Historia eclesiastica politica, natural, y moral, de los grandes y remotos Reynos de la Etiopia, Monarchia del Emperador, llamado Preste Iuan de las Indias (Valencia: Pedro Patricio Mey, 1610); Páez, 1615, in raso XI, doc. 41, 359. Indirect evidence to contacts between Jesuits and veterans of the Preste in Goa is the report authored by Barzeo from Goa, which was compiled from interviews to Portuguese returnees from Ethiopia; Barzeo, 1551, in raso X, doc. 6, 23. For a different assessment, see Salvadore, ‘Faith over Color’, 190–191. Although there is little evidence thereof, the practice of language lessons at Goa and Diu can be inferred from the speediness – which betrayed an earlier familiarization – with which some of the missionaries, such as Luís Cardeira, learnt Amharic and Gǝʿǝz once in Ethiopia. The Jesuits thus became pioneers in the study of Ethiopia’s historical capital, Aksum. Missionary descriptions on this place have been compiled in Ugo Monneret de Villard, Aksum. Ricerche di topografia generale (Roma: Pontificium Institutum Biblicum, 1938), 63–77.

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to be expert in lingua ethiopica – i.e. Gǝʿǝz – a language into which he rendered a series of theological treatises.82 Reportedly, he was also able to learn Agäw, a Cushitic language removed from the local Semitic cluster formed by Gǝʿǝz and Amharic. Thus, he is said to have composed a grammatical sketch of this language, although such is no longer extant. His companion Luís Cardeira learnt the Amharic language within a short span of time during his stay at the residence of Gorgora.83 Similarly, Luís de Azevedo worked in Gännätä Iyäsus supervising a team dedicated to translating a number of theological treatises into Gǝʿǝz. The remaining missionaries, however, including Pedro Páez, seem to have benefited from the assistance of local interpreters. The mission had plenty at their disposal and the historical record informs that every missionary had a young native boy – often referred to as servidor (i.e. aide) or mancebo secular (‘secular youth’) – appointed as his aide. The Jesuit mission can be considered as a turning point in knowledge of Ethiopia in Europe and India. Francisco Alvares’s Verdadeira informação das terras do Preste João das Indias from 1540 is today rightly held to be the first modern account on Ethiopia. Yet, albeit informative and fairly honest, this narrative also appears to be as a somewhat impressionistic and naïve travelogue, which corresponds to what the French historian Frank Lestringant has defined as ‘traditional topography’.84 Indeed, Alvares’s book evolves following a pattern of ‘juxtaposition and collage’ and, in opposition to the narratives the Jesuits came to develop thereafter, the author sought neither to impose an order upon the facts observed nor to push forward a moral judgment.85 Furthermore, Alvares still seems trapped by such powerful myths of the past as the Prester John, which were soon to disappear from missionary narratives. Similar features to those found in the Verdadeira informação can be observed in one of the first accounts produced by the Society of Jesus on Ethiopia, which was authored in 1551 by Father Gaspar Barzeo. Barzeo, who was one of the first Jesuits to work in India but who never traveled to the Red Sea, wrote a ‘Relatio de statu politico et religioso Aethiopiae’, an eleven-page long informative piece. He had compiled it with the help of Portuguese returnees who had gone to Ethiopia with Christovão da Gama. Barzeo’s text is for the most part accurate and 82 83 84

85

De Angelis, 1622, in raso XI, doc. 62, 502. Paes, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 253v. Lestringant defined traditional topography as ‘this particular narrative that corresponds to the practice of the person who, while moving from one place to the other, observes and takes notes about the changing landscape’; Frank Lestringant, L’atelier du cosmographe ou l’image du monde à la Renaissance (Paris: Albin Michel, 1991), 44. See Frank Lestringant, Écrire le monde à la Renaissance: quinze études sur Rabelais, Postel, Bodin et la littérature géographique (Caen: Paradigme, 1993), 321.

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well-informed. Yet, some mythical elements found their way into the narrative when he came to describe Christian Ethiopia’s western neighbors: In the last regions of the kingdom of the Preste there is a land called Sinaxi, along the Nile river, where men from a tribe of wild Cafir have a kind of short tail that is four fingers long; they go all naked and some wear plants as their sole clothing. One of the Portuguese staying there asked a local inhabitant what kind of neighbors there were, to which the latter answered that on the other side of the river lived the Amazons.86 Barzeo’s and Alvares’s texts were two late examples of a ‘Mandevillian’ view of Africa in European imagination that was soon to be displaced by what Frank Lestringant called ‘cosmographies’. According to him, cosmographies were complex narratives that comprised ‘the mediation of a theoretical framework and the reconnaissance of a scientific tradition and narratives resulting from scientific observation and an analytical method’.87 Jesuit descriptions of Ethiopia from the late sixteenth century onwards correspond to this new literary genre. At odds with texts such as Barzeo’s and Alvares’s, they were the product of scientific method and conveyed a moral message. The change of paradigm between old and new narratives on Ethiopia is symbolized by Pedro Páez’s dismissal in 1602, even before his travel to Ethiopia, of the myth of an Ethiopian Prester John.88 Probably the best expression of the renewal of European narratives on Ethiopia was Páez’s História de Etiópia. The work is regarded today as an example of the analytical and descriptive skills of the Castilian priest and is deemed a pioneering piece of scientific scholarship.89 Yet, there are also practical 86 Barzeo, 1551, in raso X, doc. 6, 32. 87 Lestringant, L’atelier du cosmographe, 44. 88 Páez declared to his friend, Ituren, that the most probable location for the kingdom of the Prester John was ‘Catayo’, by which he probably meant the Tibet of the Dhalai Lama; Pedro Páez to Tomás de Ituren, December 4, 1602, in raso XI, doc. 8, 35. 89 Accordingly, it has been recently defined as ‘a decisive step in the development of scientific knowledge about this African region’; Hervé Pennec and Manuel João Ramos, ‘Pero Páez 1564[−]1622’, in Literature of Travel and Exploration. An Encyclopaedia, ed. Jennifer Speake (New York and London: Fitzroy Deaborn, 2003). The text of the História de Etiópia remained ‘hidden’ and unknown to the public until the twentieth century; it was first published in two volumes in Beccari’s raso (vols. II and III, 1905–06) and later in a Portuguese edition from 1945 (ed. Lopes Teixeira, Pórto: Livraria Civilização, 1945–46). In the 2000s a series of new critical editions was launched; Pedro Paez, História da Etiópia, ed. Isabel Boavida et al. (Lisboa: Assírio & Alvim, 2008); Id., Pedro Páez´s History of Ethiopia, 1622.

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lessons to be drawn from this important work. Behind the composition of the História de Etiópia there were solid practical reasons that help us understand the whole missionary project to ‘reduce’ Christian Ethiopia. We need, first, to insist on the fact that the História de Etiópia originally had a defensive purpose, for it was meant to refute two works that the Dominican Fray Luís de Urreta had published in Valencia in 1610 and 1611.90 Urreta, who had never been in Ethiopia, had used data reportedly collected from an Ethiopian informant active in Europe and known as ‘Juan Baltasar’ to compose two, for the most part fictitious, treatises emphasizing Ethiopian ‘Catholicism’ and a long-lived Dominican ‘presence’ in the land.91 In his narrative Urreta treated the Ethiopian church as a Catholic church and was tolerant of such practices as circumcision, baptism and the communion with mosto, i.e. grape juice or unfermented wine.92 The Spaniard had probably been inspired to attempt such an undertaking by the rivalries between the two orders that were particularly strong in the Spanish territory, and by traditions dating back to the thirteenth century transmitted within the two Mendicant orders on earlier ‘missions’ to the East and Ethiopia.93 Additionally, we might 90 Urreta, Historia eclesiastica politica, natural, y moral and Id., Historia de la sagrada orden de predicadores, En los remotos Reynos de la Et..[iopia]…(Valencia: Iuan Chrysostomo Garriz, 1611). On Urreta’s identity see Boavida et al., introduction to Pedro Páez´s History of Ethiopia, 1622, vol. 1, 13–14. A sketchy notice on him also appears in Scriptores Ordinis praedicatorum recensiti, notisque historicis et criticis illustrati, vol. 2 (Paris: apud conventus ss. Annunciationis, 1719–23; facsimile repr. New York: Burt Franklin, 1959), 378. 91 The informant is described by Urreta as ‘one Juan Baltasar, an Ethiopian gentleman, from the kingdom and city of Fäṭägar in Ethiopia, military manager of the Order of St. Antonio Abat and of the royal guard of the Ethiopian king, called Prester John of the Indies, who possessed original documents, partly written in Ethiopian, partly in Italian language, which are in a poor state but which are still important and truthful’; Urreta, Historia eclesiastica politica, natural, y moral, 7. On Baltasar, see also Paolo Revelli, ‘Una relazione sull’ “Abissinia” del 1578 (con due cartine e due fac-simile)’, Bollettino della Società Geografica Italiana, ser. IV, vol. XI, parte I, anno XLIV, vol. XLVII (1910): 609. 92 Urreta, Historia eclesiastica politica, natural, y moral, 424, 437–438, 468 and passim, 498. 93 During the last decades of the sixteenth century Dominicans and Jesuits were involved in a number of polemics in Spain. The most important and virulent was probably the one involving the Dominican Melchor Cano (1509–1560), one of the major theologians of the time and an influential voice at the Spanish court. Cano violently opposed the Society from the moment of its foundation until his own death. See Mario Scaduto, Storia della Compagnia di Gesù, vol. 3 (Roma: La Civiltà Cattolica, 1964), 111; and Feliciano Cereceda, Diego Lainez en la Europa religiosa de su tiempo, 1512–1565, vol. 1 (Madrid: Ediciones Cultura Hispánica, 1945), 369–417. Apparently, Urreta took active part in another important Dominican–Jesuit debate with a harsh criticism of Juan de Mariana’s masterwork,

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gain some understanding of these peculiar works if we place them in the context of the utopian discourse that gained momentum in the sixteenth and earlier part of the seventeenth centuries with figures such as Thomas More (1478–1535), Guillaume Postel (1510–1581) and Urreta’s confrere Tomasso de Campanella (1568–1639).94 Indeed, the Ethiopia described by Urreta strongly resembles an utopian society whose people live in harmony and which, thanks to the role of the Dominican order, enjoys all the benefits of professing the true Catholic Faith. It was obvious to the Jesuits that Urreta’s Historia eclesiastica threatened the whole missionary project in Ethiopia. Moreover, the broad institutional support that the work received in Spain and the fine literary quality of the piece guaranteed it ample diffusion.95 By 1611 the Jesuits had already issued a first response to this threat: Fernão Guerreiro’s summary of the stand of the missions in the East included a long fifth book authored by the Italian

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the Historiae de Rebus Hispaniae; see Juan de Mariana, Historia de España [antología], ed. Manuel Ballesteros (Zaragoza: Ebro, 1964), 124. Last but not least, the work of the Jesuit Luis de Molina, Concordia Liberii Arbirtrii cum Gratiae Donism divina praescentia, providentia, praedestinatione et reprobatione (Lisboa: António Riberio, 1988) faced major opposition from the Dominican order, and towards 1594 the issue was put in the hands of the Holy See. On contacts between the Mendicant orders and Christian Ethiopia, see Andreu Martínez, ‘Dominicans’, in eae vol. 2; Id., ‘Franciscans’, Ibid.; and Carlo Conti Rossini, ‘Sulle missioni domenicane in Etiopia nel secolo XIV’, Rendiconti della Reale Accademia d’Italia 18 (1940). The major ‘utopian’ works of the mentioned authors are Utopia (1515), De orbis terrae concordiae (1544) and La Città del Sole (1623), respectively. A similar association of Urreta’s Ethiopia as an ‘ideal Catholic City of God’ can be found in Merid, ‘Southern Ethiopia and the Christian Kingdom’, 20. In the preface to Urreta’s book the following supporters appear: Capitán General de Valencia, Don Luys Carrillo de Toledo, Marqués de Carazena; Don Balthasar de Borja, Vicario General del Arzobispado; Iuan Pasqual, rector de la iglesia de S. Martín, por mandado del Ill.mo y Exc.mo sr. Dom Iuan de Ribera Ph. de Antiochia y Arzobispo de Valencia; Maestro fray Raphael Riphoz, Prou. de la Prou. de Aragon de op; Maestro fray Iupercio de Huete;…del M. fr. Geronimo Mos, calificador del tribunal del santo Officio de la Inquisicion. The second book is dedicated to Luys Ystella, Vic.Grl. op i M. del Palacio Sacro de Roma; Urreta, Historia eclesiastica politica, natural, y moral, 1611, fol. 2. A Portuguese translation of the text was prepared by a Jesuit; see Revelli, ‘Una relazione sull’ ‘Abissinia’, 609. The translation, however, was probably intended not for publication but only for internal use within the Society of Jesus. Part of Urreta’s narrative was reproduced by Samuel Purchas in his Purchas his Pilgrimage or Relations of the World and the Religions Observed in All Ages from 1613, as studied in James Rendel Harris, Hermas in Arcadia and Other Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1896), 27–40.

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Jesuit António Colasso dedicated to refuting the polemical treatise.96 Four years later, the first monograph authored by a Jesuit on Ethiopia, Manuel Godigno’s De Abassinorum rebus, was dedicated in part to respond to some of Urreta’s claims.97 By then the missionaries in Ethiopia had already been informed of these works and, by 1615 at the latest, Páez had received the first and most important book written by Urreta.98 Hereafter, the Castilian Jesuit systematically began to work to answer every argument set forth by the Dominican friar with data collected ‘from the most truthful people who live here’.99 The resulting text, however, was far more ambitious than Páez modestly declared it to be in the preface (a ‘small piece of work’) and may have even gone far beyond the instructions he had received from Rome and Goa.100 Indeed, the História de Etiópia became a major asset in the missionary project. To understand it we shall first focus on the moment when it was written and follow up with an analysis of its structure and content. As far as the time of composition is concerned, it has been suggested that Páez began compiling the book in 1613–1614.101 However, the above-mentioned letter that Páez addressed to Ituren in 1615 places the terminum post quem of any preparative works in that year. It was probably then when Páez began to assemble and translate all the material used in the book. In support of it, we also know that, also in 1615, he had asked the provincial in Goa, Francisco Vieira, for ‘glasses as for one who begins to loose sight’, which seems to be an indication of his growing dedication to the narrative project.102 Yet, the main bulk of the text was in all probability written even later, between 1619 and 1921, when Páez resigned from the office of head of the mission and retired to Gorgora.103 Following this hypothetical date of composition, a first important 96

‘Addiçam a relaçam das covsas de Ethiopia com mais larga informação dellas, muy certa, & muy differente das que seguio o Padre Fr. Luis de Vrreta no liuro que imprimio da historia daquelle Imperio do Preste Ioam’, in Guerreiro, Relaçam annal, 265–344. 97 See, for instance, Godigno, De Abassinorum Rebvs, liv. I, Chapter XVII; see also Harris, Hermas in Arcadia, 36. 98 In an annual letter dated 1615, Páez informed Ituren that he was going to focus on refuting Urreta’s book; Páez, 1615, in raso XI, doc. 41, 359. 99 Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso II, 4. 100 Ibid. On the requests made by Jesuit superiors in Rome to Páez to write the text, see Ibid. 4 note 1. 101 Pennec and Ramos, ‘Pero Paez’, 910. 102 Páez, 1615, in adb, Legajo 779, 153r. 103 Páez progressively alienated himself from the direct control of the mission around those years: in June 1618 he signed the last known annual letter (Páez, 1618, in raso XI, doc. 53) and between 1618 and 1619 he handed the office of superior da missão to António Fernandes.

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aspect of the História de Etiópia emerges: it represented a mature work of its author and of the second mission period. Páez probably wrote it in his midfifties and with more than fifteen years of missionary experience behind him. Moreover, he undertook the work during a decisive period for the fate of the mission, marked by two momentous events: the death of Sǝmʿon in 1617 and the profession of Catholic faith made by Susǝnyos at Gännätä Iyäsus on November 1, 1621, which, however, does not feature in the text. It was a period in which the traditionalist party within the court lost the lead and the Jesuits and their local followers took a more public stand, abandoning their initial prudence. So it was at that time when the ambitious program of reforms projected by the Jesuits begins to take form. The book was no minor achievement. It appears as a vast ethnographical, geographical, natural and historical compilation in four livros (books), comprising 536 folia, of all the information known hitherto on ‘Ethiopia’ and the Portuguese and Jesuit presence there. Indeed, Páez made substantial use of Ethiopian sources, discussing, summarizing or rephrasing a number of Ethiopian royal chronicles and epistles and lives of saints (gädl) as well as the foundation text of the Solomonic monarchy, the Kǝbrä nägäśt. He complemented these sources with local informants he himself had met and data from his own experience as a missionary.104 Another corpus made full use of by Páez was the Western sources, including the accounts by Alvares, Castanhoso and Guerreiro, as well as missionary correspondence exchanged between Europe and Ethiopia. For all of these reasons the text has to be seen as part and parcel of what Harris calls the ‘geography of knowledge’, the set of narratives on history, geography, ethnography and natural sciences produced largely by Jesuit companions throughout the world.105 Authors such as Juan González de Mendoza (an Augustinian), Giovanni Pietro Maffei, Juan de

Moreover, although the manuscript was signed in May 1622, just days before his death, some relevant omissions (the public profession of faith made by Susǝnyos and the foundation of the ‘royal’ residence of Gännätä Iyäsus in November 1621) set the terminum ante quem of the finishing of the manuscript to mid–1621. On this particular, see also Beccari’s analysis in Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso II, xxx. 104 The list of sources used by Páez has been compiled by Beccari in the introduction to Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso II, xxxii–xxxiii; Ibid. III, iii–vi. Let it be mentioned that, as happened with all the literary works enterprised by the missionaries, Páez might, in all likelihood, have also been helped by his companions and by a number of local intellectuals. Among the latter there were Mǝhǝrka Dǝngǝl and azzaž Ṭino, the two authors of most of the Chronicle of Susǝnyos, who provided Páez with ample excerpts from the text. 105 See Steven J. Harris, ‘Mapping Jesuit Science: The Role of Travel in the Geography of Knowledge’, in The Jesuits. Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts, 212 and passim.

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Mariana, Fernão Guerreiro, Sebastião Gonçalves, Diogo Gonçalves and Nicolão Godigno created a new narrative to describe the world, which broke with traditional cosmographical and topographical discourse and imposed a discourse centered in specific regions – nations, kingdoms, empires – and with a strong moral underpinning.106 With this tradition the História de Etiópia shared the scientific method and a moralistic purpose, as well as an effort to objectify reality. Additionally, Páez’s História can be interpreted as the culmination of a process that began with the Verdadera informaçam of Francisco Alvares and achieved maturity in the text of his Jesuit companion Godigno. In this process ‘Ethiopia’ or ‘Abyssinia’ emerged as a socio-political entity comparable to those being formed in Europe and overseas – a number of them with the important contribution of the Society of Jesus. The old ‘myths’ that during Renaissance times had circulated regarding the kingdom, in particular that of the Prester John, were being abandoned and replaced by a modern political– historical discourse. Parallels can be particularly drawn with the work of a Castilian companion of Páez, Juan de Mariana (1536–1624), author of the pioneering Historiæ de rebus Hispaniæ.107 Mariana’s text is a description of a kingdom that was profoundly shaped during the decisive rule of king Philip II, to whom the book is dedicated. In Mariana’s work historiography becomes a nation-making tool at the service of the state. The História de Etiópia shares with the Historiæ de rebus Hispaniæ a number of features. Like the Spain portrayed by Mariana, Páez’s História substantiates a national historical subject, ‘Ethiopia’. He provides it with a specific history and a mission, buttressing it with the ideological discourse of the Solomonic monarchy and indigenous historiographic traditions. With his work ‘Ethiopia’ becomes a ‘manageble’ socio-political entity, with a defined political system, dominating a number of ‘provinces’ and ‘kingdoms’ and with clearly defined geographical boundaries. Significantly enough, the

106 Juan González de Mendoza, Historia de las cosas más notables, ritos y costumbres, Del gran Reyno de la China…(Roma: Vicentio Accolti, 1585); Maffei, Historiarum Indicarum; Juan de Mariana, Historiae de rebus Hispaniae (Toleti: P. Roderici, 1592; Spanish edition: Historia general de España, Toledo: Pedro Rodríguez, 1601–10); Guerreiro, Relaçam annal; Sebastião Gonçalves, Primeira parte da história dos religiosos da Companhia de Jesus…, vol. 2 [1612] (Coimbra: Atlântida, 1960–62); Gonçalves, História do Malavar; Godigno, De Abassinorum rebus. See also Charles R. Boxer, The Church Militant and Iberian Expansion, 1440–1770 (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), Chapter 2: ‘Cultural Interactions’. 107 See ‘Juan de Mariana’, in Enciclopédia Universal Ilustrada Europeo-Americana (Bilbao et al.: Espasa Calpe, n.d.), t. XXXIII, 73–80.

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first chapter of the book is dedicated to the ‘geographical setting and the number and nature of the kingdoms and provinces of the lands of Ethiopia, which is ruled by the Emperor called Prester John’.108 With Mariana’s Historiæ de rebus Hispaniæ, Páez’s narrative shares the aim of typifying, classifying and mapping the geographical and social diversity under scrutiny and of enforcing upon it a strong moral argument.109 In both treatises, too, the author becomes a powerful figure, a moral guide and an authoritative analyst, one who possesses a ‘true’ picture of the kingdom under study and is able to identify its shortcomings and main assets. The modern Jesuit author is advisor to the Prince and a champion of religious reform and social order. But the História de Etiópia also worked as a powerful tool to legitimize the missionary project. Throughout the text, indigenous (Ethiopian) and ‘foreign’ (Portuguese and Jesuit) elements are interwoven in one and the same narrative. In the course of Páez’s narrative the Jesuit mission becomes part and parcel of Ethiopia’s history; together with the rise of ‘Emperor’ Susǝnyos, the mission appears as the greatest achievement in Ethiopian history. The glorious mythical past of ‘Emperor’ Mǝnilǝk has a symmetric reflect in the modern achievements of ‘Emperor’ Susǝnyos. De-Construction or the Limits of Accommodation The de-construction of Ethiopian Christianity by the Jesuit missionaries gained momentum when the second mission period reached maturity. At that time the Jesuits defined the main targets of their undertaking. In the end, they came to compile a long list of features of Ethiopian Christianity that required changing, suppressing, substituting or temporarily tolerating. It can be assumed that by about the mid-1610s such a ‘list’ was more or less ready.110 On the one hand, the second mission reestablished by Pedro Páez had inherited major themes of discussion that had emerged decades earlier. The observation by the Ethiopians of what the Europeans considered as Mosaic Laws, such as the Sabbath and circumcision, had already been a major topic of discussion under King Dom João and, presumably, also during Oviedo’s patriarchate.111 On the other hand, the 108 Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso II, liv. I, Chapter I. 109 Lestringant characterized the new treatises that replaced Renaissance cosmographical discourse as more interested in describing the states and their resources, wealth and power than in providing a general account of the world; Lestringant, Ecrire le monde à la Renaissance, 336. 110 In 1610, António Fernandes provided one of the earliest drafts of the list of ‘heresies’ of Ethiopian Christianity: Fernandes to Visitor in India, June 3, 1610, in raso XI, doc. 31. 111 See Martínez d’Alòs-Moner ‘Paul and the Other’; Cohen, The Missionary Strategies of the Jesuits, 161 and passim.

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growing acquaintance with local costumes and the intensification of religious discussions added new themes. Among these were eminently ‘Pauline’ and Ignatian preoccupations concerning the physicality of Ethiopian religiosity and the exteriorization of suffering. Thus, frequent targets of Jesuit proselytizing were Ethiopia’s dietary prescriptions and fasting habits. These were deemed extreme, harmful and needful of reformation. Additionally, the influence of the Council of Trent directed the missionaries to focus on major themes concerning the reform of the church as an institution, the sacraments and ritual and liturgical issues. The celibacy of priests and indissolubility of marriage were among these concerns. According to Leonardo Cohen, ‘the objective was to unify the ritual, to homogenize the different variations of each sacramental practice, and to conceive a single model for their performance’.112 Logically, Jesuit activities also focused on local Christological doctrines. The dogma of the single divine nature of Christ as held by traditionalist theologians was, it seems, a recurrent topic of discussion at the court and in missionary residences. In view of the accommodation methods and adaptationist practices with which the Society of Jesus was experimenting in some missionary fronts in the East, the intransigence its men showed in Christian Ethiopia may appear surprising.113 Indeed, this issue has been the object of intense scrutiny. Merid Wolde Aregay has emphasized the decisive role played by Susǝnyos and Pedro Páez in radicalizing the religious stand of the Catholic party. The first is portrayed as a brutal and ruthless character who, being alienated from the Ethiopian church, saw in Páez a man who could help him regain religious legitimacy as well as obtain access to military power; Páez, in turn, was a rather impetuous man, a skilled preacher whose missionary methods blended arrogance, ignorance and a thirst for power.114 112 Cohen, The Missionary Strategies of the Jesuits, 163. 113 For a study of the adaptationist practices of the Jesuits on the Indian Peninsula, see Županov, Disputed Mission, 5 and passim; for the Japan mission, see George Elison, Deus Destroyed: The Image of Christianity in Early Modern Japan, 3rd edn. (Cambridge: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard Univ, 1991), Chapter 3: ‘The Accommodative Method: The Jesuit Mission Policy and Cultural Contribution’; and Shinzo Kawamura, ‘An Evaluation of Valignano’s Decision-making from the Viewpoint of Japanese Society’, in Beyond Borders: A Global Perspective of Jesuit Mission History, ed. Shinzo Kawamura and Cyril Veliath (Tokyo: Sophia University Press, 2009). On the biased application of the concept of accomodatio by Valignano himself, see Paolo Aranha, ‘Gerarchie razziali e adattamento culturale: La “ipotesi Valignano”’ in Alessandro Valignano S.I: Uomo del Rinascimento, ponte tra Oriente e Occidente, ed. Adolfo Tamburello et al. (Roma: Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 2008), 91 and passim. 114 Merid Wolde Aregay, ‘El conocimiento de Pedro Páez de la Teología de la Iglesia Ortodoxa etíope’, in Conmemoración del IV Centenario de la Llegada del Sacerdote Español Pedro

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In Merid’s view, it was the association between these two ill-fated figures and a zealot of Catholicism such as Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos that brought Ethiopian society to the brink of collapse. Likewise, he also plays down the alleged differences the two churches may have had in the seventeenth century and suggests that every opportunity was used by the missionaries, in particular by men such as Páez, to ridicule every aspect of Ethiopian Christianity; in the end, what emerged from the Jesuit interpretation of Ethiopia’s church was a sort of anti-Christianity that, all but for a few features, had to be completely reformed.115 Tewelde Beiene’s investigation into the Ethiopian mission has a more limited scope than Merid’s owing to the theological focus of his work. A central idea that emerges from this work is that the Jesuit missionaries, for all the efforts they showed, were unable to understand the Ethiopian mentality: ‘in spite of their efforts to learn local languages, they were not capable of truly understanding the Ethiopian way of thinking’.116 This very fact, compounded with Susǝnyos’s ‘intransigent regress’, drove the kingdom towards an open religious war.117 Slightly more optimistic is the analysis offered by Leonardo Cohen. Cohen does not rule out, as Merid and Tewelde seem to do, the possibility of an Ethiopian accommodation. The thorough study of Gǝʿǝz and Agäw languages carried out by men such as Francesco Antonio de Angelis or Luís de Azevedo and the conspicuous use that one António Fernandes made of Gǝʿǝz for theological purposes could be instances of it. For the Jesuits, ‘Gǝʿǝz could, with a high degree of precision, express the religious concepts the Catholics wished to advance’.118 Additionally, some foreign priests indeed went native, adopting methods typical of Ethiopian holy men.119 An example could be the figure of Patriarch Oviedo, who in Fǝremona adopted a lifestyle similar to that of the .



Páez a Etiopia…, ed. VV. AA. ([Madrid]: Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional, Dirección General de Relaciones Culturales y Científicas, 2007]), 76, 79 and passim; Merid, ‘The Legacy of Jesuit Missionary Activities’, 44–46. 115 Ibid. 49, 52, Merid, ‘El conocimiento de Pedro Páez’, 82 and passim. 116 Tewelde, ‘La politica cattolica de Selṭan Sägäd I’, 81. 117 Ibid. 82, also 88. Earlier on Conti Rossini had already commented that ‘the lack of foresight [of the missionaries] was compounded by their sheer ignorance of the country and their peoples’; Conti Rossini, ‘Portogallo ed Etiopia’, 348. For a discussion on Ethiopian Christological terms from a Catholic point of view, see Mario da Abiy-Addi, La dottrina della Chiesa Etiopica dissidente, 55–67. 118 Cohen, The Missionary Strategies of the Jesuits, 98. 119 Ibid. 29; Kaplan, The Monastic Holy Man, 75. In the 1620s, some missionaries were reported as fasting ‘continuously, on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays’; Barneto, 1623, in raso XI, doc. 67, 524.

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monks who populated the Tǝgrayan mountainous landscape; following his death his tomb reportedly became the object of a local pilgrimage.120 Yet, Cohen does not fail to point out the limits of Jesuit adaptatio in Ethiopia. As the above scholars did, he emphasizes that in the end the missionaries – and their Ethiopian supporters – opted for a ‘top to bottom’ and ‘Latinizing’ strategy, which drove them towards religious intransigence and reckless policies.121 Thus, the main cause of the failure of Catholicism in Ethiopia ‘was the Jesuit missionaries’ attempt to create a religious system which would be homogeneous in terms of creed and theology as well as in terms of rituals’.122 Although Cohen’s assertion that the Ethiopian mission was a ‘a unique case in world Jesuit history since it concerns a mission addressed at Christians’ deserves discussion, his insight into the theological context of the mission is important. Indeed, the fact that the Ethiopians to a large extent professed Christianity faced the missionaries with a conundrum: ‘If the Jesuits had recognized the Ethiopian sacraments as legitimate and effective in achieving salvation, it would have begged the question whether there was even a need to impose Catholicism’.123 In other words, in Christian Ethiopia the adaptatio was – to a large extent – not possible because the Jesuit cultural/political–­ religious algorithm, by which local ‘exotic’ traditions were tolerated if deemed ‘political’ or ‘cultural’, could not apply in a society where almost everything was impregnated with Christianity.124 A thorough scrutiny of the historical record and sound methodological work has allowed scholars in the last few decades to piece together the confusing events that led to the short-lived Catholic hegemony in Ethiopia and ultimately to its dramatic demise. The historical context, individual agency and the incommensurable nature of Roman Catholic and Ethiopian Orthodox faiths have their equal share in historiographical narratives; combined, they 120 See Azevedo, 1607, in raso XI, doc. 20, 115. Stories on this cult were later reproduced in hagiographical biographies promoted by the Society of Jesus during the seventeenth century, such as Arana, ‘Historia de la Santa vida’, 153f, 331r and Menologium Virorum Illustrium Societ. ihs, ca. 1670, in bnl, cod. 4306, 144r. While the missionaries and Ethio-Portuguese were all too interested in fostering a local devotion to a Catholic figure, there is ground to believe that the cult to Oviedo had a local dimension. 121 Cohen, The Missionary Strategies of the Jesuits, 53 and passim, 66. 122 Ibid. xviii. 123 Ibid. 124 On the western idea of the ‘religious’ as an autonomous sphere of social action see Carmen Bernard and Serge Gruzinski, De l’idolâtrie: Une archeologie des sciences religieuses (Paris: Seuil, 1988), 133; on the Jesuits’ intellectual contribution to this idea see ibid. 75 and passim, 85, 139–141; and Županov, Disputed Mission, 89–90.

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help to explain how things unfolded around Lake Ṭana. This notwithstanding, some room is still left for speculation: what if Jesuit decision-makers had chosen a more multinational team and if leadership roles had been handed, for instance, to Italians, who to all intents and purposes handled conversion business with a softer hand than their Iberian confreres?125 What if Afonso Mendes had realized earlier the pressing need to lift anti-Orthodox sanctions and bring to a halt the religious policy launched by his companions Páez and Fernandes? The practice of historical fiction can help raise important questions concerning choices that proved to be fatal and intelligent decisions that were never taken. But the exercise of turning upside down the questions that haunt us about this fascinating attempt of conversion among ‘equals’ can also be attempted: why did the Jesuits show such resilience in spite of the challenges faced and why did their local supporters stand at their side for so long?126 When the Jesuits decided that Ethiopian Christianity had to be reformed on a large scale they called upon their sophisticated intellectual culture for help. They made ample use of their scriptural knowledge and dogmatic assertiveness to convince their audience of the ‘wrongdoings’ of Ethiopian Christianity and the virtues of their model of religion. They believed that the change in the native peoples could be achieved by the force of words and by convincing the opponents with a clear exposition of theological doctrines. Suggestion and persuasion should prevail over forceful methods. In their view, these methods should be even more effective among the local populations who, as the missionaries often emphasized, had just a basic scriptural knowledge and rudimentary tools for learning.127 So, when the mission entered its second decade, the Jesuits began what, with the years, was to turn into an outstanding work of hermeneutics, literary 125 The idea that non-Iberian nationals were more flexible has been already suggested in Alden, The Making of an Enterprise, 157. An historical example supporting Alden’s compelling hypothesis is the contrasting methods implemented in Japan by the Portuguese Francisco Cabral and the Italian Alessandro Valignano; see Elison, Deus Destroyed, 54 and passim. 126 On the opposition between Eastern and Western Christianity, see Benz, ‘Das PaulusVerständnis’, 306. 127 In 1607, for instance, Luís de Azevedo, portrayed the Ethiopians in the following way: ‘Since here they don’t learn any other science than the text of the Holy Scriptures, which is the same as ours, and especially the holy Gospels, the epistles of St. Paul and the Psalms, and they learn it by heart and they also have other books of the Old Testament, but all in handwritten and old parchments, so that to transport the Bible from one place to another an animal is needed…[however] if one were able to teach them their errors with the help of Scriptures they shall easily surrender’; Azevedo, 1607, in raso XI, doc. 20, 89.

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criticism and intellectual production. Such a task, which found few parallels in other missions of the Society, had three main focuses: the translation of European texts into Ethiopian languages; the rewriting of local Christian texts; and the composition of new treatises.128 The translation of European texts into Ethiopian languages was the task that was given utmost priority and that seems to have taken most of the energies during the first decade and a half of the mission. The first text to have been introduced in Ethiopia would have been a version of the Doctrina or Doutrina Christãa or Cartilha, probably the one written by Marcos Jorge (1524–1571) and revised by the Jesuit Inácio Martins, which in the East was first adapted to the Tamil language and then to a number of other languages.129 There is evidence of the Cartilha being used at the schools of Fǝremona, Gorgora and Qwälläla for catechetical instruction of children and neophytes.130 However, when the period of religious disputes unfolded, the Jesuits and their local patrons came to the conclusion that they needed more powerful instruments. So, from about 1613 onwards they began to introduce into the country the ideas developed in Spain by the theological schools of Salamanca and Alcalá de Henares.131 The 128 The works the Jesuits took to and translated in Japan, another important center of reception of Catholic religious literature, were from more conventional genres and included treatises on Marian miracles, lives of saints, and the Flors Sanctorum. The emphasis in Japan was for works that could teach people Christian theology and devotions from scratch rather than combatting, as was the case in Ethiopia, religious dogmas; see Joseph Schütte, ‘Christliche japanische Literatur, Bilder und Druckblätter in einem unbekannten Vatikanischen Codex aus dem Jahre 1591’, Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu 9 (1940). The hermeneutic character of the Ethiopian mission has already been the object of an accurate survey in Leonardo Cohen Shabot, ‘The Jesuit Missionary as Translator, 1603–1632’, in Ethiopia and the Missions, and Id., The Missionary Strategies of the Jesuits, Chapter 5; see also Salvadore, ‘Faith over Color’, 206 and passim. 129 Doctrina Christaa ordenada a maneira de Dialogo para ensinar os meninos (Lisboa: Francisco Correa, 1566) (an earlier edition dates to 1561). On the Cartilhas, see Silva, Trent’s Impact on the Portuguese Patronage Missions, 116–118. 130 On the Jesuits’ dedication to catechesis, see O’Malley, The First Jesuits, 115 and passim. During the earlier period Oviedo requested from Alessandro Valignano, it seems to no avail, doctrinal and dogmatic books; Andrés de Oviedo to Alessandro Valignano, April 5, 1576, in arsi, Goa 12 II, 337rv. 131 Smoothness of communications between Diu and Massawa might have afforded the missionaries to request and receive the books within a time-span of less than a year provided that Goa, or other Jesuit centers in India, were well furnished with enough copies of the required theological treatises. The beginning of translation works around 1614, one year after the celebration of the first religious disputes, seems to indicate indeed that the period between the request of the book and its reception was short.

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missionaries were overtly confident that the refined theology of their peers and the intellectual superiority of their neophytes would convince their opponents of the truths of the Pauline-Catholic message, hence their insistence that ‘the issues of faith be only decided by listening and providing valuable arguments’.132 They buttressed their optimism with a paternalistic attitude wherein Orthodox Ethiopians were seen as simple and ignorant people ‘who, since they don’t have any notion of philosophy, […] are unable to distinguish between abstract and concrete things’.133 A study of the choice of titles is in order.134 Francisco de Toledo (1535–1610), Francisco de Ribera (1537–1591) and Juan de Maldonado (1533–1583) were the first authors introduced into Ethiopia. From the works of Toledo and Ribera, both professors at Salamanca, the missionaries in Ethiopia translated commentaries of two important Pauline epistles, Romans and Hebrews, respectively.135 132 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VII, Chapter XX. 133 Gouveia, Jornada do Arcebispo de Goa, 32. The passage was probably borrowed from Paes, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 249v. The theologian Tewelde Beiene has raised scepticism about the quality of Jesuit translations. Relying on, as his unique source, a passage found in Ludolf’s Historia aethiopica, Tewelde claims that the quality of the Amharic translations was imperfect and their effect was contrary to the intended one: rather than convincing the traditionalists they would have provoked scorn and disdain; see Tewelde, ‘La politica cattolica de Selṭan Sägäd I (1607–1632)’, 80, 104–105; Hiob Ludolf, Historia aethiopica… (Francofurti ad Moenum: apud J.D. Zunner, 1681), lib. III, Chapter 10, § 57–58. A more detailed analysis of the scant evidence for translation works shall find out whether Tewelde’s negative assessment is accurate. 134 It seems that not all titles were chosen in the mission and some might have been sent without formal request by the Indian or Portuguese superiors. Thus, in a letter Father de Angelis complained to Nuno Mascarenhas, provincial in Portugal, that ‘Titelmans is useless’; de Angelis, 1620, in raso XI, doc. 59, 465. It is not known which work of the Franciscan theologian Frans Tittelmans (1502–1537) was sent to Ethiopia although the likeliest candidates are the Collationes quinque super Epistolam ad Romanos Beati Pauli (Antwerpen 1530) and the Elucidatio in omnes Epistolas apostolicas (Antwerpen 1528); see also Stephan Meier-Oeser, ‘Tittelmans, Frans’, in Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon, ed. Friedrich W. Bautz (Herzberg: Traugott Bautz, 1997). Another title that might have been selected in India or Europe – probably in Rome – could be Giustiniano’s comments to Paul’s Epistles; the first edition of this text, dated 1613, could hardly have been known to the missionaries for them to have requested it. 135 The authorship of Hebrews has been a matter of debate since Origen’s times. During medieval times up until the Reformation the church included Hebrews as the fourteenth letter of Paul. At present, however, it is not ascribed to Paul and the problem of its authorship remains open; see Powell, Introducing the New Testament, 431–432. Ribera defended the Pauline authorship of the Epistle; see Ribera, In epistolam B. Pauli apostoli ad hebraeos commentarij, 31 and passim.

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From Maldonado the work chosen was the voluminous Comments to the Four Gospels.136 These theorists belonged, together with Francisco Suárez, to a generation of Jesuits who had directly received the influence of the Dominicans Francisco de Vitoria (1483/86–1546) and Domingo de Soto (1494–1570), professors of Holy Scriptures at the University of Salamanca.137 Both Soto and Vitoria had formulated influencing theories on the state and rights of the Indians in colonial America and provided a renewed reading of the Scriptures to combat the Protestant Reformation in Europe.138 Soto also wrote a sound refutation of the Lutheran theories on justification, De natura et gratia, that strongly influenced the way their Jesuit disciples faced Lutheran and the other ‘heresies’ in the mission fields. Their Jesuit disciples disseminated their school of thought in the main centers of Jesuit learning at Alcalá, Coimbra, Évora and the Collegio Romano in the Eternal City. The translation of the titles authored by Toledo and Ribera, with their minute and lengthy (883 and 554 pages, respectively) interpretations of Paul’s ideas and their extensive thematic indexes, had a clear practical purpose. Exegetical science reinforced the new spiritual and allegorical vision of Christianity defended by St. Paul in Corinthians and Hebrews and came in handy in the reform of a church that was viewed as profoundly influenced by the Mosaic Law.139 On the one hand, Hebrews, which, as Powell has emphasized, is a text that ‘presents Jesus as fully and profoundly human’, was a valuable asset during the Christological debates because a typical issue of contention between the Catholics and the traditionalists was their definition of the divine: the ‘human’ Catholic Jesus clashed with the ‘divine’ Orthodox God.140 On the other hand, 136 Although the Ethiopian documents do not seem to have survived the persecutions, some historical evidence seems to indicate that the Jesuits and their local aides prepared selections of the theological treatises rather than integral translations; see, for instance, Páez, 1615, in adb, Legajo 779, 152v. 137 Toledo and Maldonado had been direct disciples of Vitoria and Soto. 138 See Anthony Pagden, The Fall of Natural Man: The American Indian and the Origins of Comparative Ethnology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982) (Digital reprinting 1999, u.s.a.), 25 and passim. 139 See also Boyarin, A Radical Jew, 8. 140 Powell, Introducing the New Testament, 436. On the importance of Romans in western Christianity, see Froehlich, ‘Paul and the Late Middle Ages’, 33. Relying on Benz’s important study, Froehlich emphasized the Pauline divide between Western and Eastern Christian traditions: ‘Western theology always had a central interest in the juridical aspect of the relationship of humanity to God, in law and gospel, sin and justification, and it found its biblical warrant in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. The East, on the other hand, stressed soteriological themes such as theosis, new creation, resurrection, and sacramental life. Where its biblical source was Paul, it took up and deepened the mystical impulses

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Romans was the gospel of ‘the righteousness of God through faith for faith’ and it was a powerful tool to substantiate the missionaries’ plea for a more comprehending, ‘interior’ and spiritual form of faith, one that was in overt opposition to the form found in Ethiopia, which emphasized self-mortification and submission to a supreme God.141 During the late 1610s and early 1620s three further bulky Jesuit treatises reached the mission’s translation desks. They were authored by a younger generation of theologians formed at the Jesuit universities: the comments to St. Paul’s epistolary by the Italian Benedetto Giustiniani (1555–1622), the treatise by the Portuguese Bras Viegas (1553–1599) on the Apocalypse of St. John and that by the Spaniard Benedicto Pereira (1535–1610) on the Genesis.142 These are further confirmation of the exegetical character that most of the discussions and sermons held in Ethiopia had, along with the interest of the missionaries to be up to date with the developments of biblical exegesis in Europe. Eventually, translation activities attained such a level that in 1615 the missionaries had to request from their superiors in India permission to slow down work. Thus, Páez commented that ‘[Fernandes] warns that if so many fathers are occupied translating books this would affect the spiritual needs of the Portuguese and the teaching duties at the school’.143

of Pauline theology’; ibid.; also Benz, ‘Das Paulus-Verständnis’, 290 and passim. On the reverberations of this debate throughout Ethiopian history, see Piovanelli, ‘Connaissance de Dieu et sagesse humaine’, 277. 141 Powell, Introducing the New Testament, 256. There is evidence of Jesuit theological treatises being read aloud at the kätäma of Susǝnyos and Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos. Páez reported that, towards 1614, ‘with the ideas that had been learnt from these books [i.e. the Jesuit treatises], several people, chiefly the Emperor and Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos, organized frequent public readings in their own rooms and tents, in front of a multitude and during their free time, when they were not busy with governmental tasks or waging war’; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VII, Chapter XXIII. 142 Benedetto Giustiniano, In omnes B. Pavli Apost. Epistolas Explanationum, 2 vols. (Lugduni: Horatii Cardon, 1613); Bras Viegas, Commentarii Exegetici in Apocalypsim Joannis Apostoli (Eborae: Emmanuelem de Lyra, 1601); Benedicto Pereira, Commentariorum et disputationum in Genesim, 4 vols. (Romae: ex typographia Vaticana, 1589–98). 143 Páez, 1615, in adb, Legajo 779, 153r. In translation works the missionaries were assisted by a team of local intellectuals, while funding and logistic support was generously provided by nǝguś Susǝnyos and Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos. The padres emphasized that the two political figures participated in the selection of the foreign theological treatises; see, for instance, Luís de Azevedo to Francisco Vieira, June 2, 1614, in adb, Legajo 779, doc. 17, 109v; Azevedo, 1619, in raso XI, doc. 54, 419. On evidence for the funding of translation works see Páez, 1614, in raso XI, doc. 39, 332–333; Id., 1618, in raso X, doc. 53, 410; and Páez, 1615, in adb, Legajo 779, 152v. See also Cohen, ‘The Jesuit Missionary as Translator’, 10.

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The crisis of 1617 and its outcome brought about a drastic change in missionary strategies. With the death of such traditionalist leaders as Yolyos and Sǝmʿon the balance of power shifted in favor of the Catholics. As a consequence, the Catholics stepped up their demands and, as more and more resources of the state were allocated to them, the action of the mission became more public and wide-ranging. The shift in strategy was also decisively influenced by a change of leadership in the mission. By around 1618, Páez had quit as superior da missão and António Fernandes (1571–1642) assumed his role. The choice was not made at random. Seven years Páez’s junior but with about the same field experience, the Portuguese priest became an energetic and decisive leader. Often neglected by historians who are more keen to focus on Mendes and Páez, Fernandes pushed the missionary project forward with a strong hand, engaging his men on several fronts. With full political support and legitimacy, he abandoned the earlier, tame approach and drove the mission to an open confrontation with Ethiopian Christianity. The aim was to start off the global reformation of the local church and pave the way for the arrival of the Catholic Patriarch. First of all, Fernandes should be credited for having turned the mission into an intellectual center in its own right. Under his guidance the Jesuit residences (in particular Gorgora), which earlier had hosted ambitious translation works, became energetic intellectual centers where polemical anti-Orthodox theology was written. Fernandes himself, after he had to abort the secret diplomatic mission to Europe in 1613, set to write a series of treatises condemning Ethiopian ‘errors’ and ‘heresies’ and defending the Catholic dogmas. The first was probably the Flagellum mendaciorum/Magseph Asettat, a remarkable polemist treatise written in Gǝʿǝz refuting another traditionalist text.144 Shortly afterwards further challenging tasks ensued, such as revisions of two major texts of Ethiopian Christianity, the Haymanotä Abäw (‘Faith of the Fathers’) and the Sǝnkǝssar (Synaxarium).145 Neither the Catholic version of the Haymanotä Abäw nor their Senkessar are extant. The first must be seen as a compelling example of textual hermeneutics, literary criticism and scriptural erudition. Fernandes and his 144 Flagellum mendaciorum, which was reworked by Fernandes during his exile in Goa and eventually printed as Magseph assetat id est flagellum mendaciorum sive Tractatus de erroribus Aethiopiae Sermone Chaldaeo (Goae: Collegio S. Pauli, 1642). 145 On the two texts, see Anaïs Wion and Emmanuel Fritsch, ‘Haymanotä abäw’, in eae vol. 2; Alessandro Bausi, Il sēnodos etiopico: Canoni pseudoapostolici: Canoni dopo l’ascensione, canoni di Simone Cananeo, canoni apostolici, lettera di Pietro (Lovanii: in aedibus Peeters, 1995).

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team ‘purified’ the original text from the ‘wrong amendments’ that Ethiopian Christians allegedly carried out in the past and they added some important Catholic texts, such as Leo’s famous epistle to Flavian. The missionaries did not conceive of these ‘surgical’ interventions to Ethiopia’s literary corpus as censorships or modifications but as legitimate actions in order to bring back the texts to their alleged ‘original’ form. Hermeneutics became a powerful tool in the redução of Orthodox Ethiopia. Secondly, under Fernandes’s tenure the mission expanded its activities as well as its geographic scope. Since the moment when the election of a patriarch had been known in Ethiopia, towards 1622, Susǝnyos gave Fernandes full ecclesiastic powers.146 The Portuguese missionary came thereafter to act de facto as patriarch in absentia and was appointed examiner of those who later were to receive new orders from the Catholic Patriarch.147 Activity increased at the residences of Fǝremona and Gorgora, where the number of children studying at the Catholic schools almost tripled between 1616 and 1626 (Figure 2). Additionally, proselytizing missions to the countryside grew. On the one hand, once the Jesuits had become the leading clergy in the kingdom and the political shield protecting them had expanded, they were obliged to bring their apostolate to as many areas as possible, for the local unexamined clergy was banned from ministering to its own people. On the other hand, rural field trips searched to bring under the missionaries’ control the numerous monastic clusters that had remained estranged from Catholicism. In 1624 four of the newly arrived missionaries to Ethiopia were dispatched to work in rural areas in Tǝgray with strong monastic tradition, such as Amba Sänayti, Tämben and Gärʿalta. It seems that one of the chief purposes of these campaigns was to carry out inquisitive visits to leading monasteries. The visit to the important center of Ǝnda Abba Gärima, south of Fǝremona, was described in detail in Jesuit annual letters and seems to provide a template for the way in which the missionaries approached the reform of monastic communities.148 During the visit the missionaries, who were accompanied by troops from the blattengeta of governor Qǝbʾä Krǝstos, placed a pedra de ara (i.e. altar) above the traditional tabot to conform with Roman liturgy and thereafter officiated a Catholic 146 ‘And he [Susǝnyos] gave me [Fernandes] full powers over ecclesiastic matters, over all the monasteries and churches and so I use of it, dismissing the superiors who do not want to receive the holy faith and replacing them with those who receive and teach its doctrines’; Fernandes, 1623, in raso XI, doc. 66, 509–510. 147 Almeida, 1627, in arsi, Goa 39 II, 424r. 148 Gaspar Paes to Francisco de Vergara, June 15, 1625, in adb, Legajo 779, 255r–v.

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mass.149 Subsequently, Father Thomé Barneto desecrated the tabot and claimed that in its interior there was nothing more than ‘a stick of bamboo large as a finger and long as an elbow’, contrary to the popular belief that the object contained relics.150 The action was concluded by a speech where the padre accused the monks of officiating over ‘a filthy altar full of superstitious objects and clear Judaic relics’.151 When eventually the monks undertook to put the old tabot back in its place, the soldiers of the governor took it and burned it publicly at the local kätäma.152 In parallel, Susǝnyos and Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos began to enforce a rigid pro-Catholic policy, which turned into a full-scale repression of traditionalists. In 1620, following discussions with a monk who sustained the traditional doctrine that Christ was the Son of God by grace, Susǝnyos issued a decree forbidding the practice of Sabbath and, shortly afterwards, he compelled people to work on that day.153 On October 31, 1621, after a successful campaign by Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos in Damot, Susǝnyos’s cousin and close officer, blattengeta Mälkǝʾa Krǝstos, made a solemn proclamation of Catholic faith at Dänqäz in front of the principals of the court and the kingdom.154 On the same occasion azzaž Ṭino, the secretary of Susǝnyos and royal scribe, proclaimed that the properties of those accused of apostatizing would be taken away and given to those (presumably Catholics) having accused them. On the following day, November 1, Susǝnyos made a public profession of Catholicism at Azäzo and soon also forbade the name of Dioscorus to be revered during mass celebrations. Until the coming of the patriarch, Susǝnyos approved a series of anti-Orthodox measures.155 In March 1622 another pro-Catholic speech by the ruler is 149 In the text the Father is wrongly called Jacome Barneto; Manoel Barradas, June 22, 1626, in adb, Legajo 779, 469r. 150 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter X. 151 Ibid. 152 Further evidence of repression of monastic circles in Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VI, Chapter XV. Around the same time, Father Diogo de Mattos was at the center of a similar action, probably in Tǝgray as well, when he unveiled some figures that the monks pretended were sleeping saints, which according to the Jesuit were used to ‘deceive the people’; see Paes, 1625, in adb, Legajo 779, 252r–v. 153 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VII, Chapter XXX. 154 Ibid. Chapters XXXII–XXXIII. In the speech, Mälkǝʾa Krǝstos, who in 1620 had led a mutiny against the Jesuits, raised two chief points. On the one hand, it proclaimed again that the dogma of the two natures in Christ was the original one in the Ethiopian church. On the other, it articulated a first direct attack against the monastic community and the clergy in general, who were accused of leading a dissolute lifestyle and not respecting the vote of chastity. 155 Fernandes, 1623, in raso XI, doc. 66, 510.

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recorded. Around April, at Fogära, he confessed in public for the first time with Páez and renounced all his wives except for the first, Śǝlṭan Mogäsa Wäld Śäʿalä. This was the necessary previous step for imposing that matrimony was permanent, in accordance with Trent’s tenet.156 The reformation of the kingdom had to start from its head. Around mid-1624, Susǝnyos issued a decree denigrating the figure of past metropolitans.157 In the document the traditional Alexandrian faith was deemed false because it was inherited from Dioscorus and the metropolitans were presented as leading a dissolute life, despotic and prone to simony.

The Catholic Patriarchate and the Replacement of Traditional Ethiopian Christianity The arrival of the Patriarch Afonso Mendes in Ethiopia in 1625 sanctioned de facto the replacement of the Ethiopian Christianity that had been taking place during the preceding years and de iure installed a new Catholic hierarchy in the kingdom. For Mendes, then in his mid-40s, the arrival in Ethiopia was the beginning of a huge personal and collective challenge. With the exception of Oviedo’s short-lived and ill-fated tenure, it was the first time that the Society of Jesus took charge of a patriarchate. The Jesuits had faced other challenges elsewhere; they had managed a number of bishoprics in Asia and America, reached cardinal dignities in Europe and managed huge dioceses in Latin America, but they had never been alone at the head of an entire national church. For all that, the patriarchate moved between improvisation, harsh reformism and royal authoritarianism. This mixture oriented the steps of the patriarch and gave his measures force during the initial years but it was also probably a crucial factor in its sudden and rapid dismissal in 1632. Mendes, helped by António Fernandes as his vicar, brought the reform, or, as it has been often dubbed, ‘Latinization’ of Ethiopian Christianity to its limits. During a period of about six years, the measures against traditional Christian practices and beliefs and the systematic replacement of the traditional religious fabric with Catholic patterns ensued at a fast pace. Towards December 1625, shortly after arrival, the patriarch began to attribute the first ecclesiastical orders. Those having been ordained by previous metropolitans were re-examined and received new orders sub conditione, as ordinations given by the last metropolitans were deemed illegitimate.158 Thereafter both ordinations and 156 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VII, Chapter XXXIV; liv. VIII, Chapter VII. 157 The document is reproduced in Ibid. liv. VIII, Chapter VII; and Gaspar Paes, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 237v–39r. See also the analysis in Cohen, The Missionary Strategies of the Jesuits, 57. 158 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter XXI.

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baptisms sub conditione, which in the church are given only under special circumstances, became the usual practice of the Catholic patriarchate; an unequivocal sign, if one were needed, that little of traditional Ethiopian Christianity was considered valid. As if humiliation for local Christians was not enough, the candidates to receive the ordinations had to submit a text in Gǝʿǝz wherein the form of saying the Catholic Mass was explained as well as showing sound proof of having learnt it.159 Then, on February 11, 1626, Susǝnyos, along with the entire court, reunited in Dänqäz, made an open vow of obedience to the pope at the hands of Mendes.160 The fullest descriptions of this episode date to the 1640s, when Manoel de Almeida and Afonso Mendes included a few passages on it in their historical treatises.161 Later on, the encounter was the object of an artistic recreation in a French engraving of the early eighteenth century (Plate 22).162 Reportedly, the ceremony, which James Bruce was later to describe as ‘useless, vain, ridiculous’, was carefully staged by the Catholic leaders to officially inaugurate the Catholic patriarchate and to secure the continuity of the Catholic project, for on the same occasion Fasilädäs made oath of allegiance as heir to the throne.163 Subsequently, the ‘heretic’ practices that the Jesuits had been studying, classifying and deconstructing earlier in written form began to be systematically abolished or ‘purified’. Local fasting practices were suppressed and the religious calendar was adapted to Roman tradition; the traditional fasting day on Wednesday was moved to Saturday and the main religious celebrations were recalculated so as to follow the Roman calendar.164 Local marriage practices – levirate, concubinage, and dissolution of marriage – were persecuted and the canons of Trent on this issue were implemented. The missionaries did not miss 159 Manoel de Almeida to Muzio Vitelleschi, April 17, 1627, in adb, Legajo 779, doc. 41, 359r. 160 For contemporary descriptions of the scene see Antonio Bruno to superior general, June 17, 1627, in raso XII, doc. 63, 223; and Afonso Mendes to Mutio Vitelleschi, June, 1626, in adb, Legajo 779, doc. 39, 345v and passim. 161 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter XXII; and Mendes, Expeditio Aethiopicae, in raso VIII, liv. II, Chapter III. For later summaries of the encounter, see Ludolf, Historia Aethiopicae, liv. III, Chapter 2, §16–28 and Bruce, Travels to Discover the Sources of the Nile, vol. 2, 351–354. 162 The ceremony has been recently the object of an analysis, on the basis of Almeida’s account; see Leonardo Cohen, ‘The Catholic Kingdom of Ethiopia. The Conversion Ceremony According to the Testimony of Father Manuel de Almeida’, Lustiania Sacra (forthcoming). 163 Bruce, Travels to Discover the Sources of the Nile, vol. 2, 351. 164 Almeida commented that ‘during Lent people began to fast according to the Roman way’; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter XXIV.

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any opportunity to show their determination. In 1629, when one of Susǝnyos’s daughters, Wängelawit, tried to marry her partner of years, ras bitwäddäd Zäkrǝstos, the union was banned.165 The celebration of the Latin mass was progressively enforced. To this purpose in 1626 António Fernandes started a translation of the Roman missal, probably following the latest revision prepared under Pope Clement VIII in 1604.166 Initially, this affected only a few churches, those that had been built or refashioned by the Jesuits for that purpose. A missionary source notes that in 1628 ‘divine office was celebrated in various parts with great solemnity because there were churches already prepared for that, which had been properly arranged, as well as chapels of good musicians at Gorgora and Qwälläla and principally at Gännätä Iyäsus’.167 Yet, during rural visits, it must be assumed that the Jesuits were also obliged to officiate in traditional churches, although the use of the Roman ritual was then stressed. Thus, in 1629, the Italian priest Bruno Bruni had the opportunity to officiate the mass in a rural area in Goǧǧam ‘with due decency and arrangement of hosts, wine, vestments and other paraphernalia used on the altar’.168 When suitable religious architecture was missing, the appropriate liturgical setting was provided by a conspicuous use of Catholic paraphernalia and liturgical elements. The tabot, the local altars, were dismantled and replaced by European-style altars.169 With regard to rural missions, these continued to target chiefly monastic communities. The goal of the Jesuits, though never achieved, was a reformation of life at the monasteries according to the Tridentine tenet: enclosure was imposed and monks and nuns were separated. The missionaries also tried to impose the organizational structure of the Catholic church. About 1627, a campaign having as target the monastery of Däbrä Libanos, spiritual center of the Ethiopian church, aimed – with little success, it seems – at rearranging the churches around parishes.170 On occasions a more cautious approach was followed but, even then, the impression that emerges is that the padres acted for 165 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VII, liv. IX, Chapter XI. 166 Clement VIII, ‘Cum Sanctissimum [On the Revision of the Roman Missal]’, July 7, 1604, The Catholic Liturgical Library, accessed 27 January, 2014, http://www.catholicliturgy.com/. 167 Ibid. 168 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in Ibid. Chapter XII. A probable example of a locallyproduced Catholic altar – the only one to have been found in Ethiopia – would be the one studied in Otto F.A. Meinardus, ‘Ein Portugiesischer altar in Bahar Dar Georgis’, Annales d’Ethiopie 6 (1965). 169 Almeida, 1627, in arsi, Goa 39 II, 425r. 170 Mendes, 1629, in raso XII, doc. 97, 401.

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pragmatic reasons. Hence, married priests were sometimes allowed to officiate for lack of proper replacements.171 Soon, the number of Catholic priests increased, with local recruits educated and formed under the direct supervision of the Jesuits. In 1627 Mendes had already ordained over 300 candidates for the priesthood. Sources emphasize that the Jesuits selected among the newly ordained priests those who were ‘especially zealous and well instructed’ and enrolled them in apostolic tasks.172 This group contributed considerably to the ‘reduction’ campaigns in the countryside, which in 1628 reportedly affected more than 100,000 people (see Table 8).173 Catholic zeal also reached non-Christian areas and around 1624 the men of Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos reportedly burnt down an ‘idolatrous temple’ called ‘Machoca’ (Mačoka, Mäčakäl?) in Tanḵa, Agäw land.174

Beyond Absolutism

While it must not be assumed that the Jesuits neglected the common people, the elitist approach of the mission is well known. As noted, proselytizing campaigns in rural areas were carried out, but the Ethiopian undertaking was above all conceived as a royal mission; its main purpose was to win the heart of Ethiopia’s ruling and religious elite. Moreover, the impression that emerges is that the missionaries rarely moved or acted without state supervision. In Ethiopia, as, mostly, elsewhere in Asia, Jesuit missionary policies were largely bounded by political agendas set by local and regional power groups. The political impact of the mission has, consequently, been a perennial subject of debate. With a few exceptions, most studies have tended to emphasize the participation of the Jesuit missionaries in the project of absolutist power allegedly launched by Susǝnyos. Tewelde Beiene argued that ‘the interest of the Ethiopian ruler to Catholicism was, in its early stages, motivated by political reasons’ and added that Páez, as the closest aid of Susǝnyos, played a central role in state power, from both the religious and the political points of 171 A Jesuit missionary justified this fact in the following way: ‘Otherwise soon there wouldn’t be enough parish priests to minister in the numerous churches of the kingdom, which would be cause of great scandal’; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter XXI. 172 Ibid. liv. IX, Chapter II. 173 Ibid. raso VII, liv. IX, Chapter VI; Antonio Antica to Propaganda Fide, 1627, in raso XII, doc. 65, 228. 174 Roiz, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 226v. On a place called Mäčakäl in Agäw land, see Huntingford, The Historical Geography of Ethiopia, 165, 169, 194, 226–228.

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view.175 More recently, the late Russian scholar Sevir Chernetsov emphasized that Susǝnyos saw the missionaries ‘as consistent supporters of the autocratic power of the Ethiopian kings’.176 Taking a similar approach, the French historian Hervé Pennec dwelled on the political and religious implications of Susǝnyos’s progressive conversion to Catholicism.177 In his view, ‘the King’s strategy [vis à vis the Jesuits] seems to have been that of enforcing a series of measures in order to be able to pursue his own interests and to strengthen his personal power’.178 Actions such as the progressive movement of the royal kätäma closer to the residence of Gorgora Velha or the foundation of Gännätä Iyäsus were aimed at achieving ‘a more effective control of the missionaries’.179 But, then, he further argues, the Jesuits also managed to implement their religious project into the kingdom. So, while in the 1610s and early 1620s Susǝnyos would have used the missionaries to carry out his own agenda, subsequently this changed and the Jesuits ultimately managed to use the nǝguś for the sake of their religious project. This shift culminated in the public allegiance to Catholicism by Susǝnyos in 1621. Finally, the work of Leonardo Cohen, largely dwelling on cultural and religious issues, drew on the same paradigm. The author emphasized that ‘emperors like Zädǝngǝl and Susǝnyos found it useful to collaborate with the missionaries, for Jesuit political ideas and absolutist view of government strengthened their position’.180 The hypothesis of Jesuits taking part in a project of state absolutism is thus widely accepted in the historiography. But although the idea appears attractive doubts emerge as to its empirical basis. What were the ‘absolutist’ features that made Susǝnyos’s rule different to those of such strong forerunners as Gälawdewos or Śärṩä Dǝngǝl? What concrete role did the missionaries play in enforcing 175 Tewelde, ‘La politica cattolica de Selṭan Sägäd I’, 28, 51 and 60. 176 Sevir B. Chernetsov, ‘The Role of Catholicism in the History of Ethiopia of the First Half of the 17th Century’, in Études Éthiopiennes, (Proceedings of the 10th international conference of Ethiopian studies, Paris, 24–28 août 1988), ed. Claude Lepage vol. 1 (Paris: Société française pour les études éthiopiennes, 1994), 209. 177 See Pennec, Des jésuites au royaume du Prêtre Jean, Chapter 4: ‘Des Jésuites instrumentalisés par le Prêtre Jean’, 185 and passim. 178 Ibid. 187. 179 Ibid. 207, 218. 180 Cohen, The Missionary Strategies of the Jesuits, xvi. Tsegaye Tegenu’s political study of Ethiopia’s ‘absolutist state’ is too confusing and blurred by elementary mistakes to be taken into consideration here; e.g. Tsegaye Tegenu, The Evolution of Ethiopian Absolutism: The Genesis and the Making of the Fiscal Military State, 1696–1913 (Sweden: Uppsala University, 1996), 64, 69. A more recent instance of the absolutist paradigm is Salvadore, ‘Faith over Color’, 202–203.

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absolutism? Historians have been eager to play the absolutist card but have seldom attempted to share with us their understanding of ‘Ethiopia’s absolutism’ and of Jesuit political thought. In fact, the hypothesis of an Ethiopian absolutism seems to be one of those examples mentioned by the historian Peter Wilson wherein the term is being stretched beyond breaking point: absolutism ‘has been misused simply as a byword for political centralisation’.181 Besides, the alleged participation of Jesuit missionaries in secular state projects in Africa reproduces all too closely the stereotype that has ever circulated in anti-Jesuit literature of the Jesuit order as a Machiavellian, power-driven institution.182 To be fair, the Jesuit missionaries were not oblivious to political reality, nor did they remain neutral actors within Ethiopia’s troubled political arena. It is my contention, however, that claiming that they aimed at enforcing political absolutism amounts to explaining little. An alternative narrative might perhaps be in order. Firstly, it might be profitable to look into the intellectual background of the Jesuit missionaries. With this excursion a more substantiated idea of Jesuit political ideology will emerge, one that ultimately may shed light on political developments in Ethiopia. The second stage of analysis will turn to look at the incorporation of the Jesuit missionaries within the royal household and state apparatus. The Society of Jesus played an important role in framing European political discourse in the post-Tridentine era. Jesuit theorists formed at the Castilian Universities of Alcalá and Salamanca, such as Luis de Molina, Francisco Suárez and Juan de Mariana, renewed the field of practical Theology that had been formulated by the Dominicans from the School of Salamanca, such as Bartolomé de Medina, Domingo de Soto and Francisco de Vitoria. They added to the Scholastic firmness of de Soto and Vitoria a more modern discourse, in accordance with the society they were living in.183 As the historian Alois Dempf 181 Peter Hamish Wilson, Absolutism in Central Europe (London: Routledge, 2000), 12–13. 182 For an introduction to the phenomenon of anti-Jesuitism see Sabina Pavone’s study of the pamphlet known as ‘Monita Secreta’, Le astuzie dei gesuiti: Le false Istruzioni segrete della Compagnia di Gesù e la polemica antigesuita nei secoli XVII e XVIII (Roma: Salerno, 2000); Id., The Wily Jesuits and the Monita Secreta: The Forged Secret Instructions of the Jesuits (Saint Louis, mo: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2005). In the framework of the Ethiopian mission, an example of scholarly reproduction of the same stereotypes is Manuel João Ramos, ‘Machiavellian Empowerment and Disempowerment: The Violent Political Changes in Early Seventeenth-century Ethiopia’, in The Anthropology of Power. Empowerment and Disempowerment in Changing Structures, ed. Angela Cheater (London and New York: Routledge and asa Monographs, 1999). 183 On the modernity of Suárez’s thought, see P. Monnot et al., ‘Suarez, François’, in Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, vol. 14, col. 2650.

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emphasized, in opposition to the preceding ethical-juridical discourse on the state, the Jesuits attempted to analyze and define the tangible structure of the modern state and of political life and, eventually, to tackle its problems and shortcomings.184 It is no exaggeration to say, along with modern political scientists, that Jesuit theorists set the foundations for both international law and the human rights and democratic ideologies of today.185 For the present argument, an important aspect of Jesuit political discourse is that it emerged as the Tridentine Catholic response to the ‘secular’ absolutist theories developed by Nicolò Machiavelli and Jean Bodin in their respective works Il Principe (1513) and La République (1576). For Jesuit theorists the need for the Prince to defend the Catholic faith and the rights of its subjects was no less important than the idea of reinforcing monarchical power. Jesuit political theory emphasized the centrality of the people in political life: the community of citizens was conceived as a ‘moral person’ and the true depositary of political legitimacy.186 Accordingly, Suárez formulated the anti-Machiavellian formula populus ipse princeps supremus naturaliter, ‘the society is by nature the supreme Prince’; in this view, the powers of the Prince were defined by the people and did not emerge, as Machiavelli and Bodin would have argued, from the Prince himself.187 Molina went even further and, in De justitia et jure, propounded a drastic limitation of the power of the state over religious issues.188 He also became famous for his theory on the libero abitrio, a forerunner of the modern theories on liberty and freedom.189 Pedro 184 Alois Dempf, Christliche Staatsphilosophie in Spanien (Salzburg: Anton Pustet, 1937), 113. 185 See Alfred Rahilly, ‘Suarez and Democracy’, Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review 7, 25 (1918): 12 and passim; J.N. Figgis, ‘On Some Political Theories of the Early Jesuits’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 11 (1897): 94; Heinrich Rommen, ‘Francis Suarez’, The Review of Politics 10, 4 (1948): 460–461; Randall Collins, ‘The Rise and Fall of Modernism in Politics and Religion’, Acta Sociologica 35, 3 (1992): 177. For skepticism of this view, see Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1978), 178–179, 182. 186 Dempf, Christliche Staatsphilosophie in Spanien, 80; see also Rahily, ‘Suarez and Democracy’, 9–10. 187 On Suárez’s political theory see also James V. Kelly, ‘The Political Theory of Suarez’, Jesuit Educational Association, Proceedings of the Annual Convention 10 (1931); Renato Vullermin, Concetti politici della ‘Defensio fidei’ di Francesco Suarez (Milano: Athena, 1931); Thomas S. Wallace, ‘The Political Philosophy of Suarez’, Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 7 (1931); Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, Chapter 6. 188 De justitia et jure (Choncae: 1593–1600). 189 Luis Molina, Concordia liberi arbitrii cum gratiae donis, divina praescentia, providentia, praedestinatione, et reprobatione, ad nonnullos primae partis D. Thomae articulos (Olyssipone: Apud Antonium Riberium, 1588).

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de Ribadeneyra, whom Dempf considered the most ‘machiavellianist among the antimachiavellianists’, added to his political treatise the subtitle ‘Against what Nicolò Machiavelli and today’s political scientists teach’. He shared with his companions a view of the moderate monarch, one who should possess a sense of justice, temperance, prudence and courage.190 But anti-Machiavellian doctrines may have perhaps reached their zenith with the work of Juan de Mariana, who, after completing his masterwork on the history of Spain, issued De rege et regis institutione.191 The treatise was a handbook offering a precise definition of the rights and duties of the Prince and the citizens and it famously became the main source of debate in Europe because, following in the footsteps of Suárez, it justified, under some circumstances, regicide.192 Therefore, while Jesuit theorists were strongly committed to defending the monarchical state and, as Quentin Skinner has rightly argued, to combating radical or populist concepts of government, they were no advocates of absolutism, tyrannical or autocratic power, as popular imagination has often supported.193 I contend that, when facing political questions and choices the Ethiopian missionaries availed themselves of the Jesuit political school. If we look into the curriculum of some of the most influential missionaries active in Ethiopia this will become clearer. The four companions who acted as superiores or visitadores of the mission and who consequently had decision-making power, Pedro Páez, António Fernandes, Manoel de Almeida and Afonso Mendes, received in a direct or indirect way the influence of the four great Spanish theorists. Páez studied at Alcalá when his companion Suárez was teaching there. 190 Pedro de Ribadeneyra, Tratado de la religion y virtudes que deve tener el Principe Christiano, para governar y conservar sus Estados. Contra lo que Nicolas Machiavelo y los politicos deste tiempo enseñan (Anveres: Imprenta Plantiniana, 1597); see also Robert Bireley, The Counter-Reformation Prince. Anti-Machiavellianism or Catholic Statecraft in Early Modern Europe (Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1990), 123 and passim. 191 Dempf defined Mariana as the one who ‘led the anti-machiavellian doctrines to their zenith and, with his historical-political and sociological-practical analysis of the state, helped in developing the Christian political-science as successfully as the late Scholastic, with its more ethical and legal-philosophical approach, had done’; Dempf, Christliche Staatsphilosophie in Spanien, 123. 192 De rege et regis institutione (Toleti: Apud Petrum Rodericum, 1599); reed. and trans. as La dignidad real y la educación del rey (De rege et regis institutione), ed. Luís Sanchez Agesta (Madrid: Centro de estudios constitucionales), 1981; Bireley, The Counter-Reformation Prince, 36; Mónica Quijada, ‘From Spain to New Spain: Revisiting the Potestas Populi in Hispanic Political Thought’, Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos 24, 2 (2008): 200–201. 193 Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, 179 and passim.

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The three other leaders had joined the Portuguese universities during the years of the most energetic activity of Suárez, Molina and Mariana. So between 1588 and 1612 these theorists composed their major works; moreover, from 1597 until his death in 1617, Suárez occupied the influential chair of Prima Theologica at the University of Coimbra.194 It is also significant that Philip IV of Spain gave Afonso Mendes permission to take to Ethiopia the library of the Doctor Eximius, which was said to be one the greatest of its time.195 Eventually, Mendes was allowed to select some of the books from the library, which he indeed would have transported to Ethiopia.196 A fifth missionary who also held important duties in Ethiopia, Diogo de Mattos, shared an identical background. A contemporary of the patriarch, Mattos had also studied philosophy at Coimbra and had taught theology at Goa until about 1620, when he joined the mission.197 While during the first years in the mission he was ‘isolated’ at Fǝremona, in 1625, by petition of Susǝnyos, he moved to the kätäma in Dänqäz and remained at the side of the nǝguś until the latter’s death. Therefore, during the years of great religious reforms Mattos was the Jesuit ‘insider’ at the royal court.198 194 Suárez’s De legibus was the outcome of the courses held in 1601–1603 at Coimbra, where he also completed, in 1602 and 1607, the two last and most important manuscripts; see P. Monnot et al., ‘Suarez, François’, col. 2646; and Francisco Suárez, Tractatus de Legibus, ac Deo Legislatore [i.e. De Legibus] (Coimbra: Didacum Gomez Loureyro, 1612), ed. Luciano Pereña et al., vol. 1 (Madrid: csic, 1971), xxvi–xxxvii. 195 Rommen, ‘Francis Suarez’, 438. On the library, see Mário Brandão, Estudos Vários, vol. 1 (Coimbra: Universidade de Coimbra, 1972), 45 and passim. 196 Afonso Mendes to Philip IV, February 18, 1623, in raso XII, doc. 4, 11; see also Brandão, Estudos Vários, 95; Mendes, Expeditio Aethiopicae, in raso VIII, ix–x. The library would have been hosted at the patriarchal residence of Däbsan, where such works as ‘sacred history of all the [church] fathers, theological treatises, books on the councils and [Canon] Law’ were recorded; see Ibid. liv. II, Chapter IV. During the period of expulsion it was reportedly expropriated and destroyed. Thus, a letter dated 1642 informed, ‘that all the books of the Holy Patriarch, which had been kept at the house of captain Rafael Fernandez, had been burnt by order of comraos Asfa Krǝstos with the connivance of the king’; Damião Colaça, ‘Annua de Etyopia de 1641’, July 20, 1642, in adb, Legajo 779, doc. 61, 445v; see also Thomas Calderon, Antonio das Povoas, and Francisco de Carvalho, ‘O Patriarcha da Ethiopia…’, August 18, 1640, in bna, Cod. 51-VI-21, 318v. 197 Afonso Mendes to fathers of the Portuguese Province, December 1, 1639, in raso XIII, doc. 47, 180–181. Sommervogel, who is often inaccurate in providing biographical data, pushes Matto’s birth later, in 1588; Carlos Sommervogel, Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus (Bruxelles and Paris: Schepens and A. Picard, 1890–1932 [repr. anastatique: Louvain: Collège Philosophique et Théologique, 1960]), vol. 5, ‘Matos, Diego’, col. 724. 198 On the ruler’s preference for Mattos, see Almeida, 1627, in arsi, Goa 39 II, 420v.

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If we assume that the missionaries were no keen ambassadors of autocratic and absolutist theories, what else could the Ethiopian rulers have seen in them? What ideology or methods did the missionaries offer to their Ethiopian patrons and what were the expectations of the latter? I would like to answer these questions by posing another, thought-provoking, question: what if the focus of the mission had been after all on ‘religion’ (as defined by the missionaries themselves), namely reforming church and society – including court society? Granted, Jesuit fathers had a sound record being and working on the side of powerful rulers.199 But what if they their ‘political’ influence happened in a more subtle way, by bringing to conclusion, as mediators and producers of symbolic power, a process of transformation of state ideology that had already begun in the sixteenth century? I will argue that the alleged political role played by the missionaries in Ethiopia has been hitherto interpreted in a rather mechanistic way. Hence, with the support of the historical record and of comparative work, it might be in order to reassess it. This includes reviewing the alleged expectations the Ethiopian rulers might have had of the foreign priests. It has often been claimed that the early-seventeenth century Ethiopian rulers were avid in their interest in reforming the structure of the state to achieve a higher centralization and increase monarchical power and that this desire brought them to embrace the missionaries’ cause. However, historians neither buttressed these claims with sound evidence nor showed us how a group of European priests who were struggling to learn the difficult local languages and had little experience in the country could help Ethiopian policy-makers achieve ambitious and complex political or military goals. In fact, the hypothesis of the Jesuits taking over the reins of the Ethiopian state appears too close to the old colonial adagio of white cultural supremacy to be accepted without questioning.200 199 Although there is vast literature on Jesuit involvement in European political life, some inspiring works for their parallels with the Ethiopian case are Zubillaga’s study on the court of Madrid, Zubillaga, ‘El procurador de la Compañía de Jesús’; and that on the court of Bavaria by Robert Bireley, ‘Antimachiavellianism, the Baroque, and Maximilian of Bavaria’, Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu 53, 105 (1984); more recently the latter has issued The Jesuits and the Thirty Years War: Kings, Courts, and Confessors (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003). A recent study on Jesuit activities in the France of Henry IV is Eric Nelson, The Jesuits and the Monarchy. Catholic Reform and Political Authority in France (1590–1615) (Great Britain: Ashgate and Institutum Historicum Societatis Jesu, 2005). 200 An excellent study and rebuttal of ideas of western supremacy as embedded in modern historiography on the conquest of America is Matthew Restall, Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); see in particular Chapters 1 and 7.

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The work of Merid Wolde Aregay is a paradigmatic example of the difficult task of substantiating the hypothesis of the Jesuits enforcing political absolutism. In his booklet of 1964 he was eager to support this very hypothesis, emphasizing that the Jesuits ‘were for absolutism in religion as well as in politics’.201 Yet, a few years later, in his bulky doctoral dissertation, his discourse changed. There he was rather cautious in attributing to the missionaries a major ‘political’ role. In his analysis Páez and his companions appear as influential religious agents but ones who determined neither the state’s political agenda nor the course of the military campaigns led by Susǝnyos and Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos throughout the 1610s and 1620s. Merid argues that the political impact of the missionaries was rather indirect.202 On the one hand, Susǝnyos’s favoritism towards the foreign missionaries alienated from his side influential lords and religious leaders. On the other, the heavy subsidies his state granted to the mission pushed the ruler to step up raids and military campaigns in order to provide desperately needed revenue. Taking Merid’s political analysis as the starting point, I want to argue that the presence of the missionaries in Ethiopia did indeed have an impact on political and social life, albeit not in the form it has hitherto been assumed. If we take a long durée approach and also include in the analysis the whole Ethiopian social fabric we shall find out that the missionaries did play a positive role in orienting the political drive of the Ethiopian kingdom, although not by creating an autocratic ‘Machiavellian’ Prince, as many have imagined to be the case. As was shown above, the smooth progress of the foreigners during the second mission period occurred after a long period of exchanges between the Portuguese and the Ethiopian Solomonic kingdom. This period has been outlined in the first two chapters of this book but it is necessary now to recall some important elements from it. Since the Portuguese set up a rule of their own in the Indian Ocean in around 1515, human and epistolary exchanges between Portugal, its dominions in India and the Ethiopian Christian monarchy intensified. The envoys running back and forth between Ethiopia and the 201 Girma Beshah and Merid Wolde Aregay, The Question of the Union of the Churches in LusoEthiopian Relations (1500–1632) (Lisbon: Junta de Investigações do Ultramar e Centro de Estudos Históricos Ultramarinos, 1964), 79. 202 Merid Wolde Aregay, ‘Southern Ethiopia and the Christian Kingdom’, 10–11, 443–444, 463, 489, 492. A recent analysis into political history during Susǝnyos’s rule has produced similar results: state politics and political-decision making were in the hands of nobility, royal kinsmen and state officials and the Jesuit missionaries kept a low profile; Hiroki Ishikawa, ‘On the Functions of the Bǝḥt wäddäd’, Nilo-Ethiopian Studies 8–9 (2003).

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Portuguese colonies as well as the number of Portuguese living in Ethiopia grew exponentially throughout the century. In about 1603 the situation was mature enough for nǝguś Zädǝngǝl to conceive the bold idea of marrying Spanish infanta Ana de Austria, a daughter of Philip III of Spain.203 Through these exchanges information on life and socio-cultural developments in Europe and in Portuguese India easily reached Ethiopian court society. Moreover, diplomacy and religious missions also contributed to filling royal Ethiopian households and churches with luxurious imported objects. The embassy led by Rodrigo Da Lima, for instance, took to Lǝbnä Dǝngǝl’s kätäma a number of books, a mappamundi, an organ and weapons. Later, the company of 400 men headed by Christovão da Gama introduced more objects to the country, in particular of military character. Evidence also points towards the wide circulation in Ethiopia of European Renaissance painting and the import of luxurious clothing to serve the growing sophisticated taste of nobility and court society.204 Now, monarchies depend on the constant import of an external workforce and foreign elements to serve government needs and to increase economic, cultural and symbolic capital.205 By being receptive to external influences court societies can develop new structures and new roles in order to boost revenue, refine policy-making and render rituals of power more elaborate and sophisticated and therefore more efficacious. Cultural exogamy thus becomes a tool for the reproduction of power. In Europe, as Sergio Bertelli’s study has 203 Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso III, liv. IV, Chapter 7. 204 For the circulation of foreign art in early modern Ethiopia before the Jesuit mission period see Stanisław Chojnacki, Major Themes in Ethiopian Painting: Indigenous Developments, the Influence of Foreign Models and their Adaptation from the 13th to the 19th Century (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1983), 376 and passim; Marilyn Heldman, The Marian Icons of the Painter Frē Ṣeyon: A Study of Fifteenth-century Ethiopian Art, Patronage, and Spirituality (Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz Verlag, 1994), 139 and passim. The history of clothing in Ethiopia has been only poorly studied; the royal chronicle of Śärṩä Dǝngǝl gives evidence of the exchange of ‘luxurious’ (imported?) clothing and fabrics among royalty; see Conti Rossini (trans.), Historia regis Sarṣa Dengel, 122 (text), 138 (trans.); see also ibid. 44 (text), 51 (trans.). See also Michael Gervers, ‘The Portuguese Import of Luxury Textiles to Ethiopia in the 16th and 17th Centuries and their Subsequent Artistic Influence’ in The Indigenous and the Foreign in Christian Ethiopian Art: On Portuguese-Ethiopian Contacts in the 16th–17th Centuries, ed. Manuel J. Ramos and Isabel Boavida (Great Britain: Ashgate, 2004). 205 A comprehensive, and classical, overview of the notions of capital within court societies is Pierre Bourdieu, ‘De la maison du roi à la raison d’État’, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 118, 1 (1997).

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shown, court etiquette and rituals of power spread throughout the continent by way of ‘marriages and wars, pilgrimages of monks, exchanges of minstrels and musicians, of actors and painters’, eventually contributing to the unification of court life all across the continent.206 In the context of the Horn of Africa, the exchange of ‘suitable’ state symbols and rituals of power was a more intricate business.207 The Solomonic monarchy was quite alone in the sociopolitical context of the Horn of Africa, particularly concerning its alleged exogenous origins, its religious ideology and its tradition of conflicts with the neighboring polities. Given that context, approaching distant polities through diplomacy and other means may have provided a solution for the lack of local polities that were on a par with the Solomonic monarchy. I contend that, during the time of Portuguese expansion, Iberian diplomats, mercenaries and missionaries played a primordial role in providing the Solomonic monarchy with a set of external elements that increased its symbolic power. No longer limited at looking to Alexandria as its cultural model, Christian Ethiopians could turn their eyes towards ‘Christian’ India and Catholic Europe. The impact that Portuguese and early missionary activities might have had in the Ethiopian central and regional courts can be appraised at least in three fields: intellectual life, courtly life and military practices. Firstly, the arrival of the Portuguese coincides with a period of literary ‘Renaissance’ in Ethiopia. From the sixteenth century onwards, Ethiopian royal chronicles began to be systematically compiled and important theological treatises produced. The Italian scholar Enrico Cerulli wrote that the Portuguese and Jesuit presence provoked ‘a strong movement of cultural renewal, which had also enduring consequences’.208 A few examples from Portuguese–Ethiopian contacts would support Cerulli’s statement. During his long stay at the Ethiopian court between 1520 and 1524, Francisco Alvares reportedly helped the secretaries of the nǝguś to write letters to Europe and he also befriended such Ethiopian literates as the monk ʿƎnbaqom. ʿƎnbaqom could have been one of the first men to respond to a new, more cosmopolitan spirit brought into Ethiopian society by the contacts with the Europe of 206 Sergio Bertelli, The King’s Body: Sacred Rituals of Power in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (University Park, Pa: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001), 4, also 3. 207 The diffusion of symbols and ceremonies of power among the societies inhabiting the Ethiopian landscape has been studied by Eike Haberland, Untersuchungen zum Äthiopischen Königtum (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1965), 219 and passim. For the European context, a classical study on royal political ideology is Bertelli, The King’s Body. 208 Enrico Cerulli, Storia della letteratura etiopica. Con un saggio sull’Oriente Cristiano (Firenze and Milano: Sansoni/Accademia, 1968; 3rd edn.), 145.

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Humanism and discoveries. Himself a foreigner, of Yemenite origin, he knew several languages, including Portuguese, and was the author or translator of important religious treatises.209 For the reigns of Gälawdewos and Śärṩä Dǝngǝl data is too scant, except, perhaps for theological discussions, that seem to have been held at the court on a regular basis. During the second Jesuit mission period, however, evidence is strong of intellectual affinities between the foreigners and local learned people. Then, the padres were able to befriend a number of influential monks and intellectuals, whom missionary sources often refer as letrados, i.e. ‘learned men’. Among them were azzaž Ṭino, a highly esteemed intellectual, author of the first and longest part of the royal chronicle of Susǝnyos; abba Mǝhǝrka Dǝngǝl, whom the missionaries defined as ‘the greatest religious scholar in Ethiopia’; Gorgoryos, from Mäkanä Śǝllase, who later, during the period of exile, became Hiob Ludolf’s closest informant; and Fǝqur Ǝgziʾǝ, a close aide to Francesco Antonio de Angelis during the latter’s translation works.210 Additionally, Jesuit sources tell of a number of locals knowing or willing to learn the Portuguese language.211 By all accounts during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries there was an intense communication and mutual interest between European visitors and some learned men close to the Ethiopian court. Such a ‘dialogue’ may have influenced the literary renewal that Ethiopia experienced during the sixteenth century. A second transformation that might not be dissociated from the long-lived Portuguese presence in Ethiopia was the evolution of royal etiquette and eventually the transformation of the symbolic image of the Solomonic ruler. As has been studied by the anthropologist Eike Haberland, the Solomonic monarchy functioned as a divine kingship, in a manner similar to those of the most important neighboring polities to the south of the Blue Nile river, such as Wällämo, Käfa, Dawro and Ǧänǧäro; with them it shared a series of features, such as the divine status of the ruler, a complex ritual system to access the king 209 See Emeri van Donzel, ‘ʿƎnbaqom’, in eae vol. 2. Guidi claimed, convincingly, that ʿƎnbaqom was the author of the chronicle of nǝguś Gälawdewos; Ignazio Guidi, Storia della letteratura etiopica (Roma: Istituto per l’Oriente, 1932), 68; and Id., ‘La cronaca di Galawdewos, re di Avissinia’, in Actes du 12e Congrès International des Orientalistes (Florence: Société Typographique Florentine, 1899), vol. 3–1, 111–115. 210 On Mǝhǝrka Dǝngǝl, see Azevedo, 1608, in raso XI, doc. 24, 146. On Gorgoryos, Ludolf, Historia aethiopica, Proemio, §11; also Diogo de Mattos to superior general, September 22, 1635, in raso XIII, doc. 10, 64; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter XIII. On Fǝqur Ǝgziʾǝ, see de Angelis, in arsi, Goa 39 I bis, 108v. 211 On the usage of Portuguese language at the court see ‘Certidão da carta que o imperador Selṭan Segued Faciladês escreve ao Patriarca da Etiópia, D. Afonso Mendes’, May 16, 1634, in adb, Legajo 779, doc. 49, 531r.

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and symbolic avoidance.212 During Lǝbnä Dǝngǝl’s time, the symbolism of the Solomonic ruler, as described by Alvares, still seems to correspond with descriptions made of his forerunners.213 However, Lǝbnä Dǝngǝl’s son, Gälawdewos, who ruled in the mid-sixteenth century, reportedly experienced significant changes in his symbolic status. Although Gälawdewos still greeted the missionaries according to the traditional protocol – his person remaining hidden behind a silk curtain – European sources informed that he had been ‘hispanized’.214 To help us imagine what the Portuguese father meant by this expression we shall recall an insightful analysis written by Pedro Páez some fifty years later. The passage, which analyzes the progressive tarnishing of traditional royal court etiquette, reads as follows: These traditions [e.g. ritual avoidance of the king] were partly abandoned under David [i.e. Lǝbnä Dǝngǝl] […], since by then people entered [in the court] more easily and were allowed to see him [the nǝguś]. Later, during the rule of his son Gälawdewos, who took the reigning name of Admas Sägäd, the custom of hiding from the ruler was abandoned and the great lords were allowed to penetrate [the court]. Yet, they still tied their clothes to the waist, leaving their chest naked as a sign of submission and humility. Such a tradition began to be abandoned about twenty-four years ago [ca. 1596]. Then, when Emperor Yaʿǝqob was still a child, some great lords entered the royal tent fully dressed. They only tied the mantle they wore on the clothes. Yet, as of now they enter the royal space totally dressed. The only custom that has been preserved is that of tying the clothes out of courtesy. At times, commenting on that issue, the emperor spoke with me on negative terms of the old custom of entering the court naked. To remove this practice he goes as far as to force his pages-slaves, in particular on the occasion of some celebrations, to wear clothes made of velvet and silk.215 212 See Haberland, Untersuchungen zum Äthiopischen Königtum, 104 and passim. 213 Taddesse, Church and State in Ethiopia, 269 and passim; Haberland, Untersuchungen zum Äthiopischen Königtum, 163–172. 214 Manuel Fernandes, 1562, in raso X, doc. 39, 149–150; in another description of Gälawdewos, he was reported as ‘friendly towards the fathers and much fond of Portuguese costumes’; Gonçalves, Primeira parte, vol. II, 230. 215 Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso II, liv. I, Chapter IV. A similar assessment to Páez’s was offered by Damião de Góis some fifty years earlier when he wrote that Gälawdewos’s status as a ruler ‘had been humanized’ (tomou mais humanidade); Damião de Góis, Chronica do Feliçissimo rei dom Manuel, parte III, Chapter LXII, 113v.

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If we trust Páez’s historical analysis, by the turn of the seventeenth century the royal symbolism had gone through a significant change. Court etiquette had been ‘modernized’, evolving in a similar way to how it had done in Europe, where ritual avoidance and the king’s divine status had been once normative during the Middle Ages.216 So, between 1603 and 1607 Páez was able to meet Zädǝngǝl and Susǝnyos with relative ease. He gave ample descriptions of these encounters but significantly failed to report any specific protocol he might have followed at the court. In the next decade, when the padre was already one of Susǝnyos’s closest aides, the latter was said to have abandoned some codes of avoidance in his presence and during meals the ruler allowed guests to share the same table.217 This shift in his public image went hand in hand with the adoption of European dietary habits, such as the consumption of pork, hitherto considered impure in the land. Thus, towards 1618, on the occasion of the selection of the emplacement for the church of Gorgora Velha, Páez notes of the frank and direct interaction he had with the ruler, which reportedly caused both bewilderment and concern at the court.218 Additionally, Haberland pointed out the adoption – or readoption – of the crown as a royal symbol under Susǝnyos, which action he associated with the presence of the Jesuit missionaries.219 Hence, the more modern image of state power as embodied by Susǝnyos seems to have been the outcome of a long-term process that had possibly started with Lǝbnä Dǝngǝl and Gälawdewos. This process consisted in a progressive ‘humanization’ of court etiquette and court life that was in large part influenced by the Portuguese living in Ethiopia and the contacts with the Portuguese world. Finally, the Portuguese could have also had an impact on military life.220 In Chapter 2 I dwelled on the small Portuguese troop of about 130 men that 216 Bertelli, The King’s Body, 29. 217 As Haberland noticed, however, Susǝnyos seems to have preserved some traditional elements concerning the taboo to see the nǝguś eating, so he placed a curtain between himself and the missionaries; Haberland, Untersuchungen zum Äthiopischen Kïnigtum, 169. 218 Pedro Páez to Muzio Vitelleschi, June 16 and 23, 1618, in raso XI, doc. 53, 404. See also Merid’s analysis, ‘Southern Ethiopia and the Christian Kingdom’, 454–456. 219 Haberland, Untersuchungen zum Äthiopischen Kïnigtum, 107–108, 170. Haberland also suggested, however, that the changes enforced by Susǝnyos upon royal identity and monarchical ideology were only an isolated episode. On the symbolism of the crown/ Crown in European monarchies see Ernst Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957), 336 and passim. 220 For a survey of the Portuguese military in the period of Ethiopian-Portuguese contacts see Nuno Varela Rubim, ‘La organización militar portuguesa en la época de los descubrimentos’, in La paz y la guerra en la época del Tratado de Tordesillas (Madrid: ed. Alberto

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remained in Ethiopia after three years of wars against Aḥmad Grañ. The Portuguese soldiers and their offspring formed a military company that served several Ethiopian rulers and local lords in different duties. The chronicle of Śärṩä Dǝngǝl further informs us that, around 1583, the king was welcomed by his soldiers ‘with the shooting of firearms and cannons, according to the custom of the Europeans [in the Ethiopian text, afrǝnǧ] and Turks’.221 The same source further adds that the ruler counted within his army a company of musketeers, which could have been of Portuguese or Ottoman origin. Śärṩä Dǝngǝl also had at least one Portuguese soldier named António de Goes as his aide, thus continuing with a tradition started by Gälawdewos, who had two Portuguese captains, Ayres Dias and Gaspar de Sousa, at his side.222 Moreover, Jesuit sources mention that Ethiopian cavalry and infantry during Susǝnyos’s rule practiced military formations of evident European origin. Almeida thus remarked that at the kätäma of Bukko in Goǧǧam his army performed caracoes e escaramuças, a typical infantry movement developed in Switzerland in the early sixteenth century.223 The same military exercise had been recorded for the first time in Ethiopia back in 1541, when it was performed by the troop of Christovão in front of queen dowager Säblä Wängel.224 Last but not least, a military innovation that could be associated with the Portuguese is military architecture. During the Portuguese period the Ethiopian highlands witnessed the erection of important military fortifications. Gälawdewos might have erected a ‘castle’ in the 1550s in Däwaro or Wäǧ with the help, as the royal chronicle notes, of ‘Frank’ and Egyptian masons.225 In 1578 Śärṩä Dǝngǝl built

Bartolomé Arraiza, Sociedad V Centenario del Tratado de Tordesillas and Electa, 1994), 277–279. 221 Conti Rossini (trans.), Historia regis Sarṣa Dengel, 95 (text), 109 (trans.). 222 Goes is first mentioned during a battle of Minas against the Muslim Malasay in 1562; he appears next to Bishop Oviedo during the rebellion of Yǝsḥaq and later took a letter of Philip II of Spain to Śärṩä Dǝngǝl. Around 1594 he met with three Portuguese captains in Ethiopia in order to form a military alliance with Portugal. Finally, in ca. 1596, he wrote by order of the nǝguś the letters that the latter’s envoy Täklä Maryam should bring to Rome; Couto, Década VII, liv. VII, Chapter VI; Ibid. liv. X, Chapter IV; António de Goes and Portuguese in Ethiopia to superior general, April 12, 1596, in raso X, doc. 138, 391, 393; Täklä Maryam, ‘Relation to statu religionis catholicae in Aethiopia’, [1598], in raso X, doc. 146, 405. 223 The scene occurred around 1620; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter XII. 224 See Castanhoso, História das cousas, Chapter VII. On the use of Swiss infantry tactics in Europe, see Keegan, A History of Warfare, 329. 225 Conzelman, Chronique de Galâwdêwos, 47 (text), 149 (trans.).

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a similar structure at Gubaʾe.226 Considering that, along with the Ottomans, the Italians and Portuguese were notorious experts in military architecture in the East, it can be assumed that their engineering skills held some appeal for the Christian Ethiopians.227 It seems plausible that Portuguese and Italian fellows in service in India who were familiar with this architecture introduced some fortifying notions – be it only in a simplified way – into Christian Ethiopia.228 However, assessing the impact of these military innovations is not easy. According to a contemporary to the events above described, Giovanni Botero, the contribution of the Ethio-Portuguese troop was important: the Portuguese introduced ‘European warfare, and the use of modern weaponry, the methods to erect fortifications and important military tactics’.229 Following Botero, the temptation to emphasize the military prowess of the Europeans against the backdrop of backward armies, thereby recalling once again the myth of white supremacy, is strong. I am inclined to think, however, as Matthew Restall has suggested for colonial America, that the theoretical tactical advantage of Portuguese weapons was often very different from the actual possibilities for their application in the rough Ethiopian landscape.230 Yet, in view of the long-term practice of such foreign tactics as phalanx-like formations, an hypothesis needs to be further investigated: Did the incorporation of foreign military tactics into the regional army of Bukko, and probably also into those of Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos and Susǝnyos, contribute both to checking Oromo expansion and to the successful military raids carried out in the 1610s and 1620s against such groups as the Fälaša, the Agäw and the Damot?231 226 Conti Rossini, Historia regis Sarṣa Dengel, 117 (text), 133 (trans.). 227 See W.G.L. Randles, ‘Artilleries and Land Fortification of the Portuguese’, in Id., Geography, Cartography and Nautical Science, Chapter XVII; A.W. Lawrence, Trade Castles and Forts of West Africa (London: Cape, 1963); Carlos de Azevedo, Arte cristã na Índia Portuguesa (Lisboa: Junta de investigações do ultramar, 1959), 64. 228 However, the origin of the so-called Gondärine architecture seems, in spite of a few surveys claiming it so, not directly related to any Portuguese influence. The hypothesis on ‘Portuguese influence’ in Ethiopian monumental architecture finds its most passionate advocates in Alessandro Augusto Monti della Corte, I castelli di Gondar (Roma: Società Italiana Arti Grafiche, 1938); and, more recently, J.J. Hespeler-Boultbee, A Story in Stones: Portugal’s Influence on Culture and Architecture in the Highlands of Ethiopia 1493–1634 (British Columbia: ccb Publishing, 2007). 229 Botero, Relatio Universali, 348. 230 Restall, Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest, 33, 140, 142. 231 The usefulness of artillery in Ethiopia is, however, a matter of debate. For instance, in 1625 Susǝnyos gave to Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos a peçatinha aresoada (‘a piece [of artillery] of medium size’,

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If we go by the above evidence, at the turn of the seventeenth century Ethiopian court society had gone through considerable changes. The hypothesis can be raised that the long history of exchanges with foreigners, and in particular European missionaries, combined with internal dynamics, brought about a transformation in the habitus of Ethiopian nobility and sectors of the higher clergy.232 To understand towards the direction in which the habitus changed we can draw some advantage from employing the theoretical framework cast by Norbert Elias in his studies on court society and what he dubbed the ‘civilizing process’.233 While Elias’s general theory, as the anthropologist Jack Goody has argued, is tainted with ethnocentrism, his analysis of court society and long-term psychosocial shifts bears consideration when analyzing complex social processes outside the European oecumene.234 Elias’s ‘civilizing process’ can be roughly described as a process involving an increasing structuring and restraining of human behavior.235 In his theory, the main focus of which is European history, he argued that such a process started in court society with the emergence of a ‘court rationality’ (höfische Rationalität) that, thereafter, impregnated the society at large.236 We can imagine that Ethiopian court society endured a similar process of rationalization and structuring up to the early seventeenth century and even thereafter, with the emergence of the

probably a light canon), but reportedly the few pieces that existed in Ethiopia were never used; Paes, 1625 in arsi, Goa 39 I, 251v; see also Merid’s interesting insights in: Merid Wolde Aregay, ‘A Reappraisal of the Impact of Firearms in the History of Warfare in Ethiopia (c. 1500–1800)’ Journal of Ethiopian Studies 14 (1980); Id., ‘Society and Technology in Ethiopia, 1500–1800’, Journal of Ethiopian Studies 17 (1984): 131–132. 232 On the concept of ‘habitus’ I rely on its classical definition by Bourdieu, Le sens pratique, Chapter 3; Id., ‘Habitus, code et codification’, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 64, 1 (1986); and Id., La distinction: critique sociale du jugement (Paris: Les Éd. de Minuit, 1979), 190. 233 Norbert Elias, Über den Prozeß der Zivilisation; Id., Die höfische Gesellschaft: Untersuchungen zur Soziologie des Königtums und der höfischen Aristokratie (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2002). On the suitability of combining the two approaches – Elias’s and Bourdieu’s – in the same analysis, see Bowen Paulle et al., ‘Elias and Bourdieu’, Journal of Classical Sociology 12, 1 (2012). 234 Jack Goody, The Theft of History (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 154 and passim. The weaker part of Elias’s theory seems indeed to be his mechanistic idea of the expansion of the civilizing process from top to bottom; see, for instance, Elias, Über den Prozeß der Zivilisation, vol. 2, 347 and passim. 235 Ibid. vol. 1, 106–107, vol. 2, 323 and passim. 236 Elias, Die höfische Gesellschaft, 158–159, 190–192; Id., Über den Prozeß der Zivilisation, vol. 2, 353 and passim.

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Gondärine state. The beginning of this process could be pushed as far back in time as Zärʾa Yaʿǝqob’s reign. However, a crucial moment seems to have been the period of Portuguese and Indian contacts. It was probably during this period that a series of important texts concerning court etiquette and court organization was produced. Among these texts are the Śǝrʿatä gǝbǝr (‘Rules of the Banquet’), which deals with the life at the royal kätäma and chiefly regulates royal banquets (gǝbǝr); the Śǝrʿatä qwǝrḥat (‘Rules of the Coronation’), providing rules for the coronation at Aksum; and the Śǝrʿatä mängǝśt (‘Book of the Order of the Kingdom’), which consists of a compilation of texts regulating court and state offices and political rituals.237 The crafting of these texts betrays indeed a trend towards major rationalization of court rituals and structuring of courtly life. Thus, it can be assumed that when the sixteenth century was coming to an end part of Ethiopia’s upper and learned classes may not have been indifferent to the reformist ideals that the country’s most important Christian ally promoted.238 I argue that the change in the habitus of political and, probably also, religious leaders played in the missionaries’ favor: the Jesuits were welcomed by a society in transformation and already predisposed to their discourse. Thus, when Páez and his companions arrived in Ethiopia in the early 1600s their preaching could reach out to far more receptive audiences than it had done during the ill-fated mission guided by Andrés de Oviedo back in the 1560s. While the agency of skilled men such as Pedro Páez and António Fernandes was an important factor in success, and missionary sources are all too eager to emphasize that, equally decisive was the emergence of favorable socio-political conditions that rendered the presence of reforming priests suitable. In support of the latter argument it must be emphasized that the audience the missionaries served was not bound to the entourage of the nǝguś. Histo­ riographical discourse has often simplified the narrative and thus described the Jesuit mission as an encounter between a handful of shrewd political leaders and a group of ambitious missionaries who moved in a sort of social vacuum. 237 See Joseph Varenbergh, ‘Studien zur abessinischen Reichsordnung’, Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, 30 (1915–16); Guindeuil, ‘Alimentation, cuisine et ordre social’, 187–191; Denis Nosnitsin, ‘Śǝrʿatä mängǝśt’, in eae vol. 4, 632–633; Manfred Kropp, ‘Notes on Preparing a Critical Edition of the Śər‘atä mängəśt’, Northeast African Studies 11, 2 (2011). 238 A hint supporting this hypothesis comes from art history. When during the reign of nǝguś Bä’edä Maryam (1468–1478) a foreigner painted a picture of Mary and Child, this aroused the people’s dissatisfaction at the court; Chojnacki, Major Themes in Ethiopian Painting, 376. Some 150 years later, however, the image of the infant God was fully acceptable and such icons as the Virgin of Santa Maria Maggiore gained widespread acceptance.

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In fact, there was much more to it than that. The missionaries did indeed spend a lot of time within Susǝnyos’s household; they also counted on the ruler’s help, protection and patronage. But it is also true that they befriended and profited from the hospitality of an important number of nobles, learned men and higher clergy. Christian Ethiopia was, after all, not a state resembling the European monarchies or the Mughal Empire in the slightest. In spite of the symbolic image of the nǝguś as an absolute, quasi-divine ruler, the reality was more prosaic. Power was largely scattered throughout the country and in the hands of local lords. Centripetal forces and a rough geography were two great obstacles to the dominating thrust of the monarchical state. To strengthen his power, the nǝguś depended on his own ability to concentrate larger armies than those of provincial lords.239 In this context, the acceptance by local elite groups was fundamental to the survival of the mission within the Ethiopian state. The historical record is unequivocal in stating that the padres earned the support of influential figures from an early date. The list is long and a few names may suffice to get a picture: däǧǧazmač Kǝflä Waḥed, governor of Tǝgray; wäyzäro Amätä Ṣǝyon, daughter of Śärṩä Dǝngǝl; Fǝqur Ǝgziʾǝ, translator and lieutenant of Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos; Goǧǧam nägaš Zämänfäs Qǝddus; Goǧǧam nägaš Adäro; fitawrari Zäśǝllase; and Amsalä Krǝstos, governor of Tǝgray.240 For Ethiopian elite society during the early seventeenth century the missionaries appeared as homines novi.241 They were seen as a small group of committed, trustworthy and ambitious clerics ready to carry out a religious reform program that by then was perceived no longer as an alien imposition but as a movement that connected to the disposition of local – if elitarian – society. Besides – and here is where the religious project became part and parcel of the state’s political agenda – the Catholic discourse emphasizing the human God, the earthly Iyäsus, i.e Jesus, was all too fitting for an ideology of power where the once divine king was giving way to a rational and prudent head of an expanding, bureaucratic state. Humanizing the concept of God thus went hand in hand with the process of rationalizing power. It is within this pledge to reform Ethiopian society and guide the virtuous monarch that the Jesuits

239 Abir, Ethiopia and the Red Sea, 46–47. 240 Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso III, liv. IV, Chapter XIV; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VII, Chapter II, IX, XI, XIII, XX–XXI, XXIX; Luís de Azevedo to provincial in Goa, July 22, 1607, in raso XI, doc. 20, 119; Id. to provincial in India, July 30, 1608, in raso XI, doc. 24, 148; Pedro Páez to superior general, July 2, 1614, in raso XI, doc. 39, 319–320; de Angelis, 1613, in arsi, Goa 39 I bis, 106v. 241 See Bourdieu, ‘De la maison du roi à la raison d’État’, 59–60.

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participated in what historiography has called the political sphere, but which, following Bourdieu, could more suitably be called the work of domination.242 Holding a position neither atop the state bureaucracy nor as advisers in the difficult art of war on the rough Ethiopian landscape, Jesuit missionaries were nevertheless active agents in the work of domination of the Ethiopian state. Their engagement in state politics can be summarized in two main spheres: on the one hand, transforming the Solomonic monarch into a virtuous and rational emperor; on the other, providing an ideology for the Ethiopian ‘empire’ in the making. Ambitious as they appear, these were two tasks in which the missionaries committed their energies and skills. While such project might not have been brought to a completion, since the mission terminated abruptly in 1632, it nevertheless had a profound impact on the country’s political fabric. Since the Jesuits started approaching political leaders around 1604, they strove to place companions at central and provincial court as confessors and ‘spiritual’ advisors. The figure of Páez comes to mind once more. But he was not alone. Around 1611, the Italian Francesco Antonio de Angelis taught Catholic doctrines and Portuguese language at the provincial kätäma of Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos, probably Särka.243 Later on, when Catholicism became the state religion, other missionaries took on roles as military chaplains and court clerics. In 1624 Antonio Bruno accompanied Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos in a campaign to the Amhara province to chase the Melkite monk ‘João’ who claimed to be the new metropolitan.244 In the following year Luís Cardeira joined a military campaign against Oromo groups and in 1626 António Fernandes accompanied the troops of Susǝnyos in a campaign against the Agäw.245 In 1629, once again, two missionaries were active in battle scenarios: Luís Cardeira with Śärṩä Krǝstos in a campaign against the Oromo near the Abbay and, towards the end of the year, Jacinto Francisco with Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos in the Amhara region.246 The next year, Carvalho accompanied the troops of Śärṩä Krǝstos for three months in Bägemdǝr.247 By engaging in these tasks the foreign priests were able to minister in provinces far away from their headquarters. It can be argued that such engagement worked as a shortcut to achieve legitimacy for the Catholic cause and to smooth 242 Ibid. 243 Pedro Páez to Tomás de Ituren, September 14, 1612, in raso XI, doc. 34, 270. 244 Roiz, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 228rv. In another source, however, the target of the campaign was said to be João’s father, Qebreyal (Kabrael); Paes, 1626, in arsi, Goa 39 II, 302v. 245 Paes, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 254r; Almeida, 1627, in arsi, Goa 39 II, 425r. 246 Barradas, 1631, in raso XII, doc. 113, 459–460; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VII, liv. IX, Chapter VIII. 247 Barradas, 1631, in raso XII, doc. 113, 459.

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the path of conversions; there was nothing better than the protecting and intimidating force of the Solomonic troops to bring local populations close to the Jesuits’ preaching. Additionally, the missionary presence reinforced the providentialist discourse of the Solomonic armies. Missionaries were thus convinced that, with their mediation, God helped the righteous armies.248 Such a discourse was not new, neither in Christian Ethiopia nor in Catholic Europe. The Solomonic monarchy drew its legitimacy from its alleged Israelite descent as emphasized chiefly in the Kǝbrä nägäśt.249 Moreover, local royal chronicles are punctuated with frequent prophetical references, pointing to an actual divine agency in political and military matters. In its turn, providentialist ideas found fertile ground in sixteenth-century Spain, as the Spanish historian José António Maravall has argued.250 Political theorists shared the idea that Spain was able to achieve such a wide territorial dominion under Charles V and Philip II only because God helped those professing the righteous faith. An important advocate of providentialism among the missionaries was Pedro Páez. His História de Etiópia is punctuated by this discourse. Accordingly, Susǝnyos’s rise to power appears there as the result of his military prowess and as God’s given-gift to the defender-to-be of Catholicism in Ethiopia. Similarly, the mission is pictured as an institution that, besides eternal salvation, brought considerable temporal benefits to Ethiopian rulers; it helped extend their dominions and quell numerous internal and external threats.251 Yet, the missionaries’ political involvement became more upfront. The written evidence suggests that missionaries played a crucial mediating role between the royal armies and local populations. Thus, in 1610, Páez advised the nǝguś to moderate the repression of the Gonga people living south of the Abbay – who had refused to pay tribute – in order to avert more serious problems. His reasoning was that repression would depopulate the land, which would hinder the payment of future tributes and in turn open the area to 248 E.g. in Azevedo, 1619, in raso XI, doc. 54, 440. 249 See Paolo Marrassini, ‘Kǝbrä nägäśt’, in eae vol. 3. 250 José Antonio Maravall, Utopía y contrautopía en el ‘Quijote’ (Santiago de Compostela: Pico Sacro, 1976), 100; for the Judaic roots of Spanish providentialism, see also José Cepeda Adán, ‘El providencialismo en los cronistas de los Reyes Católicos’, Arbor, 17, 59 (1950): 179–180. A more nuanced view of the converso influence is Claude B. Stuczynski, ‘Providentialism in Early Modern Catholic Iberia: Competing Influences of Hebrew Political Traditions’, Hebraic Political Studies 3, 4 (2008): 380–381. 251 In keeping with the same discourse, ras Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos once publicly attributed a crushing victory over the Oromo near the Blue Nile to the ‘Roman faith’; Paes, 1626, in arsi, Goa 39 II, 303v; see also Azevedo, 1608, in raso XI, doc. 24, 164.

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‘pagan’ invaders.252 Ultimately, Susǝnyos seems to have followed the advice. Thereafter, similar scenes were repeated. In about 1618 a group of Ankaša Agäw who had suffered continuous rides by royal armies approached Pedro Páez and Francesco Antonio de Angelis to act as mediators with the nǝguś for a truce and be exempted from paying tributes that were hitting the local economy hard. The mediation was, once again, successful.253 In the next year Jesuit fathers exhorted Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos not to attempt a campaign in Bälaw area owing to the threat of disease. This mediating role also reached distant territories. In 1621 an envoy of the Ottoman pasha – presumably Mahmud Pasha – met with Pedro Páez ‘because he knew the influence he had at the court and he could not think of any better way to conclude the deal’.254 In a similar episode dated around 1626, the newly appointed pasha, Aydin Pasha, sent a banyan as his envoy to Patriarch Mendes; his goal was lobbying before Susǝnyos for the reopening of the caravan route connecting the Eritrean highland to Massawa, which Susǝnyos had blocked following raids by Ottoman mercenaries in the Ethiopian mainland. Mendes eventually accepted the task but imposed conditions largely favorable to the interests of the nǝguś and the missionaries.255 Attesting to the influence of the missionaries in the running of the state, in 1619 a Jesuit noted that ‘whenever nobles and court officials wish something important they go to see the missionaries’ and a companion added that, before appointing governors of Tǝgray, the nǝguś demanded advice from the fathers to ensure the appointment of those more favorable to the missionaries.256 Diplomatic mediation and political counseling paid off. As Merid Wolde Aregay remarked, one year after supporting the plea of the Ankaša Agäw, the Jesuits were able to open a mission in the area.257 The site, thereafter called Tanḵa (Tanquoa, Tumkha), became their most stable residence in the provinces beyond effective royal control. I am also inclined to think that there was another dimension to this involvement in political decision-making. It could be argued that the missionaries aimed, as well, at introducing a more rational 252 Páez, 1612, in raso XI, doc. 34, 267. Also in Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VII, Chapter X (who provides the date of March 1610). 253 Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso III, liv. IV, Chapter XXXVII; Azevedo, 1619, in raso XI, doc. 54, 435; Páez, 1618, in raso XI, doc. 53, 408–409. Missionary sources attest that the Agäw were conscious of the difference between the Jesuit missionaries and local clergy; e.g. Mattos, 1621, in raso XI, doc. 61, 497. 254 Mattos, 1621, in raso XI, doc. 61, 476. 255 Paes, 1626, in arsi, Goa 39 II, 304r. 256 Azevedo, 1619, in raso XI, doc. 54, 428. 257 Merid, ‘Southern Ethiopia and the Christian Kingdom’, 484.

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idea of government and sovereignty, one that was defined less by seasonal exhibitions of military might than by a rational, steady exercise of power and a more carefully planned exploitation of resources. The issue of whether or not the Jesuits supported absolutism becomes thereby bypassed. As a matter of fact, the missionaries’ stance concerning power was rather ambiguous; on occasion they tried to prevent the use of sheer force, while at other times they showed a penchant for authoritarianism.258 More important is the fact that the missionaries tried to enforce a moralistic and pragmatic understanding of the work of domination. They considered that a ‘just, honest government paid off in the support of subjects and God’s blessing on the prince and the state’.259 Drawing on the theories of the Spanish political theorists, the missionaries lauded the strong but yet righteous ruler and emphasized the pursuit of ‘a morality of power’.260 The emphasis was on a down-to earth and rational ruler, a clever administrator of resources and a true representative of its people. No longer a guardian of the cosmological order, the ruler becomes a guardian of the social and political order and, thus, can delegate the task of mediating with sacredness to court priests. Missionary narratives and in particular the most ambitious of them, the História da Etiópia, bespeak of a true political agenda; they emphasize a political discourse imbued with nationalism and imperialism. Nation and empire were, after all, the key concepts in contemporary European political discourse and their coming into Ethiopia should be seen as a natural outcome of the long-connected history between this region and Europe. According to early modern political discourse, the state was no longer identified with the domains of the king but rather viewed as a unity of peoples, faith and territory; neither was its history reduced to the history of the royal family, but encompassed the whole history of all the peoples having lived in the same territory under different rulers. Páez’s História de Etiópia seems to share with its European counterparts the goal of serving a monarchical and national project. Páez thus transposes some of the principles of modern nationalism and Spanish political discourse into the Ethiopian monarchy. He shapes the Solomonic king according to the image of a modern European monarch and, more importantly, brings 258 In 1616, for instance, amidst mounting internal uprisings, Páez informed the Superior general Muzio Vitelleschi that ‘If he [Susǝnyos] had a thousand soldiers to serve him as guard, he would doubtlessly quell them [the rebellions], and nobody would even dare to speak up against him for good’; Páez, 1617, in raso XI, doc. 48, 386. For another example of a similar attitude, see Mattos, 1621, in raso XI, doc. 61, 487. 259 Bireley, The Counter-Reformation Prince, 127. 260 Ibid.

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to the foreground a new political ‘subject’: the territorial state known henceforth as ‘Ethiopia’ or, alternatively, ‘Abyssinia’. Along with the emergence of ‘Ethiopia’ as an historical agent, missionary narratives pushed forward a transformation of a similar weight: the embodiment by the African nǝguś of the European category of ‘emperor’.261 In one of the few studies dedicated to this problem, the historians Dimitri Toubkis and Hervé Pennec have argued that Jesuit ‘imperial discourse’ was meant to justify the missionary enterprise as well as ‘to suggest the enormity of the political and religious stakes involved in converting such an ‘empire’ to Catholicism’.262 The hypothesis is attractive but I am inclined to think that Jesuit imperial discourse was neither the product of a misunderstanding nor an ‘ideal model’. The interpretation could be much more simple. This discourse could be the transposition to the Ethiopian Christian polity of the political discourse endorsed in Spain, mostly, but not solely, by Jesuit theorists. In the late sixteenth century the Holy Roman Empire was no longer a political reality, although the mirage of Charles V’s rule had placed again for a short period this institution center stage. The dissolution of the idea of a universal Empire was replaced by the conception of national ‘empires’, where the kings became ‘emperors’ in their own kingdoms, adopting the early Renaissance maxima of rex imperator in regno suo.263 This process gained momentum with the reign of Philip II, who de facto had inherited an ‘empire’ from his father. The shift embodied by this ruler was further reflected in his usage of a similar peerage to his father: Su Majestad ‘His Majesty’ became henceforth the standard peerage of the kings, replacing the earlier one Su Alteza ‘His Highness’. The Jesuits, as 261 See Andreu Martínez d’Alòs-Moner, ‘Christian Ethiopia: The Temptation of an African Polity’, in Studia Aethiopica: Festschrift für Siegbert Uhlig zum 65. Geburstag, ed. Verena Böll et al. (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2004), 165–176; and Id., ‘The Selling of the Negus: the “Emperor of Ethiopia” in Portuguese and Jesuit Imagination’, in Scrinium. Revue de patrologie, d’hagiographie critique et d’histoire ecclésiastique 1 (2005): 169–173. 262 Hervé Pennec and Dimitri Toubkis, ‘Reflections on the Notions of “Empire” and “Kingdom” in Seventeenth-Century Ethiopia: Royal Power and Local Power’, Journal of Early Modern History 8, 3–4 (2004): 233. 263 The maxim was first coined by the German Lupold von Bedenbrug in his De Iuribus et translatione imperii (1340); studied in Hans-Joachim König, ‘Monarchia Mundi und Res publica christiana. Die Bedeutung des mittelalterlichen Imperium Romanum für die politische Ideenwelt Kaiser Karls V. und seiner Zeit’ (PhD diss., University of Hamburg, 1969), 37. The emergence of national imperial ideologies in the early modern period has been suggested in Frances A. Yates, in ‘Charles Quint et l’idée d’Empire’, in Les fêtes de la Renaissance, vol. II: Fêtes et cérémonies au temps de Charles Quint, ed. J. Jacquot (Paris: Ed. du cnrs, 1960), 57–97, 87.

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part and parcel of this political shift, transposed this new political ideology into the major polities they approached during their evangelizing career, such as China, Japan and Mughal India. Solomonic Ethiopia was not to be an exception: since the late sixteenth century, and in particular during the rule of Susǝnyos, the Ethiopian nǝguś was treated as an ‘Emperor’ and addressed by ‘His Majesty’. Here the intention of the missionaries was less that of defining a grand Ethiopian Empire than to categorize ‘Ethiopia’ and its political system with the concepts available in early modern Spain. In so doing, they also helped to change the way Ethiopia was perceived in Europe and also to some extent the way the Ethiopians, or at least Ethiopia’s political and religious elites, perceived themselves.

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Mission Culture I reflected on how they scolded them gently, punished them compassionately, inspired them with examples, encouraged them with rewards and gently and tolerantly bore with them. Finally, they depicted the ugliness and horror of vice and portrayed the beauty of virtue, so that, hating the one and loving the other, they would attain the end for which they were created.1

As seen in the previous chapter, the Ethiopian mission was not bound to a purely ‘religious’ agenda. The mission had an impact on the individual habitus of Ethiopian court society and on the larger social fabric and, as in other conversion terrains in the East, the padres in Ethiopia deployed a variety of methods and resources that transcended the ‘religious’ field. Both religious and non-religious assets were used to penetrate local societies more easily. It was thought that the less agreeable religious and moral doctrines would make their way into hosts’ societies more smoothly with the help of ‘sensual’ means. Visual arts, music, theatre and scenic performances were deemed strong methods of cultural transmission and understanding. Additionally, new forms of architecture – religious and secular – were erected to create spaces suitable for the reformed Catholic society. Yet, at the same time that the Jesuits brought new means of cultural expression to the mission, they also adapted some ­elements from the existing cultures of the native peoples. These factors, which played a crucial role in the development of a mission culture in Ethiopia, are the focus of the present Chapter.

The Presentation of Self in Missionary Life

In the religious marketplace of Christian Ethiopia the foreign priests played on a number of resources to appeal to the local society and to set the basis for a 1 Miguel de Cervantes, ‘Coloquio de los perros’, in Novelas ejemplares [ca. 1601–06], Id. (Barcelona: Crítica, 2005), 672 (Engl. trans. from: Exemplary Stories, trans. Lesley Lipson, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1998, 264). Interestingly, Cervantes, a Jesuit alumni himself, seems to have paraphrased here a passage from the Jesuit Constituciones, Part IV, §307: Siendo el scopo que derechamente pretiende la Compañía ayudar las ánimas suyas y de sus próximos a conseguir el último fin para que fueron criadas.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004289154_007

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Catholic society. Although in the early years some padres showed a penchant for ascetism and devotion, by the 1620s the emphasis was on strengthening their image as homines novi. To enhance this they resorted to their notorious good preparation in both the intellectual and communication spheres as well as to aesthetic means. Indeed, aesthetic values played a central role in the Society. The Constitutions established that to join the order candidates were to be free from physical deformities and recognized that clothing and external form were capable of fostering vocations and a common sense of identity.2 In the field these values were reflected in a number of judgments made by the missionaries. Páez described Susǝnyos as a ‘tall and well-built man’ and praised people in southern Goǧǧam for being ‘handsome and white as the Portuguese’.3 In keeping with their attention to appearance and public opinion, the missionaries took particular care of their mise en scène. They were aware that in the Ethiopian public arena they were scrutinized and on one occasion Manoel de Almeida urged his superior general to send to the mission only ‘the best and most virtuous fathers, because […] everybody here, Catholics and schismatics alike, watch upon us with seven eyes’.4 Accordingly, they tried to convey an image of honor and respectability. Their way of life and their external appearance should be impeccable, their words measured, their conversation intelligent and agreeable. Mendes reported that Susǝnyos was convinced of the truth of the missionaries as much for aesthetic as for intellectual reasons: ‘For many years he was in contact with them and studied their way of life. He could never find anything that he thought was wrong and thence he was convinced that the faith that such saintly men preached and sustained could never happen to be wrong’.5 If the passage sounds complacent it gives at least a strong glimpse of the mission’s politics of self-presentation.6 It seems that clothing was lavishly used in the missionaries’ mise en scène. The padres were overtly critical of both the clothing habits of traditional priests 2 On the first point, see Constituciones, Part I, Chapter 3, §185–86. On the second, I paraphrased Evonne Levy, Propaganda and the Jesuit Baroque (Berkeley et al.: University of California Press, 2004), 671 who quoted the Constituciones, Part VIII, Chapter 1, §671. 3 Páez, 1612, in raso XI, doc. 34, 250–251; Páez, 1618, in raso XI, doc. 53, 409. 4 Manoel de Almeida to Muzio Vitelleschi, May 8, 1624, in raso XII, doc. 24, 49. 5 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter XX. This argument was held throughout the whole mission period. In 1609, the Jesuits gave the following four reasons for the ‘great opinion in which the Abyssinians’ allegedly held the Jesuits: ‘purity of mind and body […] trustworthiness and fidelity in keeping promises […] trustworthiness in keeping deposits – such as jewelry – of outsiders[…] nonviolent and nonvindictive attitude’; Annual letter of the Indian Province, 1609, in raso XI, doc. 25, 173. 6 Manoel de Almeida to Muzio Vitelleschi, May 8, 1624, in raso XII, doc. 24, 49.

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and the garments used during services. In 1625 Father António Roiz wrote that ‘instead of the holy vestments they [local priests] wear clothes purchased to the Moors and Turks and used corporals not properly clean and made of cotton’.7 To its remedy, they pressed the nǝguś to order that corporals be clean, of white color and preferentially of flax (lino), and that the holy vestments follow Roman standards.8 Against this backdrop, the Jesuit dress, the long black gown, was also proudly worn throughout the whole mission period. On the one hand, it served to identify the padres as distinctive priests. On the other, it expressed the values of the community they belonged to: sobriety, rigor, sincerity and order. A similar care was applied to missionary residences. The placement and distribution of the residences was subject to a number of local factors but doubtless the principles applied worldwide in the erection of Jesuit houses and temples – those summarized in the concepts of utilia, sana, fortia, urbana, centralia, romana (i.e. serviceable, healthy, sound, urban, central and Roman) – played an important role.9 A mixture of practical and strategic reasons was crucial in orienting choice: the presence of friendly groups – such as the Ethio-Portuguese – the availability of water, good communications and a healthy and defendable location. Accordingly, most of the residences were placed on top of defendable hills, enjoying dominating views over the countryside, and were likewise easily connected to important provincial or transprovincial roads. Fǝremona sat on an imposing hill overlooking the ʿAdwa plateau and at the intersection of wide-ranging roads. The site was fortified on successive occasions − 1606, 1616 and 1624 – with a circle of walls that turned it into an impregnable fortress.10 Gorgora Velha might, likewise, have been placed on a hill, this one known today as Kendo Nora or Nora Mikaʾel, near the village of Mange; the missionaries also owned a nearby island where they took refugee in times of trouble.11 The location of Gorgora 7 8 9

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Roiz, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 225v. Ibid. On this topic, I borrow from Osswald, Written in Stone, 297 and passim; see also Jean Vallery-Radot, Le recueil de plans d’édifices de la Compagnie de Jésus conservé à la bibliothèque nationale de Paris (Rome: Institutum Historicum S.I., 1960), 35. The works proved soon their value: towards 1612 they successfully defended its inhabitants from attacks by Rayya Oromo and, in 1616, from local bandits and rebels; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VII, Chapter XXIX, and liv. VIII, Chapter III; Páez, 1612, in raso XI, doc. 34, 254. On the architectonic/military improvements see also Azevedo, 1619, in raso XI, doc. 54, 434; Roiz, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 229r. Azevedo, 1619, in raso XI, doc. 54, 416. Two nearby islands could have served such a purpose: Dässet Giyorgis, to the west of Mändabba Mädḫane ʿAläm, and – more suitably – Gälila Zäkariyas.

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Nova, on the hilly peninsula of Kund Amba, had an impressive view over Lake Ṭana.12 Gännätä Iyäsus in Azäzo, the fourth residence to be opened, was located on a gentle hill and at the intersection of major trade routes.13 The residences to the east and south of Lake Ṭana followed a similar logic. Ǝnfraz (Däbsan), the residence of the patriarch, was placed on a hill with views over Lake Ṭana and was mid-way between the two main areas of action of the mission, Goǧǧam and Dämbǝya (Plate 2). Probably because the position was deemed insufficiently strong the padres also had some houses erected on top of the imposing Amba  Maryam, to the north-west of the patriarchal residence.14 Qwälläla’s initial location at the foot of a hill was abandoned towards 1624 for a nearby location that was easier to defend; within a few years architectural improvements turned it into the safest Jesuit ‘fortification’ in Goǧǧam.15 Lǝǧǧä Nǝguś  replaced Gäbärma, which was judged insecure because it was near hostile Sakäla Agäw and vulnerable to Oromo attacks. The residence was fortified with a wall of stone and mud ‘thick and resistant’.16 Tanḵa, the main residence in Agäw land, also sat on top of a hill, had easy access to water from a nearby stream and was described by missionary sources as enjoying ‘a pleasant view’.17 With time the Jesuit residences grew to become true Catholic havens, protected from the outside world. There, the missionaries openly officiated the Catholic mass to their community and taught in all freedom the Catholic doctrines. While initially these places counted not more than a few dozen permanent inhabitants in the course of the 1620s this number might have grown considerably. The missionaries, the scholars and a group of assistants, such as Ethio-Portuguese of various ages and former scholars in their teens, formed

12

The local name is mentioned in Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VII, Chapter XI. See also Ibid. liv. VIII, Chapter XXIII. 13 Roiz, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 229r; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VII, Chapter XXIII. 14 Almeida, 1627, in arsi, Goa 39 II, 423v; Mendes, Expeditio Aethiopicae, in raso VIII, liv. II, Chapter V; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VII, liv. X, Chapter XXI. 15 Paes, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 255r–v. 16 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter XII and Chapter XXIII; Almeida, 1628, in raso XII, doc. 76, 279. The site of Lǝǧǧä Nǝguś has not been located with absolute certainty yet. However, a recent survey carried out by Víctor Fernández’s team on Abba Gǝš Fasil identified this imposing fortress as a likely location; see Fernández, Archaeology and Architecture; for an earlier description, see Francis Anfray, ‘Notes archéologiques’, Annales d’Ethiopie 8 (1970): 32, 34. 17 Roiz, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 227r.

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Plate 2 

A house for the patriarch: Däbsan, eastern façade. ca. 1626–1632 Credit: Photo 2011, Andreu Martínez

the core. Besides them, there were those locals who found there a refugee: pilgrims, the infirm seeking to be cured and the destitute.18 There they could find education, protection and medical treatment. Moreover, at the residences the Jesuits could receive their guests in due form. The Jesuits also believed that the Catholic mass could function as a magnet, attracting local populations. Back in 18

See Azevedo, 1607, in raso XI, doc. 20, 98. Azevedo emphasized that the medical services dispensed at the residences were one of the reasons that made locals view the foreign presence more favorably. These services were probably elementary and missionaries complained that they could not match the ‘dispensary’ (dispensario) of São Paulo Novo. Yet, they might still have had an edge over local healing methods. Among the treatments and remedies offered in Ethiopia were lavatorios (i.e. lavático, ‘laxative’), sangrias (‘bloodletting’, i.e. phlebotomy) and, of course, prayers; Ibid. 120–121. A famous patient once under the missionaries’ care was ras Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos. In 1613, he was cured by Páez of a ‘serious illness’, a fact that could have helped smooth the religious conversion; Páez, 1614, in raso XI, doc. 39, 319–320; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VII, Chapter XXI. An ulterior instance of conversion with the help of medical services was in ca. 1626, when Zämikaʾel, a former governor of Tǝgray, was cured by Father Barneto with the help of antimony – used in the past to treat people infected with parasites – and thereafter

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the sixteenth century Ignatius recommended to his companions for Ethiopia that ‘it will be helpful if they go well provided of paraphernalia for the church, the altars and the priests as well, deacons and subdeacons, including also chalices, crosses and other things that serve to the external cult’.19 His advice was followed and during the 1620s the padres conspicuously played with the patent difference between the two liturgies. Accordingly, Azevedo was informed that locals were attracted by the fact that the Catholic mass was ‘public and open to everybody’ and was not forbidden to menstruating women.20 Yet, the often too complacent Jesuit descriptions should not hide the fact that missionary residences served, above all, as places of social disciplining. We may gain some understanding of these Catholic havens in Christian Ethiopia if we see them as examples of ‘total institutions’ such as those studied by Erving Goffman.21 Indeed, many of the elements that characterize Goffman’s ‘total’ structures are found there: strict spatial segregation, the adoption of a new identity for the interns, a barrier to social intercourse with the outside, a life regulated by a tight schedule of activities and the existence of a single rational plan that gives daily tasks and individual efforts a purpose and a meaning.22



19 20 21 22

reportedly converted; Tomé Barneto to Stefano da Cruz, March 12, 1627, in raso XII, doc. 60, 192. In later periods involvement in medical practices was a recurrent activity of missionaries in Ethiopia and two cases are worth recalling here. In the nineteenth century, the Capuchin missionary Guglielmo Massaja achieved much success among the Oromo thanks to his medical skills; see Guglielmo Massaja, Memoire storiche del Vicariato apostolico dei Galla: 1845–1880, ed. A. Rosso (Padova: Edizioni Messaggero, 1984) (repr. of I miei 35 anni di missione nell’alta Etiopia, Roma: Tipografia Poligotta di Propaganda Fide, 1885–95), vol. 2, 154 and passim. In the twentieth century the doctor Thomas Lambie of the American Sudan Interior Mission achieved similar success among the Maale of south-western Ethiopia and, reflecting on it, he wrote that ‘There is perhaps no country where a medical diploma acts more efficiently as an entrance passe porte than Ethiopia’; quoted in Donald Lewis Donham, Marxist Modern: An Ethnographic History of the Ethiopian Revolution (Berkeley [u.a.]: Univ. of California Press and James Currey, 1999), 88–89. Ignacio de Loyola, 1551–53, in raso I, parte III, doc. 2, 250. Azevedo, 1607, in raso XI, doc. 20, 122–123. Erwing Goffman, Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates (New York: Anchor Books, 1961), 3 and passim. Ibid. 4–5. The Jesuit’s agenda in Ethiopia seems to have incorporated an aim of social disciplining since the inception of the mission. Thus, in 1570, Oviedo wrote that ‘is necessary that women and orphans live in our house, to avoid getting corrupted’; Andrés de Oviedo, January 11, 1570, in Borja, Sanctus Franciscus Borgia, vol. 5, doc. 819, 272.

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For those joining missionary circles this step was akin to adopting a new identity and a new social habitus. Accordingly, a number of local converts were said to have adopted a Portuguese name and the missionaries were also keen to give such names to newly baptized people during missions in the countryside. Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos, for instance, named one of his sons, probably the one who studied at a missionary school, Bellarmino, after the famous Jesuit theologian. Other Portuguese names, such as ‘Padre’, ‘Ines’, ‘João’, ‘Anna’, ‘António’ and ‘Ignacio’ are also mentioned as having been adopted by locals.23 In addition, clothing, once again, played a fundamental role in emphasizing the newlyacquired Catholic identity by catechumens, students and ministers. The new habit would have indeed marked this process of ‘trimming’, as defined by Goffman, wherein the new arrival ‘allows himself to be shaped and coded into an object that can be fed into the administrative machinery of the establishment’.24 The missionaries imposed a tight dressing code upon their students and for that purpose they resorted to the import of clothes and fabrics from India, which, it seems were cut, once in Ethiopia, by tailors working at the residences. Catechumens issuing from the conversions in the countryside are also mentioned as adopting Western-style habits. In ca. 1618, Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos sent a merchant to Massawa with 140 cruzãos em ouro (50,400 reis) to buy ‘nice clothes’ for people recently baptized by Francesco Antonio de Angelis in Ankaša.25 In 1624, on the eve of the wide-scale reform of local liturgical practices and monastic life, a number of monastic communities are reported wearing ‘garments according to the Roman tradition’.26 Similarly, about 1627, the Jesuit Gaspar Paes instructed a group of local priests in Lǝǧǧä Nǝguś on how to administer the sacraments; he further provided them with patens and chalices 23

Afonso Mendes, ‘De rebellione Sarza Christôs et de martyrio…’, June 31, 1631, in raso XII, doc. 114, 490. For further references: in ca. 1627, an Agäw at converting adopted the name Padre; Mendes, 1629, in raso XII, doc. 97, 393. About the same year, during a conversion campaign in Tǝgray, Father Barneto baptized three children giving them the names Ines, João and Ignacio; the latter was baptized after the mother gave birth safely with the help of an image of St. Ignatius; Barneto, 1627, in raso XII, doc. 60, 183, 200–201, 208. Towards 1630 in Goǧǧam two friars were converted and one of them adopted the name Pedro; Barradas, 1631, in raso XII, doc. 113, 470. In the same period, Jerónimo Lobo led a rural mission in Tǝgray and commented that after baptizing people for the hundreds ‘all men were called Pedro or António, all women Maria and Anna’; Lobo, Itinerário e outros escritos inéditos, 390. 24 Goffman, Asylums, 16. 25 Páez, 1618, in raso XI, doc. 53, 408; Azevedo, 1619, in raso XI, doc. 54, 439. 26 Paes, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 237r. The same letter tells of a campaign of conversions among the Agäw carried out ‘by disciples who are dressed like the fathers’; Ibid. 256r.

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that would have been forged by a smith working at the residence and also with new clothes tailored ‘in our way’.27 Missionary evidence further suggests that towards the end of the decade the Catholic dress code became the norm among the court clergy.28 Indeed, foreign clothing appears to have been in great demand in Ethiopian court society.29 Susǝnyos, for instance, was notoriously fond of foreign clothes, an aspect that probably characterized the Ethiopian court since the arrival of the first Portuguese in the previous century. The padres played on this penchant to gain his trust and in 1614–1615, at his request, Páez instructed a tailor at the court how to cut shirts in the Portuguese fashion. Reportedly, foreign forms, such as lechuguillas, which were a pattern used in the necks and cuffs of shirts typical of Spanish fashion, were particularly attractive to other members of the court and the same court tailor eventually cut eight pieces that were worn by the nǝguś, his brother Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos and other dignitaries.30 In about 1616 Páez asked the provincial in India for a rich ‘cape of golden damask crimson with golden embroidery’, probably also for the same beneficiary.31 During the 1620s imports of Oriental fabrics must have increased and its consumption at the court of Dänqäz is amply attested. In 1624, when Manoel de Almeida and other companions arrived at Dänqäz they saw Susǝnyos ‘laying on a bed covered with a silk blanket and dressed in the Portuguese fashion, with a robe of damask crimson’.32 On February 7, 1626, on the occasion of the solemn reception offered to Patriarch Mendes at the court, nobles and court people reportedly appeared in their ‘best garments: the nobles wearing cabayas of different types of silk, velvet, setins, brocados from 27 28

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31 32

Almeida, 1628, in raso XII, doc. 76, 281, the name of the father is inferred from a reference in ibid. 258. Almeida thus reported that a group of traditional priests at the court had abandoned the [European-like] ‘habits and bonnets and dressed like soldiers’ so as to avoid being exposed as opponents of the mission; Ibid. 261. A summary study of the consumption of Indian goods – especially textiles – in Ethiopia is Stanisław Chojnacki, ‘New Aspects of India’s Influence on the Art and Culture of Ethiopia’, Rassegna di Studi Etiopici new ser. 2 (2003). Páez, 1613, in raso XI, doc. 39, 318; Páez, 1615, in raso XI, doc. 41, 339. On the widespread fame of the Spanish dress code since the reign of Philip II, see Gabriel Guarino, ‘Regulation of Appearances during the Catholic Reformation: Dress and Morality in Spain and Italy’, in Les deux réformes chrétiennes. On the use of Portuguese clothing at the Mughal court during Akbar’s rule, see Antoni de Montserrat, Ambaixador a la cort del Gran Mogol. Viatges d’un jesuita catala del segle XVI a l’India, Pakistan, Afganistan i Himalaia, ed. Josep L. Alay (Lleida: Pagès, 2002), 83. Páez, 1615, in adb, Legajo 779, 153r. Roiz, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 222r. On the Portuguese import of luxury textiles in Ethiopia, see Gervers, ‘The Portuguese Import’.

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Mecca in the Turkish fashion, and the ordinary people with fotetes, bofetas, saraças and other clothes from India and some locally made’.33 The new identity was also embodied in language and the body. The adoption of a new religious language was thus emphasized. Jesuits were never fond of local blessings and local religious expressions. They considered, for instance, the Ethiopian liking of blessing with St. Mary disrespectful and tried to prevent its use; instead, they promoted the diffusion of a name dear to them, Iyäsus (Jesus). Jesus was a personal ‘trademark’ of the Society, one used to name the mother church in Rome, the first Christian church to bear such a name. Accordingly, they named after Iyäsus their three most important churches in Ethiopia, at Gorgora Nova, Gännätä Iyäsus and Dänqäz. Similarly, they taught Catholic converts to bless using this name and spread Catholic amulets and images that conspicuously displayed the names and images of Jesus/Iyäsus on the bodies of the converts.34 This was new in Ethiopia. Local blessings typically were made after Ǝgziʾabǝḥer, the Virgin or local saints, and the image of God was rarely, if at all, displayed in public. Similarly, local churches had traditionally favored names emphasizing the divinity and might of God (i.e. Mädḫane ʿAläm, ‘Savior of the World’ or Ǝgziʾabǝḥer itself, literally meaning ‘Lord of the Earth’) or names of saints. The new concept of Jesus/Iyäsus that the missionaries promoted conveyed a different religious worldview. It brought to the foreground a God of human features more familiar in Western theology, thus displacing the Eastern distant God.35 Thereby, using the name of Jesus/Iyäsus became a public sign of the Catholic faithful, a trademark of the new Catholic community growing up in the kingdom.36 33 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter XXI. The indo-portuguese terms in italics find in Dalgado’s dictionary the following definitions: ‘bofetas: antigo tecido de algodão, fabricado principalmente em Baroche, India; cabaia: roupão ou tunica, que os orientais ricos usam geralmente; fota: tecido de lã, ou de algodão, e seda com listas, do tamanho e feitio de huma cinta’; ‘saraça: tecido de côr, geralmente de algodão, com que se enrolam da cintura para baixo as malaias e algumas indias cristãs’; Dalgado, Glossário Luso-Asiático, vol. 1, 132, 158, 404; vol. 2, 293. 34 As it seems the acronym ihs was also soon adopted by the royal chancellery and placed, in Ethiopic script, as an incipit of the letters sent to Europe; see, for instance, Susǝnyos to Cosimo II, July 25, 1616, in raso XI, doc. 45, 377; and Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos to Muzio Vitelleschi, [1625], in raso XII, doc. 49, 163. 35 On this crucial theological divide between Eastern and Western Christianity, see Wilhelm de Vries, Orthodoxie und Katholizismus. Gegensatz oder Ergänzung? (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder-Bücherei, 1965), 24. 36 Instances of the use of the term Iyäsus among Ethiopian Catholics are plenty. On the occasion of a campaign by a military company that was said to be loyal to Catholicism,

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Yet, the redução of local populations affected also the physical body. It can be assumed that students and adults alike adopted Western looks. As it was seen before, the most critical aspect in bringing about the true transformation – physical as well as spiritual – of the self was the renunciation of circumcision. The Jesuits considered circumcision both as a superseded rite and as a useless physical deformation of the body.37 In addition, specific dietary changes were also introduced. These aimed both at replacing local eating habits considered unhealthy and at reproducing the metropolitan cuisine. Hence, with the advice of the missionaries, Susǝnyos would have abandoned eating one of Ethiopia’s gastronomic delicacies, ṭǝre śǝga (raw meat). Instead, he is said to have become a regular pork eater – a meat the padres praised for being healthier and with a better taste than local types of meat.38 Little has been recorded concerning the structure of daily life at missionary dwellings. We can assume, however, that a tight daily schedule of activities was imposed and the individual agency of inmates strictly regulated. As in other instances of religious total institutions, such as convents and schools, rules of conduct must have been strict and the sanction of deviations enforced. On at least one occasion the expulsion of an inmate was recorded at Fǝremona.39

the soldiers opened the battle by shouting Jesus; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VII, liv. IX, Chapter XXVIII. In 1627 an Ethiopian Catholic priest shouted Iesus, Iesus after having claimed that he had a vision of Jesus child surrounded by a shining light on the altar of a church where he was praying; Almeida, 1628, in raso XII, doc. 76, 277–278. In 1631, when the Catholic Ṭǝqur Ǝmano was about to die, he would have shouted ‘Jesus, Jesus, Jesus’; Mendes, 1631, in raso XII, doc. 114, 494. Additionally, the royal chronicle reports a scene around 1619 in which Susǝnyos went to Ṭana Qirqos and obliged the local tabot dedicated to Qirqos to be replaced with one dedicated to ‘Jesus, Savior of all’; Mǝhǝrka Dǝngǝl et al., Chronica de Susenyos, 236 (text), 182 (tr.). 37 Significantly, in the cifraria, the codes used by the Jesuits in their secret correspondence, circumcision was typically coded under the term ‘superfluità’ and ‘observance of the Sabbath’ under ‘ignorantia’; see Josef Wicki, ‘Die Chiffre in der Ordenskorrespondenz der Gesellschaft Jesu’, Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu 32 (1963), 145; also arsi, Fondo Gesuitico 678, Dos. 4. 38 Jesuit records note that the nǝguś and nobles alike were fond of eating the meat newly introduced by the missionaries. Susǝnyos in particular would have been ‘much fond of pork’s meat, which the Ethiopians […] under no circumstance eat, because he knew that the Catholics ate it and praised it; and the same was done by many noblemen and women alike, who asked to eat it for health p ­ urposes, and saying that it was like medicine against several illnesses’; Barradas, Tractatus tres historico-geographici, in raso IV, 28. 39 In ca. 1607 a woman reported being ‘bad, indecent’ and ‘incurable’ was expelled from Fǝremona; Azevedo, 1607, in raso XI, doc. 20, 96.

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Recalling now the Jesuit reductions among the Tupi-Guarani in colonial America could seem preposterous but several similarities with these later missionary experiences could be easily found, such as an emphasis for order, a social hierarchy embedded in the architecture, goals of productivity and the cultivation of a self-image of the Catholic areas as islands of freedom and excellence.40 More information, however, exists on one of the chief dedications of the Ethiopian ‘reductions’, schooling. As happened in other missionary terrains, the padres in Ethiopia emphasized work with local youth in order to set the roots for a Catholic society. Teaching children and education became typical occupations of the Jesuits from a few years after the foundation. Ignatius, initially reluctant to use it, made education one of the principal areas of action of his order.41 Therefore, the first assignment Francis Xavier and his companion micer Pablo had on reaching India in 1542 was to found the College of São Paulo, originally called da Conversão de São Paolo e da Santa Fé. The institution, which was one of the earliest to be set up worldwide by the order, was begun to educate indigenous youth from heterogeneous origins in the Christian doctrines.42 In keeping with this policy, the Jesuit leader advised to his companions chosen for Ethiopia to ‘open many schools to teach reading and writing and others where they teach letras, and colleges to instruct the youth and all those who would need it, and the Latin language, Christian traditions and doctrine’.43 The emphasis on educating children and youth inspired the Jesuits to begin indoctrinating the Ethiopians at the College of São Paulo in Goa. Sources inform us that recruits known as Abexims, i.e. ‘Abyssinians’, arrived in India shortly after the opening of this institution. In 1546, four of the some fifty boys residing at the college were of ‘Abyssinian’ origin and by 1556 their number had tripled.44 40

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42

43 44

On the reducciones guaraníes see Barbara Anne Ganson, The Guaraní under Spanish Rule in the Río de la Plata (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Univ. Press, 2003); Guillermo Wilde, Religión y poder en las misiones de Guaraníes (Buenos Aires: Ed. SB, 2009). See Luce Giard, ‘La constitution du système éducatif jésuite au XVIe Siècle’, in Vocabulaire des collèges universitaires (XIIIe–XVIe siècle), Études sur le Vocabulaire intellectuel du moyen age, ed. O. Weijers, vol. 6 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1993). ‘It was founded, Francis Xavier wrote to Ignatius, to instruct the natives of these lands in the [Catholic] faith and also those from various nations so that once duly instructed they would be sent back to their homes and prosper with what they had learned’; Francis Xavier to Ignatius of Loyola, September 20, 1542, in Francis Xavier, Monumenta Xaveriana, vol. 1, doc. 13, 263. Ignatius of Loyola, ‘Instructio P. Joanni Nunnio et sociis data’, February 1555, in Ignacio de Loyola, Monumenta Ignatiana, vol. 8, Apendix ‘De rebus Aethiopicis’, doc. 2, 685. ‘Constitutiones collegii S.Pauli’, June 27, 1546, in DI, vol. I, doc. 14, 120 and 129. An earlier reference to moços abexins from 1545 does not provide any precise number: Miguel Vaz to

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The catalog from 1556 also contains the names of six such Abexims: ‘Mateus, Pedro, who has one year [of schooling], Yoane, Pedro who has seven months, Manoel has three months; Ilario has nearly one year’.45 In 1564, when the number of young students at the Goan facility had reached 100, sources still report the presence of damoati (i.e. from Damot) and abiscini.46 How and when this group of children arrived in Goa is not known. The reference to the region of Damot and to a Christian Ethiopian boy named Yoane (Yoḥannǝs, i.e. John) could indicate that some, at least, were Ethiopian Christians who had come to India on one of the trips that between 1544 and 1556 repatriated Portuguese who had fought in Ethiopia with Christovão da Gama.47 Be that as it may, once the first Ethiopian mission was launched the schooling of Ethiopians in India lost its purpose and it was progressively abandoned. Yet, establishing a proper educational infrastructure in Ethiopia took its time. In the first period the missionaries gave instruction to a group of Catholic youth but without, it seems, setting up any proper educational structures. Most of these young people probably belonged to the first generations of Portuguese born in Ethiopia. Later on some of them were to become valuable aides in the missionary enterprise. Two prominent men were António Joannes and João Gabriel. The first served first as auditor, probably secretary, of Andrés de Oviedo and then lived in Gorgora Velha with Pedro Páez in the 1610s.48 The second, born around 1550, became at the turn of the century captain of the EthioPortuguese militia and from 1603 onwards served as close assistant to Páez.49 However, the reduced number of neophytes living in the area of Fǝremona – approximately 230 – and, more importantly, the lack of funds, may not have allowed Oviedo to fully put in practice the experience in education he had

45 46 47

48 49

Dom João III, end 1545, in DI, vol. I, doc. 10, 89. The total number of boys for 1546 has been inferred from that for 1549 (fifty); see DI, vol. I, 442. ‘Catalogus Puerorum Seminarii Goani S. Pauli’, early November 1556, in DI, vol. III, doc. 89, 487–488. Mart. de Egusquiza to Roman brothers, November 8, 1564, in DI, vol. VI, doc. 39, 252. Around 1544 about fifty Portuguese soldiers went back to India; Bermudez, Breve relação da embaixada, Chapter XLVIII. In turn, it is interesting to notice that Bermudez, who indeed reached India with mestre Gonçalo in 1556, mentioned in his travelogue how, during a campaign of Gälawdewos between 1546 and 1552, he visited the province of Damot accompanying some Portuguese soldiers; Bermudez, Breve relação da embaixada, Chapter LI. His date of birth is unknown, perhaps in the 1560s or 1570s, flourished 1590–1615; Annual letter of the Indian Province, 1615, in raso XI, doc. 43, 367. Antonio Joannes was born around 1550 and had grown up with Andrés de Oviedo; Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso II, liv. I, Chapter XVIII; Barradas, 1631, in raso XII, doc. 113, 432. On João Gabriel, see Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso II, liv. I, Chapter XVIII.

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acquired at the colleges of Gandia and Naples.50 Only when the mission reached a mature stage did organization of the school system gain momentum (Table 12). The first school was set up by the fathers shortly after their arrival; in 1605, presumably at Fǝremona, they were reported as offering schooling to ten offspring of the Ethio-Portuguese and two Ethiopian children, one being the son of a local Catholic.51 With the rise of Susǝnyos and the stabilization of the political situation, the Jesuits opened a new school at Gorgora, which, in 1610, educated ten children. Students were mostly the offspring of Ethio-Portuguese families and their age can be assumed to have been between five to around fifteen years old, as the frequent reference to meninos and moços indicates.52 They thus belonged to the third and fourth generations of the Portuguese mixed-race group, a fact that strongly determined the strategy followed by their teachers.53 The Jesuits wanted them to preserve or cultivate their ‘Portuguese’ identity and designed the pedagogical curriculum accordingly. Thus, the primary consideration in the school curriculum in Ethiopia was learning the Portuguese language, which also affected students who were not of Portuguese origin. Portuguese turned into a lingua franca at the residences as well as a sort of language of prestige that some Ethiopian figures, such as Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos and Mǝhǝrka Dǝngǝl, were eager to learn.54 Thus, Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos reportedly enrolled one of his sons in the residence of Qwälläla with the intention that he ‘learn good things and to read and write in Portuguese’.55 Additionally, as was the pattern in Jesuit schooling in Asia, Latin was also taught and vernacular languages – Tǝgrǝñña, Amharic and Agäw appear in the missionary record – were used in instruction as well as preaching.56 50 51 52

53

54

55 56

Andrés de Oviedo to viceroy of India, May 11, 1567, in arsi, Goa 11 II, 323v; Arana, ‘Historia de la Santa vida’, 112. Azevedo, 1607, in raso XI, doc. 20, 85. Ages are seldom provided; see though, Azevedo, 1607, in raso XI, doc. 20, 118, where a ‘a boy of 14 years’ is said to be ‘very smart and one of the best students of our seminary’. Older students are, however, also mentioned, such as a twenty-one year-old boy of royal blood studying at Gorgora; Azevedo, 1619, in raso XI, doc. 54, 425. If we apply a value of twenty years for each generation and take into account that the first births in Ethiopia occurred around 1545, the Ethio-Portuguese might have been in their third generation between 1585 and 1605. In 1620, Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos sent a letter to Susǝnyos written in Portuguese and towards 1628 he also wrote to Qǝbʾä Krǝstos in the same language; Fernandes, 1620, in raso XI, doc. 57, 453; and Barradas, Tractatus tres historico-geographici, in raso IV, 59. This evidence also seems to indicate that at the provincial and royal kätäma there were officials mastering that language. Mendes, 1629, in raso XII, doc. 97, 394. See, e.g., Almeida, 1627, in arsi, Goa 39 II, 419r.

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It appears that the schools in Ethiopia were formed from the example of São Paulo in Goa and accorded with the standards set by the Ratio studiorum, in use in India a few years after its approval in 1599. The influence of Jesuit Indian didactics was due in great part to the fact that the missionaries sent to Ethiopia had spent, on average, almost ten years in India before joining the mission (Table 11). Indeed, a number of them had taught at the Jesuit schools there and some had considerable experience guiding novitiates and colleges. The first pedagogic method applied at the Ethiopian schools (oftentimes called seminarios in the missionary record) was presumably that known as the Cartilha por preguntas e respostas, a system to teach to children and illiterate adults the Christian Doctrine. Reportedly it was Pedro Páez who, with the help of João Gabriel, translated the Cartilha into Gǝʿǝz. Thereafter the text enjoyed further translations into other local languages, such as Amharic, Tǝgrǝñña and Agäw, and would continue to be used until the demise of the mission.57 Soon, however, with the coming of men with more teaching experience than Páez, such as Azevedo, and perhaps also António Fernandes, Francesco Antonio de Angelis and Lorenzo Romano, teaching must have been further structured and refined. There is disappointingly little information about this particular aspect but we can still sketch a picture of its organization. The schools in Ethiopia, like everywhere in the order, had a boarding status and focused on the Lower Studies. It is assumed that the curriculum included the five lower classes, including rhetoric, humanities and the three grammar classes (on Greek and Latin). Additionally, elementary schooling, generally avoided by the order, Table 11

Mean years spent in India by the missionaries before reaching Ethiopia, 1555–1630

Years 1555–1598 1603–1622 1623–1630 1555–1630

Number of missionaries

Mean years in India

10 7 24 41

2,1 8 9,7 6,6

Sources: raso i–xii

57

The use of the Cartilha in Ethiopia if first attested in 1607, see Azevedo, 1607, in raso XI, doc. 20, 119; Paes, 1612, in raso XI, doc. 34, 217. See also Cohen, ‘The Jesuit Missionary as Translator’, 15.

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might have been offered to teach the younger ones reading and writing.58 The  didactic methods fixed by the Ratio studiorum were doubtlessly also implemented: active learning (through periodic disputations, debates and ­repetitions), written exercises in imitation of the author being read, public correction of the exercises, original essays in the upper grades, contests and examinations.59 Yet the problematic status of the Ethio-Portuguese induced the missionaries to emphasize in their pedagogy the teachings of St. Paul. On the one hand, as I showed above, the missionaries conceived Ethiopian Christianity as based on a sound rejection of Pauline Christianity. On the other, the Ethio-Portuguese mixed-race group presented a challenge. No longer ‘racially’ Portuguese, they were to a large extent no longer culturally Portuguese either. The core group of the Ethio-Portuguese had thus to struggle to keep their alleged foreign identity alive. From an early date Jesuit missionaries took this as a central issue in their mission. Back in 1575 António Fernandes (1536–1593) warned his superiors in Rome that without priests the Ethio-Portuguese ‘won’t be able to stay away from heresies and religious wrongdoing’.60 Not only did this mixed-race group inevitably follow an indigenous way of life but, as will be explained in Chapter Seven, they also began to incorporate some of the practices most abhorred by the Jesuits, such as circumcision. For these reasons, the evidence from missionary sources points to an extensive use of Pauline literature in the mission schools.61 Teaching methods were strongly focused on making the students aware of the ‘wrongdoing’ of many of the core practices of Ethiopian Christianity: circumcision, practice of Sabbath, frequent fasting. As powerful signs of the institutional display of the mission system’s achievements, the padres staged frequent public discussions, wherein pupils were often requested to rebut Ethiopian Christian practices using the arguments of the Apostle.62 There students showed off their memorization of Pauline passages and their dialectical skills acquired at the schools.63 The missionaries believed that by a 58 See Constituciones, Part IV, Chapter 12. 59 On these methods see the introduction to The Jesuit Ratio Studiorum, ix and ‘Rules of the Prefect of Lower Studies’, ibid. 60 António Fernandes to superior general, September 22, 1575, in raso X, doc. 84, 264. 61 Evidence in Azevedo, 1608, in raso XI, doc. 24, 152, 158; Fernandes, 1620, in raso XI, doc. 57, 443–444. 62 On the notion of ‘institutional display’, see Goffman, Asylums, 104. 63 One such scene was recorded in ca. 1612, when two Portuguese children declaimed the  Christian Doctrine at the court before Susǝnyos, his wife Maryam Śǝna and her

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mixture of Paul’s theology and Jesuit pedagogic methods the ‘golden and innocent’ Ethiopian children would be able to plant the roots of an Ethiopian Catholic society.64 In the 1610s the number of students grew considerably and towards the end of the decade two new schools were opened in the south: in Ankaša, in Agäw land and in Qwälläla, Goǧǧam (Table  12). In the 1620s expansion continued apace and in 1626 Gorgora, by far the most important educational center, was said to host 100 students (Figure 2). Towards 1628, the school at the patriarchal Table 12

Year

1605 1607 1610 1613 1614 1615 1616 1618 1619 1620 1623 1625 1626

Number of interns at the Jesuit schools in Ethiopia, 1605–1626

Residences

Total year

Fǝremona

Gorgora

Ankaša

Qwälläla

12 12 12 12 16 16 16 16 25 25 33

–

– – – – – – – 3 10 15 19

– – – – – – – – 15

10 18 34 34 34 40 40 40 48 50 100

Däbsan

60

12 12 22 30 50 50 50 59 90 80 100 50 160

Sources: Michael de Pace, ‘Lettera annua della missione d’Etiopia l’anno 1619, 18 February 1620’, in Lettere annue del Giappone, China, Goa et Ethiopia…, ed. Lorenzo d. Pozze (Napoli: Lazaro Scoriggio, 1621), 139–140; raso vi, 414; raso viii, 181; raso xi, 85, 201, 311, 314, 333, 374, 395, 409, 419, 425, 443, 510; raso xii, 247–289; Pedro Páez to Francisco Vieira, July 4, 1615, Gorgora, in adb, Legajo 779, 154r.

64

son-in-law, perhaps däǧǧazmač Kǝflä Waḥǝd; Páez, 1612, in raso XI, doc. 34, 235; see also Azevedo, 1608, in raso XI, doc. 24, 167–169; annual letter of the Indian province, 1609, in raso XI, doc. 25, 175. Azevedo, 1607, in raso XI, doc. 20, 85.

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100 90 80 70 60 50 Gorgora

40 30

Fəremona

20 10

16 28

16 26

16 24

16 22

16 20

18 16

15 16

13 16

11 16

09 16

07 16

16

05

0

Figure 2  Evolution of the number of students at Fǝremona and Gorgora, 1605–1626

Note: Gap years (e.g. 1618 in Fǝremona) have been replaced with estimates from the previous year(s) Sources: Michael de Pace, ‘Lettera annua della missione d’Etiopia l’anno 1619, 18 February 1620’, in Lettere annue del Giappone, China, Goa et Ethiopia…, ed. Lorenzo d. Pozze (Napoli: Lazaro Scoriggio, 1621), 139–140; raso VI, 414; raso VIII, 181; raso XI, 85, 201, 311, 314, 333, 374, 395, 409, 419, 425, 443, 510; raso XII, 247–289; Pedro Páez to Francisco Vieira, July 4, 1615, Gorgora, in adb, Legajo 779, 154r.

residence in Däbsan counted sixty children.65 With the growth of schools the composition of schoolrooms changed. If the Ethio-Portuguese formed the largest group throughout the whole period, in the 1610s and especially 1620s local Ethiopians from different ethnic groups – Tǝgrayan, Amhara, Agäw, Damot and even Oromo – began to fill the missionary classrooms.66 Thus, commenting on conversions in Agäw land ca. 1619, António Fernandes added that ‘although with the parents we still encounter some difficulties in pushing

65 Mendes, Expeditio Aethiopicae, in raso VIII, liv. II, Chapter IV. 66 See, e.g., Almeida, 1628, in raso XII, doc. 76, 276.

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them to abandon the gentile rites, because they are too close to these rites after many years practicing them, with the sons and children who are brought up with the doctrine and intelligent teaching methods of the fathers, much fruits will be gathered in the future, with God’s favor’.67 Local recruiting followed similar patterns to other Jesuit missions, such as in Japan or even Europe. This seems to have been voluntary and depended on the Jesuits’ capacity to attract the locals. Their image of rectitude and sobriety compounded with their growing influence at the court must have worked as a magnet. Some groups proved particularly attracted by Jesuit education. Members of the nobility are said to have entrusted a number of their offspring to missionary schools. Habtä Iyäsus, a powerful and influential lord in Tǝgray who was married to a Portuguese orphan, had a son studying at the school in Fǝremona and in 1620 four or five sons ‘of noble lords’ were reported studying at Qwälläla.68 Nevertheless, as the Constitutions and the Ratio studiorum recommended, poor children having shown good aptitudes were also accepted at the schools.69 Indeed, to make a good student from a poor boy was an excellent form of promotion of the missions’ teaching methods.70 Additionally, populations placed in ‘peripheral’ areas such as Agäw and Damot must have seen real advantages in having their offspring close to the ṗadroč. By the 1620s, when Catholicism became the official religion, Jesuit schooling, besides a better education, guaranteed social promotion. Moreover, since most of the students were in boarding schools schooling at the missions offered living standards unmatched in the rather poor surrounding areas where the residences were placed. Yet, in the case of the peoples south of Lake Ṭana who were in the process of being integrated within the Christian kingdom, schooling at the Jesuit residences seems also to have depended on political factors. Thus, towards 1618 or 1619, when the missionaries were about to open a residence in Agäw land, Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos invited the locals in Ankaša to ‘maintain their oath of receiving the faith, entrusting their boys and girls for baptism and the adults, with their wives attending on Sundays the sermons of the father’.71 In 1620, Susǝnyos again invited the Ankaša Agäw to entrust their offspring to the Jesuit priest – Francesco Antonio de Angelis – to be educated. The nǝguś himself entrusted 67 68

69 70 71

Fernandes, 1620, in raso XI, doc. 57, 456. Ibid. 443; Mattos, 1621, in raso XI, doc. 61, 498. In 1614, a mother who was of royal stem was reported as intending to entrust her child to the fathers; Lorenzo Romano to Muzio Vitelleschi, July 16, 1613, in raso XI, doc. 37, 314. Constituciones, Part IV, Chapter 3, §338; Ratio Studiorum, ‘Common rules for the teachers of the lower classes’, §50, in The Jesuit Ratio Studiorum, 72. On the missionaries pursuing this strategy, see Páez, 1618, in raso XI, doc. 53, 409. Luís de Azevedo, July 8, 1619, in raso XI, doc. 54, 438–439.

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some of his Agäw servants for education at Gorgora.72 A similar proselytizing  tactic was probably followed at the residences founded later in the recently dominated province of Damot, then under the rule of the pro-Jesuit governor Bukko. In the course of time, the nuclei of neophytes trained at the residences became of paramount importance for the missionary network. If we assume that children spent about ten years at the mission schools (five for elementary schooling and five more for the lower studies), a first class of alumni should have gone through the whole curriculum by the mid-1610s. In the successive years these alumni formed a compact and dynamic group of neophytes, grown and trained according to the Jesuit ‘way of proceeding’.73 Towards the fall of the mission in 1632 it can be estimated that nearly 200 students had been trained at the two main Jesuit residences in Fǝremona and Gorgora alone.74 With such a large number the Jesuits were able to multiply their forces, initially reduced to the few priests sent from Europe and India. These associates were actively engaged in different tasks such as preaching, instruction and intellectual activities. More importantly, they allowed the mission to set up a proper moral division of labor, wherein Jesuit priests supervised a hierarchical structure of functions and roles and could delegate to lower echelons the more arduous tasks of disciplining and surveillance.75 To appraise the importance local Catholic recruits had in the mission system, it is worth recalling a few of those who made a substantial contribution to the Jesuit project. One of the early interpreters the Jesuits had at the court was Basilio Gabriel, who had probably studied at Fǝremona, where his father João Gabriel had lived. From 1613 to at least 1619, a gifted alumnus from Gorgora called Dionisos (or Denazios, born 1607) took over the office of interpreter at the 72

73

74

75

Fernandes, 1620, in raso XI, doc. 57, 456; Azevedo, 1619, in raso XI, doc. 54, 419. About 1611, Susenyos had entrusted three slave children to Páez for education; Pedro Páez to Mascarenhas, June 26, 1611, in arsi, Goa 17, 38r. A sense of superiority seems to have been promoted in Jesuit schools. Witnessing to that, in an annual letter dated 1607, Luís de Azevedo reasoned on the strength of the Catholic ­faithful claiming that the sacrament of confirmation – that was not dispensed to traditionalists – gave them a sense of ‘endurance’ (constancia); Azevedo, 1607, in raso XI, doc. 20, 99. To reach this estimate I have assumed that scholars spent between eight to ten years at the Jesuit schools and that at least three full school classes were formed between 1605 and 1630/32. The total aggregate in Fǝremona was 506 and in Gorgora 918 (empty years were given the value of the previous recorded year). By summing the two aggregates (1,424) and dividing it by 8, we reach 178. On the notion of ‘moral division of labor’, see Goffman, Asylums, 114, who quotes Everett Cherrington Hughes, Men and Their Work (Toronto: Collier Macmillan, 1958), 71.

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court; besides speaking Portuguese and Amharic, Dionisos was able to write in Latin and Gǝʿǝz.76 One Barakato, a member of the Ethio-Portuguese mixed-race group who had been educated at Fǝremona, was able to reach the semi-official status of ‘brother of the order’ and advised Susǝnyos on António Fernandes’s expedition to southern Ethiopia.77 In 1625, Läkka Krǝstos, who had served for several years as ‘head of students’ at Gorgora, was ordained as a priest by Patriarch Mendes and was placed at the head of a hundred churches that recently came under Jesuit administration.78 Another active career was that of Alexandre Jacobo (born ca. 1586), from an Ethio-Portuguese family and a former student at Fǝremona under Lorenzo Romano. In the early 1610s he acted as administrator of the residence of Fǝremona and late into the decade worked with father de Angelis among the Agäw. In ca. 1625 he was ordained as a priest by Mendes and became himself chaplain and confessor of the missionaries.79 A few more former students at the Jesuit residences became personal aides to some of the padres. Thus, one Francisco Machado was said to be a close aide to the Jesuit João Pereira and Cosme de Mesquita and Lucas Rapozo served as guides to Pereira and Gaspar Paes, respectively. Another Ethio-Portuguese, Zana Gabriel Machado, worked as the assistant of Bruno Bruni for about ten years, until he was eventually murdered by traditionalists in ca. 1635.80 Finally, the cases of Bernardo Nogueira and António de Andrade, both born in Ethiopia of Portuguese grandparents and who became full members of the Society during the period of exile, are further examples of how integrated the two groups – Jesuits and EthioPortuguese – were. Most importantly, their careers also indicate that towards the end of the 1620s the Jesuits counted on a number of neophytes from Ethiopia who were ready to join the Society if sent to India and hence had set the ground for the mission’s internal – though never achieved – renewal.

A Theology of the Visible

Jesuit religious and missionary praxis was, to borrow a definition coined by Christina Osswald, based in a ‘theology of the visible’.81 The public cult of the 76 77

De Angelis, 1613, in arsi, Goa 39 I bis, 109r; Azevedo, 1619, in raso XI, doc. 54, 432. Azevedo, 1614, in adb, Legajo 779, doc. 17, 117r; de Angelis, 1613, in arsi, Goa 39 I bis, 109v; Annual letter of the Goan Province, 1609, in raso XI, doc. 25, 172; arsi, Goa 27, 8r. 78 Almeida, 1627, in arsi, Goa 39 II, 424r. 79 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VII, liv. IX, Chapter IV. 80 Ibid. liv. X, Chapters XXIX–XXXI. 81 Osswald, Written in Stone, 224 and passim.

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holy images had been sanctioned by the Council of Trent in its decree De invocatione, veneratione et reliquiis sanctorum, et de sacris imaginibus and thereafter it was strongly supported by the Society of Jesus. Images were deemed to have a pedagogic and ‘hypnotic’ quality and ecclesiastic authorities were responsible for fostering their public use.82 The Tridentine priests were also responsible for seeing that the images and the cults associated with them followed norms of decency and devotion. In Ethiopia, the foreign images were to replace local icons and help in spreading Catholic devotions over a wider population. Even though today only a few pieces have survived the hazards of time and persecution, the import of religious images in Ethiopia was remarkable.83 The subject matter of visual works is concerned with a wide variety of themes but the emphasis was on the manhood of Christ.84 Above all there was the Virgin of Santa Maria Maggiore from Rome, known also as Salus Populi Romani (i.e. ‘Protectress of the Roman People’), but typically referred to in sources as the Virgin of St. Luke, owing to a legend attributing its painting to the Apostle. The importance of this image in the Society is well known and its cult is associated with the third superior general, Francisco de Borja. In 1568 Pius V permitted reproductions of this image and thereafter copies were taken to several missionary fronts. In 1570 Ignacio de Azevedo took a copy to Brazil and eight years later another copy reached India, where the image was to be known under the name of Nossa Senhora das Neves.85 About 1579 the Wierix workshop at Antwerp produced their first print of the icon.86 One year later Fathers 82

26th Session, December 3–4, 1563; published in Wohlmuth and Alberigo, Dekrete der ökumenischen Konzilien, vol. 3, 774–776. 83 There is little information on how and when the objects reached the mission. A large number of objects were probably transported by the missionaries themselves and in particular during the major convoys organized between 1623 and 1625. In addition, during other periods the banyan and Ottoman ships traveling to the Red Sea and the caravans crossing the Ḥamasen plateau might have participated in this traffic. For 1615, which did not see the arrival of any missionary, Páez informed that ‘the images, books and clothes had arrived to Massawa’; Páez, 1615, in adb, Legajo 779, 152r; Páez, 1616, in raso XI, doc. 44, 373. 84 Steinberg, The Sexuality of Christ, 11–12. 85 Personal communication of Cristina Osswald. For the worldwide circulation of the image the most comprehensive study remains Pasquale M. D’Elia, ‘La prima diffusione nel mondo dell’imagine di Maria ‘Salus populi romani’’, Fede e arte. Rivista internazionale di arte sacra II, X (1954). 86 See F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, ca. 1450– 1700 (Amsterdam [u.a.]: M. Hertzberger, 1949–2010), vol. LXIII, nr. 941; also nrs. 942 to 951.

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Antonio de Montserrat, Rodolfo Acquaviva and Francisco Henriques presented a copy of the icon produced in Rome to Mughal Emperor Akbar.87 The first reference to its presence in Ethiopia dates to 1605 and the image had probably been brought by Pedro Páez or one of his earlier companions.88 It seems that Jesuits imported painted icons and printed stamps alike; products of the Goan workshops – cheaper and available in larger quantities – probably formed the bulk of these imports, although more sophisticated copies made in Rome could also have reached the mission.89 The Jesuits placed the finest copies on display at the main residences of Fǝremona and Gorgora and during processions and pastoral missions they might have used smaller icons as well as distributed engravings to the faithful. European engravings in particular seem to have been used en masse and played an important role in evangelization tasks. The well-known Antwerp workshops must have been particularly active here,  chiefly the house of the Wierix brothers, which towards the 1570s became the principal furnisher of printed religious imagery for the Society of Jesus.90 The impact of the Virgin of Santa Maria Maggiore on the indigenous 87

88

89

90

See Ugo Moneret de Villard, ‘La Madonna di S. Maria Maggiore e l’illustrazione dei miracoli di Maria in Abissinia’, Annali Lateranensi 11 (1947). On the diffusion of the icon worldwide, see Kirstin Noreen, ‘The Icon of Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome: An Image and its Afterlife’, Renaissance Studies 19, 5 (2005). For the reception of the icon at the court of Akbar, see John Correia-Afonso (ed., trans.), Letters from the Mughal Court. The First Jesuit Mission to Akbar (1580–1583) (Anand: The Institute of Jesuit sources, 1981), 31 and passim; Antoni de Montserrat, Ambaixador a la cort del Gran Mogol, 102. Ottoman blockade of Red Sea traffic coming from Portuguese India in the 1570s and 1580s makes it unlikely that any copy reached the mission at an earlier date. For evidence, see Luís de Azevedo to superior general, July 12, 1605, in raso XI, doc. 15, 62. Towards the late 1570s massive production of this motif in Goa took off; see Maria Cristina Osswald, ‘Goa and the Jesuit Cult and Iconography before 1622’, Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu 74, 147 (2005): 158–159. In ca. 1610, Father António Mascarenhas is said to have sent copies to the Ethiopian mission while he was assistent in Rome (1607–1615); Azevedo, 1619, in raso XI, doc. 54, 414. See also Streit and Dindinger, Bibliotheca Missionum, vol. 16, doc. 2292. On the presence of Indian Catholic art in Ethiopia, see Csilla Fabo Perczel, ‘Ethiopian Painting: Sources, Causes and Effects of Foreign Influences in the Sixteenth/Seventeenth Centuries’ in Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference of Ethiopian Studies, University of Lund, 26–29 April 1982, ed. Sven Rubenson (Addis Abeba amd Uppsala: East Lansing, 1984). On the Jesuits’ relationship with the Wierix workshop in Antwerp see Marie MauquoyHendrickx, Les estampes des Wierix conservées au Cabinet des estampes de la Bibliothèque royale Albert Ier (Bruxelles: Bibliothèque Royale Albert Ier, 1978–83), vol. 1, xviii; Ursula König-Nordhoff, Ignatius von Loyola. Studien zur Entwicklung einer neuen HeiligenIkonographie im Rahmen einer Kanonisationskampagne um 1600 (Berlin Mann, 1982), 107.

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imagination cannot be overstated. The icon was soon an object of popular worship: locals came to the residences from afar to request favors and to enjoy the image’s alleged thaumaturgic power. Engravings were also distributed to the people and the icons were shown on occasions when guests visited the residences and were paraded in the neighboring areas.91 It is also highly probable that the icon soon began to be reproduced by local Ethiopian artists active within the missionaries’ entourage. Indeed, the hypothesis can be raised that the mission was associated with the creation of local artistic workshops, a feature already well attested for the Jesuit mission in Japan.92 Luís Cardeira, whose profile is discussed further below, seems to have been active in pictorial work, probably at both missionary residences and royal compounds.93 Furthermore, the patriarchal residence at Däbsan could also have been an important center of production of Catholic Ethiopian art, including books, paintings and music. Thus, Towards 1627 Mendes commented that some of the boys studying at his school were ‘translators and skilled in writing in Ethiopian characters’; and, he added, they were able to ‘paint as well as write’.94 It can be assumed that during the mission’s lifetime or soon thereafter religious motives and painting techniques spread throughout the monastic network. Hence, in 1624, Susǝnyos offered as a present to the Jesuits in Gännätä Iyäsus an image of Christ crucified and another of Our Lady of St. Luke and both were described as a ‘fine work’.95 In the next year Diogo de Mattos, on a visit to the monastery of Ǝnda Abba Gärima found a copy of the same icon said to be of ‘bad quality’ but still worshiped by the community.96 The following year his comrade Barneto, during a visit to the church of Aksum Ṣǝyon, saw ‘two retablos of Our Lady of St. Luke’.97 Additionally, a few portable diptychs, probably produced locally, which today are hosted in different Ethiopian museums could date to this period.98 91

See Azevedo, 1605, in raso XI, doc. 15, 62; Azevedo, 1607, in raso XI, doc. 20, 106–109, 115. Another source reports that an infirm man was cured with an Agnus Dei and ‘a stamp of the Virgin with the infant Jesus on her hands’; Mattos, 1621, in raso XI, doc. 61, 485, 490. 92 On the Jesuit artistic schools in Japan, which the art historian McCall christened as the ‘Academy of St. Luke’, see John E. McCall, ‘Early Jesuit Art in the Far East’, Artibus Asiae 10 (1947): 125 and passim. 93 See Luís de Azevedo to Nuno Mascarenhas, June 22, 1624, in raso XII, doc. 30, 71. 94 Mendes, Expeditio Aethiopicae, in raso VIII, liv. II, Chapter IV. 95 Roiz, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 223v. 96 Paes, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 250v. 97 Ibid.; also Barneto, 1627, in raso XII, doc. 60, 189. 98 See the catalogue of the collection of Marian diptychs in the Museum of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies: Stanislaw Chojnacki and Carolyn Gossage, Ethiopian Icons: Catalogue

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During the emergence of the Gondärine state in the late seventeenth century, the reception of the icon of Mary had been so enthusiastic that it had already replaced all traditional Marian iconology (Plate 3). For centuries to come it became the canonical form of representing the Virgin.99 In addition, images of the Assumption of Mary, in Ethiopia known as Fǝlsäta, a widespread motif in Renaissance and Manneristic painting, seem to have been imported during the same period, thus provoking its spread into local painting.100

Plate 3

A new Virgin for the Ethiopians: the Madonna of Santa Maria Maggiore. Virgin and Child, Crucifixion, 17th or 18th century Credit: Mäzgäbä Sǝǝlat and Stanisław Chojnacki

of the Collection of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies Addis Ababa University (Milano: Skira [u.a.], 2000); the Madonna from Plate  3 is Cat. 177 from the latter’s catalogue and is described in p. 413. 99 See Monneret de Villard, ‘La Madonna di S. Maria Maggiore’; and Stanisław Chojnacki, ‘The Virgin of S. Maria Maggiore’, in Id., Major Themes in Ethiopian Painting; Id., ‘La influencia de las misiones jesuitas en el arte pictórico etíope a principios del siglo XVII’, in Conmemoración del IV Centenario. 100 There is, however, no specific evidence on the import of such an icon during the mission and a comparison of the iconography of European and Ethiopian Assumption icons is still missing. For an overview of this image in Ethiopia, see Marilyn E. Heldman, ‘Fǝlsäta’, in eae vol. 2. Another Marian icon that might have reached the mission (probably in its  later stages or even during the period of exile) is the ‘Madonna and Child at the Fountain’ by the Flemish Schelte à Bolswert (after Rubens). In 2008, during a visit to

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Yet, the subject matter of Catholic art in Ethiopia was larger. An influential visual reference was also the famous Evangelicae historiae imagines, a work compiled and commented (as Adnotationes et meditationes in Evangelia…) by Jerónimo Nadal, which included a series of prints of the life and the passion of Christ produced at the famed Wierix workshop in Antwerp.101 Its use in the mission can also be taken as an indirect attestation of the introduction among the Catholic community of the practice of the Spiritual Exercises, which were associated with these images.102 The first attested use of the Evangelicae historiae imagines seems to coincide with the moment when the missionaries began to actively preach their doctrines at the royal court and in regional capitals. In 1611 Pedro Páez comments of the book being in Ethiopia and added that a brother of Susǝnyos (presumably Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos) and the ruler’s cousin, Bǝʿǝlä Krǝstos, started copying some of the images at their homes with the help of

Fǝremona/Ǝnda Giyorgis, the scholar Denis Nosnitsin found a print of this icon embedded within a manuscript of miracles of Mary (Täʾammǝrä Maryam); see Denis Nosnitsin, ‘Ǝnda Giyorgis, Fremona’ in Proceedings of the Second International Littmann Conference, Aksum 7 to 11 January 2006 (in preparation), ed. Steffen Weniger and Wolbert Smidt. For the image, see G.R.S. Langemeyer, Bilder nach Bilder. Druckgrafik und die Vermittlung von Kunst. Austellung und Katalog (Münster: Aschendorff, 1976), 168; and Nico van Hout, Rubens et l’art de la gravure (Amsterdam: Ludion, 2004), 65. For an Ethiopian icon inspired in it, see Chojnacki and Gossage, Ethiopian Icons, Cat. 126, described in pp. 372– 373 (but Chojnacki ignores Bolswert’s engraving). 101 Jerónimo Nadal, Evangelicae historiae imagines, adnotationes et meditationes (Antuerpiae: Martinus Nutius, 1593–94). For its presence in Ethiopia (where it was probably kept at Gännätä Iyäsus), see Azevedo, 1619, in raso XI, doc. 54, 423; [Pedro Páez], ‘Lettera annua della missione d’Etiopia l’anno 1619 [February 18, 1620]’ in Lettere annue del Giappone, China, Goa et Ethiopia, 156; Gaspar Paes, Annual letter, June 15, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39–I, 255v. Nadal’s work was also referred as the ‘images to the Biblia de Alcalá’, thus recalling the epochal six-volume edition of the Bible under direction of Cardinal Francisco Ximénez de Cisneros: Vetus testamentu multiplici lingua nuc primo impressum… (In Academia Complutensi: Industria Arnaldi Guilielmi de Brocario, 1514–17). For a ­facsimile edition of the engravings see Jerónimo Nadal, Biblia Natalis: La Biblia de Jerónimo Nadal SJ, ed. Javier Torres Ripa (Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, 2008); and Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish Etchings, vol. LXXI, nr. 56. 102 On the association of Nadal’s work with Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercices, in particular with the practice of ‘composition of place’, see Thomas Buser, ‘Jerome Nadal and Early Jesuit Art in Rome’, The Art Bulletin 58, 3 (1976): 424–425; Isidoro Pinedo Iparraguirre, Introduction to Nadal, Biblia Natalis, 11–12; Alfonso Rodríguez G. de Ceballos, ‘Las imágenes de la historia evangélica de Jerónimo Nadal en el marco del jesuitismo y de la contrarreforma’, Traza y Baza 5 (1974).

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local painters and the Jesuit fathers.103 As occurred with the Roman Madonna, some of the prints associated with this work became popular motifs in the Ethiopian painting catalog created at the demise of the mission.104 Further visual motifs included a variety of icons emphasizing the image of Christ as God-man, including Veronicas, Ecce Homos and the Holy Trinity.105 In 1628, during celebrations of the Passion held at Gännätä Iyäsus and Gorgora, two Ecce homos were shown to a group of the faithful. An assistant priest to the patriarch had reportedly painted the first and the second was the work of João Martins.106 Additionally, images of saints venerated in Europe – probably with

103 Reportedly, the Jesuit fathers had to assist the local painters at the artistic workshops (presumably placed in the homes of the commissioners) ‘to help translate the annotations’ that had been prepared by Nadal; Pedro Páez to Mascarenhas, June 26, 1611, in arsi, Goa 17, 37rv; Annual letter, 1611, in raso XI, doc. 33, 209. I would argue that this reference marks the first attestation of the production of proto-Gondärine art, which is generally assumed to have started only under Fasilädäs in the 1640s or 1650s; see Claire Bosc-Tiessé, Les îles de la mémoire: fabrique des images et écriture de l’histoire dans les églises du lac  Ṭānā, Éthiopie, XVIIe–XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2008), 87 and passim. 104 See H. Buchtal, ‘An Ethiopic Miniature of Christ Being Nailed to the Cross’, in Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi Etiopici (Roma 24 aprile 1959), ed. Enrico Cerulli (Roma: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1960), 331–334; Claire Bosc-Tiessé, ‘The Use of Occidental Engravings in Ethiopian Painting in the 17th and 18th Centuries’, in The Indigenous and the Foreign; Id., Les îles de la mémoire, 99 and passim; and Jules Leroy, ‘L’Evangeliaire Ethiopien illustré du British Museum (or. 510) et ses sources iconographiques’, Annales d’Ethiopie 4 (1961). 105 There is a reference to an image of the Christ with golden elements (in the frame?) that was offered to Susǝnyos in 1624 by Manoel de Almeida; Roiz, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 222v. A few icons of Christ of foreign origin have been found in Ethiopia. One strongly resembling the description by Almeida is described in Richard Holmes, ‘A Flemish Picture from Abyssinia’, The Burlington Magazine 29, 7 (1905): 394–395. On Veronicas and Ecce Homos see Barradas, 1631, in raso XII, doc. 113, 459. The introduction of another icon that became popular during the Gondärine school of painting, the Kwer’ata re’esu, is, however, less easy to attribute to the Jesuit mission. Chojnacki argued that the so-called ‘Imperial Icon’ arrived during the embassy of Rodrigo da Lima in the 1520s; Stanisław Chojnacki, The ‘Kwer’ata Re’esu’: Its Iconography and Significance. An Essay in Cultural History of Ethiopia (Napoli: Istituto Universitario Orientale, 1985) (supl. Annali dell’Istituto Universitario Orientale 45, 1, 1985), 12–14. 106 Almeida, 1628, in raso XII, doc. 76, 268, 276. Supportive evidence of the existence of artistic workshops related to the Jesuit mission in Ethiopia could be the imported pigments – mostly from India – that were used in Ethiopian Marian paintings. For a study of pigments in traditional Ethiopian painting from the time of the mission onwards see

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the sole support of engravings – and the church fathers are reported reaching the mission.107 Last but not least, the portraits of the first Jesuit saints, as will be seen below, also arrived.108 When the mission was demised in 1632–1633, the destruction of Catholic objects and imagery was severe but a few items preserved in the secrecy of Christian Ethiopian temples survived. Such might be the case with two curious engravings of the Holy Trinity dated 1590 and today kept in one of the pillars of the monastery of Maryam Dǝngǝlat in Tǝgray (Plate 4).109 In addition to icons and images, a large quantities of resistos (i.e. registos, images of saints printed on bookmarks) were also imported. They seem to have been used as give-away presents for the peoples the missionaries encountered during conversion campaigns.110 Further objects included sumptuary goods for mission churches, such as ostiarios, chalices, and other church paraphernalia that, besides affording the celebration of the Roman ritual, should give visitors a glimpse of the magnificence of Catholicism.111 In addition, rosaries, ‘Agnus Dei’, crowns of the ‘Holy Virgin’, tin crosses, chaplets and small

107 108

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110 111

Anaïs Wion, ‘An Analysis of the 17th-Century Ethiopian Pigments’, in The Indigenous and the Foreign; and Chojnacki, ‘New Aspects of India’s Influence’. An annual letter mentions in Ethiopia, besides Nadal’s work, ‘another book with images of the Apostles and heremits’; Paes, June 15, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39–I, 255v. The presence of the image of St. Ignatius in Ethiopia is first recorded for 1619; Azevedo, 1619, in raso XI, doc. 54, 414, 424. As it was the case with the Virgin of St. Luke, engraved copies of these images had also been produced by the Wierix workshop; see MauquoyHendrickx, Les estampes des Wierix, vol. 2, image 828 and passim, 1146 and passim, vol. 3, image 1809 and passim. Such engravings are likely to have reached the mission in large quantities. Additionally, a Jesuit letter notes that a chapel in, or near, Fǝremona had in its custody a famous icon painted by one ‘Nicolaus Venetus’, which almost certainly points to a work by the Venetian artist Nicolò Brancaleone, who lived in Ethiopia from ca. 1480 to the third decade of the sixteenth century; Annual letter, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 II, 281r–84v, 283v. On the activities of European painters in Ethiopia before the Jesuit mission, see Chojnacki, Major Themes in Ethiopian Painting, Chapter 7: ‘European Painters in 15th and Early 16th Century Ethiopia’. The author, Alitenio Gatti (fl. 1588–1594) was active in Macerata, Perugia and Florence. The image has a strong resemblance with an older print made by Marcantonio and dated between 1500–1527; British Museum, Registration number: H,1.93 (1972,U.1254). In the same pillar of Maryam Dǝngǝlat church another Catholic engraving is fixed. The piece, which is largely damaged, includes nine images and five can be identified: ‘S. Petrvs’, ‘S. Thomas’, ‘ihs’, ‘S. Mathias’, and St. Paul. For instance, Tomé Barneto to provincial in Goa, 1628, in raso XII, doc. 86, 313. On the alleged ‘power’ of Catholic liturgy and objects, see Azevedo, 1608, in raso XI, doc. 24, 166; Barneto, 1627, in raso XII, doc. 60, 189.

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A theology of the visible: the Holy Trinity, ‘Sancta Trinitas Unus Deus. Miserere Nobis.’ Alittenio [Alitenio] Gatti, Rome, 1590, Maryam Dǝngǝlat monastery, Tǝgray Credit: Michael Gervers and Mäzgäbä Sǝǝlat

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reliquaries were imported, as it seems, en masse and distributed to the people during proselytizing missions.112 It can be assumed that these objects soon became individual marks of those who had joined the Catholic community distinguishing their bearers from the outer society and providing them with the feeling of belonging to a small but select elite. In another sign of the joint work between the missionaries and the state, royal power came to sanction the use of Catholic objects by discriminating against those who were not wearing them. Towards 1629, Susǝnyos reportedly received at his court only people who wore necklaces with veronicas imported by the missionaries.113 Sculpture, a branch of the arts that was completely alien to Ethiopian Christianity, experienced some developments as well. Chiefly, this occurred by way of the lavish display of nativity scenes at missionary residences and the royal court. It seems that the objects were displayed to accompany the celebrations of Christmas held at the Jesuit residences.114 Towards December 1612 a nativity scene was reportedly arranged and shown at Gorgora, which attracted the attention of the royal family.115 Responding to the precepts of Trent, the veneration of relics was also encouraged during the mission. Since the opening of the second mission, the Jesuits showed an interest in gathering the remains of the most important missionaries and Portuguese who had died in Ethiopia. The ‘relics’ of Patriarch Oviedo were exhumed and eventually sent to India as early as 1605, while those of his companion Francesco Antonio de Angelis were moved to the new 112 Sources mention rosarios, coronas B. Mariae, contas pera rezar, Agnus Dei; Azevedo, 1607, in raso XI, doc. 20, 108, 138; Annual letter, 1612, in raso XI, 286; Mendes, 1629, in raso XII, doc. 97, 367. Towards 1618 such objects as contas, varonicas, agnus Dei gornecidos de ouro e outros brjncos were given to a train of notables from Ǝnnarya who were visiting the royal court; Azevedo, 1619, in raso XI, doc. 54, 431. Archaeological work has so far not produced any relevant finding of such objects in Ethiopia. The Japan mission has been more fortunate and findings of Catholic devotional objects on the archipelago have been numerous; a pioneering study, which includes several images, is Haruki Konno, 今野春樹, ‘Fukyoki ni okeru medai no kenkyu -16seiki kouhan kara 17 seiki zenhan ni kakete布教期におけるメダイの研究-16世紀後半から17世紀前半にかけて-’ (‘Study of the Medals from the Period of the Evangelization – from the Second Half of the Sixteenth to the First Half of the Seventeenth Century’), Busshitsu bunka 物質文化 Material Cultures 82 (2006). 113 Mendes, 1629, in raso XII, doc. 97, 380. 114 In 1624, Father Azevedo made a pressepe at Gännätä Iyäsus. A visit by ras Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos, ǝtege Śǝlṭan Mogäsa and her daughters to see this scene is recorded for 1628; Paes, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 255v; Mendes, 1629, in raso XII, doc. 97, 384. 115 De Angelis, 1613, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 109v.

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church in Qwälläla.116 The bodily remains of the ‘martyr’ Christovão da Gama were searched for for years until reportedly being found in 1626 by Jerónimo Lobo. They were then sent to India as a present to the Count of Vidigueira, Francisco da Gama, Christovão’s nephew and one of the mission’s greatest benefactors during his term as Viceroy of India.117 During the 1620s, as we will see below, minor relics of St. Francis Xavier also reached the mission. The profane objects of the mission included a large number of books, writing materials, Indian desks (escritorios) and Chinese porcelain.118 A large part of these items were for internal use at the residences. Additionally, Europeanprinted books were kept at Fǝremona, Gorgora, Däbsan and Qwälläla and were used in the more prosaic intellectual activities.119 Mendes, who, as noted above had been given rights over the important library of Francisco Suárez, took a large number of books with him, as well as desks, wax, lacre and house furniture to help in the works at the residences and even matchlocks (espingardas) for his own protection.120 Yet, non-religious objects were also used as symbols of prestige and as luxurious presents for the mission’s patrons and friends. About 1612 three Jesuit priests on visit to the royal kätäma offered to the nǝguś ‘a precious stone to be embedded in the royal ring, a Roman glass [gutturnium] and a pan of Chinese handwork’. The first object was described as a very fine handwork: ‘the art of 116 Páez once even claimed to have the skull of Francisco Lopes (†1597) on top of his headrest (cabeceira)!; Páez, 1603, in raso XI, doc. 14, 58; on de Angelis see Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter XXIV. 117 Lobo had already traveled to India in the armada led by the Count of Vidigueira, who substituted Afonso de Noronha as viceroy of India; see Lobo, Itinerário e outros escritos inéditos, 20. 118 Recent archaeological work on Jesuit mission sites has produced few findings but some are remarkable; these include a sherd from Gorgora Nova, probably of China ware (Ming) or Turkish (Iznik) origin; Víctor Fernández Martínez et al., ‘Archaeology of the PortugueseSpanish Jesuit Settlements in the Lake Tana Region. Preliminary Report of the 2006 Survey Field Season’, (Dirección General de Bellas Artes y Bienes Culturales, Ministerio de Cultura, Spain and Agence Nationale de la Recherche, France 2006), 83, photo 32; and an iron buckle; Víctor Fernández Martínez et al., ‘Arqueología de las misiones jesuitas ibéricas en la región del lago Tana (Etiopía): Informe preliminar de la campaña de excavaciones en Azäzo’ (Instituto del Patrimonio Cultural de España, Dirección General de Bellas Artes y Bienes Culturales, Ministerio de Cultura, 2011), 87. 119 Páez, 1612, in raso XI, doc. 34, 272. 120 Mendes, 1625, in raso XII, doc. 47, 149, 161; Azevedo, 1605, in raso XI, doc. 15, 62. On firearms being introduced in the mission, see Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VII, liv. X, Chapter II.

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the carving was admirable and it is well known that it was carved by an excellent craftsman from Goa and the sight of which moved the king to great joy’.121 In December 1618 António Fernandes took a present ‘with things from Diu’ from Tǝgray to the court and in 1624 Susǝnyos was delighted at receiving a relic cage sent by Nuno Mascarenhas, assistant in Portugal, which hung from a ‘precious golden necklace’ that had been produced by a banyan craftsman. In early 1625 the nǝguś also received a golden bed (catre dourado).122 During the expedition of Mendes and his train across the Danakil desert the Europeans offered to the sultan of Danakil a carved box produced in Diu and ‘precious objects imported from China’.123 Artistic developments in the mission also encompassed music and the scenic arts. Of the arts the Jesuits introduced in Ethiopia music was probably the first. Although it had a secondary role in the Jesuit formation, it soon gained importance in the overseas missions. The Jesuit Juan de Mariana once wrote that music served ‘to awaken the senses of the soul’ and as early as 1551 Manuel de Nóbrega taught music to the Portuguese and native children in Brazil, noticing the positive effects it had on them.124 In Goa, liturgical music soon played an important role in religious celebrations and festivals and was conspicuously used by the Society of Jesus.125 In Ethiopia, music was soon used in liturgical activities and children were instructed with a method already used in Goa of singing the Christian Doctrine at night.126 121 Annual letter, 1612, in raso XI, doc. 35, 280. 122 Azevedo, 1619, in raso XI, doc. 54, 417; Luís de Azevedo to Nuno Mascarenhas, June 22, 1624, in raso XII, doc. 30, 70; Paes, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 240r, 246v. More evidence of the import of Indian furniture and textiles and Chinese porcelain in Mendes, 1625, in raso XII, doc. 47, 150. 123 Mendes, Expeditio Aethiopicae, in raso VIII, liv. I, Chapter XV. 124 Mariana in VV.AA., ‘Música y danza’, in Diccionario Histórico de la Compañía de Jesús, vol. 3, 2777. On Nóbrega, see Manuel de Nóbrega to Simão Rodrigues, August 11, 1551, in Manuel da Nóbrega, Cartas do Brasil e mais escritos (Opera omnia), ed. Serafim Leite (Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade, 1955), doc. 10, 87. On the proselytizing use of music by the Society of Jesus, see Serafim Leite, ‘A música nas primeiras Escolas Jesuiticas do Brasil no seculo XVI’, Cultura (Rio de Janeiro) 11 (1949): 33; Paulo Castagna, ‘The Use of Music by the Jesuits in the Conversion of the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil’, in The Jesuits. Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts; and David Crook, ‘“A Certain Indulgence”: Music at the Jesuit College in Paris, 1575–1590’, in Ibid. 462–463. 125 See VV.AA., ‘Música y danza’, especially § III: ‘Música y danza en las misiones’. Also DI, vol. XVI, 7*. 126 This occurred in both Portuguese and Amharic languages; see Barradas, 1631, in raso XI, doc. 113, 443.

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Initially, performances were of a rather private character and remained confined to the celebration of liturgy.127 Yet, by the mid-1620s the mission witnessed an important development of performing activities, including music concerts, dramatic performances, poetical events and games. On the whole, this development was made possible by another exceptional figure the Ethiopian mission counted on, Luís Cardeira (also Caldeira), as well as by the arrival of Mendes’s expedition in 1625, which brought several instruments from India – harps, violas and little fiddles – as well as ‘five young boys skilled in music’, among which were chapel masters.128 When he went to Ethiopia in 1623 with Manoel de Almeida, Cardeira was already a skilled missionary, having worked for eight years in the missions of Chambay and Moghor (Mughal). Once in Ethiopia, Cardeira played a prominent role in renewing missionary methods and approach. He took to the mission a number of musical instruments – including violas, bandorilhas (i.e. bandurria, bandore), a harp and an organ.129 Like his colleagues, on arrival Cardeira was quickly engaged in strenuous activities. In early 1624 he taught singing and playing music at Fǝremona and, towards September, developed the same tasks at Gorgora, where he was additionally in charge of the supervision (superentendencia) of the residence. By Christmas 1624 the choir he had been training, which comprised children from the mission school, was ready to perform a Benedictus; reportedly, the piece was ‘so well performed as one would expect from the College of Goa’.130 On the same occasion the choir also sang a mass for three voices.131 Cardeira also organized a vast array of scenic activities in the mission. These were inaugurated with the solemn celebrations for the canonization of St. Ignatius of Loyola and St. Francis Xavier. News of the canonization (first celebrated at St. Peter in Rome on March 12, 1622 and then in Lisbon on July 31) reached Ethiopia with Manoel de Almeida and by March 1624 letters from 127 Reference to Ave Marias and Salve Reginas sung by the children of Fǝremona appear in Azevedo, 1607, in raso XI, doc. 20, 108. For the singing of the Christian Doctrine, see Azevedo, 1608, in raso XI, doc. 24, 144. On the use of liturgical music, see Azevedo, 1619, in raso XI, doc. 54, 424, 431; and Fernandes, 1620, in raso XI, doc. 57, 443. 128 Mendes, 1625, in raso XII, doc. 47, 144; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapters XVII and XX. 129 Import into Ethiopia of European musical instruments had already occurred during the sixteenth century. In 1520, the embassy of Rodrigo da Lima included the organist Manuel de Mares, who presented to Lǝbnä Dǝngǝl a manicordio (also monocordio), a one-string portable organ precursor of the clavichord; Alvares, Verdadeira informaçam, Chapter V; Correia, Lendas da India, vol. 2, 587. 130 Paes, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 252r. 131 Ibid. 246r, 252r.

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Mendes, Vitelleschi and the Assistant in Portugal informing of the event were handed to Susǝnyos.132 Although celebrations in Ethiopia were not comparable to those held in Goa or Lisbon they nonetheless inspired lavish artistic and scenic performances. The most splendiferous were those organized at Gännätä Iyäsus.133 The program included two vesporas, a mass for five voices, a dance performed by Ethio-Portuguese children and a terreiro (probably a form of dance). There followed a descante, a concert performed by a choir and musicians playing two violas and a bandorilha.134 Another performance included a ‘dialogue’ (diálogo de tres), a typical feature of Jesuit school theatre, which versed on the lives of the Jesuit saints. At night, the feasts concluded with several forms of fireworks (foguetes, bombas e triquitrazes), a feature also profusely used in Goa. The services of Cardeira were soon called for at the kätäma of Susǝnyos and of Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos, where he was to perform a series of concerts. Cardeira played before Susǝnyos and organized polyphonic concerts composed of a few (two or three) voices and accompanied by music of harps and violas.135 Although data is scant in this area, sources indicate that the mission’s repertoire was mostly composed of religious texts sung in Gǝʿǝz but following the European music style. Thus, during a drama held in Gorgora the children sung a hymn in Gǝʿǝz but based on European music. To welcome the Patriarch Afonso Mendes the same group performed a Laudate Dominum in Gǝʿǝz.136 During the Easter celebrations in 1626 the group of musicians trained by Cardeira performed a Miserere chant for two choirs and a Magnificat, but the missionary source fails to provide the name of the composers.137 On another 132 Roiz, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 229r. 133 A detailed study of the celebrations in Lisbon is offered by Maria Cristina Osswald, ‘Iconografia das cerimónias da canonização de Inácio de Loyola e de Francisco Xavier em Portugal’, Brotéria 163, 5–6 (2006). News would have reached India by land in 1623 and the first celebrations were held in Goa on January 25, 1624, day of the conversion of St. Paul; Georg Schurhammer, ‘Die Heiligsprechung Franz Xavers. Zum 12. März 1922’, in Id., Gesammelte Studien, vol. iv: Varia, I: Anhänge (Roma and Lisboa: Institutum Historicum S.I. and Centro de Estudos Históricos ultramarinos, 1965), doc. 137, 468. 134 The exact date of celebration in Gännätä Iyäsus is nowhere provided but it should have been shortly after the celebrations held at Dänqäz, on April 11, 1624; Paes, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 252r. 135 Roiz, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 222v. 136 Paes, 1626, in arsi, Goa 39 II, 305r. 137 Paes, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 252v–53r. There is no information on the European composers played in Ethiopia but there are grounds for assuming that these included the most renowned contemporary Spanish authors of the Golden Age, such as Francisco Guerrero (1528–1599), Crístobal de Morales (ca. 1500–1553) and Tomás Luis de Victoria (ca. 1548– 1611). Contemporary records attest to Francisco Guerrero’s Ave, Virgo sanctissima being

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occasion, at the royal court a group of musicians and singers conducted by the same father performed a ‘Testament of Christ on the Cross composed by Ledesma’. The piece doubtlessly refers to the ‘Testamento de Christo Nuestro Señor’ authored by the Spaniard Alonso de Ledesma (1562–1623).138 Two important points can be gleaned from this reference. On the one hand, it shows once again that the Jesuits imported to their missions the finest and most advanced artistic and cultural forms they had to hand in Europe and in the colonial centers in India. Ledesma was indeed one of the most successful literates of his time, a product of the second half of the Siglo de Oro. He invented the conceptismo, a literary genre that was based on an ingenious use of tropes and was imitated later by Francisco de Quevedo and admired by Baltasar Gracián.139 Moreover, Ledesma was an apologist of the Society and had contributed to the feasts for the beatification of Ignatius of Loyola with eulogistic poems, which were reproduced in the third part of his best-known work, the Conceptos espirituales y morales.140 On the other hand, the fact that the poem was read in the Spanish original indicates how cosmopolitan life at the court had become under the influence of the missionaries.141 Cardeira spread his skills to other residences. Until the expulsion he worked at least in Särka (Plate 5), Hadaša and Qwälläla, and in the last settlement he set up another music workshop.142 Moreover, at the school of Däbsan Indian musicians who had arrived with Mendes taught young boys singing and performed [probably by the Jesuits] in Manila; see William J. Summers, ‘The Jesuits in Manila, 1581–1621: The Role of Music in Rite, Ritual, and Spectacle’, in The Jesuits. Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts. Further evidence on the Iberian origin of the mission’s repertory could be the important role allotted to instruments in performances, which was itself ‘the most distinctive aspect of Spanish sacred music’; see Robert Stevenson, Spanish Cathedral Music in the Golden Age (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1961), 298. On the singing of the Magnificat in France, see Crook, ‘“A Certain Indulgence,”’ 456 and passim. 138 It has not been possible to identify with certainty what edition of Ledesma was used in Ethiopia. A candidate could be Alonso de Ledesma, Conceptos espirituales (Barcelona: Iayme Cendrat a costa de Hieronymo Margarit, 1606); on pp. 92 to 95 it contains the poem ‘Testamento de Christo nuestro señor’ including an engraving of Christ on the cross. 139 Miguel d’Ors, Vida y poesía de Alonso de Ledesma. Contribución al estudio del conceptismo español (Pamplona: Universidad de Navarra, 1974), 27, 30–31, 187. 140 Alonso de Ledesma, Tercera parte de Conceptos espitiruales: con obras hechas á la Beatificación del […] Patriarca Ignacio de Loyola…(Madrid: Ivan de la Cuesta, 1612). 141 Supportive evidence for the use of the Spanish edition is the fact that ras Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos asked for the meaning of the poem; Paes, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 252v. 142 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VII, liv. IX, Chapter XII; Barradas, 1631, in raso XII, doc. 113, 456, 460.

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Possible remains of the Jesuit church at Särka, Gǝmb Maryam, Goǧǧam. ca. 1626–1632 Credit: Photo 2011, Andreu Martínez

playing music. Commenting on their skills, the patriarch added: ‘Even the boys learned to play lyre, and they adjusted the movements of their feet onto the rules of European dances with such a skill that the Abyssinians felt no shame in saying that our gestures were like those of birds, and theirs like those of wild beasts’.143 So, by 1628, the use of European music was widespread wherever Jesuits were active. Music and dances became a normal component of Catholic liturgy and a companion to the numerous processions organized by the Europeans. Elaborate religious processions, which were revitalized during the pontificate of Sixtus V, also became frequent. The most spectacular seem to have been the ones held during Easter celebrations as well as those held in honor of the saints of the Society. Finally, it was probably also Cardeira who was behind the development of the mission theatre. Drawing on practices typical in the Iberian Peninsula and in Portuguese India, compositions, dialogues, eglogas, comedies, máscaras, jeroglíficos, triunfos, tragedies and tragicomedies began to be performed in 143 Mendes, Expeditio Aethiopicae, in raso VIII, liv. II, Chapter IV.

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Ethiopia.144 The children and youth educated at the residences served as the actors and plays were typically performed at the residences and at the court. The most elaborate focused on biblical and classical themes and the missionaries were generally their authors, selecting motifs and scenes that in the Ethiopian context had allegoric and metaphoric meanings. As the scholar Castro Soares emphasized, ‘the representation on stage of figures of the Old Testament […] offered to the poet the possibility to draw parallelisms between the biblical past and the present and to open a debate about the most pressing problems of contemporary society’.145 The first evidence of the performance of a drama dates to November 1627, with an allegory of king David and the Virgin. The piece, performed at Gorgora beside the church of Gorgora Iyäsus, cleverly blended a moralizing discourse with entertaining goals. It thus addressed Ethiopia’s alleged Solomonic descent and celebrated the achievements accomplished in Ethiopia since the arrival of the missionaries; the Jesuits explicitly wanted the show to be ‘short and variegated’ and made use of sophisticated scenic effects, which included elaborate costumes and masks and a scenery that visualized an image of the Virgin rising above the clouds.146 Towards the next year is recorded the celebration of a drama on the sacrifice of Abraham.147 The emergence of a Catholic imagination was further buttressed with the introduction of the cult dedicated to the Jesuit founding fathers. Their arrival to Ethiopia occurred after they had been canonized (March 12, 1622) and following important celebrations in Portuguese India. The two Jesuit saints were 144 On the importance and educative value of Jesuit theatre in Portugal since the midsixteenth century, see António Maria Martins Melo, Teatro jesuítico em Portugal no século XVI. A tragicomédia Iosephus do P. Luís da Cruz, S. J. (Braga: Fund. Calouste GulbenkianFund. para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, n.d.), 11–12. 145 Nair de Nazaré Castro Soares, quoted in Melo, Teatro jesuítico em Portugal no século XVI, 14. On the same issue, see also The Jesuit Ratio Studiorum, 121 note 28. 146 Almeida, 1628, in raso XII, doc. 76, 247–289. Also in Mendes, Expeditio Aethiopicae, in raso VIII, liv. II, Chapter V. On the mission theatre in Ethiopia the only study remains Anton Huonder, Zur Geschichte des Missionstheathers (Aachen: Xaverius-Verlag, 1918), § ‘Das Missionstheathers in Äthiopien (Abessinien)’, 76–80. For Jesuit ‘orientalistic’ theatre in Germany, see Adrian Hsia and Michael Kober, eds., Mission und Theater: Japan und China auf den Bühnen der Gesellschaft Jesu (Regensburg: Schnell Steiner, 2005). 147 The performance owed the Patriarch a reprimand from the cardinals of Propaganda Fide, who considered it ‘an insult to the ecclesiastical rite’ that the representation of Abraham’s sacrifice finished with a dance of shepherds; ‘Accusationes contra Patriarcham Mendes’, October 2, 1629, in raso XII, doc. 101, 408; also Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter XXIV. On Old Testamental motives in Jesuit German theatre, see Ruprecht Wimmer, ‘Japan und China auf den Jesuitenbühnen des deutschen Sprachgebietes’, in Hsia and Kober, Mission und Theater, 32–34.

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first shown to Ethiopian society by way of solemn festivities dedicated to their canonization. In addition to the splendiferous celebrations at Gännätä Iyäsus described above, two minor feasts were held at Dänqäz and Fǝremona.148 With these celebrations came ‘relics’ and images of the two saints. The first attestation of images of Ignatius in Ethiopia dates to 1619 but it is his companion who had a more prominent role.149 It is well known that the incorrupt body of Francis Xavier remained in India and only the right arm and some other parts were sent to Europe. Therefore, only minor objects associated with the Saint arrived in Ethiopia. The most frequently mentioned relic is water that had been in contact with a cross made from the coffin of the Saint.150 Another relic was a cruz de São Francisco, which could have been a copy of the famous cross from Cape Comorim or perhaps one of the several crosses made from wood from the Saint’s coffin.151 In turn, the images of Francis Xavier brought to Ethiopia might have been of the same type as those of Ignatius of Loyola and other church fathers. The mission thus probably relied on engravings from the famed Antwerp workshops such as the Wierix brothers and others made in Goa.152 Additionally, icons produced in India could also have been introduced. Icons might have been placed at Hadaša and Qwälläla, the two Goǧǧam churches that ras Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos proposed to dedicate to the founding fathers.153 As with the icon of Sta. Maria Maggiore, local production of these images 148 Described in Roiz, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 229r, 250v, 251r. See also Andreu Martínez d’Alòs-Moner, ‘Etiópia Xaveriana: O Santo como legado, taumaturgo e protetor’, Brotéria 163, 5–6 (2006). 149 Azevedo, 1619, in raso XI, doc. 54, 414. 150 Almeida, 1628, in raso XII, doc. 76, 279; Paes, 1625, 253r; and Annual letter, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 II, 284r. 151 Barradas, 1631, in raso XII, doc. 113, 458. On this object, see Georg Schurhammer, ‘Die Xaveriusreliquien und ihre Geschichte’, in Id., Gesammelte Studien, doc. 130, 363–364. 152 The first image of Francis Xavier produced in Goa dates to the 1560s; Maria Cristina Osswald, ‘Culto e iconografías jesuíticas en Goa durante los siglos XVI y XVII: El culto e iconografía de San Francisco Javier’, in San Francisco Javier en las artes. El poder de la imagen (Pamplona: Fundación Caja de Navarra, 2006), 253. The iconography of St. Ignatius has been the focus of a detailed study in König-Nordhoff, Ignatius von Loyola; see § C: ‘Die Bilder im Zusammenhang mit den bemühungen um die Kanonisation’, 55 and passim. König-Nordhhoff’s work includes a huge collection of paintings and engravings produced at the time of the canonization of Ignatius, a number of which might have also been sent to the missions; e.g. picture 107 and passim. Unfortunately, this impressive study does not provide any detail on the transmission of images of the early Jesuit saints to the missions and the overseas colonies. The export of Jesuit iconography to the missions and the overseas colonies still deserves a careful study. 153 Paes, 1626, in arsi, Goa 39 II, 303r.

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should not be ruled out. Hence, on the occasion of the celebrations held in Ethiopia in 1627 for the beatification of St. Francis de Borja (November 23, 1624), Gaspar Paes made an image of ‘papier mâché’ (de pasta) of the third superior general of the Society.154 Reportedly, the importation of objects helped to spread the cults of the two saints among the Catholic community. Accordingly, the annual letters from 1624 onwards mention a profusion of miracles and benefits granted by calling on the powers of St. Ignatius and St. Francis Xavier. In keeping with the strong influence of the colony, the two saints reproduced in the mission the roles they had already played in Portuguese India.155 Hence, Francis Xavier had pre-eminently thaumaturgic and conversion powers. Images of the saint, water associated with his coffin and other unspecified ‘relics’ (probably simple printed images) were used to help the infirm to heal and pregnant women to give birth.156 In turn, the ‘twin’ Saint, Ignatius of Loyola, in a manner more in keeping with his past as a soldier, seems to have embodied a more ‘combative’ status, as he was particularly active in exorcisms and warfare.157 Printed stamps associated with these practices were profusely used in the mission and distributed as presents and protective amulets.158 Caution, however, must be exercised when reading the enthusiastic reports written by the Jesuits on successes achieved by their two saints. The maturation of an Ethiopian Catholic society, sharing beliefs and practices with the missionaries and being receptive to their imaginary, was accomplished by 1625, and probably eased the path of the cults to the Jesuit saints in the country. However, their arrival was not spontaneous for in Ethiopia, unlike in Portuguese India, these devotions were clearly exogenous to local Christianity and did occur in an abrupt way: hence, prior to 1624–1625 there is no evidence of the two saints exercising their powers, while in Goa the cult to Francis Xavier had

154 Almeida, 1627, in arsi, Goa 39 II, 422r. 155 The Indian cult to Francis Xavier is studied in Osswald, ‘Culto e iconografías jesuíticas en Goa’, 246–247; see also Schurhammer, ‘Die Xaveriusreliquien’, 364. 156 Ibid.; Barradas, 1631, in raso XII, doc. 113, 456–458, 463, 484; Paes, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 243v; Mendes, 1629, in raso XII, doc. 97, 398. For Xavier’s participation in conversions, see Barradas, 1631, in raso XII, doc. 113, 457; Paes, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 248v; Annual letter, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 II, 284r. 157 On the association of Ignatius with exorcisms, see Levy, Propaganda and the Jesuit Baroque, 147 and fig. 42. 158 See Paes, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 236r, 239v. The ‘opposition’ between the two saints was, however, not complete, since on one occasion St. Ignatius was also said to heal the sick and help women give birth; see Ibid. 253r–v.

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began much earlier.159 The missionaries in Ethiopia waited until times were ripe, with political power on their side and the Catholic community mature enough, to carry this out. Details in the annual letters indeed reveal that the mission relied on a strong pedagogy of sainthood. Emulating modern forms of commercial propaganda, the missionaries used a number of methods to spread the cults they deemed appropriate. They taught locals which saints to venerate and how to do it properly. For all that, I believe that this episode reflects again the strong influence of Portuguese India in shaping mission culture in Ethiopia. It also represents the last chapter, even the most ambitious, in transforming Ethiopian society. The Jesuit saints were two important assets in the mission’s agenda: they served to ‘protect’ and to ‘help’ in expanding the Catholic community and also had to rival with, if not suppress altogether, the cults to the local Christian pantheon, with which the missionaries never seem to have compromised.

Spaces of Faith, Spaces of Power

Unlike in other missions in the East, where the practice of accommodation extended to missionary architecture, the Jesuits in Ethiopia viewed local church architecture unfavorably.160 Indeed, the round-shaped dark and rather humble betä krǝstiyan of the Amhara-speaking areas, typically built of wood and čǝqa, a mixture of mud, dung and straw, contrasted with the new type of temple the Catholic Church was promoting worldwide.161 The Post-Tridentine 159 See Osswald, ‘Culto e iconografías jesuíticas en Goa’, 248. 160 In Japan the emphasis was on an ‘ephemeral architecture’; there Catholic temples used local materials and vernacular building techniques; see Rie Arimura, ‘Iglesias kirishitan: El arte de lo efímero en las misiones católicas en Japón (1549–1639)’, (PhD diss., Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2010), 111 and passim; Id., ‘The Catholic Architecture of Early Modern Japan: Between Adaptation and Christian Identity’, Japan Review 26 (2014). 161 On Ethiopian religious architecture, see Marilyn E. Heldman, ‘Church Buildings’, in eae vol. 1. On Catholic ‘tridentine’ church architecture, the normative source is Carlo Borromeo’s Instructionum fabricae et supellectilis ecclesiasticae (Mediolani: Apud Pacificum Pontium, 1577); see also E. Cecilia Voelker, ‘Borromeo’s Influence on Sacred Art and Architecture’, in San Carlo Borromeo. Catholic Reform and Ecclesiastical Politics in the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century, ed. John M. Headley and John B. Tomaro (Washnigton d.c.: Folger Books, 1988), 173; Trattati d’arte del Cinquecento. Fra Manierismo e Controriforma, ed. Paola Barocchi (Bari: Gius. Laterza & Figli, 1962), vol. 3, 1–113. See also Matthew E. Gallegos, ‘Charles Borromeo and Catholic Tradition Regarding the Design of Catholic Churches’, Sacred Architecture [on-line journal] 9 (2004).

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church model found its prototypes in the churches built by the Society of Jesus, chief among them being Espiritu Santo in Évora (Manuel Pires, 1566–1574), Il Gesù in Rome (Vignola, 1568–1575/84) and S. Antão in Lisbon (Silvestre Jorge, José Valeriani and Filippo Terzi, ca. 1592).162 According to the art historian George Kubler, Jesuit church design emphasized ‘spaces of a homogeneous and functional character, with simple naves and contrasted sanctuaries clearly visible from all parts of the church’.163 Thus the inappropriateness of local Ethiopian architecture soon became obvious to the missionaries. As early as 1607, Father Azevedo reported on the modest and gloomy houses and churches at Fǝremona and Gorgora, further adding that ‘much could be done if here we were able to display the beauty of the divine cult as it is performed in our lands’.164 The introduction of Jesuit architectural forms, however, became possible only following the crisis of 1617, which allowed a more public stance to be taken by the Catholics. Characteristically, once this crisis was over one of the first steps undertaken by the Jesuits and their main patron, ras Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos, was to plan the construction of a church at Gorgora Velha ‘in our way’. Its magnificence, it was believed, should help in fostering conversions.165 The building was designed by Pedro Páez, who towards 1614 had already successfully erected a small tower-like structure at the kätäma of Susǝnyos in Kund Amba, Gorgora.166 The church, which contained also a tower and an outer sacristy, was begun on December 27, 1618. It was eventually completed within two years and it was consecrated on January 16, 1621. Although small, it was described by its builder as a remarkable construction: the façade comprised an arched gate with two columns and seven large windows; on the frieze there was a ‘Jesus’, doubtlessly the anagram of the order ihs, as well as 162 The bibliography on Jesuit architecture is vast. See Wolfgang Walter Scheibel, ‘Ordenskollegien der Gesellschaft Jesu unter Kurfürst Maximilian I. von Bayern (1598 bis 1651) – Untersuchungen zur Kollegarchitektur im 17. Jahrhundert’ (PhD diss., PhilippsUniversität Marburg, 1999), chapter ‘Jesuiten und Bauvorschriften’; Deborah Howard and Valerie Fraser, ‘Jesuit Order’, in Jane Turner, The Dictionary of Art (Willard, Ohio: Grove, 1996); and George Kubler, Portuguese Plain Architecture: Between Spices and Diamonds, 1521–1706 (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan Univ. Press, 1972), Chapter 4. 163 Kubler, Portuguese Plain Architecture, 57 and passim. 164 Azevedo, 1607, in raso XI, doc. 20, 115, 123; Id., 1619, in raso XI, doc. 54, 413; Guerreiro, Relaçam annal, 39v. 165 Azevedo, 1619, in raso XI, doc. 54, 412; and Páez, 1618, in raso XI, doc. 53, 403; Pedro Páez to Vitelleschi, June 16, 1619, in arsi, Goa 11–II, 452v. 166 The building was situated on the emplacement later occupied by Gorgora Nova. One of its rooms measured ca. 15 m x 4.4 m (de cumprimento de 60 ou 70 palmos e largura de 20); Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VII, Chapter XXIII.

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roses and jars, elements that were probably borrowed from Indian architecture and that were reproduced later in the Catholic temples erected in the 1620s. The facade also included eight ionic columns, a feature that Páez had probably borrowed from the Bom Jesus in Goa, and the ceiling was flat and covered by cedar wood poles.167 The building was, to all instents and purposes, small and relatively modest. Its reported size was 6.16 m wide, 15.84 m long and about 3 m high, and in all probability there were many problems with its structure, for around 1626 it was already collapsing.168 Be it as it may, carrying on this ‘success’, in November 1621, Páez was asked to erect another church at Gännätä Iyäsus, which was intended as a private chapel for the nǝguś. The church was of a similar size (6.16  m x 18.48  m; 28 x 84 palmos) and was probably of an experimental character, too. Yet, it included ornamentation carved on stone by local masons with such motifs as ‘big roses, fleurs-de-lis, carved jars with flowers and roses’, which were to be employed later on in more grand constructions.169 Beyond their qualities and deficiencies, these two architectonic experiments had an impact on the mission’s local patrons and the Catholic community at large. They gave local patrons an idea of what the Society of Jesus was capable of and decisively helped to direct their resources into the missionary enterprise. By the time of Mendes’s election, it may be assumed that the Jesuits had already conceived the beginning of the patriarchate as a global transformation of Ethiopian society, including its architecture and landscape. The 167 Mattos, 1621, in raso XI, doc. 61, 485; and Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VII, Chapter XXX. 168 Ancho 28 palmos de marca y 72 de cumprido […] 14 palmos de alto; Páez, 1618, in raso XI, doc. 53, 406; Manoel de Almeida to Muzio Vitelleschi, April 17, 1627, in arsi, Goa 39 II, 423rv. 169 Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso III, liv. IV, Chapter XXII; Tomás de Barros, June 1622 (published, Madrid: Luís Sánchez, 1624), in ahpc, E–2: 105, 4 (887), 9r, 10v. The measures shall refer to the inner part. In the royal chronicle, wherein Páez is identified as ‘Ṗadri Ṗay’, the following measures of the temple are provided: church fundaments = 1 m (2 cubits [ǝmät]); outer width = 8 m (16 cubits); outer length = 28 m (56 cubits); length of the inner nave from the sanctuary  =  17.5  m (35 cubits); inner height at the sanctuary  =  5  m (10 cubits); inner width of the sanctuary = 5 m (10 cubits); outer height = 7.5 m (15 cubits); sacristy = 4.5 m x 3.5 m (9 cubits x 7 cubits); Mǝhǝrka Dǝngǝl et al., Chronica de Susenyos, Chapter LXV (bis). The central role of Páez in adapting Jesuit-Indian architecture to the needs of the Ethiopian mission is also supported in Rafael Moreira, ‘Arquitectura religiosa jesuita en Etiopía, Asia y Brasil: una mirada comparativa’, in Conmemoración del IV Centenario, 132. Pennec sustains, on the contrary and with the help of little evidence, that Páez’s architectural work was an invention of Manoel de Almeida; Hervé Pennec, ‘Pedro Páez: ¿Arquitecto, albañil, carpintero?’, in Conmemoración del IV Centenario.

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mission needed new, better and nobler structures. This pushed the missionaries to a complete architectural and technical upgrading of the residences: nobler building materials should be substitutes for clay and straw and late European and Indian designs should replace the ‘unrefined’ local construction forms. To make this project work no resources and energies were spared. Thus, in 1625, as part of the entourage of Patriarch Afonso Mendes, the necessary architects and masons came. They included the temporal coadjutor Brother João Martins, Father Bruno Bruni and a number of unnamed masons (pedreiros) from India, including at least one from Diu who was reported to have previously worked at the church of São Paulo Novo in Goa (the Bom Jesus, 1610– 1620).170 In 1628 another companion with architectural skills, Brother Francisco Rodríguez, joined the mission. Additionally, other missionaries, such as Diogo de Mattos, Tomé Barneto and Antonio Bruno, helped or supervised in some architectural works. The experience of Páez indeed proved that Jesuit missionaries had enough basic knowledge of architecture to permit them, with the help of skilled masons, to be in charge of the fabrica (i.e. building works) of a church. Moreover, the lack of construction materials was largely solved in 1624 when Manuel Magro, an associate of the Jesuits in Diu who travelled back and forth between Diu and Massawa and was in charge of taking the royal esmola from India to the mission, found a method to produce lime and lime mortar (chunambo ou cal) locally.171 About September 1624 the recently discovered method to produce chunambo was first utilized in the complex of Gännätä Iyäsus, although the Jesuits in Qwälläla also claimed this as their primacy.172 Under the guidance of the 170 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter IV; Mendes, 1625, in raso XII, doc. 47, 144. 171 On Manuel Magro, see Azevedo, 1608, in raso XI, doc. 24, 157; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter II. On how he developed the method to produce mortar see Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter VI. Chunambo (from Dravidian and Hind languages, chunám, chunnampu) was the lime mortar traditionally used in India for construction and also profusely used by the Portuguese. See also Gonçalves, História do Malavar, 24 note 6; Dalgado, Glossário Luso-Asiático, vol. 1, 282; and Yule and Burnell, Hobson-Jobson, 218–219. The art historian Helder Carita, who studied its use in Portuguese India added: ‘used in India only in classical showpiece architectural works, the chalk-like chunambo was mixed from various vegetal ingredients and though extremely difficult to produce was an extremely strong binding agent’; Helder Carita, ‘Creating Norms for Indo-Portuguese Architecture. The Livro de Acordãos e Assentos da Câmara de Goa, 1592–1597’, Itinerario 31, 2 (2007): 76. 172 Paes, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 255r.

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Fǝremona, fundaments of the Jesuit church (covered since 2006). ca. 1626–1632 Credit: Photo 2006, Andreu Martínez

stonemason who came from Diu, the works were large-scale; they took some four years to be completed, reportedly owing to the lack of masons (officiaes). The complex included a large two-storey building to serve as the royal palace (paço), some houses for the missionaries, a ring of walls with bastions and a water tank. By mid or late-1625 the complex could host the feasts for the canonization of the two Jesuit founders. The site became the focus of local attention and in its imitation members of the nobility such as Mälkǝʾa Krǝstos, a former blattengeta and cousin of Susǝnyos, had their own dwellings built there.173 In early 1625 works on a new church at Qwälläla started. The structure, which was almost completed in 1628, comprised a church built of lime and stone with two towers opposite the facade and a house for the missionaries. The whole complex served also as a fortress providing shelter against periodic attacks. There is no mention of who the master mason was, although it could 173 Almeida, 1627, in arsi, Goa 39 II, 421v; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter VI.

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have been the Italian António Bruno, who, from 1623, was living there.174 Shortly after the true artists’ of the architectural renewal arrived, including João Martins, Bruno Bruni and Indian master masons. As is typical of the status of temporal coadjutors, information on Martins (also Martínez) is scant. The missionary record notes that he was a Spaniard who, during the previous decade, had worked in the professed houses of São Paulo in Diu and Bom Jesus in Goa.175 Defined by Mendes as ‘exceptionally expert in the art of building’, Martins was indeed one of the best architects the Ethiopian mission could have selected from India.176 With him the modo Goano or Indiano became the main architectural referent of the mission.177 Shortly after his arrival, around the beginning of 1626, Martins began to work on the church of Iyäsus at Gorgora. The site chosen was at Kund Amba, in a place where Susǝnyos had previously established his kätäma. Renamed Gorgora Nova, the emplacement benefited from a better defensive position 174 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter XIII; Almeida, 1628, in raso XII, doc. 76, 278. 175 The figure of Martins has been the source of confusion because a namesake was also a Jesuit coadjutor involved in building tasks in India. The two were often distinguished in Jesuit catalogues as João Martins ‘junior’ or ‘o mais moço’ and João Martins ‘senior’ or ‘o mais velho’; see, e.g., arsi, Goa 24 II, 143, 275. A biographical note on the two Jesuit masons is thus in order. João Martins (‘junior’) was born in 1575 in Cerpa (today Madrid, Spain). In 1587 he lived in the residence in Thana, India. In 1594 he was at the professed house in Goa and then in Margán and Baçaim. From about 1608, as coadjutor, he was in charge of construction works in Diu, until at least 1624 when works were completed and he will be assigned to the Ethiopian mission; arsi, Goa 24 II, 377r, 410r, 454v, 562r; arsi, Goa 27, 1–169, Ctlg. Breves Prov. Goanae, 1609–1752, ‘Ctlg. Padres e irmaos da Prov. de Goa feito em Dez. de 1609’, fol. 8r, 9r, 10v, 12r, 15r, 18r, 23v, 45r, 49r; arsi, Goa 33 II, 724v; DI, vol. XIV, doc. 117; DI, vol. XVI, doc. 153; Pennec, Des jésuites au royaume du Prêtre Jean, 178 and 317; Mendes, Expeditio Aethiopicae, in raso VIII, liv. II, Chapter V; Josef Wicki, ‘Liste der Jesuiten-Indienfahrer 1541–1758’, in Aufsätze zur portugiesischen Kulturgeschichte, ed. Hans Flasche (Münster Westfalen: Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1967), 274. João Martins (‘senior’) was born in Tiedra (Castilla León, Spain) and joined the Jesuit order in 1569. In 1574 he went to India and was engaged in building works in Cochin and São Paulo Novo, Goa. He died in Goa on January 21, 1617; arsi, Goa 24 II, 224v, 421v, 455v; arsi, Goa 25, 4r; arsi, Goa 27, ‘Ctlg. da Prov. de Goa, Dez. 1618’, 40r; DI, vol. IX, 26*, 477; DI, vol. X, doc. 3; DI, vol. XIII, doc. 13; DI, vol. XIV, doc. 117; DI, vol. XV, doc. 30; DI, vol. XVI, doc. 151. 176 Mendes, Expeditio Aethiopicae, in raso VIII, liv. II, Chapter V. 177 I borrow the term from Osswald, who has studied the development of a distinct Indian Jesuit style, a variant of the general Jesuit modo nostro; Osswald, Written in Stone, ix and passim, 1. A critical discussion of the theory of the modo nostro is provided in Gauvin Alexander Bailey, ‘“Le style jésuite n’existe pas”: Jesuit Corporate Culture and the Visual Arts’, in The Jesuits. Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts.

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and enjoyed beautiful views over Lake Ṭana. The church was consecrated on November 25, 1627, although works at the residence continued up to 1631, then under the watch of the priest Gaspar Paes.178 Within the same period and also under the guidance of Martins, a college adjacent to the church of Gorgora Iyäsus was erected. The layout followed a plan typical of Jesuit colleges and houses in India.179 The ruins standing of these buildings today still allow the visitor to form an idea of the magnificence of the whole complex (Plate 9). The design of the church of Iyäsus was explicitly inspired by São Paulo in Diu and, most probably, Martins used in Ethiopia the very same plans he had used in India.180 It shared a similar size (Gorgora was 26.40 m long and 9.24 m wide) and proportions to the Indian prototype (compare Plate 7 and Plate 8).181 It comprised a single nave with a ‘telescopic’ layout in the main chapel (capela mor), a coffered barrel vault, small lateral chapels topped by a shell and false round windows (oculos, i.e. ojos de buey) on the second level – a feature also applied to the Bom Jesus in Goa.182 For the transportation of the stones from the quarry site, situated a few kilometers to the north in Wǝša Śǝllase (Debeza, Plate 10), Martins constructed a wooden vessel.183 178 Barradas, 1631, in raso XII, doc. 113, 439. 179 A few plans of Jesuit buildings in India have been compiled in Osswald, Written in Stone, 27, 52, 65. The plan of the college of Gorgora Nova was drawn by Sandro Angelini, Ethiopia, the Historic Route: A Work Plan for the Development of Sites and Monuments (Paris: Unesco, 1971), Annex 7, fig. 48 and was reproduced in Pennec, Des jésuites au royaume du Prêtre Jean, 210, fig. 17. Both plans, however, do not seem to be accurate. 180 Almeida notes that ‘the church follows the plan of the college of Diu’; Almeida, 1627, in arsi, Goa 39 II, 423rv. 181 120 x 42 palmos; ibid. Measurements provided in sources are of the exterior of the building. On São Paulo in Diu see David M. Kowal, ‘Innovation and Assimilation: The Jesuit Contribution to Architectural Development in Portuguese India’, in The Jesuits. Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts, 493–494. 182 The church ‘telescopic’ layout, pervasive in most Jesuit temples worldwide, has been studied by the architectural historian Fernando Chueca, who identified its origins in the churches of Languedoc and Catalonia and later Il Gesù in Rome. In Portugal the ‘telescopic’ church plan was successfully employed in the Espiritu Santo in Évora and São Roque in Lisboa and soon expanded to its colonies in Brazil and Asia; Fernando Chueca Goitia, ‘El estilo Herreriano y la arquitectura portuguesa’, in El Escorial, 1563–1963, VV.AA. (Madrid: Ediciones Patrimonio Nacional, 1963), 240–242. 183 On the construction of the vessel, see Almeida, 1628, in raso XII, doc. 76, 269–270, 280. The transportation of the stones would have been unthinkable with the fragile local boats – tanqwa – made of papyrus. The exact position of the quarry was identified by Major Cheesman as being on the northern tip of the Debeza bay a few kilometers towards the north-western coast of the peninsula of Gorgora and it was visited by the author in

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‘The Phoenix of Ethiopia’: the church of Gorgora Iyäsus, interior view of the nave towards the main altar. Architect: João Martins, ca. 1626–1632 Credit: Photo ca. 1990, Duncan Willetts, Camerapix

Plate 8 

The ‘phoenix’s’ Indian model: the church of São Paulo, Diu. Architect: João Martins, ca. 1606–1624 Credit: Photo 2013, Viraat Kothare and Wikimedia Commons

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The headquarters of the mission: residence of Gorgora Nova, view of the southern façade. ca. 1626–1632 Credit: Photo 2012, Andreu Martínez

Plate 10  Ashlars for the ‘phoenix’: the quarry of Wǝša Śǝllase, interior of one of the galleries to the south, Debeza Credit: Photo 2012, Andreu Martínez

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The similarities with the Jesuit Indian churches are, however, only one aspect of this exceptional structure. The church also incorporated elements from wider Jesuit architecture and from Indian traditions. Indeed, it can be speculated that the Indian masons taken to Ethiopia and João Martins himself were familiar with the important sacred and profane architecture of northern India, which can be observed in the present-day states of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, not least the outstanding Mughal constructions that had been sponsored by Akbar and Jahangir in today’s northern India and Pakistan. The Indian influences are most apparent in the use of noble materials and elaborate ornamentation. The lavish decoration of Gorgora included several carpets and materials imported from the subcontinent. A missionary source notes that these included such elements as godomexims de papel lavrados muito bem de vermelho e verde e salpicados de binga. The first element most probably indicates godorim, godrim (Indian gudri), a rich linen from Gujarat, which in that case had an embroidery of binga, a variety of the famous blue spinel gemstone from Sri Lanka.184 Most importantly, the Catholic temple, like in Indian religious architecture, was conceived of as a ‘display’ of symbols: walls and doorways, vaults and columns should convey a message. Among the symbols used, there was probably the Jesuit symbol ihs, which Páez had reportedly placed on the facades of his churches at Gännätä Iyäsus and Gorgora Velha and which was also carved at Märṭulä Maryam (owing to destruction, only the frame is to be seen today; see Plate 13). Another important element shared with São Paulo in Diu and with sacred Indian architecture at large is the  fine floral and geometric ornamentation, which can still be appreciated today (Plate 7). The vegetal and floral motives used in Gorgora Iyäsus and in other Catholic churches (Plate  13) strongly recall the characteristic sense of ­horror vacui of Indian temple architecture, where floral and plant ornaments should  fill every transitory space between the columns and storeys. These ornamentations were doubtless the work of the Indian masons (compare with Plate 11 and Plate 12) and embodied a hybrid symbolism, mixing Catholic with 2012; Robert Ernest Cheesman, Lake Tana and the Blue Nile. An Abyssinian Quest (London: Cass, 1968; London: Macmillan and co, 1936), 210–211. Páez’s church in Gorgora Velha exploited a quarry said to be hum tiro de falcão (an imprecise measure of length, but that we can estimate as between 100 m and 1 kilometer); Luís de Azevedo to provincial in Goa, July 3, 1619, in raso XI, doc. 54, 414. The nearest ‘quarry’ to Kendo Nora as identified by local informants was on a cliff overlooking the lake to the west, on the site of ‘Mugäča Baḥǝr;’ see Fernández, Archaeology and Architecture, map. 184 Almeida, 1628, in raso XII, doc. 76, 270. On the godomexim: godorim, godrim, i.e. Colcha estofada da India. Do hindus. gudri; Dalgado, Glossário Luso-Asiático, vol. 1, 435. On the binga: Binga (sing. bhinga). E o mesmo que ceilanite ou variedade azul de espinela que se encontra em Ceilão; Ibid. 128.

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Plate 11  Gujarat craftsmanship: stepwell, Adalaj, Gujarat, India. 1499

Credit: Photo 2009, Raveesh Vyas and Wikimedia Commons

Plate 12  Mughal craftsmanship: Sultana’s House, Fatehpur Sikri, Uttar Pradesh, India. ca. 1569 Credit: Photo 2008, Hans A. Rosbach and Wikimedia Commons

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Indian traditions. In addition, the fleur-de-lis, which had also been placed ­previously at Gännätä Iyäsus is lavishly applied to the inner walls of the temple and was probably meant as a reference to the emblem of the Farnese family, who counted among the strongest supporters of the first Jesuits: Pope Paul III Farnese had approved the Institute of the Society in 1539 and his nephew Alessandro later provided funds for the construction of Il Gesù. Its placement as a central theme in the ‘Iyäsus’ churches at Gännätä Iyäsus and Gorgora was a reminder of this illustrious family, and perhaps was meant to draw a parallel between the foundation characteristics of the Farnese and the Ethiopian ruling family. The missionaries’ explicit emphasis upon this association seems to be further indicated by their reference to Gorgora Nova as an ‘Ethiopian Rome’ (Roma na Ethiopia).185 Additionally, there could be another, stronger, lesson to be learnt from comparing the decorative patterns in the missionary architecture in Ethiopia with those employed for centuries in Indian temples and palaces. In India, flowers were more than just simple elements of decoration – they possessed, and still possess, a profound spiritual significance. They enjoyed a prominent presence in the Hindu cults, where offerings to the gods are always accompanied by gifts of flowers. As far as architecture is concerned, floral motives framed the whole sacred space in the Indian temples, defining it as a ‘garden’, a perfumed – incense was conspicuously used in religious rituals – and paradisiac place. In addition, in Indian royal paintings flowers were an emblem of the cultured ruler and the Mughal emperors contemporary with the Jesuits played conspicuously with this association.186 As in India, the designs at Gorgora and in the other residences was intended to enhance the sacred quality of the Catholic temples and stress the virtues of the Ethiopian figures who sponsored the works. The Jesuits counted the architectural masterpiece of Gorgora Iyäsus as a major propaganda tool. Once defined by Manoel de Almeida as the ‘phoenix of Ethiopia’, the church was explicitly meant to recall the major Jesuit prototypes (the Bom Jesus in Goa, the church of São Paulo in Diu, Il Gesù in Rome).187 185 See, for instance, Manoel de Almeida to Muzio Vitelleschi, April 17, 1627, in arsi, Goa 39 II, 423r. It is interesting to notice that the same molding that incorporates the fleur-de-lis in Gorgora also appears in the inner wall of the qǝne maḫlet of Narga Śǝllase, a monastery founded in 1737–1738 by the ‘Portuguese’ queen Mǝntǝwwab; see Mario di Salvo et al., Churches of Ethiopia. The Monastery of Narga Sellasé (Milano: Skira, 1999, 2nd ed. 2000), 113, 118–119. 186 On that particular theme see the observations concerning Mughal art in Toby Falk and Mildred Archer, India Miniatures in the India Office Library (London et al.: Sotheby Parke Bernet and Oxford University Press, 1981), 58. 187 Almeida, 1627, in arsi, Goa 39 II, 423r.

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Almeida proudly reported that ‘the fathers who had seen church works in Europe and India emphasized that this one in Ethiopia matched the best architecture we are building in the metropolis’.188 Gorgora Iyäsus became an exceptional monument symbolizing the mission’s triumph at a moment when the coming of the Jesuit patriarch was to inaugurate a new era for the Ethiopian church.189 It was also a major attraction for the local inhabitants and probably a factor in conversions as well. Plenty of people visited the site during construction works and were reportedly stunned at seeing a ‘house with a roof made of stone’. Susǝnyos, in his turn, was said to be full of joy with the work and took pleasure in observing its architectonic features. As the historian Evonne Levy remarked, commenting on Jesuit architecture at large, in Ethiopia ‘the architectural ‘event’ drew people into the church’.190 Before going back to India in 1629, João Martins prepared the preliminary designs and supervised the first works at the second magnum opus of the mission in Märṭulä Maryam/Ǝnnäbǝse. It seems that works there were of a different nature than at Gorgora Iyäsus. The monastery had been originally built by ǝtege Ǝleni and had been destroyed during Aḥmad Grañ’s invasion; Jesuit intervention thus took the form of a restoration. When Martins left the mission in 1629, Bruno Bruni overtook the role of master mason at Märṭulä Maryam.191 The plan of the church, with its three naves, differed from the Jesuit type, a fact that might have been determined by the previously built structure. Decoration, however, was rich, recalling the style of São Paulo in Diu and, as in Gorgora, indicated Indian craftsmanship. The building, although unfinished, was an imposing structure about 9 m high and the whole compound included, like most of the Jesuit residences, a fortified structure with bastions and a water cistern.192 188 Almeida, 1628, in raso XII, doc. 76, 268. 189 An ‘emic’ local perception of the new building as marking the beginning of a new era might be found in the following confession that Susǝnyos allegedly made to the Jesuits priests in the chapel after having contemplated the barren vault and the rest of the building: ‘How many years ago (he said) was it when the holy faith was in such a bad state and how few were those following it and how numerous those persecuting it? […] An infinite gratitude I owe to the infinite goodness of our God, who let us reach this present state’; in Ibid. 273. 190 Levy, Propaganda and the Jesuit Baroque, 186. 191 Bruni proudly informed his superior that he was ‘its architect, craftsman and mason’ (Ego hic architector, ego fabrefactor, ego caementarius); Bruno Bruni to superior general, June 30, 1629, in raso XII, doc. 95, 355. 192 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter XXIII; Barradas, 1631, in raso XII, doc. 113, 460. For preliminary studies of this site, see S. Bell, ‘The Ruins of Mertula Maryam’, in Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference of Ethiopian Studies.

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Plate 13  The architectural upgrade reaches Goǧǧam: the church of Märṭulä Maryam, decorated arch and pilars. Architects: João Martins and Bruno Bruni, ca. 1626–1632 Credit: Photo 2011, Andreu Martínez

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In the meantime, the architectural upgrading reached the more peripheral residences. In 1625 Antonio Bruno started works on a ‘fine stone church’ at Tanḵa, in Agäw land, and another imposing stone building was erected at Lǝǧǧä Nǝguś, in Damot.193 Construction of a See Patriarcal began around 1628 at Dänqäz under the supervision of Francisco Rodríguez and Bruno Bruni. The building was designed with three naves and described as ‘spacious and graceful’ (Plate 14).194 Elements still standing from its vault show the imitation of some decorative patterns already present at Gorgora Iyäsus. On the same site, a few hundred meters to the north, a royal palace was erected. Works there were reportedly directed by a local architect named Gäbrä Krǝstos, who was helped by two foreign masons: an ‘expert stonecutter’, the banyan ʿAbd al Kerim, and a ‘master carpenter’, the Egyptian Sadaqa Nesrani (Plate 15).195 At Fǝremona, which had seen some improvements already around 1619 when a water tank and a house of mud and stone were built, Tomé Barneto and Diogo de Mattos supervised construction works on a new church of lime and stone and on a ring of fortified walls, respectively (Plate 6). Almeida described it as ‘quite well fortified with its seven or eight bastions’ and noted that ‘in Ethiopia it was held as an exceptional and invulnerable position’.196 Architectural upgrading also included landscape gardening. Some residences saw a global rearrangement of their surrounding lands. In Ethiopia, as in other missions, the Jesuits showed an interest in botanical and agrarian tasks. Orchards and plant nurseries formed an important component of the residences from their foundation and the missionaries supervised agricultural works in the lands they kept as gwǝlt.197 In the orchards at Gorgora Velha and University of Addis Ababa [26–30 November 1984], ed. Taddese Beyene, vol. 1 (Addis Ababa and Frankfurt-am-Main, 1988–89); Paul B. Henze, ‘The Monastery of Märtula Maryam in Goǧǧam, a Major Medieval Ethiopian Architectural Monument’, Nubia et Aethiopica 4, 5 (1999). 193 Paes, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 254v. 194 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VII, liv. IX, Chapter VI; Barradas, 1631, in raso XII, doc. 113, 439, 455. 195 Mǝhǝrka Dǝngǝl et al., Chronica de Susenyos, Chapters LXXIX, LXXXVIII. 196 Azevedo, 1619, in raso XI, doc. 54, 434; Roiz, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 229r; Paes, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 251r; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapters III, XXIV; raso VII, liv. IX, Chapter X; Barradas, 1631, in raso XII, doc. 113, 482. The church, of which today only the basement is extant, was 8.80  m (40 palmos de largo) in width and the length was said to be proportioned to its width; since the standard length of Jesuit churches in Ethiopia (and India) was between 2.5 and 3 times their width, this means that the length was between 12.10 m and 14.52 m. 197 See Páez, 1617, in raso XI, doc. 48, 383.

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Plate 14  The See Patriarchal: the cathedral of Dänqäz, view of the transept. Architects: Francisco Rodríguez and Bruno Bruni, ca. 1626–1632 Credit: Photo 2011, Andreu Martínez

Plate 15  A palace for the nǝguś: the gǝmb of Dänqäz, cistern. Architects: Gäbrä Krǝstos, ʿAbd al Kerim and Sadaqa Nesrani, ca. 1626–1632 Credit: Photo 2011, Andreu Martínez

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Fǝremona several plant species were cultivated, apparently on the initiative of Páez, who reportedly used plant cuttings taken from Portugal and India.198 The botanic catalog included vineyards as well as papaya, peach, fig, and orange trees. At some point in the 1620s the missionaries began also to produce their own wine.199 Additionally, probably under the aegis of the padres some important works of infrastructure were launched by the Ethiopian state. Although they were eventually halted by the collapse of the mission in the 1630s, these works would have represented, if fully accomplished, an ambitious project of provincial unification. A manifestation of this was the so-called ‘Portuguese bridge’ over the Blue Nile at the site of Ṭis Abbay. Reportedly it had been built by a ‘pagan [Hindu?] stone mason from Diu’ and it was described as ‘the first and only stone bridge ever to be seen in Ethiopia’ (Plate 16).200

Plate 16  Connecting the provinces: the bridge of Alata, Ṭis Abbay. ca. 1626–1632 Credits: Photo 2006, Carmen Ortíz

198 Azevedo, 1619, in raso XI, doc. 54, 415; Barradas, Tractatus tres historico-geographici, in raso IV, 194–195. 199 Barradas, 1631, in raso XII, doc. 113, 450. 200 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VII, liv. X, Chapter VII.

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The most outstanding achievement in the mission’s ‘landscape architecture’ was perhaps Gännätä Iyäsus (Plate 17). The missionaries compared it to royal country residences in Portugal, emphasizing its ‘fresh and agreeable location, like that in Cintra and Almeirim’.201 Susǝnyos and Páez conceived of the site as both a palace and a garden. It was well provided with fresh water and a number of ‘exotic’ plants were grown, such as ‘peach trees, romeiras, Indian (“banyan”) and Portuguese fig trees, sugar cane’, a number of which had probably been brought to Ethiopia by the missionaries.202 With the arrival of the masons from India in 1625, the layout of the garden was further improved. A large water tank was built, which included in the middle a pavilion with a fountain (about 8 m × 8 m). The fountain had a tall jet that was fed from a complex hydraulic system including a long underground ceramic pipe and a water reservoir placed on higher ground. The structure served to host water shows which included the participation of tankwa boats.203 As Almeida emphasized, the whole complex should recall a paradise on earth (fazer paraiso) and provide the nǝguś and his court with ‘a fresh environment and a space for leisure and amusement’.204 But the mission garden of Gännätä Iyäsus brings us back again to the strong influence that Indian motifs had in the development of mission culture in Ethiopia. The complex, like the more elaborate replica that Susǝnyos’s heir, Fasilädäs, was to build in Gondär in the 1640s – the so-called ‘Bath of Fasil’ – vividly recalls the magnificent tomb and palace-gardens that were constructed in the times of the Mughal Emperors Akbar (1556–1605) and his son Jahangir (1605–1627), with whom the Jesuits were familiar.205 In 1580, responding to a call by Akbar, Jesuit missionaries from Goa reached the imposing Mughal capital of Fatehpur Sikri, where they were given space to erect a chapel and some eventually became among the emperor’s favorite courtiers. The presence of the missionaries continued with his son Jahangir and was abruptly halted 201 Mendes, 1629, in raso XII, doc. 97, 383. 202 On plant nursing at Fǝremona and Gorgora, see also Barradas, Tractatus tres historicogeographici, in raso IV, 195. 203 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter VI. 204 Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso III, liv. IV, Chapter XXII. For the use of the metaphor of the paradise, see Almeida, 1627, in arsi, Goa 39 II, 421v. 205 Two studies have hitherto associated the buildings built in Gondär after the Jesuit mission with Indian architecture; Chojnacki, ‘New Aspects of India’s Influence’, 12; and S.L Ranasinghe, ‘The Castle of Emperor Fasiladas: Missionaries, Muslims, and Architecture in Gondar, Ethiopia’ (PhD diss., Columbia University, 2001), 204 and passim. On a possible influence of Mughal Jesuit art in Ethiopia, see Claire Bosc-Tiessé, Les îles de la mémoire, 97–98 and Fabo Perczel, ‘Ethiopian Painting’.

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when the much more religiously oriented Shah Jahan acceded to power in 1627. The Jesuits managed to attain some influence in Mughal’s court life, particularly in the visual arts.206 It is also very likely that Mughal architectural developments made a strong impression upon the European priests. These experiences, in turn, probably reached the Jesuits who went to Ethiopia. Pedro

Plate 17  A paradise for the nǝguś: plan of the complex of Gännätä Iyäsus, Azäzo (excavated in 2009–2012 by Víctor Fernández Martínez and others). ca. 1621–1631 Credits: 2014, Eduardo Martín Agúndez

206 See Ebba Koch, Mughal Art and Imperial Ideology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), Chapter 1: ‘The Influence of the Jesuit Missions on Symbolic Representations of the Mughal Emperors’ and Chapter 2: ‘Jahangir and the Angels…’; and Gauvin Alexander Bailey, ‘The Truth-Showing Mirror: Jesuit Catechism and the Arts in Mughal India’, in The Jesuits. Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts. Informative is also Percy Brown, Indian Painting under the Mughals. a.d. 1550 to a.d. 1750 (New York: Hacker Art Books, 1975), 166–168.

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Páez, the designer of the first plan of the palace-garden at Gännätä Iyäsus, spent a long time with the Catalan Antonio de Montserrat, one of the first three Jesuits to travel to the Mughal court in the 1580s. Most importantly, he was also a close friend of Jerónimo Xavier (1549–1617), who worked from 1595 to 1614 at the courts of Akbar and Jahangir in Lahore and Agra.207 Finally, the priest and artist Luís Cardeira himself worked for a few years in Agra in the time of Jahangir. Indeed, the hydraulic complex from Gännätä Iyäsus, with its motif of a central island pavilion, strongly resembles the talao (Gujarati for, ‘pool, reservoir, artificial lake’), a typical motif of the Mughal palace gardens, such as can be observed in the delicate Anup talao at Fatehpur Sikri, Uttar Pradesh (built by Akbar in ca. 1575; Plate 18), the superb Hiran Minar complex in Sheikhupura (Plate 19) and Anarkil’s tomb garden in Lahore fort (both built by Jahangir in ca. 1600 and 1615, respectively).208 Another element, a cherubim carved on a

Plate 18  Mughal palace-gardens: Anup Talao, Fatehpur Sikri, Uttar Pradesh, India. ca. 1575 Credits: Photo 2008, Hans A. Rosbach and Wikimedia Commons

207 ‘Xavier, Padre Jerónimo’, in Grande Enciclopédia portuguesa e brasileira, vol. 37 (Lisboa and Rio de Janeiro: Editorial Enciclopédia, Limitada, [n.d]), 67–69. 208 See also James L. Wescoat and Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn, Mughal Gardens. Sources, Places, Representations, and Prospects (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1996), 9, 155, 157; Koch, Mughal Art and Imperial Ideology, Chapter 7.

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Plate 19  Mughal palace-gardens: Hiran Minar, Sheikhupura, Punjab, Pakistan. ca. 1600 Credits: Photo 2010, Bhaur and Wikimedia Commons

frieze at Märṭulä Maryam, has strong parallels with the cherubim painted on Jahangar’s palace, themselves influenced in their turn by Jesuit missionaries.209 Gännätä Iyäsus also resembles the superb Mughal structures in its conception: the complex was conceived as a garden-city, a place mixing symbolic (an association with paradise) and precise political, courtly and environmental functions – all of which were distinctive features of profane Mughal architecture.210 The comparison with Mughal architecture cannot be complete though. The, ‘city-garden’ in Azäzo never achieved the perfectly symmetric forms and fine craftsmanship of its Indian prototypes. Neither could its relatively small size be a rival to the monumental Mughal complexes. The Solomonic rulers were driven by historical and cultural processes that precluded being the true residents of any particular garden or city, and therefore bringing to full accomplishment the forms and purposes of the splendid Mughal architecture. Moreover, the limited resources of the Ethiopian state set precise limits on the grandeur of royal architectural projects. The missionary buildings in the Lake Ṭana area remind us of the syncretistic qualities of Jesuit mission culture. The missionary developments in the 1620s mixed pagan elements with Christian ones, although they all shared the same characteristics of excellence, beauty and enjoyment. The Portuguese-Jesuit church-plan, Indian ornamental techniques and Mughal tomb- and palacegarden designs – themselves of Persian origin – were the most important influences on the Jesuit architectural achievements in Ethiopia. This syncretistic architecture had some major goals. Firstly, it projected the power embodied by the Society of Jesus. So, unlike the Copts, who had been at the head of the 209 Ibid. Chapter 2. 210 Wescoat and Wolschke-Bulmahn, Mughal Gardens, 24–25; Koch, Mughal Art and Imperial Ideology, 227–228.

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Ethiopian church for over a thousand years and had introduced hardly any architectonic work, the Jesuits, within just a decade, provided the core of the kingdom with outstanding constructions.211 Secondly, the new architecture to an extent mirrored a transformation of Ethiopian society. It provided areas of ‘civilization’, where the missionaries, their patrons and the Catholic community at large could properly express and cultivate their values; the new spaces were conceived as stages for performing Catholic religiosity and also as places for the amusement of and the practice of a cultivated cosmopolitan life-style by the local pro-Catholic elites. It is thus telling that the recent archaeological excavations in the Lake Ṭana area attested the widespread use in missionaryrelated architecture of complex hydraulic systems for the storage and transportation of water as well as sewage and latrine systems.212 Finally, for the Jesuits’ patrons the new complexes were a firm political statement and a symbol of the new order that should result from the joint work between the military-political elite and the men of the Betä Iyäsus, the Jesuits.

Mission Support

To support the mission complex the Society of Jesus developed a variety of resources (Figure 3). The bulk of expenses would have been concentrated on the maintenance of the residences: provisions, clothes, purchase of animals, construction and renewal of buildings. Other important expenses were the dowries for Ethio-Portuguese brides. Additionally, the importation of objects from India and elsewhere that were used either at the residences or as presents might have taken a large stake of the mission’s treasury.213 Finally, the residences incurred extraordinary expenses. Thus, in Tǝgray in 1628, sources report that some 8,000 people who fled famine were converted with the help of alms distributed to them.214 211 The Jesuit Gaspar Paes once wrote that from Egypt and Alexandria there came no architects, but only destroying forces; Gasparo Paes, Lettere annue di Ethiopia del 1624, 1625, e 1626. Scritte al M.R.P. Mutio Vitelleschi Generale della Compagnia di Giesu (Roma 1628), 126, quoted in Cohen, The Missionary Strategies of the Jesuits, 54. 212 See Fernández, Archaeology and Architecture; Id., ‘Archaeology of Jesuit Architecture in the Lake Ṭana Region’, 79. 213 Costs of tools and clothes imported from India are seldom provided. An isolated reference from 1628 is to a viola that reportedly had costed 40 xerafims (12,000 reis); Barneto, 1628, in raso XII, doc. 86, 313. 214 Mendes, 1629, in raso XII, doc. 97, 382.

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Financial Investments in Diu

Subsidy for the EthioPortuguese

Ethiopian State

Other: EthioPortuguese, Nobles etc.

MISSION

Construction Works

Upkeep of Residences

Food and Equipment

Education and Dowry of EthioPortuguese

Travel Expenses

Presents and Gifts-giving

Figure 3  The organization of contributions and disbursements during the Ethiopian mission, ca. 1610–1630

Since the project of the Preste was part of the huge structure known as the Portuguese Padroado in the Orient, it was to this structure that its finances were bound. Throughout the whole missionary period a constant source of revenue were donations sent from Portuguese India and the metropolis (Table 13). These donations were directly associated with the Ethio-Portuguese mixed-race group. Under the terms of the Padroado Real, the Iberian monarchs assumed responsibility for spreading Christianity and taking care of their subjects overseas. The crown considered the ‘Portuguese’ in Ethiopia to be their subjects and thus took responsibility for their well being: it provided them with ‘spiritual’ and ‘temporal’ help, preachers and funding. Portuguese Indian and Iberian authorities seem to have started sending contributions during Oviedo’s Patriarchate. In 1575 a first attempt to forward 500 cruzados to the mission is recorded. Yet the sources also cast doubt on the possibility of the funding ever reaching its destination during this earlier phase.215 So, it was probably once the link between Diu and Massawa was fully operational that funding could flow on a regular basis. To all intents and purposes, at least initially, funding was aimed at the Ethio-Portuguese and perhaps it was even administered by themselves. However, with the opening of the second mission and the establishment of schools for the Ethio-Portuguese children the Jesuits were to play a crucial role as mediators and thus administered the sum sent from Spain and India. In the early seventeenth century the royal disbursement (mentioned in sources as almoina or esmola) amounted to 215 Thus, in 1581, the Indian provincial expressed his scepticism to the superior general for ‘since many years…neither letters nor any help’ could be sent to Ethiopia; R. Vicente to Mercuriano, January 3, 1581, in DI, vol. XII, doc. 30, 203. See also Alessandro Valignano, ‘Summarium indicum…’, August 1580, in DI, vol. XIII, doc. 2, 227.

Mission Culture Table 13

261

Portuguese and Spanish expenditure for the Ethiopian mission, 1555–1617

Year

Disbursements

ca. 1555 1574 1575 1581 1591 ca. 1595 1598 1605 1606 1608

80,000/10,0000 cruzados (28,800,000/36,000,000 reis) 500 cruzados (180,000 reis) 500 cruzados (180,000 reis) 500 ducados (180,000 reis?) 500 pardãos (150,000 reis) 500 pardãos (150,000 reis) 1,000 pardãos (300,000 reis) 1,000 pardãos (300,000 reis) 400 pardãos (120,000 reis) 400 pardãos (120,000 reis); 100 pardãos for each priest 1 silver larim per diem for the Jesuits in Diu aiming for Ethiopia 500 aureos (pardãos?) 200 pardãos (60,000 reis) yearly 200 pardãos (60,000 reis) yearly 1,000 pardãos (360,000 reis; accumulated?) 200,000 reis for each coadjutor bishop 500 pardãos (150,000 reis) for 5 fathers; 200 pardãos (60,000 reis) for the schools; 400 xerafims (120,000 reis) from the viceroy for the Ottoman baxa; 500 xerafims (150,000 reis) for the patriarch, who has an ordinaria of ca. 400 xerafims (120,000 reis); 200 xerafims (60,000 reis) to buy ornaments 100,000 reis ordenado for Mendes and 200,000 reis de dote 1,000 pardãos (300,000 reis) as the ordinaria of missionaries; increase of 100,000 reis to ordenado of 200,000 (in total 300,000 reis); 600 pardãos de larins (270,000 reis) in Diu to pay for transportation to Ethiopia; 1,000 pardãos de larins (600,000 reis) for the patriarch

1614 1616 1617 1622 1623 1624

1625 1628

Sources: Anonymous, ‘Relaçam da Vida e morte e virtudes do Padre Joam Nunez da Compª d Jesu o qual foy Patriarcha do Preste Joam. Etiopia’, in bnl, cod. 8122, 12v; arsi, Goa 25, 45v; Raymundo A Bulhão de Pato, Documentos remettidos da India ou livro das Monções (Nendeln: Kraus, 1976), tomo I, doc. 82, 246; raso v, 470; raso vii, 19; raso x, 59, 142, 154, 375, 383, 401, 505; raso xii, 18, 51, 90–91, 169, 244, 312, 319, 321; Francisco Rodrigues, Historia da Companhia de Jesus na Assitencia de Portugal, tomo 1, vol. 2, 581; di, vol. x, doc. 11, 134; di, vol. xii, doc. 30, 203; di, vol. xv, doc. 88, 593.

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around 200 pardãos (60,000 reis) and it was probably divided into equal parts between the two main schools of Fǝremona and Gorgora. Later that sum increased and in 1628 it amounted to ca. 2,000 xerafims (600,000 reis). This resource was meant to be used for the education of the Ethio-Portuguese children and to provide for the needs of the Catholics, in particular in terms of clothing. Hence, it was often the case that the missionaries bought fabric at Diu, which was later made into clothes in Ethiopia by local tailors.216 However, the direct control of this resource by the missionaries made it so that de facto it also funded the structure of the mission, a fact that provoked the complaints of the Ethio-Portuguese.217 In addition, during the second mission period every missionary had a ‘stipend’, the so-called ordinaria. A ‘stipend’ for missionaries had been established during the reign of Philip II in the face of the growing needs of missionaries in the newly conquered territories in America.218 In Ethiopia the first five missionaries received an ordinaria of 100 pardãos (30,000 reis) each. When the mission expanded, however, neither the crown nor the Estado da India were able to pay the same amounts to the growing number of Jesuits in Ethiopia. Therefore, up to the last years of the mission, the crown kept sending an ordinaria of only between 500 and 600 pardãos, to the frustration of the missionaries.219 216 In 1607 Azevedo informed the Jesuit provincial in Goa that the Ethio-Portuguese in Fǝremona received per head meia teada de pano (fabric); Azevedo, 1607, in raso XI, doc. 20, 93. In the Orient, teada was a pano branco de algodão, pano patente ou cru and stood for a more or less fixed quantity of Indian fabric; Dalgado, Glossário Luso-Asiático, vol. 2, 364. 217 In 1628 a padre noted that ‘for that reason the Portuguese are distrustful and believe that the fathers take for themselves the money the king sends to them. They frequently protest about that, as I heard during the two years in which I was their vicar, which also brings into disrepute the missionaries’; Barneto, 1628, in raso XII, doc. 86, 312. 218 Agustín Galán García, ‘Financiación de las expediciones de misioneros a las Indias occidentales’, Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu 62 (1994). Gonçalves da Costa comments that towards the end of the sixteenth century the ordinaria amounted to fifty cruzados per missionary and was intended to be used for transportation; Lobo, Itinerário e outros escritos inéditos, 16. 219 See the indications provided by the visitor Manoel de Almeida to superior general, May 8, 1624, in raso XII, doc. 24, 49–50. Also in Azevedo, 1608, in raso XI, doc. 24, 142. A different number is given by Gouveia, who for ca. 1598 reports an ordinaria for Ethiopia of 1,000 cruzados (360,000 reis); Gouveia, Jornada do Arcebispo de Goa, 26. Also Luís de Azevedo to superior general, May 22, 1627, in raso XII, doc. 62, 222. Borges notes that – towards 1570– the ‘Crown stipend to each departing missionary was 100 cruzados’ (36,000 reis); Charles J. Borges, The Economics of the Goa Jesuits, 1542–1759. An Explanation of Their Rise and Fall (New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company, 1994), 44.

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As happened in other missions, to increase the value of the official contributions the Jesuits resorted to investment strategies.220 Sources inform us that the esmola and ordinarias were invested in local trade in Diu. There are no precise details about how these investments worked, although it is very likely that the Jesuits used the banyan merchant networks, with which they enjoyed excellent relations. The gains obtained from this brokerage, which normally faced low risks, are said to have been of about 100 percent.221 Therefore, a smart investment at Diu could easily increase a yearly ordinaria valued at 500 pardãos to 1,000 pardãos (300,000 reis). Although the amount represented by the royal esmola and the ordinaria was not enormous its importance must not be minimized. It provided the mission with a stable source of income, which was officially forbidden by the Jesuit Constitutions.222 This contribution gave the missionaries a relative independence from local factors. Moreover, the Jesuits used this resource to distribute gifts and donations and so it was a crucial asset in expanding their circle of friends and ‘clients’. In its turn, the Portuguese endowment – and additional benefits received in Ethiopia – allowed the Ethio-Portuguese to enjoy living standards superior to those of the local population. Thus, Almeida commented that ‘in the past years the Portuguese lived – while not in plenty – at least provided of all that was needed’ and added that ‘those serving at the court looked wealthier than many of the wealthiest Ethiopians’.223 220 The Jesuit missionaries in Japan obtained part of the funding of their mission from participation in the Macao-Japan trade; see Charles Ralph Boxer, The Christian Century in Japan: 1549–1650 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951), 104 and passim; and Elison, Deus Destroyed, 103–105. Additionally, a report dated 1635–1636 mentioned by Dauril Alden, reveals that several Jesuit houses, including the colleges of Bassein, Damão, St. Paulo Novo, Thana and the province of Japan, possessed eighty two estates along the west coast of India, between Bassein and Damão. These included coconut orchards, rice paddies, vegetable gardens and salt pans. The same historian notes that a cadastral survey completed in 1716 revealed that the Colégio Máximo of São Paulo possessed 147 estates, mostly coconout groves, in the vicinity of Goa; Alden, The Making of an Enterprise, 381–382. 221 Dom Frei Alexo de Meneses (1595–1610), who had also funded the trip of Abraham de Georgiis and Melchior de Sylva, gave a grant of 1,000 cruzados (360,000 reis) yearly and another of 300 pardãos (90,000 reis) to the Jesuits in Diu. The sum was then invested in local business and the surplus earned was forwarded to Ethiopia; see António de Gouveia, Jornada do Arcebispo de Goa Dom Frey Aleixo de Menezes (Coimbra: Diogo Gomez Loureyro, 1706), 26. 222 On that particular see Ignacio de Loyola, Obras, 459, 867 and Constituciones, §5, 326, 331, 398, 553–554. 223 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso V, liv. IV, Chapter XXIV.

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In addition to these regular payments, the Spanish Crown incurred in lavish expenses on the occasion of the nomination and sending of the prelates. Thus, in 1555, the shipment of Patriarch João Nunes Barreto and the two coadjutor bishops and of their respective entourage cost the treasury of João III between 80,000 and 100,000 cruzados (28,800,000 to 36,000,000 reis). This enormous sum was apparently spent on clothes, books, transportation and the rich liturgical paraphernalia that, however, never reached the mission. Indeed, a significant number of objects, including ‘mitres, a crosier, a pontifical’ and books ended up at the College of São Paulo or in the see of Goa.224 Nunes Barreto himself was also provided with a generous ordinaria of 1,500 cruzados (540,000 reis), although is it unlikely that the sum or a fraction of it was ever used by the five missionaries then working in Ethiopia.225 Yet it was the expedition of Mendes that probably represented the largest of all the investments. Mendes mentioned in 1622 that he had been discussing with the Mesa de Consciencia ways to fund his patriarchate and proposed such means as using the income from the Bull of Cruzada and the encomendas of the Order of Santiago.226 His proposals did not meet with the approval of Philip IV, but the king nonetheless allocated large sums of money to the project and ordered the Estado da India to cover all the additional costs incurred during Mendes’s expedition to Ethiopia. Hence, around 1624, the crown allotted 200,000 reis for each bishop coadjutor, while, for his transportation and maintenance, the patriarch received 2,900 cruzados (1,044,000 reis). The latter sum should have allowed him to pay off his large entourage – about thirteen people – and to purchase necessary objects in India, such as church paraphernalia, jewelry, musical instruments, vestments and presents. The ordinaria of the patriarch was set at ca. 400 xerafims (120,000 reis), which was doubled by an extra contribution of 500 xerafims (125,000 reis) by the viceroy of India, Francisco da Gama (1622–1627), a great supporter of the mission. So, towards 1628, the patriarch reportedly had a dote (i.e. dowry) of 200,000 reis and an ordenado (i.e. ordinaria), or salary, of 100,000 reis.227 224 According to a contemporary source: ‘The King provided all these prelates [those aiming for Ethiopia] of rich ornaments for the altar as well as pontificals, with the necessary instruments for the holy ministries, a beautiful sino [i.e. church bell] that was used later in the cathedral; likewise, the ornaments and objects of silver stayed in the church of the college of São Paulo’; Gonçalves, Primeira parte, vol. 2, 215. 225 The amount was enormous for the period and we might better perceive it if we consider that the salary of a professor of Theology at the University of Évora towards 1600 was of 250,000 reis; Brandão, Estudos Vários, 48. 226 Mendes, 1623, in raso XII, doc. 4, 12. 227 Philip IV to viceroy of India, February 2, 1629, in raso XII, doc. 88, 321.

265

Mission Culture Table 14

Comparative estimates of expenditure and revenue for the Ethiopian mission, Jesuit Indian residences and the Japan mission, 1575–1638 (in 1,000 reis)

Ethiopia (estimate) São Paulo Goa Salsete Year 1622 Expenditure 540 Revenues 360/540

1628 1,700 1,500

1575 3,318 3,900

Damão Japan mission

ca. 1600 1638 750/900

383

ca. 1600 3,600/4,320 7,700

Sources: Charles J. Borges, The Economics of the Goa Jesuits, 1542–1759. An Explanation of their Rise and Fall (New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company, 1994), 163; Boxer, The Christian Century in Japan, 114, 117; Osswald, ‘Jesuit Art in Goa between 1542 and 1655’, 40, 68; di, vol. XV, 5*; di, vol. xvi, 8*; raso xi, 505; raso xii, 56.

It must be mentioned, however, that Mendes did not use the whole sum – he tells of having spent between 169,000 and 237,000 reis in ‘clothes and church paraphernalia’.228 Moreover, it appears that he never received that sum in cash, because he complains of being obliged to resort to loans at onerous interest rates from private creditors in India.229 This also indicates that, despite formal funding by the Spanish Crown, a large part of the expenses incurred in transportation of the patriarch were covered by contributions from the Estado da India and private creditors.230 The Preste was, after all, an endeavor that still galvanized the expectations of the whole Portuguese population in India, so both loans and free contributions probably flowed into Mendes’s patriarchate from the colony.231 Taken together, however, neither the ordinary nor the extraordinary payments sent from Europe seem to have been enough to cover all the expenses of the mission. As early as in 1616, Páez commented that the 200 pardãos received from the crown did not meet the expenses.232 Later on, with the projected expansion of schools and residences, funding issues increased. In 1624 Almeida, 228 Mendes to superior general, November 1624, in raso XII, doc. 37, 95–96. 229 Mendes noted that he borrowed 430 cruzados (154,000 reis) from an unknown creditor and received 1,250 cruzados (450,000 reis) from the king that were spent on his sacral apparel; Afonso Mendes to superior general, October 9, 1624, in raso I, parte II, doc. 20 (summary), 135; Id. ad eundem, November 1624, in raso XII, doc. 37, 96; Id. to Nuno Mascarenhas, November 8, 1624, in raso XII, doc. 38, 97. 230 See Afonso Mendes to superior general, January 8 and 14, 1625, in raso XII, doc. 44, 123; Mendes, 1625, in raso XII, doc. 47, 133. 231 See, for instance, Mendes’s description of the enormous efforts mobilized in India to provide for his journey to Ethiopia; Ibid.; also Barneto, 1628, in raso XII, doc. 86, 312. 232 Pedro Páez to superior general, June 22, 1616, in raso I, parte III, doc. 10, 352.

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then still acting in a role of special visitor, complained that the ordinaria hardly ever reached Ethiopia intact because lavish sums had to be spent at Sawakin and Massawa to purchase rich presents for Ottoman authorities. To compound the problem, the chronic state of corruption in Portuguese India began to affect the Jesuit missionary network.233 In the early 1620’s missionaries denounced misconduct on the part of their companions staying at Diu: the superiors at São Paulo in Diu were accused of taking little care of the Ethiopian mission and of appropriating the funds intended for Ethiopia for their own uses.234 In 1623 Almeida criticized the ‘lack of zeal’ towards the mission of the procurator at Diu and, five years later, his companions in Ethiopia complained that the mission was burdened with debts due to the mishandling of missionary funds in Diu.235 Francisco de Azevedo, who towards 1625 acted as producador da missão in Diu, was said to have stolen resistos, veronicas and a viola that were aimed for Ethiopia and his successor (probably Manoel de Sousa) was accused of provoking ‘enmity and frustration among the fathers and the patriarch’ by his negligent and at times even hostile attitude towards the mission.236 A few years later the priest Tomé Barneto still noted that ‘his Majesty offered 600 pardãos de larins […] for those who should stay at the College of Diu with the intention of going to Ethiopia; yet, over the last twenty years this sum has been used for the college [of Diu] without having any right for it’.237 The missionaries tried hard to resolve this crucial problem. In 1627 Barneto, at the time serving in Ethiopia, was sent back to India and appointed delegate of the mission to survey the state of affairs and make sure that the funds duly 233 On the issue of institutional mismanagement in Portuguese India, Winius once again wrote an insightful passage: ‘Corruption in the Estado da India was hardly the result of a decadencia but the consequence of permanent conditions: patronage, the nature and attitudes of the Portuguese nobility and the distance from the metropolis. No doubt an odiose and privileged court nobility at home set the pace, or rather, non-pace giving rise to the notion that the crown owed the fidalguia a living – that the administrative posts were rewards rather than responsibilities’; George D. Winius, The Black Legend of Portuguese India. Diogo do Couto, His Contemporaries and the Soldado Prático. A Contribution to the Study of Political Corruption in the Empires of Early Modern Europe (New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company, 1985), 88. As the case of the residence in Diu shows, it is unlikely that the Jesuits were more protected from this affliction than their secular contemporaries. 234 Almeida wrote that ‘these years some procurators and rectors took less care of the [Ethiopian] mission than they should’; Almeida, 1623, in raso XII, doc. 12, 23–24. 235 Ibid. 24. 236 Barneto, 1628, in raso XII, doc. 86, 313, 316. 237 Ibid. 312.

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reached the mission.238 Meanwhile, Almeida had proposed that Jesuit authorities in India assign to the Ethiopian mission the rents of a village belonging to the Mughal mission or, alternatively, 1,000 or 2,000 cruzados from the rents of the novitiate in São Paulo in Goa, imitating a strategy that had been profusely employed earlier to fund the Japan mission.239 These requests, however, were never adequately met. By the time these proposals were voiced the mission’s finances were already largely reliant on local funds. The corruption in Diu, the expansion that accompanied the arrival of Patriarch Afonso Mendes and the support received from local benefactors made the Jesuits in Ethiopia naturally turn to the local milieu. Gifts and grants by Ethiopian local nobility and royal figures (most notably Susǝnyos and Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos) helped in covering a large part of the mission’s needs and proved decisive in boosting the expansion during the 1620s (Table 15).240 Table 15

Ethiopian local expenditures for the mission, 1570–1630

Year

Focus of the disbursements (=reis)

1570 1604

Fǝremona: 40 head of cattle, foodstuff, 60/80 panos [private donor] Unspecified: 100 hanegas (i.e. fangas) of wheat (5,500 l), 300 golden cruzados (108,000 reis) [Susǝnyos] Fǝremona: increase of estates [Susǝnyos]; Gorgora Velha: 3 plots of lands made perpetual [Susǝnyos]; Unspecified: 5 head of cattle [Susǝnyos] Fǝremona: 300 ducados (990,000 reis) [Susǝnyos], 2 horses [Śärṩä Krǝstos] Qwälläla: estates [Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos] Gorgora Velha?: for the journey of António Fernandes 20 pesi d’oro (oukeas?) equal to 200 scudi (60,000 reis) [Susǝnyos] Unspecified: 50 pesi d’oro (oukeas?) equal to 500 scudi (150,000 reis) [Susǝnyos]

1607 1609 1611 1613 1614

238 Aimar Guerino to superior general, September 14, 1627, in raso XII, doc. 64, 227; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter XXIV. 239 Manoel de Almeida to Muzio Vitelleschi, May 8, 1624, in raso XII, doc. 24, 50; Azevedo to Mascarenhas, June 22, 1624, in raso XII, doc. 30, 71; also Manoel de Almeida to Nuno Mascarenhas, June 22, 1624, in raso XII, doc. 31, 73. Almeida knew what he was asking, for the Jesuit facilities in Goa were the richest in India and held important coconut and rice fields in the neighboring lands, even as far away as in Bombay (today Mumbai); see Borges, The Economics of the Goa Jesuits, 49–50, 163. 240 More limited data on missionary support is offered in Pennec, Des jésuites au royaume du Prêtre Jean, 167. Valuable insights appear in Merid, ‘Southern Ethiopia and the Christian Kingdom’, 489, 492–493.

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Table 15

Ethiopian local expenditures for the mission, 1570–1630 (cont.)

Year

Focus of the disbursements (=reis)

1615

Gorgora Velha: slaves, 200 golden cruzados (72,000 reis), a vast estate [Susǝnyos] Gorgora Velha: 200 pardãos (60,000 reis), estates, 300 ducados en oro (990,000 reis), 20/100 cows [Susǝnyos] Gorgora Velha: estates, cedar wood [Susǝnyos]; Ankaša: estates [Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos] Fǝremona: 300 head of cattle [Susǝnyos]; Gorgora Velha: 14 golden onças (50,400 reis) [Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos]; Ankaša: 140 golden cruzados (50,400 reis) [Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos] Gorgora Velha: 1,300 cruzados (468,000 reis) [Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos] Gorgora Velha: alcatifa (carpet), esmola de ouro equal to 100 patacas (30,000 reis) [Susǝnyos] Unspecified: 500 cruzados (180,000 reis)/year produce of estates Gännätä Iyäsus: various objects, 600 patacas (180,000 reis), 100 cargas de mantimento or alqueires (1,350 l), large estates [Susǝnyos] Fǝremona: estates [Qǝbʾä Krǝstos]; Gännätä Iyäsus: 8 carpets, church objects, 300 couvados (?), 300 ducados de renda (990,000 reis), 100 cargas de trigo (ca. 1,350 l) [Susǝnyos] Fǝremona: 300 silk panos (108,000 reis) [Qǝbʾä Krǝstos]; Gäbärma: 5 villages with good lands, 100 head of cattle, a quantity of gold and clothes [lords of Damot and Bukko]; Tanḵa: 100 cargas de mantimento equal to 1,000 alqueires (13,500 l) [lords of Damot and Bukko]; Unspecified: 500 golden pardãos (180,000 reis) [Susǝnyos] Fǝremona: 200 head of cattle, 300 frumenti [Susǝnyos]; Gorgora Nova: 200 (frumenti?); Ǝnfraz/Patriarch: 60 golden oukeas (180,000 reis), cows, 300 cargas de mantimento, 300 patacas (90,000 reis) de alviçaras, 300 pardãos (90,000 reis) [Qǝbʾä Krǝstos, Bukko and Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos]; Lǝǧǧä Nǝguś: 2 manilhas de ouro equal to 20 oukeas (60,000 reis), estates in Gäšäta (‘Gaxete’) [Bukko]; Ǝnnäbǝse: 1,400 oukeas (4,200,000 reis) [Susǝnyos]; Dänqäz: 200 golden oukeas (600,000 reis) [Susǝnyos] Fǝremona: 30 oukeas (90,000 reis) [Habtä Iyäsus Zämagarat], estates in Nader [Śärṩä Krǝstos]; Gorgora Nova: 50 golden oukeas (150,000 reis), 2 fine carpets, estates producing 1,500 cargas de mantimento (ca. 20,250 l) [Susǝnyos]; Atḵäna: houses and estates [ras Wäldä Krǝstos], an expensive carpet, 50 + 10 oukeas (150,000 + 30,000 reis) [Susǝnyos], workforce for the production of lime and masons [Bukko]; Qwälläla: 10 oukeas (30,000 reis) [Susǝnyos]

1616 1618 1619

1620 1621 1622 1623 1624

1625

1626

1627

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Year

Focus of the disbursements (=reis)

1628

Fǝremona: 20 oukeas (60,000 reis) for the cistern [Susǝnyos]; Ǝnnäbǝse: 1,000 golden nummos (i.e. coin, cesterce, pardão?, 300,000 reis?) for the church, of which 500 pro muro, 200 pro calice [Susǝnyos]; Ǝnfraz/Patriarch: 10 golden oukeas (30,000 reis) for the children and a crown worth 20 oukeas (60,000 reis) [Susǝnyos] Fǝremona: 20 oukeas (60,000 reis) [Susǝnyos] Fǝremona: increase of the gwǝlt, 1/10 of cows from land tenants [Susǝnyos]

1629 1630

Legend: (in brackets) = value in reis; [in square brackets] = donor. Sources: Guerreiro, Relaçam annal, 324r; raso i, 352; raso iii, 254; raso vi, 189, 194, 221, 237, 346, 389, 430, 436, 472, 493–494, 502; raso vii, 10; raso viii, 192, 228; raso xi, 237, 261, 263, 352, 374–375, 403–406, 408, 413, 434, 439, 445, 487, 505, 524; raso xii, 274, 277, 281, 358, 381, 383, 482; de Angelis, 1613, in arsi, Goa 39 i bis, 108v, 109v; Mendes, 1626, in arsi, Goa 39 ii, 288v; Roiz, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 i, 229r–v; Páez to Vieira, 1615, in adb, Legajo 779, 153r; Gaspar Paes to Francisco de Vergara, Tamqha, June 15, 1625, in adb, Legajo 779, 256r; Paes, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 i, 247r, 251r.

A central element used to channel local funding was the residences’ network. Schools and formation houses were the only Jesuit structures which the Constitutions permitted to have a stable income and build up a certain wealth. Following the example set by the colleges in Europe and those in India the colleges in Ethiopia were to concentrate wealth and rents. Amounts are difficult to deduce from sources but they were, to all intents and purposes, important. The contributions received from Ethiopian donors were mostly in the form of estates (gwǝlt and rǝst), provisions and gold, but payments in kind (clothes, carpets, objects) and of slaves also occurred.241 The earliest donations date from the period of Andrés de Oviedo, when baḥǝr nägaš Yǝsḥaq gave estates in the neighborhood of Fǝremona to the missionaries. During the same period an anonymous donor gave to Oviedo provisions, cows and pieces of cloth. Śärṩä Dǝngǝl seems to have ratified the rights over the lands, which 241 On the gwǝlt system, see Taddesse, Church and State in Ethiopia, 98–103, 244; Crummey, Land and Society, 4, 8 and passim; a valuable overview on Ethiopian land tenure systems remains Alessandro Bausi et al., eds., Materiale antropologico e storico sul rim in Etiopia ed Eritrea: Anthropological and Historical Documents on ‘Rim’ in Ethiopia and Eritrea (Torino: L’Harmattan Italia, 2001), especially 41 and passim. For evidence on the missionaries having slaves, see Manuel Fernandes to Diego Laínez, July 29, 1562, in arsi 11 I, 59r; Manuel Fernandes to Patriarch Nunes Barreto, March 31, 1563, in raso X, doc. 45, 173, 176.

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were probably of gwǝlt type, in Ethiopia held only for a limited period and at the discretion of the ruler. During the second mission the rights were once again ratified and Fǝremona grew considerably via the acquisition of estates in Maydaro (May Daʿǝro?), Nadir (Nader), Ṣälot (Tselot, Zalot), Dǝbarwa and Adegada (Map 5).242 A similar system was at work in the other residences. In 1607 a traditional Ethiopian rite, an awaǧ, was celebrated at Gorgora, with which Susǝnyos granted perpetual rights to the missionaries over neighboring lands granted earlier by Śärṩä Dǝngǝl and Yaʿǝqob to the Ethio-Portuguese.243 In approximately 1611 Qwälläla received the first lands, donated by Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos. It might be assumed that over the years Fǝremona, Gorgora and Qwälläla became important landowning centers, sometimes controlling distant estates and perhaps rivaling with the wealthiest lords in the country. Gännätä Iyäsus, which enjoyed a special status as an ‘imperial’ residence, seems to have disposed of extensive estates, which in 1624 produced a yearly output of 300 ducados (990,000 reis).244 In addition, local landowners and members of the court made spontaneous donations in the form of cattle (mules, horses, cows), honey and cereals and, less often, money. Thus, in 1609, Susǝnyos allocated 200 ducados (when golden ducados, 660,000 reis) to Fǝremona, and another donor, perhaps Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos, then governor of Tǝgray, offered two horses. Successive donations came at the time when the most heated debates between the traditionalist and Catholic parties were taking place. Furthermore, Susǝnyos reportedly welcomed every new missionary with a donation of ten oukeas (about 30,000 reis).245 The exploitation of estates and donations in kind, combined with contributions from India and Europe, seem to have been enough to cover the daily needs at the residences during the period when these were still relatively modest. In 1622 the superior of the mission, António Fernandes, informed the superior general in Rome that ‘for the subsistence and maintenance [of the mission] were sufficient 500 cruzados (180,000 reis) that the lands here produce annually as well as the more than 1,000 cruzados (360,000 reis) that I received from the alms’.246 If we assume that by then the Jesuits managed three residences 242 Tomé Barneto to Stefano da Cruz, March 12, 1627, in raso XII, doc. 60, 209–213; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso VI, liv. VIII, Chapter XXIII. 243 Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso III, liv. IV, Chapter XXIII. 244 Roiz, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 229r–v. 245 Barradas, Tractatus tres historico-geographici, in raso IV, 38. 246 Fernandes, 1622, in raso XI, doc. 63, 505. A similar text with slight divergences: ‘For their maintenance, we will provide for some years with over 2,000 cruzados that I have and the

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Massawa

Asmära

Sälot

Red Sea

Däbrä Bizan

Debarwa Adegada?

DäbräLibanos (Ham/Šemäzana)

.

R Märäb

Däbrä Damo

Gurre

Šire

Feremona Enda Abba Gärima

Aksum

Nadir (Naʹeder)?

Täkk äz eR

Maydaro? .

Legend Jesuit land

N

Jesuit residence Orthodox chuch/monastery Other site

Map 5

0

25

50 Km

Fǝremona and the mission’s northern network, ca. 1560–1632 Credits: 2014, Eduardo Martín Agúndez

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(Gorgora, Fǝremona and Qwälläla; Gännätä Iyäsus had a special status), we can estimate annual costs amounting to around 500 cruzados (180,000 reis) per residence. Yet, when the mission flourished, needs grew accordingly and so did the number of recorded contributions. In 1618 Susǝnyos granted estates and a large quantity of cedar wood to be used for the construction of the first Jesuit-style church at Ombabaqha in Gorgora Velha. The wood had to be obtained from nearby monasteries and this sparked a protest among local monks, who saw parts of their holy forests erased. In the following three years the residence of Gorgora Velha is recorded as having received a total of about 548,400 reis from Ethiopian donors for the completion of building works. From 1624 onwards, when most of the residences began to upgrade their infrastructures, local contributions grew exponentially. Between 1624 and 1630 Fǝremona received 200 heads of cattle, 300 frumenti, i.e. cereal (this probably indicates a tax or revenue over cereal fields, which in our sources is typically described as cargas de mantimento; it might refer to the Ethiopian gaša unit of landholding) and donations amounting to 300,000 reis.247 Gorgora Nova received a total of 300,000 reis and gifts including four expensive carpets. Lavish contributions also flowed into Gännätä Iyäsus, which received 180,000 reis, 200 amounts of produce, 300 couvados (cubits) and eight carpets. Moreover, in a manner similar to a praxis that has already been recorded for other historical periods, the provision of the workforce for construction works seems to have been the responsibility of local governors and local populations.248 Thus, local workers helped in the transportation of the materials and in masonry tasks (as offiçiaes and maçones). In 1628 Almeida put the annual costs to maintain a house or a small college in Ethiopia at 1,000 patacas (300,000 reis).249 Considering that the mission managed then between four and five schools (Fǝremona, Ǝnfraz, Gorgora, Qwälläla and perhaps Särka as well) we must estimate that by then expenses had doubled or tripled since 1622. With this increase in economic activity, the Ethiopian project abandoned its status as an important but yet economically modest undertaking to become, financially speaking, one of the most lavish 500 cruzados that we receive from India as salary for the five missionaries that we live here’; António Fernandes to superior general, May 15, 1624, Dänqäz, in raso XII, doc. 26, 56. 247 On the gaša unit see Crummey, Land and Society, 120, 151, 172; and Shiferaw Bekele, ‘A Historical Outline of Land Tenure Studies’ in Materiale antropologico e storico sul rim in Etiopia ed Eritrea, 41–42. 248 Marie-Laure Derat, Le domaine des rois éthiopiens (1270–1527). Espace, pouvoir et monachisme (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2003), 222–223. 249 Almeida, 1628, in raso XII, doc. 76, 275.

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endeavors of the Society in the East (Table 14). In the end, as Merid has already emphasized, it appears that a considerable proportion of military activities and the peasant economy of Ethiopia were exploited to provide provisions and manpower for the mission (Table 16).250 Within a span of about ten years, from 1619 to 1629, five Jesuit residences received together in contributions made in oukeas, loads of produce and donations in kind almost as much as the amount of taxes that the province of Tǝgray, one of the richest in the kingdom, paid annually to the royal treasury. Susǝnyos had allotted to Gännätä Iyäsus alone a rent amounting to 990,000 reis, which was more than half of the reported revenue of the province of Dämbǝya. Towards 1626 another Jesuit settlement with royal endowment, Ǝnnäbǝse, which was then undergoing an ambitious architectonic renewal, was allotted over 4,000,000 reis, nearly as much as the taxes that the province of Goǧǧam, one of the granaries of the country, paid to the central state. Moreover, an additional half a million reis or so were granted to other residences (Tanḵa, Atḵäna, Qwälläla) and to Jesuitrelated facilities that are not specified in missionary sources. An important aspect of the support system of the mission in Ethiopia is that it had all the typical features of the patronship system applied by the Society of Jesus in Europe and abroad, as described by the historian Evonne Levy. Accordingly, contributions flowed in a relatively spontaneous way into the residences as Jesuit patrons became co-participants in the ‘architecture experience’.251 The padres Table 16

Comparative of revenues between the Jesuit residences and main regions in Ethiopia, ca. 1619–1629 (in 1,000 reis)

Jesuit residences

Main Ethiopian Provinces

Fǝremona Gännätä Gorgora

Year(s) 1619–29 Rev. 498

Ǝnnäbǝse Dänqäz/

Total

Ǝnnarya Tǝgray Dämbǝya Goǧǧam

Iyäsus

Ǝnfraz

6 resid.

1623–24 1619–29 1626–28 1,170 698 4,200

1626–28 1619–29 1626 810 7,376 3,000

1626 7,500

1626 1,500

Sources: raso v, 80–82; Richard K. Pankhurst, An Introduction to the Economic History of Ethiopia from Early Times to 1800 (England: Lalibela House, 1961), Ch. 10.

250 Merid, ‘Southern Ethiopia and the Christian Kingdom’, 492. His conclusions can be quoted here: ‘In the end he [Susǝnyos] placed whatever he had at the disposal of the missionaries, and they became in effect his treasurers’. 251 I borrow the term from Levy’s brilliant analysis of the Jesuit system of patronage; see in particular Levy, Propaganda and the Jesuit Baroque, 192 and passim.

1626 4,800

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often invited their potential donors, such as ras Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos, Susǝnyos, Bukko and Qǝbʾä Krǝstos, to their residences and showed them work in progress. Thus, Susǝnyos was said to visit Gorgora once or twice a year during construction works. Thanks to these visits, local lords became involved in the building process and were eager to see works completed. Witnessing to this praxis, donations targeting specific architectural works seem to have been rather frequent. Hence, in ca. 1628 the donations for some of the residences were detailed in the following way: the governor of Tǝgray Qǝbʾä Krǝstos gave 20 oukeas (60,000 reis) for the construction of the cistern of Fǝremona; and in Ǝnnäbǝse the donor gave 1,000 golden nummos (i.e. coin, cesterce) for the church, 500 for the walls (pro muro) and 200 for a chalice. In consequence patronage became a form of creative authorship of the architectural works.252 The over-dependence on local funding was, however, an undesirable tactic. As will be seen in the next chapter, it placed the padres in an awkward position: they strove to cultivate an image of humble and austere homines novi but the reforms they enforced and their own desire to satisfy their local sponsors inevitably surrounded the mission with an aura of luxury and wealth. Moreover, while the missionaries belonged to a nation that had traditionally been generous with Ethiopian royalty, now it was the Ethiopian social fabric which seemed to be working for the mission. So, when the missionaries and their patrons were indulging in celebrations and monumental projects the storm was brewing. 252 Ibid. 192.

part 3 From Gorgora to Goa

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Yäṭǝnt What was born in one night, perished in one night too.1 In 1632 the missionary adventure in Ethiopia came to an end. On June 24 of the same year Susǝnyos published a decree granting freedom of religion, which de facto removed the authority of Patriarch Mendes and his companions. On September 16 Susǝnyos died and was succeeded by Fasilädäs (regnal name ʿAläm Sägäd/Sǝlṭan Sägäd II), who quickly the banner of traditional Ethiopian Christianity. Under pressure from court members who had remained loyal to Alexandrian orthodoxy, Fasilädäs set up a process that would see the removal of all traces of Catholicism and the restoration of Ethiopian Christianity. During the ensuing years the Catholic community, including a few Jesuits who had decided to stay, was to suffer harsh persecutions, and its number was greatly reduced by emigration and murder. The Ethio-Portuguese group survived a few more decades but in no better condition. This period of cryptoCatholicism, which was a last attempt to continue the mission underground, is discussed in the next chapter. Below follows a discussion of the main factors that brought about the sudden fall of the missionary enterprise.

Utopian Ethiopia

The project to reduce the Preste was, like many undertakings during the European expansion, overly ambitious and to some extent unrealistic. The historian Dauril Alden commented that, ‘considering the paucity of Jesuits in Ethiopia, the lack of effective support from secular authorities in Goa or in Europe, and the complexity of the power structure in the highlands, one may well question whether the Jesuits ever stood any chance of permanent success there’.2 This project indeed shared a utopian impulse that pervaded the Iberian expansion in the world.3 At this time no challenge was big enough to deter the imagination of the Iberians; from 1588, for example, dates the famous 1 Mendes to the pope, May 11, 1633, in raso xii, doc. 123, 508. 2 Alden, The Making of an Enterprise, 158. 3 On the importance of utopian thought during the conquest of America, see José Antonio Maravall, Utopía y reformismo en la España de los Austrias (Madrid: Siglo XXI editores, 1982). Of interest also are the remarks in Block, Mission Culture, 115. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004289154_008

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memorandum by the Spanish Jesuit Alonso Sánchez addressed to king Philip II that planned the invasion of China with a 20,000-man force.4 The Society of Jesus, which in its first generation was composed mainly of Spaniards, inherited this spirit and determination. However, the mission in Ethiopia was much more than a showpiece of Iberian bravado. In the previous chapters it was demonstrated that it was a complex undertaking, stretching over a period of more than eighty years during which at least four generations of missionaries worked strenuously and deployed a number of skills and activities that had never been seen before in the Ethiopian highlands. Moreover, these men succeeded in many of the goals they set themselves. The conversion of Susǝnyos and part of the Ethiopian nobility in the 1610s and 1620s, the arrival of the Catholic Patriarch Mendes in 1625 and the artistic and architectonic developments in the late 1620s are compelling arguments for regarding this episode as something remarkable. Thus, inquiry into why the mission failed is justified. However, rather than asking tout court why this happened, I will try to explain, firstly, why it failed at the time of the widest development of the mission culture; and, secondly, why its failure took the form of a large-scale anti-Jesuit uprising. In so doing, I take issue with some of the main arguments that scholars have previously brought forward in answering that question. Generally, scholars have focused on the missionaries’ own shortcomings when trying to explain the collapse of the Jesuit project.5 This has led a number of them to identify Afonso Mendes as largely responsible for the mischief. With his harsh, uncompromising religious policy, the Catholic patriarch allegedly alienated the mission from a large part of Ethiopian society and triggered its abrupt end. In this view, Pedro Páez generally appears favorably portrayed as a man who had a better understanding of Ethiopian society and a capacity to compromise. His abrupt death in 1622 and ‘replacement’ by a man such as Mendes thus precluded a better acceptance of the missionaries by the Ethiopians. This perspective is, however, flawed. Firstly, it personalizes too much an undertaking that was, above all, a collective enterprise. Mendes and Páez were only two, albeit among the most important, of 4 The memorandum was Alonso Sánchez, ‘Relación de las cosas particulares de la China’, Madrid: manuscript, 1588; see Manuel Ollé, La invención de China. Percepciones y estrategias filipinas respecto a China durante el siglo XVI (Wiesbaden: Harrossowitz Verlag, 2000). 5 The literature focusing on the Jesuits’ ‘mistakes’ in Ethiopia goes back to the early anti-Jesuit pamphlets written when memories of this mission were still vivid. A first title to bring to mind should be that by Johann Michael Wansleben, A Brief Account, and also Bruce’s, Travels to Discover the Sources of the Nile. A modern example of this position is Paulo Durão, ‘A intolerância dos Jesuítas na Etiópia’, Brotéria 21 (1935).

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the some thirty-five missionaries who worked in Ethiopia between 1603 and 1632. Secondly, it also ignores a figure who could more legitimately be cast in the role of Nero of the mission: António Fernandes. Thirdly, this perspective avoids considering the local context and the transformations undergone by Ethiopian society under the Jesuit ‘rule’ as contributing factors in the mission’s demise. Finally, a look into chronology shows that 1632 was not the only moment when the activity of the Jesuits could have come to an end. The fall of the mission could have also occurred in 1617, when the open rebellion of the metropolitan and of key state figures took place, and also around 1622, when the number of active missionaries decreased to three. Therefore, only a wider consideration of a variety of factors – political, social, cultural, religious and even psychological – will be able to account for the sudden fall of the mission.

The Mission of the Qwälläfä and Chalcedonians

So far, the problems faced by the Jesuits during their interactions with the local people have been only superficially outlined. It is therefore important to reassess the more negative aspects of the missionary enterprise. This may eventually show that the missionaries’ activities were not always perceived locally as the missionaries expected. Indeed, local views of the ṗadroč often diverged from those expressed by some of the most prominent figures, such as Susǝnyos and Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos. Even during the years when the mission enjoyed widest support the Jesuits were far from being accepted by Ethiopian society at large. The Jesuits came from a social and religious milieu that was entirely different from the one they encountered in the Ethiopian highlands. The Ethiopian Church was a poorly centralized and conservative institution in which the regular clergy played a far more critical role than did the secular clergy. It can also be claimed that the theological preparation of both groups was often deficient.6 As was seen above, such a contrast rendered the Jesuits attractive to some members of Ethiopian elite groups but complete strangers to the rest. 6 Taddesse, Church and State in Ethiopia, 108 and passim. The influence of monasticism in Ethiopia has also been the subject of a recent study by Derat, Le domaine des rois éthiopiens, Chapter 7. On the scant preparation of the local clergy, which probably was similar to that of the clergy in rural Europe, the historian Steven Kaplan wrote: ‘The perpetual lack of priests probably played a major role in the development of a priestly class with only minimal educational attainments [. . .] selection and elevation to the priesthood were generally not based upon special learning or piety, but rather on a family tradition of serving in the priesthood’; Kaplan, The Monastic Holy Man, 30.

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This was a heavy burden that the missionaries carried throughout the whole mission period. While access to the elites was secured, reaching rural populations was not. In consequence, the missionaries, and the small group of faithful that supported and lived with them, were never successful in erasing from the locals the perception that they were an alien group. In a society as conservative and traditional as that of Ethiopia the renewal and change propounded by the Europeans were unlikely to always be perceived in a positive light. So, evidence from Jesuit and Ethiopian sources underscores a general perception of the missionaries as a menace and a danger to religious traditions and the social status quo. An examination of the stereotypes applied to the Catholics in Ethiopia will help to illustrate this point. A common term locals used to describe missionaries was färänǧ, i.e. ‘Franks’. Such was, and still is today, a widespread form used to refer to Europeans in the Orient – including in India.7 It was not necessarily a negative word, as in fact expressed in a rather neutral way the patent racial and cultural differences between the locals and the padres. Similarly, members of the Ethio-Portuguese group were often known in the local context as burtukan, i.e. ‘Portuguese’, which also underscored the different identity this group cultivated amidst wider Ethiopian society.8 Still, considering the conservatism of Ethiopian Christians, the foreigner was perceived as a menace to the traditions and hence a person with more negative than positive qualities. Moreover, the mixed-race group contributed, with their own misconduct, to reinforcing the fears of the locals. Thus, Manoel de Almeida, reasoning on the dislike of locals for the Ethio-Portuguese, explained that members of this group were often involved in violent activities, such as the taking away of the wives of local men.9 Significantly more negative, however, was the term ‘Turks’, with which locals also described the padres. Thus in 1607 Luís de Azevedo informed the Jesuit provincial in India of this fact and about fifteen years later his companion Manoel de Almeida reported that locals called the conversion to Catholicism 7 The term originated at the time of the Crusades, when the French composed the bulk of the Christian armies. In the Orient, Europeans serving the Ottomans were mostly known as rumi, rumes. See ‘Rumes’, in Grande Enciclopédia Portuguesa e Brasileira, vol. 26, 378–379. 8 There is also at least one reference to the Ethio-Portuguese being locally called mestiços; Annual letter, 1612, in raso xi, doc. 35, 287. Unfortunately, the author did not provide the local term, though this could have been the modern Amharic term of kǝllǝs (‘mixed, adulterated, diluted; half-caste, half-breed’), which carried a clear derogatory meaning; Kane, Amharic-English Dictionary, 1369. 9 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vi, liv. IV, Chapter XXIV.

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fazerse Turco, i.e. ‘becoming Turk’.10 Towards the end of the 1620s a similar, perhaps more insulting, epithet was recorded for the Catholics: ‘moors’.11 This reveals a serious problem the missionaries had: important elements of their cultural (a culinary preference for pork) and religious (a Pauline approach to religious rituals) identity associated them with their strongest opponents in the Orient. Hence, in the eyes of traditionalists the Jesuits appeared as a group of unclean, impure people. Reportedly, the few converts that the missionaries managed to win during the first decade received other derogatory terms. A nun having accepted Catholicism was once accused of acting out of pure material interest, so as ‘to be able to eat meat’.12 The act of conversion was therefore also seen as the outcome of pure material interest. As has already been suggested, the European priests managed to overcome some of these problems. Some adjustments to their methods in the field, such as the adoption of strict fasting habits, in all probability helped in transforming the initial skepticism and mistrust of many into open friendship. This happened more quickly among groups that already possessed a greater disposition to accept changes, such as the Ethio-Portuguese, members of the nobility, court officials and the higher clergy. However, a more negative perception of the mission apparently pervaded the wider Ethiopian Christian society and increased over time. So, in 1612, on the eve of the first open religious discussions, Páez informed his friend Tomás de Ituren that the missionaries were called ‘sons of Leo’ (i.e. of Pope St. Leo the Great) and Ethiopian Christians reserved for themselves the nobler ‘sons of God’.13 Probably at the same time, similar belittling epithets began to circulate within anti-Jesuit circles. Missionary sources thus record a growing number of derogatory terms applied to the Catholics, such as ‘Nestorians’, in reference to the figure whose Christological doctrines the Ethiopians – and the Catholics, too – considered heretical, and parentes de pilatos, i.e. ‘relatives of Pontius Pilatus’.14 Additionally, Catholics were accused of supporting the doctrine of the ‘two Gods’, an intentional misreading of the Jesuits’ defense of the doctrine on the two natures of Christ.15 Two well-written anti-Catholic pamphlets, probably dating from the 1610s or 1620s, accused the Catholics of being 10

Azevedo, 1607, in raso xi, doc. 20, 86; Manoel de Almeida to superior general, December 12, 1623, Sawakin, in raso xii, doc. 14, 30; Barneto, 1623, in raso xi, doc. 67, 521. 11 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vii, liv. IX, Chapter XI. 12 Azevedo, 1607, in raso xi, doc. 20, 98. 13 Páez, 1612, in raso xi, doc. 34, 269. 14 Barneto, 1623, in raso xi, doc. 67, 521; Mattos, 1621, in raso xi, doc. 61, 480. 15 Páez, 1614, in raso xi, doc. 39, 325. Also in Azevedo, 1619, in raso xi, doc. 54, 430.

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Chalcedonians.16 About 1613, at the outcome of one of the religious disputes held at the court, Ethiopian priests were heard accusing Susǝnyos of being a ‘black Portuguese’, indicating that embracing the Jesuits’ ideals was perceived as a renunciation of one’s own identity, a perception that likely increased ­during the 1620s.17 Therefore, regardless of the Jesuits’ attempts to make their religious ideas appear as the original traditions of the Ethiopian church, in the eyes of many Ethiopians theirs was, as a missionary source commented, a faith of the ‘Portuguese’, of ‘strangers’ and ‘a new faith being newly introduced’.18 In the late 1610s and early 1620s, as the mission expanded its influence within the Ethiopian state, more religious-oriented prejudices further damaged their image. In 1625 Gaspar Paes commented that ‘the monks launch against our holy faith unbelievable and horrible blasphemies and lies’; the missionaries were accused, it seems at the instigation of traditional Ethiopian clergy, of ‘dishonoring’ or being ‘enemies of the Virgin’ and denying that she was the mother of God.19 The accusation originated, as the Jesuit source explains, from the fact that the missionaries compelled the Catholics to moderate the local use of taking oaths by invoking the Virgin. The prohibition was part of the Jesuits’ attempt to accommodate Ethiopian public religiosity to the tenets of early modern Catholicism. The problem provoked by this particular decision was serious enough to compel the missionaries to a more conspicuous display of Marian devotion during celebrations and preaching missions. In addition, locals also claimed that the foreign priests pretended to be superior to the Apostles, reflecting the perception Ethiopians had of the heavy-handed Catholic reforms of the mid-1620s: pushing change as the missionaries were doing was tantamount to, in the eyes of many an Ethiopian, 16

17

18 19

The pamphlets are Ḥamärä näfs (‘The Vessel of the Soul’) and Märs amin (‘The Safe Harbor’), both reproduced in Cerulli, Scritti teologici etiopici, vol. 1. Tewelde, who provides a thorough analysis of the texts, dates them in ca. 1628; Tewelde, ‘La politica cattolica de Selṭan Sägäd I’, 368; Piovanelli also sets the date around 1620 and argues that their authors were members of a monastic network in Tǝgray; Piovanelli, ‘Connaissance de Dieu et sagesse humaine’, 217. Páez, 1614, in raso xi, doc. 39, 325; also Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vi, liv. VII, Chapter XXII. At about the same time a Jesuit missionary noted that ‘the Ethiopians were cleverly spreading very negative rumors’; de Angelis, 1613, in arsi, Goa 39 I bis, 103v. The words were said in 1617 at the court by a group of dignitaries headed by the eunuch Kǝflo; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vi, liv. VII, Chapter XXIII. Paes, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 240r and 243v; Almeida, 1628, in raso xii, doc. 76, 263; and Azevedo, 1619, in raso xi, doc. 54, 430. Further evidence in Barradas, 1631, in raso xii, doc. 113, 464, 479; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vi, liv. VIII, Chapter XII.

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defying apostolic authorities.20 In the same period, a widespread belief had it that the Jesuits produced the liturgical hosts from animal dung. An echo of this charge appears in the contemporary anti-Jesuit pamphlet Märs amin. A passage from this important text reads: ‘you drible [?] the ants and ingest the camels and look like whitewashed sepulchers, which from the outside seem beautiful but in the inside are full of bones of dead people and of all things evil’.21 To counter those misconceptions the missionaries were compelled to regularly show to the public the instruments and material with which the hosts were actually made. The latter passage from the Märs amin introduced another perception of the mission that the Jesuits had already encountered in Europe and which put them as friends of insincerity, deviousness and artificiality.22 Thus, some metaphors emerged that associated the foreign priests with spiders and with wolves dressed in sheep’s clothing. These seem to have gained special force at the court and in the milieu of the learned clergy. Hence, the close relationship between the missionaries and Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos was reportedly viewed with suspicion and equated to ‘conspiring’, ‘intelligent maneuvering’ and ‘business making’.23 The faith the missionaries represented was likewise said to show itself in nice clothing, albeit disguising secret, evil intentions: ‘in its outer appearance the faith of the Portuguese appears as all sweetness but seen from within one can see it is made of bile [i.e. hatred] and poison’.24 At least two important Ethiopian texts recalled similar metaphors in the decades that came after the expulsion. The chronicle of Susǝnyos’s grandson, nǝguś Yoḥannǝs I (1667–1682), reported that the ruler saw the Jesuits as ‘prophets 20 21

Almeida, 1628, in raso xii, doc. 76, 265. I translate from Cerulli’s Italian version of the Märs amin; Cerulli (ed., trans.), Scritti t­ eologici etiopici, vol. 1, 254 (text), 296 (trans.). Similarly, Almeida reported of Catholics who were said to be taking the communion with ‘camel dung’ (miollos de camello); Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vi, liv. VII, Chapter XIII and raso vii, liv. IX, Chapter XVI; also Almeida, 1627, in arsi, Goa 39 II, 425r. An indirect reference to the same theme appears in Barradas, 1631, in raso xii, doc. 113, 470, 484. 22 Anti-Jesuitism is a recurrent theme in European history. On the Jesuit myth in French imagination, see Michel Leroy, Le mythe jésuite: de Beranger à Michelet (Paris: puf, 2000). In a larger context, see E. Nelson, ‘The Jesuit Legend: Superstition and Myth-Making’, in Religion and Superstition in Reformation Europe, ed. H. Parish and B. Naphy (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), 101 and Francisco Rodrigues, Jesuitophobia: resposta serena a uma diatribe (Porto: Typographia Luzitania, 1917). 23 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vii, liv. IX, Chapter XXIV. 24 Ibid. Chapter XI.

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dressed in sheep’s clothing’ and as ‘seducers’.25 Similarly, the Liber Axumae spoke of the ṗadroč as ‘wolves who are like scavengers and deadly snakes’ disguised as ‘sheep’.26 The Jesuit image was also badly damaged by the Europeans’ inflexible stance towards Ethiopia’s ‘Mosaic’ legacy and more specifically by their abhorrence of circumcision. The Jesuits’ stance regarding this rite caused them to challenge a fundamental institution in the anthropology of most of the groups inhabiting the central highlands. Indeed, the practice of circumcision was not limited to the Christian areas, nor was its meaning confined to an imitation of the Mosaic prescriptions as the missionaries tended to believe. Ethiopian Christians and Muslims alike practiced it on both sexes, and they all attributed to it a similar meaning: circumcision was an essential rite of passage in the life of an individual, it preparing him/her for immersion into society.27 For that reason, too, to not be circumcised was regarded as a serious imperfection of the body. Accordingly, the uncircumcised body was seen as dirty, ugly, closer to animal nature and unfit to live a normal social life.28 Witnessing to this conception, in modern Amharic yaltägärräzä, literally ‘non-circumcised’, stands as well for ‘ill-mannered, insolent, rude, and vulgar’.29 Throughout some hundred years of debate between the Catholics and the traditionalists, the latter frequently voiced arguments pointing to the importance of circumcision. Nǝguś Gälawdewos, responding to reproaches by the pseudo-Patriarch Bermudez, said that he circumcised ‘out of cleanness’.30 On another occasion, responding this time to admonitions by mestre Rodrígues and Bishop Andrés de Oviedo, he defended it as a ‘simple national tradition’ (costumbre de nação).31 Some fifty years later, locals responded to Páez with a 25

‘Be vigilant with the fake prophets who come to us dressed in sheep’s clothing, for in the interior they are like rapacious wolves. You will recognize them by their acts’; Ignazio Guidi (trans.), Annales Iohannis I,’Iyāsu I et Bakāffā (Louvain: Secrétariat du CorpusSCO, 1960–61), 8 (text), 6 (trans.). 26 Carlo Conti Rossini (trans.), Liber Axumae (Parisiis: Carolus Poussielgue, 1910), 76–77 (text), 92 (trans.). 27 A summary of the meanings of circumcision for contemporary Ethiopian societies is provided in Anni Peller et al., ‘Circumcision’, in eae vol. 1. 28 A Jesuit priest once commented that a local Ethiopian couple considered ugly (parecia fealfade) the uncircumcised state of their son; Barradas, 1631, in raso xii, doc. 113, 474. 29 Kane, Amharic–English Dictionary, 1938. 30 Couto, Década VII, liv. VII, Chapter XII. 31 Almeida quoted in Leonardo Cohen, ‘Los portugueses en Ethiopia y la problemática de los ritos “judáicos”’, Historia y grafia 17 (2001): 238. The arguments used by Gälawdewos and his advisers at the court should in fact be related to a certain royal discourse where

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similar argument; they practiced the rite ‘out of beauty’.32 Páez also remarked in his treatise that in Gǝʿǝz the word for uncircumcised, qwälläfä, could also mean ‘gentile’, and be used as an insult, while Mendes noted that ‘among them there is no more shameful reproach than to be called Colafa, which means imperfect or uncircumcised’.33 Mendes also added that ‘they circumcise neither as a formal act nor with the intention to keep the Mosaic Law, they regard circumcision as being necessary for salvation and as needed preparation for the Baptism [. . .] and they give it not only to the children but also to the gentiles when they are converted and to the prisoners of war’.34 In addition, local theologians during this period produced sophisticated arguments in support of the rite to counteract Jesuit theological sophistry. Several passages of the contemporary texts Ḥamärä näfs and Märs amin are dedicated to rebut the reasons of the ‘uncircumcised sons of Leo’.35 The latter text includes a chapter that plays on St. Paul’s ideas to demonstrate that, contrary to the padres’ claims, the resurrection will embrace those having been circumcised.36 It is thus not surprising that the Jesuits experienced serious difficulties in their attempts to extirpate this practice. This was true even in the case of the groups that were closer to them. The case of the Ethio-Portuguese is telling. In many other instances this group managed to maintain a strong Portuguese identity, keeping a Portuguese naming system, some knowledge of their ancestors’ language and a number of ‘foreign’ religious traditions, but they seem to have begun to circumcise their sons born in Ethiopia from the outset. As early as 1582 Manuel Fernandes had pointed to this problem. Then the Jesuit father

circumcision is openly defended but also perceived in a rather spiritualistic and formalistic – Judaic? – light, which emphasizes its role as a sign of the chosen people – in the Confessio Claudii, the rite is defined as ‘a sign of the truth [of the true lineage?]’ (­contrassegno di verità) – and obliterating local somatic conceptions; Lozza, ‘La confessione di Claudio re d’Etiopia’, 67–78. In the sixteenth century, other major texts emphasized similar arguments, for instance Ṣägga Zäʾab’s plea of 1530 studied above in Chapter One and the Fǝtḥa nägäśt (the original Arabic text dates from the thirteenth century but its attested use in Ethiopia coincides with the Portuguese and Jesuit presence); see Paulos Tzadua and Red., ‘Fǝtḥa nägäśt’, in eae vol. 2. Similar arguments also appear in a text contemporary to Zärʾa Yaʿǝqob, the Mäṣḥafä Bǝrhan, Carlo Conti Rossini (ed., trans.), Il  Libro della Luce del Negus Zar’a Yā‘qob (Maṣḥafa Berhān) (Louvain: Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, 1964), 152–165 (text), 90–98, especially 96–97. 32 Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso ii, liv. II, Chapter VIII. 33 Ibid. liv. II, Chapter VIII; Mendes, Expeditio Aethiopicae, in raso viii, liv. II, Chapter XXVI. 34 Afonso Mendes, May 9, 1633, in ame, cxv/2-7, P.2. 35 Cerulli, Scritti teologici etiopici, vol. 1, 173, 187–188, 248 (text), 213, 229, 288 (trans.). 36 Ibid. 252–254 (text), 294–296 (trans.)

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tried to justify the choice of Ethio-Portuguese parents by explaining that they adopted this practice because of social pressure: ‘[They did not circumcise] to obtain salvation but simply to prevent the harassment over those who are not circumcised by local Christians’.37 Yet, resistance to abandoning the rite is also reported during the second mission period, when major efforts and resources were invested in combatting these and other ‘errors’. The Jesuits appear to have been able to keep away from this practice only the families under their direct watch or living in their residences.38 The rest, including the Ethio-Portuguese, found it hard not to take their children through this rite, as the Jesuits regularly reported.39 Thus in 1631, when the failure of persuasive methods had brought the Patriarch Afonso Mendes and the nǝguś Susǝnyos to publish a royal decree forbidding this practice all over the country, the missionaries relate a case that may have been widespread: the mother of a child who had not yet been circumcised owing to the prohibition was heard saying ‘if my son has to remain uncircumcised, I wish he rather dies’.40 To all intents and purposes, the Ethiopians were facing a difficult choice: either to give in to one of the most pressing wishes of the missionaries while at the same time condemning their children to the lowest status in Ethiopian society, or to conform to popular pressure and then be accused by the missionaries of Judaizing practices. For those embracing Catholicism, the renunciation of circumcision was seen as imperative for salvation, while the contrary was true for most Ethiopian societies. The dilemma probably deterred many from ‘reducing’ on the terms expected by the European priests while isolating from wider society those who complied fully with the Pauline tenet. Indeed, the Jesuits and those who followed their tenet found themselves in the undesirable position that Ethiopians ascribed to those uncircumcised. Their opponents often insulted them with the opprobrious term qwälläfa.41

37

38 39 40 41

Manuel Fernandes to superior general, July 3, 1582, in raso X, doc. 108, 329. Supporting the same argument, Almeida reported that ‘what the Ethiopians considered revolting was to see that our people were not circumcised and that they ate hare and rabbit, so that since the beginning they called them colafas, which means uncircumcised and Nestorian heretics’; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso V, liv. IV, Chapter XXIV. For evidence of the children living in Gorgora not being circumcised, see Fernandes, 1620, in raso xi, doc. 57, 443. See Almeida, 1627, in arsi, Goa 39 II, 425v. Barradas, 1631, in raso xii, doc. 113, 474. E.g. in a letter from 1621 written by an anonymous supporter of Ethiopian Christianity the nǝguś was exhorted ‘not to listen to the colafas, i.e. the uncircumcised, who said that in Christ there are two natures’; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vi, liv. VII, Chapter XXX.

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Many probably saw their uncircumcision as a sign of the Franks’ barbaric nature, as was witnessed in the early eighteenth-century by a Franciscan missionary.42 Compounding this gloomy scenario, some well-intentioned proselytizing strategies amply exploited by the missionaries in the 1620s backfired. A case in point were the exorcisms and healing practices which, though developed since an early date in the mission, became central elements in the rural campaigns from 1625. To combat popular evils, such as illness and the harmful spirits zar and wǝqabi, the padres made lavish use of Catholic devotional images, amulets and relics. Healing and the removal of evil spirits were frequent practices of holy men, däbtära and other sort of local specialists (bäla wǝqabi, wof) in Ethiopian ‘folk religion’ and, therefore, the Jesuit ‘exorcists’, as Cohen has already proposed, probably simply embodied a traditional role that predated their arrival.43 Additionally, ministering to the poor and ill was an activity with old roots within the Society and a prerogative of the missionary vocation: healing the soul and healing the body were complementary actions aimed at saving the person.44 Yet, the upper echelons of Ethiopian society, those trying to embody a more serious and depurated form of Christianity, regarded folk

42

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44

A Franciscan missionary, fr. Giacomo da Oleggio, living at the court of nǝguś Yostos (1711–1716), reported to Rome of the difficult position of the missionaries, who were accused of Franchi ed incirconcisi and unless willing to circumcise brought to death; Fr. Giacomo da Oleggio, ca. 1717, in raso I, parte II, doc. 18, 183. Leonardo Cohen Shabot, ‘The Jesuit Missionaries in Ethiopia: Their Role as Exorcists, Healers and Miracle-makers (1603–1632)’, Rocznik Orientalistyczny (‘Annual of Oriental Studies’) 59, 1 (2006). On the belief in the evil eye and their remedies in Ethiopia, the classical account is Michel Leiris’s La possession et ses aspects théâtraux chez les Ethiopiens de Gondar (Paris: Plon, 1958). A valuable modern study is Aspen, Amhara Traditions of Knowledge, upon which I rely for the present analysis. An earlier study of holy men and their involvement in exorcisms and healing practices is Kaplan, The Monastic Holy Man, 69 and passim. Kaplan emphasized that the holy men’s liminal position made them excellent candidates to act as mediators in social and individual conflicts: ‘The monastic holy man’s ability to act as a mediator was to a considerable extent the result of the unique position he occupied in Ethiopia society [. . .] as a monk he had neither family nor country’; Ibid. 75. The first Jesuits notoriously spent their early years taking care of the infirm, as happened in Venice in 1537, and this became a standard occupation for subsequent generations of Jesuits. Moreover, the Jesuit hagiology included numerous scenes of healing miracles, such as St. Ignatius’s famous penchant for the destitute and ill (especially promoted in Ribadeneira’s Vita Ignatii Loiolae, Napoli, 1572) or the martyrdom of St. Luigi Gonzaga, who died in Rome after being infected by the sick people he was trying to console.

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beliefs with disdain and often combated them.45 For that reason, the Jesuits seem to have been easy target of criticisms from the Ethiopian Christian hierarchy and nobles, who regarded their healing and exorcist activities as heretical. Moreover, in the rural areas the idea that the missionaries were buda or carriers of misfortune also seems to have been held. On one occasion, a local peasant informed a Jesuit missionary that his reluctance to meet the Europeans was because local clergy had told him that ‘once the Jesuits came to preach in one region, a plague of locusts would destroy it’.46 The problems faced by the missionaries in Ethiopia have interesting parallels with the Japanese mission. The historian Elisonas has shown that in Japan missionary involvement in healing practices attracted great many people to Christianity but had also procured the Jesuits a bad reputation among the higher classes: ‘persons of quality were reluctant to associate with missionaries who left themselves open to contamination with the most dreadful afflictions [. . .] 45 Aspen, Amhara Traditions of Knowledge, 110, 116. Passages combating magic practices and folk beliefs also appear in classical Ethiopian texts, especially from the times of Zärʾa Yaʿǝqob (1434–1468), who led a fierce persecution against folk beliefs and seems to have tried to impose a kind of more spiritual religious doxa. Hence, in the Mäṣḥafä milad, the preacher condemned ‘all those who consult the magicians [mäśärrǝyan]’; Kurt Wendt (trans.), Das Maṣḥafa Milād (Liber Nativitatis) und Maṣḥafa Sellāsē (Liber Trinitatis) des Kaisers Zarʾa Yāʿqob (Louvain Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, 1962), 42, (text), 37 (trans.). Yet the Mäṣḥafä bǝrhan, attributed to Zärʾa Yaʿǝqob himself (but most likely written in his honor), also provides abundant evidence that exorcisms against evil spirits (ganen) were frequently practiced and to some extent tolerated by political and religious authorities; Conti Rossini, Il Libro della Luce, 25–26, 116–118 (text), 14–15, 68–69. 46 Lobo, Itinerário e outros escritos inéditos, 392. Almeida once reported that one of the ‘most learned men’ in Christian Ethiopia felt sorry for the fathers because ‘being as they are so good men and knowledgeable, they fell prey of such big errors as to saying that there are witches’ and he added that ‘these falsehoods were overtly harmful to the progress of the holy faith’; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vii, liv. IX, Chapter XI. That the Jesuits were particularly preoccupied by how local people saw them is also attested in the anecdote concerning Lobo’s surname; the superior da missão António Fernandes asked Lobo soon after his arrival in Ethiopia to change his name – literally meaning ‘wolf’ – so to avoid being associated with ǧǝbb (i.e. in Ethiopian ‘hyena’ and by extension also wolf), an animal associated with evil spirits; see Lobo, Itinerário e outros escritos, 398–399. Additionally, Ludolf wrote that the prayers taught by the Jesuits to their neophytes were held by some locals as ‘magic praying’ (akwätä räqet); Ludolf, quoted in Tewelde, ‘La politica cattolica de Selṭan Sägäd I’, 81. In more recent times, Cardinal Massaja experienced the same situation during his wanderings in central Ethiopia; see Guglielmo Massaja, Memoire storiche del Vicariato apostolico dei Galla: 1845–1880, vol. 2 (Padova: Edizioni Messaggero, 1984), 41, 63.

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Persons of quality were not afraid of catching a disease. They did not want to be polluted’.47 As in Japan, Jesuit residences in Ethiopia turned into local dispensaries, where (principally poor) people went to profit from the better healing services the Europeans offered. This probably pushed many a member of the higher Ethiopian classes and court clergy to regard with disdain and even to avoid mixing with those who were in frequent contact with polluted people. Perhaps in support of this hypothesis is an interpretation of a passage from the hagiography of Wälättä Ṗeṭros commenting that, ‘since the Europeans had contaminated the deacons [. . .] the Ethiopians had to wait until the coming of the metropolitan’.48 Therefore, the Catholics and those who lived with them were associated with a despised caste; in the eyes of the upper classes, and also of the common people, they came to be identified with the tänqway (i.e. sorcerers) and tämari (lit. student, persons who are believed to sometimes use their knowledge in the service of evil).49 Hence, in 1618, de Angelis reported that a group of Agäw saw the Jesuit priests as ‘magicians who turned people blind’.50 Another missionary method that had a boomerang effect was the mise en scène of the sacred. Although the two faiths, Ethiopian Christianity and Catholicism, shared some basic Christian principles, Tridentine Catholicism was a more open form of Christianity, more interested on passing a message and making it understood than, as was the case for Ethiopian Christianity, in keeping custody of the Christian mysteries. Moreover, the Ignatian notion of reaching to the hearts of the people and the Jesuit pedagogic drift emphasized the idea that only after a true understanding had been achieved could the heart (the inner person) be ‘reduced’ and become Christian.51 As we have seen 47

J.S.A. Elisonas, ‘The Jesuits, the Devil, and Pollution in Japan. The Context of a Syllabus of Errors’, Bulletin of Portuguese/Japanese Studies 1 (2000): 24. 48 Lanfranco Ricci (ed., trans.), Vita di Walatta Ṗiēṭros (Louvain Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, 1970) (csco vol. 316), 67 (text), 66 (trans.). 49 Aspen, Amhara Traditions of Knowledge, 121. 50 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vi, liv. VII, Chapter XXVIII. 51 In the view of St. Ignatius, conversation was one of the chief methods to stimulate the intellect of the neophytes and to bring people to the ‘Christian perfection’. In a famous document concerning the approach Jesuits had to adopt towards non-Jesuits, he emphasized: ‘One should try hard through conversations on human and spiritual things to bring people to the life of perfection’; Ignatius of Loyola to Juan Pelletier, June 13, 1551, in Ignacio de Loyola, Monumenta Ignatiana, vol. 3, doc. 1899, 544, 546. Similarly, the ideal type of Jesuit novice, as found in the Constitutions, was one who ‘knows the doctrine or has the skills to learn it [. . .] with talent to learn and to remember what has been learnt [. . .] it is desirable the ability to communicate, so important for the communication with the others’; Constituciones, part I, § 154–157.

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in the previous chapter, in Ethiopia the Jesuits buttressed the introduction of their Catholic worldview with the creation of outstanding architectural models and enforcing Latin liturgy. Yet, there are grounds to believe that a large number of Ethiopians were keen on neither the new church architecture nor the Tridentine mass. It is apparent that Catholic mass contradicted a deepseated way of understanding and representing the sacred in the local Ethiopian context, where, as Harald Aspen stressed, ‘only a minimal importance is attached to an intellectualization of the Holy Word’.52 The Ethiopians probably looked at the manners of the Catholics and of the Jesuits in particular with the same degree of bewilderment as Catholic Europe felt about the new religious praxis defended by the Protestantism. Not only was the sacrifice (Eucharist) open to the public – instead of hidden within the walls of the mäqdas – but the Jesuits permitted ‘impure’ bodies – such as menstruating women – to ‘contaminate’ the church. Significantly, the Liber axumae listed among the chief shortcomings of the missionaries the following ones: ‘they taught to breach the Sabbath, to eat fat food during fasts [. . .] Still, they required that menstruating women enter the church and in cases where the women have married an impure and polluted man they let the two enter the church as well’.53 In consequence, the Catholic temple was no longer a holy space but a space for everybody, a perception that indirectly harmed the sanctity the Jesuit priests pretended to embody. Last but not least, the frequent public display that missionaries made of religious imagery during exorcist and proselytizing campaigns breached the mystery with which Ethiopian Christians treated – as they still today do – the images of the sacred. In local Christianity the only image that was openly exhibited was the cross carved on the staff carried by the monk or parish priest. Icons and major images hardly ever left the dark rooms of the qǝddǝst; for the most part they remained permanently concealed under the huge sacral blankets (the mägaräǧa) and were seldom shown to visitors. In consequence, the missionaries’ promotion of a conspicuous display of the holy imagery, which for them was a sign of devotion, could but be perceived in local eyes only as a desecration.54

52 53 54

Ibid. Conti Rossini, Liber Axumae, 77 (text), 93 (trans.). On the strict prohibitions concerning access to the churches in Ethiopia, see Aspen, Amhara Traditions of Knowledge, 85. On the different meanings of religious art and contrasts in the representation of divinity between Eastern and Western Christianity, see de Vries, Orthodoxie und Katholizismus, 24–25.

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In Ethiopia, therefore, the missionaries could not gain a desired degree of dignity and respect. Due to the ironies of cultural asymmetry, what the Jesuits thought were their principal assets turned into a serious liability for the progress of the mission. A diametrically opposite anthropology to that of Pauline Catholicism undermined the Jesuits’ claim to embodying a superior form of priesthood. Therefore, by the end of the 1620s, the atmosphere in Christian Ethiopia had become largely hostile towards the Catholics. The mood was perfectly captured in 1629 by the leader of the short-lived Catholic Church in a poetical but frightening passage that bears the hallmarks of an omen: Plenty and big are the spines that scratch the seeds, and the stones too hard to receive them; many are the devilish birds that take the seeds away from the hearts. So, in spite of the present favorable conditions, there are signs of great storms, and many people have great hopes in a change, their eyes and hearts “listening” to the wind. The omens addressed against us and the prophecies foreseeing our death are so numerous that if only one of them was to become true we would be all finished.55 Local perceptions of the mission, however, were not circumscribed to the Christian groups speaking Amhara and Tǝgrǝñña languages, those forming the core of the Christian Ethiopian state. The missionaries also worked and lived for long periods in ‘peripheral’ areas such as Damot and Agäw land and it is therefore fair to assume that their hosts had their own ideas about the mission. On the one hand, images from the periphery do not appear to have differed very much from those recorded in the center of the Ethiopian state. All the ‘peripheral’ groups the Jesuits encountered during their proselytizing shared cultural traits with Amhara people and Tǝgrǝñña-speakers. Thus, at least the Agäw, Damot and Gonga seem to have practiced circumcision and the first and second groups also followed the Sabbath, a fact that probably induced them to see the Catholics in an unfavorable light. So sources note that batawis (hermits) who went to preach among the people of Damot, themselves staunch supporters of Ethiopian Christianity, spread the idea that the Jesuits were enemies of the Virgin and that their hosts were made from animal dung.56 Likewise, the southern groups, pagans and Christians alike, seem to have been aware of the difference between the traditional Christian proselytizers and the foreign missionaries. They thus perceived the Jesuits as färänǧ, the members of a foreign 55

Mendes, 1629, in raso xii, doc. 97, 402. Mendes wrote these words when memory of the murder of three Catholic priests whom he himself had recently ordained was still fresh. 56 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vi, liv. VII, Chapters XXXII–XXXIII.

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nation. On one occasion a missionary hinted at such awareness as being a major obstacle to preaching among the Agäw.57 However, this same perception of the Jesuits as a different group of Christians could have worked in their favor. The southern peoples had suffered from the exactions enforced by the Christian state and local clergy in the past. According to the Jesuits, the Ethiopian clergy employed aggressive methods to catechize and also tolerated a traditional policy of the Ethiopian state in relation to newly conquered peoples: to minimize conversions so as to be able to enslave as many people as possible. The Jesuits had positively gentler methods and a more pedagogical approach, a fact that, as was observed before, perhaps fostered conversions and spread positive views with regard to the mission. The distinct appearance of the Jesuit priests, the significant resources they displayed and their origin from a distant and powerful land favored perceptions of the European priests as rich men who could bring plenty; as the Agäw from Ankaša once put it, under the patronage of the missionaries the land will ‘live in peace, with plenty of food and honey’.58

From Dissent to Open Resistance

While negative images expressed dissent and were used to wage a form of silent resistance, opposition to missionary activities also took a more open, upfront form. In 1608, Luís de Azevedo noted of a complaint by a group of monks from a church near the residence of Gorgora. The monks petitioned Susǝnyos, albeit without success, to force the Jesuits to erect their church in a more distant spot because the Catholic temple was reportedly attracting too many of their own brethren.59 In 1609 nǝburä ǝd Thomas, at the head of an 800man force, threatened to storm the residence-fortress of Fǝremona. The conflict, which was probably connected to the ongoing rebellion of the false Yaʿǝqob in northern Tǝgray and Ḥamasen, was eventually settled.60 57

He wrote: ‘I don’t know whether by influence of the [local] friars or for other reasons, but the gentiles came to learn that our faith and communion was not that of Ethiopia; they were much aware of this fact. However, as they were told that the King and ras had sent the fathers, who were also their spiritual guides, to indoctrinate and teach them they became peaceful and obedient during our sermons and came to accept everything the fathers instructed them to do’; Mattos, 1621, in raso xi, doc. 61, 497. 58 Azevedo, 1619, in raso xi, doc. 54, 439. 59 Azevedo, 1608, in raso xi, doc. 24, 148. 60 Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso iii, liv. IV, Chapter XXV; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vi, liv. VII, ch X; raso vi, liv. VII, Chapter V. See also Luís de Azevedo, ‘Annua da missão de Ethiopia do anno de 1620’, July 1610, in adb, Legajo 779, 70v.

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But it was only at the beginning of its second decade of life that the mission’s fate was discussed in the open political arena. Then, in response to the growing influence of Páez and his peers at the court, a number of figures hostile to the mission entered center stage. We can assume that most of them came from the clergy and nobility. The first probably foresaw the challenge the mission represented for traditional Christian dogmas and for their own status as members of the local church; the second, in turn, might have perceived the mission as a menace to the political order and hence to their own privileges. In 1613, as was seen above, when the first open debates between traditionalists and Catholics were held, an issue concerning the faith and land rights of mixed Ethio-Portuguese families emerged. Thereafter metropolitan Sǝmʿon pronounced an excommunication against those who had contact with the Catholic priests.61 Against this backdrop, a group of monks and nuns headed by the metropolitan demonstrated at the royal kätäma, calling for yäṭǝnt, ‘as in the former days’.62 Although calling for ‘restoration’ at such an early date in the mission was probably a bit premature, the anecdote certainly conveys the strong commitment of many Ethiopians to oppose any change in the religious framework. In keeping with Sǝmʿon’s decisions, däǧǧazmač Yolyos, a figure who had been pivotal during Susǝnyos’s accession to power, began a policy that missionary sources described as one of harassment against local Catholics in Tǝgray, the region where he had been appointed governor and baḥǝr nägaš. He confiscated the lands of those having embraced Catholicism and exacted a tribute from the missionaries.63 In 1614, also in Tǝgray, the local lord ʾafä mäkwännǝn Askadom (‘Asquedon Affamacon’) publicly rejected Jesuit doctrines on the human nature of Christ and bullied Catholics living on his lands.64 About the same time, Yämanä Krǝstos, half-brother of Susǝnyos and then governor of Bägemdǝr, and Susǝnyos’s mother, Ḥamälmal Wärq, each wrote a letter to the ruler to persuade him to abandon his Jesuit leanings.65 A further piece of evidence for dissent stems from 1614, when a ‘large monastery’ on an island in Lake Ṭana – probably Daga Ǝsṭifanos – refused to accept a gift of candles traditionally offered to them by Susǝnyos.66 61 De Angelis, 1613, in arsi, Goa 39 I bis, 106v. 62 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vi, liv. VII, Chapter XXI. 63 See Romano, 1613, in raso xi, doc. 37, 313; Páez, 1614, in raso xi, doc. 39, 321, 333. 64 Páez, 1615, in raso xi, doc. 41, 358; Annual letter, 1615, in raso xi, doc. 43, 368–369. 65 Páez, 1614, in raso xi, doc. 39, 319. 66 Ibid. 332–333; also in Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso ii, liv. II, Chapter IV. Cohen, however, identifies the monastery with Däbrä Sina; Cohen, The Missionary Strategies of the Jesuits, 68.

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As was seen above, these initial threats were apparently thwarted. Yolyos was deposed from his governorship and Askadom was executed in 1614. Similarly, the calls of dignitaries and relatives for a more upfront opposition to the mission went unheard. Subsequently the kingdom experienced for a few more years’ calm. However, the calm was more apparent than real, for traditionalists used the time to reorganize and reunite forces. Thus, the crisis came to a head in the famous battle of May 11, 1617 near Ṣädda, in Dämbǝya. As is well known, the outcome was favorable to Susǝnyos, who probably owed his victory to his military and strategic talent and to the sudden death at the opening of the first fight of one of the rebellious leaders, Yolyos. However, the high profile of the opponents and the number of forces they managed to recruit were patent signs that a considerable portion of the state was overtly against the mission and was unwilling to compromise.67 But it was in the 1620s, with Catholic reforms in full swing, that dissent reached spectacular proportions.68 Religious debates, political conflicts and military clashes succeeded each other at a rapid pace. In March–April 1620 the ǝččäge Zärʾa Wängel, together with a group of some 400 monks and court dignitaries, demonstrated at the court, calling for a ban on conversions to Catholicism.69 On October 26, 1621 the army of ras Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos was active in Damot, the province of his father, quelling a rebellion. The uprising might have been motivated by economic and political factors, but the religious element cannot be ruled out, because the region had then experienced an increase in missionary activity. Reportedly, several wäʿali (‘soldiers’) of ras Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos’s army abandoned their leader, taking with them their companies Baḥǝr Amara, Därara, and Wǝšǝr, to join the rebels’ side.70 In May 1622, at Fogära, on the southeastern shore of Lake Ṭana, the two religious parties met again in a council 67

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When describing these events, Páez reported that the rebels included ‘almost all the court’ and managed to form a formidable army: ‘the men of Yolyos being so numerous that covered the land like locusts’; Páez, História de Etiópia, in raso ii, liv. II, Chapter V; raso iii, liv. IV, Chapter XIX. A substantial description of the battle was provided by Páez in a letter compiled in Goa by the Jesuit Michael de Pace that seems to be extant in only two – German and Italian – translations; Pedro Páez, ‘Lettera scritta d’Etiopia al M.R.P. Mutio Vitelleschi Generale della Compagnia di Giesù l’anno 1617’, in Lettere annue del Giappone, China, Goa et Ethiopia, 141 and passim; Id., Zwei Schreiben Das eine zu Dambia in Ethiopia, das ander zu Goa in India verfasst. . . (Augspurg: Sara Mangin/Wittib., 1622), 6 and passim. I join here the chronology of rebellions proposed in Abir, Ethiopia and the Red Sea, 216 and passim. Azevedo, 1620, in raso xi, doc. 58, 460–461; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vi, liv. VIII, Chapter VII. Ibid. liv. VII, Chapter XXXII; Mǝhǝrka Dǝngǝl et al., Chronica de Susenyos, Chapter LXV.

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which was attended by Susǝnyos, part of the nobility and several religious representatives.71 There, each party adopted a particular theological doctrine over the relationship between God the Father and God the Son; the Catholic party, represented by Susǝnyos himself, defended the ‘Unction’ theory (Qǝbat) and the traditionalists’ party, guided by azzaž Zädǝngǝl and abba Kǝflä Krǝstos, the ‘Union’ theory (Täwaḥǝdo). The celebration of the council shows that at that moment traditionalists and Catholics still believed in the power of reason and in their capacity to convince the other. However, such attempt to settle the disputes through dialog was short-lived. So in the same year, as a response to Susǝnyos’s support of the ‘heretic’ Unctionist doctrine, a number of influential figures rose in rebellion. They included däǧǧazmač Yonaʾel, then governor of the province of Bägemdǝr, Qwärif Śǝno, married to Wälättä Giyorgis, grand niece of Ḥamälmal Wärq, and the sons of one Daharagot.72 During 1623 and 1624, when news of the imminent coming of the Catholic patriarch had probably already spread across the country, several localized uprisings emerged. In around 1623 one Wäldä Qǝbrǝyal led an aggressive guerrilla war against royal forces in the eastern regions of Ambassäl and Lasta.73 Wäldä Qǝbrǝyal was reportedly the son of an Egyptian merchant and a prostitute; dressed in the habits of a monk, he claimed to be king of Šäwa under the throne name of Tewodros Ṩäḥay. Allied with sections of the Karrayyuu Oromo, he laid waste Lasta, Amhara and Šäwa until he was eventually killed towards mid-1626 in Fäṭägar by Ñaʿǝ Śärṩe, a Mäčča Oromo ally to Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos.74 As Merid remarked, this was one of the first instances of cooperation between Oromo groups and internal rebels. With 71 72

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Paes, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 244r; Mǝhǝrka Dǝngǝl et al., Chronica de Susenyos, Chapter LIX. Tewelde situates this event in 1621; Tewelde, ‘La politica cattolica de Selṭan Sägäd I’, 136. Mattos, 1621, in raso xi, doc. 61, 481; Mǝhǝrka Dǝngǝl et al., Chronica de Susenyos, Chapter LXII. The term ‘rebel’ is of course not neutral, for it comes from the point of view of a legitimate source of power. While recognizant of this bias, I employ it in my text for the lack of a more suitable concept. The concept, however, finds an equivalent in indigenous terms used in Ethiopian royal chronicles to define political and religious dissent: e.g. ʿaläwä (‘to conspire, distort, pervert, corrupt, violate, rebel’) and ʿalawi (‘rebel, disobedient, lawless, heretical, apostate’); see Leslau, Comparative Dictionary of Geʿez, 61–62. A similar term also used in traditional Ethiopian historiography is wäräñña (‘one who wanders’, ‘gossipmonger’); e.g. Mǝhǝrka Dǝngǝl et al., Chronica de Susenyos, Chapter LXX; see also Kane, Amharic-English Dictionary, 1508. Jesuit sources speak of him as ‘Kabrael’ of Egyptian origin; Paes, 1626, in arsi, Goa 39 II, 302v, 303v; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vi, liv. VIII, Chapter XIV; Mǝhǝrka Dǝngǝl et al., Chronica de Susenyos, Chapter LXXIII–LXXV. Mǝhǝrka Dǝngǝl et al., Chronica de Susenyos, Chapters LXX–LXXI; see also Ahmed Hassen Omer, ‘Ḥarr Amba’, in eae vol. 2, 1035.

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such inter-ethnic alliances rebel groups could count on the considerable force of the Karrayyuu and Märawa Oromo.75 Reportedly, Wäldä Qǝbrǝyal had fathered a son, named ‘João Egipcio’ by the missionaries, who conducted perhaps the most ferocious anti-Jesuit campaigns. In around 1624 he claimed to be nǝguś of Ethiopia and champion of Ethiopian Christianity, formed an army whose squadrons – bearing such telling names as ‘Dioscorite or Jacobite souls’ – were headed by monks and nuns, and challenged the royal forces in at least three theatres, Amhara, Goǧǧam and Šäwa.76 In the same period, one bandit Aaron (‘Aarão’), at the head of some 600–700 outlaws, caused chaos, assaulting people on the roads of Tǝgray and threatening the Catholics in Fǝremona. Reportedly, his activities were prompted by quarrels he had had earlier with Portuguese dwelling in Gurre.77 The prophetical and biblical names that many of these rebels carried speak for themselves and, in addition, demonstrate the eschatological element of the movements they led.78 In 1625 the Fälaša leader Gedewon, probably aware of the widespread state of turmoil, rebelled in Sǝmen.79 Likewise, it was probably also then that the famous female saint Wälattä Ṗeṭros began her unbending opposition to the Catholic reforms. Her rebellion, which was initially localized in the province of Wäldǝbba, spread to the Lake Ṭana region and had as its center the monastic islands of Däq and Daga.80 A few years later, a new wave of unrest hit the kingdom, and with it civil war took center stage. This time the challenge to the mission and the Ethiopian state was more serious because at the head of the rebellions were key players 75 76 77

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Merid, ‘Southern Ethiopia and the Christian Kingdom’, 514–516. Roiz, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 223r, 228r; Paes, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 236r, 240r; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vi, liv. VIII, Chapter V and Chapter VII. According to the sources, Aaron came from Torat, a region to the west of Aksum, between the rivers Täkkäze and Mareb; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vi, liv. VIII, Chapter V; Roiz, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 220v, 229v. An insightful analysis of these prophetical movements is provided in Cohen, The Mis­ sionary Strategies of the Jesuits, 70 and passim. Cohen has convincingly argued that their messianic message was the expression of strong social and political unrest. Gedewon was a generic term identifying the Fälaša leader of Sǝmen; his death is reported in Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vi, liv. VIII, Chapter XIV. Her exploits, although somewhat distorted by the narrator, were recorded in a gädl (i.e. Vita) dedicated to her. The text provides a valuable indigenous viewpoint on the antiCatholic movements in the 1620s; Ricci, Vita di Walatta Ṗiēṭros. On Wälättä Ṗeṭros’s presence in the Lake Ṭana area, see ibid. 58 and passim (text), 55 and passim. For a discussion, see Bosc-Tiessé, Les îles de la mémoire, 65 and passim. On Lake Ṭana as a center of religious dissent, see Cohen, The Missionary Strategies of the Jesuits, 67–68.

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in the state as well as members of the royal family who directly aspired to the royal throne. In 1628 a mighty coalition laid waste in Tǝgray. The coalition comprised prominent lords, such as däǧǧazmač Täklä Giyorgis, governor of Tǝgray and formally married to Wängelawit, his sister Adäro Maryam, two former baḥǝr nägaš, Yoḥannǝs Akay and Gäbrä Maryam and two grandchildren of Śärṩä Dǝngǝl, Zäwäldä Maryam and wäyzäro Krǝstosawit. Other leaders were the monk Sǝbuḥ Amlak and a local šǝfta, Goyto Ṭäfa.81 In November, the provincial kätäma in Tǝgray professed the Alexandrian faith, there ensuing the destruction of the images and objects that the Jesuits had distributed and the persecution of Catholics. The five missionaries staying in the north foresaw the threat and retreated to Fǝremona, but the traditionalists seized Jacobo Alexandre, a skilled aide of the missionaries, who was executed.82 The rebellion was eventually quelled thanks to the rapid intervention of däǧǧazmač Qǝbʾä Krǝstos.83 In 1629 two more rebellions guided by challengers to the Ethiopian throne in the provinces of Amhara – by Lakä Maryam – and Tǝgray – by a son of ras Zäśǝllase – were averted. The second took a heavy toll on the rebels’ side, who reportedly lost 4,000 men.84 In the meantime, ‘peripheral’ groups also joined in. In 1627 the Oromo of the Biifolee gaada (which set off in 1626) initiated a series of devastating incursions into southern Damot and Goǧǧam that challenged the regiments under däǧǧazmač Bukko, who died in one of the clashes. Towards 1629 an Agäw tribe from

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The latter was described as ‘famous robber’; Mendes, 1629, in raso xii, doc. 97, 365. Born in Fǝremona in 1586, Alexandre was the grandson of Messer Alexandre, a Spaniard who had fled from captivity under the Turks and had joined the Portuguese group in Tǝgray. Jacobo grew up with Father Francisco Lopes and for a long time assisted Lorenzo Romano in the daily affairs of the residence of Fǝremona. In 1618 he accompanied Father de Angelis on a mission among the Agäw in Ankaša. In about 1626 he became one of the first priests to be ordained by Patriarch Mendes and thereafter served, among other duties, as confessor of the Jesuits. His fate was sealed when the Jesuits chose him as chaplain to serve at the kätäma of Täklä Giyorgis; it was then when he was caught by surprise and eventually executed on November 6, 1628; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vii, liv. IX, Chapter IV; Afonso Mendes to superior general, June 1, 1629, in raso xii, doc. 94, 340; Mendes, 1629, in raso xii, doc. 97, 361, 366–368. Another source has Jacobo’s grandfather as an Italian who was captured in the Tyrrhenian Sea; Mendes, Expeditio Aethiopicae, in raso viii, liv. II, Chapter IX. 83 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vii, liv. IX, Chapter IV and V; Mendes, 1629, in raso XII, doc. 97, 363. 84 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vii, liv. IX, Chapter VIII; Barradas, 1631, in raso xii, doc. 113, 429, 431.

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Bägemdǝr that refused to accept royal authority allied with Mälkǝʾa Krǝstos to enthrone him as ruler.85 These revolts were accompanied by a widespread refusal, at the top and the bottom of the social scale simultaneously, to implement the religious and social reforms engineered by António Fernandes and Afonso Mendes. Circumcision was, as was said above, still widely practiced; the Tridentine matrimonial precepts were in the mid-1620s embraced by only a few; and while Catholicism was now widely professed, for since the early 1620s it was both an obligation and a shortcut to social promotion, there is reason to believe that many did so against their will. In 1620, for instance, the missionary record notes that in the household of Wängelawit the Sabbath was still observed.86 The court saw the arrival of numerous letters written by monks imploring the nǝguś to withdraw the anti-Sabbatical law.87 In the same year an influential religious figure, liqä mäʾǝmǝran Zämäläkot, before passing away, rejected the doctrine of the double nature of God, which he would have professed only ‘out of obligation’.88 This was also a period when literary pamphlets and anti-Catholic theological pieces seem to have been widely circulated. In 1623 a local priest was imprisoned because he had written and spread a pasquinade harming the ‘honor and the dignity of the good Emperor’.89 Also about that year, and with the intention of undermining the arrival of the Catholic patriarch, a number of Ethiopian dignitaries, probably including members of the court and the Tǝgrayan nobility, received a Greek Melkite monk from a monastery in Mount Sinai – the area from where Egyptian metropolitans traditionally came – and nominated him ‘Papa of Alexandria’. Initially gathering numerous followers in the northern regions of Bur, Ḥamasen and Tǝgray, towards mid-1623 the monk was active at the court in Dänqäz, where he received the support of ǝččäge Zärʾa Wängel and a large part of the court’s clergy and officers. At the kätäma he consecrated priests, celebrated mass following the Alexandrian liturgy and became the spiritual leader of those at odds with the Catholic 85 86 87

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raso vii, liv. IX, Chapter VII; Mendes, 1629, in raso xii, doc. 97, 391. Barradas, 1631, in raso xi, doc. 113, 480; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vi, liv. VII, Chapter XXX. One such letter, sent by monks from Tǝgray, appears in Mattos, 1621, in raso xi, doc. 61, 479–480; a longer version of the same document was the Ṩäwänä näfs (‘The Consolation of the Soul’) published in Cerulli, Scritti teologici etiopici, vol. 2, 105–117 (text), 121–135 (trans.); see also Piovanelli, ‘Connaissance de Dieu et sagesse humaine’, 216–217. Mattos, 1621, in raso xi, doc. 61, 478. Roiz, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 225r.

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reforms: ‘People would flow to him begging for punishment and penitential exercises, which they claimed they deserved after having abandoned the faith of their grandparents’.90 The kingdom was more than ever divided. Catholic and traditionalists’ parties opposed each other in every segment of Ethiopian society and the Catholics could feel secure only in the missionary residences and at the court. Susǝnyos and the Jesuits did not properly take into account the immense areas occupied by Christians. Some important Christian provinces, such as Amhara, Lasta and Šäwa, were far beyond their reach. Likewise, the social fabric was frayed. At the top of the social pyramid about half of the members of the royal family professed Catholicism or were in friendly terms with the padres, while the other half took open traditionalist positions (see Appendix 5). Thus, of the eight offspring of Susǝnyos whose stance on religious issues reached the historical record, four had a pro-Catholic leaning (Gälawdewos, Mäläkotawit, Yosṭos and Yaʿǝqob) and four joined the opposite party (Fasilädäs, Wängelawit, Adäro Maryam and Sǝbḥat Läʾab).91 Significantly, too, Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos, whom the Jesuits often dubbed ‘the column of the Catholics’ in Ethiopia, began to fall into disgrace among his peers.92 Rumors were circulated in the court. Some accused him of wanting to take over the state, others of preparing an invasion with forces from Portuguese India. Moreover, from about 1625 onwards, he began to be involved in open disputes with high-ranking figures, such as azzaž Lǝssanä Krǝstos, abetohun Mälkǝʾa Krǝstos, Śärṩä Krǝstos and Yämanä Krǝstos. But his disgrace was sealed when Fasilädäs and Susǝnyos clashed with him. In about 1625, upon the return from the campaign against the rebel João the Egyptian, Susǝnyos removed from his brother the governorship of Agäw, which was passed to his son Marqos.93 Later, between August 1627 and the beginning of 1628, he transferred the governorship of Goǧǧam to Śärṩä Krǝstos. With these moves Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos saw his power in the kingdom dramatically curtailed: lands and regiments of soldiers were taken away. His fall forced him first to take shelter in Ǝnnarya to save his life and in 1629 he was compelled to openly vow obedience to his nephew Fasilädäs. Eventually, some of these disputes were settled and at some point in 1629 Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos was reinstated as governor of 90

Ibid.; Mǝhǝrka Dǝngǝl et al., Chronica de Susenyos, Chapter LXVIII. Also Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vi, liv. VIII, Chapter VII; Barneto, 1623, in raso xi, doc. 63, 522. 91 In total Susǝnyos had about twenty-five offspring; see Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vii, liv. IX, Chapter XXXIII. 92 E.g. Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vi, liv. VII, Chapter XXII. 93 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vi, liv. VIII, Chapter XXI.

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Goǧǧam.94 However, the image of the mission’s local champion had been damaged and his power within the kingdom irreparably undermined. Around 1630, when both were on a campaign in Amhara to quell a rebellion, the enmity between Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos and his half-brother Yämanä Krǝstos brought them to the verge of confrontation with their armies and the clash was averted only through the intervention of ʿaqqabe säʿat Ḥablä Śǝllase.95 The reasons for this major crisis are somewhat obscure. Contemporary Jesuit accounts lay the blame on prominent members of the court, such as Lǝssanä Krǝstos and Mälkǝʾa Krǝstos, whose intentions were to undermine the core of Catholic power.96 It can be further argued that the royal court possibly saw with envy and mistrust the developments that occurred south of Lake Ṭana, as Goǧǧam made formidable progress thanks to the joint work of Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos, a group of able officials, abbots of monasteries and the Jesuits. There, the mission had the largest number of active residences and counted as allies an important network of monasteries. Goǧǧam was a vanguard area for the mission and often the innovations the missionaries brought to Ethiopia were first tried out there. As Merid and later Pennec and Toubkis argued, the nǝguś probably believed that the Goǧǧam ruled under Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos was growing too independent and dynamic an area and that it represented a potential challenge to the authority of the central government.97 Last but not least, this crisis might be seen as a sign of the growing skepticism of Susǝnyos as regards the padres. This hypothesis seems to be corroborated by the halt of missionary expansion in the late 1620s, which was the effect of Susǝnyos’s direct or indirect intervention. So, although in the late 1620s Susǝnyos was still officially backing the Jesuit project he was effectively halting the growth of the missionary network. Likewise, at the court, important dignitaries who hitherto had shown no sign of dissent or had even professed to be pro-Catholic began in significant numbers to disagree with political and religious power and to form a potent clique against the mission. The group of the wäyzäro and the circle of wives of nobles and dignitaries, chief among Susǝnyos’s wives and concubines, became

94 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vi, liv. VIII, Chapter XI; Ibid. VII, liv. IX, Chapter I and VII; Mendes, 1629, in raso xii, doc. 97, 394–396. Also in Mǝhǝrka Dǝngǝl et al., Chronica de Susenyos, Chapter XCV. 95 Mǝhǝrka Dǝngǝl et al., Chronica de Susenyos, Chapter LXXXVII. 96 For instance, see Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vii, liv. IX, Chapter I and XXIV. 97 Merid, ‘Southern Ethiopia and the Christian Kingdom’, 468; Pennec and Toubkis, ‘Reflections on the Notions of “Empire”’, 253–257.

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dynamic opponents behind the curtains.98 Sources inform us that the residences of the wäyzäro at the court were safe havens for traditionalists.99 In 1628 Manoel de Almeida informed the Jesuit superior general that duplicity and intrigue ruled at the court and that the profession of Catholicism of many was not genuine.100 A few names of opponents who emerged in 1628 can be brought to the fore. Azzaž Lǝssanä Krǝstos, who had escorted Mendes from Fǝremona to Dämbǝya back in 1626 and was once said to be ‘very close’ to him, was involved in a plot against Mendes and the pro-Jesuit azzaž Ṭino. The patriarch, in his turn, excommunicated the ʿaqqabe säʿat in office because of his religious positions.101 Blattengeta and abetohun Mälkǝʾa Krǝstos, since 1621 an active participant in the mission’s life, parted company with the Jesuits and joined a rebellion in Bägemdǝr, Wag and Lasta.102 During that time, too, another court plot to claim the nǝguś’s life was discovered on time and prevented.103 By the end of the decade not even the core provinces of the kingdom were secure. Śärṩä Krǝstos, a nephew of Susǝnyos and the son of the anti-Catholic Yämanä Krǝstos, rebelled during his governorships of Bägemdǝr and Goǧǧam 98

99

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Although I do not agree with the view of the Jesuit mission as a ‘proto-colonial’ undertaking (mission and colonialism were not the same thing), an interesting study on the crucial role played by women of noble extraction in articulating dissent to the mission is Wendy L. Belcher, ‘Sisters Debating the Jesuits: The Role of African Women in Defeating Portuguese Proto-Colonialism in Seventeenth-Century Abyssinia’, Northeast African Studies 13, 1 (2013): 126 and passim. Almeida told of a plan orchestrated in 1628 by Susǝnyos’s first wife, one of his daughters (perhaps Wängelawit) and other members of the royal family to kill the nǝguś during one of his frequent journeys between Dänqäz and Gännätä Iyäsus; Almeida, 1628, in raso xii, doc. 76, 252, 261. Ibid. 259. Further evidence of the opposition by the wäyzäro to the mission in Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vi, liv. VIII, Chapter XI. Ibid. raso vii, liv. IX, Chapter I and Chapter VI. Mälkǝʾa Krǝstos, for instance, was said to have ‘converted’ in 1621, the year in which he also delivered a speech in favor of the new faith. Around 1624 he built his houses in Gännätä Iyäsus, and two years later gave a speech at Dänqäz in honor of the Patriarch. Around 1626, however, he rebelled. In 1632, he was defeated by Susǝnyos and died shortly after; Lettere annue d’Etiopia, Malabar, Brasil e Goa Dall’Anno 1620 fin’al 1624, Roma: Francesco Corbelletti, 1627, 5; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vi, liv. VII, Chapters XXXII, XXXIII; liv. VIII, Chapter VI; liv. VIII, Chapters XXI and XXII; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vii, liv. IX, Chapter VII; Barradas, 1631, in raso xii, doc. 113, 429; Béguinot, La cronaca abbreviata d’Abissinia, 48–49. A reference to his rebellion appears in the hagiography of Wälättä Ṗeṭros; Ricci, Vita di Walatta Ṗiēṭros, 61 (text), 59 (trans.). Almeida, 1628, in raso xii, doc. 76, 247.

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in 1629 and 1631, respectively. In Goǧǧam he also tried, unsuccessfully, to gain the support of Fasilädäs. On May 21, 1631 he declared himself nǝguś and ordered everybody to abandon the Roman faith and return to the traditional Alexandrian faith: the practices of circumcision and the Sabbath were reinstated and people were allowed to marry as many women as they wished.104 Towards the end of the year he attacked the Jesuit residence of Ǝnnäbǝse and the priests staying there were forced to flee.105 The fury of the insurgent was then directed against two important local adherents to the mission, abba Zäśǝllase, abbot of the monastery of Däbrä Ṣǝlalo, and Ṭǝqur Yämanä Krǝstos (‘Tequr Emano’), an officer in the elite unit Henok, who were both executed.106 Furthermore, in the spring of 1632, a rebel advance into Bägemdǝr forced Susǝnyos to abandon Dänqäz and the patriarch to take shelter in Gorgora.107 Last but not least, the missionaries also suffered the first serious blows in their attempts to expand into areas hitherto untapped. In about 1625 Jacinto Francisco began work in Bägemdǝr, but it bore no fruit. There, as Almeida reported, people were ‘more bound to their errors’ and the ‘Vice Roys were less zealous about the reduction’.108 In late 1627 or early 1628 a local lord murdered two Catholic priests, Yämanä Krǝstos and Tänśǝʾa Krǝstos, who had been sent to preach in Wälqayt.109 At about the same time, the residence of Tanḵa in Agäw-land was abandoned owing to the instability in the area, and that of Näfaša suffered the same fate.110 In 1629, although there were twenty Jesuits in Ethiopia, Almeida noted that ‘only a few mission campaigns were undertaken [in the countryside] because the lands are too insecure with wars hitting many regions of the empire’.111 A series of religious, political and economic factors can be recalled to account for this state of affairs. The educational, artistic, architectonic and religious achievements during the 1620s presupposed colossal disbursements, and the Jesuits came to support their expansion mostly by recurring to local donors and contributions. Although most of these contributions came directly from 104 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vi, liv. VIII, Chapter IV; Mendes, 1631, in raso xii, doc. 113, 486, 489–490, 496–497. 105 The fathers eventually managed to cross the Abbay using the newly built Alata bridge and after four days of march they were able to reach the safe location of Ǝnfraz; Ibid. 492; Mǝhǝrka Dǝngǝl et al., Chronica de Susenyos, Chapter XCII. 106 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vii, liv. IX, Chapter XX. 107 Ibid. Chapter XXVIII. 108 Ibid. raso vi, liv. VIII, Chapter XIII. 109 Ibid. raso vii, liv. IX, Chapter II; Almeida, 1628, in raso xii, doc. 76, 287–288. 110 Almeida, 1628, in raso xii, doc. 76, 266. 111 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vii, liv. IX, Chapter XII.

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the pro-Catholic rulers, we might assume that in a somewhat indirect way the burden was placed upon a larger group of Ethiopian society. Moreover, while the dissenting Christians began to be dispossessed of their properties, the Catholics accumulated privileges. In 1618, for instance, in order to provide timber to cover the ceiling of the first Jesuit building designed by Páez, Susǝnyos resorted to cedar wood from nearby monasteries that the monks were compelled to sell.112 In about 1621 the Catholics were exempted from paying taxes for traded commodities at the customs station of Lämälmo, in Sǝmen.113 In the ensuing years, when royal contributions to the mission grew, the sense of frustration must have but only grown among Ethiopians. In truth, the mission’s patrons were careful enough to make donations also to the locals. Similarly, the Jesuits often served the needy, thus turning their residences into bodies by which the royal treasury was distributed to the destitute.114 Yet, as Conti Rossini has emphasized, the perception was that the Jesuit residences were accumulating a great deal of the country’s wealth.115 The residences did indeed become refined centers of study and cultural activity and, in contrast to the austerity of local constructions – including local monasteries – they undoubtedly appeared as places of luxury and prosperity. This gave the missionaries access to a large number of people but probably also reinforced local prejudices that considered them as friends of mammon. This was, I think, a major ‘secular’ factor that induced locals to dislike the mission. However, the missionaries were well 112 The missionary source is unequivocal in emphasizing the disagreement of the local priests with this decision; see Páez, 1618, in raso xi, doc. 53, 406. 113 Mattos, 1621, in raso xi, doc. 61, 477. According to the historian Richard Pankhurst Lämälmo would have been near the modern village of Wälqǝfit; Pankhurst, An Introduction to the Economic History of Ethiopia, 189, note 35; see also Huntingford, The Historical Geography of Ethiopia, 214. 114 The gifts and land grants to the residences, besides decisively helping boost architectural works, turned them into charitable centers where the destitute could find consolation. Thus, in 1623 Susǝnyos, after having given generous presents to the Jesuits in Gännätä Iyäsus, ordered that, ‘since the year was of hunger and many poor people had gathered there, to distribute them a hundred loads of produce’; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vi, liv. VIII, Chapter VI; also in Mendes, Expeditio Aethiopicae, in raso viii, liv. II, Chapter VI. During the same famine the priest in charge of the residence of Gorgora instructed that ‘every day alms were given to the poor who came to that residence, being these so numerous that sometimes they were more than 200. Here the emperor showed his benevolence by offering generous alms and his action was imitated by some nobles. With these measures we provided relief to the great needs of these peoples’; Roiz, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 226r. 115 Conti Rossini, ‘Portogallo ed Etiopia’, 349.

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aware of these problems. In 1627 a generous gwǝlt that Susǝnyos had granted to the residence of Gorgora was perceived by the missionaries to be more of a burden than an asset for, as they saw it, this would turn the original beneficiaries of the gwǝlt against the mission.116 In 1628 Manoel de Almeida likewise recommended the superior general in Rome not to send more priests, so as not to stir up local dissent.117 Later, when he was in Goa composing his História de Etiópia, Almeida concluded that the wealth and privileges that missionary facilities accumulated were one of the main causes of the spread of discontent. He added that locals believed ‘that what was being taken from them was being given to the foreigners’ and that missionary residences ‘were seen as true fortresses rather than as praying centers’.118 Secondly, the mission also enforced a series of reforms that had an unsettling effect upon the social and political fabric. A case in point is local marriage practices, which had been regulated by the padres since the arrival of Mendes.119 It can be argued that courtiers and nobles perceived Jesuit-sponsored reforms as an intrusion into the sphere of their private lives and a threat to one of the prerogatives of their elevated and privileged social position, which was the frequentation of concubines. Even those having embraced the new faith found it difficult to cope with these norms and the case of ras bitwäddäd Zäkrǝstos and wäyzäro Wängelawit is illustrative. The two had lived together since the early 1620s and had children, despite the fact that Wängelawit was formally married to the governor of Tǝgray, Täklä Giyorgis.120 Although as early as 1621 Zäkrǝstos was described as a ‘pious Catholic’ and was never involved in court intrigues he chose not to renounce the benefits that his aristocratic condition offered.121 116 Locals protested the decision, notwithstanding the fact that ‘the Emperor had granted them other lands of a similar nature than the old ones’; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vii, liv. IX, Chapter II. 117 ‘Because these people feel oppressed by us, for as they have very little and we have received many lands, several rumors circulate saying that we are never satisfied and for that reason we are hated’; Manoel de Almeida to superior general, June 30, 1628, Dänqäz, in raso xii, doc. 78, 295–296. 118 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vii, liv. IX, Chapter XXIV. 119 See Ibid. raso vi, liv. VIII, Chapter VII. 120 raso vii, liv. IX, Chapter IV and XI. Wängelawit, however, had a long record of relationships, having lived with or married at least five (Almeida reports seven) different men. In chronological order these were: (1) abetohun Zädǝngǝl; (2) abetohun Bǝʿǝlä Krǝstos, governor of Bägemdǝr, Damot and Tǝgray; (3) abetohun Wäldä Ḥawaryat (†1619); (4) däǧǧazmač Täklä Giyorgis (†1629); (5) däǧǧazmač Zäkrǝstos; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vii, liv. IX, Chapter IV, XI, XXIV, XXXI. 121 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vi, liv. VII, Chapter XXXII.

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Towards 1628, the couple was still resolute in marrying or living together and the Jesuits, building on their strong position at court, led a fierce opposition to their project. It makes sense to assume that confronting a couple whom Almeida described as ‘among the wealthiest and from the highest lineage in Ethiopia’ was not a wise decision.122 Hence, far from being deterred by the Jesuits’ reprimand the couple only waited until Ethiopian Christianity was restored to attain their purpose.123 Thus, when the distinguished lovers managed to fulfill their wish, a number of people at the court reportedly said that ‘we will be no longer controlled nor deprived of our personal wishes. We will live with our concubines and will marry and divorce as we please’.124 But perhaps even more decisive was a major scheme to reform the structure of the church that began to be set in motion around 1627 or 1628. This was an undertaking that had long been on the agenda of the Jesuit mission and, probably, had been carefully devised by António Fernandes. The scheme was once again inspired by the Tridentine decrees and was aimed at setting up not only the dogmas and rites the Ethiopian church was to follow and practice – a task that had already begun in about 1613 – but also the way the church as an institution was to be organized and funded. In terms of organization, the structure of the Ethiopian church was nearly the opposite to the sophisticated administrative machinery represented by the Roman church. Its structure was frail, a proper hierarchical system was missing and the standardization of norms and forms was by and large absent. The church also lacked an integrated financial system and individual churches depended for their upkeep and survival upon local peasantry, landowners and local lords. The tithe system was unknown – it was first introduced into Ethiopia in the late nineteenth century following the modernization policies of Mǝnilǝk II – and in consequence the bulk of the priesthood lived in very poor conditions, a serious shortcoming indeed for ­foreign priests accustomed to the comforts enjoyed by their class in Europe. Almeida thus pointed out that, although some monasteries and churches had been granted important estates, these often turned out to be only temporary 122 Ibid. raso vii, liv. IX, Chapter VI. 123 The two eventually married in June 1632; Ibid. Chapter XXI. 124 Ibid. Interestingly enough, according to Balandier the mission to Congo from the late ­fifteenth century would have failed largely owing to the missionaries’ opposition to the polygamy of the ruling class; Balandier, La vie quotidienne au royaume de Kongo, 35. Additionally, the German Jesuit Alexander de Rhodes was banished by royal order in 1630 from Tonkin (Vietnam) because of the Jesuits’ insistence that converts become monogamous, a demand that infuriated the royal concubines and eunuchs; Alden, The Making of an Enterprise, 139.

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and fragile grants. The Jesuits wanted to change all that swiftly, using the force of their theoretical hegemony over the Ethiopian church. Their plan was to ‘restitute’ to the church the jurisdiction over ‘religious issues’, such as marriages, and to force local individuals or lords to give away those lands that would have belonged previously to churches and monasteries.125 Some religious communities probably saw in these reforms an opportunity for growth and a chance to gain autonomy. This is corroborated by the support that, as we saw, the mission received from important monasteries in Goǧǧam. However, this also inevitably led to a confrontation with secular society, in particular at the local level. The azzaž and the wämbär (umbares), two important offices in the Ethiopian state structure, were particularly averse to giving away their jurisdiction over marriage cases.126 Moreover, the exemption of clergy from civil jurisdiction, which prevented the secular authorities from having any power over religious affairs, seems also to have encountered serious obstacles.127 For all the gravity of the situation, however, the mission could not be completely thwarted and during the 1620s the ‘Catholic’ state managed to overcome most of the threats outlined above. In 1630, as if the situation could still be reversed, two more missionaries arrived in Ethiopia; the Italian José Giroco and the Portuguese Apollinar de Almeida, who had been nominated titular Bishop of Nicaea with rights to succeed in the patriarchate.128 In Easter of the same year, after repeated requests by Susǝnyos and in a desperate move to stave off disaster, Afonso Mendes allowed the celebration of masses following the Ethiopian rite and fasting on Saturdays and Wednesdays.129

125 Almeida, 1628, in raso xii, doc. 76, 259–260. 126 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vii, liv. IX, XXIV. 127 E.g. Almeida, 1628, in raso xii, doc. 76, 260; and Fernandes, 1628, in raso xii, doc. 77, 291–292. 128 The arrival of the bishop, however, was also meant to prevent a sudden vacuum of power in case Mendes died or was assassinated, a scenario that, given the situation, the Jesuits definitely contemplated. Hence, in 1628 Fernandes wrote to the superior general that the coming of two bishop coadjutors was to be expedited because ‘is far less convenient that this church is left depending on the life of the patriarch, for, if he dies (shall God avert this ever to occur) there is room to suspect that they would bring a bishop from Alexandria’; Fernandes, 1628, in raso xii, doc. 77, 292. 129 Afonso Mendes to the pope, May 11, 1633, in raso xii, doc. 123, 509–510; also in Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vii, liv. IX, Chapter XI. Shortly before, towards the end of the 1620s, the missionaries had closed the doors to a compromise (Almeida calls it a ‘concordate’) to blend Catholic dogmas with Alexandrian practices; see Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vii, liv. IX, Chapter XXV.

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However, by the end of the decade the missionary project was in reality irreparably doomed. The Jesuits were conscious of that and expressed it on more than one occasion to their companions in India and Europe.130 The civil wars had taken their toll, too. As of 1631, an impressive number of pro-Catholic figures had disappeared from the scene, some of them on the battle field: they included wäyzäro Amätä Ṣǝyon, däǧǧazmač Afä Krǝstos, däǧǧazmač Bukko, wäyzäro Phanae, blattengeta Qǝbʾä Krǝstos, Fǝqur Ǝgziʾǝ, abba Zäśǝllase, an unnamed ‘azzaž ǝdug ras’, grazmač Zämänfäs Qǝddus and the Ethio-Portuguese captain Basilio Gabriel. The deaths of Qǝbʾä Krǝstos, Fǝqur Ǝgziʾǝ and Bukko in particular had, in the words of Almeida, ‘enormously weakened the Catholic party’.131 Additionally, by 1631 Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos was a shadow of the ruler he had been in the previous decades: he was severely ill and no longer had a powerful army under his command.132 Moreover, Susǝnyos was able to control only a few provinces within his kingdom, and the armies under pro-Catholic leaders could not cope with the many fronts opened. The number of military troops had probably been drastically reduced by mass defections and war fatalities.133

130 On the eve of the arrival of the Patriarch few Jesuits expressed pessimistic views on the mission. Characteristic of this mood is the following statement by Father Roiz from 1624: ‘The state of the Ethiopian church was never so flourishing as today, when the Catholic religion triumphs over the impious sect of the schismatics’; Roiz, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 223r. Still in 1627 Manoel de Almeida could write ‘Since many years the Abyssinian Empire has never been so quiet and peaceful as it is today’; Almeida, 1627, in arsi, Goa 39 II, 418r. However, a few years later, the opposite was true: in 1631, Father Barradas, with a degree of resignation, wrote that ‘not every year offers the same degree of fertility and the same quality of the provisions and hence the years of plenty appear to be over’; Barradas, 1631, in raso xii, doc. 113, 428. 131 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vii, liv. IX, Chapter XI. 132 Apparently Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos suffered gout; Mendes, 1631, in raso xii, doc. 114, 487. Almeida reported that towards 1632 Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos was ‘completely dispossessed, without any lands, servants or money’; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vii, liv. X, Chapter I. 133 Jesuit sources seldom provide data on casualties in the ranks of the pro-Catholic armies. The numbers, however, must have been considerable as deduced by looking at data on enemies’ casualties. Below follows a compilation of casualties on both sides (most of the data comes from Almeida’s História de Etiópia). In 1621: 3,000 rebels in Damot. In 1628: 300 rebels in Tǝgray. In 1629: 300 rebels and between 600 to 700 loyal troops in Bägemdǝr and Lasta; 100 loyal horsemen in Amba Legot (Amhara); 400 enemies in Amhara. In 1630: 4,000 rebels in Tǝgray. In 1631: 300 rebels near the Nile. In 1632: 8,000 rebels in Lasta; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vi, liv. VII, Chapter XXXII; raso vii, liv. IX, Chapter VI, VII, XIII, XXI, XXVIII. An alternative source provides 3,000 enemy casualties for Bägemdǝr in 1629; Afonso Mendes, May 24, 1631, in raso i, parte II, doc. 26 (summary), 140.

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Moreover, rebellions had grown into a network, and war was thus unpredictable and widespread.134 Such a desperate situation seems to have also induced the Catholics towards an escalation of repression that added more fuel to the fire. In 1628 abba Asko, a learned and well-known priest, was sent into exile because he did not adhere to the Catholic Christological doctrines, eventually perishing at the hands of his custodians.135 The next year, a decision by Patriarch Mendes stirred up further unrest. The prelate had ordered the corpse of ǝččäge Zärʾa Wängel, who had been removed from office in 1624 owing to his support for the Greek Melkite ṗaṗṗas, to be exhumed because ‘the [Catholic] church was violated with the corpse of a heretic’.136 Policing campaigns over local churches and monasteries were also frequent: traditional temples would be stormed with the help of military force, altars and objects destroyed, the most recalcitrant priests and nuns imprisoned and loyal Catholic priests taken in.137 By the beginning of the 1630s the Jesuits had but a few supporters at the court and a land largely hostile to them. As is vividly recalled in Manoel de Almeida’s História de Etiópia, by far the most detailed account on the whole crisis, the situation at the royal kätäma became soon untenable. The anti-missionary party, no longer on the defensive, adopted a clearly aggressive stand and gained the support of the most likely successor to the throne, Fasilädäs. On June 24, 134 Evidence for this comes from the simultaneity with which rebellions broke off; this could indicate that their leaders knew about each other’s movements. Moreover, there is evidence of contacts between officials at the royal court and the rebel Qebreyal; see Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vi, liv. VIII, Chapter XXII. Finally, about 1631, the advance of rebels from Lasta into Bägemdǝr would have been stirred by insider information reporting divisions within the royal kätäma, where the rebels had an important ally in abetohun Mälkǝʾa Krǝstos; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vii, liv. IX, Chapter XXVI. 135 Almeida, 1628, in raso xii, doc. 76, 262–263. 136 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vii, liv. IX, Chapter XI. Missionary sources call him ǝččäge and his name appears only in Ibid. Chapter XXXI. On the Greek ‘metropolitan’ see Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vi, liv. VIII, Chapter VII. 137 Two instances of such punitive expeditions were recorded. During a raid in 1629 in a church near Lǝǧǧä Nǝguś, Father João de Souza, who had recently joined the mission, is said to have ‘assaulted’ a church that was a ‘haven of heretic monks and nuns’; Mendes, 1629, in raso xii, doc. 97, 397. The same priest led a similar action two years later when serving as chaplain during an expedition of Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos into Amhara. With military support, he was active during his march into Ambassäl and Legot with ‘throwing down Alexandrian churches and altars and erecting new Roman altars to duly officiate the religious service’; Barradas, 1631, in raso xii, doc. 113, 469.

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1632, shortly after he came back from yet another – perhaps the most devastating – campaign to quell a religiously motivated rebellion in Lasta, Susǝnyos decreed freedom of religion.138 Thereafter, a confused period opened up in which neither the Jesuits nor the traditionalists were in control of the state. The nǝguś fell ill and secluded himself within the walls of the magnificent palace in Dänqäz. He nonetheless called next to him Father Diogo de Mattos, another Jesuit after Pedro Páez with whom he had grown close.139 Historiography has traditionally agreed that, during this period, Susǝnyos abdicated in favor of his son.140 An abdication, however, is mentioned neither in the missionary record nor in the royal chronicle of Susǝnyos, but only in the ‘Short chronicle’.141 The true scenario, as can be inferred from the most accurate narrative on the mission, was probably one where the nǝguś was still officially in power but in practice Fasilädäs and the traditionalists’ supporters had managed to take effective control over the state. Moreover, it might be speculated that, sooner or later, an outright coup would have taken place. Accordingly, Almeida’s narrative on this period depicts an atmosphere of virtual political vacuum and permanent turmoil. The traditionalist party would have had Susǝnyos force the Jesuits to evacuate all their residences except for three – Gännätä Iyäsus, Qwälläla and Fǝremona.142 However, nature, or conspiracy, speeded up the events and on September 16, 1632 Susǝnyos died – according to the Jesuits, from the effects 138 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vii, liv. IX, Chapter XXX. 139 Mattos joined the court in 1625 and did not separate from Susǝnyos’s side until his death; see Paes, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39 I, 246v, 247r; and Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vi, liv. VIII, Chapter XII. 140 See, for instance, Henze, Layers of Time, 99; Harold G. Marcus, A History of Ethiopia (Berkeley [u.a.]: University of California Press, 1994), 40. 141 Basset, Études sur l’Histoire d’Éthiopie, 132 (trans.). The contemporary account by Wansleben is equally silent on the abdication hypothesis; see Wansleben, A Brief Account, 22. As it seems this hypothesis was substantiated by Bruce, who asserted that ‘the Portuguese historians deny both his [Susǝnyos’s] resignation of the crown, and his perseverance in the Roman Catholic faith to his death, but this apparently for their own purposes’; Bruce, Travels to Discover the Sources of the Nile, vol. 2, 397. Merid, often accurate when confronting political developments, denied this hypothesis; Merid, ‘Southern Ethiopia and the Christian Kingdom’, 531. See, however, Id., ‘The legacy of Jesuit Missionary Activities’, 54. LaVerle Berry has recently also challenged this view; LaVerle Berry, ‘Relinquishing the Solomonic Throne: The ‘Abdications’ of Susǝnyos (1632) and Iyasu I (1706)’ (Paper presented at the Seventeenth International Conference of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa, November 01, 2009); quoted in Belcher, ‘Sisters Debating the Jesuits’, 154 note 25. 142 See Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vii, liv. IX, Chapters XXXI–XXXIII.

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of poison.143 The claim of Manoel de Almeida, and other Jesuits, that the nǝguś died a true Catholic (or, as they said, tinha a fé no coração) is, I believe, well founded. Yet it can also be argued that the ruler had understood that his long-lived adventure with the foreign priests had to come to an end and that the costs of the mission had begun to outweigh its presumed or real benefits. His kingdom, which he had striven to modernize with ideas and projects imported from afar, was clamoring for Yäṭent! i.e. ‘restoration’, and his son probably wanted a more peaceful state to rule over.144 Neither of these goals was completely achieved by such radical political choices, but the mission was over. 143 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vii, liv. IX, Chapter XXXIII. The same chapter describes in detail the burial ceremonies held at Gännätä Iyäsus and Dänqäz. 144 Ibid. raso vi, liv. VII, Chapter XXI.

chapter 8

Exile and Memory As dying and behold we live1

The Mission after the Jesuits

With the decree of June 24, 1632 on freedom of religion and the death of Susǝnyos on September 16, 1632 the Jesuit mission ceased to exist; the normal development of apostolic activities, the daily tasks at the residencies and the joint work between the Ethiopian state and the Society of Jesus came to a halt. Yet the Catholic group that had grown strong around the Jesuit missionaries did not disappear at once and nor could the Jesuit legacy in Ethiopia be completely erased. This political and religious U-turn was followed by a widespread repression of Catholicism. This, however, did not happen all at once, but persisted for about two decades. During a first wave of religious violence Catholic churches were sacked and the priests who had been ordained by Jesuits prelates were expelled. Mendes described the scenes that succeeded Fasilädäs’s accession to power: Now, the heretics, whom the seniority and the authority of the father [of Fasilädäs, i.e Susǝnyos] had kept under control, took advantage of the minority of the son; they polluted most of the churches, expelled the priests whom I had appointed, destroyed the images, stripped off from the necks of the Catholics their devotional images, openly proclaimed the restoration of the Sabbath and the consecration with stained water [i.e. not made from grapes]; they allowed rebaptism and the circumcision of all those who during the period of the Roman faith had remained uncircumcised and also forbade the invocation after the name of Jesus, of which the Portuguese were so fond.2 1 Mendes, 1629, in raso xii, doc. 97, 402. The sentence is a quotation from 2 Corinthians 6:9: Quasi morientes et ecce vivimus ut castigati et non mortificati (‘As dying and behold we live: as chastised and not killed’). 2 Mendes, 1633, in raso xii, doc. 123, 513.

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The religious and social traditions condemned by the Jesuits were reinstated. A ban against using the name of Iyäsus was issued. Thereafter, the name so dear to the Catholics was forbidden from public use.3 The missionaries were progressively dispossessed of their residences and lands, which came into the hands of members of the royal family. Thus, Qwälläla and Fǝremona were reportedly given to Wängelawit, while Ǝnnäbǝse passed to Ǝleni, a niece of Fasilädäs.4 The residence of Däbsan was occupied by abetohun Gälawdewos and the fortress of Lǝǧǧä Nǝguś went to Wälättä Nägäśt, a sister of Ǝleni.5 Gännätä Iyäsus, once the royal residence and stage of stunning Catholic festivities, soon became, under its new name of Azäzo Täklä Haymanot, the site where the community of Däbrä Libanos relocated after abandoning their original home in Šäwa. The ǝččäge was given the Jesuit lands and reused the buildings built by order of Susǝnyos and the Jesuit priests.6 The residence of Gorgora, the pride of the mission, probably endured a similar fate and the lands under its dominion were likely given back to their original holders. Yet, Fasilädäs’s fondness for the architecture at Gorgora Nova reportedly spared its complete destruction.7 Interestingly enough, some Catholic houses appear to have been reused to host Ethiopian Christian services. Such was the case with Gorgora Nova, where a circular Orthodox church named Maryam Gǝmb (‘the Castle of the Virgin’) was built at the very center of the inner courtyard of the residence. The church of Fǝremona was probably reused and renamed Qǝddǝst Giyorgis (St. George), and perhaps the same fate befell Särka. The religious objects that were hosted at the residences, when they were not destroyed by the missionaries to prevent their desecration, became the victims of anti-Catholic iconoclastic outbursts.8 Perhaps the only types of Catholic object that were spared destruction were the Marian and Christological icons imported by the Jesuits from India and Europe 3 Manoel Barradas to António Gonçalvez, January 20, 1633, in raso i, parte II, doc. 29, 143, 149; Mendes to Philip IV, 1632, in raso i, parte II, doc. 30, 149. Interestingly enough, Fasilädäs used that name when he founded the Iyäsus church in Dǝrdǝra, Goǧǧam, once the Catholic mission had been abolished; Denis Nosnitsin, ‘Goǧǧam’, in eae vol. 2, 827. 4 Reportedly, the estates belonging to Fǝremona had been initially taken over by Bǝʿǝlä Krǝstos, then governor of Tǝgray; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vii, liv. X. 5 Afonso Mendes to the king, 1632, in adb, Legajo 779, 486v; Manoel de Almeida to superior general, April 17, 1627, in arsi, Goa 39 II, 423rv; Afonso Mendes and Manoel de Miranda, May 16, 1634, in adb, Legajo 779, 537r. 6 See, for instance, Afonso Mendes, ‘Informação do Estado das Cousas de Ethiopia. . . , May 5, 1633, in bna, Cod. 51-VI-18, nr. 9, 139r. 7 See Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vii, liv. X, Chapter II. 8 Such an action occurred, for instance, when the missionaries were compelled to abandon Gorgora; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vii, liv. IX, Chapter XXXII.

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and also those eventually produced at the residences in Ethiopia. These icons might have been taken over by Christian monasteries and churches and thereafter became the object of local veneration, as is witnessed in the popularity enjoyed by Catholic-related icons during the so-called Gondärine school of art.9 When the mission collapsed there were twenty-two Jesuits in the country, this being, ironically, the largest concentration of missionaries. With the disappearance from the scene of their two main protectors their presence in Ethiopia had become untenable. Initially, with the intention of unifying forces, most of them, including Ethio-Portuguese and Catholic Ethiopians armed with weapons, seem to have reunited at Gorgora. Their intention was probably, as the Ethiopian authorities suspected, to stay there and turn it into a Catholic stronghold. To prevent that Fasilädäs ordered the Catholic group to relocate at Gännätä Iyäsus, where he probably thought to have them better under control. Another group composed of the missionaries living to the south of Lake Ṭana and of Goǧǧame and Agäw converts was obliged to congregate in Qwälläla. By the beginning of 1633, however, the Catholics were sent to exile in the Tǝgray and deprived of their weapons.10 On March 29 Patriarch Mendes abandoned Däbsan and went into exile at the head of a large group, which comprised most of the missionaries and a convoy of about 500–600 people. Only Luís de Azevedo was allowed to stay in Dämbǝya owing to his poor health. About a month later, in late April, the group reached Fǝremona, where they settled under the watchful eye of the governor Zämaryam.11 Towards September 1634, in another decision showing his vacillating approach, Fasilädäs decreed the expulsion of all the missionaries and the resettlement of the Ethio-Portuguese at his kätäma, perhaps already in Gondär, which was founded towards 1636.12 He contacted the Ottoman pasha in 9

An inventory of the most evident examples of foreign ‘Catholic’ icons preserved in the Ethiopian monasteries and churches could help in understanding the fate of the Jesuit iconic heritage in the land. Among these icons, a few have been studied and reproduced in printed form; see Diane Spencer, ‘In Search of St. Luke Ikons in Ethiopia’, Journal of Ethiopian Studies 10, 2 (1972). 10 Apparently Mendes kept fourteen arquebuses at Ǝnfraz; Anonymous account on Ethiopia, ca. 1634, in raso i, parte II, doc. 34 (summary), 157. 11 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vii, liv. X, Chapter XI. 12 The ‘Short Chronicle’ tells us that Fasilädäs established his kätäma at Gondär (‘Gwänder’) following the arrival of Bishop Marqos during the fourth year of his reign; Jules Perruchon, ‘Notes pour l’Histoire de l’Ethiopie: Le règne de Fasiladas (Alam-Sagad), de 1632 à 1667 [text]’ Revue sémitique 5 (1897): 363; Id., ‘Notes pour l’Histoire de l’Ethiopie: Le règne de Fasiladas (Alam-Sagad), de 1632 à 1667 [trans.]’, Revue sémitique 6 (1898): 86; Basset, Études sur l’Histoire d’Éthiopie, 134 (trans.).

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Sawakin to ask him to stop any Catholic or European priest wishing to enter the land. A number of political factors seem to have been at the background of this decision. Firstly, the kingdom was then in a state of turmoil and some of the rebellions that had begun with Susǝnyos continued unabated.13 Although some of these movements could have been fuelled by the personal ambition of a few, I believe they also indicate a popular and widespread feeling of distrust towards the central power. During the rule of Susǝnyos and his two predecessors the state had forced the people into a path which, for the large part, they did not wish to take and had pushed them to pay a high prize for it. For that reason, the central power had lost its legitimacy to govern. Secondly, Catholicism still had some followers within Ethiopian society and Fasilädäs had to face the discontent of a minor, though important, group of dignitaries and regional lords who had remained faithful to Catholicism. Towards 1634 some sixty soldiers and lords, among whom one Bǝʿǝlä Krǝstos, described as being a ‘devout Roman Catholic’ and brother-in-law of the nǝguś, organized a plot at the court – eventually averted – to murder Fasilädäs.14 About the same year, Qerǝllos, a son of Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos, launched a series of raids into Goǧǧam with the help of Oromo groups and Yämanä Krǝstos, the šum of Ǝnnarya and son-in-law of the once powerful ras, refused to pay the tribute unless his fatherin-law was liberated.15 Yet the most serious feud Fasilädäs must have had was that with his brother, Gälawdewos. About five years his senior and born to the same parents (Susǝnyos and Śǝlṭan Mogäsa), Gälawdewos seems to have turned into a staunch supporter of Catholicism. From about 1633 he led an active guerrilla movement against his brother that finished only in 1648 when he was killed. Thirdly, another factor that might have contributed to the 13

14

15

In 1635, father de Mattos noted – not without some satisfaction – that the nǝguś was ‘running away from one part to the other, without feeling safe anywhere’ and that ‘the rebellions, sprouting everywhere, threatening and enclosing him, are irredeemable because he lacks all the forces necessary [to quell them]’; Diogo de Mattos to superior general, September 22, 1635, in raso xiii, doc. 10, 45. See also Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vii, liv. X, Chapter XXIII. Mattos to superior general, September 22, 1635, in raso xiii, doc. 10, 45–46. On the presence of Catholics at the court, a Jesuit father noted that these ‘are not a few neither they are amongst the least important’; Ibid. 61. Among other supporters of Catholicism within the upper class were abetohun Mälkǝʾa Krǝstos, a cousin of Fasilädäs, who in 1635 reportedly hosted in his residence in Dänqäz two Catholic priests; abetohun Yoḥannǝs, another cousin of Fasilädäs; abeto Zäiyäsus and wäyzäro Wälattä Giyorgis, grandson and daughter of Śärṩä Dǝngǝl, respectively. The latter also appears in the hagiography of Wälättä Ṗeṭros; Ricci, Vita di Walatta Ṗiēṭros, 88–90 (text), 88–89 (trans.). Mattos to superior general, September 22, 1635, in raso xiii, doc. 10, 47.

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expulsion of the missionaries was the fear that the Jesuits in India and Ethiopia might prepare a military expedition to the Ethiopian shore. Ethiopian fears in this respect could appear exaggerated but, to their credit, it must be reminded that as soon as the Jesuits reached India they passionately lobbied before the authorities for decades to organize a Red Sea military expedition.16 Faced with this, the missionaries set up a dual strategy that was meant to keep Catholicism alive. One group of missionaries and Catholics left for India and another stayed undercover in Ethiopia. The first group comprised initially four men (Almeida, Barradas, Giroco and Colaça) but the decree of 1634 committed the patriarch to leaving as well.17 The exile was seen by the Jesuits as a tactical withdrawal rather than as a complete abandon of the mission; they aimed at gathering forces in India, convincing political leaders of the need to continue investing in the missionary enterprise and preparing a counterattack, which should have included the envoy of individual agents and the preparation of a military expedition to occupy Massawa. Besides, this forced exile to India became an opportunity for the priests to offer a full Jesuit curriculum to the most talented among their students in Ethiopia.18 Towards late 1634 eight Jesuits remained in Ethiopia with the task of coordinating the Catholic community. Among them were Bishop Apollinar de Almeida, Bruno Bruni and Luís Cardeira. Completing the leadership of the Catholic group were eight secular priests, four of them of Portuguese origin, who had been ordained by Mendes before leaving for India.19 That core of 16 17

18

19

On this particular, see Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vii, liv. IX, Chapter XIII; liv. X, Chapter III. The trip back to India was itself a logistic challenge owing to the deterioration in relations between the Jesuits and the local authorities in Christian Ethiopia and in Ottoman territory. Mendes and a few companions spent almost a year in Ottoman confinement in Sawakin and could reached India only in December 1635; Mattos, 1635, in raso xiii, doc. 10, 77. With the first convoy of missionaries, two priests of the patriarch, five or six banyans and fourteen youth traveled together with the four Jesuit priests. One of the Catholic exiles, António de Andrade, a grandson of João Gabriel who had studied at Fǝremona, will pursue further training in Goa (grammar, rhetoric, philosophy and theology) under Afonso Mendes and will join the Jesuit order somewhere during the 1630s; in the 1640s he will be active at Santo Steffano dei Mori in Rome; Afonso Mendes to assistant of the Portuguese Province, January 6, 1646, in raso xiii, doc. 83, 262; Afonso Mendes to superior general, January 4, 1646, in arsi, Goa 12 II, 14v. The names of the Ethio-Portuguese priests were: Bernardo Nogueira, Lourenço da Costa, Pero da Costa and Antonio Dalmança; Francisco Rodriguez to Afonso Mendes, January 20, 1636, in raso xiii, doc. 15, 102.

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sixteen priests was intended to guarantee that Catholicism remained alive. The missionaries and their associates used a number of strategies for survival. Firstly, they split up into smaller groups and settled in different areas, so that the eradication of a unit did not endanger the whole group. Secondly, the Jesuits still counted with a circle of friends and sympathizers, some of them in ruling positions, who were committed to hosting and defending them. In north-western Dämbǝya, Luís de Azevedo was the guest of an Ethio-Portuguese called Damo Teixeira before he eventually died aged and ill, in 1634.20 In late 1633 or early 1634 Gaspar Paes, João Pereira and Francisco Rodrígues were hosted by baḥǝr nägaš Yoḥannǝs Akay, a powerful lord in the Ḥamasen who, back in 1628, had participated in the rebellion led by däǧǧazmač Täklä Giyorgis.21 In the same year, Jacinto Francisco and Apollinar de Almeida counted on the protection of Käflä Maryam, šum in Bur. In the same province one käntiba Zärʾa Yoḥannǝs gave shelter to Cardeira and Bruni.22 Thirdly, the missionaries concealed their identity and officiated the mass only in secret and to a small loyal group.23 Last but not least, the Catholics in Ethiopia and the exiles in India were to be coordinated. The information system that had so smoothly connected India with Ethiopia during the time of the mission was, if less efficient still in place during the first years of the exile and was duly used by the Catholics in Ethiopia. Soon, however, the awareness in the court of the strategy pursued by the Catholics and the mounting pressure from those in traditionalist circles compelled Fasilädäs to increase his vigilance. Thus, local lords were obliged to hand him the Catholic priests they were protecting and a second upsurge of antiCatholic violence spread throughout the country, which was doubtlessly stimulated as well by news of the imminent arrival from Egypt of metropolitan Marqos.24 Therefore, in the course of the following five years or so, the Catholic leadership and supporters would be nearly annihilated. By 1640 all the Jesuits

20 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vii, liv. X, Chapter VII. 21 Mattos, 1635, in raso xiii, doc. 10, 52. 22 Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vii, liv. X, Chapter XVIII; Mattos, 1635, in raso xiii, doc. 10, 49. 23 At the court of Yoḥannǝs Akay, for instance, João Pereira pretended to be one of his servants while his fellow Francisco Rodriguez was dressed as a member of the EthioPortuguese militia; Mattos, 1635, in raso xiii, doc. 10, 53; Mendes, 1639, in raso xii, doc. 47, 172. 24 Marqos arrived in Sawakin in 1635 but reached the royal kätäma in Dänqäz only in early 1636; Basset, Études sur l’Histoire d’Éthiopie, 134 (trans.); Francisco Rodríguez to Afonso Mendes, January 20, 1636, in raso xiii, doc. 15, 97–98.

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had been killed together with at least six local Catholic priests and assistants. Repression also fell heavily on those Ethiopians who failed to renounce to Catholicism: within the period 1634–1640 Jesuit sources provide the names of at least fifteen Ethiopians whose belongings had been confiscated or who were sent into exile.25 It was probably also during the anti-Catholic persecution that the dramatic scenes described by Bruce took place: the proclamation of a general circumcision by the local priests and the murder by the populace of ‘many Catholics, by stabbing them with a lance in that part’.26 Yet some more optimistic news reached India during these troubled years. In 1636 Jacinto Francisco informed Mendes that more than 150 dignitaries and nobles (fidalgos) at the court supported the Catholic faith and, three years later, azzaž Ṭino, formerly royal chronicler of Susǝnyos, informed the Jesuits in

25 In ca. 1633 abetohun Zäiyasus, grandson of Śärṩä Dǝngǝl and husband of Wälättä Giyorgis, together with other Catholics, was sent into exile to Qwara, dying shortly after; in the same year, azmač Yämanä, cousin in the second degree of Susǝnyos, had his belongings expropriated and the captain Gedewon, a servant of Susǝnyos from the casta Adea (of Hadiyya origin?), was given a death sentence. One year later, in 1634 Täklä Manuel, šum of Assa, who had protected the Jesuits in his lands, was removed from office. In 1635 a boy and former servant of Gaspar Paes named Nasso was killed. In 1636, Mäläk Dǝb, a servant of Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos, endured a trial because he had been found with Catholic devotional objects (‘a cross and relics’) but managed to avoid chastisement; meanwhile, one abba Horassi Krǝstos, who had been ordained by Mendes, was killed at the royal kätäma by a mob at publicly professing his Catholicism and one azzaž Täka (Taca) was said to have died a Catholic. In 1638 a boy named Baša Krǝstos, who served at the monastery of Däbrä Ṣǝmmuna, was hanged because he refused to commulgate in the Ethiopian rite, while bäǧǝrond Ambäsay, who had served Apollinar de Almeida, nearly suffered the same fate for the same reason. In ca. 1639 abba Aśärä Krǝstos, also a scholar (mestre) from Däbrä Ṣǝmmuna, was martyred. In 1639 abba Lǝbsä Krǝstos publicly confessed Catholicism and in ca. 1648 an homonymous abba of Ṣǝlalo died; Béguinot, La cronaca abbreviata d’Abissinia, 51; Afonso Mendes to [Philip IV], May 9, 1633, in raso I, parte II, doc. 30 (summary), 149; Diogo de Mattos to superior general, [September 1635], in raso I, parte II, doc. 35 (summary), 160; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vii, liv. IX, Chapter XXX, liv. X, Chapter II, XXXI; Bruno Bruni to the fathers of the Indian Province, July 17, 1635, in raso xiii, doc. 9, 37; Mattos, 1635, in raso xiii, doc. 10, 54, 56, 60, 71; Diogo de Mattos to Alvares Tavares, September 26, 1635, in raso xiii, doc. 11, 80; Rodriguez, 1636, in raso xiii, doc. 15, 99; Jacinto Francisco 1636, in raso xiii, doc. 18, 109; Afonso Mendes, [1636], in raso xiii, doc. 19, 115; Bruno Bruni to Afonso Mendes, February 19, 1637, in raso xiii, doc. 22, 124; Afonso Mendes, 1639, in raso xiii, doc. 47, 174–175, 179. 26 Presumably Bruce heard these facts from local informants a century after the events; Bruce, Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, vol. 3, book V, Chapter XII, 241–242.

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India that a significant number of Catholics in Goǧǧam and Damot were still being served by local priests.27 Meanwhile, Jesuit lobbying in India and Europe continued. In 1635 Jerónimo Lobo went on a diplomatic mission to the court in Madrid and Lisbon with the aim of convincing political authorities to engage in a military expedition to the Red Sea.28 Lobo’s mediation was successful, for in 1636 and 1638 the king recommended that the governor of India send ‘an armada comprising eight vessels’ to the area.29 At about the same time another exile, Francisco Márquez, was still acting as procurador of the Ethiopian mission in Diu. Subsequently the Jesuits sent a number of envoys to the Red Sea to establish contact with Catholic leaders in Ethiopia.30 However, the obstacles they encountered were insurmountable. On the one hand, Portuguese India had long ceased to be a powerful player in the Indian Ocean world and the Estado da India had neither the resources nor the means to involve itself in more adventures in the Red Sea as the Jesuits demanded.31 Thus a few months from receiving the directive from Lisbon Indian Viceroy Pedro da Silva tactfully informed Philip IV that the military project had to be postponed ‘until other things of greater importance would not interfere in it’.32 On the other hand, Ottoman vigilance against Catholic subjects in its Red Sea ports, fuelled as it was by lavish payments from Fasilädäs, was from 1633 onwards too efficacious to be overcome. 27 28

29 30

31

32

Jacinto Francisco to Afonso Mendes, June 20, 1636, in raso xiii, doc. 18, 109; Mendes, 1639, in raso xiii, doc. 47, 176. A description of this trip, which for Lobo turned into a formidable adventure, appears in Gonçalves da Costa, Introduction to Lobo, Itinerário e outros escritos inéditos, 59 and passim. Philip IV to Governor of India, March 28, 1638, in raso xiii, doc. 31. In 1635 Thomé Dias, an Armenian priest who had served Afonso Mendes in Ethiopia for ten years was in Sawakin apparently trying to reach Ethiopia. In 1641–1642 Mendes shipped Father Damião Callaça and António de Andrade, who managed to reach Mokha and Sawakin. In 1643 the Jesuit António de Almeida was sent to Mokha and in 1646 the Jesuits Antonio Cesqui, Francisco Ferreira and António Bothelho planned to do the same trip; towards 1650 António de Andrade was sent again to Ethiopia as Apostolic Vicar, together with Reformed Franciscan missionaries, but their mission ended tragically; Mattos, 1635, in raso xiii, doc. 10, 72; Afonso Mendes, December 20, 1645, in raso xiii, doc. 78, 251–252; Id. to superior general, December 1, 1646, in raso xiii, doc. 87, 275–277; raso I, 178. On the problems the Estado da India faced from the late 1620s onwards, see the Introduction to Lobo, Itinerário e outros escritos inéditos, 56 and passim and also A.R. Disney, Twilight of the Pepper Empire. Portuguese Trade in Southwest India in the Early Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, Mass and London: Harvard University Press, 1978), 50 and passim. Pedro da Silva to Philip IV, November 26, 1638, in raso xiii, doc. 40, 155.

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Moreover, the dramatic end of the mission and the failure shown by the Jesuits to introduce new men into Ethiopia did not pass unnoticed by the Roman authorities. So, when the mission was still alive, the Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, the papal institute created in 1622 to centralize missionary policy-making, had been respectful with regards to the Jesuit ‘jurisdiction’ over Ethiopia.33 Such an attitude may also be explained by the fact that its cardinal Prefect during its first ten years was Ludovico Ludovisi, a strong supporter of the Jesuits in Rome. However, when the crisis in Ethiopia emerged Propaganda Fide shifted its policy and began to favor alternatives for this ‘schismatic’ land. Towards the second half of the 1630s the cardinals who were guiding the institution, together with its energetic secretary Francesco Ingoli (1578–1649), started to question the methods followed by the Jesuits and to consider other options that bypassed both Portuguese India and the Society of Jesus. A document from this period accused the Jesuits of having unnecessarily tried to change old rites of the Ethiopian church that ‘in other Christian Nations were permitted or tolerated’.34 This gave way, in the late 1630s and 1640s, to an intense diplomatic exchange between the Jesuits and Propaganda Fide on the ‘jurisdiction’ over the Ethiopian project. The Jesuits tried to disrupt 33

34

In 1627, Propaganda Fide still blocked the pressing demands by French Capuchins to go to Ethiopia. In the summary of the Propaganda Fide general congregation for that year it was stated that ‘it has been determined to write to the same fr. Joseph [a French Capuchin missionary] telling him to abandon the [project of a] mission to Ethiopia so not to disturb the Jesuits – who since 1557 are leading a mission for the propagation of the faith in the large Ethiopian provinces – with the introduction of men from other orders’; document of July 26, 1627, in apf, Acta, vol. 4 (1626–1627), § 2, 260rv. Anonymous, ‘Discorso sopra la religione, e Missioni dell’Etiopia interiore con qualche coerente relazione delle Missioni dell’Egitto’, in apf, Fondo Scritture Riferite nei Congressi, vol. 1: 1630–1698, 41v; and Josef Metzler, ‘Francesco Ingoli, der erste Sekretär der Kongregation (1578–1649)’, in Sacrae Congregationis Propaganda Fide Memoria Rerum: 350 anni a servizio delle Missioni. 1622–1972, vol. I/1: 1622–1700, ed. Josef Metzler (RomFreiburg-Wien: Herder, 1971), 225. On the convoluted relationship between Propaganda Fide and the Society, see ibid. 224, 226–229. Ingoli, for its part, was known to be outspokenly anti-Portuguese; Boxer, The Church Militant and Iberian Expansion, 84. Additionally, it is interesting to observe that at the same time that Propaganda Fide recommended to its missionaries to Ethiopia the use of gentler methods, such as the ordination of Ethiopians and the tolerance of locally made wine (but not circumcision), it also stepped up its criticism of the ‘liberal’ methods employed by the Jesuits in China. On contemporary directives of Propaganda for its missions in Ethiopia, see apf, Indice per località degli atti di rito orientale della S. C.: 1622–1699 (V), which refers to Fondo Acta, 60.20, 328.20. On criticisms of the Jesuit approach, see Ibid. Indice delle congreg. particolari Orientali per località: 1622 al 1864 (IX) that refers to Congregazioni Particolari, vol. 5, 374.

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the ambitions of other missionary groups, but to no avail.35 In 1633 the mission to Ethiopia of the Minori Riformati (Reformed Franciscans) was formally instituted and in 1635 Francesco Ingoli obtained the decree that sanctioned it. Finally, in the 1640s Propaganda Fide definitively took the lead in the Ethiopian mission and began sending Observant Franciscan friars and Capuchins by way of Cairo and under the aegis of the new colonial power, the France of Louis XIV and Cardinal Richelieu.36 To compound the problem, the restoration war in Portugal brought turmoil to the Jesuits in India and Portugal. Thus, in Portugal in 1640 a separatist faction revived an old plan to create a separate Jesuit province for the southern regions of Algarve and Alentejo, which provoked a feud that continued for two and a half decades. Meanwhile, in India tensions between opposed ‘factions’ (reinóis vs indiáticos, supporters of the Spanish government vs advocates of the independence, respectively) grew to the point of rendering the province ungovernable.37 The Society was no longer held together, its reputation was shattered and the government was chaotic. During the 1640s and 1650s news on the Catholics in Ethiopia is scarce. A concealed form of Catholicism apparently continued to be practiced by ­survivors of earlier persecutions. Catholic groups were reported to be active in Goǧǧam and in the region of Ṭaqussa, between Qwara and Gorgora. It is also conceivable that other clusters existed in Tǝgray. In 1646 Bernardo Nogueira, an Ethio-Portuguese priest who had been accepted into the Society off the record and who served as the liaison with the Jesuit leadership in India, commented that five Portuguese priests and confessors were still active, together with three other local Amhara aides.38 Nogueira was, however, more ambiguous on the fortune of the EthioPortuguese. Most of them remained concealed Catholics – whatever this could have meant – but a few gave up resistance and accepted traditional Christian practices. This group of ‘apostates’ included two Portuguese military leaders, 35

36

37 38

On a covert campaign conducted by the Jesuits against other missionary groups that might have had the intention to go to Ethiopia, an internal document from Propaganda Fide reported that ‘[the Jesuits] are trying to hinder the mission of the [Franciscan] Reformed in Ethiopia’; document of 1637, in apf, Indice Generale Fino ad Aprile 1657, A1: abcde [Fondo Acta-Indice alfabetico], vol. 6, 20. For an earlier period, see Afonso Mendes to Nuno Mascarenhas, November 8, 1624, in arsi, Goa 41, 7v. A review of missions sponsored by Propaganda Fide to Ethiopia is provided in Metodio Carobbio da Nembro, ‘Martirio ed espulsione in Etiopia’, in Sacrae Congregationis de Propaganda Fide memoria rerum. See Lobo, Itinerário e outros escritos inéditos, 66 and passim; Alden, The Making of an Enterprise, 238–240. Bernardo Nogueira to Afonso Mendes, June 7, 1646, in raso xiii, doc. 84, 265.

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Damo and Rafael Fernández and their choice could indicate that those wishing to maintain their occupations in the state had assimilated into mainstream Ethiopian society or were on the way of doing so.39 In the late 1650 and early 1660s the Catholic clusters probably died out owing to the lack of leadership, the death of the older generations who had lived in contact with the Jesuit priests and social pressure. Nogueira himself was hanged in 1652, shortly after being admitted into the order by the Jesuit Jorge da Crus.40 These problems notwithstanding, a group of Ethio-Portuguese continued serving at the court and in the army of Fasilädäs. Moreover, although many had probably given up any sort of religious resistance deep-seated prejudices and stereotypes probably continued to be associated with the burtukan and the färänǧ, thus perpetuating the perception that they belonged to a foreign group. Yet, with the arrival to power of Fasilädäs’s son, Yoḥannǝs I (1667–1682), the Ethio-Portuguese were the object of a political decision that ended for good their presence in Ethiopia. Shortly after being elected nǝguś, Yoḥannǝs compelled the Ethio-Portuguese who were still Catholic to abandon the country by way of either Sinnar, capital of the Funj kingdom, or the Red Sea.41 They chose the first option, which lay, after all, not so far away from one of the areas of strongest Portuguese presence, Ṭaqussa, and close to Qwara, a place of forced exile for many local Catholics. What brought the Ethio-Portuguese to this decision remains, however, a mystery: did their leaders believe, perhaps, that under that prosperous Muslim kingdom, then center of a wide-ranging commercial network, they would be able to carry on their mercenary lifestyle?42 39

40 41 42

Ibid. 265. Fernández was Portuguese captain in about 1633, the time when Mendes, before going to Tǝgray, left his collection of books in his house; Mattos, 1635, in raso xiii, doc. 10, 62. Damo was probably the Damo Teixeira who in 1633 and 1634 hosted Luís de Azevedo in his home in north-western Dämbǝya; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vii, liv. X, Chapter VII. Afonso Mendes to superior general, January 6, 1655, in raso xiii, doc. 129, 412–413. The episode is reported in Guidi, Annales Iohannis I, 8–12 (text), 6–11 (trans.). Among the few scattered pieces of evidence on the whereabouts of this group in Sinnar, a questionnaire from the Dutch authorities in Batavia to the ambassador Murad from ca. 1696 (compiled by Hiob Ludolph) reported that: ‘The envoy says that this is not 150, but about 70 years ago when the emperor banished all of them out of his empire, so that at present not a single Portuguese is to be found in Abyssinia. All have left for the regions of Soenar, where several of them are still living under the Muslims; some still practice the Roman religion, others have adopted Islam’; quoted in Emeri van Donzel, Foreign Relations of Ethiopia, 1642–1700. Documents Relating to the Journeys of Khodja Murad (Leiden: Nederlands Historisch-archaeologisch institut, 1979), 94. On the sultanate of Sinnar, the classical study is Jay Spaulding, The Heroic Age in Sinnar (East Lansing, Mich.: Michigan State University, 1985), which has no evidence on the Ethio-Portuguese.

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As far as the Ethiopians are concerned, the expulsion of the Ethio-Portuguese occurred in the context of a council that saw the participation of important ecclesiastics and that also determined the set-up in the royal capital of Gondär of separate ethnic districts for the Muslims and the Fälaša – the Ǝslam Bet and the Kayla Meda. It was motivated to this decision by, I contend, a set of factors, chief among which was the empowerment of a party within the Ethiopian church that was trying to impose a dogmatic and modern definition of religious identity: religious communities should be properly distinguished and the borders between them clearly drawn. Groups such as the burtukan, with their singular religious and racial mixture, were seen as a threat to this political agenda. Moreover, the death of Fasilädäs, who, after all, grew up among Jesuits and Ethio-Portuguese and had the disposition to appreciate their skills, seems to have removed the last protecting shield this group counted on. Hence, I believe that Yoḥannǝs, rather than a strong policy-maker, was at the receiving end of social and religious forces that were fanatically opposed to anything Portuguese, Jesuit or Catholic. It was probably as a result of these pressures that he, or his counsellors, decided on such a radical measure.43 This episode indicates as well that, more than thirty years after its fall, memories of the mission were still fresh in Ethiopian society. The Ethio-Portuguese were still seen as a distinct group of färänǧ, despite the fact that their racial and cultural features probably differed little from those of local populations. For its part, the image of the Jesuits, and of Catholic missionaries in general, reached a legendary status; their sole remembrance seems to have been one that provoked awe in the population. The dismaying truth in Ethiopia was, to my understanding, that the Christian society had been strongly influenced by the Portuguese and Jesuit presence. The mission had left a lasting mark on Ethiopian society and its monarchy, as a number of social and cultural developments in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were to attest. Gondär, which began to blossom during the last years of Fasilädäs’s reign and especially under his descendants Yoḥannǝs I and Iyasu I, was nothing less than a fortunate reproduction of the Mughal-style palace garden of Gännätä Iyäsus, which had been planned by the Jesuits, Susǝnyos and Indian engineers back in the 1620s. Furthermore, the chief iconic motives and artistic features employed by  the Gondärine painting school, which dominated artistic production in 43

The royal chronicle of Yoḥannǝs, meager as it is in off-the-record information, reports that just before the nǝguś took the decision to expell the Ethio-Portuguese ‘there was a state of agitation among the monks due to the Franks [i.e. the Portuguese]’ and that ‘the monks requested that these are expelled’; this seems to indicate that it was the clergy who pushed the nǝguś to come to this point; Guidi, Annales Iohannis I, 10 (text), 9 (trans.).

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Ethiopia from the mid-seventeenth century onwards, had been first introduced into Ethiopia during the Jesuit mission. In religious and theological discourse the legacy of the mission was important, too. The religious controversies aroused during the mission provoked a century-long feud between rival theological schools within the church. This feud, which was revived in a number of religious councils in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, led to a new definition and reshaping of the Ethiopian Church. Thereby theological discourse gained force in a church hitherto mostly concerned with the liturgical and religious rites. It has also been suggested that the emphasis in using vernacular languages during the mission stimulated the creation of a literature in Amharic.44 Last of all, the political power also assumed predicaments similar to those enforced earlier by the missionaries. For instance, during the same council that sanctioned the expulsion of the Ethio-Portuguese in 1668, religious and political leaders decided that ‘no man marry his sister-in-law and no woman marry her brother-in-law’.45 Henceforth, the levirate, the century-old practice that, together with circumcision, the Jesuits had most fiercely opposed, was abrogated.

Longing for Ethiopia

Progressively, as the project to return to Ethiopia was becoming more and more unrealistic, the Jesuit mission entered another dimension. Jesuit exiles in India engaged in a literary career that finds, I believe, no parallels in the world of Jesuit missions. So, between ca. 1635 and 1660 five missionaries, Jerónimo Lobo, Afonso Mendes, António Fernandes, Manoel Barradas and Manoel de Almeida, completed at least eight major treatises dedicated to the mission (Table  17). With them the mission became a literary topic in its own right, thereby entering the realms of history and memory. The works composed by the expatriate missionaries, only a few of which were published during the lifetime of their authors, came with old and new material. Half of them were classical polemical and dogmatic treatises and continued a tradition that had been amply developed in Ethiopia at the 44

See Verena Böll, ‘Das jesuitische Intermezzo in Athiopien’, in ‘. . . Usque ad ultimum terrae’. Die Jesuiten und die transkontinentale Ausbreitung des Christentums, 1540–1773, ed. Johannes Meier (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000). On the importance of the Pauline corpus for the Christological debates in the aftermath of the Jesuit mission, see Tedros Abraha, ‘Epistles: The Pauline Epistles’, in eae vol. 2, 339. 45 Guidi, Annales Iohannis I, 9 (text), 8 (trans.).

ca. 1635

1643–1644

1645 1653 ca. 1635 1660s

ca. 1645

ca. 1650

ca. 1624

1628

ca. 1630 ca. 1630 1634 1639–1640

ca. 1640

1645?

Fernandes

Mendes

Mendes Mendes Barradas Lobo

Almeida

Fernandes

Author

Bran Haimanot: Id est lux fidei in Epithalamium Aethiopissae, sive in Nuptias Uerbi et Ecclesiae Vida da Sanctíssima Virgem Maria May de Deos & Senhora nossa

Cathecismo Aethiopico Expeditionis Aethiopicae Tractatus tres historici geographici Itinerário

Magseph Assetat. id est Flagellum mendaciorum Historia Aethiopiae

Title

Published in 1652, Goa: Collegio de São Paulo.

Published in 1660 as Balthazar Tellez, Historia geral de Ethiopia a Alta ou Preste Ioam, Coimbra: Manoel Dias. Unpublished Published in 1908–1909 (raso viii–ix) Published in 1909 (raso V) First published in 1728 in French by Joaquim Le Grand, Relation [Voyage] historique d’Abissinie, Paris: Veuve d’A.-Urbain Coustelier-Jacques Guerin Libraires. Published in 1693, Cologne: Balthazaris ab Egmond et Sociorum.

Published in 1642, Goa: Collegio D. Pauli, Societatis Jesv.

Remarks

sources: afonso mendes to superior general, january 4, 1646, in arsi, goa 12 II, 14v; raso i, 85, 89, 109, 165, 177; afonso mendes, april 30, 1632, in bnl, cod. 7640 [f 2866], 1r-v; tomás de barros, june 1622 (published, madrid: luís sánchez, 1624), in ahpc, e-2: 105, 4 (887), 9r.

Completed

Exile literature produced by the Jesuit missionaries, ca. 1628–1660

Begun

Table 17

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residences of Gorgora, Qwälläla and Fǝremona. They were produced as if the mission was still alive – a few had been begun in Ethiopia – and as if the Jesuit priests still had the chance to convince their Ethiopian opponents with their intellectual dominance.46 One could also see in them the desire to tear down for good Ethiopian Christianity chiefly by using an aggressive rhetoric – the most relevant work, for instance, bears the telling title of Magseph Assetat (Mäqśäftä ḥasetat) or Flagellum mendaciorum (i.e. ‘whip of the lies’) – which their authors would have never dared to use in Ethiopia.47 Yet, it is the remaining four texts that are of more interest in that they represent something new to the mission, which had not seen any work of synthesis since Páez’s História de Etiópia. In truth, we are not dealing here with homogeneous texts and none of them could be ascribed to a single literary genre. As many a treatise of the Baroque period, the texts under consideration have a composite character. They include, all in one, travel accounts, personal biographies, récits d’aventure, ethnographical reports, geopolitical surveys and institutional histories, and each of them has a stronger penchant for a specific genre. Thus, Almeida and Mendes’s treatises could be seen as the most accomplished institutional histories of the mission; the two were, after all, the official leaders of the Jesuit enterprise in Ethiopia. Barradas’s text, for its part, contains fine ethnographical descriptions, mostly about the region he knew best, the Tǝgray. The Tractatus tres historico geographici has, as well, chapters with a clear geopolitical intent and resembles, with its minute descriptions of the Red Sea ports, a modern intelligence report. Finally, Lobo’s Itinerario has more a biographical-like character and is the nearest to a modern récit d’aventure. Yet, for all their imbalances and dissimilarities, the four treatises could also be seen as part of a collective enterprise. Their differences in fact reinforce this idea, for the narratives, rather than opposing each other, are complementary and the impression prevails that what one work describes is left untapped by the other. Moreover, the authors enjoyed positions of leadership in the Jesuit structure in India, which would entail them being in communication with each other.48 It can be speculated that besides using the archives of the Jesuit college 46 The Magseph Assetat, for instance, was published in Goa in Ethiopic characters with the aim of sending printed copies to Ethiopia; Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vii, liv. X, Chapter XLV. 47 On this work, see Francisco M.E. Pereira, Notice sur le Magseph Assetat du P. Antonio Fernandes (Alger: Imprimerie de l’Association ouvrière, 1886); see also Tomás de Barros, June 1622 (published, Madrid: Luís Sánchez, 1624), in ahpc, E-2: 105, 4 (887), 9r. 48 Barradas wrote most of his treatise during his sixteen-month captivity in Aden, but I assume he completed it in India, where he lived from 1634 until his death in 1646. Almeida started

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in Goa, the authors also had the chance of completing information with the help of other companions who had been in Ethiopia and who also resided in India.49 A first aspect that needs to be emphasized is that, for the Jesuit exiles, writing seems to have been a way of coming to terms with their newly acquired condition; their literary endeavors became a remedy to cure a personal frustration. The fall of the mission was indeed a severe blow for every Jesuit who had been engaged in it. To them it meant the termination of important careers, regardless of how trying these could have been. In Ethiopia they were part of a challenging enterprise; they had important commitments and enjoyed the admiration of their peers in India and Europe. In 1632 personal ambitions, grand individual and collective dreams were suddenly brought to an end. The authors were perhaps conscious that the Ethiopian mission would be their last important undertaking and it is telling that all the Jesuit émigrés from Ethiopia remained in India working at in administrative tasks, and were not relocated to other missions still managed by the Society in the East. With the help of these narratives they could at least recall their times in the mission and describe to their companions, and to the generations to come, their personal experiences.50 The authors could be, for one last time, actors in a play that was over, heroes of an undertaking that should be forever remembered. Another important dimension is the institutional underpinning of these treatises – especially those by Almeida and Mendes.51 The Society of Jesus had,

49

50

51

writing his História in Ethiopia towards 1628 in Gorgora but completed the work at the residence of São Paulo Novo in Goa only towards 1645. Mendes completed his Expeditionis towards 1653, also in São Paulo Novo. Lobo wrote the Itinerario over two periods: first, during his stay in Lisbon in 1639–1640 and, later, towards the 1660s, also in Lisboa. Yet he stayed in India for most of the period between 1634 and 1660, acting also as the vice provincial. On the use of Ethiopian informants who had traveled to India for the elaboration of the theological-polemical treatises, see Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso vii, liv. X, Chapter XLV. Most of the authors of the treatises under survey here emphasized the empirical basis of their accounts and that theirs should serve as eyewitness records for those to come. Barradas, for instance, declared in the introduction to his treatise: ‘I composed a short treatise to inform those who should come to its remedy [of the Jesuit mission] [. . .] as well as if I die the information I provide can be used by someone else to produce an improved account’; Barradas, Tractatus tres historico-geographici, in Barradas, Tractatus tres historico-geographici, in raso iv, 2. Almeida wrote that ‘I only write what I have experienced, heard from the locals or read in their books’; reported by Beccari in Almeida, História de Etiópia, in raso V, xlix. The treatise by Manoel de Almeida is here a case in point because the author only decided to complete it in India after petition of the Jesuit general Vitelleschi; see Michael Kleiner, ‘Almeida, Manoel de’, in eae vol. 2.

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since the times of Ignatius of Loyola, invested hugely in the Ethiopian mission. Ethiopia was, together with Japan, one of the order’s flagship missions and its fall was, consequently, a huge collective defeat. More importantly, it also fuelled a wave of criticisms of the methods used by the Jesuits. Therefore, the image of the Society – a perennial main concern of the Jesuits – was threatened. The danger existed that anti-Jesuit currents within the Catholic and Protestant world would thus find easy fodder to express their dislike for that religious group. By taking into account this context the reason why these works came into being could be better appraised. Jesuit historiography of the mission was a means of discouraging or neutralizing criticism. With it the Society could provide its own version of the history of the mission, of how it came to blossom and how it collapsed. The Jesuits, who had been the main players of a fascinating undertaking, also wanted to oversee its memory and reassure their contemporaries and those to come that they had all done their best. It is important to underline that the production of these titles coincided as well with a moment of vibrant historiographic and artistic activity in the Society of Jesus. This period began during the last years of Vitelleschi’s leadership and gained momentum under the leadership of the Italian Giovanni Paolo Oliva (1664–1681).52 In 1640 the Imago Primi Saeculi, the official book to celebrate the centenary of the Jesuits, appeared and seven years later Juan Eusebio Nieremberg issued the four volumes of his Vidas ejemplares.53 Towards 1670 the Menologium Virorum, which recalled the biography of a few dozen of the most memorable companions of the order, came to light. These books, which reached widespread circulation and readership, celebrated the achievements and sufferings of the Jesuits. In parallel, the representation of the Society’s glories through the conspicuous use of artistic techniques – sculpture, ­ 52

53

On the celebratory wave that impregnated Jesuit activities in the mid-seventeenth c­ entury, see Evonne Levy, ‘“A Noble Medley and Concert of Materials and Artifice.” Jesuit Church Interiors in Rome, 1567–1700’, in Saint, Site and Sacred Strategy. Ignatius, Rome and Jesuit Urbanism. Catalogue of the Exhibition, ed. Thomas M. Lucas (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1990). Juan E. Nieremberg y Otin, Vidas ejemplares y venerables memorias de algunos claros varones de la Compañía de Jesús (Madrid: Alonso de Paredes), 1647. The work was continued by José Cassani, Glorias del segundo siglo de la Compañia de Jesus. . ., 3 vols. (Madrid: Manuel Fernandez, 1734–36). For hagiographies (extended posthumously and largely inaccurate) of the Ethiopian missionaries, see Juan E. Nieremberg y Otin, Varones ilustres de la Compañía de Jesús (Bilbao: Administración del Mensajero del Corazón de Jesús, 1888, 2nd ed.), 375–603; also Bartholameu Guerreiro, Gloriosa coroa d’esforçados religiosos da Companhia de Iesu. Mortos polla fe catholica nas Conquistas dos Reynos da Coroa de Portugal (Lisboa: Antonio Alvarez, 1642), 219 and passim.

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painting and architecture – gained momentum during this time. Towards the mid-seventeenth century Il Gesù, originally deprived of any internal decoration, began to be refashioned according to the Baroque visual and aesthetic taste and in 1676–1679 Giovanni Battista Gaulli painted the famous Triumph of the Name of Jesus on the church’s vault. Most importantly, from 1672 until his death Andrea Pozzo (1642–1709) produced a series of masterpieces glorifying the Jesuit founders and the missionary expansion, the most famous being the vault of the church of St. Ignatius in Rome, where the apotheosis of the Society of Jesus in the four known continents was displayed. The missão do Preste was not, and could not be, exempt from this celebratory trend. It is therefore not by chance that this period witnessed the production of the first pictures of the Ethiopian mission. Tellez’s Historia geral de Ethiopia a Alta, issued in 1660, which is commented upon further below, had on its cover a fine engraving of the mission produced by two prominent Flemish artists, the painter Philip Fruytiers and the engraver Peter van Lisebetten (Plate 20). The picture showed the four official leaders of the mission (the three patriarchs, João Nunes Barreto, Andrés de Oviedo, Afonso Mendes and Bishop Apollinar de Almeida) being received by the ‘Prester John’. The scene clearly plays with the contrast between the finely dressed Catholic bishops and the half-naked and somehow grotesque-looking Ethiopians who had rejected the Catholic message. Likewise, the rendering of the Preste with such elements as nudity and dark skin were intended to emphasize his primitiveness, thus also establishing a patent break with previous European iconography on the Prester John.54 Four years later two of the figures portrayed in Tellez’s book – Oviedo and the nǝguś – reappeared again in a splendid picture the Jesuits of Dilingen commissioned from two popular German artists, the painter Johann Christoph Storer and the engraver Bartholomäus Kilian (Plate  21).55 The image is a remarkable example of the Thesenblätter, an artistic expression used profusely by German Jesuits to defend their theses in the academic milieu. Following an 54

55

I join here the analysis by Michael Brooks, who wrote, ‘the trend in this image is toward a sort Africanization of the legendary character’; Brooks, ‘Prester John’, 213–214. Interestingly, some later versions of the same engraving included a dress on the figures representing the Ethiopians. On Storer (1620–1671), a skilled but little known painter from the seventeenth century, see Sibylle Appuhn-Radtke, Visuelle Medien im Dienst der Gesellschaft Jesu. Johann Christoph Stoerer (1620–1671) als Maler der Katolischen Reform (Regensburg: Schnell und Steiner, 2000). The engraving here discussed has been amply described in another work by the same author: Das Thesenblatt im Hochbarock. Studien zu einer graphischen Gattung am Beispiel der Werke Bartholomäus Kilians (Weissenhorn: Konrad, 1988), 256–260. For the identification of the themes and the figures depicted I have drawn largely from AppuhnRadtke’s analysis.

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Plate 20  The Prester John goes native: the Ethiopian nǝguś and the Jesuit prelates. Engraving by Philip Fruytiers and Peter van Lisebetten, 1660 Credits: Baltasar Tellez, Historia geral de Ethiopia a Alta (Coimbra: Manoel Dias, 1660), frontispiece. Georg-August-Universität GöttingenNiedersächsische Staats-und Universitätsbibliothek, HG-or1, 2 H afr 1430

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Plate 21  A mission vindicated: Thesenblatt Die Weltmission der Gesellschaft Jesu. Design by Johann Christoph Storer, engraving by Bartholomäus Kilian, ca. 1660 Credits: Wikimedia Commons. Location: Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg, Kilian B. 16

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accurate composition, the piece is intended as a summation and apology of the Society’s missionary expansion. On top of the image, the Christ is surrounded by the Virgin, St. Peter, St. Paul (the only figure with his face directly facing St. Ignatius and the whole group below), St. Theophorus with the lion of his martyrdom next to him, and St. Catherine, protector of the learned men. The Christ sheds his light upon St. Ignatius, who is situated one level below. The Spanish saint directs the divine power in the form of small beams to a third group, in which important early figures of the Society are represented: St. Francis Xavier, whose head stands above the rest and who is the first to receive St. Ignatius ‘powers’ and, to his left and right, Diego Laínez and Peter Canisius. To the right of the Navarrese an indigenous warrior represents the American Indians. On the same level, to the right of the picture, another set of beams reaches three figures: the first probably represents Alessandro Valignano, the mastermind of the Oriental missions, and the other two are likely Patriarch Andrés de Oviedo and the martyr Andreas Bobola.56 At the feet of Francis Xavier Blessed Luigi Gonzaga (beatified in 1605 but canonized only in 1726) is placed, pointing to a planisphere embedded in a heart in flames with the inscription ‘Dei et proximi amore’, thereby inviting the viewer to ponder on the Society’s God-blessed worldwide expansion. In front of Patriarch Oviedo, to the bottom right of the picture, we see the Ethiopian nǝguś (Gälawdewos?); his sceptre lies on the floor and he looks in a bewildered fashion at the map symbolizing the Society’s expansion.57 Behind Oviedo two non-Europeans represent the Asians. Towards the bottom the Jesuit Gaspar Barzeo, who was active in Hormuz, appears, and next to him we see an Oriental ruler who represents the Shah of Persia, in all probability Tahmasp I (1524–1576), who granted the Portuguese permission to settle in this port.58 As far as the Jesuit mission is concerned, the message conveyed by these pieces buttresses what the missionaries had already expressed in literary form. They emphasize the importance of this undertaking and underscore the fact 56

57

58

Appuhn-Radtke provides two alternative identifications of this latter figure with Peter Faber or the theologian Luis de Molina; Appuhn-Radtke, Das Thesenblatt im Hochbarock, 259. The figure was identified by Appuhn-Radtke as an ‘African ruler’ (afrikanischer Fürst), though it is unmistakably the ‘Prester John’ i.e. Ethiopian nǝguś; Ibid. Interestingly, Oviedo, who stands behind the Preste, has his eyes exactly in the axis formed by the eyes of St. Paul and St. Ignatius. Appuhn-Radtke suggested that the Oriental potentate was the Ottoman Sultan, Suleyman I ‘the Magnificent’ (1520–1566); Ibid. Yet, the Persian ruler is clearly identified by the feather stick on its turban.

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that its collapse ought to be seen as a failure of the Ethiopians to receive the true message. The nǝguś and the Ethiopians had missed their chance to be part of a glorious undertaking. The exile narratives often presented events taken from personal experience and supported by an outstanding historiographic effort. Their flaws are, however, all too clear. Their meticulous narratives hide a few inconvenient facts. Indeed, a certain lack of self-criticism led them to leave uncommented upon the exaggerated self-confidence and miscalculation of forces that pervaded during the patriarchate of Mendes, which in the light of current research seem the two factors that contributed most decisively to the breakdown of the ­mission. But Jesuit historiography and art, besides providing a narrative and hiding some disturbing facts, aimed at transmitting a message, wherein history was interpreted in fatalistic terms and the missionaries as the victims of people who were unfit to receive the ‘true’ Christian message. The Jesuits were telling their readers that their mission was another apostolic story of sacrifice and deception; in Ethiopia, as the frontispiece of Tellez’s edition of the Historia geral de Ethiopia went, events occurred as in the words of the Apostle: ‘And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not’.59

A Mission between Oblivion and Curiosity

Until the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries the Jesuits from Portuguese India sporadically sent missionaries to the Red Sea region in an attempt to reach Ethiopia, but the project to return to Ethiopia and restore the mission progressively died out. Some of its symbols, however, showed some resistance to oblivion. Afonso Mendes, who died in Goa in 1656, had two successors as patriarchs of Ethiopia. In 1670 the Portuguese King Pedro II (1667–1706), a devotee to the cult of Francis Xavier in Goa, appointed the Jesuit Fernão Queiros (1617–1688), professor of Philosophy and Theology at São Paulo Novo, to this position.60 The papacy, from 1640 involved in a harsh dispute with the Crown of Portugal over the rights of the Padroado Real, did not confirm the  appointment, though this probably mattered little to the Portuguese 59

60

Lvx in tenebris lvcet et tenebrae eam non comprehendervnt; Gospel of St. John 1:5; quoted in the frontespiece of Balthazar Tellez, Historia geral de Ethiopia a Alta ou Preste Ioam, e do que nella obraram os padres da Companhia de Iesvs, Coimbra: Manoel Dias, 1660. Maria Cristina Osswald, ‘Culto e iconografías jesuíticas en Goa durante los siglos XVI y XVII: El culto e iconografía de San Francisco Javier’, in San Francisco Javier en las artes. El poder de la imagen (Pamplona: Fundación Caja de Navarra, 2006), 240.

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authorities and hierarchy in India. The revival of this title, which had remained dormant for fourteen years, added one more pompous ingredient to the daily life of the ‘Relic State’, as the historian Pamila Gupta has nicely termed the Estado da India and Goa in particular.61 The Goanese probably felt proud to host this figure in their town. In 1709 the title of patriarch of Ethiopia reappeared once again with the appointment by King João V (1706–1750) of the Jesuit Manuel de Sá (1658–1728).62 However, in the decades that followed the latter’s death, nobody in Goa or Portugal thought it appropriate to recall the title again. In the first half of the eighteenth century the context was no longer advantageous to the Society. Political power was parting company with the Jesuit order, which was to approach the ­darkest period of its history.63 Moreover, the creation of the patriarchate of Lisbon in 1716 rendered the existence of a similar Oriental counterpart unnecessary. However, in its literary form the mission was more successful. In 1660, as seen above, Balthasar Tellez, head of the Jesuit Portuguese province and a friend of Jerónimo Lobo, published a reworked version of Almeida’s treatise.64 The work, which was apparently initiated at the request of Muzio Vitteleschi, became the official story of the mission.65 It also served, however, to close the period of Jesuit memorialization of this episode. In consequence, the rest of the missionary treatises on Ethiopia, which included the titles mentioned above and the História de Etiópia written earlier by Páez, remained dormant for centuries in Jesuit houses and in the hands of private collectors. In all likelihood, after its main actors had died the mission lost its most important ­advocates and within the Society its memory became a source of some embarrassment.66 61 62

Gupta, ‘The Relic State’. See ‘Proposiçam da Academia [Real] da Historia Ecclesiastica de Portugal, que por ordem de S. Magestade se abrio no Paço da Casas de Bragança em 8. de Dezembro de 1720’, December 8, 1720, in bnl, cod. 665 [Microfilm 4868], 167v–68r. 63 As is well known, the era of the Jesuit expulsion was inaugurated, significantly, by the kingdom that had first sponsored its foundation. In 1759 the Marques of Pombal, prime minister of Portugal, dictated the expulsion of the Jesuits from the metropolis and the colonies. Following a decree signed by Pope Clement XIV in July 1773, the Society of Jesus was suppressed in all Catholic countries. 64 Tellez, Historia geral de Ethiopia a Alta. 65 Vitelleschi would have asked Tellez to write a history of the Portuguese Assistancy; see ‘Teles, Padre Baltasar’, in Grande Enciclopédia Portuguesa e Brasileira, vol. 31, 124–127. 66 The last survivor of the Ethiopian mission was Jerónimo Lobo, who in 1660 went into retirement in the Jesuit mother house of São Roque in Lisbon, where he would die in 1678.

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These reasons may account for the fact that the Jesuits were unable to push forward any postulations towards the beatification of the several missionaries who had given their lives for the mission.67 They tried hard, however, to give a holy status to the companions who had died in Ethiopia. Among those who could have opted for a high status in the annals of the church, given their tragic deaths, were Abraham de Georgiis, Francisco Machado, Bernardo Pereira, Gaspar Paes, João Pereira, Jacinto Francisco, Francisco Rodriguez, Apollinar de Almeida, Luís Cardeira, Bruno Bruni and Bernardo Nogueira. Accordingly, Abraham de Georgiis and Andrés Gualdames were often referred to in missionary literature as ‘martyrs’ and the cult of Andrés de Oviedo and Christovão da Gama was promoted from Ethiopia. The missionaries sent the bones of Oviedo and Gama to Goa and towards 1628 a Jesuit from Palencia, Antonio de Arana, apparently using material compiled by the archbishop of Goa Dom Frey Aleixo de Meneses, completed a hagiography on the second Jesuit patriarch.68 The treatise was doubtlessly aimed at boosting the cause of beatification, which was introduced in Rome on June 8, 1630 but was eventually unsuccessful. A similar fate awaited causes introduced later for the other companions who had been murdered in Ethiopia in the 1630s and 1640s. Towards the end of the nineteenth century and under the generalate of Luis Martín (1892–1906), the Jesuits tried for a second time to gain honors for their Ethiopian cause. They were inspired by the popularity the Lazarists and Capuchins were achieving with their missions in the Ethiopian highlands. Thus, on June 19, 1902 the causes of beatification of Gaspar Paes, João Pereira, Apollinar de Almeida, Bruno Bruni, Luís Cardeira, Abraham de Georgiis and two other companions were introduced in Rome. Yet, not even then were the Jesuits successful. Therefore, to date, and in contrast to a large number of other Jesuit undertakings, the Ethiopian mission has neither saints nor martyrs. Hereafter, the Society of Jesus was no longer the sole custodian of the memory of the Ethiopian mission. In the peak Baroque period Jesuit and Portuguese adventures in the Red Sea and Ethiopia became the object of curiosity, 67

68

For a compilation of the Jesuit saints, martyrs and venerables, see Joseph N. Tylenda, Jesuit Saints & Martyrs. Short Biographies of the Saints, Blessed, Venerables, and Servants of God of the Society of Jesus (Chicago: Loyola Press, 1998). Arana, ‘Historia de la Santa vida’; see 231 for the year of composition of the treatise. Besides the copy of Arana’s hagiography preserved at the bnl, another one, bearing the title ‘Vida del padre Andres de Obiedo de la Compañia de Ihesus, patriarca de Ethiopia, sacada de la informacion que mando hazer D. Fernando Alexo de Meneses, arzobispo de Goa, Primado de las Indias’, is kept at the Biblioteca Universitaria de Salamanca, ms. 2112; Alonso Romo, ‘Andrés de Oviedo’, 216, note 8.

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discussion and entertainment within learned and upper-class circles. In Germany the study of the mission and Ethiopian Christianity achieved momentum with the joint work of the Orientalist Hiob Ludolf (1624–1704) and a former assistant of the padres in Ethiopia, abba Gorgoryos (†1658). Under the patronship of Ernst I, Duke of Sachsen-Gotha (1640–1675), the two learned men produced a number of studies on Ethiopian Christianity that, to an extent, continued the analytical research begun by the Jesuit missionaries.69 Likewise, however, the memory of the mission also served to promote antiCatholic and anti-Jesuit narratives. In 1679 the German Johann Wansleben (1635–1679), who, also under the patronship of the Duke of Sachsen-Gotha, had led a failed expedition to Ethiopia, would have issued a libel on the ­‘mischiefs’ of the Jesuit missionaries in Ethiopia.70 A former Protestant convert who had joined the Dominican Order, Wansleben’s work should be seen as one more title fueling the old quarrel between the two distinguished orders. In 1696 the church of England clergyman Michael Geddes (ca. 1647–1713) published a Church History of Ethiopia the main focus of which was the Jesuit ­mission. His was the second of a trilogy dedicated to substantiating the black legend of ‘popery cruelty’.71 For its part, the treatise written by the Jesuit Lobo remained unpublished in the original language but enjoyed a series of editions in France, England, Holland and Germany.72 Its liking for the anecdote and its emphasis on an adventurous narrative turned the text into a popular read in the eighteenth century. Lobo’s French edition by Joaquim Le Grand also included an engraving representing an historical episode in the mission, the meeting between Susǝnyos and Patriarch Afonso Mendes in Dänqäz on February 7, 1626 (Plate 22). The picture was probably designed by Louis de Boullongne and engraved by Coenraad de Putter (in some editions the name of Charles Nicolas Cochin also appeared). Although of less artistic value than the two masterpieces studied above, it was more accurate from the historical point 69

Chief among these works were Hiob Ludolf, Historia aethiopica and Id., Iobi Lvdolfi aliàs Leutholf. 70 Wansleben, A Brief Account. 71 Geddes, The Church History of Ethiopia, 10. See also Marja Smolenaars, ‘Geddes, Michael’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). 72 For the list of editions, see Lobo, Itinerário e outros escritos inéditos, 124. Previously, Alonso de Sandoval, rector of the Jesuit house in Cartagena de Indias where Lobo had spent a brief period in 1636, published some descriptions offered him by the missionary in Alonso de Sandoval, Tratado primeiro de instauranda Aethiopum salute (Madrid: Alonso de Paredes, 1647). Lobo, Itinerário e outros escritos inéditos, 62.

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Plate 22  An encounter imagined: the meeting between Susǝnyos and Patriarch Afonso Mendes in Dänqäz on February 7, 1626. Engraving by Louis de Boullongne and Coenraad de Putter, 1728 Credits: Jerónimo Lobo, Relation [Voyage] historique d’Abissinie, tr. Joaquim Le Grand (Paris: Veuve d’AntoineUrbain Coustelier-Jacques Guerin Libraires, 1728), frontispiece, 1728, Staats und Universitäts Bibliothek Hamburg, A/300511: 1/2

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of view.73 Finally, worth mentioning is the fact that Lobo’s English edition was prepared by the intellectual Samuel Johnson who worked on the basis of the French edition and who, as a result of this work, produced the famous moral fable Ras Sellas, an insightful critique of modern proto-industrial civilization.74 With these works the mission and the Ethiopian kingdom that the Portuguese and Jesuits had helped to appraise became topics for the consumption of secular society. Now it was largely secular European circles that were considering the rise and fall of the mission, at times with enjoyment and genuine curiosity and at other times with abhorrence.75 During colonial times a new wave of interest in this endeavor arose. This, however, belongs to another era and, thus, to another study. 73

74

75

The authors visibly consulted the missionary records and, in particular, a passage reported by Mendes in his own treatise describing in detail the encounter with Susǝnyos; see Mendes, Expeditio Aethiopicae, in raso viii, liv. II, Chapter I. See Ellen Douglass Leyburn, “No Romantick Absurdities or Incredible Fictions’: The Relation of Johnson’s Rasselas to Lobo’s Voyage to Abyssinia’, Publication of the Modern Language Association of America (pmla) 70 (1955). I have studied this particular in Andreu Martínez d’Alòs-Moner, ‘Colonialism and Memory: The Portuguese and Jesuit Adventures in Ethiopia through the Colonial-looking Glass’, Studies of the Department of African Languages and Cultures (University of Warsaw) 41 (2007).

chapter 9

Conclusions There are moments in the history of human societies when these take a U-turn, abandoning what their ancestors have reproduced almost unchanged during generations and adopting new vests. In some instances changes occur abruptly and in others they unfold progressively. Likewise, while the changes can be externally induced or enforced, societies develop internal drifts as well that can bring about a drastic alteration of the social and cultural fabric. A contention of the present study is that the Christian Ethiopian kingdom offered, at the time of the Jesuit mission, one such moment. The lessons that shall be learnt from this study are, first, that the changes enforced during the mission were world-shattering (the mission was far more than a ‘religious’ project) and, second, that these had both internal and external origins. The Jesuit mission started in 1557 after decades of exchanges between the Portuguese and Ethiopian kingdoms. During this time the two kingdoms exchanged gifts, representatives and offers of friendship and alliance. In the process, they also came to know each other, to appreciate each others’ and to identify – in their own worldviews – the shortcomings of the other. The Ethiopians regarded Portugal as a powerful nation, but under king Dom João III the idea gained force that the Ethiopians professed a heretical Christianity that had to be reformed. But if the ideological conditions for the mission existed already in the late 1520s, it has been shown here that the project of a religious mission was first conceived following the episode of João Bermudez’s pseudo-patriarchate and the military expedition of Christovão da Gama in the late 1530s and early 1540s. During its early decades of life the Jesuit mission developed under an ambitious institutional umbrella – the Catholic patriarchate of Ethiopia – but in practice it had modest commitments. The Jesuits managed only one residence in the north of the kingdom and were mostly surrounded by a few hundred descendants of the Portuguese who had settled in Tǝgray. The nǝguś and his court remained beyond the reach of the padres. Such a state of isolation lasted until the end of the sixteenth century, but, with the new century, conditions changed. On the one hand, the Society was then more experienced; its members, having gone through the full Jesuit curriculum in education, possessed an excellent intellectual preparation and had the confidence of belonging to an institution that was active over four continents. On the other hand, the situation in Ethiopia became more favorable for the mission. The Ethio-Portuguese

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mixed-race group became a small but influential mercenary corps in the service of the nǝguś and their offspring came to exercise a crucial role as intermediaries and culture brokers between local Ethiopians and the Europeans as well as supplying a pool of auxiliaries for the mission system. Moreover, longterm contact with the Europeans had produced dispositions in the habitus of Ethiopian court society favorable to the ideas the foreigners embodied. Prosopographical analysis showed that the Jesuits were, indeed, welcomed by a relatively large number of members of the nobility and higher clergy. It was this blend of internal and external factors that assured the success of the second Jesuit mission. In the second missionary term I distinguished, as other scholars have already done, between two periods. The first, from 1603 to about 1617, was headed by the Castilian Pedro Páez, and comprised a reduced number of missionaries who tried to maintain a low profile. They cultivated the friendship of a few select figures (ite Maryam Śǝna, nǝguś Susǝnyos, ras Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos, azzaž Ṭino, däǧǧazmač Qǝbʾä Krǝstos, among others) and slowly expanded the number of residences. The death in 1617 of metropolitan Sǝmʿon and a number of figures who opposed the religious drift inspired by the missionaries in the court of Susǝnyos has been presented as a crucial moment of this term, for it cleared the way for a second period where the mission took a more upfront stance with regard to Ethiopian religion and society. In the early 1620s the religious conflict between traditionalists and Catholics came to a head and as a consequence Susǝnyos officially recognized Catholicism as the state religion: Jesuits were then placed at the top of the religious hierarchy. In the mid-1620s the mission witnessed the arrival of the Patriarch Afonso Mendes, the expansion of the resources at the disposal of the missionaries and the launching of ambitious projects: a steady number of about twenty Jesuits were to manage as many as thirteen residences. In the second, and central, part of this book the institutional framework of the mission was analyzed. A major focus was the presentation of the mission as a complex institution that relied on the work of a well-prepared and coordinated group of men and on the commitment of local elites. Joining here a trend begun by Merid Wolde Aregay and continued by Leonardo Cohen and Hervé Pennec, I reassessed the role that is frequently attributed in historical literature to Páez and Mendes. It has been shown that their pragmatic approaches differed not in terms of their ideological commitments but because they worked in two different socio-political moments. Moreover, other determining figures in the missionary enterprise have been identified, such as António Fernandes, Luís Cardeira and Manoel de Almeida as well as members of Ethiopian society and the Ethio-Portuguese mixed-race group. The

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conclusions of this part of the book refute the idea that the missionaries helped Susǝnyos in enforcing political absolutism. Not only was Jesuit political theory at odds with an absolutist form of government but there is no evidence of the missionaries ever trying to apply such principles in the Christian Ethiopian state. Instead, an alternative proposal has been to focus on the Jesuit discourse as it can be gleaned from the missionary record. In particular, missionary activities in Ethiopia unfolded under the influence of three figures, St. Ignatius, St. Paul and, to a small degree, also St. Leo the Great. Concepts such as the Ignatian redução, St. Paul’s new testamental thrust and the Leonine concern for the unity of the church could explain in large part the approach and aims of the missionaries in Ethiopia. Additionally, in the political sphere, the emphasis seems to have been on turning Susǝnyos into a rational, down-to-earth Prince, the true sovereign over an ‘Ethiopian Empire’, as imagined in such works as Páez’s História de Etiópia. The role of the cultural developments during the 1620s, which had their most spectacular expression in architecture, the scenic arts and painting, has also been reviewed by focusing on aspects hitherto neglected in the historical literature. On the one hand, the subject matter of missionary art was exhaustively surveyed. Missionary art served as a powerful mean of non-verbal communication and also as a source of symbolic capital. On the other hand, I considered the important architectonic developments in the Lake Ṭana area as a typically Jesuit patron-client undertaking; as art historians such as Evonne Levy and Cristina Osswald have already shown, the close relationship between the Jesuits and local patrons was crucial in the spectacular development of artistic works set up worldwide by the Society of Jesus. An important task here, which has been only partially completed, was the identification of the architectonic models imported by the Jesuits. An effort was made to identify the chief inspirations of missionary-related architecture in Ethiopia: Jesuit Indian architecture and Mughal architecture. Yet, there is still much work to be done in order to spell out exactly how the ‘cultural transfer’ between Mughal India and Ethiopia (including the Gondärine period) actually operated. Research in Indian and British archives – the Ethiopian documentation being in this particular nearly exhausted – could perhaps shed some important light onto this fascinating and still little known case of architectonic symbiosis. Last but not least, the conclusions from this analysis disprove the architectonic role the Ethio-Portuguese have been traditionally attributed in the historical literature. Finally, I addressed the reasons for the mission’s sudden collapse. I admit that there cannot be a definitive and unequivocal answer to such a complex question. Moreover, it can also be argued that, like any human enterprise, the mission was meant, at some point, to collapse – even more so when this project was

Conclusions

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associated with a wide-reaching transformation of the local society according to foreign patterns. Yet, the fact that the mission’s dismissal in Ethiopia occurred at the very moment of its major expansion invites further investigation. Firstly, a strong current of dissent against the mission and the leaders that backed it pervaded the whole second mission period. Although the missionaries successfully attracted to their cause relevant figures, they were also perceived in rather negative terms by large sectors of local populations. The Jesuits’ uncompromising opposition to circumcision, local fasting habits and the Sabbath, and the fostering of practices such as healings and exorcisms endangered their position amidst local societies. Moreover, the more liberal spirit of Tridentine Christianity, which emphasized the cult to a human-like God, fostered the public exhibition of religious images and promoted a more liberal liturgy contravened a deep-seated paradigm of coping with the sacred in Christian Ethiopia, which rested on the mysterious and inscrutable. In the end, a long list of negative epithets (qwällafa, buda) were applied to the missionaries, adding to their already problematic status as foreigners and a threat for the traditional order. Secondly, missionary progress during the 1620s backfired. The expansion which the mission experienced in this period and the enthusiastic support granted them by figures such as Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos, Qǝbʾä Krǝstos and Ṭino seem to have made the Jesuits overconfident about their own project and induced them to push demands to limits that few Christian Ethiopians could tolerate. The dogmatic application of the Tridentine decrees earned them new opponents from within the Ethiopian nobility and the state structure, as the clashes on concubinage practices within the court manifested themselves. More importantly, there was the economic issue. In the 1610s the mission was, financially speaking, largely independent from local support. Yet, by the turn of the decade external funding could no longer provide for the growing needs of the structure. The mismanagement of funds in India and the increasing involvement of local figures pushed the padres to use local support to buttress missionary expansion. Consequently, in the 1620s the mission became de facto a branch of the Ethiopian state. Architectonic works, improvements to infrastructure and the maintenance of an expensive cultural program, all projects related to the Jesuit presence, relied on local contributors and a local workforce. As Merid has already emphasized, to supply the mission’s needs the kingdom increased the exaction of tributes and military raids at the expense of local peasantry and peripheral groups. So, in the views of many an Ethiopian, the missionaries were not only replacing the religion of their ancestors but, as it is metaphorically expressed in local languages, they were ‘eating the country’ – accumulating lavish privileges, rents and donations. For all that, in the early

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1630s the mission was a giant with feet of clay. Then, the removal from office or the death of influential supporters and the eventual illness of Susǝnyos eliminated the last resorts of local support the Jesuits counted on. It is, nonetheless, a testimony to the influence of the mission that Ethiopia preserved many of the innovations introduced by the Jesuits long after their demise. The small surviving clusters of Catholic groups became the primary bearers of mission culture and a form of Ethiopian Catholicism continued to be practiced until at least the coming to power of Yoḥannǝs I, late in the seventeenth century. Moreover, important elements from this culture were assimilated by both the monarchy and the church, thus becoming symbols of a new Ethiopian identity. The famous Gondärine style of painting, which blossomed in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, found its inspiration in the mission’s artistic workshops; most ironically, the truly Roman Catholic icon of the Virgin of Santa Maria Maggiore and such scenes typical of European Christianity as Nadal’s Evangelicae Historiae Imagine were swiftly embraced by local painters and donors. The Ethiopian monarchy also cherished the urban and architectonic ideas that resulted from the Jesuit presence, thereby giving birth to such splendid creations as the gǝmb of Gondär. Therefore, from the mid-seventeenth century onwards the life of the monarchy developed in a urban landscape and within the walls of monumental palaces, just as the Jesuits and Susǝnyos had imagined it. Finally, a more detailed study of local theological and historical literature might perhaps shed light on the impact the mission had on local religious life. The new emphasis that the Ethiopian Church placed on defining theological dogmas could have had an origin in the period under review here. It is, however, my conviction that the tragic outcome of the mission was not solely the responsibility of men such as Pedro Páez, Manoel de Almeida or António Fernandes. Indeed, if we approach the issue from a broader perspective it might be noticed that the padroč were not alone in their mishap. The cases of the Japan and Mughal missions are strikingly similar to that presented in this book and could help us in contextually following the events in Ethiopia. The two missions had been, like the Ethiopian, among the most important projects the Jesuits had led in the Orient.1 In both regions the missionaries had 1 There is evidence that Jesuit decision-makers in India and Europe considered the three undertakings as having similar importance. Hence, some missionaries were exchanged between at least two of these three missions: Melchior Carneiro, auxiliary bishop of the Patriarch of Ethiopia João Nunes Barreto, became the first Jesuit bishop in Japan; Oviedo was once requested to abandon Ethiopia and move to Japan and Antonio Montserrat and Luís Cardeira were sent to Ethiopia after missioning at the Mughal court; see also arsi, Goa 33 II, 725r.

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seduced powerful lords and set up important Catholic bases and, likewise, the Catholics rapidly came to lose their privileges and faced exile or martyrdom. In 1614 Tokugawa Ieyasu, the shogun who, from 1603, ruled a newly centralized Japan, signed the Christian Expulsion Edict, which began a period of persecutions and struggles for survival of small Catholic communities that shows many parallels with what happened in Ethiopia in the 1630s and 1640s. In India the Jesuits’ dismissal was less dramatic but equally radical, for the Jesuitfriendly policy of Emperor Jahangir was called off once his heir, the devoted Muslim Shah Jahan, came to power in 1627. The three missions had evolved under powerful states; they had been set up, largely, by the caprice of enlightened potentates and expanded and succeeded thanks to the capacity of Jesuit missionaries to seduce monarchs, nobility and state bureaucracy. My contention is that, given such a socio-political context, the Jesuit presence was extremely fragile and at some point it also became undesired. As the foreign priests upgraded their status in the state structure, acquiring influence, privileges and friends, they progressively came to clash with some groups within the state structure that justifiably saw their arrogations of authority as a threat. In Ethiopia I have identified such groups as those of the abetohun, the wäyzäro and the wämbär, but there were probably others, such as the corps of azzaž and, obviously, traditional clergy and local governors. In such a context, jealousy, suspicion and the missionaries’ own pretensions to a moral dictate over all heavenly and earthly things led to skepticism and dissent. Yet the fact that these three missions terminated within a few years of each other pushes us to look at another external cause. In the early seventeenth century the Estado da India was a mere shadow of what it had been in the previous century. The Portuguese Indian empire was shrinking by the day; it was buried in debts and led by inefficient and corrupt institutions; it was a polity in a state of decay, which could neither guarantee internal consensus (e.g. in the case of the struggle between the reinóis and indiáticos) nor face the external challenges of Dutch, British, French and Mughal politics. The Jesuits, which had begun their most inspiring enterprises in the sixteenth century under the umbrella of a rising empire, could not rely now on this fact as an asset for attracting Oriental princes. Moreover, the Society itself was no longer the wellfunctioning machine of the past, as the cases of mismanagement and internal quarrels in the Indian Province attest. Most likely the Eastern lords who had appealed to them during the glory days of the Estado, or their descendants, noticed these changes and considered that maintaining the foreign priests in their courts, with all the efforts and risks this implied, was not going to pay off. Thus, all these elements that permitted the accumulation of symbolic and political power, such as weapons, military aid, Oriental textiles, monumental

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architectonic projects, luxury goods and spiritual counseling, could now flow through other intermediaries. Being the first mission conceived by Ignatius of Loyola, the Ethiopian was also the last of the ‘imperial’ missions to expire. The mission in China continued unabated but there the Jesuits endured frequent hardships and had to accept significant compromises. Hereafter, the changing conditions in the East drove the Jesuits to engage in more modest or safer enterprises, be it as the head of the Astronomy bureau in Qing China or in rural missions in the Indian countryside and Cochin China. Similarly, they were to call within their troop a more mixed collection of nationalities. A grand, but fragile, missionary era had ended.

Appendix 1

Leading Political Figures in the Red Sea, India and Europe, ca. 1600–1635 Ottoman governors of the Eyalet el-Habesh Ali Pasha (ca. 1594), Ibrahim Pasha (March 4, 1602) Yemen Beyerlebi Hasan Pasha-ojlu Mehmed Pasha (September 1604) Mehmed Pasha (ca. 1606), Murtaza Pasha (September 4, 1607) Bayezid Pasha (ca. 1612), Hasan Pasha (ca. 1612) Mahmud Pasha (ca. 1618), Acem-zade (?) Pasha (March 9, 1621) Ahmed Pasha (June 5, 1622), Aydin Pasha (ca. 1626) Mostarli Mustarla Pasha (ca. 1629), Mehmed Pasha (ca. 1640) India Jesuit Superiors and Procurators at Diu

Jesuit provincials and visitors in India

Governors and viceroys of India

Gaspar Soares (1603) António Roiz (1610–1611) António Mendes (1612–1616) Manoel Lameira (1618–1620) Joannes Baptista (1620–1621) Francisco de Azevedo (1624) Francisco Cerqueira João Bautista Francisco de Azevedo (ca. 1625) Manoel de Sousa (1627–1628)

Nicolão Pimenta (1601) Gaspar Fernandez (1607) Francisco Vieira (1609) Nicolão Pimenta, vis. (1609) Jácome de Medeiros (1615) Luís Cardoso (1620) André Palmeiro, vis. (1621) Francisco de Vergara (1624) Alvaro Tavares (1632)

Aires de Saldanha (1600–1605) Martim Afonso de Castro (1605–1607) Aleixo de Meneses (1607–1609) André Furtado de Mendonça (1609) Rui Lourenço de Távora (1609–1612) Jerónimo de Azevedo (1612–1617) João Coutinho, conde de Redondo (1617–1619) Fernão de Albuquerque (1619–1622) Francisco da Gama, conde de Vidiguiera (1622–1628) Luís de Brito (1628–1629) Miguel de Noronha, conde de Linhares (1629–1635)

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Appendix 1

Europe Jesuit provincials in Portugal

Jesuit superior generals

Portuguese kings

Popes

Juan Correa (1601), prov. António Mascarenhas (1604), prov. Martin de Melho (1607), vprov. Jerónimo Dias (1608), prov. Juan Alvares (1610), vis., prov. Francisco Pereira (1614), prov. Francisco de Gouveia, vprov. António Mascarenhas (1618), prov. Pedro de Novaes (1621), prov. Manuel Fernandez (1624), prov. António Mascarenhas (1624), prov. António de Abreu (1627), prov. António Mascarenhas (1629), vprov. Diego Monteiro (1629), prov. Luís Lobo (1632), prov.

Claudio Acquaviva (1581–1615) Muzio Vitelleschi (1615–1649)

Philip III (II in Portugal) (1598–1621) Philip IV (III in Portugal) (1621–1640)

Clement VIII (1592–1605) Leo XI (1605) Paul V (1605–1621) Gregory XV (1621–1623) Urban VIII (1623–1644)

Legend: prov., provincial; vprov., vice provincial; vis., visitor, visitador; when only one date appears, the beginning of the term is meant. sources: ‘catalogi breves prov. goanae’, in arsi, goa 27, 1–169; ‘catalogi triennales prov. goanae’, in arsi, goa 25, 1–375, goan &, 1614–1699; cengiz orhonlu, osmanli imparatorlugu’nun güney siyaseti. habes eyaleti [‘the southern policy of the ottoman empire: the eyalet of habesh’] (istanbul: edebiyat fakültesi matbaasi, 1974); raso x–xii.

Appendix 2

National and Provincial Rulers in Christian Ethiopia, 1603–1636

Main Christian Provinces

Year

Nǝguś

1603

1605 1606 1607

Yaʿǝqob/ Zädǝngǝl Zädǝngǝl/ Yaʿǝqob Yaʿǝqob id. id./Susǝnyos

ras Atnatewos Zäśǝllase id./Yolyos?

1608 1609

Susǝnyos id.

Yolyos? Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos

1610 1611 1612 1613

id. id. id. id.

id. id./Adäro Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos id.

1614 1615 1616 1617

id. id. id. id.

id. id. id. id.

1618 1619

id. id.

id. id.

1620 1621

id. id.

id. id./Zämänfäs Qǝddus

1604

Goǧǧam

Tǝgray

Baḥǝr nägaš Bägemdǝr

Amhara

Kǝflä Waḥed id. id. Wäldä Krǝstos id. id./Amsalä Del Bäiyäsus Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos Yämanä Krǝstos Krǝstos? Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos Amsalä Krǝstos id. id. id. Yolyos Yolyos Yämanä Krǝstos id. id. id. id. id. id. id. id. id. id. id. id. Yämanä Krǝstos Täklä Giyorgis Yoḥannǝs Yonaʾel id. id. Gäbrä Bukko Afä Maryam? Krǝstos id. Yonaʾel id. id./Qǝbʾä id./Zäkrǝstos id. Krǝstos

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Appendix 2

(cont.) Year

Nǝguś

Goǧǧam

Tǝgray

Baḥǝr nägaš Bägemdǝr

1622

id.

Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos

1623 1624

id. id.

id. id.

1625 1626

id. id.

id./Fasilädäs Fasilädäs

1627

id.

id.

1628

id.

Śärṩä Krǝstos

1629

id.

Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos

Qǝbʾä Krǝstos Yoḥannǝs Akay? id. id. ‘Tames’/ Akabä Krǝstos id. Qǝbʾä Krǝstos/ Täklä Giyorgis Täklä Giyorgis Gäbrä Maryam id./Qǝbʾä ʿAmdä Krǝstos Mikaʾel Qǝbʾä Krǝstos / id. Aṣmä Giyorgis

1630

id.

1631

id.

1632 1633 1634 1635

id./Fasilädäs Fasilädäs id. id.

1636

id.

Fasilädäs/Śärṩä id. id. Krǝstos Fasilädäs/Gäbrä id./Bǝʿǝlä Krǝstos Krǝstos Bǝʿǝlä Krǝstos id.? id.? Zämaryam Yoḥannǝs Akay/ Becemerete

Zäkrǝstos id. Bukko

Amhara Śärṩä Krǝstos

Zäkrǝstos id. id. Yämanä Krǝstos id.

Zämaryam Adäbo/Śärṩä Krǝstos Gäbrä Krǝstos ʾƎdä Krǝstos id./Bǝʿǝlä Krǝstos Gälawdewos id. id. id.

id.

349

National and Provincial Rulers in Christian Ethiopia

Year

Other Regions Agäw

Damot

1603 1604 1605 1606 1607 1608 1609 1610 1611 1612 1613 1614 1615 1616 1617 1618

Orañe

1619 1620 1621 1622 1623 1624

Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos? id.? id.? id.

Zäkrǝstos id. id. id.

1625

id./Marqos

Bukko

1626

Marqos

id.

1627

Zämaryam/ Qǝbʾä Krǝstos

Bukko/ Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos

Other

Gaada (Oromo)

Malba id. id. id. id. id. id. Mudana id. id. Hamälmal (Kambaata) id. id. Abesan, Benäro (Ǝnnarya) Benäro (Ǝnnarya) id. id. id. id.; Yolyos (Wägära) id. Kiilolee Benäro (Ǝnnarya); Wäldä Ḥawaryat (Sǝmen) Benäro (Ǝnnarya) id. Sisgayo/Arutano id. (Ǝnnarya) id. id. id. id. id. id. id.; Mälkǝʾa Krǝstos id. (Sǝmen) id. Sisgayo/Arutano (Ǝnnarya); Zämaryam (Sǝmen) Sisgayo/Arutano Biifolee (Ǝnnarya) id. Sisgayo/Arutano (Ǝnnarya); Fasilädäs (Sǝmen)

Metropolitans

Ṗeṭros id. id. id. Sǝmʿon id. id. id. id. id. id. id. id. id. id. –

Yǝsḥaq – – – – – –

– –

350

Appendix 2

(cont.) Year

Agäw

1628 1629 1630

Fasilädäs

1631 1632 1633 1634 1635 1636

Damot

Kǝflä Giyorgis Zämaryam

Other

Gaada (Oromo)

Metropolitans

ead. ead. Fasilädäs (Sǝmen) Yämanä Krǝstos (Ǝnnarya) ead. ead. Yämanä Krǝstos (Ǝnnarya) id. id. id.

id. id. id.

– – –

id. id. id.

– – –

Mačallee id. id.

– – Marqos

sources: lange, history of the southern gonga, 29, 34–35; legesse, gada, 8; raso i–xv; antónio roiz to muzio vitelleschi, february 13, 1625, in arsi, goa 39 i, 221r.

Appendix 3

Jesuit Missionaries in Ethiopia, 1555–1632 Listed by Year of Arrival in Ethiopia

Birth

Death

Surname, name and year of arrival in Ethiopia

Status/Year of departure from Ethiopia

Freire (Freyre), 1555 Fulgencio Rodrigues, 1555 Gonçalo

Chequeador

1556

Portugal

1512–14 Portugal?

Father

1556

1527

Goa, India 1564

Cardoso, Gonçalo

1557

Brother, works – in Fǝremona

Calleiros, Braga, Portugal ?

?

Fernandes, António (I)

1557

Braga, Portugal

1532

Fernandes, Manuel

1557

Olivença, Portugal

1516

Fǝremona, 1585 Ethiopia

Gualdames, Andrés (also Francisco) Lopes, Francisco

1557

Brother, Father, – works in Fǝremona Brother, Father, – works in Fǝremona and Gorgora Father 1562

1574 Way to Dämbǝya, Ethiopia Fǝremona, 1593 Ethiopia

Jerez de la Frontera, Spain Vila de Fronteira, Portugal

1517

Massawa, Ethiopia

1532

Fǝremona, 1597 Ethiopia

Oviedo, Andrés de

1557

Illescas, 1518 Toledo, Spain

Fǝremona, 1577 Ethiopia

Alepo, Siria

1564

Canarim, India

?

Massawa, Ethiopia India

1557

Georgiis, 1595 Abraham de Sylva, Melchior 1598 (Belchior) da

Brother, Father, – works in Fǝremona and Gorgora – Bishop, Patriarch, works in Fǝremona Father – Father, works in 1604 Fǝremona

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1571

1562

1595 ca. 1615?

352

Appendix 3

(cont.)

Surname, name and year of arrival in Ethiopia

Status/Year of departure from Ethiopia

Birth

Death

Páez, Pedro (Pais, Pero)

Father, superior – of the mission, builder Father, works in – Qwälläla

1564 Olmeda de las Fuentes, Spain Sorrento, 1566 Naples, Italy

Gorgora, Ethiopia

1622

Qollela, Ethiopia

1622

Father, superior 1632 of the mission Father, works in – Qwälläla, Gännätä Iyäsus and Gorgora

Lisboa, 1571 Portugal 1573 Chaves, Carrazedo Montenegro, Braga, Portugal Rome, Italy 1569

Goa, India 1642

Messina, Italy 1590

Goa, India 1640

1586 Villa de Matto, freguesia de Barouco, Coimbra/ Barcouços, Portugal Viseu, 1580 Portugal Beja, Portugal 1585

Goa, India 1639

1603

1604 De Angelis, Francesco Antonio Fernandes, 1604 António (II) Azevedo, Luís 1605 de

Romano (Mangoni), Lorenzo Bruno, Antonio

1605

Father, works in – Fǝremona

1620

Father, works in 1634 Fǝremona, Qwälläla, Tanḵa Father, superior 1633 in Fǝremona, works in Dänqäz

Mattos, Diogo 1620 de

Almeida, Manoel de Cardeira (Caldeira), Luís

1623 1623

Father, superior 1634 and visitador Father, designer, – musicician, teacher, works in Fǝremona, Gorgora, Qwälläla, Särka

Dämbǝya, Ethiopia

1634

Fǝremona, 1621 Ethiopia

Goa, India 1646 Tamben, Ethiopia

1640

353

Jesuit Missionaries In Ethiopia, 1555–1632 Surname, name and year of arrival in Ethiopia

Status/Year of departure from Ethiopia

Birth

Barradas, Manuel

1623

Father, superior 1633 in Fǝremona

1572

Cochin, India

1646

Carvalho, Francisco

1623

1634

Monforte, Alentejo, Portugal Portugal

Barneto, Tomé P.

1624

1627

Evora, Portugal

1580

India

1640

Francisco, Jacinto

1624

–

Florence, Italy

1598

Ṭana, Ethiopia

1638

Paes (Paez), Gaspar

1624

–

Covilhã, Portugal

1596

–

Extremoz, Portugal Portugal?

1569

Desert of 1635 Assa, Ethiopia Fǝremona, 1628 Ethiopia India? 1634

–

1588

–

Vila Real, Portugal Viseu, Portugal Civitella del Tronto, Italy Lisboa, Portugal

1595

Machado, Francisco Pereira, Bernardo Bruni, Bruno

1624

Father, superior in Qwälläla and Näfaša Father, superior in Fǝremona and Tanḵa Brother, works in Atḵäna, Fǝremona Father, superior in Gorgora, works in Tanḵa Father, works in Fǝremona Chaplain of Mendes Father

1624

Father

1625

Father, architect – in Ǝnnäbǝse

Lobo (Brandão), Jerónimo Mendes, Afonso

1625

Father, preacher, 1633 works in Fǝremona Patriarch, lives 1634 in Ǝnfraz

Velasco, Juan de

1625

Diaz, Tomé

1625

Lameira, 1624 Manoel Magro, Manoel 1624

1625

Father, works in 1629 in Gännätä Iyäsus Chaplain of the 1633 patriarch

Death

1589 1590

Zeila, Ethiopia Zeila, Ethiopia Desert of Assa, Ethiopia Lisboa, Portugal

1624 1624 1640

1678

Sto. Aleixo, 1579 Moura, Portugal Fuenterrabia, 1579 Spain

Goa, India 1656

India

1630

Armenia

?

?

?

354

Appendix 3

(cont.)

Birth

Surname, name and year of arrival in Ethiopia

Status/Year of departure from Ethiopia

Marques, Francisco

1625

Luis, Manuel

1625

1625 Martins (Martínez), João Fernandes 1628 (III), António

Father, procurador, works in Tanḵa Brother, assistant of the patriarch Brother, architect in Gorgora Nova Father, works in Fǝremona

Rodrigues, Francisco

Brother, mason – in Dänqäz

1628

Pereira 1628 (Pereyra), João Colaça 1628 (Callaça), Damião Sousa (Souza), 1628 João de Almeida, Apollinar de

1630

Giroco, José

1630

Death

1634

Braga, Portugal

1633

1593 Goa, India 1662 Faulam?, Coimbra, Portugal Corpa, Spain ca. 1572 India 1634

1629

1633

Father, works in – Gännätä Iyäsus and Lǝǧǧä Nǝguś Father, procura- 1634 dor in Diu Father, works in 1634? Gännätä Iyäsus and Ǝnnäbǝse – Bishop of Nicaea, works in Ǝnfraz Father, works in 1634 Dänqäz and Fǝremona

1598

Diu, India

1639

Viana do Alentejo, Portugal Carnide (Nossa Señora da Luz), Portugal Cella d’Alcobaça, Portugal Mascate, Arabia?

1602

Diu, India

1635

1603

Ṭana, Ethiopia

1638

1601

1589

1635 desert of Assa, Ethiopia Goa, India 1652

Portugal?

1594

Goa, India 1666

Lisboa, Portugal

1587

Ṭana, Ethiopia

1638

Indian Ocean

1634

Naples, Italy ?

sources: arsi, goa 24-i–ii; raso i–xv; sommervogel, bibliothèque.

Appendix 4

Intellectual Production during the Mission, 1611–1632 Beginning End 1556 1557 ca. 1604

1607

1614

1614

1614

1614

ca. 1614

Title

1556? Treatise against Ethiopian errors 1558? Treatise against Ethiopian errors Cartilha por preguntas (based on Marcos Jorge, Cartilha em Tamul e Portugués, 1554) Doutrina christã ou Cathecismo breve [based in Marcos Jorge, Doutrina Crista, Lisboa: Francisco Correa, 1561; Goa 1557] 1616 Francisco de Ribera, In epistolam B. Pauli apostoli ad hebraeos commentarij…, Salmanticae: Petrus Lassus, 1598 1616 Francisco de Toledo, Commentarij & annotationes in Epistolam beati Pauli Apostoli ad romanos…, Romae: Paulini Arnolphini Lucensis, 1602 ca. 1620 Juan Maldonado, Commentarii in quatuor evangelistas, 2 vols., Mussiponti: Stephani Mercatoris, 1596–1597 1619 Bras Viegas, Commentarii Exegetici in Apocalypsim Joannis Apostoli, Eborae: Emmanuelem de Lyra, 1601 ca. 1616 Flagellum mendaciorum [printed as Magseph assetat id est flagellum mendaciorum sive Tractatus de erroribus Aethiopiae Sermone Chaldaeo, Goae: Collegio S. Pauli, 1642]

Intervention Author(s)

Language

cmp. cmp. cmp.

Gonçalves Oviedo Páez/João Gabriel?

gz? gz? am

tr.

Azevedo?

am

tr.

Azevedo

gz

tr.

Azevedo

gz

tr.

De Angelis

gz

tr.

gz Azevedo, Akalä Krǝstos, De Angelis A. Fernandes gz

cmp.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004289154_014

356

Appendix 4

(cont.)

Beginning End ca. 1615

ca. 1615 1615

1616 1616

1616 1618 1619 1619 ca. 1619

1619

ca. 1620

ca. 1620

Title

Francisco de Ribera, In epistolam B. Pauli apostoli ad hebraeos commentarij…, Salmanticae: Petrus Lassus, 1598 1621 Pedro Páez, História da Etiópia [printed in 1903 in raso ii–iii] 1619 Benedetto Giustiniano, In omnes B. Pavli Apost. Epistolas Explanationum, vol. 1, Lugduni: Horatii Cardon, 1613 De opere sex dierum 1619 Juan Maldonado, Commentarii in quatuor evangelistas, 2 vols., Mussiponti: Stephani Mercatoris, 1596–1597 [Gospels of Matthaeus and Luke] 1619 Gospels and St. Paul Epistles De Immunitate Ecclesiastica ca. 1929 Gǝʿǝz Gospels Cartilha Ordenações e leis do reino de Portugal… [i.e. ‘Ordenações Filipinas’], Lisboa: Pedro Crasbeeck, 1603 Academia Complutensi [Alcalà de Henares], Biblia complutensis, 6 vols., Alcalà de Henares: Industria Arnaldi and Guilielmi de Brocario, 1514–1517 [financed by Cardinal Jimenez de Cisneros; images used in the Apocalypse] De Jejunio in quo ostendit ritum Aethiopum multa errare [Viane Cassaust?] Agäw Grammar

Intervention Author(s)

Language

tr.

De Angelis

am

cmp.

Páez

pt

tr.

Akalä Krǝstos gz

cmp. tr.

A. Fernandes gz de Angelis, gz Azevedo

tr. cmp. amd. tr. tr.

A. Fernandes A. Fernandes Azevedo Akalä Krǝstos Azevedo

amd.

lt gz gz am?

gz?

cmp.

A. Fernandes gz

cmp.

De Angelis

ag

357

Intellectual Production During The Mission, 1611–1632 Beginning End

Title

Intervention Author(s)

Language

1620

tr.

De Angelis

gz

tr.

De Angelis

ag

cmp.

A. Fernandes pt

tr.

A. Fernandes gz

1624

Benedicto Pereira, Commentariorum et disputationum in Genesim, 4 vols., Romae: ex typographia Vaticana, 1589–1598 Juan Maldonado, Commentarii in quatuor evangelistas, 2 vols., Mussiponti: Ex typographia Stephani Mercatoris, 1596–1597 [Gospels of Matthaeus and Luke] Vida da Sanctíssima Virgem Maria May de Deos & Senhora nossa [Goa: Collegio de S. Paulo, 1652] Translation of the Letter of S. Leo to Flavian and insertion in the Haymanotä Abäw Haymanotä Abäw

corr amd.

cmp. tr. tr. tr.

Cardeira Azevedo Azevedo Azevedo

am gz gz gz

tr.

Azevedo

gz

1628

Calendarium Festorum mobilium juxta computum anni Aethiopici, ut cum romanu conveniat, cum adjuncto tractatu et explicatione illius [Sǝnkǝssar] Amharic Grammar Oras de N.Sra. Exorcismo das tempestades ‘Hum livro de praticas sobre o credo’ Hieronymo Natal, Evangelicae Historiae Imagines Ex ordine Euangeliorum, quae toto anno in Missae Sacrificio recitantur, In ordinem temporis vitae Christi digestae, Antuerpiae: Martinus Nutius, 1593–1594 Ethiopian New Testament

A. Fernandes/ gz Mendes A. Fernandes gz

tr., amd.

Azevedo, A. Fernandes, Cardeira

am?

1620

ca. 1622

1623

1623 ca. 1623

1625 1625 1625 1625 1625

1625

358

Appendix 4

(cont.)

Beginning End ca. 1626

1626?

1628

1630 ca. 1630

Title

De iurisdictione ecclesiastica [Rituale Romanum anno 1626, cui addidit Ordinarium Canonem, Caeremoniale, Missas Festorum] 1645 Bran Haimanot: Id est lux fidei in Epithalamium Aethiopissae, sive in Nuptias Uerbi et Ecclesiae [Coloniae Agripinae: Balthazaris ab Egmond et Sociorum, 1692] c. 1645 História de Etiópia a alta [refashioned in Balthazar Tellez, Historia geral de Ethiopia a Alta ou Preste Ioam, Coimbra: Manoel Dias, 1660; integral edition in raso v–vii] 1628 Psalms 1628 Machabees 1628 Roberto Bellarmino, Dichiaratione più copiosa della dottrina christiana, Roma: Luigi Zannetti, 1598 Book of the Kings 1645 Cathecismo Aethiopico 1634 Vocabulary of the Ethiopian language

Intervention Author(s)

Language

tr.

A. Fernandes gz?

cmp.

Mendes

cmp.

M. de Almeida pt

tr., amd. tr., amd. tr.

Azevedo Azevedo Azevedo

am? am? gz?

tr. cmp. cmp.

Cardeira Mendes Cardeira– Gorgoryos

am lt am?

gz?

Note: the editions mentioned here are the first editions and not necessarily those taken by the Jesuits to Ethiopia. Legend: tr., translation; cmp., composition; amd, amendment; am, Amharic; ag, Agäw; gz, Gǝʿǝz; lt, Latin; pt, Portuguese. sources: afonso mendes, april 30, 1632, in bnl, cod. 7640 [f 2866], 1r–v; braga doc. 17; braga doc. 19, 152v, 153r; leonardo cohen, ‘the jesuit missionary as translator’, 12; gaspar paes, annual letter, june 15, 1625, in arsi, Goa 39-i, 255v; raso i, 352–54; raso vi, 363; raso vii, 475–88; raso xi, 14, 55, 119, 145, 332, 383, 411, 419–20, 422, 428, 465, 484; raso xii, 268, 383, 457; raso xiii, 65, 260–62; sommervogel, bibliothèque.

generations

Śärṣä Dǝngǝl

Susǝnyos

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004289154_015

Gedewon

Goyta

Wälättä Minas Qǝddusan

Zäiya su s (6)

Kaflä Waḥed

Fasil Gärram

Amätä Yaʹǝqob Giyorgis

Wälättä GudamoDäḫarägot Wälättä Mäsqäl Dǝngǝl ʹƎbäya Ḥawaryat

Säbänä Giyorgis

Ḥamälmal Wärq Śärṣä Ḥamälmal Krǝstos Wärq

Marqos Gälawdewos

Fasilädäs

nəguś

unknown

female

male

Ambäsay

Mälkǝ’a Krǝstos

Yosṭos

Marqos Ya’ǝqob?

not positioned/unknown

rebel or contrary to the Jesuits

favourable to the Jesuits

Adäro Maryam

Sǝbḥat Adäro Lä’ab Maryam?

Säblä Benaro Ǝḫwä Täzkarä Ba’alä Wängel (5) Krǝstos Dǝngǝl? Krǝstos

Yämanä Bellarmino Qerallos Krǝstos

hypothetical relationship

alliance

filiation

siblings

Ǝdä Krǝstos

Ǝḫawä Krǝstos

Bǝ’ǝlä Ya’ǝqob Śärṣä Krǝstos Krǝstos? Zäkrǝstos

Pawlos

Wängelawit Täklä (2) Giyorgis Gälilawit

Mäläkotawit Yosṭos Zäkrǝstos

Yolyos

Sǝ’ǝlä Krǝstos

Tänśo Täzkarä Mammo Dǝngǝl

Kolo Ḥamälmal La’ǝka Yoḥannǝs (Kolo Dangǝl) Maryam (2)

Romanä Wärq

Yämanä Zädǝngǝl Śǝlṭan Susǝnyos Amätä Afä Atnatewos Amätä Tewodros Kǝflä Mälkǝ’a Krǝstos (3) Mika’el Krǝstos Krǝstos Waḥed Krǝstos Mogäsa Mälka’a Zär’a Yoḥannǝs Wälättä Peṭros Arzo Krǝstos

Wälättä Giyorgis

Zäśǝllase

Wälättä Känfärä Giyorgis Krǝstos Fasilädäs (4) Mälkǝ’a Krǝstos

Amätä Mika’el/ Maryam

Säblä Wängel

Śǝllus Ḫayle Tewodora Admas Mogäsa

Lǝbnä Dǝngǝl

Fäsilädäs (II) Qǝb’a Krǝstosawit Wälattä Krǝstos Aṣmä Giyorgis Ḥawaryat Legend and symbols: Zämaryam Zäwäldä (Names are not represented by order of birth) Maryam Phanae 1=also cousin of Susǝnyos (1) 2=also married to Wäldä Häwaryat 3=also father Qwässṭanṭinos, Ǝlfyos, Yämanä Krǝstos, Dawit, Krǝstoswit, Yoḥannǝs 4=also father of Känfärä Krǝstos 5=also grandaughter of Śärṣä Dǝngǝl 6=in some sources Qwärif Śǝno appears as the husband of Wälättä Giyorgis and father of Fasilädäs (II)

Bäkimos

Del Bäiyäsus

Amätä Ṣǝyon

Sophia

Fiqṭor Gälawdewos

Robel

Maryam Śǝna Däbrä Ṣǝyon Abādir Fiqṭor (Mälak Mogäsa) Azäzäy

Krǝstosawit

Ya’ǝqob Mätäkko Zädǝngǝl Zämaryam

Śärsä Dǝngǝl

La’akä Maryam

Amäta Dǝngǝl

Lǝssanä Tägäzzañ Abalä Krǝstos Ḫarägo Krestos

Plate 23

Fasilädäs

Na’od

Appendix 5

Genealogical Chart of the Extended Ethiopian Royal Family (ca. 1550–1640)

Sources and Bibliography

Unpublished Sources

Archivio della Propaganda Fide (Rome, Italy) Indices

Congregazioni Particolari – Indice Località, 1622–1864 Congregazioni Particolari – Indice Materie Fondo Acta – Indice geografico Fondo Acta – Indice alfabetico Fondo Acta, Sacra Congregazione dei Riti Orientali – Indice Località Fondo Acta, Sacra Congregazione dei Riti Orientali – Indice Materie



Normal Series

Acta cp, vol. 5, 1648-f. XVII Acta scpf, num. 3 Acta scpf, num. 4 Miscellanee Varie, I-A Scritture Riferite nei Congressi: Afr.Cent., Etiop., Arab., vol. 1, 1630–1698 Scritture Riferite nei Congressi: Ind.Orient., Cina, vol. 1, 1623–1674 Scritture Riferite nei Congressi: Eg.-Copti 1648–1699 Scritture Originali riferite nelle Congregazioni Generali (Lett…VI), vol. 59, 1635 Scritture Originali riferite nelle Congregazioni Generali (Lett…VII), vol. 64, 1645 Scritture Originali riferite nelle Congregazioni Generali (Lett…V), vol. 102, 1628



Archivo General de Simancas (Spain)



Archivo histórico de la Compañía de Jesús de la Provincia de Castilla (Alcalá de Henares, Spain)

Secretarías Provinciales, Negociado de Portugal, Consultas Estado, Libro 1551

Tomás de Barros, June 1622 (published, Madrid: Luís Sánchez, 1624), E-2: 105, 4 (887)



Archivum Romanum Societatis Jesu (Rome, Italy)

Fondo Generale: Goa 8 II–III; Goa 10 II; Goa 11 I–II; Goa 12 II; Goa 17; Goa 24 I–II; Goa 25; Goa 27; Goa 33 II; Goa 38 I–II; Goa 39 I–II; Goa 40; Goa 41 Fondo Gesuitico: 338 (Procura Generalis); 420 II (Informationes); 493 (Ibid.); 509 II (Ibid.); 646 (Epistolae Selectae); 650b (Ibid.); 652 (Censurae Librorum); 653 (Ibid.); 654 (Ibid.); 656 A–I, 1565–1627 (Censurae Opinionum); 656 A–II, 1565–1627 (Ibid.); 677 (Miscellanea); 678 (Ibid.); 679 (Ibid.); 682 (Ibid.: De Sanctis et Martyribus sj); 703–719 (Epistolarium Collectio); 720, I–II (De Missionibus sj apud.); 721 II (Ibid.).

Sources And Bibliography



Arquivo Distrital de Braga (Portugal)



Biblioteca Histórica, Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain)



Biblioteca Nacional da Ajuda (Portugal)



Biblioteca Nacional de Lisboa (Portugal)

361

Legajo n. 779: “Cartas Anuas da Etiópia”

Bartholomé Alcazar, “Chrono-historia de la Compañía de Jesús en la Provincia de Toledo, Decada V,” ca. 1710, Ms 559.

Calderon, Thomas, Antonio das Povoas, and Francisco de Carvalho, “O Patriarcha da Ethiopia…,” August 18, 1640, Cod. 51-VI-21, 318v–19v. Mendes, Afonso, “Informação do Estado das Cousas de Ethiopia do anno de 1632 escrita a sua Mag.de pello Patriarcha Dom Afonso Mendez,” May 5, 1633, Cod. 51-VI18, nr. 9.

Secção de manuscritos [in brackets microfilm number, when it applies] Cod. 176 [F. 2527]: P. Provincial da Comp.ª de Jesus da Prov.ª de Goa, “Noticias que o P. Provincial da Comp.ª de Jesus da Prov.ª de Goa manda a Real Academia de Portugal começadas do anno de 1585, em que o P. Francisco de Souza da mesma Companhia, acabou a 2ª parte da sua historia intitulada Oriente conquistado a Jesu Christo pellos Padres da Companhia de Jesus da Prov.ª de Goa.” Cod. 177 [F. 3085]: “Memorias para a Historia Ecclesiastica de Goa e Missoens da Asia.” Ibid., “Relação Sumaria…do que obrarão os Religiozos da ordem dos Pregadores na conuerção das almas e pregação do sancto Evangelho em todo o estado da India…” Ibid.: “Razões que allego para me escuzar de tornar a India como ordena V.R. Padre Geral.” Cod. 414 P [F. 178]: António Fernandez, Magseph: Assetat. id est Flagellum mendaciorum, Goae: Collegio D. Pauli, Societatis Jesv, 1642. Cod. 490: Melchiore da Silva, May 8, 1595 [bnl, Mss. Coll. Pombalina]. Cod. 753 [F. 383 1–4; Hill Monastic Mansucrit Project: Portugal, 712]: Compagnia di Gesù, “Acta congregationum provinicialum societatis Jesu Provinciae Lusitaniae ab Anno 1590 (−1672).” Cod. 4306: “Menologium Virorum Illustrium Societ. his.” Cod. 4473: Padre Antonio de Arana, “Historia de la Santa vida, muerte y virtudes de el Santo P. Andres de Oviedo, Religioso de la Companhia de Jesus, Obispo de Hierapolis, y Patriarcha d’Ethiopia. Escribiola el Padre Antonio de Arana, Religioso professo de la misma Companhia. Escrito en el colegio jesuita de Palencia, a 24 de Jul. de 1631.” Cod. 7024 [F. 188]: P. Claudio Aquaviva, “Instrusoens secretas q devem guardar todos os Religiosos da Companhia de Jesus. Autor Illmo. P. Claudio Aquaviva, Geral da mesma Com.ª Traducidas fielmente da lingoa espanhola na lingoa portugueza.”

362

Sources and Bibliography

Cod. 7640 [F 2866]: “Relação breue e geral das principaes couzas que succederão em a India o anno de 1633.” Ibid.: Letter of Affonso Mendes Patriarcha de Ethiopia, April 30, 1632. Cod. 8122. Anonymous, “Relaçam da Vida e morte e virtudes do Padre Joam Nunez da Compª d Jesu o qual foy Patriarcha do Preste Joam. Etiopia”, December 1597. Ibid.: Letter of Afonso Mendes to Sr.[Cantre] d’Evora [Manuel Severim da Faria], February 26, 1633. Cod. 8563: “Copias dos indices dos tres tomos de cartas dos PP. da Comp. de Jesus de Asia, de 1544 a 1569, que foram do Col. d’Evora e agora se encontram na Bibliotheca da Academia Real das Sciencias de Lisboa, 1720.” Cod. 8570 [F. 2354]: P. Vincent Rodriguez, “Parte da Carta do Geral escrita em Cochim no Collegio dos Padres da Companhia de Jesus que veio da India na não do Visorey Dom Luís de Taydese. Recebida aos 24 dias do mes de Julho, anno 1572. Na qual se relata o que na India acontesseo no anno de 1570.” CX. 218, n. 94: João III Rei de Portugal, “governador-mor com a pretensão de propor para o Patriarcha de Etiopia” (Copia do sec. XIX). CX. 218, n. 132: “Padre Ignacio com a pretensão de propor para o Patriarcha de Etiopia” (Copia do sec. XIX). F. 2527: Henrique Bracco de Moraes [Meneses?], “Noticias da historia Ecclesiastica da India.”



Biblioteca Pública de Évora (Portugal)

Cod. CV/2–6: “Summaria relaçam…” Cod. CVIII/2–2: “Segundo tomo das cartas de Europa do anno de 1560 ate o Anno de 1575.” Cod. CXV/2–7, peça 2: Carta de Afonso Mendes, Fǝremona. Cod. CXV/2–8, peça 7: “Portentos, pronosticos, milagrosos e divinos obrados nesta cidade de Goa Metropoli e cabeça do Estado da India, e na peninsula fronteira e visinha de Salecete, correndo este nosso seculo de 1600 do anno de 1619 ate o de 1654.” Cod.CXV/12–8, peça 16: Carta de Afonso Mendes sobre o proceso a J. Lobo. Cod. CXVI/2–15: “Noticias que posso dar sobre os ritos q. vulgarmente fazem todos os Ethiopes.”

Published Sources1 Acosta, José de. De procuranda Indorum salute [1588], 2 vols. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1984–1987 (Corpus Hispanorum de pace 23–24). 1 Ethiopian authors are listed alphabetically by their first name.

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Index1 Aaron (Aarão) 296 Abalä Krǝstos (abbot) 150 Abassia 10, 22, 142. See also Abyssinia Abba Marca. See Mǝhǝrka Dǝngǝl Abbay (Blue Nile) xxvii, 51, 82, 151, 194–95, 254 abeto xv, See also abetohun (abetecom) abetohun (abetecom) xv, 85, 112, 299, 301, 312, 343 Aboñ b. Adaš (garād) 26 Abraham 235 Abreu, António de 346 Abreu, Jorge de 35 Abyssinia xxxi, 20, 56, 160, 198. See also Preste, The Abyssinian 79, 145, 210, 234 Ačäfär 112–13 Acosta, António de 49 Acquaviva, Claudio 88, 126, 163, 346. See also superior general (geral) Acquaviva, Rodolfo 257 Adal, Sultanate of 26, 51–52, 68, 113, 121 Adali (people) 52 Adäro (Goǧǧam nägaš) 193, 347 Adäro Maryam 297, 299, 395 Aden 2, 5, 17, 32, 52, 60 See also Mecca, Straits of Aderom (blattengeta and Goǧǧam nägaš) 112 Admas Sägäd (Minas) 52, 187 Adwa, Plateau 78, 86, 202 Afä Krǝstos (däǧǧazmač) 307, 347 Afonso, Cardinal-Infante 18, 20, 30, 97 Africa xxix, 3, 10, 11, 35, 50, 53–54, 124, 155, 178 Africa, Horn of 58, 70, 122, 221 Africanus, Leo 22 Afrique fantôme, L’ (Leiris) xix Agäw (land) 82, 107, 115, 118, 128, 129–30, 131, 176, 203, 215–17, 252, 291, 299, 302, 349–50 Agäw (language) 153–54, 163, 212–13 Agäw (people) 107, 190, 194, 196, 203, 216–19, 289, 291–92, 297, 313 Agäw Mǝdǝr 107 Agnus Dei 226

Agra (India) 2, 257 Aḥmad b. Ibrāhīm Al-Ġāzī (Aḥmad ‘Grañ) 25 Akbar (emperor) 221, 255, 257 Aksum (Ethiopia) xvii, 2, 82, 86, 192, 222, 271 Aksum Ṣǝyon, church of 222 Albergaria, Lopo Soares de 5, 7, 53 Albuquerque, Affonso de 4, 6, 11–12, 17, 31, 33, 36, 52–53 Albuquerque, Mathias de 95 Alcalá de Henares, University of 96, 166, 168, 178, 180, 356 Alden, Dauril xxii, 277 Alentejo (Portugal) 119, 320, 353–54 Alexandria (Egypt) 84, 143, 185, 298 Ethiopian ties to xxvi, 143, 149, 185 patriarchate of xv rite of 116, 277, 297–98 See of xxvi, 28, 54, 141–42 Alexandrian faith 139, 144, 149, 173, 175, 297–98, 302 Alfonso V (king) 3 Algarve (Portugal) 320 Almança, Lopo de 76 Almeida, Apollinar de 58, 125–26, 306, 315–16, 328, 334, 354 Almeida, Manoel de 71–72, 78, 87, 99–100, 109, 111, 121, 124, 126, 129–30, 132, 142, 174, 180, 201, 207, 231, 249, 280, 301, 304, 308, 310, 323, 339, 342 História de Etiópia a Alta ou Abassia 142, 308 Almeirim (Portugal) 255 Alvares, Francisco xxix, 8, 10, 22–23, 27, 37–38, 40–41, 43, 152, 154 Verdadeira informação das terras do Preste João … 22, 154–55, 159–60, 185, 223 Alvares, Juan 346 Álvarez de Toledo, Juan (Duke of Alba) 47 Amätä Krǝstos 138 Amätä Ṣǝyon (wäyzäro) 193, 307 Amazons 155 Amba Maryam 106, 203

1 Locators referred to figures, maps, tables, and plates are in italics.

index Amba Sänayti 37, 171 Ambassäl (region) 295 Amdä Ṣǝyon xxvii Amhara (province) xviii, xxv, xxvii, 77, 82, 115, 194, 216, 295–97, 299–300, 320, 347–48 Amharic (language) 238, 291 amil (head of customs) 74 Amsalä Krǝstos (governor of Tǝgray) 68, 112, 229, 347 Ana de Austria, Infanta 184 Andrade, António de 219 Andrade, Lázaro de 27 Angola 92, 94 Angra 14 Anjirô (Paulo de Santa Fe) 136 Ankaša 107 Ankaša Agäw (people) 196, 217 Annuae Litterae Societatis Jesu 122 Antão, S. 239 Antwerp 9, 220–21, 224, 236 anup talao 257 Apostle of the Indies. See Xavier, Francis Apotheosis of the Society of Jesus (Pozzo) 328 aqqabe säʿat xv, 300–01 Arabs 60, 63 Arana, Antonio de 334 Archinto, Filippo 47 architecture xxii, 13, 146, 175 and decoration 247, 249–50, 328 Gondarine type of xix, xxii of Gorgora Iyäsus 249–50 local form of, in Amhara 238 military form of 189–90 of missions 200, 210, 238–39 Mughal form of 248, 257–58, 340 of Northern India and adaptation to Ethiopia 247 as propaganda for conversions 249 of Qwälläla 242 of residences and fortifications in Ethiopia 189, 202 Archivio della Propaganda Fide xxix Archivo General de Simancas xii, xxix Aristotelian–Thomistic theology 144 armada do norte 66 Armenia, See of 40, 353 Armenian Catholic church 40 Armenians 71

401 art xxvi, 65, 140, 146, 194, 222, 224, 229, 239, 243, 313, 332, 340 Aṣfo 115 Asia 6, 8, 33, 53, 136, 173, 176, 212 Askadom (afä mäkwännǝn) 293–94 Asko (abba) 308 Asmära xxxi, 75, 82, 271 Asquedon. See Askadom Ataíde, Alexandre de 6 Atḵäna 82, 130, 131, 268, 273, 353 Atnatewos (ras) 98, 108, 115, 347, 359 Aubin, Jean 17, 59 Aveiro, João Afonso 3, 56 Avis, Fernando de, Infante 18 Avis, Luís de, Infante 18 Avis, House of 8, 14, 18 Avreu, Lopo Gomes de 68 awaǧ 270 Aydin (pasha) 196, 345 azage. See azzaž Azäzo ix, 107, 131, 172, 203, 256, 258. See also Gännätä Iyäsus Azäzo Täklä Haymanot 312 Azevedo, Francisco 266, 345 Azevedo, Ignacio de 220 Azevedo, Luís 96, 100, 105, 111–12, 118, 120, 124, 129–30, 142, 149, 154, 163, 205, 213, 239, 280, 292, 313, 316, 352, 356–58 Azinhaga, Diogo de Alvelos da 77 azzaž xv Bab-el-Mandeb (Estreito, Estreito da Meca) 36, 52, 54, 71 Baçaim (Vasai) 61, 66, 124 bafta (tafetta) 72 Bägemdǝr (region) xix, 51, 78, 86, 105, 107, 128, 130, 131–32, 133, 194, 293, 295, 298, 301–02, 347–48 bäǧǝrond xv Baḥǝr Amara 294 baḥǝr nägaš 74–76, 78, 85–86, 133, 137, 269, 293, 297, 316, 347–48 Balkans 16 Baltasar, Juan 156 Banadir, coast of (Benadir coast) 55–56, 59, 114 Bandea (Bänǧa?) 130 bandorilhas 231 banean. See Banyan

402 Banyan (trader) xvi, 60, 64–65, 67–68, 70–71, 74–75, 196, 230, 252, 263 banyan (tree) 255 Baptism 19–20, 139, 140, 156, 217, 285. See also circumcision Baraawe 57–58 Barberini pope. See Urban VIII Barnabites 41 barnagaes. See baḥǝr nägaš Barneto, Tomé (Thomé) 121, 124, 130, 172, 222, 241, 252, 266, 353 Barradas, Manoel (Manuel) 121, 124, 133, 315, 323, 324, 353 Barros, João de xiv, xxix, xxxii Barros, Tomás de 324 Barul, Miguel 49 Barzeo, Gaspar 54, 57, 136, 154, 331 Relatio de statu politico et religioso Aethiopiae 154 batawis (hermits) 291 Batllori, Miguel iii, x, xix Baylul, port of 68, 95 Beccadelli, Ludovico 39 Beccari, Camillo xiv Bǝʿǝlä Krǝstos (abetohun) 112, 224, 314, 348 Beǧa (tribe) 51 Beiene, Tewelde 114, 134, 176 belatinoche goita. See Blattengeta Bellachristos. See Bǝʿǝlä Krǝstos Bellarmino, Roberto 206, 358 Belmonte, College of 96 Benedictus 231 Bengal 60 Bengali xvi Benin 4 Bermudez, João xxix, 5, 24, 27–32, 35, 43, 45–45, 61, 152–53, 284 Breve relação da embaixada 29 Bertrand, Dominique 144 Betä Ǝsraʾǝl (people) xxv, xxviii Betä Iyäsus. See Jesuits betudete. See bitwäddäd Biblioteca Nacional da Ajuda xiv Biblioteca Nacional de Lisboa ix, xiv Biifolee gaada 297 blattengeta xvi, 107, 112, 114–15, 138, 171–72, 242, 301, 307 Blue Nile xv, 29, 82, 151, 186, 254 Bobadilla, Nicolás 46

index Bocchiu (Brockyu), Joannes 48–49 Bodin, Jean 22, 179 La République 179 Boemo, Giovanni 22 bofetas 208 Bologna 38, 43 Bom Jesus (Goa) 240–41, 243–44, 249 Borja, Francisco de, Duke of Gandia 46–47, 49, 91–93, 220, 237 Borja Barreto y Aragón, Carlos de 120 Botero, Giovanni 27, 190 Boullongne, Louis de xii, 335, 336 Bourdieu, Pierre xxiv Boxer, Charles xxii, xxxii Boyarin, Daniel 138–39 Braga ix, xiv, xxix, 14, 351–52, 354 Brazil 15, 45, 220, 230 Breve relação da embaixada (Bermudez) 29 brocados 207 Broet, Pascal 46 Bruce, James 174, 317 Travels to Discover the Sources of the Nile xxx Bruni, Bruno 125, 175, 219, 241, 243, 250, 251, 252, 253, 315, 334, 353 Bruno, Antonio 107, 119, 124, 130, 194, 241, 252, 352 buda xv, 288, 341 Bukko (däǧǧazmač) 130, 133, 189, 190, 218, 268, 274, 297, 307, 347–49 Buqqo. See Bukko Bur 82, 298, 316 Bure 130 burtukan xxxii, 280, 321–22 cabayas 70, 207 cabeata. See aqqabe säʿat Cabo Verde Cafelo/Caflô. See Kǝflo (blattengeta) Cafir (tribe) 155 Cairo 2, 6, 18, 55, 59, 62, 68–70, 103, 117, 320 Calicut 2, 60 Camões, Luís de 30 Campanella, Tomasso de 157 Canisius, Peter 46, 331 Cape Delgado 57 Cape of Good Hope 56, 61 Capuchins 41, 320, 334 Čära (Chara) 130 caracoes e escaramuças 189

index Cardeira, Afonso 76 Cardeira, Luís 121, 124, 129, 154, 194, 222, 231–234, 257, 315–16, 334, 339, 352 Cardoso, Gonçalo 61, 86, 96, 351 cargas de mantimento 268, 272 Carneiro, Melchior 49–50, 62, 91 Carta das novas que vieram a el Rei nosso senhor do descobrimento do Preste João 10 cartas anuas 102, 361 cartazes 61 Cartilha por preguntas e respostas 213 Carvalho, Francisco 121, 129–30, 194, 353 Casellas, Bernardo 49 Castanheda, Fernão Lopes de xxix Castanhoso, Miguel de xxix, 30, 152, 159 Castello Branco, Fernão de Sousa e de 84 Castile 6, 15–16 Catholicism xxx, 108, 112–16, 130, 134, 139, 146–47, 150, 163–64, 195, 198 ascendancy in Ethiopia of 294, 298 circumcision in Ethiopia and 19–21, 71, 79, 137, 138, 139, 140, 156, 160–61, 209, 214, 284–86, 291, 298, 302, 311, 317, 323, 341 concealment in Ethiopia of 277, 281, 315–17, 320 conversion of Ethiopian court to 177, 194, 294 early modern form of 282 Ethiopian form of 156, 342 failure in Ethiopia 164, 277, 281, 293, 294, 311, 314, 316–17 repression in Ethiopia of as state religion in Ethiopia 194, 217, 339 traditionalist party in Ethiopia and 114, 159, 309 čǝqa 238 Cerulli, Enrico xxix, 185 Scritti teologici etiopici dei secoli XVI–XVII  xxix Cervini, Cardinal Marcello 47 Ceuta (Spain) 13, 18 Chagussa (Ṭaqwǝsa?) 130 Chalcedon, Council of 141 Chalcedonians 279, 282 Chaldean Nestorian Catholic church 41 Charles V (emperor) 38, 47, 97, 195 Chaul 2, 66 Chernetsov, Sevir 177 China xxiii, 8, 72, 89, 92, 199, 230, 278, 344

403 christãos novos 16 Christian Ethiopia 13, 20, 22, 25, 39, 43–44, 51–53, 55–56, 62, 68, 84, 93, 107, 135, 144, 152, 156, 162, 164, 190, 193, 195, 200, 241, 291, 341 Christian Expulsion Edict (Tokugawa Ieyasu) 343 Chronicle of Susǝnyos (Pereira) xxxii, 186, 309 chunambo 241 Church History of Ethiopia (Geddes) 335 Cintra (Portugal) 255 circumcision 19–21, 71, 79, 137, 138, 139, 140, 156, 160–61, 209, 214, 284–86, 291, 298, 302, 311, 317, 323, 341 Clement VII (pope) 9, 38, 43 Clement VIII (pope) 175, 346 Cochin China 344 Cochin, Charles Nicolas 335 Cochin (India) 2, 7, 20, 31, 33, 60, 66, 353 Coelho, Pedro 29 Cohen, Leonardo x, xx, 134, 141–42, 147, 162–63, 177, 287, 339 The Missionary Strategies of the Jesuits in Ethiopia xx Coimbra 90, 119, 121, 125, 168, 181, 324, 352, 354, 358 Colaça, Damião 125, 315, 354 colafa. See qwälläfä Colasso, António 157 Collegio Romano 168 Compostela (Spain) 47 conceptismo (Ledesma) 233 Conceptos espirituales y morales (Ledesma) 233 concubinage 174 Confessio Claudii (Gälawdewos) 84 Confraternity of the Ss. Sacramento 41 Confucianism xxiii Congo 45, 58 Congregatio de Propaganda Fide 148, 319 Conselho da India 60 Conselho de Estado 32 Constantinople, Council of 141 Constitutions, Jesuit 90, 144, 201, 217, 263 income sources forbidden by 263 income generation of residences according to 269 contemplativus in actione Conti Rossini, Carlo xxx, 85, 303 conversos. See christãos novos

404 Coptic xv, xxvi, 37, 55, 68, 117, 143. See also Alexandria; Alexandrian faith Copts 258 Coromandel Coast 60 Correa, António 34 Correa, Juan 346 Correia, Gaspar 29–30 Lendas da India 152 corsairos 66 Corsali, Andrea 61 Couto, Diogo do xiv, xxix, xxxii, 30 Décadas xiv, xxix, 152 Covilhã, Pêro ( Pedro) da 4, 6, 353 Covilham 95 Covilhão, Alvaro da Costa de 77 Crummey, Donald xxx Crus, Jorge da 321 cruz de São Francisco 236 cruzados 64, 68–69, 260, 261, 264, 267, 268, 270, 272 cubertor 72 Cum sicut nobis (Paul III) 45 Cunha, Gerson da xxxii Cunha, Nuno da 60 Cushitic (language) xxviii, 154 däbr xvi, 112, 150, 151, 175, 271, 302, 312, 359. Däbrä Damo 26, 86, 271 Däbrä Libanos xvi, 39, 175, 312 Däbrä Ṣǝlalo 112, 150, 302 Däbsan. See Ǝnfraz Däbtära xvi, 287 Daga xxviii, 151, 296 Daga Ǝsṭifanos 293 däǧǧazmač xvi, xvii, xviii, 193, 293, 295, 297, 307, 316, 339 Daharagot 295, 359 damask crimson 207 Dämbǝya ix, 51, 78, 86, 105, 107, 112, 116, 118, 128, 131, 203, 273, 294, 301, 313, 316, 351–52 Dämo 26, 86, 115, 321 Damo Teixeira 77, 316 Damot (people) xxvii, 133, 190, 211, 216, 291 Damot (region) xviii, 26, 37, 51, 77, 82, 86, 107, 128, 129–30, 131, 172, 217–18, 252, 268, 291, 297, 318, 349–50 Danakil xviii, 59, 68–69, 95, 121, 230 d’Andrada, Francisco 30 Dangǝla 130

index Dänqäz 82, 106–07, 129–30, 132, 141, 143, 172, 174, 181, 207–08, 236, 252, 253, 268, 273, 298, 302, 309, 335, 336, 352, 354. See also Libo Däq 296 Därara 294 David 235 Däwaro 26, 77, 189 Dawro 186 De Abassinorum rebus (Godigno) 158 de Angelis, Francesco Antonio 96, 107–08, 111, 113, 115–16, 118–19, 130, 153, 163, 186, 194, 196, 206, 213, 217, 219, 228, 289, 352, 355–57 Dǝbarwa 37, 53, 74–75, 86, 131, 133, 270 Décadas (Barros) xiv, xxix Décadas (Couto) xiv, xxix, 152 De invocatione, veneratione… 220 De justitia et jure (Molina) 179 Dǝḵana (Dekhana) 106 Dempf, Alois 178, 180 De natura et gratia (Soto) 168 de Nobili, Roberto 127 De rege et regis institutione (Mariana) 180 deggiasmache. See däǧǧazmač descante 232 Des Jésuites au royaume du Prêtre Jean (Pennec) xx Dhofar (Oman) 62 Dias, Ayres 76 Dias, Bartolomeu 4 Dias, Diogo 61, 83 Dias, Jerónimo 346 Dioscorite 296 Dioscorus 112, 142, 172–73 Diu (India) 241–44, 245, 247, 249, 250, 254, 260–61, 262–63, 266–67, 318, 345, 354 divorce 305 djihad xxvii, 26, 37 Domenech, Pedro 49 Dominicans 29, 45–47, 152, 156–58, 168, 178, 335 Doutrina Christãa (Jorge) 166 East Indies 47, 127 ǝččäge xxv, 294, 298, 308, 312 Ecce Homo xxiii ǝdug ras (azzaž) 307 eglogas 234 Egypt xxvi, 4, 20, 55–56, 103, 142, 316 Egyptians 52, 60 Ǝgziʾabǝḥer 208

index Ǝleni (ǝtege) 4, 8, 10, 22, 25, 250 Ǝleni, niece of Fasilädäs 312 Eliano, Giovanni Battista 55 Elias, Norbert xxiv, 191 Emanâ Christôs. See Yämanä Krǝstos Ǝnbaqom 185 Encyclopaedia Aethiopica xiv, xxxii Ǝnda Abba Gärima 86, 150, 171, 222 Ǝndärta 86 Ǝnfraz 86, 130–31, 203, 268–69, 272 England 335 Ǝnnäbǝse 130–31, 250, 268–69, 273–74, 302, 312, 353–54. See also Märṭulä Maryam Ǝnnarya xviii, 51, 57, 102, 104, 118, 299, 314, 349–50 Erasmism 14 Erasmus, Desiderius 18 Eritrea xxxi, 68, 74 Ernst I, Duke of Sachsen-Gotha 335 escrivão 8 Ǝslam Bet 322 esmola 241, 260, 263, 268 espingardas 229 espingardeiros 75 Espiritu Santo 239 Estado da India xix, 31–32, 54, 61, 66, 69, 120, 262, 264–65, 318, 333, 343 Estreito. See Bab-el-Mandeb ǝtegexviii, 114, 250 Ethiopia Catholic art in 224, 226 Catholicism of 194–95, 197, 217, 277 Catholic objects and imagery in 226 circumcision in 19–21, 71, 79, 137, 138, 139, 140, 156, 160–61, 209, 214, 284–86, 291, 298, 302, 311, 317, 323, 341 court society and clergy of xxiv, 182, 184, 191, 200, 207, 339 courtly life and etiquette changes in  185, 192 cultural influences of xxvi, 28, 54, 339 dressing and identity in 201, 206 foreign clothing in 207 languages and dialects in 65, 129, 153, 163, 166, 186, 212–13, 291, 323, 341 Latinization of 173 literary renaissance in 185 liturgy of xxvii, 147, 171, 231, 298, 341 local habits of 79, 188, 201, 209, 281, 341

405 marriage practices in 148, 174, 304, 306 Marian devotion and iconography in 223, 236, 282 Mendes’s (Patriarch) arrival in xxx, 58, 68, 96, 99, 101, 104, 119–21, 126–27, 128, 129–30, 138, 143–44, 149,165, 170, 173–74, 176, 180–81, 196, 201, 207, 219, 222, 229–30, 232–33, 241, 243, 261, 264, 267, 277–78, 285, 286, 298, 301, 304, 306, 313, 317, 323, 326, 328, 332, 335, 336, 339 military impact of Portuguese in 78–79, 184–85, 188–89 missionary culture adopted in xxiv, 64, 200, 238, 255, 258, 278, 342 political ideologies brought to 179 Portuguese embassies to 5, 7–8, 17, 22, 27, 29, 35, 184 Propaganda Fide and 148, 319–20 prophecies in 16th century on 36, 44 relationship with Dominicans of 46, 168 textiles trade of 343 traditional texts condemned and revised by Jesuits 170–71 traditions of, suppressed under Susǝnyos 172–74 Tridentine doctrine and 220, 289–90 Ethiopian mission architecture of 200, 210, 234, 238–39, 249–50, 255 Christological dogmas of xxvii circulation of information in 316, 326 dignities in 46–47, 126 Diu’s role in 241–44, 247, 249, 250, 254, 262–63, 266–67, 318 expansion of 104–07 failure of 91, 110, 278, 286, 319, 332 Gorgora meetings and 101 image and identity of 207–09 India’s importance to. See Diu’s role in Jesuit eastern missions and 125 local priests trained by Jesuits in 206, 318 miaphysitism in 142 Mosaic features of Ethiopia and 19–21, 139–40, 160, 168, 284–85 motifs used in art in 225, 235, 240, 255 move to Fǝremona of 297 music in 200, 222, 230–34 payments and gifts and 260, 263, 267, 272–73

406 Ethiopian mission (cont.) reforms made by 274, 282, 294, 296, 298–99, 304, 306 residences’ importance to 269, 286, 289, 299, 303–04 Śärṩä Dǝngǝl and 57, 86–88, 98, 105, 113, 177, 186, 193, 269, 270 297 second missionary period of 57, 65, 93, 147 secular publications on 152 textiles (exotic) and 207, 343 Ethio-Portuguese (burtukan) education and training of 212 expulsion of 321–23 identity 214, 280–81, 285–86, 322 Jesuit missionaries and 219, 259–60, 313, 320, 322 living standards of 263 as mercenaries and militia 211, 321, 339 persecution under Minas of 78, 85, 113 Europe xx, xxiv, xxviii, 5, 8, 9, 15–16, 19, 23, 25, 28, 40, 43, 45, 52–53, 88, 92, 102–104, 114, 118, 122–23, 134, 136, 140, 148–49, 152–54, 156, 159–60, 168–69, 173, 178, 180, 184–85, 188, 195, 197, 199, 217, 218, 225, 233, 236, 250, 265, 269, 270, 273, 277, 283, 290, 295, 307, 312, 318, 326 Eutyches 141–42 Evangelicae Historiae Imagines (Nadal) 224 Évora ix, xiv, xix, 14, 49, 119, 121, 168, 239, 353 Ewosṭatean movement 150 Eyalet el-Habesh (province) 17, 345 ʿEzana (king) xxvi Faith of the Fathers, The. See Haymanotä Abäw Fälaša (Betä Ǝsraʾǝl) xxviii, 104, 190, 296, 322 färänǧ. See burtukan Faria e Sousa, Manuel de xxix, 30 Faria, Balthasar de 45 Farnese family 249 Farnese, Alessandro (Paul III) 27–28, 39, 40–42, 50, 249 Farto, Fernão 31 Fasil, Bath of 255 Fasilädäs (nǝguś) 174, 255, 277, 302, 308–09, 311 bath of Fasil 255 coup against 314 decree of expulsion of missionaries by 311, 313

index persecution of Catholics under rule of 312 succession to throne of Ethiopia by 277 Fäṭägar 26, 295 Fatehpur Sikri (India) 248, 255, 257 Favre, Pierre 48 Fǝlsäta 223 Fǝqur Ǝgziʾǝ 111, 114–15, 186, 193, 307 Fǝremona 68, 73, 75, 78, 86, 91, 94–95, 100, 102, 104, 110, 118, 124, 129, 131, 137, 163, 166, 171, 181, 202, 209, 211–12, 215–16, 217–19, 221, 229, 231, 236, 239, 242, 252, 254, 262, 267–69, 270, 271, 272, 273, 274, 292, 296–97, 301, 309, 312–13, 325, 351–54 Fǝremonatos 151 feitoria Fernandes, António (1536–1593) 214, 351 Fernandes, António (1571–1642) 57, 96, 99–100, 102, 104–05, 108, 111, 114, 117, 119–20, 123, 126, 129, 149, 153, 163, 65, 169–70, 171, 173, 175, 180, 192, 194, 213, 216, 230, 267, 270, 279, 298, 305, 323, 324, 339, 342, 352, 355–58 Magseph Assetat (Flagellum mendaciorum) 170, 324, 325, 355 Fernandes, Manoel 86 Fernández, Damo 321 Fernandez, Manuel 61, 285, 346 Fernández, Rafael 321 Fides, religio moresque Aethiopum (Góis) 19–23 Figueiredo, Diogo de 76 fitawrari xvi Flagellum mendaciorum (Fernandes) 170, 324, 325, 355 Flavian (emperor) 171, 357, 141 Fogära 106, 151, 173, 294 Fondo Gesuitico xxix formãos 67 Formula of the Institute 42 Fort Jesus 57 fotetes 208 France 56, 320, 335 Franciscans 320 Francisco, Jacinto 121, 124, 130, 194, 302, 316–17, 334 Franz Xaver, sein Leben und seine Zeit (Schurhammer) xxiii, xxxii Freire, Fulgencio 61–62, 69, 83, 351 Fruytiers, Philip 328, 329

index Funchal (Portugal) 14 Funj kingdom 321 fustas 61 gaada xvi, 297, 349–50 Gäbärma 130, 131, 203, 268 Gäbrä Krǝstos 252, 253, 348 Gäbrä Mädḫǝn 112 Gäbrä Maryam (baḥǝr nägaš) 297, 347–48 Gabriel, Basilio 77, 78, 218, 307 Gabriel, João 76, 78, 95, 211, 213, 218, 355 gädl xxiii, 159 Gafat 26, 82, 131 Gälawdewos (abetohun and brother of Fasilädäs) 299, 312, 314 Gälawdewos (nǝguś) 46, 51–53, 55, 73, 77–78, 83–85, 87, 91, 142, 144, 177, 186–89, 284, 331, 348, 359 Confessio Claudii 84 galliotas 68 Galvão, Duarte 5, 7 Gama, Christovão da 76 Gama, Estevão da 31, 52, 85 Gama, Francisco da, Count of Vidigueira 229, 264, 345 Gama, Vasco da 11, 34 Gandia (Spain) 47, 49, 91, 212 Gandia, College of 90 Ǧänǧäro (tribe) 57, 186 Gännätä Iyäsus xxiii, 102, 106, 107, 124, 129–30, 131, 154, 159, 175, 177, 203, 208, 222, 225, 232, 236, 240–41, 247, 249, 255, 256, 257–58, 268, 270, 272–73, 309, 312–13, 322, 352–54 Gärʿalta 171 gardens, gardening xx, 249, 252, 255, 257–58, 322 gaša 272 Gaulli, Giovanni Battista 328 Triumph of the Name of Jesus 328 gǝbǝr 192 Gǝʿǝz (language) xx, 154, 160, 163, 170, 174, 189, 213, 219, 232, 285, 356 Geddes, Michael 335 Church History of Ethiopia 335 Gedewon 296, 359 gelba 73 gǝmb 21, 234, 253, 312, 342 Georgiis, Abraham de 62–64, 95, 122, 334, 341, 351

407 Germany 335 Giroco, José 125, 306, 315, 354 Giustiniani, Benedetto 169 Goa (India) xvii, xxi, xxix, 2, 14, 29–33, 42, 50, 59, 60, 61–62, 64, 84, 90–91, 100, 103, 110, 124, 126–27, 128, 132, 137, 149, 152–53, 158, 181, 210–11, 230–31, 236–37, 240–41, 243–44, 249, 255, 264, 265, 267, 277, 304, 324, 326, 332–34, 351–54, 357 Godigno, Manuel 122, 160 De Abassinorum rebus 158 Godigno, Nicolão 122, 160 Goes, António de 76 Goffman, Erving 205 Goǧǧam (region) xviii, xxvii, 51, 77, 78, 82, 86, 104–07, 112, 115, 118, 128, 130, 131–32, 133, 150, 151, 175, 189, 193, 201, 203, 215, 234, 236, 251, 273, 296–97, 299–300, 302, 306, 314, 318, 320, 347–48 Goǧǧam nägaš xviii, 112, 193 Góis, Damião de 9, 15, 19, 41, 152 Fides, religio moresque 22–23 Legatio Magni Indorum Imperatoris 22 Gomes, Cornelius 49 Gomes, João 4 Gonçalves, Diogo 95, 160 História do Malavar Gonçalves, João 35 Gonçalves, Sebastião 160 Gondär (Ethiopia) xix–xx, 255, 313, 322, 342 Gondärine xix, xxii, 192, 223, 313, 322, 340, 342 Gonga (people) 195, 291 González de Mendoza, Juan 159 Goody, Jack 191 Gorgora (Ethiopia) xxiii, xxviii, 82, 86–87, 101–02, 104–05, 106, 112, 116, 118, 124, 128, 129, 138, 154, 158, 166, 170–71, 175, 212, 215, 216, 218–19, 221, 225, 228–29, 231–32, 235, 239, 250, 262, 270, 272, 273, 274, 292, 302, 304, 312–13, 320, 325, 351–53 Gorgora Iyäsus (church) 235, 243–44, 245, 247, 249–50, 252 Gorgora Nova 106, 131, 202–03, 208, 243, 246, 249, 268, 272, 312, 354. See also Kund Amba Gorgora Velha 106, 131, 177, 188, 202, 211, 239, 247, 252, 267–68, 272 Gorgoryos (abba Gregorios) xxx, 186, 335, 358 Gouveia, Francisco de 346

408 Goyto Ṭäfa 297 Gracián, Baltasar 233 Granada, Luís de 47 grazmač xvii, 307 Gregory XV (pope) 346 Gualdames, Andrés 61–62, 90, 96, 334, 351 Gualtieri, Pietro Paolo 39 Gubaʾe 86, 105, 108, 190 Guerra, António 76 Guerreiro, Fernão 159–60 Gujarat (India) xvi, xxxiii, 55, 58–60, 247, 248 Gujarat, sultan of 60 Gujarat route 55, 58 Gumuz (people) xxv, 51 Gupta, Pamila 333 Gurage (people) 51, 77 gutturnium 229 gwǝlt xvii, xviii, 252, 269–70, 304 Haberland, Eike 186, 188 Ḥablä Śǝllase (aqqabe säʿat) 300 Habsburg 16, 98, 120, 125 Habtä Iyäsus 217, 268 Hadaša 130, 132, 151, 152, 233, 236 Hadiyya (people) 57 Hadramawt 26, 62, 66 Haec sunt, quae de fide et religione… (Ṣägga Zäʾab) 19 Hamälmal (military leader under Minas) 357 Hamälmal (provincial ruler) 349 Ḥamälmal Wärq (ǝtege) 114, 293, 295, 357 Ḥamärä näfs 285 Ḥamasen (province) xxvii, xxxi, 75, 82, 292, 298, 316 Hasan Pasha (1612) 345 Hasan Pasha, Yemen Bayerlebi (1604) 67, 345 Haymanotä Abäw 149, 170, 357 Henrique, Cardinal-Infante (1512–1580) 14, 21, 97 Henrique o Navegante (Henrique de Avis, Infante and Duke of Viseu) 10 Henriques, Francisco 221 Ḥǝrgigo (Arquico) 34, 52–53, 62, 74–75, 77 Hierapolis (Hyerapolis ) 49, 121 Hindi 125 Hindu 60, 249, 254 Hiran Minar 257, 258 Historia aethiopica (Ludolf) xxxii

index História de Etiópia [História de Etiópia] (Páez) 99, 142, 149, 155–56, 158–61, 195, 197, 325, 333, 340 História de Etiópia a Alta ou Abassia (Almeida) 142, 304, 308, 358 História do Malavar (Gonçalves) 95 Historia eclesiastica (Urreta) 157 Historia geral de Ethiopia a Alta (Tellez) 324, 328, 358 Historiæ de rebus Hispaniæ (Mariana) 160–61 Historiarum Indicarum (Maffei) 122 Historical Geography of Ethiopia, The (Huntingford) xxxii höfische Rationalität 191 Holder, Ward 135 Holland 335 Holy Roman Empire 198 Holy See 38, 47 Hormuz 2, 5, 25, 31, 33, 61, 136, 331 Huron (people) xxii icceghê. See ǝččäge Ifé (kingdom) 4 Il Gesù (Rome) 42, 140, 239, 249, 328 Imago primi saeculi 327 imam 25–26 imitatio Pauli 137 incarnational theology xxiv India xviii–xxii, xxii, xxxii–xxxiii, 4–5, 7, 9, 11–12, 24, 27–29, 31–32, 34–36, 38, 44–45, 52, 54–55, 57, 59, 61–64, 66–72, 77, 84, 86, 88–90, 92–93, 95–96, 98–99, 102–03, 108, 109, 115, 118–23, 126–27, 136, 147, 152, 154, 169, 183–85, 190, 199, 206–08, 210–11, 213, 218–20, 228–29, 231, 233–38, 241, 243–44, 247, 248, 249–50, 254–55, 257, 259–60, 264–67, 269–70, 280, 299, 307, 312, 315–20, 323, 325–26, 332–33, 340–41, 343, 345, 351–54 Indian Ocean xix, xxii, 2, 5, 17, 32, 35, 51–53, 59, 61, 65, 183, 318, 354 indiáticos 320, 343. See also reinóis indipetae 122 Ingoli, Francesco 319–20 inquisidor geral 21 inquisidor mor 13–14 inquisition 13 irmão. See temporal coadjutor

index Islam 10, 44 Ismael (nacoda) 69 Ismail I (shah) 35 Italy 15, 39, 47–48, 56, 103, 125, 352–54 ite (itê). See ǝtege Itinerario (Lobo) 324, 325 Ituren, Tomás de 111, 137, 158, 281 Iulios. See Yolyos Iyäsus (Jesus) xxiii, 193, 208. See also incarnation theology Jacobite 296 Jacobo, Alexandre 219, 297 Jacome, Francisco 76 Jahangir (emperor) 247, 255, 257, 343 Jainism 60 Jan Bellul. See Prester John Japan xxi, 8, 45, 89, 92, 110, 122, 148, 199, 217, 222, 265, 267, 288–89, 327, 342 Jayo, Claudio 46 jeroglíficos 234 Jerusalem 39, 47 Jesuits abbots in Ethiopia and 150, 300 absolutism and 176–78, 180, 183, 197, 340 achitecture of 241, 249, 259 adaptatio of 164 agendas in Ethiopia of 30, 47, 50, 113, 176–77, 183, 193, 197, 200, 238, 305 anti-Catholic persecution against 281, 298, 301, 312, 316–17, 335 Armenian disguise of 70 arts in Ethiopia and 200, 228, 230, 256, 340 candidates for Ethiopian mission 48–49, 80, 89, 124, 127, 145 Catholicism’s failure in Ethiopia and 91, 110, 164, 278, 319 circumcision in Ethiopia and 19–21, 71, 79, 137–41, 156, 161, 209, 214, 284–86, 291, 298, 302, 311, 317, 323, 341 circumcision of Christ and 140 collapse of Ethiopian mission and 313, 319 communication system of 15, 102, 103, 186, 201, 325, 340 concubinage in Ethiopia and 174, 300, 304–05, 341 convert’s life and 206, 209, 281, 333 corruption of 266–67 cost of Ethiopia mission and 59, 264

409 court (Royal) of Ethiopia and xix, xxiv, xxvii, 4, 43, 77, 83–86, 108–09, 112–15, 117–18, 129, 137–38, 141, 143, 159, 162, 172, 174, 181, 182, 184–88, 191–92, 194, 196–97, 200, 207, 217–19, 224, 230, 233, 235, 255, 263, 270, 277, 281–83, 293–94, 298–301, 304–05, 308, 314, 316–17, 321, 338–39, 241 cultural influences on Ethiopia of 322–23 dance in Ethiopia and 232 dietary habits in Ethiopia and 19–20, 162, 188, 209, 281 dignities (ecclesiastic) and 46–47, 126, 173 diseases encountered by 117–18 dispossession in Ethiopia of 303, 312 Diu’s importance to 230, 241–44, 247, 249–50, 254, 260–63, 266–67, 318, 332, 345, 354 divorce in Ethiopia and 305 Dominicans rivalry with 29, 45–47, 152, 156–58, 168, 178, 335 dressing and identity in Ethiopia of 96, 206 education and 119, 127, 204, 210–11, 217–18, 262, 338 elite society in Ethiopia and 193, 288 Ethiopian Catholic culture and 134 Ethiopian (local) perception of 281–84, 290–91 Ethiopian state and 292, 303 Ethio-portuguese and 219, 259–60, 313, 320, 322 ethnic groups and xxv, 216 exorcisms performed by xvi, 237, 287, 341 expansion under Fernandes and Susǝnyos 302, 339 expulsion from Ethiopia and exile to India of 315 expulsion of local priests ordained by 311, 315 Fernandes, António and (1571–1642) 57, 96, 99–100, 102, 104–05, 108, 111, 114, 117, 119–20, 123, 126, 129, 149, 153, 163, 65, 169–70, 171, 173, 175, 180, 192, 194, 213, 216, 230, 267, 270, 279, 298, 305, 323, 324, 339, 342, 352, 355–58 funding for Ethiopia mission and  262–63, 267

410 Jesuits (cont.) Gälawdewos and 46, 51–53, 55, 73, 77–78, 83–85, 87, 91, 142, 144, 177, 186–89, 284, 331, 348, 359 gardening in Ethiopia and 252, 255 geopolitical contributions of 54 gifts and payments given and received by 260, 263, 267, 272–73 goals in Ethiopia of 145–47, 210, 235, 258 Gorgora meetings of 101 historiography on Ethiopia mission by 160, 327, 332 Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier’s promotion by 237 indoctrination of Ethiopian tribes by 210 Japanese mission of 288 Jesus’s name’s promotion by xxiii, 193, 208 languages in Ethiopia studied by 65, 129, 153, 163, 166, 182, 186, 212, 213, 291, 323, 341 legacy of Ethiopia mission of 311, 323 Leo’s (the Great) importance to 135, 141, 281, 340 levirate habits in Ethiopia and 140, 148, 174, 323 local architecture in Ethiopia and 238 local priests trained in missions by  174, 176 marriage in Ethiopia and 148, 162, 174, 304, 306 martyrdom in Ethiopia of 334 Mary, St. and 208, 220, 223 Mendes, Afonso’s Patriarchate and 240 military campaigns in Ethiopia and xxix, 109, 183 monastic communities of Ethiopia and 171, 175, 206 morality of power and 197 Mughal India and 256–57, 343 music in Ethiopia and 234 nationalities preponderant in mission to Ethiopia of 126 obedience in Ethiopian mission and xvii, 138, 145, 174 Ottomans and 53, 55, 57, 62, 68, 70–74, 85, 90, 95, 103, 133 overseas missions of 230

index patriarchate of Ethiopia and 24, 28, 30, 42, 46–50, 54, 104, 110, 115, 117, 122, 125, 143, 147, 149–50, 161, 173–74, 240, 260, 264–65, 306, 338 Paul (the Apostle) importance to Ethiopia mission of xxiii, 19, 30, 53, 134–38, 140–41, 162, 167, 214, 281, 286, 291 periods of missionary activity in Ethiopia by personnel for Ethiopia mission of xxxi, 43, 87, 93, 99, 117, 121, 127, 133 Philip III (of Spain) and 57, 64, 97–98, 184 political role in Ethiopia mission of 182–83 Portuguese Assistancy of 50, 125–27 at Portuguese court 15 Portuguese India and xx, xxii, xxiv, 27, 31, 44, 52, 62, 86, 99, 109, 115, 118, 127, 147, 184, 234–35, 237–38, 260, 266, 299, 318–19, 332 problems obtaining passage to Ethiopia of 55, 69, 70, 72–74, 100, 103 propaganda and 153, 238, 249 province of Goa of 50 public activities in Ethiopia and 114 publication of treatises on Ethiopian Christianity by xxix, xxx, 135, 141, 153–54, 156, 161, 166, 169–70, 174, 185–86, 323, 325–26, 333 publications (secular) on Ethiopia mission of 327–28, 332, 337 rebellions in Ethiopia and 111, 296–07, 301, 308, 314 reformation of Ethiopian Christianity by 101, 109, 162, 173 religious imagery and 221, 290 residences in Ethiopia mission of 78, 82, 99, 101–02, 104, 107, 112, 129–30, 131–32, 133, 151–52, 162, 171, 202–06, 212, 215, 217–19, 221–22, 228–29, 233, 235, 241, 249–50, 252, 255, 259–60, 265, 269–70, 272–74, 286, 289, 309, 312, 313, 325, 339 Śärṩä Dǝngǝl and 57, 86–88, 98, 105, 113, 177, 186, 189, 193, 269–70, 297 Spain and Portugal’s Union and 125–26 supporters in Ethiopia of 299–301, 307–8, 316, 322, 342

411

index Susǝnyos and 309, 342 theatre in Ethiopia mission and 200, 232, 234–5 theology of the visible of 219, 227 topographical writings of 160 training for Ethiopia mission of 88, 96, 124–35, 127 veneration of saints propagated by 228, 237, 313 Jesus xxiii, 132, 140, 168, 193, 208, 239, 328. See also Iyäsus; incarnation theology Jews. See Fälaša Jiddah 2, 44 Joannes Pretiosus sive altus. See Prester John Joannes, António 211 João Egipcio 296 João V (king) 333 João II (king) 3–5, 14, 56 João III (king) 4, 6, 10, 13, 18, 27, 45, 48–49, 53, 56, 97, 264, 338 Johnson, Samuel 337 Jorge, Marcos Doutrina Christãa (Cartilha) 166 Jubba, River 57 Julius III (pope) 50 junta 101 Käfa (region) 186 Käflä Maryam (Šum in bur) 316 Kamaran, Island 5, 52 Kambaata (region) 51 käntiba xvii, 316 kätäma xvii, xxvii, 75, 78, 82, 83, 86, 106, 107, 109, 112–13, 115, 130, 151, 172, 177, 181, 184, 189, 192, 194, 229, 232, 239, 243, 293, 297–98, 308, 313 Kayla Meda 322 Kǝbrä nägäśt 159, 195 Kǝflä Krǝstos (abba) 295 Kǝflä Waḥed (däǧǧazmač) 95, 193, 347 Kǝflo (blattengeta) 114–15 Kǝmant (tribe, people) xxv Kendo Nora 105, 106, 202 Kerim, Abd al 252 kǝrämt xvii, xxviii, 102 Khambay, Sultan of 28 Kilian, Bartholomäus 328, 330 Kilwa Island 2, 57 Krǝstosawit (wäyzäro) 297

Kubler, George 239 Kund Amba 106, 109, 131, 203, 239, 243 Kwäkwǝra (Cacura) 130 Läbasi 115, 359 Lahore 2, 257 Laínez, Diego 46, 62, 92, 146, 331 Lakä Maryam 297 Läkka Krǝstos 219 Lämälmo 82, 116, 303 Lameira, Manoel 121, 124–25, 345, 353 lançados 35 Lasta 82, 295, 299, 301, 309 Laudate Dominum 232 Lazarists 334 Lǝbnä Dǝngǝl (nǝguś) 5, 20, 22, 25–28, 38, 43, 45, 184, 197–88 Lǝbso 115 lechuguillas 207 Ledesma, Alonso de Testamento de Christo Nuestro Señor 233 Conceptos espirituales y morales 233 Legatio Magni Indorum Imperatoris (Góis) 22 Legazpi, Diego de Lǝǧǧä Nǝguś 130, 131, 203, 206, 252, 268, 312, 354 Le Grand, Joaquim 335 Leiria (Portugal) 14 Leiris, Michel L’Afrique fantôme xvii Lendas da India (Correia) 152 Leo, Saint (the Great) 135, 141, 281, 340 Universalis Ecclesia 141 Leo X (pope) 9, 21, 38 Leo XI 346 Leo XIII (pope) xxx Lǝssanä Krǝstos (azzaž) 299–301 Lestringant, Frank 154–55 letrados 186 Leuven 21 levirate 140, 148, 174, 323 Levy, Evonne 250, 273 Liber Axumae 284 libero abitrio (Molina) 179 Libo(region) 106. See also Dänqäz Lima, Dinis de 76 Lima, Rodrigo da 5, 7–8, 17, 27, 35, 38, 53, 184

412 lingua (interpreter) 8 liq xvii liqä kahǝnat 17 liqä mä’ǝmǝran xvii, 298 Lisboa, António de 4 Lisbon xxix, 4–5, 9, 14–15, 17–19, 22, 25, 27–31, 42–43, 49–51, 103, 231–32, 239, 318 Lisbon, patriarchate of 333 Lisebetten, Peter van 328, 329 Lobo, Jerónimo xxix, 58, 121, 124, 229, 318, 323, 324, 325, 333, 335, 337, 353 Itinerario 324, 325 Lobo, Luís 346 Lopes, Francisco 61, 86–87 Lopes de Sequeira, Diogo 5, 10, 53 Louis XIV (king) 320 Loyola, Ignatius of 39, 41–42, 44, 46–51, 53, 88, 90–91, 131, 144, 152–53, 205, 210, 231, 233, 236–37, 327–28, 331, 340, 344 canonization and celebration in Ethiopia for 152 church paraphernalia for Ethiopian mission and ecclesiastic dignities and 46 education’s importance in missions and 41, 210 instructions for mission to Ethiopia by 50 obedience and mission to Ethiopia and 48 reductions in Ethiopia and 210 spiritual vs. corporal exercises and 139 Lucas Marcos 4 Ludolf, Hiob vii, xxx, xxxii, 186, 335 Historia aethiopica xxxii Ludovisi, Ludovico 319 Lusitanian crown. See Portugal Lusitans (Portuguese) 36 Luso-Ethiopian 15. See also Ethio-portuguese Macada 58 Mäčča Oromo 38, 295 Machado, Francisco 68, 121, 124, 219, 334, 353 Machado, Francisco Dias 95 Machado, Luis 95 Machado, Zana Gabriel 219 Machiavelli, Nicolò 179–80 Il Principe 179

index Machoca (Mačoka, Mäčakäl?) 176 Mädḫane ʿAläm 208. See also Jesus; Iyäsus Madhya Pradesh (India) 247 maestro do arrayal. See blattengeta Maffei, Giovanni Pietro 122, 159 Historiarum Indicarum 122 mägaräǧa 290 Magnificat 232 Magseph Assetat (Fernandes) 324, 325, 355 Maḥfūz b. Muḥammad 25 Mahmud (Pasha) 73, 196, 345 Mahometans. See Muslims Mäkanä Śǝllase 186 Malabar 66, 95 Malacca 2, 8, 31–33, 60 Mäläk Sägäd. See Yaʿǝqob (king) Mäläkotawit 299, 359 Mälasay 77 Maldonado, Juan de 167–68, 355–57 Malindi. See Banadir coast Mälkǝʾa Krǝstos (blattengetta and abetohun) 107, 138, 172, 242, 298–301, 349 Mamluk, Sultanate of 16, 60, 142 Mamlukes 52 Mandevillian 155 Mange 105, 202 Manikongo, Kingdom of 56 Manuel I (king) 4–5, 8, 10, 13–15, 21–22 mäqdas 290 Mar Shimun VIII. See Sulaqa, Yohannan Märäba 100, 104–05, 131 Maravall, José António 195 Marcellus II (pope) 47 Marchionni, House of 5 Mare Rubro. See Red Sea Margalho, Pedro 15, 18, 20–21 Phisices Compendium 20 Mariana, Juan de 160, 178, 180, 230 De rege et regis institutione 180 Historiæ de rebus Hispaniæ 160–61 Maronite 63, 95, 122 Marqos (nephew of Minas) 85 Marqos, Metropolitan of Ethiopia 27, 37, 316, 350 Marqos, (son of Susǝnyos) 299, 349, 359 Márquez, Francisco 318 marranos. See christãos novos marriage 148, 162, 174, 304, 306 Märs amin 283, 285

index Martín, Luis 334 Martins, Inácio 166 Martins, João 63–64, 125, 225, 241, 243, 245, 247, 250, 251 Märṭulä Maryam 131, 247, 250, 251, 258. See also Ǝnnäbǝse Mary, St. 131, 208, 220, 223 See also “Sta. Maria Maggiore, Madonna of” Maryam Gǝmb 312 Maryam Śǝna (ite) 98, 108, 339 máscaras 234 Mascarenhas, António 346 Mascarenhas, Nuno 116, 127, 230 Maskat 25 Massawa xxvii, 2, 10, 33–34, 37, 52–54, 59–62, 65–68, 70, 72–75, 82, 85, 90, 93, 94, 95, 103, 121, 147, 196, 206, 241, 260, 266, 271, 315, 351 Mateus (liqä kahǝnat and Armenian ambassador of Ethiopia) 5, 26 Mattos, Diogo de 107, 116, 118–19, 124, 181, 222, 241, 252, 309, 352 Maydaro (May Daʿǝro?) 271, 271 Mecca 44, 60, 70, 208 Mecca, Strait of 5, 36. See also Bab-el-Mandeb Medicis 9, 38 Medina, Bartolomé de 178 Mediterranean 4, 55, 71 Mǝhǝrka Dǝngǝl (abba) xv, 109, 186, 212 Melho, Martin de 346 Mendes, Afonso (Affonso), Patriarch of Ethiopia xxx, 58, 68, 96, 99, 101, 104, 119–21, 126–27, 128, 129–30, 138, 143–44, 149,165, 170, 173–74, 176, 180–81, 196, 201, 207, 219, 222, 229–30, 232–33, 241, 243, 261, 264, 267, 277–78, 285, 286, 298, 301, 304, 306, 313, 317, 323, 326, 328, 332, 335, 336, 339 Mendoça, Luís de 70 Meneses, Aleixo de (archbishop) 64, 334 Mǝnilǝk (nǝguś) xxvii, 161 Mǝnilǝk II (nǝguś) 305 Menologium virorum (Nieremberg) 327 Merca. See Macada Merid Wolde Aregay xx, 162, 183, 196, 339 Southern Ethiopia and the Christian Kingdom 1508–1708 xx Mesa da consciéncia e ordens 13 Mesquita, Cosme de 219 Mesquita, Juan de 92

413 mestiços 79 mestre de noviços 124 Mezquita (Ethio-portuguese leader) 76 Michael I, da Sebaste 40 Miaphysitism 142 Minas (nǝguś). See Admas Sägäd Minchawi, Gabriel VII (Coptic patriarch) 55 Minori Riformati (Reformed Franciscans) 320 Miranda (Portugal) 14 Mirón, Diego 48 Mirón, Jacobo 49 Miserere 227, 232 Missionary Strategies of the Jesuits in Ethiopia, The (Cohen) xx Mocha 17. See also Eyalet el-Habesh modo Goano 243 modo Indiano 243 modo nostro 41, 88 Mogadishu 2, 57–58 Molina, Luis de 178–79, 181 Moluccas 89, 125 Mombasa 2, 57 Moniz, Afonso de França 77 Monophysitism 141. See also Leo, Saint (the Great) Montarroio, Pedro de 4 Monteiro, Diego 346 Montserrat, Antonio de 62, 69–70, 94, 221, 257 mordomo mor. See blattengeta More, Thomas 157 Mosaic laws 19–21, 139–40, 161, 168, 284–85 Moura, Miguel de 57 Mughal xx, xxi, xxii, 73, 126 193, 199, 221, 231, 247, 249, 255–58, 267, 322, 340, 342–43 Muhammad b. Āzar Abū Bakr 26 Murtaza (pasha) 67, 345 Muscat 2, 62 Muslims xxviii, 37, 284, 322 nacodas 71 Nadal, Jerónimo 53, 88, 91, 224, 342 Adnotationes et meditationes in Evangelia 224 Evangelicae Historiae Imagines 224, 357 Nadir (Nader) 270, 271

414 Ñaʿǝ Śärṩe 295 Näfaša (region) 82, 130, 131, 151, 302, 353 Naples 49, 352, 354, 90, 212 Nasrani 115 nativity scene xxviii, 228 nebrete (nǝburä ǝd) xvii nǝguś xvii, xix, xxvii, xxxi, 3–5, 8, 17, 20, 22–23, 26–27, 29–31, 33, 35, 37–38, 42–43, 45–46, 51–52, 54, 57, 68, 75–77, 78–79, 83–84, 86–87, 97–98, 104, 106, 108–10, 111, 114, 116, 130, 131, 137, 142–43, 147, 177, 181, 184–85, 187, 192–93, 195–96, 198–99, 202–03, 206–07, 209, 217, 229–30, 240, 252, 253, 255, 256, 283–84, 286, 296, 298, 300, 302, 309, 312, 314, 321, 328, 329, 331–32, 338–39, 347–48, 354 nǝguśä nägäśt xvii Nesrani, Sadaqa 252 Nestorians 281 Nicaea 49, 121, 306, 354 Nieremberg, Juan Eusebio 327 Menologium virorum 327 Vidas ejemplares 327 Nile, River iv, xiv, xxvii, xxx, 56, 82, 117, 151, 155, 186, 254. See also Blue Nile; Abbay Nogueira, Bernardo 219, 320–21, 334 nora (gǝmb) xix Nora Mikaʾel. See Kendo Nora Noronha, Diogo de 60 Noronha, Garcia de 28, 31–32 Nossa Senhora das Neves 220. See also Salus Populi Romani Novaes, Pedro de 346 nummos (cesterce) 269, 274 Nunes Barreto, João (patriarch) 49, 87, 90, 264, 328 Nunes Barreto, Melchior 62, 92 Nūr b. Muǧāḥid (sultan) 52, 77 obedience xvii, xix, 43, 48, 91, 93, 99–111, 114, 138, 145, 174, 299 obedientia 43 oizero. See wäyzäro Oliva, Giovanni Paolo 327 O’Malley, John W. xxiv, 134, 146 Omani coast 66 Ombabaqha 131, 272 Onfroy, Francisco 91 Oni 4

index Order of Christ 14 ordinarias 263 Oromo (tribes) xvi, xvii, xxv, xxxii, 38, 51–52, 77–78, 105, 190, 194, 203, 216, 295–97, 314, 349–50 Ortiz de Vilhegas, Diogo (Calzadilla) 15, 18 Osswald, Cristina x, 340 ostiarios 226 Ottomans 53, 55, 57, 62, 68, 70–74, 85, 90, 95, 103, 133 oukeas 267–69, 270, 273, 274 Oviedo, Andrés de xix, 49–50, 61, 78, 84, 86–88, 90–92, 104, 110, 122, 125, 126, 147, 150, 161, 173, 192, 211, 228, 260, 269, 284, 328, 331, 334, 351 Ozdemir (Pasha) 53, 62, 78 oziero. See wäyzäro Padroado Real 125, 260, 332 padroč (padres) 217, 279, 284, 342 Paes, Gaspar 101, 121, 130, 138, 206, 219, 237, 244, 282, 316, 334, 353 Páez, Pedro xix, xxix, xxxii, 62–63, 65, 67, 69–70, 78, 94, 96, 99–100, 102, 104–05, 107–13, 115, 118–20, 126, 137, 142, 149–50, 153–55, 158–63, 165, 169–70, 173, 176, 180, 183, 187–88, 192, 194–97, 201, 207, 211, 213, 221, 224, 239–41, 247, 254–55, 257, 265, 278, 281, 284–85, 293, 303, 309, 325, 333, 339–40, 342, 352–56 História de Etiópia 99, 142, 149, 155–56, 158–61, 195, 197, 325, 333, 340 Paiva, Afonso da 4, 6 Palencia (Spain) 334 pardãos 64, 261, 262–63, 265, 268 pardãos de larins 64, 261, 266 Paris 18, 90, 324 pasha xvii, 31, 53, 62, 67–69, 72–73, 78, 196, 313, 345 Pashalik xvii, 17 Pasitano, Tommasso 49 patacas 72–73, 268, 272 Pate-Jubo 58 Patristic theology 140 Paul, Saint (the Apostle) xxiii, 19, 30, 53, 134–38, 140–41, 162, 167, 214, 281, 286, 291 age of 135 Alexandrian Christianity compared to 139

415

index epistles of 136, 138, 167 literature on xxiii, 214 thought of 136 unity and uniformity according to 138 Paul III (pope) 27–28, 39, 40–42, 50, 249 Cum sicut nobis 45 Paul V (pope) 346 pedra de ara 171 Pedro II (king) 332 Peixoto, António 61 Pennec, Hervé xx, 177, 198, 300, 339 Des Jésuites au royaume du Prêtre Jean xx Pereira, Benedicto 169, 357 Pereira, Bernardo 68, 121, 124, 334 Pereira, Francisco Maria Esteves xxxii, 346, 353 Chronicle of Susǝnyos xxxii, 186, 309 Pereira, João 219, 316, 334, 354 Persia 8, 35, 258, 331 Persian Gulf 25, 35, 60 Philip II (King of Spain, Philip I of Portugal)  57, 64, 97, 98, 160, 195, 198, 262, 278 Philip III (king of Spain, Philip II of Portugal) 57, 98, 110, 184, 346 Philip IV (king of Spain, Philip III of Portugal) 57, 97, 181, 264, 318, 346 Philippines 125 Phisices Compendium (Margalho) 20 Pietro l’Indiano. See Täsfa Ṣǝyon Pilate (Pilatos) Pontius 281 Pimenta, Nicolão 63, 345 Pinheiro, Luís 110 Pinto, António 55, 147 Pius IV (pope) 55, 147 Pius V (pope) 92, 220 Polanco, Juan Alfonso de 47, 89, 91–92, 135, 146 Portalegre (Portugal) 14 Porte (Ottoman government) 56, 67 Porto (Portugal) 95 Portugal vii, xvii, xvii, xxix, 4–8, 10, 14–18, 20–21, 24–25, 27, 31, 35, 38–39, 42, 44, 46, 48, 51, 54, 57, 67, 87, 90, 96–97, 103–04, 108, 110, 116, 119–21, 125, 127, 153, 183, 230, 232, 254–55, 320, 332–33, 338, 346, 351–54, 356 Portuguese Assistancy 50, 125–27 Portuguese India xx, xxii, xxiv, 27, 31, 44, 52, 62, 86, 99, 109, 115, 118, 127, 147,

184, 234–35, 237–38, 260, 266, 299, 318–19, 332 Postel, Guillaume 157 Posterula 47 Pozzo, Andrea 328 Apotheosis of the Society of Jesus 328 pressepe xxviii Preste xxiii, xxx, 3–4, 8, 10, 23–24, 27, 29, 30–32, 34, 42, 45, 50–51, 54, 56, 58, 84, 89, 92, 153–55, 158, 260, 265, 277, 324, 328, 358 Prester John 3–4, 8, 10, 11, 17, 19, 22–23, 37, 51, 88, 154–55, 160–61, 328, 329 Pretiosus Ioannes. See Prester John Principe, Il (Machiavelli) 179 procuradores 65 producador da missão 266 profeso de cuatro votos (professed) xvii Professio fidei Tridentina 148 Protestant Reformation 168 Protestantism 290 pseudo-patriarch. See Bermudez, João Puteo, Cardinal Giacomo 47 Putter, Coenraad de 335, 336 Qǝbʾä Krǝstos (däǧǧazmač and blattengeta)  69, 133, 171, 268, 274, 297, 307, 339, 341, 347–49 Qǝbat. See unction theory Qǝbʾäto 115 qǝddǝst 290 Qǝddǝst Giyorgis 312 Qerǝllos 314 Qoga 82, 106 Quadros, António de 49 Queiros, Fernão 332 Quevedo, Francisco de 233 qwälla xxviii qwälläfä 279, 285–86, 341 Qwälläla 102, 106–07, 112, 118, 124, 129–30, 131, 150, 151, 152, 166, 175, 212, 215, 217, 229, 233, 236, 241–42, 267–69, 270, 272–73, 309, 312–13, 325, 352–53 Qwärif Śǝno 295 Rabat I 117 Rachol (India) 66 Rajasthan (India) 247 Raman, Abda 69

416 Rapozo, Lucas 219 Ratio studiorum 213–14, 217 razzias xv Red Sea xv, xxxi, 2, 4, 7, 12, 17, 23, 25–26, 31–32, 34, 36, 38, 44, 51–55, 57, 60, 62, 64–66, 70, 72–73, 82, 92, 97, 102, 114–15, 154, 271, 315, 318, 321, 325, 332, 334, 335 Red Sea route 55, 58, 97 redução (reducción) 135, 144, 171, 209, 340 registos. See resistos reinóis 320, 343. See also indiáticos Relatio de statu politico et religioso Aethiopiae (Barzeo) 154 relics 236, 237 Renaissance 8, 13, 140, 160, 184–85, 198, 223 République, La (Bodin) 179 Resende, André de 15 resistos 226, 266 rǝst xviii, 269 Restall, Matthew 190 rex imperator in regno suo 198 Rey, Charles F. xxxi The Romance of the Portuguese in Abyssinia xxxi Ribadeneyra, Pedro de 180 Ribera, Francisco de 136, 167–68, 355–56 Ricci, Matteo xxiii, 127 Richelieu, Cardinal (Armand Jean du Plessis) 320 Rocha (Roca), João da 121, 126 Rodrigues, Francisco 316 Rodrigues, Gonçalo (mestre Gonçalo) 58, 61, 77, 83 Rodrigues, Simão 15, 42, 46 Rodríguez, Cristóbal 55 Rodríguez, Francisco 125, 241, 252, 253, 334 Roiz, António 202, 345 Romance of the Portuguese in Abyssinia, The (Rey) xxxi Romano, Lorenzo 96, 100, 118, 137, 213, 219, 352 Rome ix, xv , xix, xxiii, xxvii, xxviii, 2, 4, 7, 9, 10, 15, 20, 22, 25, 27, 28, 37–47, 51, 55, 57, 62, 84, 87, 90, 92, 100, 103, 107, 115, 119, 121–22, 126, 129, 135, 140–43, 146, 158, 208, 214, 220–21, 227, 231, 239, 249, 270, 304, 319, 328, 334, 352 romeiras 255

index Sabbath 19–21, 79, 108, 115–16, 140, 161, 172, 214, 290–91, 298, 302, 311, 341 Säblä Wängel (queen-dowager) 189, 359 Sadaqa Nesrani 252, 253 Ṣädda (Ethiopia) 106, 115, 294 Safavid dynasty 35 Ṣägga Zäʾab 5, 17–18, 20–21, 23, 29–30, 52 Haec sunt, quae de fide et religione… 19 sagoate 72 Sakäla Agäw (people) 203 Sälama Käśate Bǝrhan. See Fǝremonatos Salamanca 18, 166–68, 178 Saldanha, Aires de 63–64, 345 Salmastetzì, Stephan V (bishop) 40 Salmerón, Alfonso 89, 146 Ṣälot 75, 270, 271 Salus Populi Romani 220. See also Sta. Maria Maggiore; Virgin of St. Luke Salvador da Bahia 14 San Stefano dei Mori 39 Sänayti 37, 171 Sanches, João 4 Sánchez, Alonso 278 Sandri, Bernardino 40 Santa Cruz, Juan de 49 Santiago (James the Apostle) 24, 36–37 Santiago, Order of 264 São Miguel. See Suk, fort of 210 São Paolo, College of (da Conversão de São Paolo e da Santa Fé) São Paulo Novo (school) 124, 241, 332 São Tomé 14–15, 18 saraças 208 Säraye 75 Särka (region) 82, 112–13, 115, 130, 131, 151, 194, 233, 234, 272, 312, 352 Śärṩä Dǝngǝl 57, 86–88, 98, 105, 113, 177, 186, 189, 193, 269–70 297 Śärṩä Krǝstos (abetohun) 194, 267–68, 299, 301, 348 Savoy, duchy of 48 Šäwa (province) xvi, xxvii, 37, 51, 82, 105, 295–96, 299, 312 Sawakin, port of 2, 17, 53, 59, 65–69, 72–73, 93, 266, 314 Šäwan 5 School of Oriental and African Studies xx Schurhammer, Georg xxxii, xxxiii Franz Xaver, sein Leben und seine Zeit xxxii

index Scritti teologici etiopici dei secoli (Cerulli) xxix Sebastião I (king) 55 Sǝbḥat Läʾab 299 Sǝbuḥ Amlak 297 Seco, Diogo 120–21, 126 Śǝʿǝlä Krǝstos (ras) 69, 111–13, 115–16, 130, 133, 137, 141, 163, 172, 176, 183, 190, 193–94, 196, 206–07, 212, 217, 224, 232, 236, 239, 267, 268, 270, 274, 279, 283, 294, 295, 299–300, 307, 314, 339, 341, 347–49 šǝfta xviii, 86, 297 Selim I (sultan) 16 Śǝlṭan Mogäsa Wäld Śäʿalä 173 Sǝlṭan Sägäd 99, 277. See also Susǝnyos Sǝmen (province) xviii, 37, 104, 131, 296, 303, 349–50 Sǝmʿon, metropolitan of Ethiopia 113, 115–16, 159, 170, 293, 339, 349 senadores do visorey xviii. See also wämbär Senam pasha (Yemen Bayerlebi Hasan Pasha) 67 Sǝnkǝssar 170, 357. See also Haymanotä Abäw Śǝrʿatä gǝbǝr 192 Śǝrʿatä mängǝśt 192 Śǝrʿatä qwǝrḥat 192 setins 207 Setubal 95 Several, Simão do 77 Shah Jahan (emperor) 256, 343 shaikh Danakil xviii Sheba, Queen of xxvii, 20 Shebelle (Webi Shabeelle), River 57 Sheikhupura (India) 257, 258 Siam 8 Siglo de Oro 233 Silva, António da 147 Silva, Diogo da, Bishop of Ceuta 13 Silva, Domingo da 63 Silva, Miguel da, Bishop of Viseu 9, 15 Silva, Pedro da 318 Sinaxi 155 Sinnar 82, 117, 321 Šire 82, 116, 271 Sixtus V (pope) 234 Skinner, Quentin 180 Soares, Castro Soares, Gaspar 4

417 Soares, Mauricio 76 Society of Jesus. See Jesuits Socotra 17. See also Suk, fort of sodagares 71 Solomonic monarchy xxvi, xxvii, xxviii, 159–60, 185–86 Somali 57, 121 Somaschans 41 Soto, Domingo de 168, 178 De natura et gratia 168 Sousa, Gaspar de 76 Southern Ethiopia and the Christian Kingdom 1508–1708 (Merid Wolde Aregay) xx Spain ix, xvii, xvii, xxix, 6, 18, 47–48, 57, 64, 87, 97, 103, 110, 114–15, 125, 157, 160, 166, 180–81, 184, 195, 198–99, 260, 351–54 spice trade 12, 61 spiritual coadjutor xviii Spiritual Exercises (Loyola) 41, 101, 224 Sri Lanka 247 Sta. Maria Maggiore 236. See also Virgin of St. Luke; Salus Populi Romani Steinberg, Leo 140 Storer, Johann Christoph 328, 330 Suárez, Francisco (Doctor Eximius) 168, 178–81, 229 Suez 2, 17, 32–33 Suk, fort of 12. See also Socotra Suleiman, Hadim (pasha) 31 Suleyman I, Sultan (the Magnificent) 16 šum xviii, 316 superior da missão 99, 170 superior general (geral) xvii, xviii, 47–48, 50, 62, 90, 92, 100, 110, 121, 126, 138, 201, 220, 237, 270, 301, 304, 324. See also Acquaviva, Claudio; Vitelleschi, Muzio” Susǝnyos (nǝguś) xvii, xxiv, xxxii, 56–57, 69, 73, 78–79, 87, 98–100, 106–17, 133, 138, 143, 159, 161–62, 171–74, 176–77, 181, 183, 186, 188, 190, 194, 196, 199, 201, 207, 209, 212, 217, 219, 222, 224, 228, 230, 239, 242–43, 255, 267, 268–69, 270, 272–74, 277–79, 282, 286, 292–95, 299–300–04, 306–07, 309, 311–12, 314, 317, 322, 335, 336, 339–40, 342, 347 abdication of 309 absolutism of 176, 183, 197 allegiance to Catholicism of 177 conversion to Catholicism of 177 death of 311

418 Susǝnyos (cont.) description of 201 Jesuits and 176, 183, 197 military requests of 87, 114–15 obedience to pope of 21, 43, 111, 114, 174 pro-Catholic policy of 172 profession of Catholicism of 116, 172, 301 support of missions by 267–69, 270, 272–73 Swahili 57 Sylva, Melchior da 63–64, 79, 95, 351 Synaxarium. See Sǝnkǝssar Syria xxvi tabot 171–72, 175 Täklä Giyorgis (däǧǧazmač) 297, 304, 316, 347–48 Täklä Maryam 57, 87 talao 257 tämari 289 Tämben 131, 171, 352 Ṭana, Lake ix, xxvii, xxxi, 82, 86, 105, 106, 108, 112, 115, 150, 151, 165, 203, 217, 244, 258–59, 293–94, 296, 300, 313, 340, 353–54 Tanḵa 82, 129–30, 131, 151, 196, 203, 252, 268, 273, 302, 352–54 tankwa 255 Tanquoa (Tumkha). See Tanḵa tänqway 289 Tänśǝʾa Krǝstos 302 Ṭaqussa (region) 82, 320, 321 Täsfa Ṣǝyon 39, 41–42, 45 Tavora, Lourenço Pires de 55 Täwaḥǝdo. See Union theory Täzkäro 85 Tǝgray (province) ix, xxvii, 26, 33, 37–38, 68–69, 75, 78, 85–86, 95, 105, 107, 112–13, 128, 131–32, 133, 150, 171, 193, 196, 217, 226, 227, 230, 259, 270, 273–74, 292–93, 296–98, 304, 313, 320, 325, 338, 347–48 Tǝgray mäkwännǝn xv, xviii Tǝgrayan (people) xxv, 164, 216, 298 Tǝgrǝñña (language) xxviii, 153, 212–13, 291 Teixeira, Luiz 76 Tejada, Juan de 90 temporal coadjutor xviii, 63, 241 Ṭǝqur Yämanä Krǝstos (Tequr Emano) 302 terreiro 232 tǝre śǝga 209 Testamento de Christo (Ledesma) 233

index Tetuan 49 Tewelde Beiene 114, 134, 176 Tewodros Ṩäḥay. See Wäldä Qǝbrǝyal textiles 207–09 Thana (India) 124 Theatins 41 Theodosios (Theodosios I) 142 Thomas (nǝburä ǝd) 292 Thomaz, Luís Filipe 11 Tianzhu xxiii Ṭino (azzaž) 112, 172, 186, 301, 317, 339, 341 Tir 44 Ṭis Abbay xii, 82, 151, 254 Titicaca, Lake 24 tocas 70 Tokugawa Ieyasu 343 Toledo, Francisco de 136, 167, 355 Toledo, Juan Álvarez de, Cardinal–archbishop 47 Tomus ad Flavianum 141 Toralva (Portuguese merchant) 70 Toubkis, Dimitri 198, 300 Tractatus tres historico geographici (Barradas) 325 Travels to Discover the Sources of the Nile (Bruce) xxx Trent, Council of 14, 42, 146–48, 162, 174, 220, 228 holy images and 220 matrimony and 148 missionary works and 146, 162 veneration of relics 228 Trigger, Bruce xxii Triumph of the Name of Jesus (Gaulli) 328 triunfos 234 Tupi-Guarani 210 Turks. See Ottoman Ugentana 33 unction theory 295 union theory 295 Universidad Complutense de Madrid xxxi Urban VIII (pope) 120, 138, 346 Urreta, Luís de 152, 156, 158 Historia eclesiastica 157 Ursulines 41 Urus (people) xxii Uttar Pradesh (India) 247, 248, 257 Valencia (Spain) 156

419

index Valignano, Alessandro 63, 93, 126–27, 331 Valladolid (Spain) 18 Vaz, Jorge 95 Vázquez, Francisco 45 Velasco, Juan de 118, 121, 124, 353 Venturoso. See João III Verdadeira informação das terras (Alvares) 154 Veronicas 225, 228, 266 vesporas 232 Vidas ejemplares (Nieremberg) 327 Viegas, Bras 169, 355 Vienna, battle of 16 Virgin of St. Luke 220. See also Sta. Maria Maggiore; Salvus Populi Romani” Viseu 9, 14, 352–53 Vitelleschi, Muzio See also superior general (geral) 88, 100, 118, 121, 126, 138, 232, 346 Vitoria, Francisco de 168, 178 wäʿali 294 Wachtel, Nathan xxii Wäfla (Wällo province) xxvii Wäǧ (region) 82, 189, 301 Walašma 26 Wälättä Giyorgis (wäyzäro) 98, 295, 359 Wälattä Ṗeṭros 151, 289, 296, 359 Wäldä Krǝstos (azzaž) 130, 268, 347 Wäldä Qǝbrǝyal 295–96 Wäldä/Zäkrǝstos. See Ṭino (azzaž) Wäldǝbba 296 Wällämo 186 Wälqayt 302 wämbär (umbares) xviii, 306, 343 Wängelawit (wäyzäro) 175, 297–99, 304, 312, 359 Wansleben, Johann xxx, 335 wäyzäro (oziero) xviii, 98, 193, 297, 300, 301, 304, 307, 343 wǝqabi 287 Wǝša Śǝllase 244, 246 Wǝšǝr 294 Wierix 236 Winius, George D. 25 women 75, 138, 205, 237, 290, 302. See also wäyzäro xabandar 60, 74 Xavier, Francis xxxii, 15, 42, 123, 126, 132, 137, 152, 210, 229, 231, 236–37, 331

Xavier, Jerónimo 126, 257 xerafims xxiii, 261, 262, 264 Yaʿǝqob (abetohun and brother of Minas) 85 Yaʿǝqob (nǝguś) 99, 104, 106, 108, 137, 187, 270, 347 Yaʿǝqob (rebel) 292 Yaʿǝqob (son of Susǝnyos) 299 yaltägärräzä 284 Yämanä Krǝstos (šum of Ǝnnarya) 113, 115, 293, 299–302, 314, 347–48, 350 Yǝkunno Amlak xxvii Yemen 26, 33, 62, 67, 186 Yǝsḥaq (baḥǝr nägaš/governor) 33, 37, 76, 78, 85–86, 269 Yǝsḥaq (Coptic bishop) 104, 117, 349 Yohannan Sulaqa, Patriarch of Mesopotamia 40 Yoḥannǝs Akay (baḥǝr nägaš) 297, 316, 348 Yoḥannǝs I (nǝguś) 283, 321–22, 342 Yolyos (däǧǧazmač and baḥǝr nägaš) 113, 115, 170, 293–94, 347, 349, 359 Yonaʾel (däǧǧazmač) 295, 347 Yosṭos 299, 359 Zäʾamanuʾel 150 Zädǝngǝl (abetohun) 112 Zädǝngǝl (azzaž) 295 Zädǝngǝl (nǝguś) 87, 99, 108, 110–11, 177, 184, 188, 347 Zägǝrum 115 Zagwe (dynasty) xxvii Zäkrǝstos 112, 175, 304, 347–49 Zäläbasa (Zalabaca) 130 Zämäläkot (liqä mä’ǝmǝran) 298 Zämänfäs Qǝddus (grazmač) 193, 307, 347 Zämanuel 112 Zanzibar 57 zar (spirits) 287 Zärʾa Wängel (ǝččäge) 294, 298, 308 Zärʾa Yaʿǝqob (nǝguś) xxvii, 142 Zärʾa Yoḥannǝs (käntiba) 316 Zäśǝllase 297, 302, 307 Zäwäldä Maryam 297, 359 Zaylaʿ 26, 53, 59, 60, 68, 121