The Medieval Period

Hamlet referred to the "thousand natural ills that flesh is heir to." Throughout the history of humankind, headaches and tiredness, aches and pains, sore feet and sore backs, and all manner of bodily illnesses have been shared by billions of us. For half of humanity, going back millions of years, there existed the problem of the monthly flow of blood in adult females called menstruation.

There is a wide range of products on the market to deal with the monthly period, but how did people deal with it centuries ago?

Men never experienced menstruation, and therefore could not completely understand it, so they made theories. Pliny, a popular source of Classical and Medieval knowledge, thought it was sorcery; in his Naturalis Historia he wrote:

It would indeed be a difficult matter to find anything which is productive of more marvelous effects than the menstrual discharge. On the approach of a woman in this state, must will become sour, seeds which are touched by her become sterile, grafts wither away, garden plants are parched up, and the fruit will fall from the tree beneath which she sits. Her very look, even, will dim the brightness of mirrors, blunt the edge of steel, and take away the polish from ivory. A swarm of bees, if looked upon by her, will die immediately; brass and iron will instantly become rusty, and emit an offensive odor; while dogs which may have tasted of the matter so discharged are seized with madness, and their bite is venomous and incurable. [Chapter 13]

And in Chapter 17, he returns to the topic:

Over and above these particulars, there is no limit to the marvelous powers attributed to females. For, in the first place, hailstorms, they say, whirlwinds, and lightning even, will be scared away by a woman uncovering her body while her monthly courses are upon her. [link]

Much has been said about whether Pliny had a sense of humor and was deliberately exaggerating in his comments. Though his letters show signs of humor, it is difficult to believe that he was "poking fun" at either his audience or the topic while writing a history of the natural world.  We also have statements from the Middle Ages such as mentioned in the False Decretals that suggest how horrible writers (no doubt all men) considered when a woman has her period.

Judaism also developed an aversion to menstruation. Leviticus 15, 18, and 20 were turned into Rabbinic Law about women in their time of "impurity."

But how about the women themselves? What did they do to deal with this monthly event? Tomorrow we'll take a look at feminine hygiene practices relating to this topic.

Medieval Forgeries, Part 4

One of the earliest discovered (so far) forgeries was the 9th-century Pseudo-Isidorean Decretals. A decretal is a papal decree concerning a point of canon law.

Pseudo Isidore is the label given to an otherwise unknown author who referred to himself as Isidore Mercator*, writing in the 840s and 850s. The collection of 60 decretals from early popes include only two authentic ones. The two are placed first, in order to give the reader assurance that all were historical.

The point of these, also called the "False Decretals," was to give more authority to Frankish prelates. The Carolingian rulers, starting with Louis the Pious, were responsible for several episcopal trials, challenging the authority of the Church over the kings, and deposing bishops. The False Decretals attempt to create an historical foundation for the Church to have more rights and authority, to have autonomy for a bishop in his diocese, and provide immunity for bishops from trial and conviction.

One of the ways the forgery was discovered was Pseudo-Isidore's tendency to have the documents make reference to events that took place after the document at hand was supposedly written.

Pseudo-Isidore could not help slipping in some personal preferences outside of the attempt to give bishops more power. In a letter purported to be from Pope Clement, Isidore includes:

De castimoniae dico cautela, cuius species multae sunt. Sed primo, ut observet unusquisque, ne menstruatae mulieri misceatur, hoc enim exsecrabile ducit lex dei.

But first that anyone should make sure not to share company with a menstruating woman, for this is considered loathsome by the law of God.

This is entirely separate from the attempt to prove episcopal autonomy, and the author's personal concern is noteworthy. This got me thinking: what did the Middle Ages think about menstruation? Well, that's obviously a new topic for a new day. See you tomorrow.

*The name seems to be a blend of two known authorities: Isidore of Seville and Marius Mercator (c.390 - c.451), who wrote anti-Pelagian treatises and to whom St. Augustine wrote at least one letter.

Medieval Forgeries, Part 3

In Parts One and Two we get the feeling that forgeries were quite common, and used to "alter history" to the benefit of an institution. One of the most famous was the Donation of Constantine, first mentioned here. It was a document from the Emperor Constantine giving the popes authority over the Western Roman Empire, until a scholar named Lorenzo Valla looked more closely and realized it was written not in 4th-century Latin but in 8th-century informal Latin. The Donation of Constantine did not work to give the popes more power.

A supposed forgery that did have a strong impact was The Ordinance of Normandy. After the Battle of Caen in 1346 (part of the Hundred Years War), the victorious English supposedly found a document that was supposedly written by Philip VI in 1338 (the year the Hundred Years War is considered to have begun).

In it, the plan for Philip and his son (later King John II) to conquer England and destroy it completely is explained. They would give all its land to French lords. This was read out in public at St. Paul's Cathedral for maximum effect and then taken to Parliament. The outrage it created among the English population helped fuel support for Edward's military plans. In our modern times, calls would be made to French officials to deny or repudiate the contents of such a document, but in 1346, it was taken at its word.

There is no evidence that this was an official French policy or plan. No originals exist in French royal records. It was a useful tool of propaganda for the English, uniting the country against its enemy across the Channel.

There was a similar document connected to the crusades. Many copies exist of a popular letter written supposedly by Emperor Alexios I Comnenos to Count Robert I of Flanders, asking for help from Western Europe against the Turks. It describes all manner of horrible acts by the Turks. There is no indication that those acts took place, or that it was composed and sent prior to Urban's calling of the First Crusade, and is most likely to have been written afterward to help keep "Crusade Fever" going.

There will be a few more examples of medieval forgeries tomorrow, then we'll move on to a related topic.

Medieval Forgeries, Part 2

Yesterday's post started the discussion of forgeries and mentioned the Abbey of Saint-Denis. Forging documents was an attempt to re-create history to change the present. Even if we can determine that a document is "un-true," the attempt to forge a document can give us insight into the medieval mind and its desire to show what a person or institution thought should happen, although it did not.

In Forgeries and Historical Writing in England, France, and Flanders, 900-1200, Robert F. Berkhofer III explains just how crafty the monks of Saint-Denis were. They wanted to make the documents—granting them ancient rights, such as independence from the bishop of Paris—not only sound advantageous to them, but also appear to be ancient:

Many of these pseudo-originals reused authentic Merovingian papyri through a clever process designed to give ancient material basis to the invented text. First, the fabricators wrote on the reverse of a genuine papyrus, imitating the handwriting on the front. Then, they erased the front, which became the ‘back’ of the forgery. To make this deception less detectable, the fragile papyri were glued onto parchment for ‘support,’ which hid the original front.

So they used an old medium for the document, and even copied the style of penmanship! Almost one-quarter of the abbey's documents from before the millennium are inauthentic. This was an enormous attempt to increase their authority and autonomy in a very methodical manner.

We'll look at more examples of trying to alter history tomorrow.

Medieval Forgeries, Part 1

Everything written is written for a reason. That reason could be to persuade, to entertain, to outrage—authors always have a purpose. Sometimes that purpose is to convince the reader of something that is simply not true.

The Making of Medieval Forgeries: False Documents in Fifteenth-century England (by Alfred Hiatt, 2004), in an overview of forgeries starting in 1066, points out that we have 208 documents from the time of William the Conqueror, but 62 were produced in the 12th century, not the 11th. Their legitimacy cannot be proven by what we know of his reign. Hiatt also relays, in the same chapter, the story of the falsarius ("falsifier") Guerno, a monk from Saint-Médard in Soissons, whose deathbed confession admitted to numerous forgeries to supplement archives in both England and on the continent.

Papal documents at Canterbury that establish the primacy of Canterbury's archbishop over the archbishop of York have been theorized (without sufficient argument to the contrary; link) to be produced by Lanfranc himself, a man who otherwise has a spotless reputation.

Forgeries could be used to assert authority, as in the Canterbury case. They could also be used to legitimize claims in court, such as when inheriting estates; to secure land rights or gain tax exemptions from the king; or even to rewrite history to avoid blame or to attribute greater glory to someone.

Forgeries can be detected by anachronisms, expressing themselves in grammatical ways or with words or references that only occurred at a later date. They could have internal inconsistencies that are easily refuted by known established facts or events. Sometimes, they are just so out of place that there is no reason to believe that they are true.

Abbeys and monasteries often produced documents on their own to convince someone that they had land rights, or independence from secular bishops or other authorities. The Abbey of Saint-Denis used many forged documents to assert its independence from the bishop of Paris. They were very clever about it, too. Tomorrow I'll tell you what techniques they used to make their documents appear authentic.

Find Prester John

Yesterday I teased information about Prester John. I wrote about him long ago (here and here), and he got mentioned in other contexts (mostly popes like Honorius III and Eugene III hoping for his aid during the Crusades, and the link to Ethiopia, since it was a Christian nation from early on).

The link to yesterday's post is because Eldad ha-Dani's description of the Bnei Moshe and the unusual geography where they lived was repeated in  letters supposedly sent to Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Comnenos in 1165 from "John, Christian Sovereign and Lord of Lords." The letter also referred to the Bnei Moshe Jewish group living in his land.

Belief in a Christian sect or nation south and east of Europe was bolstered by the stories of St. Thomas the Apostle traveling to India to evangelize. Europeans happily accepted the idea that Thomas' mission was successful. Reports of Christian inroads into the Mongols and Turks of Central Asia by Nestorian Christianity further supported the idea that (it was hoped) there was a large and influential Christian presence in other parts of the world.

The information in the letter also spoke of John's fabulous wealth. Like many medieval literary works, the legends got copied and conflated with others. For example, John later was given adventures taken right from the tales of Sinbad the Sailor.

Besides the fanciful stories of wealth and the exotic land in which he lived, communication with John from the West was much desired because of the possibility that he would meet up with the Crusades with a large army and help to defeat the Saracens in the Middle East. Pope Alexander II sent a letter to John via Alexander's physician, Philip, on 27 September 1177. There is no record of Philip's mission. It is possible that he simply disappeared into the wilderness while fruitlessly searching for his target, but if he did return, obviously there was no recorded result.

Examination of the letter that started it all suggests that, though it was written in Hebrew, the use of several Italian words means it was written by a European, likely someone Jewish living in Italy. Why would someone produce this? To create false hope for Christians? Just to have fun?

As forgeries go, this was a very powerful seed that sprouted into a legend that hung on for centuries. The illustration above shows Prester John on his throne from a 16th century map of East Africa made for Queen Mary.

Forgeries in the Middle Ages were fairly common, and we'll look at some starting tomorrow.

The Man Who Found the Lost Tribes

The Tribe of Dan, one of the 12 Tribes of Israel, was compared to a lion's whelp by Moses, signifying strength (Deuteronomy 33:22). Numbers 2:25-31 tells how they filled the rearguard while the Israelites marched through the wilderness, protecting the other tribes.

When the Israelites reached Canaan, the Danites were given territory in the western coastal plains, but suffered from encounters with the Philistines. They therefore looked for other lands to inhabit. Judges 18 tells that they moved far north and captured and renamed a peaceful city.

There are theories that they were one of the first of the tribes to travel so far that they were "lost." This brings us to the Jews in Ethiopia and Eldad ha-Dani. 

Eldad ben Maḥli ha-Dani was active c. 851 – c. 900, traveling all over and writing about his thoughts and theories. Besides being a merchant, he studied the different dialects he found during his wanderings, writing about them in his work, the Sefer Eldad, which has been a valuable resource for scholars of the languages used by Jews.

Outside of writing about language, his accounts are too fanciful to be taken at face value. He writes that he and a companion from the Tribe of Asher sailed on a boat that was wrecked in a storm, but God saved them in a box which then came ashore among Ethiopians who ate his much larger companion. Eldad was put in a pit to be fattened up to be eaten, but another tribe attacked the cannibals and took Eldad prisoner. After four years he was taken to a place called Azanian (theorized to be southern Africa), where he was exchanged for 32 pieces of gold to a Jewish merchant from the Tribe of Issachar.

He claimed knowledge of some of the Lost Tribes. Dan traveled to Kush (in Africa), and was later joined by Asher, Gad, and Naphtali. The four tribes were nomadic and fought constantly with the Ethiopian kings. They have the Scriptures except for the Book of Esther and Lamentations. They know the Talmud, but have none of the commentaries by Talmud scholars.

There is more, but that is enough to know that his account—although widely accepted for a few centuries—was looked at with raised eyebrows by later scholars. One of his claims, however, corresponded with a claim made in another document, and that may have created a medieval legend that would not die.

Eldad wrote that, on the other side of the river of Kush where these Jewish tribes lived, there was the Bnei Moshe, the Tribe of Levi, surrounded by the River Sambastion. Sambastion flows with sand and stones for six days and stops on the Sabbath. Fire surrounds the river, and no one can approach it. The other tribes communicate with the Bnei Moshe by yelling across the distance.

Curiously, this place is described in a different medieval story, and it ties into the legend of a powerful Christian king outside of Europe, a king that the Crusades hoped to contact and ally with during the Crusades. Tomorrow we touch on the subject of Prester John.

Beta Israel and Ethiopia

Beta Israel (Ge'ez for "House of Israel") is the name for Jews who established a presence in the Kingdom of Aksum, supposedly during the 4th century. According to a 9th-century Jewish traveler, Eldad ha-Dani, they were members of the Tribe of Dan who traveled south along the Nile to wind up in Aksum in Abyssinia (Ethiopia and Eritrea). Separated from their homeland, their traditions were different from those of Jews in the Middle East.

A Jewish-Italian traveler and Jewish scholar, Elijah of Ferrara, writes to his children in 1435 that he had encountered a member of this group. He says they follow a blend of oral and written traditions, that they did not observe Hanukkah, were not familiar with the Talmud, and that they included the Book of Esther (a later addition to the Bible that does not mention God and whose historicity has been questioned).

Around that time, Ethiopian missionaries decided to evangelize the Jewish communities in the Semien Mountains, which led to rebellion. The rebellion was dealt with brutally by Emperor Zara Yaqob (1399 - 1468), who mounted a strong campaign against any un-Christian practices. Zara Yaqob in one chronicle was given the title "Exterminator of the Jews."

The 1500s saw the Chief Rabbi of Egypt acknowledging the Beta Israel as "ethnically Jewish." It also saw the imam of the Adal Sultanate (an eastern region of Ethiopia populated by Muslims) attacking Ethiopia, forcing Emperor Dawit II to hide in the Semien Mountains. Pursuing him, the imam found the Jewish community there, who promised to be loyal to the imam if he would free them from persecution by the Christians. He did so, but later they switched their allegiance back to Dawit's son Galawdewos when he became emperor.

Revolts of the Beta Israel in 1614 and 1625 led to the successful suppression of their independence. The Jewish became forbidden in Ethiopia, and much of their culture was lost. The mid-19th century saw the beginning of "modern Ethiopia"; at the time, there were at least 200,000 Jews living there. Although there were still attempts to convert them, and questions as to how Jewish they were (compared to "mainstream" Middle Eastern Judaism), the Beta Israel community exists today.

The man who claimed they were of the Tribe of Dan traveled extensively and had many stories of the Lost Tribes of Israel in the Middle Ages. Let's see what he had to say next time.

Ethiopia's Religions, Part 3

After the Christian conversion of the Kingdom of Aksum, and before the asylum given to some of the first Muslims, there were Jews in Aksum. Referred to in Ge'ez as Beta Israel ("House of Israel"), they were Jews who refused to convert to Christianity during the time of Ezana and Frumentius.

According to tradition, the Jews rebelled against the Christians and established an independent state in the Semien Mountains, but there is no evidence to support this. There are other traditions. One of them is that a Jewish queen named Judith made an alliance with some pagans, the Agaw, and invaded Aksum's capital city, destroying churches and monasteries. Again, there is no evidence for this.

A 9th-century Jewish merchant and traveler, Eldad ha-Dani (c.851 - 900), claimed one of the 12 Tribes of Israel, the Tribe of Dan, went down the Nile and established themselves in Ethiopia. An Ethiopian Jewish community is also mentioned by both Marco Polo and Benjamin of Tudela.

The earliest recorded reference is found in the chronicles of Emperor Amda Seyon of Ethiopia, who sent troops to Semien to deal with unrest among Jews "and others." Ethiopian history and Beta Israel tradition both agree that Emperor Yeshaq (1414 - 1429) exerted pressure on Jews in Ethiopia. After the Jews rebelled against this, Yeshaq divided them into three regions with commissioners to watch over them. Jews were told to convert or lose their lands, and they were given second-class status below Christians.

Separated from Israel, Ethiopian Jews were different from the Middle Eastern brethren. A letter in 1435 by a Jewish traveler, Elijah of Ferrara, to his family tells of meeting an Ethiopian Jew. He recounts that they do not celebrate Hannukah, did not know the Talmud, and followed the Oral Torah, passed down through the generations orally.

The history of the Beta Israel had many twists and turns, and we will look at more tomorrow.

Ethiopia's Religions, Part 2

In the first part, we looked at the introduction of Christianity into what became Ethiopia during the 4th century. The Muslim presence in the area is almost as old, having fled there from Arabia very early in the 7th century while Ethiopia was still the Kingdom of Aksum.

Islam at its start was persecuted in Arabia by the Quraysh, the Arab confederation that controlled Mecca until its eventual takeover. Christian Aksum actually welcomed the asylum-seeking strangers. This event is called the Migration to Abyssinia (Abyssinia was the name for the Ethiopian and Eritrean region). Historians of Islam list two parts to this migration, a few years apart. The first was 12 men and four women in 613 or 615CE. One of the women was Ruqayyah, a daughter of Muhammad, whose husband Uthman ibn Affan became the third caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate.

A year after arriving in Aksum, word came that the Quraysh had converted to Islam, so they sailed back east, only to discover in Mecca that the Quraysh had not changed. They returned to Aksum, a group of 83 men and 18 women.

The Quraysh ruler of Mecca considered them fugitives, and sent a messenger to the Negus (ruler) of Aksum, demanding the Muslims be returned to Mecca. The Negus said he needed to hear from the Muslims before he would consider it. The Muslim spokesperson explained to the Negus that they were once a wicked people but a holy prophet rose among them who taught them to give up idolatry and worship the one true god. There was more, and it closely allied with Christian beliefs; the Negus believed their change was inspired by Jesus, and was inclined to let them stay.

Some eventually returned to Mecca in 622 and made the pilgrimage to Medina with Muhammad. But it was clear that Muslims were welcome in Aksum, and their numbers grew until they populated the Dahlak Archipelago in the Red Sea. By the 11th century they had founded the Sultanate of Dahlak. The number of Muslims grew to fill a significant part of eastern Ethiopia, eventually clashing with Emperor of Ethiopia Amda Seyon in the early 14th century, when he managed to conquer all the Muslim-population territories.

The last of the Abrahamic religions in the region is, of course, Judaism. Tomorrow we look at the Beta Israel.

Ethiopia's Religions, Part 1

Ethiopia was a fiercely Christian country in the Middle Ages, long before European colonization brought Christianity to Africa. To be fair, Medieval Ethiopia was home to all three major Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Before Ethiopia, it was the Kingdom of Aksum, in which Semitic polytheism was practiced, reaching the area from South Arabia.

Christianity is said to have begun with Frumentius and his brother Edesius. They were children who accompanied their uncle Meropius on a voyage that stopped at a port on the Red Sea, whereupon the entire crew was slaughtered except for the two young boys, who were taken to Aksum as slaves of the king.

The boys served the king faithfully, gaining position and privilege. The king gave them their freedom just before his death, but his queen asked them to stay at court and help raise the king's young son, Ezana. Frumentius taught Ezana about Christianity, and the two boys encouraged local Christian traders to practice Christianity openly so that people could learn about it.

When Ezana reached his majority, the brothers left for Tyre (their birthplace). Edesius became a priest. Frumentius stopped at Alexandria and asked the patriarch of Alexandria, Athanasius, to send missionaries to Ethiopia. Athanasius believed that Frumentius was the best person for the job, made him a bishop, and sent him back where he established his episcopal see, the first diocese in Ethiopia. This was between 328 and 346CE.

Bishop Frumentius converted King Ezana, with whose help many churches were built.

There was an early controversy when Byzantine Emperor Constantius II asked King Ezana to replace Bishop Frumentius with Theophilos Indus. Theophilos, however, was a proponent of Arian Christianity (to which Constantius was friendly). Most Christians considered Arianism heresy, so the request was turned down.

Frumentius gets credit for translating the New Testament into the local Ge'ez language, and for turning the Ge'ez alphabet from a consonant-only (abjad) version to a syllabic (abugida) version.

Next time we'll look at the almost-equally as old establishing of Islam and Judaism in Ethiopia.

Ethiopia versus Muslims, Part 2

The Emperor of Ethiopia, Amda Seyon I, was surrounded by threats from Muslims who were opposed to Ethiopia's Coptic Christianity. Each side wished to convert the other. Amda's army was able to dominate some of the Muslim territories and install governors in them, but there were others outside his control that wanted to push back against his expansion.

One of these Muslim-controlled territories was Adal to the east, between Ethiopia and the Gulf of Aden. Amda repelled their attacks. His soldiers, feeling the job was done, asked to go home. Amda, however, told them:

Do not repeat in front me what you have just said, for I will not leave so long as the ungodly Muslims make war on me, who am the King of all the Muslims of Ethiopia, and I have confidence in the help of God.

When Jamal ad-Din, whom Amda had recently installed as governor of Ifat (after a rebellion of Muslims there) also asked him to return home and ravage their countryside no more, Amda told him:

While I am attacked by wolves and dogs, by the sons of vipers and children of evil who do not believe in the Son of God, I will never return to my kingdom, and if I leave without going as far as Adal I am no longer the son of my mother; let me no more be called a man, but a woman.

So Amda led his army into Adal, where they were attacked more than once, even during the night. In one attack, an enemy got so close to Amda that from behind the enemy's sword slashed Amda's belt, but Amda spun around and killed his attacker.

Jamal ad-Din, despite being made governor after Amda defeated Jamal's brother's rebellion, allied with Adal's rebellion. Soldiers of Ifat and Adal surrounded the Ethiopian army in the Battle of Das, but Ethiopia prevailed. The Ethiopian army then marched to the capital of Adal where the rulers surrendered. He then went to Ifat and replaced Jamal with another brother, Nasir ad-Din.

Amda spent two years traveling with his army, defeating Muslim rulers and plundering their lands. This event took place around either 1329 or 1332. Amda's reign secured Ethiopian influence over the region for the next two centuries.

How did Christianity come to Ethiopia so early and become so strong? That's a good topic for next time.

Ethiopia versus Muslims, Part 1

Emperor of Ethiopia Amda Seyon (reigned 1314 - 1344) was a Christian whose constant focus was fighting the surrounding Muslims and trying to expand Christianity. This did not sit well with the Muslims. Yesterday's post (see the link above) told how he invaded the Kingdom of Hadiya and defeated its ruler, Amano, who was later killed in battle by Amda.

A prophet/advisor of Amano's escaped Amda's approach and continued to speak out against him and Ethiopia. A chronicle of Amda's reign called The Glorious Victories says:

The false prophet fled to the land of Ifat and lived there propagating his false teaching... And when Sabr ad-Din asked him for council he told him saying: "The kingdom of the Christians has now come to an end; and it has been given to us, for you will reign on in Siyon [i.e. Ethiopia]. Go, ascend [the mountains], and fight the king of the Christians; you will defeat him, and rule him together with his peoples."

This was the same disastrous advice given to Amano. Sabr ad-Din was the brother of Haqq ad-Din, ruler of Ifat who had been killed by Amda after Haqq killed one of Amda's envoys. Sabr, living under Amda's rule since his brother's defeat, confiscated some of the goods traveling with merchants to Ethiopia, causing Amda to say:

You took away the commodities belonging to me obtained in exchange for the large quantity of gold and silver I had entrusted to the merchants... you imprisoned the traders who did business for me.

Sabr's rebellion was a grandiose plan to not just shake off Ethiopia's rule, but to conquer Ethiopia completely. He boasted:

"I wish to be King of all Ethiopia; ... I will destroy their churches...I will nominate governors in all the provinces of Ethiopia,...I will transform the churches into mosques. I will subjugate and convert the King of the Christians to my religion, I will make him a provincial governor, and if he refuses to be converted I will hand him over to one of the shepherds, ... that he may be made a keeper of camels. As for the Queen Jan Mangesha, his wife, I will employ her to grind corn.

Amda Seyon  met the approaching Muslim army and scattered them. Sabr fled and hid. Amda promised not to return to his kingdom until he had found Sabr and dealt with him. The Ethiopians destroyed Ifat's capital, plundered it of anything precious, and killed many men, women, and children.

Sabr ad-Din sent a message to Amda's queen, Jan Mengesha, asking for clemency, but she upheld her husband's vow not to return until Sabr had been found and dealt with. Sabr realized the only way to end the conflict was to surrender himself to Amda. Rather than execute Sabr, Amda had him imprisoned, and then appointed Sabr's brother, Jamal ad-Din, as Amda's governor in Ifat. Jamal urged Amda to stop ravaging Ifat, and let his people rebuild so that they could send their tribute to Amda.

Amda's soldiers also wanted to return home, but Amda had other uprisings to deal with from Muslims to the east. The story of Glorious Victories continues tomorrow.

Amda Seyon I

When Christians and Muslims were burning down each other's houses of worship in Egypt during the reign of Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad (lived 1285 - 1341), the emperor of Ethiopia sent him a message: ensure the safety of the Coptic Christians, or else.

The "or else" was serious, and contained two parts. The first part was the threat to send a military legion to conquer Egypt. al-Nasir might not have balked at that: his armies were large and fierce. It was the second part that was the more serious threat: before attacking, they would divert the Nile River and cut off Egypt's greatest source of fresh water and transportation. This bold declaration came from Amda Seyon I, Emperor of Ethiopia from 1314 to 1344. Let's talk about him.

Ge'ez chronicles, the source of much of what we know about Amda Seyon, were written a century later and get some events mixed with other emperors. (Ge'ez is an ancient Semitic language.)

He was part of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, a Christian Church that existed long before European colonization. It was part of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria since the early 300s. The chief doctrine differs from Latin and Eastern Orthodox and others in that it believes in Miaphysitism, in one perfectly unified combination of the human and divine in Christ, not in two separate natures.

Most of Amda's fighting was against Muslims in the southeast in what is now Somalia, enlarging his kingdom and spreading Christianity. In one instance, after invading the Muslim Hadiya Kingdom and exiling its people, he demanded that its ruler, Amano, visit him to pay tribute. A Muslim prophet told Amano not to go and not to be afraid, because if Amda Seyon attacked, Amano would be triumphant. Quite the contrary. The angry Amda Seyon invaded Hadiya, killed many, and took Amano prisoner. Conquering Hadiya hindered the Muslim slave trade and affected Muslim wealth in that part of the world.

After giving Amda's warning to al-Nasir, the messenger on the way back to Ethiopia was captured by Haqq ad-Din I, sultan of Ifat, who was encouraged by al-Nasir to attack Ethiopia. Haqq ad-Din tried to convert the messenger to Islam; he failed, and killed the messenger. Hearing this, Amda Seyon called up his army to attack Ifat. Amada himself with only seven horsemen rode ahead of the army to Ifat and killed many of Haqq ad-Din's soldiers. The army then destroyed Ifat's capital, and Amda took much of its gold and other materials. Haqq ad-Din was killed in battle against Amda Seyon in 1328.

The prophet who had given such bad advice to Amano is credited with continuing to stir up Muslims in the region against the powerful Ethiopian Christian kingdom. This led to Haqq ad-Din's brother and successor deciding it was time to conquer Ethiopia. That is a story for next time.

Al-Nasir Muhammad, Aggressor

Once he was firmly established as Sultan of Egypt in 1310 (after two previous reigns), al-Nasir Muhammad became more aggressive to his neighbors.

For example, a few years after he began his third reign, he launched raids on the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia (now Turkey). The attacks from Egypt started by al-Nasir continued even after his reign, resulting in the fall of the Armenian Kingdom in 1375.

He also sent soldiers to enter the Mongol-controlled Baghdad, which was much sought after by several invading armies due to its cultural and educational pre-eminence. al-Nasir had sent his men to close the Baghdad bazaar because of its reputation for drinking and prostitution. The wine found by the soldiers was to be destroyed, and any women found selling their bodies were to be pardoned and told to marry as soon as possible. There were mosques in Baghdad, and al-Nasir's name was added to their prayers.

Back in Egypt, Muslims and Christians were becoming hostile to each other. Some Christian churches had been destroyed in parts of Egypt, and some mosques in Cairo were set on fire. Some Christians were arrested in the act of setting fire to buildings with rags soaked in oil.

The sultan ordered the Christian patriarch to attend him to discuss the matter. The Coptic patriarch (John IX of Alexandria) condemned the burnings. Also, word came from the emperor of Ethiopia, warning al-Nasir that Christian persecutions must stop, or else. Investigations led to the arrest of both Muslims and Christians who damaged each other's buildings.

Egypt's power was growing under al-Nasir. Envoys from Pope John XXII and King Philip VI of France came with gifts and letters, along with requests to treat Christians fairly. Philip asked to be given the city of Jerusalem and areas along the Levantine coast; al-Nasir insulted the French envoys and ordered them out of his kingdom.

The coins from his third reign were inscribed with "The Sultan King an-Nasir triumphant in faith and temporal world, The Greatest Sultan King, The Sultan King triumphant in temporal world and in faith, the one who shares with the Emir of faithfuls."

He had many children by wives and concubines. Eight of his sons became sultans of Egypt, as well as four of his grandsons. On a summer day in 1341, he went to the mosque to pray despite feeling ill and in pain, asking the preacher to give a shorter sermon. After prayers, he went back to his palace. The next day he summoned his princes and military leaders and appointed in their presence his son al-Mansur Abu Bakr as his successor, telling that if any of his descendants proved wrong for the throne, he should be removed. He was pronounced dead on 21 July.

He was a very powerful sultan in the end, and increased Egypt's power in the world, so what could the "or else" threat from Ethiopia have been? Tomorrow we meet Ethiopian Emperor Amda Seyon, who had an interesting trump card over Egypt.