Church and State in Ethiopia

TLDR: Tamrat as discussed by the authors examines most aspects of both the Ethiopian state and the Ethiopian church from the supposed restoration of the Solomonic dynasty to the eve of the Muslim invasion in the sixteenth century.

Abstract: This important book offers the reader much more than the title might suggest, for it examines most aspects of both the Ethiopian state and the Ethiopian church from the supposed restoration of the supposedly Solomonic dynasty to the eve of the Muslim invasion in the sixteenth century. It is not a narrative history but a study of the functions and organization of the court, the government, the army, trade, the secular and monastic clergy, and the policy of the kings towards their Muslim and pagan neighbours and subjects. Its principal theme is the sequence of territorial conquest, military colonization, religious conversion, and eventual absorption of the population. Much attention is naturally given to the reign of Zar'a Ya'qob whose 'highest ideal' is defined as being 'the assimilation of his pagan subjects into the Christian community, and the creation of a religiously homogeneous society' (p. 238); however, 'his attempts to bring about a radical change in the religious life of his people did not bear substantial results' (p. 243). To this the author attributes the collapse of the heterogeneous kingdom before the attack of Ahmad Gran, whose disruption of the system of frontier defence is held responsible in turn for the success of the Galla. In a sense, therefore, the failure of Zar'a Ya'qob's policy is represented as decisive for the whole future history of Ethiopia. The book is, however, much more than a closely argued plea for this thesis, plausible though it may be. No one interested in any aspect of mediaeval Ethiopian history, whether political, administrative, ecclesiastical, military, ethnic or cultural, will find Dr Taddesse Tamrat's monograph unrewarding.