Christian History, World History, and the Ethiopian Literary Tradition (4th–17th Centuries)

The religious literature in Gə‘əz (ancient Ethiopic) tell us much about the ideas of the first Christians of Ethiopia. By critically investigating texts written during the Middle Ages, after 1270, fragments of the older cultural phase (fourth–seventh centuries) can be brought to light, together with the more ancient Ethiopian historiographical traditions, showing the true position of Aksum among the Christian kingdoms of Late Antiquity. Among the Ethiopians, the interest for the universal history is a later development, starting with authors like Giyorgis of Sägla (d. 1425). The golden age of this literary genre seems to be the time frame between Kings Lǝbnä Dǝngǝl (r. 1508–40) and Susǝnyos (r. 1607–32), when external challenges brought Abyssinian intellectual circles to look outside, in search for support to the Monophysite cause.