Description

By (author) Krebs, Verena

Short /annotation:

This book explores why Ethiopian kings pursued long-distance diplomatic contacts with Latin Europe in the late Middle Ages.

This book explores why Ethiopian kings pursued long-distance diplomatic contacts with Latin Europe in the late Middle Ages. It traces the history of more than a dozen embassies dispatched to the Latin West by the kings of Solomonic Ethiopia, a powerful Christian kingdom in the medieval Horn of Africa. Drawing on sources from Europe, Ethiopia, and Egypt, it examines the Ethiopian kings’ motivations for sending out their missions in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries – and argues that a desire to acquire religious treasures and foreign artisans drove this early intercontinental diplomacy. Moreover, the Ethiopian initiation of contacts with the distant Christian sphere of Latin Europe appears to have been intimately connected to a local political agenda of building monumental ecclesiastical architecture in the North-East African highlands, and asserted the Ethiopian rulers’ claim of universal kingship and rightful descent from the biblical king Solomon. Shedding new light on the self-identity of a late medieval African dynasty at the height of its power, this book challenges conventional narratives of African-European encounters on the eve of the so-called ‘Age of Exploration”.

Table of contents:
1. Introduction .- 2. All the King”s Treasures .- 3. The Sons of Dawit .- 4. The Rule of the Regents .- 5. King Solomon’s Heirs .- 6. Conclusion.

Review quote:

“Verena Krebs offers a fresh look at medieval Ethiopia by re-examining the encounters with Latin Europa in the late medieval period. … The interest of the Ethiopian kings, to anticipate a major insight of the book, aimed at gathering valuable items such as attire, relics, and craftsmanship for representative … . Verena Krebs is to be congratulated on this book. … The readers are waiting eagerly for a follow-up study which the author has already been announcing.” (Endale Haile Fereja, Archa Verbi – Yearbook for the Study of Medieval Theology, Vol. 19, 2022)

“Krebs has made a compelling, original, and well-argued case for the motive explicated here. … she is the first to treat it comprehensively … offer a fascinating and contextually based theory as to why. Finally, her focus on the Solomonic perspective in Ethiopia’s wider relations, and her interrogation of the legacies of scholarship born in earlier eras, are interventions of relevance beyond this study’s immediate subject. Any future reflection on these matters will have to take this book into account.” (Samantha Kelly, Aethiopica, Vol. 25, 2022)

“Medieval Ethiopian Kingship, Craft, and Diplomacy with Latin Europe is a masterful evaluation of varied sources detailing Ethiopian diplomatic relations with the Latin West. … The book is certain to illuminate a fascinating history of the politics of aesthetics and collecting valued objects among the privileged and the elite of medieval Ethiopia.” (Earnestine Jenkins, African Studies Review, Vol. 66 (3), September, 2023)

“The book stands as an excellent synthesis overall. … This well-researched account of Ethiopian diplomatic activity constitutes an important work which well serves not only historians, art historians, and philologists interested in Solomonid Ethiopia, but also non-Ethiopianists interested in a ‘global’ approach to the Middle Ages, and in particular those who might be interested in comparative studies of Christian monarchical ideology.” (Felege-Selam Solomon Yirga, The Catholic Historical Review, Vol. 109 (4), 2023)

“The monograph seeks as a whole to offer a balanced portrayal of Ethiopian – European diplomatic missions at a time when the ties between the Horn of Africa and Europe were increasing. … In this Krebs has succeeded, and one can well imagine th