Dawit I
| Dawit I ዳዊት | |
|---|---|
Ethiopian Orthodox |
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Dawit I
Reign
Early in his reign, around 1380, Dawit campaigned against
He confronted the problem of raids from the
Dawit sent an embassy to Europe, which had reached Venice by 23 June 1402, requesting that a number of artisans are sent to his domain.[7] Carlo Conti Rossini assembled the surviving documents concerning this visit in 1927, which record that five artisans departed with the Ethiopian envoy that August, but not if they arrived in Ethiopia. However, Marilyn E. Heldman found evidence of a "silver-gilt chalice" made in Venice, which, if it was the one Francisco Álvares described as seeing in Ethiopia, did reach Dawit.[8] Another possible sign of their arrival is an itinerary of a journey from Venice by Rhodes, Cyprus, Jerusalem, Cairo and Axum to the court of Preste John in Shewa. which O. G. S. Crawford dates to Dawit's reign. Crawford considers this document the "first unambiguous account of Abyssinian geography which has survived; it certainly refers to the journey of a European, and the route followed can be identified pretty accurately."[9]
A noted horseman, Dawit was killed when he was kicked in the head by one of his horses.[10] His body was interred in the monastery of St. Stephen on Daga Island in Lake Tana.[11]
Other events
The Emperor Dawit was an enthusiastic Christian. He dealt with a revolt of the
During Dawit's time atop the throne, two surviving examples of illustrated manuscripts were produced. One is a translation of the Miracles of Mary, which had been written in
Notes
- ^ a b Budge, E. A. Wallis (1928). A History of Ethiopia: Nubia and Abyssinia (Volume 1). London: Methuen & Co. p. 301.
- ^ In Ethiopian sources he is referred to as Dawit II (and all subsequent Dawits are numerated accordingly), as Dawit I is used to refer only to King David of Judah.
- ^ Kaplan, Stephen (2002). "Notes Towards a History of Aṣe Dawit I (1382-1413)". Aethiopica. 5: 74. Retrieved 29 September 2022.
- ^ Taddesse Tamrat, Church and State in Ethiopia (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), p. 255
- ^ E. A. Wallis Budge, A History of Ethiopia: Nubia and Abyssinia, 1928 (Oosterhout, the Netherlands: Anthropological Publications, 1970), p. 301.
- ^ J. Spencer Trimingham, Islam in Ethiopia (London: Geoffrey Cumberlege for the University Press, 1952), p. 74 and note explains the discrepancy in the sources; some historians pick one of the two possible dates (e.g. Paul Henze selects 1403 in Layers of Time, A History of Ethiopia [New York: Palgrave, 2000], p. 67) without even mentioning the problem.)
- ^ Salvadore, Matteo (January 2017). "The African Prester John and the Birth of Ethiopian-European Relations (Introduction)".
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 53 (1990), pp. 442-445
- Geographical Journal, 114 (1949), p. 8
- ^ James Bruce, Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 [1805 edition], vol. 2 p. 63
- ^ So R. E. Cheesman ("Lake Tana and its Islands", Geographical Journal, 85 [1935], p. 496), who visited Daga and was shown his casket, and Wallis Budge (History, p. 301). Bruce states Dawit was buried on Dek Island (Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile [1805 edition], vol. 3, p. 96); Bruce must have confused the two islands, which is easy to do.
- ^ Budge, History, p. 300.
- G.W.B. Huntingford, The Historical Geography of Ethiopia (London: The British Academy, 1989), p. 82
- ^ Jacques Mercier, "Ethiopian Art History" in Ethiopian Art: The Walters Museum (London: Third Millennium, 2001), p. 51.
- ^ Mercier, "Art History", p. 53.
Further reading
- Getachew Haile, "Documents on the History of Așé Dawit (1382-1413)", Journal of Ethiopian Studies, 16 (July 1983), pp. 25-35
- Meley Mulugetta, "A Mechanical Clock from Venice for Emperor Dawit of Ethiopia" Aethiopica 13 (2010), pp. 189-192