People or land · The Zagwe kingdom of Lalibela · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Christian Shewa

North of the Muslim sultanate, on the high plateau of Menz, Merhabete and their neighbours (later names), lived Christian Amhara farmers whose church had spread south from Amhara since the late first millennium.

The Shewa chronicle records that in 1128 'the Amhara' fled from the land of the Werjih, which shows Christians on the eastern edge of Shewa then. The life of Takla Haymanot places his parents, a priest and his wife, at Zorare in Shewa before about 1215, and tells how the king of Damot's raid nearly destroyed the small Christian communities as far north as the Jamma. Who ruled them in 1200 is not recorded: local lords, owing loose allegiance to the Christian king and his metropolitan.

Who holds it

Title
Local Christian lords and clergy; names not recorded
Since
Not pinned
Confidence
low

Overlord

The Zagwe king, loosely, through the church; raided by Damot in the early thirteenth century.

What it holds

  • Menz and Merhabete (later names)
  • The plateau north of the sultanate, south of the Wanchet

How things stand that morning

Christian, under local lords; loosely within the Zagwe church and realm.

Customs

Christian parishes under local lords and priests; no assemblies recorded.

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

  1. Early thirteenth century, before about 1215Damot's invasion reaches the Jamma and nearly destroys the Christian communities of Shewa.Depends on: A strong king in Damot. Stopped by: A Christian or Muslim defence of the plateau.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Hagiography of Takla Haymanot and the Shewa chronicle; nothing dated to 1200.

On the map: Rough outline between Amhara, the Abay, the sultanate and Ifat.

Primary sources for Zagwe kingdom

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

  • The Glory of the Kings, Yeshaq of Aksum (compiler) (1314 to 1322 in Ge'ez; the colophon claims an Arabic version of 1225). Nothing on events, but the ideology that unmade the Zagwe: the story that Ethiopia's rightful kings descend from Solomon and Menelik, compiled a century after 1200 to justify Yekuno Amlak's seizure of the throne in 1270 and to brand the Zagwe as usurpers. Read online
  • History of the Patriarchs of the Coptic Church of Alexandria, Mawhub ibn Mansur ibn Mufarrij and continuators (Various) (compiled in Arabic 1088 to 1094 from Coptic lives; continued for the patriarchs of 1102 to 1243 and later). The Coptic church's own record. Read online
  • The Golden Gospel of Dabra Libanos: Zagwe land grants (the acts were entered on the Gospel's blank leaves from the twelfth century onward; the Zagwe acts date from about 1150 to 1270). The only documents of the Zagwe state: grants of land and rights written into a Gospel book at Dabra Libanos of Ham in Eritrea, in the names of Zagwe kings (Tantawedem, Lalibela with his queen Masqal Kebra, Na'akueto La'ab) and their officers, with lists of estates and titles.
  • The History of the Churches and Monasteries of Egypt and some Neighbouring Countries, Abu al-Makarim (formerly attributed to Abu Salih the Armenian) (about 1177 to 1208; the core about 1200). The one Christian text written in Egypt around 1200 that looks south: it describes the kingdom of the Nubians with its king at Dongola, his churches, the eparch of Nobadia, the churches of Qasr Ibrim and the raid of Shams al-Dawla Turanshah in 1173, the kingdom of Alwa (Alodia) with its 400 churches and its capital Soba, and the Abyssinians with their king, their metropolitan sent from Alexandria, the church of Aksum and the Ark, as a Coptic churchman heard of them through the patriarchate. Read online
  • The Life of Lalibela (probably the fifteenth century, from earlier material; the date is disputed). The only narrative about the Zagwe king who reigned in 1200: Lalibela's birth at Roha, the persecution by his brother King Harbay (Harbe), his exile and marriage to Masqal Kebra, his vision of Jerusalem, his accession, the building of the rock churches with angelic help, and his abdication in favour of his nephew Na'akueto La'ab. Read online

Sources and studies

  1. Taddesse Tamrat, Church and State in Ethiopia 1270-1527 (Oxford 1972), ch. I-II (peoples of the highlands, the 'Sidama' plateau, Christian expansion into Amhara and Shewa)
  2. Wikipedia, 'Sultanate of Showa' (the chronicle's entries for 1108 and 1128)

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.