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Ethiopian emperor Na'od, the second son of Baeda Maryam I and his second wife Kalyupe (also called "Calliope"), was born at Gabarge.
Like Eskender before him, he relies on the counsel of the Queen Mother Eleni.
Despite her help, his reign has been marked by internal dissension.
Na'od has begun construction on a lavish church in the Amhara province, which was decorated with gold leaf and known as Mekane Selassie.
However, he dies before it is completed— killed near Jejeno (possibly Mekane Selassie) while campaigning against Muslim forces—and he is buried in a tomb inside the church.
Ethiopia had sought in the early fifteenth century to make diplomatic contact with European kingdoms for the first time since the Aksumite era.
A letter from King Henry IV of England to the Emperor of Abyssinia survives.
In 1428, the Emperor Yeshaq had sent two emissaries to Alfonso V of Aragon, who sent return emissaries.
They failed to complete the return trip.
The first continuous relations with a European country begin in 1508 with Portugal under Emperor Dawit II (Lebna Dengel), who had just inherited the throne from his father, Na'od.
The Empress Mother Eleni, although she is well into her seventies, had stepped in to act as her step-great-grandson's regent.
The daughter of the King of Hadiya, Eleni had converted to Christianity upon marrying Zara Yaqob.
Although the Portuguese historian Baltazar Téllez wrote that she had no children, in some manuscripts of Francisco Álvares's The Prester John of the Indies, a male relative of Lebna Dengel who escaped from Amba Geshen is described as her son, according to the translator but not the original text.
With his own mother Tsion Mogasa dead, Emperor Baeda Maryam I had given Eleni the title of Queen Mother.
She proved to be an effective member of the royal family; Paul B. Henze comments that she "was practically co-monarch" during his reign When Eskender succeeded his father Emperor Baeda Maryam I, at first Empress Eleni was pushed out of power by the Bitwoded Amda Mikael.
However, around 1486 she had participated in a palace coup that led to his deposition and execution, and Queen Eleni hereafter had played a leading role in the Emperor's government, which continues into the reign of Emperor Na'od.
Alvarez was told by the Abuna Marqos, that upon Emperor Na'od's death in combat "he and Queen Eleni made him [Lebna Dengel] King, because they had all of the great men in their hands" This statement points to the power Eleni wields.
Likewise Eleni, understanding the increasing threat that Ethiopia faced from the growing Ottoman influence in the region, dispatches Mateus (an Ethiopian of Armenian origin, also known as Matthew the Armenian) as an ambassador to the King of Portugal and the Pope in Rome, following the arrival of two Portuguese at Ethiopia in search of Pêro da Covilhã in 1508.
These envoys, including priest João Gomes, João Sanches, and Sid Mohammed, had been sent by Tristão da Cunha in 1506.
Having failed to cross Malindi, they had returned to Socotra, from where Afonso de Albuquerque managed to land them in Filuk, arriving in Shewa, Ethiopia.
They are killed or disappear on their return journey.
Mateus, is sent to the Portuguese in India transporting a pious letter from Eleni to king Manuel I of Portugal and a piece of the True Cross.
He travels with his wife, brother-in-law, and servants.
Ethiopian ruler Fasilides orders the deportation of Portuguese diplomats and missionaries in 1650.
During the reign of Emperor Fasilides (1632–1667), Ethiopia entered a period of restoration and stabilization following the turbulent religious conflicts triggered by his predecessor, Emperor Susenyos. Fasilides decisively expelled the Jesuits and European Catholic missionaries whose presence had previously provoked widespread unrest, firmly reestablishing Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity and reducing European influence in the empire. His policies significantly reshaped the religious and political landscape, reaffirming central imperial authority and fostering a renewed sense of Ethiopian sovereignty and identity.
To secure the Solomonic monarchy against internal challenges, Fasilides reinstated the ancient practice of confining royal family members to remote mountaintops, isolating potential rivals and minimizing dynastic conflicts. Recognizing the symbolic importance of historic religious and cultural sites, he notably undertook the reconstruction of the Cathedral of Axum, which had been devastated by the forces of Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi a century earlier, signaling both religious revival and imperial continuity.
Fasilides also established a new and lasting capital at Gondar, which rapidly developed from a royal encampment into a major political and cultural hub. Under his direction, Gondar became the focal point of an artistic and architectural renaissance, exemplified by grand palaces, elaborately decorated churches, and public structures combining indigenous Ethiopian styles with foreign architectural influences. This "Gondarine" cultural flourishing extended well beyond his reign, influencing Ethiopian art and architecture for over a century.
Yet, despite his substantial achievements, Fasilides was unable to fully reverse the decentralization of power that had taken place during the previous decades of religious strife and Oromo incursions. The nobility, having gained considerable autonomy and economic power, particularly in peripheral regions of the empire, retained substantial independence, limiting the full extent of the emperor's centralized authority. This decentralization set a lasting political precedent, shaping the Ethiopian imperial structure into a complex network of semi-autonomous regional rulers under nominal imperial oversight.
Yohannes acts harshly towards Europeans due to the violent religious controversy that Catholic missionaries had caused in Ethiopia under the reign of his grandfather Susenyos.
He convokes a church council in 1669 in Gondar, directing Gerazmach Mikael to expel all of the Catholics still living in Ethiopia; those who do not embrace the beliefs of the Ethiopian Church are exiled to Sennar.
His reign sees the execution of six Franciscans sent by Pope Alexander VII to succeed in converting Ethiopia to Catholicism where the Jesuits had failed thirty years before.
Yohannes favors Armenian visitors, whose beliefs also embrace Miaphysitism, and are in harmony with the Ethiopian Church.
These include one Murad, who undertakes a number of diplomatic missions for the Emperor.
Iyasu confronts an invasion of the Yejju and Wollo Oromo into Amhara in the second year of reign, defeating them at Melka Shimfa.
The northern expansion of the Oromos such as the Yejju and, in particular the Arsi, to ethnic Somali and Sidama territories mirrors the southern expansion of Amharas, and helps to influence contemporary ethnic politics in today’s Ethiopia.
Iyasu I (reigned 1682-1706) of Ethiopia, a celebrated military leader who excels at the most basic requirement of the warrior-king, campaigns constantly in districts on the south and southeast of the kingdom and personally leads expeditions to Shewa and beyond, areas from which royal armies have long been absent.
Iyasu also attempts to mediate the doctrinal quarrel in the church, but a solution eludes him.
He sponsors the construction of several churches, among them Debre Birhan Selassie, one of the most beautiful and famous of the churches in Gondar.
Iyasu's reign also sees the Oromo begin to play a role in the affairs of the kingdom, especially in the military sense.
Iyasu co-opts some of the Oromo groups by enlisting them into his army and by converting them to Christianity.
He comes gradually to rely almost entirely upon Oromo units and leads them in repeated campaigns against their countrymen who have not yet been incorporated into the Amhara-Tigray state.
Successive Gondar kings, particularly Iyasu II (reigned 1730-55), likewise rely upon Oromo military units to help counter challenges to their authority from the traditional nobility and for purposes of campaigning in far-flung Oromo territory.
By the late eighteenth century, the Oromo are playing an important role in political affairs as well.
At times during the first half of the nineteenth century, Oromo is the primary language at court, and Oromo leaders will come to number among the highest nobility of the kingdom.
The most important political figure in Ethiopia during the reign of Iyoas (reigned 1755-69), son of Iyasu II, is Ras Mikael Sehul, a good example of a great noble who makes himself the power behind the throne.
Mikael's base is the province of Tigray, which by now enjoys a large measure of autonomy and from which Mikael raises up large armies with which he dominates the Gondar scene.
In 1769 he demonstrates his power by ordering the murder of two kings (Iyoas and Yohannes II) and by placing on the throne Tekla Haimanot II (son of Yohannes II), a weak ruler who does Mikael's bidding.
Mikael continues in command until the early 1770s, when a coalition of his opponents compels him to retire to Tigray, where he eventually dies of old age.
Mikael's brazen murder of two kings and his undisguised role as kingmaker in Gondar signal the beginning of what Ethiopians have long termed the Zemene Mesafmt (Era of the Princes), a time when Gondar kings are reduced to ceremonial figureheads while their military functions and real power lies with powerful nobles.
During this time, traditionally dating from 1769 to 1855, the kingdom no longer exists as a united entity capable of concerted political and military activity.
Various principalities are ruled by autonomous nobles, and warfare is constant.
James Bruce, a Scottish traveler who lives in Ethiopia from 1769 to 1772, describes some of the bloody conflicts and personal rivalries that consume the kingdom in his five-volume Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile.
During the most confused period, around 1800, there are as many as six rival emperors.
Provincial warlords are masters of the territories they control but are subject to raids from other provinces.
Peasants often leave the land to become soldiers or brigands.
In this period, too, Oromo nobles, often nominally Christian and in a few cases Muslim, are among those who struggle for hegemony over the highlands.
The church, still riven by theological controversy, contributes to the disunity that is the hallmark of the Zemene Mesafint.
After the mid-nineteenth century, the different regions of the Gondar state will be gradually reintegrated to form the nucleus of a modern state by strong monarchs such as Tewodros II, Yohannes IV, and Menelik II, who will resist the gradual expansion of European control in the Red Sea area and at the same time stave off a number of other challenges to the integrity of the reunited kingdom.
The Emperors become figureheads, controlled by warlords like Ras Mikael Sehul of Tigray, Ras Wolde Selassie of Tigray, and by the Yejju Oromo dynasty, such as Ras Gugsa of Yejju, which later leads to nineteenth-century Oromo rule of Gondar, changing the language of the court from Amharic to Afaan Oromo.
Traditionally, the beginning of this period is set on the date Ras Mikael Sehul deposes Emperor Iyoas (May 7, 1769), and its end to Kassa's coronation as Emperor Tewodros II (February 11, 1855), having defeated in battle all of his rivals.
Some historians date the murder of Iyasu the Great (October 13, 1706), and the resultant decline in the prestige of the dynasty, as the beginning of this period.
Others date it to the beginning of Iyoas's reign (June 26, 1755).
During the Zemene Mesafint, various lords come to abuse their positions by making Emperors and encroach upon the succession of the dynasty, by candidates among the nobility itself: for example, on the death of Emperor Tewoflos in 1711, the chief nobles of Ethiopia fear that the cycle of vengeance that had characterized the reigns of Tewoflos and Tekle Haymanot I (1706–1708) will continue if a member of the Solomonic dynasty is picked for the throne, so they select one of their own, Yostos, to be King of Kings (nəgusä nägäst).
However, the tenure of Yostos from 1711 to 1716 is brief, and the throne comes into the hands of the Solomonic house once again.
The population of Gondar is estimated to have exceeded sixty thousand during the seventeenth century.
Many of the buildings from this period survive, despite the turmoil of the eighteenth century.
Gondar has acquired a sense of community identity by the reign of Iyasu the Great: when the Emperor calls upon the inhabitants to decamp and follow him on his campaign against the Oromo in Damot and Gojjam, as had the court and subjects of earlier emperors, they refuse.
Although Gondar is by any definition a city, it is not a melting pot of diverse traditions, nor Ethiopia's window to the larger world, according to Donald Levine.
"It served rather as an agent for the quickened development of the Amhara's own culture. And thus it became a focus of national pride... not as a hotbed of alien custom and immorality, as they often regard Addis Ababa today, but as the most perfect embodiment of their traditional values." (Donald N. Levine, Wax and Gold: Tradition and Innovation in Ethiopia Culture (Chicago: University Press, 1972), p. 42).
As Levine elaborates in a footnote, it is an orthogenetic pattern of development, as distinguished from an heterogenetic one.