Church and State in Ethiopia: 1270 - 1527

The book by Dr. Taddesse Tamrat is an important contribution. ... In fact, the author shows his full and precise knowledge of past literature on Ethiopia, and his critical analysis of historical events is well founded on the results of recent work; but also-and this is an important novelty-he had access to hagiographical and historical documents, kept in Ethiopian monasteries, which had not previously been known to scholars. ... - Professor Enrico Cerulli, in BSOAS, Vol. 37, 1972. Once in a long while, books are written that set the standard in their discipline. Taddesse Tamrat's Church and State has been just such a book, a classic in Ethiopian historiography, unsurpassed in its painstaking reconstruction of the medieval history of Ethiopia. Few historians have used the rich historical data of the gadl literature as exhaustively and as meticulously as Taddesse has done, teasing out crucial information as only an Ethiopian versed in church traditions could do. Equally significant for the value of the book has been the blending of these Ethiopian traditional sources with the rich contemporary Arabic sources and the commentaries and analyses of such authorities as Carlo Conti Rossini. In short, what Taddesse has done through this masterly reconstruction is to blaze the trail that other Ethiopian historians have followed, a process that culminated in the growth and ripening of professional Ethiopian historiography. - Professor Bahru Zewde is the author of A History of Modern Ethiopia Professor Taddesse Tamrat's magisterial historical work Church and State in Ethiopia, 1270-1527, documents the rise and expansion of a new dynasty in highland Christian Ethiopia and the simultaneous growth of Ethiopian monasticism as an intellectual and cultural force. Based upon a broad range of primary sources previously either unknown or not utilized, this book remains the essential text for the history of the highland Christian state of Ethiopia during the period of its development as the dominant state in the Horn of Africa. This seminal work established the historical foundation for subsequent studies in the history of highland Ethiopia, including specialized cultural and historical analyses of theology, music and religious art. - Professor Marilyn E. Heldman is the author of African Zion: The Sacred Art of Ethiopia

Taddesse Tamrat (1935-2013) was an Ethiopian historian and scholar of Ethiopian studies. He is best known as the author of Church and State in Ethiopia 1270-1520 (1972, Oxford University Press), a book which has "dominated the field of Ethiopian studies". He was born in Addis Ababa into "a family of Ethiopian Orthodox Church intellectuals" and received an education through the traditional system of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, where he was ordained as a deacon. As a young man he studied at Holy Trinity School, but his father insisted that he study at a more traditional church school to properly learn the Ge'ez language. He returned to Addis Ababa and graduated from Haile Selassie I University with a BA in history in 1962. Following that, he received a scholarship to the School of Oriental and African Studies in London where he earned his doctorate in history. As a student there, he presented a seminar paper "Some notes on the fifteenth century Stefanite 'heresy' in the Ethiopian Church", which on the advice of his mentors Roland Oliver and Edward Ullendorf was submitted to and published in Rassegna di Studi Etiopici, his first article published outside of Ethiopia. It demonstrated his rich grounding in traditional Ethiopian Orthodox sources and his interaction with the broader academic world. He taught history at Haile Selassie I University, which became Addis Ababa University after the 1974 revolution. He became the director of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies at the university and was active in the organizing the meetings of the International Conference of Ethiopian Studies. He received the Medal of Honor at the Colège de France and was named an Honorary Fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies. The Manuscript Department of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies was named in his honor. He and his wife of 45 years, Almaz, both died within a year of each other in the USA.