6

The Nubian and Ethiopian Response

Little Nubian and Ethiopian contemporary evidence survives which illuminates what either kingdom thought of the events in the Holy Land or that explicitly connects them directly to any of the Latin Christian expeditions in any great depth. Instead, most of what can be surmised comes from Latin Christian texts or the developing fear of a possible grand Christian alliance which is insinuated in some Muslim accounts. Given Muslim Egypt’s increasing preoccupation with Dotawo throughout the period in question, conflicts between Dotawo and Egypt should not necessarily be viewed in isolation of events elsewhere, however. Geopolitical perceptions could be just as potent as actualities. Similar to other Eastern Christian groups, there are no sources to suggest that either Nubians or Ethiopians adopted any crusading ideology or mentality akin to the Latin Christians. Yet, that is not to say that they were not affected by the broader regional geopolitics caused by the crusading movement. This chapter aims to contextualise the histories of Dotawo and Ethiopia between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries within a regional dimension which was not isolated from the arrival of the Latin Christians and the establishment of the Crusader States. No surviving texts directly relate that increased Muslim aggression towards Nubia was a direct consequence of the Crusaders’ actions, but, as will be discussed here, some associations are insinuated, and many coincidental events took place that allow for a reframing of a narrative from a wider geopolitical regional perspective and should not be as readily dismissed as they currently are in scholarship. Ethiopia, on the other hand, appears to have avoided much open dispute with Egypt until the fourteenth century when its new Solomonic rulers began to reposition Ethiopia as the dominant north-east African Christian power.

As early as within a decade of the capture of Jerusalem in 1099, ʿAlī ibn Ṭāhir al-Sulamī wrote a treatise that characterised the Latin First Crusade as a wider Christian jihād against the Muslims but, importantly, one that began with the Norman conquest of Sicily in the 1060s.¹ This Muslim ideology of crusading situated the Crusades within a broader Christian versus Muslim narrative. The question ‘who was perceived to be a Crusader?’, at least in the eyes of the Latin Christians, has already needed to be redefined in account of the images of Nubian ‘crusaders’ in manuscripts of Marino Sanudo’s Liber secretorum, particularly given its primary intended audience of Pope John XXII, as discussed in the previous chapter. Very little scholarship has focused on Eastern Christian intellectual understanding of Latin crusading as a concept except for Byzantine concepts of holy war.² Current evidence restricts us from making any judgements on the understanding of either the Nubians or the Ethiopians regarding the notion of crusading, either of its ideology or its practicality. Nevertheless, some elements may be able to be extrapolated. For example, for the period prior to the Crusades, it has been argued that the Ethiopian tradition knew nothing of contemporary Latin Rome and only of the New Rome of Constantinople.³ Yet, it is worth mentioning that Eastern Christians have been argued by Christopher MacEvitt to have transferred Roman identity from the Byzantines to the Latin Christians during the Crusades.⁴ Presumably, this would likely have been the case for Ethiopians and Nubians too. In the case of Nubia, following Alexandros Tsakos’ analysis of Old Nubian external toponyms, it seems likely that the Nubians did view Constantinople through the same cultural lens as other Eastern Christians.⁵ Did, then, this transferal of the identity of the ‘true’ Romans also occur in Nubia? Evidence is too limited to draw any definitive conclusions, and comparative Ethiopian evidence is currently elusive.

If the arrival of the Latin Christians did have a similar influence on Nubian and Ethiopian discourses akin to other Eastern Christian groups, it would underpin a new intellectual importance of Latin Europe in place of Byzantium which should not be overlooked when discussing Nubian-Latin Christian and Ethiopian-Latin Christian relations. For instance, apocalyptic discourses which concerned the meeting of a ‘Roman’ and ‘Ethiopian’ emperor would now concentrate attention on the power of Latin Europe, or a specific Latin Christian ruler, rather than Byzantium or its emperor. A Latin Christian would therefore become a desired political ally if the situation required if diplomacy was to be inspired by apocalyptic narratives. However, whilst such narratives were certainly in circulation in Ethiopia by the fourteenth century – such as in the Kəbrä nägäśt and the text of Pseudo-Shenoute – and were invoked in later Ethiopian-Latin Christian diplomatic correspondence, current Nubian evidence is limited. That said, Nubians were unlikely to have existed in an intellectual vacuum in relation to apocalyptic narratives when these texts appeared throughout Christendom in Latin, Greek, Coptic, Syriac, Arabic, Gəʿəz, and Armenian, to name just a few languages.⁶ Despite the current absence of evidence, it remains possible that discourses which used the figure of the ‘Roman’ ruler to frame the image of the Nubian ourou circulated within Nubia, which would portray any engagement with the Latin Christians as evidence of Nubian worldly authority. Certainly, the significance of the submission of ‘Rome’ to Ethiopia became an important motif in Solomonic Ethiopian texts, such as in the gaḍl of Yemreḥanna Krestos, specifically to emphasise Ethiopian orthodoxy.⁷ Whilst Muslim texts do not explicitly link Eastern Christians with the Latin Christian crusading endeavour, the fear of fighting Christian alliances increased. Such Egyptian fears first manifested their actions towards Nubia, first by the Ayyūbids and then later by the Mamlūks. Contextualising this relationship within a broader geopolitical arena offers a new perspective on this period of the history of Dotawo. Ethiopia, on the other hand, largely maintained a peaceful relationship with Egypt between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. Solomonic Ethiopia’s success at remaining largely unchallenged in its adoption of elements of Nubian identity rested on this contrasting experience of both Dotawo and Ethiopia.

The Twelfth Century

Since the arrival of the Fāṭimids in Egypt in 969, the relationship between the Fāṭimids and the Nubians was largely peaceful until periods of increased tension began to appear in the twelfth century. The Fāṭimids were acutely aware that amicable relations with Nubia were vital for economic prosperity, especially for a steady gold supply.⁸ Contemporary texts are largely absent of conflict until the 1170s, but according to later writers, an unknown Nubian ourou was said to have marched on Egypt as early as 1107–8.⁹ There is no evidence that any Nubian expedition was connected to the recent arrival of the Latin Christians, but such an event would come to epitomise what Egypt became to fear: a coordinated Christian attack. Egypt notably began to increase its defences in the direction of its southern neighbour. For instance, in c. 1154, the Egyptian vizier offered Usāmā ibn Munqiḍh the fief of Aswan so that he could explicitly defend Egypt’s southern border against encroaching al-Ḥabaša (الحبشة) and promised to supply him with men for the cause. Ibn Munqiḍh’s use of al-Ḥabaša would appear to be an error for Nubians given the proximity of Aswan to the border with Dotawo, and there are no other indications that Ethiopians were actually in open conflict with Egypt at this time.¹⁰ Indeed, al-Maqrīzī’s early fifteenth-century history about the Fāṭimids later noted that in 1161 ‘the King of the Nubians’ (malik al-Nūba: ملك النوبه), who can be identified as Moüses Georgios, marched against Aswan with 12,000 horsemen and massacred a great multitude of Muslims.¹¹ No Nubian source corroborates this, but in light of Ibn Munqiḍh’s text, both authors may be reflecting the same period of conflict. The fact that the former ourou Georgios IV had died in Egypt in 1157 may not be representative of a narrative of peace, especially as Moüses Georgios had been on the throne since 1155 and identified himself as the nephew of one ourou David. It remains unclear whether Georgios, who ascended the throne in 1132, preceded or succeeded this otherwise unknown David I, but it would appear that Moüses Georgios’ self-association with David, rather than Georgios, may suggest that the former had been politically exiled to Egypt and was not necessarily there by choice.¹² Significantly, Moüses Georgios reigned until the 1190s and oversaw a key period in Nubian-Egyptian relations.

Before continuing, it would be worthy to note here a key reason for the seeming disparity in references to Nubian-Egyptian conflict in comparison to Ethiopian-Egyptian conflict. Importantly, the difference between Dotawo’s and Ethiopia’s relationship with the Coptic patriarch may be significant. Unlike in Ethiopia, which required each new abun to be sent from Egypt, Nubian rulers could anoint their own bishops. Beyond patriarchal subordination, Egypt had little leverage over Dotawo in this regard. Ethiopia, on the other hand, witnessed multiple Coptic patriarchs withholding the sending of a new abun. Significantly, this dynamic could also result in patriarchs emphasising their authority over the Ethiopian ruler, as was the case in 1235 during the patriarchate of Kyril III ibn Laqlaq upon the latter’s succession.¹³ How this contrasting relationship between the Nubian, Ethiopian, and Coptic Churches may have actually affected their respective affairs towards the Muslims of Egypt is not overly clear. However, during the 1140s, Bǝg^wǝna desired more consecrated bishops from Egypt but their requests were met with Egyptian fears that they would then become disobedient if they were given scope for religious autonomy.¹⁴ Even though this request was eventually granted, the emphasising of the power dynamic between Egypt and Ethiopia can clearly be witnessed fairly early during the crusading period. That is not to say that this event was related to the presence of the Latin Christians in the Holy Land but Ethiopia’s need for maintaining positive relations with Egypt was both political and religious. Dotawo, on the other hand, had no similar limitation and therefore could be perceived as being potentially more likely to become hostile by the Muslim Egyptians.

There is no direct evidence linking any of the early conflicts between Nubia and Egypt with the arrival of the Latin Christians, but they certainly did not heed the slow fostering of an increasing Muslim fear of being surrounded by Christian alliances from an early date. Certainly, Nubia was more than capable of being a notable threat, with evidence also indicating that Dotawo had a navy which may have been able to traverse the cataracts in addition to having the ability to field sizeable armies.¹⁵ That said, there is no evidence of a Nubian naval assault against Egypt, neither via the Nile nor along its Red Sea coast. Notably, any period of conflict between Dotawo and Egypt in the early 1160s coincided with no less than five Latin Christian expeditions to Egypt throughout the decade, including resulting in a Latin Christian garrison being stationed in Cairo for a year in 1167–8. Despite the lack of contemporary texts discussing any further Nubian-Egyptian conflict which occurred alongside the Latin Christian expeditions, the description of the Christian Nubian king being in conflict with the Muslims by Richard of Poitiers in relation to 1172 may actually reflect an increasingly strained regional situation and not simply have been merely an exaggeration of the believed affairs of a ruler that the Crusaders had become newly acquainted with.¹⁶ Whilst there may have been no direct evidence of any budding relationship between Dotawo and the Latin Christians, a continual set of coincidental events certainly provided Muslim authors with reason to fear even the slightest possibility of a Nubian-Latin Christian alliance. Indeed, such insinuations began to be voiced following one striking event which occurred in 1168/9.

Muslim chroniclers describe an alleged coup led by Nubian slave soldiers in Egypt in response to the installation of Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn as vizier.¹⁷ The coup was launched, or at least co-organised, by the Commissioner of the Caliphate, who was a Nubian eunuch and the muqaddam of the Sūdān, due to Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn oppressing court officials and instigating a broader anti-Sūdān policy in the army.¹⁸ Strikingly, the commissioner was said to have sent a messenger to King Amalric to have the Latin Christians attack Egypt and march on Cairo where the commissioner’s men would aid their expedition to overthrow Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn. The messenger was caught on his way, however, supposedly on account of having new shoes which were in stark contrast to his otherwise ragged clothes. Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn soon learnt of this plot and had the commissioner killed, initiating a revolt by the Nubian soldiers and other elements of the army against his men. These events only served to initiate Ayyūbid fear of a potential alliance between the Latin Christians and the Nubians, though there is no Latin Christian or Nubian evidence attesting to any connection to the uprising, the letter, or its aftermath. Yet, a desire to reach out to the Latin Christians by the Nubian regiments of the Egyptian army is not out of the realm of possibility. It would be most likely that the attempted alliance with the Crusaders in this instance may have been building on interactions with the Frankish garrison which was stationed in Cairo during 1167–8. It should be highlighted, however, that these Nubians were not acting on behalf of Moüses Georgios of Dotawo. Nevertheless, Nubian-Latin Christian cooperation in any form could pose a potentially significant threat to Egypt.

In addition to documenting this event, Ibn al-Athīr offers yet further detail. Despite incorrectly dating the uprising to 1174, he explicitly stated that the Sicilian fleet which attacked Alexandria in August 1174 was in direct response to the attempted allying with Amalric – Ibn al-Athīr also includes the ruler of Sicily, William II (r. 1166–89), too – by the revolters.¹⁹ Almost nothing is known about the Sicilian fleet from Latin Christian sources, which has led to Michael Fulton questioning the scale of the assault when viewed within the context of the desire to glorify Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn’s victories in the descriptions of the episode found in Muslim texts.²⁰ Indeed, Sicily was lamented by Latin Christian contemporaries for offering little support to the Kingdom of Jerusalem, such as by William of Tyre.²¹ The absence of Latin Christian references likely reflects the failure of the fleet, not least due to the failed arrival of the army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem following the death of Amalric en route. However, Ibn al-Athīr’s direct association between the Nubian conspirators and a Latin Christian attack attests to the very real belief of the possibility of a Nubian-Latin Christian alliance regardless of the question of the size of the Sicilian fleet of 1174. Moreover, these events should also be viewed amidst a series of activities. Whilst a direct connection is not attested in any source, the decision by Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn to send his brother, Tūrānšāh, to raid Nubia in 1172–3 may also be significant. According to some accounts, the raid was designed to acquire land for a safe retreat if Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn was pushed out of Egypt by Nur ad-Dīn from Syria. For others, the raid was in response to a Nubian force harassing the Aswan region which also contained some of the former slave soldiers who were ousted following the events in Cairo in 1168/9.²² There is no evidence, however, which would suggest that any Nubian force was anything other than a local militia, rather than a more coordinated effort organised by Moüses Georgios, or at least by a regional official acting on his behalf, such as the eparch. Whatever the reason, a Muslim garrison was left at Qasr Ibrim for about two years and temporarily turned its church into a mosque. The importance of the raid differs in accounts too. Later writers who wrote following Mamlūk aggression towards Dotawo a century later, such as Ibn al-Furāt, with the benefit of hindsight, consider the 1172–3 expedition to be just a raid (غارة, ghāra), with the later events of 1275, which will be related later in this chapter, being the real attempt at an Egyptian conquest (فتح, fatḥ) of Dotawo.²³ That said, Abū Šāma, writing before the later Mamlūk successes, did call Tūrānšāh’s invasion a fatḥ, suggesting that at least some observers considered the initial expedition to be a serious attempt to gain land in Lower Nubia.²⁴ Moreover, according to Abū Šāma, Tūrānšāh expressly rejected an offer of peace from the ourou before the Nubians ultimately retook Qasr Ibrim, further emphasising that this was not intended to be a fleeting raid.²⁵ Nubians were also party to the uprising of the Kanz al-Dawla of Aswan in 1174, as he gained the following of local Nubians, Arabs, and other communities.²⁶ Many of which had relocated to the border region following the demolishing of their residences in Cairo by Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn after the 1168/9 uprising.²⁷ Once more, these Nubians were not acting on behalf of Dotawo, but it is not difficult to see how conclusions could be drawn in the belief, whether rightly or wrongly, of the potential desire of Nubians and Latin Christians to ally if circumstances allowed in the eyes of those in Egypt, especially if the rhetoric employed by Ibn al-Athīr became a very real reality. In this context, it may not be insignificant that the Latin Christian presence on the Red Sea was also amongst Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn’s earliest targets. Whilst this may have been due to geographical proximity, it may be notable that Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn focused primarily on potential Nubian and localised Latin Christian threats, seemingly in a united fashion, from the outset.

No Nubian textual sources survive detailing any of these events. There is, however, a wooden plaque which may be viewed as representative of this set of conflicts. This Nubian plaque was found at Attiri, south of Qasr Ibrim, and dates to the second half of the twelfth century. It depicts a dismounted military saint on one side with a protection prayer in Old Nubian to St. Epimachos on the reverse.²⁸ Giovanni Vantini first argued for possible Crusader influences in the plaque, though this has subsequently been repeatedly dismissed by others.²⁹ Given the wider political setting of Nubia during the plaque’s creation, this issue should be readdressed in light of other arguments presented in this book. Not only may the plaque be viewed in relation to the turmoils with Egypt, but it may also represent tentative links to the Latin Christians, specifically through its artistic design. The depiction of the saint does not imitate other Nubian paintings of military saints, who are normally depicted with a spear, and not a sword. Moreover, the armour is not indicative of Nubian imagery and, on the face of it, particularly with the cross on the chest and the wearing of chainmail is more closely akin to Latin Christian styles.³⁰ Włodzimierz Godlewski has argued that the plaque came from a local Nubian workshop along with five other examples.³¹ Regrettably, the other four plaques associated with this one, do not reflect similar artistic designs to draw comparisons, further highlighting the plaque’s uniqueness. However, the plaque’s unique style has yet to be adequately explained. It may even be possible that the plaque was initially obtained outside of Nubia and then inscribed with the prayer upon its owner’s return. Further material analysis of the plaque will surely pose many more answers and, indeed, questions. Whether the plaque is of local or foreign production, or a mixture of both, does not detract from its cultural significance in terms of emphasising the desire for protection in light of the situation with Egypt. It would be too speculative to draw too many conclusions from it alone, but it certainly deserves a reassessment given the much wider historical context in which it should be viewed.

Following the retreat of the Egyptian force, Dotawo braced itself for further conflict. The defensive wall at Qasr Ibrim was rebuilt in the late twelfth century, whose Roman foundations – the last garrison of which withdrew in the late third century CE – still provided the structure for its defensive architecture and had been allowed to largely crumble away.³² Such an act is also significant as fortifications across Nubia often acted primarily as refuge centres for surrounding populations, rather than as protection for a permanent urban population within their walls.³³ The timing of the defensive upgrade would appear deliberate.³⁴ Similarly, elsewhere in Nubia witnessed an increased appearance of so-called ‘castle-houses’ which offered greater protection for local communities from attacks with examples dating to between the twelfth century and the end of the Christian kingdom. This new defensive two-storey house type, which was only accessible from above, was particularly prevalent in the region between Qasr Ibrim and south towards Ferka, indicating a period of increased hostility.³⁵ Furthermore, although Jay Spaulding has highlighted the lack of evidence that the Baqṭ – the diplomatic exchange of gifts between Nubia (Makuria/Dotawo) and Egypt established since 652 – was always an annual exchange, it is still notable that the subsequent period between 1171 and 1269 witnessed tensions due to the Baqṭ not being received.³⁶ It would appear most likely that none of these events should be viewed in isolation. Whether Dotawo had any desire to play an active role in these wider regional affairs cannot be directly evidenced, yet it is clear that Muslim authors began to express fears that this may have been the case. By the end of the thirteenth century, following the arrival of the Mamlūks this association, whether warranted or not, would begin to have a detrimental effect on Dotawo.

In contrast, almost nothing is known of the international affairs of the so-called Zagʷe dynasty in Ethiopia. Unlike Dotawo, Ethiopia appears to have had little conflict with Egypt during this same period, with the exception of the aforementioned reluctance of the Coptic patriarch to send a new abun during the 1140s. Importantly, the Egyptian fear appears to have been centred on Zagʷe internal politics and not due to any fear of encouraging relations with the Latin Christians, however. In general, relations between Bǝg^wǝna and Egypt, as far as the surviving evidence suggests, were largely peaceful. The late fifteenth-century gadl of the twelfth-century ḥaḍe Yemreḥanna Krestos even relates how he wrote to the Sultan of Egypt to request a door made from the tree of Libanos which the sultan had in his palace. Although the door was to be used for the nəguś’ ‘House of God’, the sultan sent it immediately once he saw the amount of gold on offer.³⁷ Despite the noted issues surrounding the later production of the gadl within a Solomonic context, as previously highlighted, it would appear representative of the primarily positive relations between twelfth-century Bǝg^wǝna and Egypt. Indeed, at the turn of the thirteenth century, the History of the Patriarchs records how Lalibäla (r. c. before 1204–after 1225), Yemreḥanna Krestos’ cousin, sent an embassy containing exotic animals and gold gifts to the Egyptian sultan in 1209. Significantly, Lalibäla was additionally depicted in a position of strength, which would suggest that the embassy appears to have been an act of friendship, rather than an act of fealty or organised out of a position of necessity from a position of weakness.³⁸ Beyond Egypt, there is evidence of conflict between Bǝg^wǝna and the Muslims residing towards the Red Sea during the reign of Yemreḥanna Krestos’ uncle, Ṭanṭawǝdǝm. A land grant to the church at Ura Mäsqäl in Təgray invokes his own victory over neighbouring Red Sea Muslims.³⁹ There is no indication that this conflict had any connection with events beyond the kingdom’s immediate vicinity. Whilst Nubia appears to have been increasingly brought into the regional geopolitics of the Crusades by the turn of the thirteenth century irrespective of the known intentions of Dotawo, Ethiopia appears to have remained removed from any connection, whether real or imagined, by external commentators.

The Thirteenth Century

Until the 1270s, sources are quiet on Nubian-Egyptian affairs. Yet, the evidence of the development of more defensive structures in the Nubian archaeological record would suggest that tensions and at least a fear of conflict continued into the thirteenth century. In fact, little is known about Nubia in the textual record during this period other than descriptions of a raid by a people known as the Damādim, who resided south of Alwa towards the Swahili coast, in 1220.⁴⁰ The sources’ silence, especially in the Nubian record, may reflect the possibility that Dotawo was also not immune to regional disasters which focused attention internally. The effects of the Nile floods, whether too high or too low, for example, should not be underestimated for their effects in Nubia when compared to Egypt. Current scholarship has largely focused on their significance to Egypt, yet 9% of anomalous floods between 1180 to 1350, including three consecutive anomalous floods between 1230 and 1233, likely had devastating impacts on Nubia based on their recorded effects in neighbouring Upper Egypt and especially Aswan, causing famine and disease.⁴¹ This is likely also the case for other natural events, such as the devastating regional earthquake recorded in 1202 by external writers.⁴² Regrettably, current knowledge of the scope and role of such events in Dotawo remains relatively little.⁴³ Regarding 1202, however, as has already been suggested, the arrival of the Nubian ‘king’ in Constantinople in 1203, who is most likely identifiable as Moüses Georgios, may have some connection to the failed floods and the earthquake inspiring the journey, possibly in part or in whole. The choice of Moüses Georgios to perform a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and supposedly to Rome and Santiago de Compostela, via Constantinople, would suggest a figure who was not ignorant of the wider world, regardless of any other aims he may or may not have had during his journey. If so, can, or indeed should, any of the other events which occurred during his prior reign be viewed within a broader context? No definitive answers are available, but his reign marks an important period for our study despite a prolonged period of silence in the sources regarding Nubian external affairs for the majority of the thirteenth century.

Repeated devastation from currently unattested natural phenomena, including possible plague outbreaks, in the Nubian corpus may help explain why Dotawo appears to disappear from wider regional affairs for the majority of the thirteenth century, especially if such disasters focused Nubian attention on internal matters. However, it should also be noted that successive dynastic disputes and territorial losses in Syria for the first half of the thirteenth century similarly focused Egyptian eyes elsewhere, likely limiting desires for additional conflict with Dotawo or even Egyptian interest in affairs across its southern border in general. This state of affairs changed with the rise of the Mamlūks in 1250 who again provided Egypt with stability and a foundation to rebuild its military strength. Neither Dotawo nor the Latin Christians would escape the attention of the Mamlūks. In the case of Dotawo, for reasons unknown, ourou David II (r. c. 1268–c. 76) was said to have launched an expedition to the Red Sea port of ʿAidhāb in 1272 and another expedition to Aswan in 1275. Despite the lack of Nubian evidence, Giovanni Vantini even went as far as to posit that ourou David’s attack on Aswan was in some way connected to a Nubian role in the Second Council of Lyons in 1274.⁴⁴ However, there is no suggestion of any attempt by the Latin Christians to ally with the Nubians in the surviving sources of the council. Any role that the Latin Christians may have had in these events has been categorically rejected by Effie Zacharopoulou, who has argued that this increased Mamlūk attention was part of a wider Mamlūk strategy and not specifically linked to the Crusaders in any form.⁴⁵ Linking these events directly with the Second Council of Lyons would be circumstantial, yet they should still be contextualised together. These attacks ultimately led to Mamlūk retaliation, which led to David’s imprisonment in Cairo and the Mamlūk-supported installation of Šekanda/Maškouda on the throne of Dotawo in 1276.⁴⁶ David was said to have been captured by the Mamlūks with the aid of Adūr of al-Abwāb (who is described as a malik in the Arabic sources), a new Nubian splinter state centred around the fifth cataract region of the Nile – possibly as far north as Abu Hamed or as far south as the confluence of the Atbara River with the Nile – as David attempted to flee.⁴⁷ Little else is known about al-Abwāb, but it notably was where the sons of the previous ourou of Dotawo, Murtaškar, had been exiled after David had overthrown their father in c. 1268. Undoubtedly, they would have used any leverage they may have had in al-Abwāb to seek their own retaliation against David once the opportunity arose.

From the Mamlūk perspective, it is worth noting how Mamlūk conflict with Dotawo largely avoided overlap with conflict with the Crusader States which finally fell in 1268 (the Principality of Antioch), 1289 (the County of Tripoli), and 1291 (Acre, the last stronghold of the Kingdom of Jerusalem), respectively. A treaty between the Mamlūks and the fleeting Latin Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem based now at Acre signed in 1283 required the Latin Christians to inform the sultan of any new expedition launched from Latin Europe with at least two months’ notice for a period of ten years.⁴⁸ In turn, the Mamlūks were able to initially focus solely on Dotawo following the capture of ourou David. Prior to the fall of Tripoli and Acre, multiple Egyptian expeditions were launched into Nubia throughout the 1280s, signifying an ever-increasing Mamlūk interest towards their southern borders prior to their final assaults on the remaining Crusader States in 1289 and 1291.⁴⁹ Coincidently or otherwise, avoiding parallel conflicts was achieved by the Mamlūks. Towards the end of the truce period, the claim of Sultan Qalāwūn that he was the ‘Sultan of the Nubians’, which he clarified as ‘the [former] land of King David’ in a treaty with Alfonso III of Aragon in 1290, as mentioned in the previous chapter, can be viewed as a surviving example of Mamlūk attempts to undermine any lasting Latin Christian belief that an alliance with Dotawo, particularly if they had received encouraging signs from ourou David, would be fruitful or even still a possibility.⁵⁰ The increased Mamlūk aggression towards Dotawo in the late thirteenth century and throughout the fourteenth century needs to be contextualised within wider regional conflict. It would appear that the consistent Mamlūk attention awarded to Dotawo was targeted and should take into account the Latin Christians’ regional presence and subsequent Mamlūk geopolitical strategy, despite the lack of tangible Nubian evidence confirming any interest in Latin Christian affairs which could have ignited or fuelled Mamlūk fears.

Ethiopia, on the other hand, with the exception of the brief tensions caused by the arrival of the Ethiopian monk Thomas in Jerusalem between 1237–9 or 1241–2, who wished to be ordained by the Jacobite patriarch rather than the Coptic patriarch, appears to have been on relatively good terms with thirteenth-century Egypt. This was especially true with the Mamlūks around the turn of the fourteenth century as the new Solomonic rulers of Ethiopia sent multiple embassies to Cairo in the early decades of their rule. Whilst some threatening rhetoric could occasionally be employed in such exchanges, such as the Ethiopian claim that it could cut off the flow of the Nile to Egypt, no open conflict materialised during this period.⁵¹ Yǝkunno ʾÄmlak (r. 1270–85), the first of the Solomonic dynasty, particularly, even appears to have actively attempted to surrender his newly gained authority to the overlordship of the Mamlūk sultan in 1274/5 in return for aid against the ousted Zag^wes and their supporters, though the sultan remained uninterested in developing this new power dynamic.⁵² Despite subsequent Ethiopian-Mamlūk correspondence not employing similar subservient rhetoric, nevertheless, these close ties at the turn of the fourteenth century are epitomised by the role of the Mamlūk sultan as the mediator for the delivery of Yagbeʾä Ṣəyon’s (r. 1285–94) letter to the Ethiopian community in Jerusalem in 1290.⁵³ Regarding the Latin Christians, Taddesse Tamrat explicitly claimed that the Crusades would hardly have been unknown to the Ethiopians and that it was only the kingdom’s relative weakness until the fourteenth century that prevented any coordination if it was ever desired.⁵⁴ Yet, even well into the fourteenth century despite its growing power and regional presence, Ethiopia was able to maintain a position of distance from the geopolitical tensions to its north and continued to openly express little interest in such matters involving the conflict between the Nubians, Egyptians, and the Latin Christians regardless of its own expanding regional presence, particularly during and following the reign of ʿÄmdä Ṣǝyon (r. 1314–44).

The ‘Ethiopian’ Embassy of 1300–c. after 1314

Within this context, one key event that repeatedly appears in scholarship should be reviewed. It has long been said that an ‘Ethiopian’ embassy had been received in Western Europe in 1306, primarily based upon a description given in 1483.⁵⁵ Giacomo Filippo Foresti da Bergamo, an Augustinian monk, whose Supplementum chronicarum had provided the evidence for this supposed embassy, was said to have taken his account from the now lost works of Giovanni da Carignano (d. c. 1329–30) who had supposedly interviewed the members of the embassy during their stay in Genoa while on their home journey sometime before his death.⁵⁶ Yet, the attribution of this embassy to Ethiopia is misplaced, not least due to the absence of Ethiopian evidence for any such embassy. The lack of Ethiopian evidence has led to Verena Krebs describing the embassy as a ‘phantom’ embassy or even suggesting that its participants were instead Nubian – a suggestion we will build upon here.⁵⁷ Following Kreb’s recent reanalysis, the publication of the Ystoria Ethyopie portion of a larger work by Galvaneus de la Flamma entitled the Cronica universalis (wr. before 1345), has threatened to create new debates as it further attests to an ‘Ethiopian’ origin of the embassy. Significantly, this more contemporary text also references Carignano as its source and dates the embassy to between 1300 and 1314–30, though with no confirmation of the date of 1306 for their arrival to Iberia or any greater specificity on the date of their return home before Carignano’s completion of his text before his death.⁵⁸ Prior to the publication of this text, which is held in a private collection, the only known comparable reference to an embassy in near-contemporary sources was said to have arrived in Rome in 1351. Problematically, it was only described as an embassy sent from ‘Prester John’ by John of Hildesheim (wr. c. 1375) and only appears in some versions of his History of the Three Kings. The relevant text which includes this reference is found in a manuscript written in 1413 which is located in Brandenburg but does not explicitly state a Nubian identity. That said, it does appear between discussions of Prester John and Melchior, both of which are identified as Nubian in other versions of John of Hildesheim’s text.⁵⁹ An error in the attribution of the date of 1351 may be likely, as the papal court had resided in Avignon at this time and not Rome since 1309; unless, of course, the embassy did not for some reason know about the papacy’s relocation to Avignon or had another intended audience. Even if we accept, as a result of the knowledge of the Ystoria Ethyopie, that an embassy was received in Western Europe prior to the 1402 Ethiopian embassy which arrived in Venice, does it necessarily follow that the embassy was from Ethiopia at all? To date, the embassy has hitherto been viewed as an event related to the first period of Ethiopian-Latin European relations, rather than within the narrative of possible Nubian-Latin Christian relations.⁶⁰

A mid-to-late fourteenth-century Italian forgery of a letter, which was addressed to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV supposedly from the Ethiopian nəguś Wǝdǝm Räʿad (r. 1299–1314) – called Voddomaradeg in the letter – about launching a new, joint crusade, has provided the apparent conclusive proof in scholarship that the embassy was indeed Ethiopian, as Wǝdǝm Räʿad would have ruled during the time of the supposed embassy.⁶¹ Yet, the letter was a clear forgery: whilst Wǝdǝm Räʿad was the nəguś at the time of the embassy, Charles IV did not reign until between 1355 and 1378.⁶² The creator of the forgery could readily have learnt about Wǝdǝm Räʿad in the second half of the century as other Latin Christians, as we will see, similarly learnt of the reign of ʿÄmdä Ṣǝyon. It should be highlighted that Galvaneus de la Flamma’s text, which we will discuss in detail next, associates the embassy with ʿÄmdä Ṣǝyon, again suggesting that the Ethiopian identification given to the embassy by Latin Europeans, and especially Carignano, post-dated the actual event itself. Regrettably, Carignano’s actual text does not survive, and the map that he drew was destroyed during World War Two, leaving only relatively poor photocopies to analyse. Even more problematically, the portion of the map where Ethiopia should be located was already badly damaged prior to the photographing. Nevertheless, it should be again emphasised that the map contains a reference to the Terra Abaise, not Ethyopia like in the Ystoria Ethyopie.⁶³ The later identification of the embassy as Ethiopian purposefully overlooks Nubia. A reanalysis of the Ystoria Ethyopie further supports that a radical new contextual look at the embassy needs to be undertaken.

Let’s begin our discussion of the Ystoria Ethyopie with elements of the text which could be ascribed to both Nubia and Ethiopia. The attribution of many subservient sub-kings under the ‘Ethiopian’ ruler (62 Christian kings and 12 Muslim kings), whilst being reflective of Ethiopia, is also indicative of a confused understanding of the political structure of Nubia, such as the employment of regional eparchs. Importantly, this embellishment may just have been an attempt to connect the Nubians of the embassy and the Nubian Prester John, whose narrative of being a ‘king of kings’ was well established. The text further explains that the lack of contact between Latin Europe and Nubia was due to the positioning of the Muslims of Egypt and the vast deserts (deserta maxima) between them.⁶⁴ These deserts would be much more descriptive of Nubia than the generally greener land of highland Ethiopia, though, of course, this relies on a sustained degree of accuracy in the text and an absence of geographical rhetoric. The same passage says that the journey took many weeks ( pluribus septimanis). Nubia had long been described as being 20 days’ journey from Egypt since the late twelfth century, with any specificity to the meaning of ‘many’ being unable to be made.⁶⁵ A longer journey could easily have occurred for many reasons, and it is important to state that no similar distances were in circulation for Ethiopia, as far as the contemporary sources suggest. Furthermore, the noting of the annual tribute from the sultan to the ruler of ‘Ethiopia’ in the Ystorie would again reflect an understanding of the Baqṭ between Nubia and Egypt, which had no equivalent in Ethiopian-Egyptian relations.⁶⁶ All of these features of the text, however, may just as readily have been embellishments and not reflective of any accurate detail concerning Ethyopie whatsoever.

One troublesome reference in the Ystoria Ethyopie is the belief that Ethyopie had a pope.⁶⁷ Whilst the role of Ethiopia’s abun could have been misconstrued to be a papal-like figure, it had long been known that both Nubia and Ethiopia were subject to the Coptic patriarch and therefore not residences of popes. Dotawo had no comparative high singular religious office, but as the rulers were viewed as priest-kings and held the power to ordain bishops, the authority wielded by the ourou may have portrayed the idea of a powerful religious figure that had been interpreted as a separate pope. It should also not be discounted that this information was simply fabricated by Carignano and does not reflect the reality of what the ‘Ethiopian’ informants of the embassy supposedly told him in Genoa. The statement in the Ystoria that ‘Ethiopia”s patriarch, named as Preytzan, accepts the Roman pope and would readily obey him is clearly an embellishment in line with similar statements made in contemporary texts about Nubians, such as in Burchard of Mount Sion’s itinerary and the crusade treatise of Het̕um of Corycus.⁶⁸ No contemporary texts make similar statements about Ethiopia prior to the 1340s. Additionally, the naming of the patriarch of ‘Ethiopia’ as Preytzan (Prester John) does not necessarily associate the text with Ethiopia either. As has been previously discussed, Prester John was readily placed in Nubia by the early fourteenth century. Moreover, the Ethiopian noble greeting of žanhoy, noted by Alessandro Bausi and Paolo Chiesa as the possible etymology of this name in their publication of the Ystoria Ethyopie, had long informed Latin Christians of an Ethiopian ruler named ‘John’ almost 150 years earlier and should not be viewed as confirming the embassy’s supposed Ethiopian identity, especially as a result of any misunderstanding of the language of the individuals of the embassy themselves.⁶⁹ The importance of Carignano’s attempts at consolidating his details of the embassy and his subsequent knowledge of the territorial expansions of ʿÄmdä Ṣǝyon, which coincided with the increasingly wider attribution of Prester John to Ethiopia in Latin Christian discourse from the mid-fourteenth century, should not be understated when viewing the manipulation of the text by Carignano, which will now be discussed.⁷⁰

The passage regarding the original ‘Ethiopian’ letter to the king of ‘Spain’ (Yspanie) is also more suggestive of a Nubian origin for the embassy when viewed within the comparative documented interactions of Nubia and Ethiopia with Iberia.⁷¹ Based on the notice regarding his death, the Spanish king in question would appear to have been the King of Castile and León, Ferdinand IV (d.1312). The act of sending a letter to the ‘king of Spain’ would have occurred with no previously known contact between Ethiopia and any Spanish kingdom prior to this embassy and an isolated incident before aṣe Yǝśḥaq’s engagement with Alfonso V of Aragon in 1427–8.⁷² Nubians, on the other hand, not only had political motivations, which will be discussed momentarily, but also operated within an attested pilgrimage network to Spain at Santiago de Compostela, as already noted, whilst an otherwise unknown Beneseg from Provence was in Dongola at some time between c. 1250 and 1350.⁷³ Comparative evidence for Ethiopians is currently lacking and Ethiopians are not explicitly noted as having any desire to visit the shrine before 1430.⁷⁴ Equally, following their journey to the papal court at Avignon, the ambassadors were said to have travelled to Rome before their appearance in Genoa where they encountered Carignano, and intended to go on further to Santiago de Compostela before returning home, yet no certifiable contemporary reference to Ethiopians at these locations is known.⁷⁵ With the exception of Genoa, this route is also notably similar to that supposedly desired to be undertaken by the aforementioned unnamed Nubian king encountered by the Fourth Crusaders in Constantinople in 1203. Their appearance in Genoa is not necessarily unusual either. A reference to some Genoese being present in Dongola appears in the late fourteenth-century Libro del conoscimiento, for example.⁷⁶ A Genoese presence in Nubia, and thus a reason to want to travel to Genoa, if this may be backdated to earlier in the century too, would also appear better suited to and be more reflective of Nubian, rather than Ethiopian, connections if, indeed, Genoa was not just simply on the route they travelled and had no other significance. The latter of which has no surviving acknowledgement in the sources. Indeed, the Ystoria suggests that the ‘Ethiopian’ embassy set out following the arrival of a number of Genoese to ‘Ethiopia’ in 1290, which the text associates with the famous Vivaldi brothers and their two ships of over 600 Christians and clergy.⁷⁷ There is no evidence that the ships reached beyond somewhere in West Africa at the furthest, but it is clear that the interactions between ‘Ethiopians’ and Latin Christians were increasingly becoming narrated as more formalised encounters. Most importantly, they were intended. ‘Ethiopians’ were not simply merely witnessed from a distance.

The ‘Ethiopians’ of the embassy supposedly informed Carignano how the Virgin Mary, the Apostles Peter and Paul, John the Baptist, Paul the Hermit, Saints Antony and Macarius, and ‘all the apostles’ were being particularly worshipped by the ‘Ethiopians’. Once again, this statement is no evidence for a positive attribution to Ethiopia either, even if Nubian evidence for large-scale reference of some of these figures is currently scant.⁷⁸ The Marian cycle of literature, specifically the Miracles of Mary, is well attested in Ethiopia (the Täʾammərä Maryam (ተዓምራተ፡ማርያም)), but it was translated from Arabic only during the reign of Däwit II (r. c. 1379–1413), with the high point of Ethiopian veneration of Mary only occurring during the reign of Däwit’s son, aṣé Zärʾä Yaʿǝqob (r. 1434–68), who centred some of his religious reforms on the veneration of Mary, especially in paintings.⁷⁹ The survival of Nubian literature is in no way comparable to that of Ethiopia, so a specific Nubian textual veneration of Mary similar to the Täʾammərä Maryam cannot be ascertained. However, Mary was a central figure in Nubian Christianity in all echelons of society, from the laity to the monarchy throughout the period in question and commonly occurs as a protector in contemporary Nubian paintings.⁸⁰ The requirement to predate Ethiopia’s corpus of Marian literature based solely on this contested Latin Christian text of the embassy cannot possibly be justifiably sustained based on the known corpus.

Similarly, Nubia appears to have had an affinity with the other figures listed, even if it is sometimes unclear to what extent. It is unfeasible to provide every instance of these figures in Nubian painting, literature, or associations with religious buildings, both those in Nubia and those outside with a documented Nubian presence, not least on account of the absence of complete catalogues for such things. That said, a few illustrative examples will be given here. For instance, the apostles occur in various contexts in Nubian art: commonly beside Jesus, the ruling ourou, or the archangel. Sometimes they are depicted in situ with the central figure, whoever that may be, possibly as protectors or giving blessing, but sometimes they are also removed almost like observers. Nevertheless, they are there.⁸¹ Equally can be said specifically of St. Peter, as he appears alone protecting Bishop Petros in a late tenth-century painting from Faras cathedral, for example.⁸² The function of these figures may also illuminate why these specific figures were mentioned in the Ystoria Ethyopie, as protection would have been a particularly valued virtue. The association of many of these figures with cathedrals, churches, and monasteries, especially prominent ones such as Peter and Paul at Faras, should also not be overlooked for the importance of these figures within Nubian culture.⁸³ Regarding John the Baptist, at least one known possible painting of him of unknown date is housed at the Sudan National Museum, whilst a segment of a hymn praising him, dating to the eleventh century, was found at Qasr Ibrim, seemingly indicating interest in the key biblical figure despite otherwise limited evidence.⁸⁴ Likewise, whilst Nubian literature regarding Antony and Macarius is not known in the surviving record, their presence at the monastery of Antony and Macarius on the Red Sea was noted by external visitors.⁸⁵ Given Nubia’s connections with monasteries throughout Egypt, it would also be possible, if not likely, that Nubians would also have worshipped at the cave church of St. Paul the Hermit on the Red Sea, though direct evidence is lacking. This is also to say nothing of the repetition of these names given to Nubians, and their possible cultural importance, throughout the centuries.

A Nubian identification of the embassy is further supported by the listing of the last figure named for the ‘Ethiopians” devotion: the eunuch of Queen Candace on account of him being the first bishop amongst them.⁸⁶ Bausi and Chiesa argue that this tradition of locating the queen in Ethiopia, despite historically being a Nubian, had a long historical precedent within Latin Christendom prior to the fourteenth century.⁸⁷ However, as presented throughout this book, references to ‘Ethiopia’ in Latin and Greek discourse prior to the fourteenth century cannot be uncritically attributed to Ethiopia. Moreover, without a specifically identifiable Ethiopian toponym, such as ʾAksum, alongside the Ystoria Ethyopie’s Ethyopia, its identification with Nubia is much more likely. More importantly, no Ethiopian or Latin Christian evidence exists for Ethiopia’s association with Queen Candace in dialogue with Latin Christians until Ethiopians claim her legacy at the Council of Florence in the early 1440s.⁸⁸ Even the explicit erroneous connection of ‘Candace’ (Hǝndakē) being the title of the Ethiopian Queen of Sheba in the Kəbrä nägäśt cannot be convincingly evidenced to have been disseminated to Latin Christians prior to the production of the Kəbrä nägäśt.⁸⁹ Moreover, as discussed in Chapter 1, many Nubian elements feature within that text which cannot be attested before its translation and incorporation into Ethiopian political and religious culture. Surviving evidence for Ethiopia’s active exporting of this narrative to Latin Europe does not date to before the fifteenth century.

Other elements of the Ystoria Ethyopie are also potentially suggestive of a true Nubian origin for the embassy. For instance, the ‘Ethiopians’ also supposedly informed Carignano on the ‘Ethiopian’ use of the Trinity in relation to baptism. Whilst we currently have no evidence for this specific practice in Nubia for comparison, it can be said that the invocation of the Trinity repeatedly features in Nubian texts, both of a religious and secular nature, including seemingly in coronation oaths, and appears in church toponymy and in art, thus further contesting any assumed depiction of Ethiopian practices in the Ystoria.⁹⁰ The text’s description of clothing, too, would equally depict Nubian clergy. Paintings from medieval Nubian churches and cathedrals show bishops and deacons wearing tippets. Maniples are also depicted, albeit rarely and being held rather than on the arm, as the text of the Ystoria describes.⁹¹ Similarly, the Ystoria Ethyopie’s reference to the churches being covered in the purest gold (auro purissimo) has a Nubian precedent. Bausi and Chiesa attribute this largely to exaggeration, though it should be noted that the tenth-century Muslim historian of Nubia, Ibn Sulaym al-Aswānī, who travelled throughout Nubia during his writing, noted how the churches were full of gold in relation to the city of Soba in Alwa.⁹² Additionally, multiple Muslim writers commented on how the Muslims captured 4640.5 dinars worth of gold crosses and 8660 dinars worth of silver objects from the Nubian church of Sus (Jesus) in Dongola when it was destroyed in c. 1276 on account of ourou David building it using Muslim slaves originally captured from his raid at ʿAidhāb.⁹³ This particular church appears to have held a significant draw for visitors and may also be connected to landholdings in Nobadia, further emphasising the wealth of its holdings and its notoriety.⁹⁴ Moreover, the abundance of gold in Nubia, more generally, is well-known and was commonly mentioned by contemporaries, including, for example, al-Aswānī.⁹⁵ The statement in the Ystoria Ethyopie, therefore, would readily apply to comparative descriptions of Nubian churches. In contrast, little is known about Ethiopian gold church decoration prior to the expansive building projects of the fifteenth century where seeking material decoration for these new churches became increasingly politically and culturally important, as it came hand in hand with military expansion. Whilst various forms of gold ornamentation are mentioned in the sources for some fourteenth-century Ethiopian church decoration, such as the royal church of Atronsä Maryam, we are limited in projecting this image far back into the early fourteenth century.⁹⁶ Once more, Nubia has the greater contemporary evidence for an identification of the embassy.

Another description in the Ystoria Ethyopie relates that ‘Ethiopia’ had a white flag with a red cross, which was also said to have had a red star in each quadrant. As noted by Bausi and Chiesa, all Ethiopian evidence for any flag depictions post-date the text by at least two centuries.⁹⁷ Yet, this description is also more suggestive of a Nubian identification in light of other Latin Christian texts. Unhelpfully, the flags drawn in the late fourteenth-century Libro del conoscimiento, which was known for its many heraldic depictions of supposed ‘national’ flags, for both Nubia and Ethiopia are depicted with similar black cross-shaped insignias on their ‘flags’ (a two-armed black cross on a white background for Nubia and a black cross on a white background for Ethiopia), but none with additional stars as described by the Ystoria Ethyopie.⁹⁸ However, the cross-shaped insignia on Carignano’s own map, which may be presumed to also have been white and red given the black and white photograph, similar to the red and white flags depicted for Nubia on the Catalan Atlas (1375), is laid over Nubia, rather than Ethiopia (Carignano’s Terre Abaise).⁹⁹ Furthermore, the Nubians depicted in near-contemporary manuscripts of Marino Sanudo’s Liber secretorum (first presented to Pope John XXII in 1321) are depicted with red flags with a white cross, but, more importantly, some manuscripts incorporate additional white crosses in each quadrant, or white flags with a red cross, all of which are strikingly reminiscent of the design described by the Ystoria Ethyopie, albeit with inconsistent colouring.¹⁰⁰ It may also be noteworthy that Carignano and the closest similarly depicted version of this flag in the Sanudo manuscript held in Florence were all geographically confined to working in northern Italy, possibly sharing artistic influences to depict such similar flag designs. In comparison, no similarly styled flags are attributed to Ethiopia prior to the Libro.

The naming of the title of the ‘Ethiopian’ ruler in the Ystoria Ethyopie is the key evidence which supports the suggestion that the embassy’s attribution to Ethiopia was of a later date and cannot date to before 1314 at the earliest , long after the embassy had already arrived in Western Europe. According to the text, the ruler was known as the ‘slave of Christ’s cross’ (sclavus crucis Christi).¹⁰¹ This is an understanding of an Ethiopian royal title – Gäbrä Mäsqäl (ገብረ፡መስቀል), ‘Servant of the Cross’, the title of ʿÄmdä Ṣǝyon (r. 1314–44). Importantly, it was not a title held by Wǝdǝm Räʿad, the supposed Ethiopian ruler who had sent the embassy. Bausi and Chiesa note that earlier attestations to this title, such as to Lalibäla and multiple ʾAksumite rulers, do exist.¹⁰² Yet, Latin knowledge of more immediate Ethiopian rulers sharing this title appears non-existent. Indeed, there is no evidence that neither Wǝdǝm Räʿad nor his five immediate predecessors who reigned between 1294 and 1299 also held this title. In contrast, however, Latin authors did become acquainted with ʿÄmdä Ṣǝyon and his use of the title in other fourteenth-century texts. The first intake of developed knowledge of Ethiopia in Latin Europe coincided with the territorial expansion of ʿÄmdä Ṣǝyon as news of his exploits reached afar. ʿÄmdä Ṣǝyon was still influencing the Latin Christian understanding of Ethiopia even in the decades following his reign, such as in the case of the Ethiopian ruler being named as Abdeselib – via the Arabic translation (ʿAbd aṣ-Ṣalīb) of Gäbrä Mäsqäl – in the Libro del conoscimiento at the end of the century as previously noted.¹⁰³ It is not surprising, therefore, that the embassy would later become erroneously associated with Ethiopia, the kingdom of ʿÄmdä Ṣǝyon. It is notable, too, that on Carignano’s own map, the ruler known as Senap, or ‘servant of the cross’ (servus crucis), is located clearly in Nubia, possibly indicating how news of ʿÄmdä Ṣǝyon’s activities originally simply built on the Latin Christian narrative of Nubia, including the embassy’s identity.¹⁰⁴ After all, news of a regional Christian power would have been presumed by the Latin Christians to have been Nubia, rather than the more obscure ‘Abyssinia’, especially by any embassy associated with ‘Ethiopia’, until proven otherwise. Moreover, according to the Ystoria Ethyopie, the sultan allowed the ‘Ethiopians’ to travel to the Holy Sepulchre for no fee out of fear of repercussions and as a result of paying a tribute.¹⁰⁵ Notably, later versions of this narrative which do attribute it to the Ethiopians, such as by Niccolò da Poggibonsi in his mid-fourteenth-century itinerary, who further related how the sultan allowed this out of fear that the Ethiopians would unite with the Latin Christians, importantly coincide with or post-date the reign of ʿÄmdä Ṣǝyon.¹⁰⁶

If the evidence of the Ystoria Ethyopie would point towards a Nubian identification of the embassy, what can be said of its Nubian context? Regarding the identity of a likely candidate for the Nubian initiator of the embassy, evidence is unclear as to whether the embassy would have more likely been sent by Georgios Simon, who first appears as ourou in the 1280s, or by ourou Ayāy (r. c. 1287?–1311). Contemporary Old Nubian land sales from Qasr Ibrim reveal the continued economic and political power of the Eparch of Nobadia – a certain Gourresi – even after he switched support from the ourou to the Mamlūk invaders in 1286.¹⁰⁷ Without the support of the influential eparch, Georgios Simon grip on power quickly faded. Indeed, according to Ibn ʿAbd aẓ-Ẓāhir (d. 1292), Georgios Simon appears to have been overthrown by a ruler named Budemmah who was reigning in 1290–2. Ibn Khaldūn, writing later in the fourteenth century, noted that Ayāy succeeded Georgios Simon, but admitted that he was unsure if he was a direct successor or if there was an intermediate ruler in between.¹⁰⁸ Ibn Khaldūn makes no mention of any ruler named Budemmah. Certainly, presuming that Georgios Simon was not killed after being overthrown, he had motive to seek aid to reclaim his throne away from the Mamlūk-supported Ayāy. Muslim sources are certainly suggestive of this possibility. For instance, Ibn al-Wardī (d. 1348) states that Ayāy’s appearance in Cairo in 1304 was in order to ask for unspecified aid, with the Egyptian sultan duly despatching an army for the cause.¹⁰⁹ It remains possible that the need for this aid was in response to either a sustained rival claim by the deposed Georgios Simon or another rival claim. Perhaps significantly, Ibn al-Furāt (d. 1405) equally noted that Georgios Simon only ruled up until the early 1290s, but did not state his successor’s name or the reason for his rule ending, whether by death or from being deposed.¹¹⁰ In 1292, two Nubian embassies were sent to the Mamlūk court to apologise and be pardoned for the unnamed ourou – seemingly either Budemmah or Ayāy – after not being able to fulfil the Baqṭ payment. The second embassy was led by the ourou’s brother, called al-Bursī, and the eparch Gourresi. The failure to pay was blamed on the aftermath of devastation experienced by Dotawo since the Mamlūk’s invasion and also increasing incursions led by Adūr of al-Abwāb, likely the same who had helped capture ourou David for the Mamlūk sultan in 1276, if not a successor with the same name.¹¹¹ This would suggest that a period of instability of unknown length following Georgios Simon ousting would have provided the necessary encouragement for an attempt to retake his throne and also further indicates a clear pro- and anti-Mamlūk divide between contenders for the throne, with Georgios Simon being of the latter disposition. This would also explain Ayāy’s need and request for aid from Egypt in 1304.

Unlike the rapid successions in Ethiopia prior to Wǝdǝm Räʿad, which appear to not have brought too much dynastic instability, it remains possible that multiple Nubian rulers were vying for power as death dates during this period remain unclear. The embassy to Spain was said to have been sent in 1300, which would suggest that the embassy should be viewed as being uncoincidental to these dynastic crises. Given that we remain unaware of Georgios Simon date of death, it is possible that the embassy to Spain was sent by him as he continued to contest Ayāy’s power. Ayāy’s relations with Egypt would indicate that he would have been unlikely to have sent embassies to both the king of Yspanie and the Mamlūk sultan concurrently. Due to the inconsistencies in the Muslim texts and having little Nubian corroborating evidence to offer a definitive identification for a contemporary ourou, multiple Nubian protagonists for the embassy remain a possibility. In any case, the political situation in the 1290s would have presented a Nubian ruler with the context to desire to reach out to others, possibly building on budding relations with the Latin Christians. Certainly, the presence of the earlier Latin Christian missions to Nubia, such as that of Brother Vasinpace (before 1267), and the letters of Pope Nicholas IV in 1289 and 1290, mentioned in the previous chapter, provided the framework for facilitating any Nubian desires to reciprocate engagement with the Latin Christians to achieve their own aims.

The fact that knowledge of this embassy does not appear in the crusade treatises most focused on amplifying the Nubian threat against the Mamlūks – Het̕um of Corycus and Marino Sanudo Torsello – can somewhat be explained. Firstly, Het̕um wrote immediately after the supposed arrival of the embassy to Spain in 1306 in 1307, or possibly even before if the embassy only arrived towards the end of the decade, with the embassy not travelling to the papal court until late 1312 at the earliest. Therefore, Het̕um may simply have been unaware of the embassy. Moreover, there is no evidence that the embassy had intended to visit the papal court and may only have been invited upon news of their arrival in Spain; the king of Yspanie may have been the only initial desired recipient by the Nubians. Sanudo, on the other hand, did finish writing with plenty of time to have become accustomed to the embassy. However, he was said to only have appeared at the papal court in 1321 prior to delivering his treatise to the pope, thus possibly not enabling him to interview the embassy if he even would have wanted to (presuming that the embassy was even still resident in Avignon as late as 1321). Furthermore, his treatise was not primarily preoccupied with past events. It was designed to create support for a future endeavour, arguably rendering any description of the embassy, which the papacy would have been well aware of itself in any case, unnecessary. Sanudo’s lack of detailing the embassy could also be explained by the fact that his text was already focusing on the Nubians, meaning that a direct reference to the embassy to amplify his message was not necessary. It should also not be forgotten that, importantly, both of the key relevant elements of Carignano’s text – the willing obedience of the Nubian ‘pope’ and the colour of their flag – can be found in copies of Sanudo’s work. It should also not be dismissed that Sanudo’s crusade treatise explicitly ignores the Ethiopians throughout, despite featuring the kingdom on his accompanying world map as Habesse. This would further indicate that it was only a later attribution of the embassy to the Ethiopia of ʿÄmdä Ṣǝyon as the embassy did not initially dislodge Nubia’s primacy in Latin Christian discourse. It is difficult to believe that news of the embassy would have eluded Sanudo for an accurate identification, as both Sanudo and the embassy may even have been residing in Avignon at the same time. The disparities in the Ystoria Ethyopie would all appear to more adequately point to a Nubian identification of the embassy rather than the more commonly argued Ethiopian one.

In all, stronger evidence for a Nubian identity of the embassy would appear to counter any Ethiopian association. In fact, the only feature of the Ystoria Ethyopie that cannot produce appropriate contrasting Nubian evidence is the description of the depiction of three red crosses opening and closing royal correspondence. No Nubian royal external correspondence is known to survive, so it cannot necessarily be discounted. This epistolography may not have been unique to Ethiopia, of which the earliest examples only date from the mid-fifteenth century in any case.¹¹² Additionally, the sending of eight Dominican missionaries in 1316 to Nubia and Ethiopia may also be viewed as one of the outcomes of this embassy, despite the protestations regarding their late appearance in only Latin Christian sources.¹¹³ If anything, the lack of much of the late Nubian material would lend credence to a Nubian destination of the missionaries, as it would be more expected to find references in the relatively much vaster Ethiopian corpus. Moreover, the fact that the references to the embassy and its subsequent attribution to Ethiopia post-date the rise of ʿÄmdä Ṣǝyon is significant. Taking the text into account of Nubia’s situational political context, Nubia had both a reason and the historically attested connections to facilitate the embassy, which Ethiopia did not. No direct earlier evidence of an attempt by Dotawo to liaise with the Latin Christians is known, yet this embassy seemingly offers a portrayal of the culmination of up to two centuries of interaction in the Holy Land, with one possible Nubian political faction choosing to capitalise on that for their own benefit. It is not uncoincidental that the forged letter supposedly sent from Wǝdǝm Räʿad additionally claimed that he was also King of Nubia, thus reflecting how an Ethiopian ruler was able to take up the Nubian discourse in the Latin Christian narrative and become connected to previous Nubian exchanges.¹¹⁴ In light of the evidence for a Nubian identification of the embassy in the Ystoria Ethyopie and the broader narratives of the fourteenth-century replacement of Nubia by Ethiopia, this early embassy should most likely be seen as having been led by Nubians, not by a contingent of Ethiopians. It was only subsequently attributed to the Ethiopians, however, as, when contrasted with his map, it would appear that Carignano conflated subsequent knowledge of ʿÄmdä Ṣǝyon of Ethiopia to the already present Nubians. Indeed, within context, an original Nubian identification for the embassy would appear the most likely scenario. Perhaps attempted previous Latin Christian engagement with Nubia had not gone entirely unnoticed after all.

Following the (Un)Inspiring Results of the Early Fourteenth-Century Embassy

Within a decade of the embassy, any Latin Christian hope of a working relationship with Nubia all but ended. Even if the despatched Latin Christian missionaries in 1316 were in some way connected to this embassy, whatever the embassy had hoped to achieve, any sustained efforts at collaboration are difficult to directly evidence. A major barrier to any long-term success was the succession of the Muslim Kanz al-Dawla Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad in 1317 to the throne of Dotawo. Pope John XXII remained pope until his death in 1334, indicating that if any news of the events in Nubia following Kanz al-Dawla’s succession did reach him, any likely success of the embassy to encourage any cooperation soon faded. Indeed, news of the succession may have been what inspired Carignano to decide to change the embassy’s identity to one from the kingdom of ʿÄmdä Ṣǝyon whose own power appeared to have been able to offer much more of a threat to Egypt than Nubia now would or even could. This was not the end of Christian Dotawo, however. For example, an ourou Joel of Dotawo is recorded as late as 1484 after reigning for at least 20 years prior.¹¹⁵ Moreover, more immediately, an ourou Siti, who was a Christian, succeeded the Kanz al-Dawla and was powerful enough to have led an expedition into Kordofan in the 1330s, further highlighting the reinstation of Dotawo as a regional Christian power.¹¹⁶ Importantly, Siti’s power does not appear to have been finely balanced. He even appears in the gädl of the Ethiopian monk Ēwosṭātēwos, which relates, for instance, how, during Ēwosṭātēwos’ visit to Dongola in the late 1330s, the mother of the unnamed Nubian ourou (who would appear to have been ngonnen Asermari if the ourou was indeed the same Siti) tended to and washed the feet of pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem, suggesting that the pilgrimage networks were still functional and serviced by a fairly strong Christian kingdom.¹¹⁷

Somewhat surprisingly, despite the embassy and the focus on Nubia in crusade treatises, Latin Christians do not directly comment on any perceived decline of Nubia at all. It appears that the eyes of Latin Christians simply shifted their attention to Ethiopia and allowed interest in Nubia to dwindle into obscurity.¹¹⁸ That said, some possible Latin Christian understanding of the changing situation in Nubia did appear on maps. The Dulcert Map (1339), for instance, indicates that the Sultan of Nubia, whose land was labelled as Nubia saracenorum, was always at war with the Christians of Nubia, possibly being an understanding of the contested powers of Mamlūk subjugated parts of Nubia and Christian Dotawo.¹¹⁹ Who the Muslim Nubians were meant to convey exactly, however, is unclear. Contemporaneously, it would appear that Johannis of Winterthur (Vitodurani) (fl. c. 1348) recounts further conflict between Nubia and Egypt. For the year 1341, Johannis noted that there was a terrible war (atrocia bella) between the kings of Ethiopie and Egypt.¹²⁰ No specific details are given, and the text does not mention either Ethiopia or Nubia elsewhere in order to compare his choice of toponym. However, despite ʿÄmdä Ṣǝyon’s military activity at this time, no known Ethiopian expeditions towards Egypt relate to this year, suggesting that the reference attests to further Nubian-Egyptian conflict. The appearance of Ethiopia alongside or even replacing Nubia in latter fourteenth-century Latin Christian maps was not coincidental, as Latin Christian attention shifted.¹²¹

Nubia was quickly replaced by Ethiopia in Latin Christian discourse regardless of the renewed strength of Christian Dotawo. This would hardly have been helped by news of the Nubian royal court moving from Dongola to Daw (Gebel Adda, just south of Qasr Ibrim) in 1365–6, seemingly by necessity, though knowledge of this move is not recorded in any of the surviving Latin Christian sources. Christian Nubia had been increasingly fragmenting since the thirteenth century, possibly even into the nineteenth century, into what Henriette Hafsaas has described as a refuge area warrior society, further emphasising a region of increasing conflict.¹²² The existence of al-Abwāb, for example, attests to the beginning of this slow period of political fragmentation. Textual Nubian sources for this later period are currently limited, whilst external sources are much fewer than the previous decades and reveal little about Dotawo’s foreign relations beyond Egypt. That said, it should also be stated that there is no evidence that Dongola was not reoccupied by the Christian kingdom, perhaps relatively swiftly, following 1365. The textual evidence of the establishment of the so-called Kingdom of Dongola Town largely rests on the narrative provided by al-Maqrīzī concerning the relocation of Dotawo’s capital who related that the Christian ruler was killed, whilst his brother, the newly appointed ourou, was forced to flee to Daw.¹²³ Yet, the latter fourteenth-century evidence of an ourou Paper in Dongola and of al-Maqrīzī’s noting of reconciliation between the new Nubian ourou and his nephew who had initiated the conflict would suggest that Dongola was reintegrated into Dotawo and was not a splinter Christian kingdom, despite the seat of power remaining at Daw supposedly on account of Dongola now being in ruins, at least according to al-Maqrīzī.¹²⁴ Archaeology, however, attests to a Christian occupation of the city into the fifteenth century, which allows for the possibility that a framing of this period of Nubian history away from a reliance on al-Maqrīzī’s sole discussion of the events of 1365 may offer new insight into the Christian history of Dotawo prior to the Ottoman expeditions into Lower Nubia in the second half of the sixteenth century, whose own narratives are suggestive of a vacuum of former Christian power between themselves and the Funj.¹²⁵ For instance, archaeology is suggestive that the 1504 Funj conquest of the Alwan capital of Soba may have been much less significant in the history of Dotawo, as it currently gets credit, for as the city appears to have been largely in ruins for a number of centuries by that point, possibly as a result of the centralisation of power at Dongola following the unification of Dotawo.¹²⁶

Knowledge of the Christian ourou Paper can similarly be contextualised in this manner. In one inscription, he described himself as the ruler of Dongola, rather than Dotawo, which has been used as further evidence of the lasting presence of a splinter kingdom.¹²⁷ However, this interpretation need not have been the case. Instead, it remains likely that Paper was indeed a successor of Siti following Dotawo’s recovery from the turmoil of the 1360s. Moreover, the absence of the bishop of Dongola in fifteenth-century Old Nubian documents need not consequently portray the loss of Dongola as part of Dotawo either, though our current evidence is too limited to pose alternative reasonings beyond noting the fact that the documents were written in jurisdictions beyond Dongola in Lower Nubia, thus making such an absence not necessarily surprising.¹²⁸ Indeed, al-Maqrīzī relates how the ourou’s now reconciled nephew settled in Qasr Ibrim, making the existence of a rival Christian dynasty that had established itself in Dongola as a result of the events of 1365 appear unsubstantiated. Regrettably, the question of the extent of the revival of Dotawo after 1365 remains largely elusive of surviving Nubian textual material and relies overwhelmingly on the current framing of the archaeological corpus in light of al-Maqrīzī. Certainly, there are many more questions than we otherwise have answers for, particularly concerning Christian Dotawo into the sixteenth century. Whatever the case of the internal situation, following the 1360s, Dotawo appears not to have recovered on the international stage, by which point it was superseded by the rise of Solomonic Ethiopia.

The almost complete absence of evidence pertaining to any connections between Dotawo and the Latin Christians – or Ethiopia and the Latin Christians for that matter – in the second half of the fourteenth century may be explainable. From a crusading perspective, the disease known in Europe as the Black Death – the plague caused by the primary transmission of Yersinia pestis during the late 1340s and early 1350s – may have had important consequences on the history of Nubian-Latin Christian and Ethiopian-Latin Christian relations. Its effects in Latin Europe are well-known, but its impact on African societies, besides those in Egypt, is currently much less understood, though this is increasingly changing.¹²⁹ Yet, research on Nubia is still lacking. For now, it is likely that the devastation caused by the plague at Qūṣ in Upper Egypt, the important Nilotic-Red Sea trade hub, can be extrapolated so that it could, or indeed should, be expected that the plague had a similarly profound effect on Dotawo, particularly in Lower Nubia.¹³⁰ It may also be that the plague had some role in the relocation of the Nubian capital from Dongola to Daw in 1365, such as creating the circumstances for Dongola’s successful conquest by the Banū Jaʾd, a circumstance that has largely eluded historiographical narratives; though we currently have no evidence, neither textual nor archaeological, for this. Certainly, Egypt was struck by at least four separate plague outbreaks in 1353, 1358, 1360, and 1363.¹³¹ If we take the devastation caused at Aswan and across Upper Egypt by an outbreak in 1412, as relayed by al-Maqrīzī, as any indication of possible effects further south in Nubia, it would appear that Dotawo would hardly have been immune from similar regional devastation.¹³² In any case, until further work is undertaken, the plague coincided with a period of major political upheaval in Nubia, which compounded with that of the earlier decades of the century. In respect to the Latin Christians, the plague was widely circulated to have originated in ‘Ethiopia’, such as in the work of Jacme d’Agramont, a Catalan physician who emphasised an ‘Ethiopian’ origin of the plague, following similar beliefs of earlier plagues by Galen (fl. second century CE), in his treatise on the plague in 1348.¹³³ Despite the fact that all but one known contemporary Arab writer placed the source of the plague in Asia, any Latin Christian associations of the plague with ‘Ethiopia’, and thus Nubia, likely did little to reduce the belief in the lack of contemporary Nubian power.¹³⁴ Most importantly for the plague’s impact on crusading, it marked an abrupt end to consistent crusade preaching, as well as an end to the creation of crusade treatises, such as those which had highlighted the importance of Nubia in the previous decades.¹³⁵ It is unlikely to be coincidental that the arrival of the plague cemented the Latin Christian shift in discourse between the importance placed on Nubia and Ethiopia.

All that being said, the Alexandrian Crusade of 1365 led by Peter I of Lusignan, King of Cyprus (r. 1359–69), despite its failure, is important to discuss here. Prior to the crusade, positive relations with Eastern Christians were a specific focus of Pope Urban V (r. 1362–70), who had directed money towards the protection of Eastern Christians in the eastern Mediterranean in 1363.¹³⁶ The Crusade’s place in the narrative of Nubian-Latin Christian and Ethiopian-Latin Christian relations is particularly of note, especially as it has primarily been viewed solely in relation to Ethiopia. Bertrandon de la Brocquière attested in 1432 that he was told by a Neapolitan called Pietro, who had resided in Ethiopia for some years previously and married an ‘Ethiopian’ woman, that the grandfather of the present king had intended to jointly attack Alexandria during the crusade of 1365 but abandoned his efforts once he heard that Peter I of Cyprus had ended his attack.¹³⁷ Taddesse Tamrat made note how the grandfather of the present king, who he associated with Yǝśḥaq (r. 1414–29) to account for Pietro’s relocation from Ethiopia, was indeed Säyfä ʾArʿad (r. 1344–72) – this would equally have applied to Takla Maryam (r. 1430–3) if Pietro had travelled from Ethiopia much more recently – and would externally support any expedition.¹³⁸ Regarding its association with Ethiopia, according to one Ethiopian tradition, Säyfä ʾArʿad did lead an expedition into Egypt, but this was coincidental to the crusade, and was actually launched to free the Coptic Patriarch Marqos (r. 1348–63) after hearing that he had been imprisoned by the Mamlūks.¹³⁹ No contemporary evidence survives for such cooperation and this narrative should most likely be viewed in context of later relations that were becoming well established by the 1430s following the arrival of the first Ethiopian embassy to Latin Europe in 1402.

The failure of the Alexandrian Crusade certainly appears to have ended the core Latin Christian hope of successful engagement with Nubia. Nothing is currently known about Dotawo between 1372, the installation of Timotheos as the last known bishop of Faras, and 1463, the earliest known reference to ourou Joel from an internal textual perspective. This period of absence from the historical record certainly gains a new perspective when viewed alongside the plausible, if not likely, earlier relationship with the Latin Christians and the varied consequences that brought. It may not necessarily have broken ties between Dotawo and the Latin Christians, however. At least in one instance, the Minorite friar who had lived for many years in the realm of Prester John who was hosted in the Kingdom of Navarre and Aragon in 1391 may well have been resident in Nubia.¹⁴⁰ This identification of the realm of ‘Prester John’ as Nubia, rather than Ethiopia, whilst not discounting somewhere in Asia, would also further explain why it remained a further decade before Latin Christians in Ethiopia were actively questioned on their homeland if the friar had been active some years before given that Däwit II, who conducted the later questioning which inspired the sending of the first embassy to Latin Europe in 1402, had reigned in Ethiopia for over 20 years prior since c. 1379.

As the first Ethiopian embassy approached Venice in 1402 led by the Florentine Antonio Bartoli the turn of the fifteenth century witnessed a new age of Ethiopian-Latin Christian relations. The motivations behind Däwit’s embassy appear to be primarily internal and were not in response to active attempted engagement by Latin Christians.¹⁴¹ Nevertheless, importantly for the Latin Christians, he and his kingdom fitted the image that they had earlier portrayed on Nubia. For instance, during the 1380s Däwit was said to have declared that he would destroy Mecca in retaliation for the Mamlūk persecutions of Christians in Egypt and, according to some Ethiopian sources, was said to have desired to liberate Jerusalem.¹⁴² Even more importantly to the Latin Christians, the embassy provided tangible proof that their endeavours were not in vain. Instead, they simply changed the focus of their energy. Both Ethiopians and Latin Christians continued to shape their own engagements and build on interactions, both new and old, which had previously centred on Nubia. Ethiopia was the new Nubia, both in many respects in their own eyes and the eyes of the Latin Christians. Indeed, Ethiopia became precisely the ‘Nubia’ that the Latin Christians had long hoped to engage with after all.

Notes

1. N. Christie, The Book of the Jihad of ‘Ali ibn Tahir al-Sulami (d. 1106): Text, Translation and Commentary (Farnham, 2015), pp. 42–3 (text), 206 (trans.). For a synthesis, though they do not discuss what the Muslim understanding of the Crusades meant for their relations with non-Latin Christians, see P. E. Chevedden, ‘The Islamic Interpretation of the Crusade: A New (Old) Paradigm for Understanding the Crusades’, Der Islam, 83 (2006), pp. 90–136; K. Hirschler, ‘The Jerusalem Conquest of 492/1099 in the Medieval Arabic Historiography of the Crusades: From Regional Plurality to Islamic Narrative’, Crusades, 13 (2014), pp. 37–76.

2. See G. T. Dennis, ‘Defenders of the Christian People: Holy War in Byzantium’, in The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World, eds. A. E. Laiou and R. P. Mottahedeh (Washington, DC, 2001), pp. 31–9.

3. See G. W. Bowersock, ‘Old and New Rome in the Late Antique Near East’, in Transformations in Late Antiquity: Essays for Peter Brown, eds. P. Rousseau and M. Papoutsakis (Farnham, 2009), pp. 37–50.

4. See C. MacEvitt, ‘True Romans: Remembering the Crusades Among Eastern Christians’, JMH, 40.3 (2014), pp. 260–75. A similar shift in discourse also occurred in Islamic works: K. Durak, ‘Who Are the Romans? The Definition of Bilād al-Rūm (Land of the Romans) in the Medieval Islamic Geographies’, Journal of Intercultural Studies, 31.3 (2010), pp. 285–98.

5. Tsakos, ‘On Place Names’, pp. 237–8.

6. Whilst numerous fragments of the Book of Revelation are known from Nubia, as yet, no texts of later apocalyptic traditions which contain the narrative of the ‘Roman’ ruler and appear throughout Christendom, such as Pseudo-Methodius, the Apocalypse of Samuel, or Pseudo-Shenoute, have been identified in either Old Nubian or found within Nubia in another language.

7. Derat, ‘The Zāgwē Dynasty’, pp. 179–80.

8. D. Bramoullé, Les Fatimides et la mer (909–1171) (Leiden, 2020), pp. 555–9.

9. Beshir, ‘New Light’, 20.

10. Usāma ibn Munqiḍh, Kitāb al-l’tibār, ed. Hitti, 34 (text); Usama ibn Munqiḍh, The Book of Contemplation, trans. Cobb, 43 (trans.).

11. Beshir, ‘New Light’, 21.

12. On this event, see van Gerven Oei, ‘The Old Nubian Memorial for King George’.

13. Werthmuller, Coptic Identity, pp. 67–70.

14. HPEC III.I, pp. 56–7. The event is also found in the Ethiopian Synaxar for the 10th of Miazia: E. A. W. Budge, The Book of the Saints of the Ethiopian Church, 4 vols. (London, 1928), pp. III:800–1. Also see Munro-Hay, Ethiopia and Alexandria, pp. 162–3.

15. B. Żurawski, ‘Strongholds on the Middle Nile: Nubian Fortifications of the Middle Ages’, in The Power of Walls – The Fortifications of Ancient Northeastern Africa: Proceedings of the International Workshop Held at the University of Cologne 4th–7th August 2011, eds. F. Jesse and C. Vogel (Cologne, 2013), pp. 116–7. Nubia’s fortifications centred on the Nile which made a navy a necessity: B. Żurawski, ‘Makurian Defensive System in the Southern Dongolan Reach (6th–14th Century)’, CAMAPSET, 19 (2001), pp. 356–85. However, the question of ease of navigating the cataracts remains unknown. For Nile navigation, more generally, primarily see J. P. Cooper, ‘No Easy Option: Nile versus Red Sea in Ancient and Medieval North-South Navigation’, in Maritime Technology in the Ancient Economy: Ship Design and Navigation, eds. W. V. Harris and K. Iara (Portsmouth, RI, 2011), pp. 189–210; J. P. Cooper, ‘“Fear God; Fear the Bogaze”: The Nile Mouths and the Navigational Landscape of the Medieval Nile Delta, Egypt’, Al-Masāq, 24.1 (2012), pp. 53–73; J. P. Cooper, The Medieval Nile: Route, Navigation, and Landscape in Islamic Egypt (Cairo, 2014), esp. pp. 103–84.

16. Ricardi Pictaviensis, ‘Chronica’, Ex continuatione recensionum D et E, 84.

17. On the event, see Lev, Saladin, pp. 49–50; Baadj, Saladin, pp. 103–4.

18. For example, the destroying of the homes of the African soldiers around Cairo following his victory: Abū Šāma, Al-Rawḍatayn, pp. I:131–3.

19. Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil fī ʾl-tarīkh, ed. C. J. Tornberg, 13 vols. (Beirut, 1965–7), pp. XI:398–401, 412–4 (text); The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athir for the Crusading Period from al-Kamil fi’l-Ta’rikh, trans. D. S. Richards, 3 vols. (Aldershot, 2006–8), pp. II:218–20, 229–30 (trans.).

20. M. S. Fulton, ‘Disaster in the Delta? Sicilian Support for the Crusades and the Siege of Alexandria, 1174’, in Warfare in the Norman Mediterranean, ed. G. Theotokis (Woodbridge, 2020), pp. 225–38.

21. See A. V. Murray, ‘From Alexandria to Tinnīs: The Kingdom of Sicily, Egypt and the Holy Land’, in Rethinking Norman Italy: Studies in Honour of Graham A. Loud, eds. J. Drell and P. Oldfield (Manchester, 2021), pp. 305–22.

22. Ibn Wāsil declares that the Nubian expedition was launched after an attack was first attempted on Yemen: Ibn Wāsil, Kitāb mufarrij al-kurub f ī akhbār Banī Ayyūb, ed. J. al-Din al-Shayyal, 3 vols. (Cairo, 1954–61), pp. I:237–43 (I:228–9 for the invasion). However, Abū al-Fidāʾ and al-Maqrīzī appear to suggest that the original plan was to conquer Nubia as Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn’s potential retreat but, upon finding the land unworthy, only then was the subsequent invasion of Yemen ordered: Abū al-Fidāʾ, Kitāb al-mukhtaṣar fī akhbār al-bašar, ed. M. al-Din al-Khatib, 4 vols. (Beirut, 1956–61), pp. III:53–4; al-Maqrīzī, Al-Sulūk li-Ma ʿrifat Duwal al Mulūk, ed. M. ‘Abd al-Qadir ‘Atta, 8 vols. (Beirut, 1997), pp. I:157–8. Alternatively, Ibn al-Athīr states that there was no preference between either Nubia or Yemen for Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn: Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil, ed. Tornberg, pp. XI:386–7 (text); Chronicle of Ibn al-Athir, trans. Richards, pp. II:209–10 (trans.).

23. Ibn al-Furāt, Taʾrīkh Ibn al-Furāt, eds. C. K. Zurayk and N. Izzedin, 9 vols. (Beirut, 1936–42), VII:45 (text); OSCN, 520 (trans.).

24. Abū Šāma, Al-Rawḍatayn, I:208.

25. Abū Šāma, Al-Rawḍatayn, I:209 (text); OSCN, pp. 369–70 (trans.).

26. Abū Šāma, Al-Rawḍatayn, II:235 (text); OSCN, pp. 370–2 (trans.); Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil, ed. Tornberg, XI:414 (text); Chronicle of Ibn al-Athir, trans. Richards, pp. II:230–1 (trans.).

27. Abū Šāma, Al-Rawḍatayn, I:178 (text); OSCN, pp. 366–7 (trans.).

28. See: A. Tsakos, ‘Epimachos of Attiri: A Warrior Saint of Late Christian Nubia’, Collectanea Christiana Orientalia, 9 (2012), pp. 239–57.

29. Vantini, Christianity in the Sudan, pp. 185–6; Tsakos, ‘Epimachos of Attiri’, 211n.15.

30. The image is notable for not being similar to the few surviving paintings of Epimachos elsewhere in Nubia: Tsakos, ‘Epimachos of Attiri’, 220. On Nubian style for warrior saints, see T. Górecki, ‘Z problematyki ikonografii świętych wojowników w malarstwie ściennym katedry w Faras’, Rocznik Muzeum Narodowego w Warszawie, 24 (1980), pp. 173–254. Comparatively, see the statue of St. Maurice (c.1240) in Germany: J. Devisse, ‘A Sanctified Black: Maurice’, in Image of the Black in Western Art, eds. Bindman and Gates, I.I:151. The influences could, of course, also have been transmitted via Eastern Christian art, but there are no obvious parallels: M. Immerzeel, ‘Divine Cavalry: Mounted Saints in Middle Eastern Christian Art’, in East and West III, eds. Ciggaar and Teule, pp. 265–86; P. Ł. Grotowski, Arms and Armour of the Warrior Saints: Tradition and innovation in Byzantine Iconography (843–1261), trans. R. Brzezinski (Leiden, 2010).

31. See: Tsakos, ‘Epimachos of Attiri’, pp. 210–2.

32. W. Y. Adams, Qasr Ibrîm: The Late Mediaeval Period (London, 1996), pp. 84–7.

33. For a summary, see B. Żurawski, ‘Defending the Indefensible. Nubian Fortifications in the Middle Ages’, in Handbook of Ancient Nubia, ed. D. Raue (Berlin, 2019), 897–920.

34. For an overview, see Welsby, Medieval Kingdoms of Nubia, pp. 133-36.

35. W. Y. Adams, ‘Castle-Houses of Late Medieval Nubia’, Archéologie du Nil Moyen, 6 (1994), pp. 11–46; H. Hafsaas, ‘The Nubian Frontier as a Refuge Area Warrior Society between c. 1200 and c. 1800 CE: A Comparison between Nubia and the Ottoman Balkans’, Dotawo: A Journal of Nubian Studies, 6 (2019), pp. 79–81. More generally on house design changes during the period, see J. R. Anderson, Spatial and Temporal Distribution of Domestic and Civil Architecture in Christian Nubia (Unpublished PhD, University of Toronto, 1996), pp. 88–140.

36. J. Spaulding, ‘Medieval Christian Nubia and the Islamic World: A Reconsideration of the Baqt Treaty’, IJAHS, 28.3 (1995), pp. 585–6n26.

37. Gadla Yemreḥanna Krestos, ed. and trans. Marrassini, pp. 56 (text), 89 (trans.).

38. HPEC III.II, pp. 189–90; Derat, L’énigme d’une dynastie sainte, pp. 160–3.

39. Derat, L’énigme d’une dynastie sainte, pp. 263 (text), 268 (trans.).

40. The earliest reference to this raid is found towards the end of the same century: Ibn Saʿīd al-Maghribī, Kitāb basṭ al-arḍ f ī ʾl-ṭūl wa-ʾl-ʿarḍ, ed. J. Vernet Ginés (Tétouan, 1958), 13 (text); OSCN, 400 (trans.). On the locating of the Damādim, see D. Ayana, ‘The Northern Zanj, Demadim, Yamyam, Yam/Yamjam, Habasha/Ahabish, Zanj-Ahabish, and Zanj ed-Damadam – The Horn of Africa between the Ninth and Fifteenth Centuries’, History in Africa, 46 (2019), pp. 77–92.

41. For a brief overview of Nile flooding throughout the period in question, see Hassan, ‘Extreme Nile Floods’. Regarding disease in Nubia, until further research is undertaken, the best examples can only be extrapolated from Lower Egypt’s experience of the mid-fourteenth century, see B. Shoshan, ‘Notes sur les epidemies de peste en Egypte’, Annales de démographie historique (1981), pp. 387–404

42. For a list of contemporary earthquakes to hit the wider region, see N. N. Ambraseys, C. P. Melville, and R. D. Adams, The Seismicity of Egypt, Arabia and the Red Sea: A Historical Review (Cambridge, 1994), 108.

43. The need to incorporate this evidence more in discussions of Nubian history has been noted by David Edwards, though evidence still remains limited: D. N. Edwards, The Nubian Past: An Archaeology of the Sudan (London, 2004), pp. 12–3.

44. Vantini, ‘Sur l’éventualité’.

45. Zacharopoulou, ‘Ο σουλτάνος Baybars και η Νουβία’.

46. al-Mufaḍḍal, for example, dates a separate earlier expedition by David against ʿAidhāb to 1272, suggesting a period of sustained conflict: al-Mufaḍḍal, Histoire des Sultans Mamlouks, ed. and trans. E. Blochet, 3 vols. (Turnhout, 1982–5), II:375 [211] (text and trans.). On this period, see R. Seignobos, ‘Back to the Sources: Egyptian-Nubian Relations Under Baybars (1260–1277) According to the Earliest Arabic Accounts’, in Nubian Archaeology in the XXIst Century: Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Conference for Nubian Studies, Neuchâtel, 1st–6th September 2014, ed. M. Honegger (Leuven, 2018), pp. 135–48.

47. al-Mufaḍḍal, Histoire des Sultans Mamlouks, ed. and trans. Blochet, II:400 [236] (text and trans.).

48. Holt, Early Mamluk Diplomacy, pp. 84–5.

49. L. S. Northrup, From Slave to Sultan: The Career of al-Manṣūr Qalāwūn and the Consolidation of Mamluk Rule in Egypt and Syria (678–689 A.H./1279=1290 A.D.) (Stuttgart, 1998), pp. 146–9; R. Seignobos, ‘La liste des conquêtes nubiennes de Baybars selon Ibn Šaddād (1217–1285)’, in Aegyptus et Nubia Christiana, eds. Łajtar, Obłuski, and Zych, pp. 553–77; Seignobos, ‘Back to the Sources’.

50. Ibn ͑Abd al-Ẓāhir, Tašrīf, ed. Kamil, pp. 156–64 (text); Holt, Early Mamluk Diplomacy, pp. 132–40 (trans.).

51. See Loiseau, ‘The Ḥaṭī and the Sultan’, pp. 640–1.

52. S. A. Frantsouzoff, ‘The First Step to Apostasy? (An Ethiopian Ruler’s Missive to the Sultan Baybars Re-interpreted)’, Scrinium, 16.1 (2020), pp. 367–74.

53. Cerulli, Etiopi, pp. I:88–90; Munro-Hay, Ethiopia and Alexandria, pp. 195–9.

54. Taddesse Tamrat, Church and State, pp. 251–2.

55. P. Lachat, ‘Un ambassade éthiopienne auprès de Clement V, à Avignon, en 1310’, Annali Pontificio Museo Missionario archeologico già Lateranensi, 31 (1967), pp. 9–21; C. F. Beckingham, ‘An Ethiopian Embassy to Europe c. 1310’, JSS, 14 (1989), pp. 337–46. However, the existence of the embassy has recently been discredited by Verena Krebs: V. Krebs, ‘Re-examining Foresti’s Supplementum Chronicarum and the “Ethiopian” Embassy to Europe of 1306’, BSOAS, 82.3 (2019), pp. 493–515.

56. Giacomo Filippo Foresti da Bergamo, Supplementum Chronicarum (Venice, 1483), Book VIII, fols. 17v-18r (text); R. A. Skelton, ‘An Ethiopian Embassy to Western Europe in 1306’, in Ethiopian Itineraries, ed. Crawford, pp. 214–5 (trans.).

57. Krebs, ‘Re-examining Foresti’s Supplementum Chronicarum’. See too S. Kelly, ‘Ewosṭateans at the Council of Florence (1441): Diplomatic Implications between Ethiopia, Europe, Jerusalem and Cairo’, Afriques: débats, méthodes et terrains d’histoire, Varia (2016), http://journals.openedition.org/afriques/1858, n.1; Knobler, Mythology, pp. 36–7.

58. Bausi and Chiesa, ‘The Ystoria Ethyopie’, pp. 18–9 (text and trans.).

59. John of Hildesheim, Three Kings of Cologne, ed. Horstmann, Ch. 34, pp. 259–60.

60. This is most explicitly witnessed in the comparative works on Islam in Nubia and Ethiopia by Joseph Cuoq. The embassy is discussed regarding Ethiopia as the first of many relations between Latin Europe and Ethiopia, whereas it fails to feature in his similar book on Nubia, which is also largely framed without acknowledgement of the Crusades: J. Cuoq, L’Islam en Ethiopie des origines au XVI^e siècle (Paris, 1981), pp. 195–7; J. Cuoq, Islamisation de la Nubie chrétienne: VIIe-XVIe siècles (Paris, 1986).

61. Lettera inedita del presto Giovanni all’imperatore Carlo iv, ed altra di Lentulo ai senatori romani sopra Gesu Cristo, secondo il volgarizzamento citato dagli accademici della Crusca Diverso, ed. L. Del Prete (Lucca, 1857), pp. 9–23.

62. Krebs, ‘Re-examining Foresti’s Supplementum Chronicarum’, pp. 511–2.

63. Nordenskiöld, Periplus, pl. IX.

64. Bausi and Chiesa, ‘The Ystoria Ethyopie’, pp. 18–9 (text and trans.).

65. Arnoldi, ‘Chronica Slavorum’, in MGH SS XXI, Book VII Ch. 8, 238 (text); Chronicle of Arnold of Lübeck, trans. Loud, 277 (trans.). This was later reduced to 12 days by contemporaries of Carignano: Het̕um of Corycus, ‘La Flor des Estoires de la Terre d’Orient’, Ch. 10, 232; Marino Sanudo Torsello, Liber secretorum, ed. Bongars, Book III Part XIV Ch. 12, pp. 259–61 (text); Marino Sanudo Torsello, Book of Secrets, trans. Lock, pp. 413–5 (trans.).

66. Bausi and Chiesa, ‘The Ystoria Ethyopie’, pp. 36–7 (text and trans.).

67. Bausi and Chiesa, ‘The Ystoria Ethyopie’, pp. 18–9 (text and trans.).

68. Burchard of Mount Sion commented in 1283 that the Nubiani, amongst a list of other Eastern Christian groups, would readily offer obedience to the Latin pope: Burchard of Mount Sion, ‘Descriptio Terrae Sanctae’, in Peregrinatores medii aevi quatuor, ed. Laurent, Book XIII Ch. 5, 89 (text); Pilgrimage to Jerusalem, trans. Pringle, 315 (trans.). Additionally, Het̕um of Corycus, for example, refers to the Nubians as having great reverence for Pope Clement V in his reasoning for their apparent willingness to fight with the Crusaders against Egypt: Het̕um of Corycus, ‘La Flor des Estoires de la Terre d’Orient’, Ch. 23, 247.

69. Bausi and Chiesa, ‘The Ystoria Ethyopie’, pp. 18–9 (text and trans.). For the first external naming of the Ethiopian ruler as John, see Du Yorkshire à l’Inde, ed. Gautier-Dalché, De Viis Maris, Ch. 11, pp. 216–7.

70. On this period of expansion, see Taddesse Tamrat, Church and State, pp. 98–106.

71. Bausi and Chiesa, ‘The Ystoria Ethyopie’, pp. 30–3 (text and trans.).

72. Krebs, Medieval Ethiopian Kingship, pp. 62–3.

73. Łajtar and Płóciennik, ‘A Man from Provence’.

74. Krebs, Medieval Ethiopian Kingship, 73.

75. Bausi and Chiesa, ‘The Ystoria Ethyopie’, pp. 32–5 (text and trans.).

76. El libro del conoscimiento de todos los reinos = The Book of Knowledge of All Kingdoms, ed. and trans. N. F. Marino (Madrid, 1999), pp. 56–7 (text and trans.).

77. Bausi and Chiesa, ‘The Ystoria Ethyopie’, pp. 36–9 (text and trans.).

78. Bausi and Chiesa, ‘The Ystoria Ethyopie’, pp. 24–7 (text and trans.).

79. Bausi and Chiesa, ‘The Ystoria Ethyopie’, pp. 24–5 (text and trans.). On Mary in Ethiopia see, for example, M. Heldman, The Marian Icons of the Painter Frē Ṣeyon: A Study of Fifteenth-century Ethiopian Art, Patronage, and Spirituality (Wiesbaden, 1994); T. Tribe, ‘Memory and Wonder: Our Lady Mary in Ethiopian Painting (15th–18th Centuries)’, in Memory and Oblivion: Proceedings of the 29th International Congress of the History of Art Held in Amsterdam, 1–7 September 1996, eds. W. Reinink and J. Stumpel (Dordrecht, 1999), pp. 625–34; J. Gnisci, ‘A Fifteenth-Century Ethiopian Icon of the Virgin and Child by the Master of the Amber-Spotted Tunic’, RSE, 3^a Serie, 3 (2019), pp. 183–93.

80. K. A. Mich, ‘Elements of Christian Popular Piety in Nubia (VI–XVI century) – An Outline of Aspects’, Annales Missiologici Posnanienses, 23 (2018), pp. 46–7. Mary was particularly assigned the role of protector in numerous paintings of monarchs and other high-ranking officials, with many surviving examples notably dating to the centuries contemporary with the Crusades. For references to some examples from Faras, see S. Jakobielski, ‘Nubian Scenes of Protection from Faras as an Aid to Dating’, Études et travaux, 21 (2007), esp. pp. 46–9. Furthermore, as well as the multiple paintings of Mary found throughout Nubia, one particular scene from the monastery at Dongola of dancers, possibly depicting the celebration of the cult of Mary, is suggestive of a wider church-sponsored contemporary Marian culture in addition to the popular piety discussed by Mich: M. Martens-Czarnecka, ‘A Scene of a Ritual Dance (Old Dongola – Sudan)’, Études et travaux, 22 (2008), pp. 115–25, esp. 122. Also see V. J. W. van Gerven Oei, ‘A Dance for a Princess: The Legends on a Painting in Room 5 of the Southwest Annex of the Monastery of Kom H in Dongola’, The Journal of Juristic Papyrology, 47 (2017), pp. 117–35.

81. No complete catalogue of Nubian wall painting has yet been published, and the individual examples are too numerous to reference here. However, for some discussion of the apostles in painting, see M. M. Woźniak, ‘The Chronology of the Eastern Chapels in the Upper Church at Banganarti. Some Observations on the Genesis of “Apse Portraits” in Nubian Royal Iconography’, in Aegytpus et Nubia Christiana, eds. Łajtar, Obłuski, and Zych, pp. 629–46.

82. Jakobielski, ‘Nubian Scenes’, 46.

83. On the iconography of these churches at Faras for further context of the importance of certain figures and place, see S. Jakobielski et al., Pachoras/Faras: The Wall Paintings from the Cathedrals of Aetios, Paulos and Petros (Warsaw, 2017).

84. P. van Moorsel, J. Jacquet, and H. Schneider, The Central Church of Abdallah Nirqi (Leiden, 1975), 108; A. Deptuła, ‘Greek Sticheron from Medieval Nubia Praising John the Baptist (Q.I. 1964, 6a Revisited)’, Symbolae Osloenses: Norwegian Journal of Greek and Latin Studies, 94.1 (2020), pp. 201–11.

85. Such as: Ludolphi rectoris, ed. Deycks, Ch. 34, 61 (text); Description, trans. Stewart, 80 (trans.).

86. Bausi and Chiesa, ‘The Ystoria Ethyopie’, pp. 26–7 (text and trans.).

87. Bausi and Chiesa, ‘The Ystoria Ethyopie’, 27n.15.

88. Raineri, ed., Lettere, pp. 32 (text), 34 (trans.).

89. Bezold, Kebra Nagast, pp. 30 (text), 24 (trans.); La Gloire des Rois, trans. Beylot, 181.

90. Bausi and Chiesa, ‘The Ystoria Ethyopie’, pp. 20–3 (text and trans.). Nubian textual invocations are too numerous to list here. For its appearance in coronation oaths, this may be gleaned from its invocation in Šhekanda’s oath of 1276 as given by al-Qalqašandī: P. M. Holt, ‘The Coronation Oaths of the Nubian Kings’, Sudanic Africa, 1 (1990), pp. 5–9. A Church of the Holy Trinity is known in Qasr Ibrim, for example, along with the Monastery of the Holy Trinity in Dongola. For the Trinity’s appearance in art, see P. Makowski, ‘The Holy Trinity in Nubian Art’, in Dongola 2012–2014: Fieldwork, Conservation and Site Management, eds. W. Godlewski and D. Dzierzbicka (Warsaw, 2015), pp. 293–308.

91. Bausi and Chiesa, ‘The Ystoria Ethyopie’, pp. 22–5 (text and trans.). On Nubian ecclesiastical dress, see K. C. Innemée, Ecclesiastical Dress in the Medieval Near East (Leiden, 1992), pp. 134–207.

92. Bausi and Chiesa, ‘The Ystoria Ethyopie’, pp. 20–3 (text and trans.); E.-H. H. M. Kheir, ‘A Contribution to a Textual Problem: “Ibn Sulaym al-Aswāni’s Kitāb Akhbār al-Nūba wa-l-Maqurra wa-l-Beja wa-l-Nīl”’, Arabica, 36.1 (1989), 53.

93. For example, this was recorded by Ibn al-Furāt, Taʾrīkh, eds. Zurayk and Izzedin, VII:47, 49–50 (text); OSCN, 536 (trans.); al-Maqrīzī, Kitāb al-Sulūk li-maʿrifat duwal al mulūk, eds. M. M. Ziada and S. A. al-F. Ashur, 4 vols. (Cairo, 1934–72), 1.ii:622–3 (text); OSCN, pp. 681–2 (trans.). Similar amounts are given by other contemporary writers, such as by al-Nuwayrī who gave the amounts as 4700.5 dinars’ worth of gold and similar things and 8760 dinars’ worth of silver: Al-Nuwayrī, Nihāyat al-arab fī funūn al-adab, 33 vols. (Beirut, 2004), 30:223 (text), Seignobos, ‘Back to the Sources’, 145 (trans.)

94. A. Łajtar, ‘Wall Inscriptions in the Banganarti Churches: A General Note After Three Seasons of Work’, The Journal of Juristic Papyrology, 33 (2003), pp. 144–5.

95. Kheir, ‘Contribution’, 54.

96. Krebs, Medieval Ethiopian Kingship, pp. 192–203.

97. Bausi and Chiesa, ‘The Ystoria Ethyopie’, pp. 28–9 (text and trans.).

98. For example, see the flags in the most extant manuscript copy of the Libro: Madrid, Biblioteca Nationale de España, MSS 1997, 28v, 31v, 32v, 33v.

99. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MSS Espagnol 30.

100. An example of each style can be viewed in the manuscripts held at the Vatican Library (Vat.Lat. 2972, 15v), the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford (MS Tanner 190, 22r), and the Biblioteca Riccardiana in Florence (Ricc. 237, 15v).

101. Bausi and Chiesa, ‘The Ystoria Ethyopie’, pp. 14–5 (text and trans.).

102. See the commentary in Bausi and Chiesa, ‘The Ystoria Ethyopie’, 14n.8.

103. El libro del conoscimiento, ed. and trans. Marino, pp. 60–3 (text and trans.).

104. Nordenskiöld, Periplus, pl. IX. The same information is repeated on Angelino Dulcert’s 1339 portolan too: Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, CPL GE B-696 (Rés).

105. Bausi and Chiesa, ‘The Ystoria Ethyopie’, pp. 36–7 (text and trans.).

106. Niccolò da Poggibonsi, Libro d’oltramare, ed. Bacchi della Lega, Ch. 257, pp. II:209–10 (text); Niccolò da Poggibonsi, Voyage, trans. Bellorini and Hoade, 126 (trans.).

107. ‘Documentary Evidence and the Production of Power in Medieval Nubia’, Afriques, 7 (2016), para. 17–9, http://journals.openedition.org/afriques/1871.

108. Ibn Khaldūn, Kitāb al-ʿIbar, V:92 (text); OSCN, 561 (trans.).

109. Ibn al-Wardī, Tatimmat al-mukhtaṣar fī akhbār al-bašar, 2 vols. (Cairo, 1868), II:253 (text); OSCN, 505 (trans.). If it is not a confusion of the same event, ambassadors of Ayāy may also have appeared in Cairo in c. 1310 professing the ourou’s loyalty: Ibn Taghrī-Bīrdī, Al-Nujūm al-Ẓāhira fī Mulūk Miṣr wa-l-Qāhira, ed. A. Ramzī, 16 vols. (Cairo, 1930–56), IX:78 (text); OSCN, 738 (trans.). Ibn Iyās (d. c. 1524) did, however, separate two diplomatic events of the Nubian ourou, presumably to be attributed to Ayāy, in 1304 and 1312: Ibn Iyās, Badāʾiʿ az-zuhūr fī waqāʾiʿ ad-duhūr, 3 vols. (Cairo, 1893–4), pp. I:147, 157 (text); OSCN, 780 (trans.).

110. Ibn al-Furāt, Taʾrīkh, eds. Zurayk and Izzedin, VIII:92 (text); OSCN, pp. 546–7 (trans.).

111. OSCN, pp. 430–2 (trans. with reference to the Arabic within).

112. Bausi and Chiesa, ‘The Ystoria Ethyopie’, pp. 28–31 (text and trans.).

113. Fontana, Monumenta Dominicana, 172.

114. Lettera inedita del presto Giovanni, ed. Del Prete, 9.

115. A. Łajtar and G. R. Ruffini, ‘Qasr Ibrim’s Last Land Sale, AD 1463 (EA 90225)’, in Nubian Voices, eds. Łajtar and van der Vliet, pp. 121–31. The 1484 document found at Gebel Adda regarding ourou Joel is known but remains unpublished.

116. Ochała, ‘A King of Makuria in Kordofan’.

117. Ochała, ‘A King of Makuria in Kordofan’; ‘Vita et miracula Eustathii’, ed. Turaiev, III:f.34; Saints fondateurs, trans. Colin with Robin and Derat, pp. 132–3.

118. If anything, Latin Christians ignored the plight of Nubia and continued to describe its Christianity, just with less attached importance. For example, a Christian Kingdom of Dongala in Nubye appears in Jean de Bethencourt’s l’Histoire de la Conquête des Canaries (wr. between 1402 and 1406), which was copied by the author from the Libro del conoscimiento: Jean de Bethencourt, Le Canarien: Livre de la conquête et conversion des Canaries (1402–1422), ed. G. Gravier (Rouen, 1874), Ch. 56, 90 (text); Jean de Bethencourt, The Canarian: or, Book of the Conquest and Conversion of the Canarians in the Year 1402, trans. P. Bontier and J. Le Verrier (London, 1872), 99 (trans.). Equally, Nubians are still recorded in the Holy Land and Egypt into the sixteenth century. For instance, Nubians in Egypt are recorded by Gabriele Capodilista in 1458; Felix Fabri noted Nubians amongst the many groups in the Holy Land during his pilgrimage between 1480 and 1483; Enrico il Pio, Duke of Sassonia, similarly claimed to have witnessed Nubians amongst other Christians in the Holy Land in 1499, with Nubians being the most devout of them all (Nubiani devotiores inter omnes habentur); whilst Ludwig Tschudi also mentioned Nubians during his travels in the Holy Land in 1519: Cerulli, Etiopi in Palestina, I:255; Felix Fabri, Les Errances de frère Félix, pèlerin en Terre sainte, en Arabie et en Égypte, ed. and trans. J. Meyers and M. Tarayre, 8 vols. (Paris, 2013–20), pp. IV:172–3 (text and trans.); Henry IV the Pious, ‘Iter in Terram Sanctam Secundum’, in Itinera sex a diversis Saxoniae Ducibus et Electoribus diversis temporibus in Italiam omnia, tria etiam in Palestinam et Terram Sanctam facta, ed. Balthasar Mencius (Wittenberg, 1612), 93; Tschudi, L., Reysz und Bilgerfahrt, zum Heyligen Grab. Des Edlen und Gestrengen Herren Ludwigen Tschudis von Glarus […] In welcher nit allein, die fürnembsten Stätt unnd öhrter, dess Heyligen Landts Palestinae, und der gantzen gegne daselbst herumben, sonder auch ausserhalb deren, vil andere denchwürdige Stätt, Inseln Oehrter, und derer Inwohner, mancherley Sitten, Art unnd gebräuch, etc., ed. M. Tschudi (Freiburg, 1610), pp. 135, 146–7, 191–2, 199, 216, 306.

119. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, CPL GE B-696 (Rés). Equally, Marco Polo (c.1298) noted that Ethiopia was at war with Nubia, which, as no other source uses this language, may reflect conflict with the Mamlūks who had increasingly gained a presence in Nubia from the 1270s onwards rather than Christian Nubia itself: Marco Polo, Description, eds. and trans. Moule and Pelliot, Ch. 193, I:436. Symon Semeonis (1323) also appears to comment on some Nubians not being Christians: Itinerarium, ed. and trans. Esposito, Ch. 72, pp. 92–3 (text and trans.).

120. ‘Die Chronik Johanns von Winterthur’, in MGH SrG ns III, 194. For Ethiopia and Egypt’s relationship during this period, see Munro-Hay, Ethiopia and Alexandria, pp. 207–9.

121. For examples, see B. Hirsch, ‘L’espace nubien et éthiopien sur les cartes portulans du XIV^e siècle’, Médiévales, 18 (1990), pp. 69–92.

122. On post-thirteenth-century Nubia as a refuge area warrior society, see Hafsaas, ‘The Nubian Frontier’.

123. The passages which inform the current scholarly narrative are in OSCN, pp. 698–702.

124. For a current overview of these latter centuries, see W. Godlewski, ‘Archaeological and Architectural Evidence of Social Change in 13th–17th Century Dongola’, Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean, 27.1 (2018), pp. 617–43.

125. For discussion of some of the latest archaeological data for Dongola, see the chapters in W. Godlewski and D. Dzierzbicka, eds., Dongola 2012–2014: Fieldwork, Conservation and Site Management (Warsaw, 2015); W. Godlewski, D. Dzierzbicka, and A. Łajtar, eds., Dongola 2015–2016: Fieldwork, Conservation and Site Management (Warsaw, 2018). On the Funj and the Ottomans, see A. C. S. Peacock, ‘The Ottomans and the Funj Sultanate in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’, BSOAS, 75.1 (2012), pp. 87–111.

126. M. Drzewiecki, et al., ‘The Spatial Organisation of Soba: A Medieval Capital on the Blue Nile’, Antiquity (2021), pp. 1–8 (first view, doi:10.15184/aqy.2021.158).

127. A. Łajtar, ‘Late Christian Nubia through Visitors’ Inscriptions from the Upper Church at Banganarti’, in Between the Cataracts, eds. Godlewski and Łajtar, pp. 329–30.

128. For example, Łajtar and Ruffini, ‘Qasr Ibrim’s Last Land Sale’.

129. See recently M. H. Green, ‘Putting Africa on the Black Death Map: Narratives from Genetics and History’, Afriques, 9 (2018), https://journals.openedition.org/afriques/2198. Egypt has primarily remained the focus of studies on the Nilotic effects of the plague. For example, see M. W. Dols, The Black Death in the Middle East (Princeton, 1977); Shoshan, ‘Notes sur les epidemies’; S. Borsch, ‘Plague Depopulation and Irrigation Decay in Medieval Egypt’, in Pandemic Disease in the Medieval World: Rethinking the Black Death, ed. M. H. Green (Kalamazoo, 2015), pp. 125–56. Comparatively, recent research has centred plague as a cause of site abandonment in West Africa and its occurrence in Ethiopian texts: D. E. Gallagher and S. A. Dueppen, ‘Recognizing plague epidemics in the archaeological record of West Africa’, Afriques, 09 (2018), http://journals.openedition.org/afriques/2198; M.-L. Derat, ‘Du lexique aux talismans: occurrences de la peste dans la Corne de l’Afrique du XIII^e au XV^e siècle’, Afriques, 09 (2018), http://journals.openedition.org/afriques/2090. No explicit published research has yet been produced, to my knowledge, for the role of the mid-fourteenth-century plague in Nubia.

130. Dols, Black Death, pp. 164–5.

131. Shoshan, ‘Notes sur les epidemies’, 395.

132. Borsch, ‘Plague Depopulation’, 129.

133. Regiment de preservació de pestilència de Jacme d’Agramont (s. XIV): Introducció, transcripció i estudi lingüístic, ed. J. Veny i Clar (Tarragona, 1971), Ch. 17, 61.

134. Dols, Black Death, 42. On the plague’s origin and its subsequent transmission in relation to the Indian Ocean, see M. H. Green and L. Jones, ‘The Evolution and Spread of Major Human Diseases in the Indian Ocean World’, in Disease Dispersion and Impact in the Indian Ocean World, eds. G. Campbell and E.-M. Knoll (Cham, 2020), pp. 40–6. For the textual absence of internal references to the plague in India or China, emphasising the plague’s northern Central Eurasian origin, see G. D. Sussman, ‘Was the Black Death in India and China?’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 85.3 (2011), pp. 319–55.

135. For the period leading up to this sudden end, see C. Georgiou, Preaching the Crusades to the Eastern Mediterranean: Propaganda, Liturgy and Diplomacy, 1305–1352 (Abingdon, 2018).

136. Letter from Pope Urban V to King John II of France on 31 March 1363, in M. Prou, Études sur les relations politiques du pape Urbain V avec les rois de France Jean II et Charles V (1362–1370) (Paris, 1888), 101.

137. Le Voyage d’outremer de Bertrandon de la Brocquière, ed. C. Schefer (Paris, 1892), 148.

138. Taddesse Tamrat, Church and State, 253, pp. 253–5.

139. Taddesse Tamrat, Church and State, 253.

140. Documents, ed. Rubió Y Lluch, 365.

141. Krebs, Medieval Ethiopian Kingship, pp. 18–25.

142. HPEC III.III, pp. 267–8; J. Perruchon, ‘Légendes relatives a Dawit II (Lebna-Dengel), roi d’Éthiopie’, Revue sémitique, 6 (1898), pp. 163–4 (text), 170–1 (trans.). As noted by Taddesse Tamrat and Adam Knobler, Perruchon incorrectly attributed the legend to the wrong Dāwīt: Taddesse Tamrat, Church and State, 255n3; Knobler, Mythology, pp. 38–9n30. Aṣé Dawit II had marched on Egypt early in his reign: Acta Marqorēwos, ed. and Latin trans. Conti Rossini, pp. 42–4 (text), OSCN, pp. 741–4 (trans.). See Wiet, ‘relations Égypto-Abyssines’, 124; Taddesse Tamrat, Church and State, pp. 255–6.