Kebra Nagast

Kebra Nagast — Budge — Section 15

The existence of the Kebra Nagast appears to have been unknown in Europe until the second quarter of the sixteenth century, when scholars began to take an interest in the country of “ Prester John ” through the writings of Francisco Alvarez, chaplain to the Embassy which Emanuel, King of Portugal, sent to David, King of Ethiopia, under the leadership of Don Roderigo de Lima (15 20-1 5 27) . In the collection of documents con¬ cerning this Embassy, Alvarez included an account of the King of Ethiopia, and of the manners and customs of his subjects, and a description in Portuguese of the habits of the Ethiopians (alcuni costumi di esso Seren- issimo David, e del suo paese e genti, tradotta di lingua ethiopica in Portogalese) ; 1 and in his Ho Prestejoam das 1 Printed about 1533. xxiii Introduction Indias (Coimbra, 1540), and his Historia de las cosas ddEtiopia (Anvers 1557, Saragosse 1561 and Toledo 1588) this account was greatly amplified.1 In the first quarter of the sixteenth century, P. N. Godinho published some traditions about King Solomon and his son Menyelek or Menyelik, derived from the Kebra Nagast,2 and further information on the subject was included by the Jesuit priest Manoel Almeida (1580- 1646) in his Historia gefal de Ethiopia , which does not appear to have been published in its entirety. Manoel Almeida was sent out as a missionary to Ethiopia, and had abundant means of learning about the Kebra Nagast at first hand, and his manuscript Historia is a valuable work. His brother, Apollinare, also went out to the country as a missionary, and was, with his two companions, stoned to death in Tigre.