As Christian shipping disappeared from the Red Sea, Aksum’s towns lost their vitality. The Aksumite state turned southward, conquering adjacent grain-rich highlands. Monastic establishments moved even farther to the south; for example, a major church was founded near Lake Hayk in the 9th century. Over time, one of the subject peoples, the Agau, learned Geʿez, became Christian, and assimilated their Aksumite oppressors to the point that Agau princes were able to transfer the seat of the empire southward to their own region of Lasta. Thus, the Zagwe dynasty appeared in Ethiopia. Later ecclesiastical texts accused this dynasty of not having been of pure “Solomonic” stock (i.e., not descended from the union of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba), but it was in the religious plane that the Zagwe nonetheless distinguished themselves. At the Zagwe capital of Roha (modern-day Lalibela), Emperor Lalibela (reigned c. 1185–1225) directed the hewing of 11 churches out of living rock—a stupendous monument to Christianity, which he and the other Zagwes fostered along with the Ethiopianization of the countryside.

However, Zagwe hegemony was never complete, and opposition continued among the Semitic-speaking elite of Tigray, to the north, and the newly emergent Amhara people, to the south. The opposition increasingly focused on questions of “Solomonic” legitimacy. In 1270 a leading nobleman of the province of Shewa, Yekuno Amlak, rebelled. He was supported by an influential faction of monastic churchmen, who condoned his regicide of Emperor Yitbarek and legitimated his descent from Solomon. The genealogy of the new Solomonic dynasty was published in the early 14th century in the Kebra nagast (“Glory of the Kings”), a collection of legends that related the birth of Menilek I, associated Ethiopia with the Judeo-Christian tradition, and provided a basis for Ethiopian national unity through the Solomonic dynasty, Semitic culture, and the Amharic language. Well-armed ideologically, the Ethiopian state was prepared for a struggle impending in its eastern and southern provinces, where Christianity was meeting increasing resistance from the forces of Islam.

Islamic preaching had converted many of the people living on the peripheries of Ethiopian rule. In the late 13th century, various Muslim sultanates on Ethiopia’s southern border fell under the hegemony of Ifat, located on the eastern Shewan Plateau and in the Awash valley. The Ethiopian emperor Amda Tseyon proved a vigorous campaigner, waging wars in all directions—to the Red Sea in the north, unincorporated areas in the south and eastward against the Muslim state of Ifat. He established strategic garrisons to consolidate the newly conquered regions, creating a system of gults, or fiefs, in which the holders of a gult were paid tribute by the gult’s inhabitants. His heavy taxation of exports, especially of gold, ivory, and slaves that were transshipped from Ifat to Arabia, met with resistance. Amda Tseyon and his successors replied with brutal pacification campaigns that carried Solomonic power into the Awash valley and even as far as Seylac (Zeila) on the Gulf of Aden.

Aggrandizement into non-Christian areas was accompanied by internal reform and consolidation of the Christian state. As heads of the church, the Solomonic monarchs actively participated in the development of religious culture and discipline by building and beautifying churches, repressing “pagan” practices, and promoting the composition of theological and doctrinal works. Nevertheless, the relations between church and state were marked by conflict as well as cooperation. The rise of the Shewan Solomonics had been preceded by a revival of monasticism in the Amhara areas, and the monks had an uneasy relationship with the new dynasty. The bolder ones among them condemned the dynasty’s practice of polygyny, and not until the late 14th century was the conflict resolved, the royal court winning over the monks with rich grants of land. Other conflicts also arose. The monk Ewostatewos (c. 1273–1352) preached isolation from corrupting state influences and a return to biblical teachings—including observance of the Judaic Sabbath on Saturday in addition to the Sunday observance, an idea apparently already widely diffused in Ethiopia. The great emperor Zara Yaqob (Zara Yakob; reigned 1434–68) conceded the latter point in 1450 at the Council of Debre Mitmaq, but he also initiated severe reforms in the church, eliminating abuses by strong measures and executing the leaders of heretical sects. Zara Yaqob also conducted an unsuccessful military campaign against the Beta Israel, a group of Agau-speaking Jews who practiced a non-Talmudic form of Judaism.

Zara Yaqob valued national unity above all and feared Muslim encirclement. In 1445 he dealt Ifat such a crushing military defeat that hegemony over the Muslim states passed to the sultans of Adal, in the vicinity of Harer. About 1520 the leadership of Adal was assumed by Aḥmad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ghāzī, a Muslim reformer who became known as Sahib al-Fath (“the Conqueror”) to the Muslims and Aḥmad Grāñ (“Ahmad the Left-Handed”) to the Christians. Aḥmad drilled his men in modern Ottoman tactics and led them on a jihad, or holy war, against Ethiopia, quickly taking areas on the periphery of Solomonic rule. In 1528 Emperor Lebna Denegel was defeated at the battle of Shimbra Kure, and the Muslims pushed northward into the central highlands, destroying settlements, churches, and monasteries. In 1541 the Portuguese, whose interests in the Red Sea were imperiled by Muslim power, sent 400 musketeers to train the Ethiopian army in European tactics. Emperor Galawdewos (reigned 1540–59) opted for a hit-and-run strategy and on February 21, 1543, caught Aḥmad in the open near Lake Tana and killed him in action. The Muslim army broke, leaving the field and north-central Ethiopia to the Christians.

Challenge, revival, and decline (16th–19th century)

Meanwhile, population pressures had mounted among the Oromo, a pastoral people who inhabited the upper basin of the Genalē (Jubba) River in what is now southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya. Oromo society was based upon an “age-set” system known as gada, in which all males born into an eight-year generation moved together through all the stages of life. The warrior classes (luba) raided and rustled in order to prove themselves, and in the 16th century they began to undertake long-distance expeditions, availing themselves of the collapse of the frontier defenses of both the Christian and Muslim states. By 1600 the Oromo had spread so widely in Ethiopia that Emperor Sarsa Dengel (reigned 1563–97) limited his government to what are now Eritrea, the northern regions of Tigray and Gonder, and parts of Gojam, Shewa, and Welo, areas that included the bulk of the Christian Semitic-speaking agriculturalists. Meanwhile, the church had barely revived following the destruction and mass apostasy of the jihad era, when it found itself facing a different kind of threat from Roman Catholicism.

Following close upon the Portuguese musketeers were missionaries who, sent by the Jesuit founder St. Ignatius of Loyola, sought to convert Ethiopia to the Western church. The most successful of these was the Jesuit Pedro Páez; his personal authority and eminent qualities were such that Emperor Susenyos (reigned 1607–32) was persuaded to accept the doctrine of the dual nature of Christ and to notify the pope of his submission. This apostasy was joined by many in the royal court but met with violent resistance from the provincial nobles, the church, and the people at large. Susenyos was forced to abdicate in favour of his son Fasilides (reigned 1632–67).

Fasilides established a new capital at Gonder, a trading centre north of Lake Tana that connected the interior to the coast. At its height about 1700, the city supported the arts and educational, religious, and social institutions as well as Beta Israel craftspeople, Muslim traders, and a large population of farmers, day labourers, students, and soldiers. Fasilides was succeeded by his son, Yohannes, and then by a grandson, Iyasu the Great. The court sponsored secular and religious construction, manuscript writing and copying, the verbal arts, and painting. A second wave of cultural productivity followed, in the middle decades of the 18th century under the sponsorship of Empress Mentewwab (reigned 1730–69), a remarkable woman who ruled jointly with her son and grandson. However, ethnic, regional, and religious factionalism undermined the kingdom and led in 1769 to its collapse. The Zamana Masafent (“Age of the Princes”; 1769–1855), an era of feudal anarchy, had commenced.

For most Ethiopians, life during the Age of the Princes was difficult. Power had shifted from the central court to the courts of regional princes, and they vied with one another in battle. There were no significant changes in the social order, but the oppression of the farming population increased as armies traversed the highlands, ruining the countryside and plundering the harvests of farmers. Nevertheless, significant developments were taking place in the south.

Agricultural development in the Gībē River basin led to the formation of Oromo states to the southwest of Shewa; the Gonga people developed their own states in the Kefa highlands on the west bank of the Omo River; and a line that claimed Solomonic descent established a formidable regional kingdom in northern Shewa. Shewa prospered in the growing trade of the Gībē states, and Shewa’s self-proclaimed king, Sahle Selassie (reigned 1813–47), and his successors expanded southward; by 1840 they controlled most of Shewa to the Awash River and enjoyed suzerainty as far south as Guragē.

To the north, Kassa Hailu was in the process of ending the Age of the Princes. After serving as a mercenary in Gojam, Kassa returned to his native Qwara on the extreme edge of the western highlands, where he prospered as a highwayman and built a good small army. By 1847 he had monopolized the lowlands’ revenues from trade and smuggling, forcing Gonder’s leading magnates to integrate him into the establishment. Finally, in April 1853 at Takusa, Kassa defeated Ras (Prince) Ali, the last of a succession of the Oromo lords who had played a central role in the Age of the Princes. After defeating the ruler of northern Ethiopia, Kassa was crowned Emperor Tewodros II on February 11, 1855. Later that year he marched south and forced the submission of Shewa. His consolidation of power over the formerly separate states established the modern Ethiopian country.