Epistle of Zarʾa Yāʿqob (the imperial letter inserted in the Book of the Synod)

መልእክት (the Gǝʿǝz incipit states the letter was written into 'this book of the Senodos' by Zarʾa Yāʿqob) · Zarʾa Yāʿqob (Emperor of Ethiopia) · 15th c. (reign of Zarʾa Yāʿqob) · letter · LIT4544Epistle

Ethiopic · domain: canon-law · researched 2026-11-13

no English translation located. No published English translation of this text was located in the catalogues and series checked. Where only a non-English rendering or a translation of a daughter version exists, it is recorded below and does not close the gap. Treat this as a gap candidate, not as proof that no translation exists; the evidence names every source checked.

Why this is in the register

Beta maṣāḥǝft records a single edition, Ludolf 1691 (Commentarius, pp. 301-304), i.e. the text printed inside a seventeenth-century Latin commentary (Ludolf's Commentarius ad suam historiam Aethiopicam) (https://github.com/BetaMasaheft/Works/blob/master/4001-5000/LIT4544Epistle.xml). No English version found. The one Zarʾa Yāʿqob epistle that is Englished is a different work - The epistle of humanity of Emperor Zärʾa Yaʿeqob (Ṭomarä Tǝsbǝʾt), CSCO, Leuven 1991, languages eng/amh - which HOLLIS returns for 'Zara Yaqob epistle' (https://hollis.harvard.edu/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Zara%20Yaqob%20epistle&tab=Everything&search_scope=MyInst_and_CI&vid=01HVD_INST:HVD2&offset=0

Short but constitutionally interesting: it is a royal letter with canonical force, transmitted inside the Senodos itself, which is why it belongs to canon law rather than to the diplomatic corpus. The Beta maṣāḥǝft file transcribes only 26 Gǝʿǝz words (the opening), so the text must be taken from Ludolf 1691. Only Latin access exists; the English reader has nothing.

Existing translations recorded

None recorded in English. Non-English versions, where they exist, are named in the evidence above.

Electronic text

Source and licence
Beta Masaheft · TEI XML · CC BY-SA 4.0 (stated in the TEI availability/licence element) LIT4544Epistle

Scanned witnesses

Scan search: not checked. Not searched in the scan pass: this dossier was outside the 121-work scan target set.

Harvard Hollis

Hollis query: Zarʾa Yāʿqob Epistle of Zarʾa Yāʿqob — 1 record(s); match basis author_title_unquoted.

Record	Citation
The epistle of humanity of Emperor Zärʼa Yaʻe̳qob (Ṭomarä Te̳sbe̳ʼt) Zar'a Yā'eqob, Emperor of Ethiopia, 1399-1468 · 1991 · eng, amh	Zar'a Yā'eqob, Emperor of Ethiopia, 1399-1468. "The epistle of humanity of Emperor Zärʼa Yaʻe̳qob (Ṭomarä Te̳sbe̳ʼt)." Lovanii : E. Peeters, 1991. https://hollis.harvard.edu/permalink/f/1s5nto6/990026443930203941

Sources checked

Cite: Tergwame, “Epistle of Zarʾa Yāʿqob (the imperial letter inserted in the Book of the Synod)” (ethiopic gap dossier), 2026. https://naxiai.com/christian/gaps/ethiopic-zara-yaqob-epistle-senodos