Ethiopic · Other ·
Anonymous · betmas
Work dossier · summary and historical context
Lālibalā's gʷǝlt is a Geʿez land grant issued by King Lālibalā (throne name Gabra Masqal) to the churches of Masqal and Mary. The document records a royal endowment of land to ecclesiastical institutions, including female monastic communities, and follows a standard Ethiopic charter form with trinitarian invocation, donor identification, grant formula, and curses/blessings. The text survives in a single manuscript witness (betmas) with no known translation or commentary. Its precise terms, boundaries, and beneficiaries remain unstudied philologically.
This gʷǝlt provides rare direct evidence of royal land grants to churches and female monastic communities in the Zagwe period, illuminating the intersection of royal patronage, ecclesiastical land tenure, and gender in medieval Ethiopia. It complements the better-known rock-hewn churches of Lālibalā by documenting the legal and economic framework that sustained them.
The grant dates to the reign of Lālibalā (ca. 1189–1229), a Zagwe king famous for building the rock-hewn churches of Lālibalā. The document reflects royal patronage of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and its monastic foundations, a key feature of Zagwe political and religious authority. The text is written in Geʿez, the classical liturgical and legal language of Ethiopia. The term gʷǝlt (ጕልት) denotes a land grant or endowment, distinct from sale or inheritance, and was a common instrument for supporting ecclesiastical institutions. The grant names nuns Abrəqsiyā and Sosānā as beneficiaries, indicating female monastic communities were recipients of royal land grants. The document's transmission is limited to a single manuscript (betmas), and its later liturgical or canonical use is unattested. The date '2 2 2' in the year of mercy is likely corrupt, obscuring the precise chronology.
Apparatus · what the pipeline recorded
| Coptic | Rendering | Count | First |
|---|---|---|---|
| no glossary terms recorded | |||