Land and Society in the Christian Kingdom of Ethiopia: From the Thirteenth to the Twentieth Century

Donald Crummey

University of Illinois Press, 2000 - History - 373 pages

Donald Crummey's monumental work is the first extended history of Ethiopia to focus on the system of taxation and tribute, called gult, that underpinned the region's social and political structure for some seven centuries.

Land and Society in the Christian Kingdom of Ethiopia offers an original perspective on how the rulers of Ethiopia -- one of the great subcenters of agricultural innovation and development -- used land to support their dominion. Crummey draws on all the surviving documents pertaining to the holding and granting of agricultural land in the Ethiopian highlands from the thirteenth to the twentieth century. By examining how social relations affected the conditions for economic production and how people of power drew on the wealth created by society's basic producers, he provides new insight into how ordinary farming and herding folk were incorporated into and affected by the institutions that ruled them.

Crummey makes imaginative use of previously overlooked documents, particularly property records that were written in the margins and flyleaves of Ethiopian manuscripts. Primarily liturgical manuscripts that often contained records of the holdings of religious institutions, these documents also shed light on lay strategies of accumulation and transmission of wealth in land. Based on these records, Crummey determines that the persistence over centuries of a continuing pattern of social inequality can only be explained by the social character of gult as a foundation of enduring relations between the tribute payer and the tribute receiver.

Presenting new evidence to suggest that the nature of landed property and social class in Ethiopia was considerably moresophisticated than hitherto recognized, Land and Society in the Christian Kingdom of Ethiopia constitutes a major challenge to previous assumptions and understandings about land and social relations in this highly structured society.

Contents

• List of Tables Charts Maps and Illustrations: ix
• Introduction: xix
• Gult and the State 12001540: 17
• 59: 30
• 89: 37
• 106: 39
• Gult Grants 12001508: 48
• Items Used to Define Gult Payments 12001540: 49
• Man Is Free Land Is Tributary: 50
• Order and Disorder: 73
• Gult Grants 15401632: 87
• Gult Lands Granted to Däbrä Berhan Sellasé Gondär by Iyasu I: 89
• Mentewwab How Beautiful She Is 172169: 94
• Gult Grants of Bäkaffa: 100
• Grants of Gult to Churches by Yetégé Mentewwab: 105
• Gult Grants to Individuals by Yetégé Mentewwab: 106
• Family and Property: 114
• Primary Documents in Chronological Order: 117
• Primary Documents Distinct from the Case of Gälawdéwos: 124
• The Era of the Princes: 144
• Lands of Bäata Gondär: 147
• Sources for the Land Grants of Täklä Haymanot 176977: 148
• Sources for the Land Grants of Sälomon 177779: 149
• Churches Benefiting from Land Grants in the Early: 150
• Zämänä Mäsafent 176984: 153
• The Principal Sources: 164
• Royal Churches in and around Gondär Town in order of their founding: 165
• Sales of Measured Plots in Cambridge Add MSS 1570: 179
• Gult and the Reconstruction of the Monarchy 18681910: 198
• Gult Grants to Churches of the Reign of Yohannes IV: 211
• Gebzenna Grants of Menilek II: 217
• 4t 117: 222
• 124: 223
• State Land and Society in Twentieth: 226
• Notes: 261
• 147: 263
• 148: 274
• 149: 275
• 150: 276
• 153: 292
• 164: 301
• Bibliography: 327
• Index: 357
• 165: 358
• 179: 359
• མ༤༣༣ ཞྲིའི ཎྜ ཁྐྲཀྑུ ཀྑུཀྑཀྑཝཱ 211 217 25 Some Ecclesiastical Gult Grants of the Reign of Menilek II: 360
• Land Tax and Tithe 195872: 364

Bibliographic information

• Title: Land and Society in the Christian Kingdom of Ethiopia: From the Thirteenth to the Twentieth Century
• Author: Donald Crummey
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press, 2000
• ISBN: 0252024826, 9780252024825
• Length: 373 pages
• Subjects: History / Africa / East; History / Africa / General; Political Science / General; Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural & Social; Social Science / Sociology / General