Amda Seyon I, also known as Amda Tsiyon I (Ge'ez: ዐምደ ፡ ጽዮን ʿAmdä ṣəyon, Amharic: አምደ ፅዮን āmde ṣiyōn, "Pillar of Zion"), throne name Gebre Mesqel (ገብረ መስቀል gäbrä mäsḳal, "Servant of the Cross"), was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1314 to 1344 and a member of the Solomonic dynasty.
The most important source for the military actions undertaken during his reign is G.W.B. Huntingford's translation of his Ge'ez chronicle, The Glorious Victories. This has also come to be the name for his conquests in modern times. He is best known in the so-called chronicles as a heroic warrior against the Muslims, and is sometimes considered to have been the founder of the Ethiopian Empire. Chekroun notes the chronicle was likely composed in the 15th century, after the events it describes. Hirsch has argued that, despite its epic framing around Amda Seyon, the narrative actually describes 15th-century conflicts between kings Dawit I and Yeshaq I against the Sultanate of Awfat, rather than the 14th-century wars of Amda Seyon's own reign. Edward Ullendorff argued the work was clearly written by an eyewitness, citing its vivid depiction of the king's campaigns and its engagingly personal anecdotes about his life. Other historians like Richard Pankhurst have praised the chronicle as a "masterpiece" of historiography.
Most of his wars were against the Muslim sultanates to the southeast, which he was able to fight and generally defeat, and substantially enlarge his kingdom by gradually incorporating a number of smaller states. His conquests of Muslim borderlands greatly expanded Christian territory and power in the region, which were maintained for centuries after his death. Amda Seyon asserted the strength of the new Solomonic dynasty and therefore legitimized it. These expansions further provided for the spread of Christianity to frontier areas, sparking a long era of proselytization, Christianization, and integration of previously peripheral areas.
According to British historian Edward Ullendorff, "Amda Seyon was one of the most outstanding Ethiopian kings of any age and a singular figure dominating the Horn of Africa in the fourteenth century."
It is not known how Amda Seyon became Emperor. However, a few pieces of information indicate that he may have been involved in the succession struggle against Wedem Arad.
It is argued that sufficient evidence shows that Amda Seyon was the son of Wedem Arad. However, when a deputation of monks led by Basalota Mika’el accused him of incest for marrying Emperor Wedem Arad's concubine Jan Mogassa and threatened to excommunicate him, he claimed to be the biological son of the Emperor's brother Qedma Asgad; this explanation may have had its origins in court gossip. Whatever the truth of Amda Seyon's parentage, the imperial history known as the Paris Chronicle records that he expressed his rage at his accusers by beating one of them, Abbot Anorewos of Segaja, and exiling the other ecclesiastics to Dembiya and Begemder.
The real cause of the conflict, which continued into the reign of his son Newaya Krestos, remains disputed. On the surface it was provoked by the attempt of ecclesiastics to force the Emperor to abandon old marital customs and follow Christian norms. However, the growing administrative and economic independence of the church and monastic institutions, backed by resistance from local nobility against the emperor's centralising authority, appears to have been the deeper source of tension.
Taddesse Tamrat reports that he found a contemporary note written in a manuscript now kept in the island monastery of Lake Hayq, which mentions that in 1309 AM (1316/7 AD), Emperor Amda Seyon successfully campaigned against the Pagan Damot as well as the Muslim Hadiya Kingdom. The note describes his conquest of Damot, many of whose people he exiled to another area, and then the conquest of Hadiya, to whose people he did likewise. Though his early control of these regions was minimal, it is evident by 1332 (or 1329) that Hadiya had been fully integrated, providing troops for his 1332 campaigns against the Sultanate of Ifat. The King of Hadiya, Amano, refused to visit the emperor and give his tribute, encouraged by, according to Amda Seyon's chronicler, a Muslim "prophet of darkness" named Bel'am. According to the emperor's Chronicle, Bel'am told him to rebel:
Go not to the king of Seyon [i.e. Ethiopia]. Do not give him gifts: if he comes against you, be not afraid of him, for he will be delivered into your hands and you will cause him to perish with his army.
The emperor was infuriated, invading Hadiya and killing many people, and taking Amano prisoner along with many of his subjects. Bel'am, however was able to escape the emperor by fleeing to Ifat. These conquests represented a significant advancement of Amda Seyon's eventual goal of controlling the inland trade previously controlled by the Muslims in Ifat and farther east. Hadiya's conquest deeply affected the slave trade and consequently hurt the trade and wealth of the eastern Muslim provinces. For the first time, the Muslim presence in the region was threatened, which later resulted in alliances between the Muslim provinces (which often rebelled) when they had previously acted more independently of each other.
In the same year as his campaigns against the southern regions of Damot and Hadiya, the emperor also campaigned against the more northerly province of Gojjam.
After his 1316/7 campaigns in the south, Amda Seyon had to turn north to strengthen his control over areas that had in the meanwhile gained more autonomy. The northern Tigrayan Enderta Province had increasingly been asserting its independence since the Solomonic restoration under Yekuno Amlak in 1270. During Yekuno Amlak's time, the governor of Enderta was Ingida Igzi', who was succeeded by his son, Tesfane Igzi'. As governor of Enderta, Tesfane Igzi' had the most power among the northern provinces and held the title Hasgwa and Aqabé Tsentsen ('keeper of the fly whisks – an ancient Aksumite title) and threatened the Amhara-based lineage currently in power. As early as 1305, Tesfane Igzi' referred to Enderta as "his kingdom," his son and successor, Ya'ibika Igzi, did not even mention the Emperor in his 1318/9 land grant. Ya'ibika Igzi eventually rebelled, unsuccessfully inviting the governor of nearby Tembien to join him.[e] Amda Seyon responded swiftly, killing the governor, dividing the titles, and awarding them to individuals of distant provinces. The Emperor's appointees were unpopular, described by the chronicler as "men who were not born from Adam and Eve who were called Halestiyotat," a term literally meaning "bastard of mixed or low origins".
To consolidate his control in the region, Amda Seyon established a military colony of non-Tigrayan troops at Amba Senayata, the center of the rebellion, and appointed his queen consort, Bilén Saba(ብሌን ሳባ, as governor of Enderta, along with a new batch of officials below her. The Queen ruled indirectly however, which caused unrest in the province as the population heavily resented Amhara rule. This induced the Emperor to appoint one of his sons, Bahr Seged, as governor, who was later in 1328 also given control of the maritime provinces under the title of Ma'ikele Bahr ("Between the Rivers/Seas").
In 1329, the Emperor campaigned in the northern provinces of Semien, Wegera, Tselemt, and Tsegede, in which many had been converting to Judaism and where the Beta Israel had been gaining prominence.
Amda Seyon was also wary of Muslim power along the Red Sea coast and therefore headed to area in modern Eritrea bordering the Red Sea: "I, King Amdä-ṣiyon, went to the sea of Eritrea [i.e. "Red Sea"]. When I reached there, I mounted on an elephant and entered the sea. I took up my arrow and spears, killed my enemies, and saved my people."
During his campaign, the emperor also met the famous monk Ewostatewos, who was on his way to Armenia.
Around 1320, Sultan an-Nasir Muhammad of the Mamluk Sultanate based in Cairo began persecuting Copts and destroying their churches. Amdä Seyon subsequently sent a mission to Cairo in 1321-2 threatening to retaliate against the Muslims in his kingdom, and threatened to send a legion in conquest of Egypt after diverting the course of the Nile if the sultan did not end his persecution. Though Al-Nasir Muhammad ignored the envoys, fear of the diversion of the Nile in Egypt would continue for centuries. As a result of the dispute and threats, Haqq ad-Din I, sultan of Ifat, seized and imprisoned a member of the deputation sent by the Emperor named Ti'yintay on his way back from Cairo. Haqq ad-Din tried to convert Ti`yintay, killing him when this failed. The Emperor responded by invading Ifat accompanied by, according to Amda Seyon's royal chronicler, only seven horsemen, and killed many of the sultan's soldiers. Part of the army then followed him and destroyed the province's capital, Ifat, and Amda Seyon took much of its wealth in the form of gold, silver, bronze, lead, and clothing. Amda Seyon continued his reprisals throughout all of the provinces of Ifat as well as Harla Kingdom, pillaging Kwelgora, Biqulzar, Gidaya, Hubat, Fedis, Qedsé, Hargaya, and Shewa, populated mainly by Muslims, taking livestock, killing many inhabitants, destroying towns and mosques, as well as taking prisoners.