Afonso Mendes

The Ethiopian chronicle notes his coming in one line, under the nineteenth year of Susenyos: the arrival of “Afonsu the patriarch” (Ethiopian Chronicle (trans. Basset) p. 124). The Jesuit historian Tellez describes what followed. On 11 February 1626 the emperor knelt before Mendes and swore obedience to the pope, and it was proclaimed that no Ethiopian priest or monk should say mass until he had been to the patriarch, because their ordinations were held doubtful (Tellez, Travels of the Jesuits in Ethiopia p. 233). When the emperor let his people return to their former religion in 1632, Mendes reproached him to his face (Tellez, Travels of the Jesuits in Ethiopia p. 242).

After the emperor’s death Mendes and the Jesuits were sent to Fremona, which they reached in April 1633 (Tellez, Travels of the Jesuits in Ethiopia p. 246), and in 1634 they were handed to the Turks on the coast (Tellez, Travels of the Jesuits in Ethiopia pp. 254–255). The chronicle says only that the Frank Afonsu returned to his country (Ethiopian Chronicle (trans. Basset) p. 285). The preface to the English Tellez says that Mendes lived ten years in Ethiopia and wrote a history of it, which Tellez used (Tellez, Travels of the Jesuits in Ethiopia preface). See Susenyos, the Jesuits and the Ethiopian Church.