The Prester John of the Indies (Narrative of the Portuguese Embassy to Abyssinia)
Francisco ÁlvaresJourney in the 1520s
An account of Ethiopia by a priest who travelled there with a Portuguese embassy in the 1520s. Its chapter on the rock churches of Lalibela describes them one by one, as a European visitor saw them.
Francisco Álvares was a priest who went to Ethiopia with a Portuguese embassy; the English translation dates the embassy to the years 1520–1527. He visited the churches of Lalibela twice and describes them one by one, with measurements in spans. He expected not to be believed, and breaks off with an oath that what he has written is true.
He saw the churches some three hundred years after the reign of King Lalibela. What he says of their builder and of the time they took is what he was told on the spot (“they say”), and he reports it as hearsay.
Cited in
- about 1200, traditional date