Abyssinian Feudalism

Author(s): Donald Crummey

Source: Past & Present , Nov., 1980, No. 89 (Nov., 1980), pp. 115-138
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Past and Present Society

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 ABYSSINIAN FEUDALISM*

CONCEPTS OF FEUDALISM HAVE BEEN FREQUENTLY INVOKED BY OBSER-

vers of the Ethiopian scene. From the nineteenth century when such
concepts emerged, European scholars and travellers have frequentl
used them in referring to Abyssinian society.1 Ethiopians have als
begun to apply them.2 Recent work has tended to sharpen the applica
bility of feudal concepts both by an appreciation of the wider compara
tive framework, and by a closer acquaintance with the Amhara se
ment of the Abyssinian whole.3
The parallels between the traditional Abyssinian social order an
the medieval European norm of feudalism are striking: so striking tha
both liberal and Marxian social thought seem at a point of convergen
in applying notions of feudalism to an analysis of Abyssinian reality.
For an Ethiopianist, reading Bloch can be seductive and hallucina
tory.4 Allan Hoben was one of the first explicitly to draw attention to
the applicability of Bloch, and the solidity of Hoben's work invites the
development of a more extended application. Inspired by the Marxian
tradition a number of other writers have begun to discuss the mode of
production in Ethiopia, as distinct from matters of social style an

* Versions of this paper have been presented to the African Studies Seminar, McGi
University, January 1976, to the annual meeting of the African Studies Association
Boston, November 1976, and to a symposium on "Cultivator and the State in I're
Colonial Africa", Urbana, May 1977. I am particularly grateful to Donald Ievine and
John M. Cohen for their careful and challenging readings.
1 For example, Arnauld d'Abbadie, Douze ans dans la Haute-Ethiopie (Paris
I 868); C. Conti Rossini, Principi di diritto consuetudinario dell'Eritrea (Rome, I 916
E. Cerulli, "Punti di vista sulla storia dell'Etiopia", in Atti del convegno inter
nazionale di studi etiopici (Rome, 1960); P. Gilkes, The Dying Lion: Feudalism an
Modernization in Ethiopia (London, 1975). John Markakis has been more hesitan
than most: J. Markakis, Ethiopia: The Anatomy of a Polity (Oxford, 1974), p. 4; and
Gene Ellis has registered the most vigorous dissent: G. Ellis, "The Feudal Paradigm
a Hindrance to Understanding Ethiopia", Jl. Mod. African Studies, xiv (1976), p
275-95.
2 Eshetu Chole, "The Mode of Production in Ethiopia and the Realities Thereof",
Challenge: Jl. Ethiopian Students Union in North America, xii (197 1), pp. 3-28; Addis
Hiwet, Ethiopia from Autocracy to Revolution (London, 1975); Provisional Military
Administrative Council [Ethiopia], The Ethiopian Revolution ... FirstAnniversary of
the Ethiopian Revolution (Addis Ababa, 1975).
3 A. Hoben, Land Tenure among the Amhara of Ethiopia: The Dynamics of Cog-
natic Descent (Chicago, 1973); W. Weissleder, "The Political Ecology of Amhara
Domination" (Univ. of Chicago Ph.D. thesis, 1965); D. N. Levine, Wax and Gold
(Chicago, I965); D. N. Levine, Greater Ethiopia: The Evolution of a Multiethnic
Society (Chicago, 1974), ch. 8. See also F. C. Gamst, "Peasantries and Elites without
Urbanism: The Civilization of Ethiopia", Comparative Studies in Society and Hist.,
xii (I970), pp. 373-92.
4 M. Bloch, Feudal Society, 2nd edn., 2 vols. (London, I962).

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 II6 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 89

superstructure.5 Their suggestions about the feudal nature of the

Abyssinian mode of production also deserve discussion and develop-
ment. Most particularly the Marxian trend has forcefully raised the
concept of class, a concept which should be taken more seriously by
students of Abyssinian society.
However, although the Marxian and liberal schools do converge in
applying feudal concepts, those concepts have different content and
are applied in different ways. Moreover neither school has pressed its
concepts very hard, and the ensuing argument will register a number
of serious qualifications. I must also note that my own analysis is pre-
liminary in that, while it rests on a considerable body of primary and
secondary information, it suffers from the present inadequate state of
research. As yet our historical knowledge of Abyssinian society is
sketchy; and very little research, particularly historical, has been in-
formed by questions pertinent to the present discussion. Finally, it
should be admitted that, in its concern for models, and for basic con-
tinuities, this paper has a certain static quality which contrasts with
the normal product of historical research. This paper searches for
neither origins nor change, but rather tries to establish that which re-
quires historical explanation, and to depict the context of change.
"Feudalism" has had a chequered career in studies of sub-Saharan
Africa. Social anthropologists have occasionally evoked it, but attacks
by Goody and Beattie in the early 196os drove it into a disfavour from
which it has yet to emerge.6 Historians of Africa tend to borrow such
little theory as they use from social anthropologists, and have em-
ployed few comparative or theoretical concepts. Nonetheless notions of
"feudalism" never wholly disappeared, being spasmodically used by
representatives of both the liberal social science and the Marxian tradi-
tions, although the latter have been virtually as reticent as the former.7
s Eshetu Chole, "The Mode of Production in Ethiopia and the Realities Thereof".
See also Haile Menkerios, "The Present System of Land Tenure in Ethiopia", Chal-
lenge, x (1970), pp. 4-24; Dessalegn Ramahto, "Conditions of the Ethiopian Peas-
antry", Challenge, x (I970), pp. 25-49; Addis Hiwet, Ethiopia from Autocracy to
Revolution. See also M. Stahl, Ethiopia: Political Contradictions in Agricultural
Development (Polit. Science Assoc. in Uppsala, Pubn. no. 67, Stockholm, 1974). Some
of my arguments were first outlined in my "Society and Ethnicity in the Politics of
Christian Ethiopia during the Zamana Masdfent", Internat. Jl. African Hist. Studies,
viii (1975), pp. 266-78.
6 J. Goody, "Feudalism in Africa", Jl. African Hist., iv (1963), pp. 1-18; J. Beattie,
"Bunyoro: An African Feudality?", Jl. African Hist., v (1964), pp. 25-36. Somewhat
overlooked has been Goody's more cogent "Economy and Feudalism in Africa", Econ.
Hist. Rev., 2nd ser., xxii (1969), pp. 393-405.
7 R. Cohen, "The Dynamics of Feudalism in Bornu", in J. Butler (ed.), African His-
tory (Boston Univ. Papers on Africa, ii, Boston, Mass., 1966), pp. 87-105; A. Smith,
"The Early States of the Central Sudan", in J. F. A. Ajayi and M. Crowder (eds.), His-
tory of West Africa, 2 vols. (London and New York, 1971-2), i, pp. 175-6, 189-90;
Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (London and Dar es Salaam,
1972), ch. 2; C. Coquery-Vidrovitch, "Recherches sur un mode de production afri-
cain", Pensee (Apr. 1969), pp. 61-78; M. Malowist, "The Social and Economic Stabi-
(cont. on p. 118)

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 ABYSSINIAN FEUDALISM II7

0 50 100 150 miles

0 )5 100 150 kilometres

Land 2000 metres or

more elevation f

Io

Language Area

I Tegrenni
Amharic

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 II8 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 89

The African debate originally centred on the East African lacustrine

zone, and there are no signs of a serious revival of the concept there.8
On the other hand the central Sudan, especially northern Nigeria,
seems more fertile ground and one waits impatiently for the historians
of the area to deal at length with social structure.9 Only when that has
been done will fruitful comparisons internal to Africa become possible.
However, from the beginning, two factors do seem to differentiate the
Sudanic states and societies from historic Abyssinia: the greater impor-
tance for the Sudanic states of both ethnic pluralism and long-distance
trade. Ethnic pluralism throughout the Sudanic belt is surely intima-
tely related to the comparative weakness of political and social integra-
tion throughout the historic period; an integration rendered the less
urgent by the great importance of long-distance trade for ruling-class
support in the area.10
Ethnic pluralism leads to a preliminary point about the Ethiopian
past: the applicability of the term Abyssinia. It will be argued that this
term is useful in isolating an area of closely integrated common cul-
ture, which in turn reflects the existence of one historic social forma-
tion. Recent studies have concentrated on the Amhara, and tend to
view society and polity as Amhara creations, explicable by reference to
Amhara culture." There are some grounds for this. Since the thir-
teenth century the Amhara have been the dominant ethnic group in
Ethiopia. The Solomonic dynasty which ruled from 1270 to 974 was
( tOte 7 COllt.
lity of the W'estern Sudan in the Middle Ages", Past and Present, no. 33 (Apr. 1966),
pp. 3-I5; E. Gellner, "Class before State: The Soviet Treatment of African Feudal-
ism", Archives europeennes de sociologie, xviii (I 977), pp. 299-322.
8 S. Karugire, A History of the Kingdom of Nkore in Western Uganda to 1896
(Oxford, 1971), ch. I; E. Steinhart, "Vassal and Fief in Three Lacustrine Kingdoms",
Cahiers d'etudes africaines, vii (1967), pp. 606-23. But see also Coquery-Vidrovitch,
"Recherches sur un mode de production africain", p. 70.
9 See Smith, "The Early States of the Central Sudan". See also A. Hopkins apropos
the social dimension of the great jihad: A. Hopkins, An Economic History of West
Africa (London, 1973), p. 134 note 26. But compare with M. G. Smith, Government in
Zazzau, I800-I950 (London, 1960); V. N. Low, Three Nigerian Emirates: A Study in
Oral History (Evanston, Ill., 1972).
10 S. Amin, Le developpement inegal: essai sur les formations sociales du capitalisme
peripherique (Paris, 1973), ch. I; S. Amin, "Underdevelopment and Dependence in
Black Africa: Historical Origin", Jl. Peace Research [Oslo], ii (1972), pp. 107-8; L.
Brenner, "The North African Trading Community in the Nineteenth-Century Cen-
tral Sudan", in D. McCall and N. Bennett (eds.), Aspects of West African Islam (Bos-
ton Univ. Papers on Africa, v, Boston, Mass., 1971), pp. 137-50. As exemplified by
Samir Amin, a good deal of Marxist attention has gone into the question of trade; see
also Coquery-Vidrovitch, "Recherches sur un mode de production africain"; G. Dupre
and P.-P. Rey, "Reflections on the Pertinence of a Theory of the History of Ex-
change", Economy and Society, ii (1973), pp. 131-63. But see Walter Rodney's stric-
tures against exaggerating the importance of trade: Rodney, How Europe Under-
developed Africa, p. 66.
11 The tendency is a general one. D. N. Levine seems to hover uneasily between
the Abyssinian whole and the Amhara segment. For the latter, see Levine, Greater
Ethiopia, pp. 148-52, 175; for the former, see ibid., p. I 18.

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 ABYSSINIAN FEUDALISM II9

an Amhara dynasty; and was perceived to be so by its sub

haric is known as lesana negus ("the king's language"
less ideology, social structure, land tenure, popular custom
ion were shared over a wider area by a number of peoples
by the Tegrenniia-speakers to the north; and also by the A
and Lasta. Abyssinia is the most useful term we have to d
geographical area over which this commonality prevailed.
Most crudely, Abyssinia in this sense could be defined a
rant of modern Ethiopia lying north-west of Addis Ababa
of the historic territories of Tegre (here taken in its broad
comprise all the territories occupied by Tegreifina-speake
cluding a triangular section of Eritrea, the apex of wh
near Asmara, and the base of which would lie along the mo
of Tegre), Bagemder, Wallo, Gojjam and Shawa. These terr
generally contained within, but are smaller than, the mod
ces of the same name. The discrepancy between historic t
modern province is most striking in the case of Shawa, the
parts of which are a comparatively small part of the mod
lying generally much to the north of Addis Ababa, but ext
eastwards of the city in a narrow strip along the Rift Va
ment. Wallo also raises peculiar problems, but at the very l
want to include its districts of Wag, Lasta, Yajju, Wadla, D
Saynt within Abyssinia. The purpose of this definition is
graphical precision to the area of cultural commonalit
above. It is also intended explicitly to exclude the rest
Ethiopia, despite the rather general tendency to argue that
conquest period from the I88os onwards other parts of th
more closely approximated feudal norms. Rather I would
what is ultimately one social formation for which we hav
siderable body of evidence.
Although Ethiopians are divided on the question, the
sinia does have legitimacy in their discourse, and is frequen
both Amharas and Tegreans in ordinary speech to char
styles and customs.12 The Agaw are an equivocal case.
sciousness of most Ethiopians, Semitic speech seems to ha
important component of Abyssinian identity, although in
not guarantee inclusion. The Agaw speak Kushitic languag
12 For example, habasha lebs ("Ethiopian dress") or habasha meg
food"). The adjectival form ityoppyawi ("Ethiopian") tends to be used
conscious situations. Unfortunately we lack a study of these terms, but i
sion that the notion of "Ethiopia" was much more an elite term th
"Abyssinia". My distinction between historic Abyssinia and modern E
trary.
13 The historically Christian, Semitic-speaking Gurage are another
TIheir participation in the Solomonic polity was occasional and incide
social structure was different. W. Shack does not deal with these matt
The Gurage: A People of the Ensete Culture (London, 1966); W. Sha
Ethiopians: Amhara, Tigrina and Related Peoples (London, I974).

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120 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 89

ever, the very inadequate literature on them does not suggest that
those of Wag and Lasta differ in any respects other than language from
their Semitic-speaking neighbours. They have been entirely integrated
into the Abyssinian polity at least since the twelfth and thirteenth cen-
turies when they ruled it. The basic reality to which I want to call at-
tention here is that at least since the thirteenth century the Abyssinian
state has rested upon and drawn its support from a coherent plough-
cultivating peasantry, whose density and size of population far exceeds
that of any other group over a very wide area (excluding only the lower
Nile valley), and which despite some linguistic differentiation (princi-
pally into Amharic and Tegreinnia) was integrated by a high degree of
common culture and custom.'4 Attempts to explain the state or the
social order from which it arose by reference to one group alone are
bound to fail. Attempts to explain or describe the state without refer-
ence to its relations with the peasantry are equally bound to be inade-
quate.
The period to which my remarks are intended to apply is a very
rough one: from the seventeenth century to the earlier twentieth cen-
tury. Since about 1935 a money economy spread rapidly and a central-
ized bureaucracy and administration grew up, technically distinct
from and independent of local power structures. Interlocked with these
developments was a striking expansion of the communications infra-
structure and a slow growth of capitalist enterprise.'5 The extent to
which these developments altered the Abyssinian social order is as yet
unresolved, but for analytical purposes it is convenient to exclude
them. Throughout the bulk of the period under review the Ethiopian
region had only the meagerest contacts with the evolving capitalist
system of world trade; Ethiopia's external commercial linkages lying
rather towards the north end of the Red Sea.
The starting-point requires some justification. The sixteenth cen-
tury saw a number of upheavals, the full social import of which has yet
to be assessed. From I529 to 1543 the country was racked by war, fol-
lowing which it came under at least half a century of pressure from im-
migrating bands called Galla. Then, for the first quarter of the seven-
teenth century it went through internal strife which became compli-
cated by the intervention of Jesuit missionaries. The status of the peas-
antry through all this is obscure. However, at the apex of the social
14 D. N. Levine has discussed significant ways in which the Solomonic story consti-
tuted a social and cultural myth, as distinct from a purely dynastic one: D. N. Levine,
"Menilek and Oedipus: Further Observations on the Ethiopian National Epic", in
H. G. Marcus (ed.), Proceedings of the First United States Conference on Ethiopian
Studies, I973 (East Lansing, Mich., 1975), pp. 11-23; Levine, Greater Ethiopia, ch. 7.
15 Markakis, Ethiopia, esp. ch. 12; P. Gilkes, The Dying Lion: Feudalism and
Modernization in Ethiopia (London, 1975), ch. 3; C. Clapham, Haile Sellassie's
Government (London, I 969); P. Koehn and John M. Cohen, "Local Government in
Ethiopia: Independence and Variability in a Deconcentrated System", Quart. Jl.
Administration, ix (1975), pp. 369-86.

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 ABYSSINIAN FEUDALISM I2I

order the monarchy entered the sixteenth century in com

siderable military resources planted around the country
sons or regiments known as chawa.'6 During the sixteent
lost control of the chawa to powerful provincial rulers.1
between 1596 and I607 the monarchy became subject
and in i604 the question of its abolition was openly, if v
raised.18 Two major factors making for unrest in these y
ambitions of the nobles and the restlessness, indeed unco
of the chawa.19 The great nobles were unwilling to aboli
archy, and peace was eventually restored by the late
I64os. However, the crisis of the earlier seventeenth cen
looks like a basic crisis in social, indeed class, relations, f
emerged one of the central catchwords dealing with the
the peasantry. We will return to this catchword below wh
the question of the applicability of the notion of "ser
Abyssinian peasants. Moreover, so far as questions of the
the monarchy to society are concerned, particularly wit
military institutions, by the earlier eighteenth century
virtually ceased to exist;20 and by the nineteenth centur
chawa had become assimilated in certain contexts to the notion of
gentility,2' as a number of sayings cited below suggest. However, al-
though we may suspect the earlier seventeenth century to have been a
period of significant social change, as yet we know too little to be con-
fident of the direction of change. Did it entail a modification in the sta-
tus of the peasantry away from earlier serfdom towards a more libera-
ted status? Or did it arise from an unsuccessful attempt more inten-
sively to subjugate a free peasantry, perhaps in the direction of serf-
dom? While the latter is more likely, our present evidence appears
ambiguous.
In the period under review the Abyssinian peasantry supported its
state and an extensive ruling class by means of a mode of production

16 Taddesse Tamrat, Church and State in Ethiopia, 1270-1527 (Oxford, 1972), pp.
89-94; Merid W. Aregay, "Southern Ethiopia and the Christian Kingdom, 1508-1708,
with Special Reference to the Galla Migrations and their Consequences" (Univ. of
London Ph.D. thesis, 197 ).
17 Merid W. Aregay, "Southern Ethiopia and the Christian Kingdom, 1508- 708",
ch. 4; LaVerle B. Berry, "The Solomonic Monarchy at Gondar, i630-1755: An Insti-
tutional Analysis of Kingship in the Christian Kingdom of Ethiopia" (Boston Univ.
Ph.D. thesis, 1976), pp. lvii, 25 -2, 293-6.
18 Girmah Beshah and Merid W. Aregay, The Question of the Union of the
Churches in Luso-Ethiopian Relations, I500-I632 (Lisbon, 1964), p. 73.
19 Stimulating questions about this period are raised in A. Bartnicki and J. Mantel-
Niecko, "The Role and Significance of the Religious Conflicts and People's Move-
ments in the Political Life of Ethiopia in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries",
Rassegna di studi etiopici, xxiv (1969-70), pp. 5-39.
20 Merid W. Aregay, "Southern Ethiopia and the Christian Kingdom, 1508-1708",
pp. 581-2; Berry, "The Solomonic Monarchy at Gondar, 1630-1755", pp. 293-6.
21 Levine, Wax and Gold, p. 156.

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I22 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 89

and an attendant social order in which, as already remarked, a number

of observers have seen striking parallels with the European norm of
feudalism. I propose to start the discussion with the question of social
order, since this is the more developed in the scholarly literature on
Ethiopia. Later the question of the mode of production will be raised,
to be followed by a consideration of the meaning of "class" in the Abys-
sinian context. The initial discussion will be organized around Bloch's
celebrated summary of the generic characteristics of a feudal order:
A subject peasantry; widespread use of the service tenement (i.e. the fief) instead of a
salary . . .; the supremacy of a class of specialized warriors; ties of obedience and
protection which bind man to man and, within the warrior class, assume the distinc-
tive form called vassalage; fragmentation of authority - leading inevitably to dis-
order; and, in the midst of all this, the survival of other forms of association, family
and State . ..22

The Abyssinian state rested firmly on the peasantry and on the pro-
duce of the land. The Ethiopian cultivator fits virtually all definitions
of a peasant: in no sense, economically, politically, culturally or relig-
iously was he an independent or autonomous figure, but rather was
linked in all these spheres by relationships which ran vertically up a
hierarchical social order, and horizontally over a wide geographical
area.23 Conversely formal kinship organizations, beyond possibly the
family, played no real role in the organization of production or in the
distribution of its results.24 "Clan" and "tribe" are terms manifestly
inapplicable to a description of Abyssinian society in our period.25 The
relationship between cultivators and the state is pithily summed up in
the Amharic apposition: arrasa/naggasa (cultivating/ruling).26 I will
return to the question of subjugation and constraint.
Virtually all commentators have noted the use of fiefs as a major
device for ruling-class support. The generic Abyssinian term is gult,
derived directly from the verb gwallata. Guidi renders gwallata simply
as "assegnare un feudo".27 As terminology varied considerably, in
22 Bloch, Feudal Society, ii, p. 446. For Hoben's application to the Amhara, see
especially his Land Tenure among the Amhara of Ethiopia, pp. 1-2.
23 John M. Cohen has drawn attention to the relevance of Ethiopian cultivators to
the general discussion about peasants in Africa: J. M. Cohen, "Ethiopia: A Survey on
the Existence of a Feudal Peasantry",Jl. Mod. African Studies, xii (1974), pp. 665-72.
The classic statement is by L. Fallers, "Are African Cultivators to be Called 'Peas-
ants'?", Current Anthropology, ii (196I), pp. 108- o, repr. in his Inequality: Social
Stratification Reconsidered (Chicago, 1973), pp. 80-8. For Ethiopia, see also Gamst,
"IPeasantries and Elites without Urbanism"; Levine, Wax and Gold, ch. 3.
24 Hoben's work is fundamental for an understanding of Abyssinian rural society.
In addition to Land Tenure among the Amhara of Ethiopia, see also his "Social
Stratification in Traditional Amhara Society", in A. Tuden and L. Plotnicov (eds.),
Social Stratification in Africa (London, 1970), pp. 187-224; and his "Land Tenure
and Social Mobility among the Damot Amhara", in Proceedings of the Third Inter-
national Conference of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa, 1966, 3 vols. (Addis Ababa,
1970), iii, pp. 69-87.
25 In spite of Shack, The Central Ethiopians.
26 J. Baeteman, Dictionnaire amarigna-francais (Dire Daoua, 1929), col. 524.
27 I. Guidi, Vocabolario amarico-italiano (Rome, 1953 edn.), col. 708.

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 ABYSSINIAN FEUDALISM 123

some areas gult had a rather restricted connotation.28 B

use is attested over a wide area,29 reflecting the commo
Abyssinian rulers of assigning lands and the revenues of
in return for service. In practice the granting of fiefs wa
royal monopoly, and subinfeudation was common. Sal
heard of prior to the twentieth century.
Abyssinian society was dominated by a warrior etho
d'Abbadie, who lived and fought in Ethiopia in the I8
remarked: "la forme sociale des Ethiopiens est toute
Fiefs, as I have noted elsewhere, were associated "objecti
jectively" with military functions.32 Objectively, a prim
ment of the gult-holder was to provide his lord with tr
of war. Subjectively, the Abyssinian nobility though
fighting. However, military functions were comparative
ized. In sharp contrast with medieval Europe or medieva
was no technology of heavy armour; horsemen were not
ed. Weaponry and tactics were rather simple.33 On the ot
further comparisons do suggest themselves. Since the si
tury the use of firearms in Ethiopia required training a
specialized group developed accordingly. The Ethiopia
ported their musketeers with fiefs, but retained contro
weapons.34 Moreover technology alone does not explain
entiation, and it would seem that the core of traditiona
formed by privileged groups and not by a levee en masse.
that the farasannia (horseman) occupied a social niche ve
that of the European knight.
Patron-client relations, resembling the "ties of obedien

28 Berhanou Abbebe, Evolution de la propriete fonciete au Cho

regne de Menelik d la constitution de 193 (Paris, 1971), pp. 24-33
29 For example, in Eritrea by Conti Rossini, Principi di diritto
dell'Eritrea, p. 11 2; and in Gojjam by Hoben, Land Tenure amon
Ethiopia, pp. 5-6.
30 D. N. Levine, "The Military in Ethiopian Politics: Capabilities an
in H. Bienen (ed.), The Military Intervenes: Case Studies in Politi
(New York, 1968), pp. 5- o; Weissleder, "The Political Ecology of
tion".
31 Abbadie, Douze ans dans la Haute-IEthiopie, p. 367.
32 Crummey, "Society and Ethnicity in the Politics of Christian Ethiopia", p. 268.
Abbadie, Douze ans dans la Haute-Ithiopie, is full of examples.
33 Levine, Greater Ethiopia, pp. 152-5; R. A. Caulk, "Firearms and Princely Power
in Ethiopia in the Nineteenth Century", Jl. African Hist., xiii (1972), pp. 609-30.
Compare with Bloch, Feudal Society, ii, p. 444. G. Ellis has noted this: Ellis, "The
Feudal Paradigm as a Hindrance to Understanding Ethiopia", p. 285.
34 Fantahun Birhane, "Gojjam, 1800-1855" (Haile Sellassie I Univ. B.A. thesis,
1973), p. 48; Caulk, "Firearms and Princely Power in Ethiopia".
35 R. A. Caulk, "Armies as Predators: Soldiers and Peasants in Ethiopia, c. I850-
1935", Internat. Jl. African Hist. Studies, xi (1978), pp. 457-93; Svein Ege, "Chiefs
and P'easants: The Socio-I'olitical Structure of the Kingdom of Shawa about 1840"
(LUniv. of Bergen Hovedfag thesis, 1978), pp. 182-5.

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124 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 89

tection", linked the members of Abyssinian society, in a most pronoun-

ced way. Markakis notes the saying: "A dog knows his master, but not
his master's master".36 Most recently Reminick has commented on this
hierarchical patterning, although it is noted by all other commenta-
tors.37 Indeed these ties were so strong that they prevailed over most
horizontal ties, probably even more so than in Europe. They seem to
have penetrated more deeply among the Ethiopian peasantry, whose
family and communal ties were correspondingly weakened. Again, as
in the European case, the ritual associated with these ties was increas-
ingly elaborate as one moved up the social scale. The concept of vassal-
age is not directly paralleled. However, both Bloch and Ganshof draw
attention to the importance of hands in the European ritual of feudal
submission.38 The Amharic term for tributary obeisance was ej man-
sha, or "raising the hands".39 Submission had regularly to be re-en-
acted in person; and a customary form of announcing rebellion was the
refusal to attend on one's lord, either when called, or when normally
expected, such as at the New Year. It is probable that further study will
allow us to develop our understanding of the ritual of submission in
Abyssinian society.40
Authority was fragmented. One need note only the widely cited:
kaGwondar negus, yagar ambaras ("the local chief [is more powerful]
than the king in Gondar").41 It is an open question whether bureau-
cratization may be said to have existed at all. Even at the height of
royal power around 1700 the court operated largely through the nobi-
lity, which was based in the countryside and not at the court. Moreover
Abyssinian political history has a major motif of centrifugal tenden-
cies, which are associated a great deal more with the drives of the nobi-
lity towards maximum local autonomy than with the ethnic or regional
identities to which many previous commentators have attributed

36 Markakis, Ethiopia, p. 39.

37 R. Reminick, "The Structure and Functions of Religious Belief among the
Amhara of Ethiopia", in Marcus (ed.), Proceedings of the First United States Confer-
ence on Ethiopian Studies, I973, pp. 27-8, 40-1. See also Levine, Greater Ethiopia,
pp. 122-4; or Gilkes on the ashkar system: Gilkes, The Dying Lion, pp. 27-9.
38 F. L. Ganshof, Feudalism, 3rd edn. (London, 1964), pp. 26-30, 73-4; Bloch, Feu-
dal Society, i, pp. 145-6.
39 Guidi, Vocabolario amarico-italiano, col. 380; I. Guidi with F. Gallina and E.
Cerulli, Supplemento al vocabolario amarico-italiano (Rome, 1940), col. 144; Baete-
man, Dictionnaire amarigna-francais, col. 503. It is also the colloquial expression for
greeting.
40 At the moment our most detailed description of an act of submission and homage
is that of Menilek to Yohannes IV in 1878: Gabra Sellase, Tarika zaman zaDagmawi
Menilek negusa nagast za Ityoppya [A History of Menilek II, King of Kings of
Ethiopia] (Addis Ababa, 1959 Ethiopian calendar [A.D. 1966/7]), ch. 26. Berry has
made some interesting comments along these lines: Berry, "The Solomonic Monarchy
at Gondar, 1630-1755", ch. 5.
41 Levine, Wax and Gold, p. 56, citing Baeteman, Dictionnaire amarigna-francais,
col. 629.

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 ABYSSINIAN FEUDALISM 125

them.42 These centrifugal forces triumphed from the

I85os, in the period known as the Zamana Masafent (t
"Judges" or "Princes").43
Nonetheless, to complete the analogy we should note th
state concept survived repeatedly to play a powerful r
periods of Abyssinian history.44 In the late thirteenth an
teenth centuries the legacy of Aksum was used by the p
monids to establish their legitimacy and to forge a more
polity.45 In the seventeenth century this same legacy, an
additions to it, were again called into play to buttress a gr
state.46 In the nineteenth century all three major monarc
(r. 855-68), Yohannes (r. 1872-89) and Menilek (r. I889
on separate remnants of the medieval or classical past to l
consolidate their authority.47
From a formal point of view Bloch's summary suggest
able degree of parallelism between the Abyssinian and
European social formations. However, points of diffe
emerge: not least with respect to vassalage, which many o
sider to be a crucial institution to the European mode
must be admitted that the model is a vague one allowing
and comparisons in many different directions. In particul
the notion of fief, it makes no reference to property rela
ter are forcefully raised by the Marxian school in its dis
mode of production.
The preceding description of the form of Abyssinian so
out that it rested on peasant production. It did so objecti
42 Merid W. Aregay, "Southern Ethiopia and the Christian Kingdo
pp. 225, 354 ff.; Crummey, "Society and Ethnicity in the Polit
Ethiopia". I do not claim that regionalism or ethnicity were entirely n
However, their importance will only be fully appreciated when we h
of the social and class context in which power was held. See Markakis
Ethiopia, pp. 7-8.
43 For a general study of the period, see M. Abir, Ethiopia: The Era
The Challenge of Islam and the Re-unification of the Christian Em
(London, 1968). Abir attributes much more to ethnicity than I do.
44 Gamst, "Peasantries and Elites without Urbanism", p. 384. Feuda
ical phenomenon within the context of the disintegration of an ea
major thrust of R. Coulborn (ed.), Feudalism in History (Princeton,
Critchley, Feudalism (London, 1978), ch. 3. Cerulli's application of a
largely a political one: Cerulli, "Punti di vista sulla storia dell'Eti
Cohen's criticism of this point: Cohen, "The Dynamics of Feudalis
0. Lattimore, "Feudalism in History", Past and Present, no. 12
47-57. This strikes me as the weakest, most accidental characteristic
digm. However, Perry Anderson concurs in attributing a unique im
classical past of European feudalism: P. Anderson, Lineages of the
(London, 1974), pp. 420-1.
45 Taddesse Tamrat, Church and State in Ethiopia, pp. 64-8.
46 Berry, "The Solomonic Monarchy at Gondar, 1630-1755".
47 The whole field of ideology in the modern period of Ethiopian hi
be investigated.

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126 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 89

sciously. The only wealth produced by Abyssinian society came from

the land, or from small craft production which was intimately linked to
the land. Artisans were widely dispersed, and submerged in rural soci-
ety. At certain periods the taxation of long-distance trade undoubtedly
contributed substantially to the support of the Abyssinian royal court
and possibly also to that of the nobility.48 However, commodity pro-
duction, particularly for long-distance trade, generally lay beyond the
frontiers of Abyssinian society, and beyond the control of the Abyssin-
ian state. The plundering of neighbouring peoples also played a signifi-
cant role in the support of the Abyssinian nobility at various times.49
However, long-distance trade was never fundamental to the interests
of the nobility and the social order was not basically modified by its
fluctuations; nor was it basically modified by periods of weakness vis a
vis neighbouring strangers. Moreover the institutions whereby trade
was taxed and neighbours plundered arose from Abyssinian society.
The Abyssinian ruling class was rooted in and drew its support from
the peasantry.
The Marxian concept of a mode of production has several different
levels of meaning. In its broadest form, the one which will be used here,
it refers to the totality of relations within a social formation, relations
which it seeks to explain or illuminate by reference to their material
content or point of origin.50 From this broad perspective the principal
determining characteristics of a class-based mode of production appear
most readily by focusing on the means whereby the rulers extract sur-
plus production from the ruled. Eshetu Chole, the Ethiopian econo-
mist, was the first systematically to attempt a Marxian analysis of
Ethiopian conditions; and a number of writers have followed him.51
Previous accounts have exaggerated the extent to which relations
between rulers and ruled in Abyssinia correspond to Dobb's analysis of
European feudalism, but they have directed us to a most fruitful com-
48 For the early medieval period, see Taddesse Tamrat, Church and State in
Ethiopia, pp. 80-9; for the earlier nineteenth century, see Abir, Ethiopia: The Era of
the Princes, ch. 3.
49 E. Simone, "The Amhara Military Expeditions against the Shawa Galla,
1800-1850: A Reappraisal", in Marcus (ed.), Proceedings of the First United States
Conference on Ethiopian Studies, 1973, pp. 135-41. Predatory relations also marked
the activities of the Gojjames south of the Abay and of Dajjach Webe in Bogos, both in
the 183os and I840s. Merid W. Aregay discusses a sixteenth-century situation where
state plundering fed into an export trade in slaves: Merid W. Aregay, "Southern
Ethiopia and the Christian Kingdom, 1508-1700", pp. io6, 278-9.
50 M. Godelier succinctly points up two different usages: M. Godelier, Perspectives
in Marxist Anthropology (Cambridge, 1977), p. i8. Hindess and Hirst have recently
rejected the concept of a mode of production altogether, on Marxian theoretical
grounds: B. Hindess and P. Hirst, Mode ofProduction and Social Formation (London,
1977), ch. 3.
51 Eshetu Chole, "The Mode of Production in Ethiopia and the Realities Thereof";
Addis Hiwet, Ethiopia from Autocracy to Revolution, pp. 25-6. Both draw substanti-
ally on M. Dobb, Studies in the Development of Capitalism (London, 1963 edn.). See
also Stahl, Ethiopia: Political Contradictions in Agricultural Development, p. 22.

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 ABYSSINIAN FEUDALISM 127

parison. For example, with respect to the question of ba

tions, in a very general way the cultivators occupy vague
positions in the two social formations on the continuum
slavery to wage labour.52 Moreover the broad mix of de
the ruling class sustained itself - rent, corvee and tr
rectly comparable. However, with respect to the domina
surplus-extraction the two formations differ sharply in
rather than rent strictly conceived was the dominant m
wealth was extracted from the Abyssinian peasants.53 A
below, the Abyssinian ruling class enjoyed only a mo
direct access to land, the principal means of producti
whelming bulk of the land was under peasant control, a
sociated means of production, mainly oxen.
Throughout the Abyssinian territories agricultural lan
an individual basis by peasants. Pastures were commo
holdings were extremely fluid and conflicting land claim
ally mediated by peasant institutions, either by putative
porations" or, much less frequently, by village organizat
land which they held in their own right, the peasants paid
or asrat (the words are directly equivalent); in addition t
might pay tribute at a rate of between a fifth and a thir
duction. Their livestock was subject to regular appropria
tion. Honey and salt were basic commodities also regular
ated. The peasant was subject to labour demands, suc
houses for the nobility, and to a variety of regular and ir
some of them rather onerous. For example, it was norma
ant to give a gift to his lord on the lord's appointmen
(mashomya), and to contribute to feasts and other celebra
occasion of marriages or christenings or whatever. Also
often obliged to grind a certain amount of grain for thei
ing the relationship of technologically more advanced
rope where the lord might own a mill to which peasants
bring their grain. In addition the Ethiopian ruling class
direct access to land, and had this land worked by the p
by tenancy relationships or by corvee. Tenants very ofte
50:50 share basis with their landlord, although this shar
many factors, such as who provided the plough oxen. La
ly extracted more than 50 per cent under these arran
weight of corvee varied enormously, from as little as six
as much as one day in three, the principal variable being
which other obligations were present.54 Thus peasant
52 Dobb, Studies in the Development of Capitalism, pp. 33-7 ff.
53 Ibid.; Bloch, Feudal Society, i, ch. 18.
54 'L his passage on surplus-extraction ultimately rests on two ver
elliptical, works by traditional Ethiopian scholars: Gabra Wald En
yoppya imaretenna geber sen [Ethiopian Land and Tax Terms] (A
(Cont. on fp. 128)

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 128 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 89

heavy corvee obligations were generally free of other rent obligations.

Overall one might hazard the guess that the normal level of surplus-
extraction amounted to about one-third of peasant production.5
As I will argue below, the prevalence of tribute as opposed to rent as
a means of surplus extraction is a significant departure from the Euro-
pean feudal mode of production. The degree of ruling-class access to
the land is the key. Until now this question has received only local at-
tention from scholars of Ethiopia. Thus of our two major studies of
local landholding, those by Hoben and Weissleder, the former reported
a minimal degree, while the latter reported a very high degree, of direct
access by rulers to the land.56 Berhanou Abbebe, who attempts a gen-
eral survey at the provincial level, reports both situations, suggesting a
fairly high degree of direct access,57 but neither he, Hoben or Weiss-
leder attempts any overall quantification. At this stage we are thrown
back on some sample surveys published by the Ministry of Land Re-
form in the late i 96s, which report incidence of tenancy.58 These sur-
veys are extremely problematic, having been badly organized and
poorly controlled. Nonetheless they may be taken as a rough guide, in
spite of the fact that they document a situation later than the one with
which we are concerned here. No one has yet suggested reasons why we
should believe that the incidence of tenancy in the Abyssinian areas
has undergone major changes in the twentieth century. Remembering
that the modern provinces which form the basis for reporting in the
surveys are larger than the corresponding traditional Abyssinian terri-
tories of the same names, we find very low figures. At the time of the
survey in Wallo 17-5 per cent of the rural population lived on wholly-
rented land, while 23-0 per cent lived on part-owned and part-rented.
The corresponding figures for Goj jam are 12.9 per cent and 7-I per
cent; for Bagemder, 9-o per cent and 5-7 per cent; and for Tegre, 7-0
per cent and 18-2 per cent.59 While the figures for Wallo come to a
(note 54 cont.)
Ethiopian calendar [A.D. 195 1/2]), trans. Mengesha Gessesse, "Ethiopia's Traditional
System of Land Tenure and Taxation", Ethiopia Observer, v (1962), pp. 302-39; and
Mahteme Sellassie Wolde Maskel, "The Land System of Ethiopia", Ethiopia Observer,
i (I957), PP. 283-301. Berhanou Abbebe has done much to clarify these works in his
Evolution de la proprietefonciere au Choa. For the present point, see ibid., pp. 1 o8- I1,
which rests on Gabra Wald, Yaltyoppya maretenna geber sem, pp. 306-7 of the trans-
lation. In general, see also R. Pankhurst, State and Land in Ethiopian History (Addis
Ababa, 1966), chs. 11 , 25.
55 Ege, "Chiefs and Peasants: The Socio-Political Structure of the Kingdom of
Shawa about I840", pp. 166-72.
56 Hoben, Land Tenure among the Amhara of Ethiopia; Weissleder, "The Political
Ecology of Amhara Domination".
57 Berhanou Abbebe, Evolution de la proprietefonciere au Choa, pt. I, ch. 3.
58 Unfortunately I have not had direct access to these surveys and draw here on the
summaries as reported by Haile Menkerios, "The Present System of Land Tenure",
Challenge, x (1970), pp. 2-24; and by Gilkes, The Dying Lion, ch. 4.
59 Calculated from Gilkes, The Dying Lion, table I I, p. I 16. I have ignored Shawa
since the discrepancy between the modern province and the traditional Abyssinian
territory is too great.

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 ABYSSINIAN FEUDALISM 129

combined total of 40-5 per cent, we must remember that W

partly Abyssinian. The highest figures for the more purely
provinces come only to around 20-0 per cent (Gojjam
Thus direct access to the land, even on the basis of these
derived figures, cannot be held as wholly explanatory of
support.60
Corresponding to this comparatively low level of direct access to the
land by the Abyssinian ruling class, the legal and social position of the
Abyssinian peasantry contrasts with its European counterpart. In this
context the peasant was gabbar, essentially a tax- or tribute-payer: he
was not a serf.61 Most Abyssinian peasants had direct access to the land
through hereditary, normally inalienable rights known as rest.62 The
figures discussed above suggest that in Goj jam only 12 9 per cent of the
cultivators were without some direct access to land. The figures for
Bagemder and Tegre are 9-o per cent and 7-0 per cent respectively.63
Nor is the figure for the less Abyssinian Wallo much higher at 1 7 5 per
cent. We should also note that there is a strong trend in the anthropo-
logical literature to minimize the importance of tenancy. Reflecting
the views of the peasants whom they studied, Hoben and Weissleder
both argue that tenancy could be a major instrument for the economic
and social improvement of the tenant; and Bauer studied a case where
tenants, through their control of another of the means of production,
oxen, were richer than their landlords.64 Nonetheless tenancy does
remain an important index of social inequality. The peasantry had
limited but effective rights to move, although Weissleder points out
that in some circumstances this right was more real for tenants than it
was for freeholders, who had more to lose.65 On the other hand the dis-
tinctive concurrent land rights of the nobility, the rights of tribute and
judgement known as gult, were often not strictly hereditary. Many
60 Our present knowledge of Abyssinian landholding, despite some brilliant work, is
still seriously deficient.
61 Berhanou Abbebe, Evolution de la propriete fonciere au Choa, pp. 94-6, 107.
Not the least of the confusions in Pankhurst's account arises from his uncritical carry-
ing over from the Portuguese sources of the term villein: Pankhurst, State and Land in
Ethiopian History, ch. I I. However, our understanding of gabbar has been genuinely
complicated by two rather contrasting situations in which it has been applied in
modern Ethiopia. The term was first widely reported in the literature on southern
Ethiopia (that is, those territories drawn into the empire by conquest in the i88os)
and, as suggested above, there is some consensus that the southern cultivators, also
called gabbar, were more servile in status than their northern counterparts. Whether
this consensus is soundly based is another matter.
62 Hoben, Land Tenure among the Amhara of Ethiopia, chs. I, 9; see also Hoben,
"Social Stratification in Traditional Amhara Society", pp. 198-205. In some of the
Tegreiiina-speaking territories rather more communal forms existed.
63 Gilkes, The Dying Lion, table i I, p. I 16.
64 D. N. Bauer, "For Want of an Ox .. .: Land, Capital and Social Stratification in
Tigre", in Marcus (ed.), Proceedings of the First United States Conference on Ethiop-
ian Studies, I973, pp. 242-3.
65 Contrast with Dobb, Studies in the Development of Capitalism, pp. 65-6.

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I30 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 89

gult-holdings were tied to offices or were bestowed at the prerogative of

the crown or of some more powerful, more overarching gult-holder.
Thus the position of the peasantry was rather strong and was clearly
articulated:
"The land belongs to the government" we say in order to affirm that just as heaven
belongs to God, the land belongs to the king. We have recourse to this statement
when we intend to exalt the government's power but we do not at all intend to allude
to the possession of fields ... no one can take away our lands . ..66
The relationship of men to the land was epitomized in a famous
Ge'ez saying, "Sab'a hara wagabbar meder", which Merid W. Aregay
renders as: "Man is free, and land the tributary".67 Many aspects of
this saying are worthy of fuller investigation and comment, such as the
context in which it first appears; and the fact that hara, which Merid
and most other commentators render as "free", literally means "sol-
dier".68 The dissemination of the saying also should be more fully es-
tablished. However, it is sufficient here to note that it first appears in a
chronicle referring to the early seventeenth century. It then reappears
at the end of the century in the chronicle of Iyyasu the Great (r. 1682-
I706); and is used in an edict issued in northern Ethiopia in the late
188os.69 It can be taken as a byword of basic social relations: men were
not legally bound to the soil, nor were they legally bound to a master;
obligations of taxation were tied to the land, and entailed in its use.
The relative freedom of the Abyssinian peasant may be related to
another aspect of his situation contrasting to that of medieval Europe:
the low level of technological development. The agricultural system
seems to have been fairly advanced, exploiting a wide variety of crops
in a wide variety of systems of rotation, fallow, irrigation and the
like.70 Regrettably, as yet we know far too little about sown-to-yield
ratios and techniques of soil management.71 However, ploughs were
66 Conti Rossini, Principi di diritto consuetudinario dell'Eritrea, pp. I II -12. Ber-
hanou Abbebe, volution de la propriete fonciere au Choa, p. 228, points out that part
of this statement was originally reported in Dante Odorizzi, "Notizie sull'ordinamento
della proprieta terriera in Etiopia e nella zona abissina della colonia Eritrea", in Atti
del congresso coloniale italiano in Asmara (Rome, 1906), i, p. 259.
67 Merid W. Aregay, "Southern Ethiopia and the Christian Kingdom, 1508- 1700",
pp. 381 -2. See also Berry, "The Solomonic Monarchy at Gondar, 1630- 1755", p. 294.
68 A fact suggesting that freedom and military service were conceptually linked, as
in medieval Europe. See also Conti Rossini, Principi di diritto consuetudinario dell'
Eritrea, p. I og. Gabru Tareke of Syracuse University informs me that hara in modern
TIegreiiiia has the unequivocal meaning of "free". Merid by no means ignores the social
context.

69 F. Beguinot, La cronaca abbreviata d'Abissinia (Rome, 190 1), pp. 41-2;

Annales Iohannis I, lyasu I, Bakaffa (Paris, 1903), p. 20 ; S. F. Nadel, "Lan
on the Eritrean Plateau", Africa, xvi (1946), p. II.
70 V. Stitz, Studien zur Kulturgeographie Zentraldthiopiens (Bonn, 19
279-311.
71 The most recent survey is E. Westphal with J. M. C. Westphal, Agricultural Sys-
tems in Ethiopia (Wageningen, 1975). Historical materials, of the kind which form the
basis for G. Duby's magisterial Rural Economy and Country Life in the Medieval
West (London, 1968), seem not to exist for Abyssinia.

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 ABYSSINIAN FEUDALISM I3I

simple, irrigation elementary, the exploitation of water-p

existent and of animal-power low (for example, grinding w
and the arsenal of tools was limited.72 Building was scantil
The Abyssinian nobility lived in accommodation identical
and style, if not in size, to that of the peasantry. No castle
Ethiopian countryside, outside of the imperial palaces and
which in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries
Lake Tana area. Urbanization was very little developed
which was a modest level of craft development, and the ab
able mercantile and bourgeois communities.
A consideration of the means of surplus-extraction - tr
than rent - has led us to a broad look at property relation
cial relations, particularly at the status of the peasantry.
we have moved away from what appear to be determining
istics of a feudal mode of production. So far as the views o
self are concerned, it seems clear that the Abyssinian case
approximates what he meant by the Asiatic mode. We do
accept either the coherence or the applicability of the Asi
to find the grounds on which he sought to distinguish it fr
as instructive. For Marx the crucial characteristics of the feudal social
order vis a vis the Asiatic were serf status for the cultivators, a high
degree of direct access to the land for the rulers, and the presence of
towns in which were concentrated artisanal labour.73 An immense
amount of subsequent historical research has done little to shake this
characterization, although it has permitted great refinement. Marx
correctly perceived that the social order of medieval Europe was
unique in important ways and limited his use of the feudal concept to
that social order. Engels was at best willing to talk of a "semi-feudal"
social order obtaining in such areas as the Ottoman empire.74 On the
other hand Marx saw the Asiatic mode as based on "the self-sustaining
unity of manufactures and agriculture", and saw the private posses-
sion of landed property as occurring within a framework of essentially
communal property.75 As contrasted with Marx's concept of the feu-
dal, there is no doubt that these characteristics more closely define the
Abyssinian case.
72 Ellis notes the different, simpler plough: Ellis, "The Feudal Paradigm as a
Hindrance to Understanding Ethiopia", pp. 288-9. However, as with agricultural
practices generally, we need to know far more about the material culture of the Abys-
sinian peasants.
73 Karl Marx, Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations, ed. E. J. Hobsbawm (London,
1964), pp. 75, 91, 126. The two former passages from the Grundrisse contrast Oriental
to Germanic property and characterize the Asiatic generally. The latter passage, from
"The German Ideology", characterizes feudal property. Hindess and Hirst have
argued with cogency that direct access to the land is the determining feature of the
feudal mode of production: B. Hindess and P. Hirst, Pre-Capitalist Modes of Produc-
tion (London, 1975).
74 Marx, Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations, p. 148.
75 Ibid., pp. 91, 75.

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 I32 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 89

Nonetheless there has been a recurrent tendency within the Marx-

ian tradition to expand the feudal concept.76 This tendency has several
sources, some of them political. Of theoretical interest in our present
context is the extremely limited number of pertinent categories within
the armoury of established Marxian interpretation (primitive-commu-
nal, classical, feudal and Asiatic); the clear inapplicability of the first
two to cases such as the one in hand; and profound dissatisfaction
with the last. The Asiatic concept has had an extremely rough passage
from anglophonic Marxian thinkers,77 although it has fared better in
France where it has undergone several mutations and revivals.78 I
share the view of those who find the Asiatic concept internally inconsis-
tent and at fundamental odds with basic elements of Marxian histori-
cal thought, not least the latter's emphasis on class and class conflict.
One mutant of the Asiatic mode recently introduced into the Abyssin-
ian field has been the "tributary" mode.79 The strength of this concept
is that it focuses on the essentially political nature of the process of sur-
plus-extraction. However, it implies no specific relations of production
narrowly-construed, and seems to be of such wide applicability as to
approach vacuity. Moreover in the Abyssinian case its application
would be seriously misleading if it implied an indirect, remote means of
surplus-extraction, a high degree of internal autonomy for peasant
social relations vis d vis the nobility, or communal forms of landowner-
ship, all of which it has been held to cover elsewhere.
Perry Anderson has taken the strict course of confining the use of
the Marxian feudal concept to Europe and to Japan.80 The rigour of
this course is attractive, and he establishes a strong base in the works
of Marx and Engels. With some qualifications Anderson's argument
seems sustainable, especially with reference to the mode of production
concept and its property content. Non-Marxist scholars such as Duby
may readily be interpreted as supporting Marx's contention that direct
access by the rulers to the land was a key feature of the feudal mode of
production, although Duby's work also suggests an increasing trend
towards tribute as a means for ruling-class support.81 A similar mix of
direct control of land and of tribute as instruments of ruling-class sup-
port characterizes the pre-modern history of Japan, as does the ten-

76 E. J. Hobsbawm reflects this: Hobsbawm, introduction to ibid., p. 63.

77 Hobsbawm, introduction to ibid., passim; Hindess and Hirst, Pre-Capitalist
Modes of Production, ch. 4; Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State, Note B, pp.
462-549.
78 Godelier, Perspectives in MarxistAnthropology, ch. 4, esp. pp. i 16-24; Coquery-
Vidrovitch, "Recherches sur un mode de production africain".
79 Stahl, Ethiopia: Political Contradictions in Agricultural Development, p. 22,
drawing on Amin, "Underdevelopment and Dependence in Black Africa", p. 107, and
Amin, Le developpement inegal, p. 0.
80 Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State, conclusions, pp. 397-43 , and Note A,
PP. 435-61.
81 Duby, Rural Economy and Country Life in the Medieval West.

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 ABYSSINIAN FEUDALISM I33

dency for the mix to alter in the course of time, increasi

direction of tribute. Thus the striking parallels between t
institutions of the Japanese and medieval European ruling
be considered from a material viewpoint as resting on clo
modes of production.82 Nonetheless, however valuable
rigour, from a Marxian as well as from a liberal persp
seems to be value in the controlled application of expande
In particular there are some extremely impressive similarit
pre-capitalist class-based agrarian societies. And there is a
interest in relating these similarities to some central mod
when the ruling classes of the societies in question are he
ized and when their polities exhibit recurrently fissiparo
The feudal model is the only viable referent we have.
Implicit to this discussion of mode of production has be
cept of "class". It arises from one of the most characteristi
the Marxian tradition: the search within any social order
basic relations arising from the process of production, an
that states reflect these relations. "Class", as Hobsbawm r
reference to pre-capitalist societies, may frequently be "a
construct which makes sense of a complex of facts otherw
able".84 Class is most basically defined as a distinctive rel
the means of production. This relationship may be expres
of property rights. Class must also have some enduring cha
which generally take the form of trans-generational contin
social relations. Class can scarcely exist in isolation, but en
tionship of conflict and antagonism to another class. Cons
itself is generally, but by no means always, a characteristi
The concept of class has been little used by analysts of
society. Recent work has cut rather in the opposite directi
82 See, for example, the works by the following non-Marxist schol
themselves to this judgement: J. W. Hall, "Feudalism in Japan: A
Comparative Studies in Society and Hist., v (1962), repr. in J. W.
Jansen (eds.), Studies in the Institutional History of Early Modern Ja
1968), pp. 15-5I; R. Takeuchi, "Studies of Japanese Feudalism a
Asakawa", in Kan'ichi Asakawa, Land and Society in Medieval Japan
pp. 25-34; C. J. Kiley, "Estate and Property in the Late Heian Period
and J. P. Mass (eds.), MedievalJapan (New Haven, Conn., 1974), pp.
with K. Yamamura, "Village Communities and Daimyo Power", in J
Takeshi (eds.), Japan in the Muromachi Age (Berkeley, 1977), pp
Smith, The Agrarian Origins of Modern Japan (Stanford, 1959), de
Tokugawa period, describes a situation in which direct ruling-class co
land had become highly attenuated, and peasant life achieved a corres
degree of autonomy. I am grateful to R. Toby for these references.
83 Although something short of Critchley's Feudalism would seem
84 E. J. Hobsbawm, "Class Consciousness in History", in I. Meszaro
of History and Class Consciousness (London, 197 ), p. 8.
85 E. J. Hobsbawm generally in ibid. See also Marx's celebrated st
Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, in Karl Marx
Engels, Selected Works (London, 1969), p. 172.

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I34 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 89

the great mobility of Amhara society.86 However, many factors war-

rant the application of class concepts. Levine explicitly supports the
notion of classes in Amhara society, although his understanding of
class is by no means a Marxian one, and he accords them no central
role.87 In the remainder of this paper I propose to survey the evidence
for class, starting with the Abyssinian language of social differentia-
tion, proceeding via a discussion of culture to relate this to property
rights, and to conclude with some comments on class relations. More
attention will be given to the nobility than to the peasantry. To a con-
siderable degree, in the following discussion, class is an "analytical
construct".
There are many signs of the existence of classes. In its most elemen-
tary forms Abyssinian society may usefully be reduced to those who
cultivated and to those who, while engaging in no such productive ac-
tivity themselves, lived off surpluses produced by the cultivators. I
have already argued that crafts occupied no large or special place; nor
did pastoralism. Traders were so peripheral to Abyssinian society that
it has been normal to view them as foreigners.88 The cultivating/non-
cultivating distinction cuts right across one long-recognized distinc-
tion in Abyssinian society: that between clerical and lay. The clergy as
such cannot be considered a class in the sense given to that term here,
but its various internal segments must be assimilated to their secular
counterparts: thus parish clergy to the peasants, and leaders of the
great endowed establishments to the nobility. The society was rigor-
ously hierarchical. Deference behaviour was elaborate, pronounced
and subtle. At the least, inequality and status differentiation were very
pronounced.89 Ethiopians use various terms to describe social strata:
most notably makwdnnent, usually rendered as "nobility". Other
terms such as malkanna, bdldbbat or mazazo suggest gradations more
appropriate to gentry; although, as Weissleder points out, etymologic-
ally and functionally malkannia closely parallels the English "lord".90
He finds that his malkannid occupied a social position rather similar to
86 Hoben, Land Tenure among the Amhara of Ethiopia, ch. I; Hoben, "Land
Tenure and Social Mobility among the Damot Amhara". Following Hoben, see also
Bauer, "For Want of an Ox".
87 Levine, Wax and Gold, pp. 155-67.
88 Abir, Ethiopia: The Era of the Princes. However, this view has been challenged
by P. Garretson, "A History of Addis Ababa from its Foundation in 1886 to 191o"
(Univ. of London Ph.D. thesis, 1974), ch. 3.
89 Fallers, Inequality: Social Stratification Reconsidered, introduction, is one of the
most cogent statements opposed to the application of class analysis to African societies.
But his alternative, to rely on internal perception and to describe societies largely in
terms generated by these societies themselves, strikes me as obscurantist. In the his-
torical field Mousnier and Fourquin exemplify a position similar to that of Fallers: R.
Mousnier, Peasant Uprisings in Seventeenth-Century France, Russia and China
(London, I97i); G. Fourquin, Les soulevements populaires au moyen dge (Paris,
1972).
90 Weissleder, "The Political Ecology of Amhara Domination", p. 107.

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 ABYSSINIAN FEUDALISM I35

the rural Austrian Landadel, as opposed to the courtly Hof

bottom of the scale lay the cultivators, the baldgar. A sen
realities begins to emerge when we note that bdldgar s
given rise to the adjective bdlage, roughly meaning "rude"
"rough", but with etymological resemblances to the Engli
"churlish" or even "villein"/''villainous".91
These strata had distinct cultures. Levine has portrayed
makwannent.92 Gamst draws attention to a "Great Tradition".93 We
should also note the existence of sumptuary laws: the nobles' exclusive
rights to brewing (and at times probably also consuming) honey mead
(taj); their exclusive right to iron beds; their monopoly at times on
slaughtering of cattle; and distinctive dress patterns and personal
decoration. A number of sayings present a contrasting image of noble
and peasant qualities familiar from the European past. The peasantry
are perceived as rough, violent, rude and sometimes stupid:
The peasant's son is timid in eating
But insolent in words.

Running uphill is as hard as a

Peasant's fist.94

The nobility have a natural right to rule, are delicate and refined.
Their speech is elegant:
I have the strength of an elephant;
I have the mouth of a noble.

[As] the sky [is ruled] by the moon

[So] the earth [is ruled] by the chief.

The son of a sycamore is a board:

The son of a chief is a chief.95

Cultural and social differences were related to distinctive property

rights: to gult, the right to surpluses through tribute; and to rest, the
most widespread form of right to direct access to land. Conti Rossini
cites two appropriate sayings:
The poor man (deha) with his rest;
The rich man (habtdm) with his fief (gult).

The fief (gult) belongs to the great warrior (amamay);

Rest belongs to the weak (dakamay).96

The peasantry perceived itself as oppressed. The word for corvee

labour, huddd, is synonymous with the Lenten fast. The term for
91 Guidi, Vocabolario amarico-italiano, col. 317. Shumet Sishagne first convinced
me of this.
92 Levine, Wax and Gold, pp. I56-7.
93 Gamst, "Peasantries and Elites without Urbanism", pp. 389-90.
94 Baeteman, Dictionnaire amarigna-francais, cols. 928, 1 50.
95 Ibid., cols. 734, I 80, 760.
96 Conti Rossini, Principi di diritto consuetudinario dell'Eritrea, pp. I I6-17.

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I36 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 89

nobility is derived directly from the verb kwannana, which means "to
punish", and which carries an overtone of extortion.97 As I have point-
ed out elsewhere, this brings the term for the nobility close to a generic
term for "oppressor".98
It is not difficult to establish the continuity of class relations through
time. Contrary to certain assertions, some fiefs were hereditary.99
A legal term, resta-gult, existed to cover this situation.100 Weissleder
documented such a case as it existed in I963. Moreover, even where
superordinate land rights were not held strictly to be hereditary, there
was a strong tendency for them to be held successively by close kin.
Hoben shows that, in the area of Daga Damot which he studied,
although father-to-son inheritance of gult office in the twentieth cen-
tury occurred "less than 50 per cent of the time", succession in other
cases generally was to such genetically close relatives as brothers or
uncles.101 However, some of the most distinctive features of the Abys-
sinian situation arise from the nature of the Abyssinian family. As
Hoben and Bauer bring out clearly, the Abyssinian family has no
trans-generational reality. Descent is strongly ambilineal; and succes-
sion and property inheritance tend in the same direction, although
they are frequently biased towards the patriline and to males.102 As a
result legitimate claimants to any office abound; and this provides
ample opportunity for manipulation from above and pressure from
below.
The highest levels of Abyssinian society show marked continuity
over the last two centuries, although the poverty of our documentation
precludes such a demonstration for any lower level of society prior to
the very recent past. Both Gojjam and Tegre present strong cases of
almost dynastic rule, although the administrative level at which this
pertains in Tegre is lower than for Gojjam.103 Again, the descendants
of Ras Ali of Yajju successfully dominated the central axis of Abyssin-
ian territory from the 178os to the 850s, and retained their hold on its
eastern end down to the twentieth century. Wallo saw the emergence of
97 Guidi, Vocabolario amarico-italiano, cols. 542, 547; Baeteman, Dictionnaire
amarigna-francais, cols. 734, 735.
98 Crummey, "Society and Ethnicity in the Politics of Christian Ethiopia", p. 269.
99 J. Doresse, La vie quotidienne des ethiopiens chretiens aux XVII et XVIII siecles
(Paris, I972), p. 89; see also Berhanou Abbebe, Evolution de la proprietefonciere au
Choa, pp. 33-50, 78-92.
100 Berhanou Abbebe, Evolution de la propriete fonciere au Choa, pp. 28-9. Resta-
gult had rather a special meaning in Daga Damot: Hoben, Land Tenure among the
Amhara of Ethiopia, p. 188.
101 Hoben, Land Tenure among the Amhara of Ethiopia, p. I88; Hoben, "Land
Tenure and Social Mobility among the Damot Amhara", pp. 73-8, 80- . Hoben argues
that continuity would be greater in times of peace like the twentieth century; but he
begs the question of who was being unruly in times of unruliness.
102 For patrilineal male bias, see Conti Rossini, Principi di diritto consuetudinario
dell'Eritrea, pp. 3 I0-4; Weissleder, "The Political Ecology of Amhara Domination".
103 Fantahun Birhane, "Gojjam, 8oo-i 855", ch. i, and table 4 of the appendix.

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 ABYSSINIAN FEUDALISM I37

powerful local balabbats in the eighteenth century who were

fully integrated into national politics in the i 870s.104 And at
topmost stratum of the ruling class had a clear Abyssinia-w
sion. The pedigree of Empress Taytu (r. I889- 191 ) is someth
paradigm: descended from dominant houses of Semen and Ya
links to Tegre, she married the ruler of Shawa.105
Class relations in Ethiopia developed along distinctive l
Ethiopian nobility never came to form a separate legal estate
respondingly its corporate consciousness remained low.106 It h
stitutional identity; and no focus other than the royal court.
phor of the pyramid has considerable force. Strongly hie
Abyssinian society was not rigidly stratified in the sense that
layer was sharply marked off from its neighbours. Quite th
The bonds of patron-client relations were close; class relat
fluid. Abyssinians perceived their society as mobile. We have
language reflects the existence of classes, but in its imprecise
also reflects their fluidity. Deference was tempered by defia
wise man bows low to the great lord and silently farts".'07 Th
and the peasantry both believed themselves linked by comm
try. Abyssinian society was mobile. Low men could and did ri
positions; and could transmit their gains to their descendant
ever, it does seem useful to see the primary direction of mo
downwards. There was little expansion of opportunity for th
sinian makwannent, at least until the later nineteenth centu
result the number of fiefs would be insufficient for the pr
noble household, the less successful members of which would
sink in position. Given the free legal status of the peasantry,
nobility were easily absorbed, thus fostering the illusion of
darity within a continuing system of inequality.
Within the wider comparative framework the lack of rigid s
tion and the intimacy of class contacts helps to explain the no
of peasant movements in the period under review. Class conf
undoubtedly was, but in our period it rarely expressed itself
and certainly never in spectacular uprisings. Abyssinian soci
is markedly less turbulent and markedly more stable than tha
ieval Europe.108 The Abyssinian nobility was generally suc

104 Zergaw Asfera, "Some Aspects of Historical Development in 'Amh

ca. 1700-1815" (Haile Sellassie I Univ. B.A. thesis, 1973), chs. 3-4.
105 Gabra Sellase, Tarika zaman zaDagmawi Menilek, pp. I I6-17.
106 Although early twentieth-century law codes did prescribe quite differ
punishment for the same offence committed by members of different so
107 Hoben, "Social Stratification in Traditional Amhara Society", p. 2
108 R. H. Hilton, Bond Men Made Free: Medieval Peasant Movements and the
English Rising of 138I (London, I973); Fourquin, Les soulevements populaires au
moyen age.

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I38 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 89

keeping the allegiance of its peasantry. Part of the price which the
nobility paid was the weakness of its own felt identity.
Feudal concepts are useful in an analysis of Abyssinian society. At
the least they raise a range of questions the discussion of which ought
to illuminate significant aspects of social relations in the Abyssinian
past. It is no accident that there has been something of a conjunction
between the liberal and Marxist traditions here. Although the former
has been more concerned with aspects of superstructure, and of style
and flavour, the latter would hold that these are reflective of more
underlying relationships. However, from neither perspective can the
Abyssinian social order be described as feudal without serious qualifi-
cation. From whichever perspective we approach our analysis the
point of departure from the European-derived model may usefully be
explained by reference to the differing levels of class formation in the
two societies. The Abyssinian social formation had two fundamental
classes: cultivators and rulers. Relations between these two were inti-
mate and fluid, uncomplicated either by ethnicity or by legal status.
The rulers supported themselves by means of exactions from the peas-
ants, primarily in the form of tribute rather than rent. The confidence
of these judgements ought not obscure the extent of our ignorance
about historic Abyssinian society, and the various stages of its develop-
ment. Further research is urgently required on the question of property
relations, the sources and exercise of political authority, and the na-
ture of class formation.

University of Illinois Donald Crummey

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