ブラガ地方文書館所蔵イエズス会エチオピア北部布教関係文書集MS779の内容と来歴

その史料的価値の解明のために

抄録

The Society of Jesus sent several missions to northern Ethiopia from the middle of the sixteenth to the middle of the seventeenth century. The codex MS779 in the District Archive of Braga in Portugal contains sixty-eight documents on the Jesuit northern Ethiopia mission. M. da A. J. de Vansconcelos made a catalogue of these documents, and A. de Oliveira published nine of them. However, little attention has been given to the importance of this codex for the study of northern Ethiopian history. The purpose of this paper is to consider the origin and history of MS779 and to show its importance in the study of northern Ethiopian history.
The conclusions of the author are as follows:
1. MS779 contains drafts of the Historia de Ethiopia a alta ou Abassia written by the Portuguese Jesuit M. de Almeida.
2. Most documents of this codex were written between 1598 and 1652.
3. Originally the documents of MS779 were preserved in the Jesuit archive at Goa.
4. There is only limited information on the odyssey of MS779 from Goa to Braga. However, it seems most likely that this codex was carried out from the Jesuit archive at Goa when Marquis of Pombal oppressed the Jesuits in Portuguese territory and passed through the possession of J. Banks, President of the Royal Society of Great Britain, and of others, before it was finally acquired by the District Archive of Braga.
5. MS779 contains unpublished letters dispatched by the Jesuits from northern Ethiopia. These documents contribute to the study of northern Ethiopian history during the reign of Susnayos (r. 1607-1632).
6. In this codex, there are drafts of letters and books written by the Jesuits. These documents reveal the process used by the Jesuits in the northern Ethiopia mission for writing letters and books.