Iyasu I, also known as Iyasu the Great, was nəgusä nägäst, r. 19 July 1682 – 13 October 1706 of Ethiopia, and a member of the Solomonic dynasty. He was the son of Yohannes I and Empress Sabla Wangel. According to G.W.B Huntingford, Iyasu "owed his reputation partly to the mildness of his character, exemplified in his treatment of the princes on Wehni in his first year, and his attention to religious matters, and partly to his abdication, retirement, and murder." He was serving as governor of Gojjam when his father Yohannes summoned him and made him heir at the age of 20. During the first year of his reign, he attended to his brothers and other relatives imprisoned on Wehni, a moment recorded by James Bruce who describes how the Emperor replaced their rags with proper clothing and furnished the starving royals with a banquet.
Life
His reign is noteworthy for the attention he devoted to administration, holding a large number of councils to settle theological and ecclesiastical matters, matters of state, and to proclaim laws. In 1698, Iyasu undertook a number of reforms, affecting customs and taxation, which encouraged trade. In the second year of his reign, he confronted an invasion of the Yejju and Wollo Oromo into Amhara, defeating them at Melka Shimfa. After Qegnazmach Wale of Damot and Tabdan the Hermit proclaimed Yeshaq emperor in his fourth year, Iyasu quickly suppressed this revolt, and captured Yeshaq, then waited a year before marching beyond southern Gojjam in a punitive expedition against the Agaws who had supported the rebels. In 1688, he led a campaign in Dera, passing through Woremo against a rebellion in the Tulama country. The leader of the rebellion, a native of Debre Werq was captured after a pitched battle in a narrow defile, and condemned by a tribunal of ecclesiastics. It was during his reign that individual Oromo first found service in the Imperial court. His Royal Chronicle recounts how when the OttomanNaib of Massawa attempted to levy a tax on Iyasu's goods that had landed at Massawa, he responded with a blockade of that island city until the Naib relented. , Gondar Solomon Getahun observes that "unlike his immediate predecessors, Iyasu's tenure was noted for endeavors to establish diplomatic ties with Christian monarchies like Louis XIV of France and Ethiopian delegates had been sent to foreign countries." In 1689, an embassy, led by an Armenian named Murad was sent to Batavia, Dutch East Indies. One of the benefits of these efforts was that Emperor Iyasu received a bell from Johannes Camphuys, governor of the Dutch East Indies, which was then donated to Debre Berhan Selassie Church in Gondar. In 1692, the king undertook an expedition in the Mareb river valley, against the Dubani, or Nara, in present-day Gash Barka. At the sound of the musket, the tribesmen were terrified and fled. This also led to the visit by a French physician, Charles Jacques Poncet, who traveled to the Empire to treat Iyasu and one of his sons. Poncet arrived at Gondar 21 July 1699 and stayed until September 1700. Poncet published an account of his visit to Paris in 1704, which included his personal impression of Iyasu the Great: In 1704, emperor Iyasu I campaigned south of Abay in the kingdom of Ennarea, where he was confronted with a civil war between two throne claimants. While he was campaigning in Gojjam against the Oromo, Iyasu learned that his favorite concubine, Kedeste Kristos, had died. Stricken with grief, he retired to an island in Lake Tana. Supported by Empress Malakotawit, some of the officials argued, after the precedent of the king Kaleb that he had abdicated, and crowned his son Tekle Haymanot Emperor. According to some accounts, this was not Iyasus' intent, and he marched from his hermitage in Lake Tana towards to Gondar to protest this; in any case, during this time he fell sick and was assassinated at Tekle Haymanot's orders. Iyasu's death caused much distress in the capital, especially amongst the priests of Debre Berhan Selassie, who openly displayed his gifts to them, and mourned their dead monarch for a month. Bruce writes that Iyasu was buried on Mitraha Island, where he was shown Iyasu's body interred amongst "the bodies of all his ancestors". Once his brother Tewoflos became Emperor, he initiated Iyasu's canonization.
