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408 TilE AFRICAN ORIGINS OF nm MISSTOANTIQUA Ethiopian intetest in cteating closet ties with Christian Europe was ex– ptessed with incteasing urgency in the eatly sixteenth century. In tesponse to another royal invitation sent from Ethiopia in 1513, a Portuguese embassy teached Ethiopia by sea in 1520. Subsequently it brought back to Lisbon lettets from King Lebna Dengel calling for a closet military relationship based on a common faith. "If I had a Christian king for a neighbour", the king wrote to John III of Portugal, "I would nevet part from him fot an hour", and Lebna Dengel also urged the pope to exhort the Christian kings of Europe to help him "for from all sides of my frontiers the Muslims, an evil people, surround me" 6 . Two decades later, harassed by the victorious Muslims, King Galawde– wos sent a message to Lisbon in 1545 which was interpteted as a tequest fot the appointment of a Catho½c patriarch for Ethiopia. In Rome the response to this apparent opening was taken up by the Jesuits, and especially by their foun– der. Ignatius showed exceptional interest in the preparations for a mission to Ethiopia, and in October 1546 he wtote to Jobn III in Portugal saying that he himself wanted to go on "the enterprise of Ethiopia" should he be chosen. He tead Alvarez's account of the earlier Pottuguese embassy, and he discussed the project with Pedro, an Ethiopian monk resident in Rome since 1540 7 . Early in 1549 Ignatius learnt that Pedro was asking the papal curia to send five bishops to Ethiopia, leaving Galawdewos to select which one should be patriarch. The Pottuguese ambassador in Rome was doing bis best to frustrate Pedro's plan, and in a letter Ignatius insisted that John III should hasten to make an appointment and hence assett the right to nominate to this position "in those lands not very distant from his India" 8 • His letter illustrates the extent to which the J esuits were becoming, in this instance, allies of the Portuguese padroado. It may have been in many ways a realistic assessment of the situa– tion, fot the most ptactical way of reaching Ethiopia from Europe in the mid– sixteenth century was on board a Portuguese vessel. Yet it underlined the de– pendence on Pottuguese control, even regarding an area which was in no way a Pottuguese conquest. John III had in fact already tevealed bis powet. In 1547 when told of the proposal to appoint Broet, a Ftench Jesuit, as patriarch, John had vetoed the 6 Merid Wolde Aregay, The legary ofJemit 111issionary activitie; in Ethiopiajron, 1555 to 1632, in Getatchew Haile et al. (eds.), TheMissionary Factor in Ethiopia, Frank.furt 1998, 33s. 7 P. Cataman, The hst eltlj>ire, London 1985,10. 8 S. Ignatii de Loyola Soc. Jesu fimdatorù epùtolae et instmctiones (Monumenta Ignatiana, Ser. la, II), Roma 1904, 304s.