For nearly five hundred years, the Fetha Nagast — the Law of the Kings — stood at the heart of Ethiopian society, a holy book of justice consulted by emperors, judges, and priests alike. Blending the canons of the early church, the wisdom of the Church Fathers, and the civil law of Byzantium, it set down one vision of a rightly ordered world: how to worship, how to marry, how to judge a dispute, how to punish a crime, and how a king should rule beneath the law rather than above it. This edition offers the classic in clear, present-day English, faithful to the work's meaning and spirit, so modern readers can encounter its grand sweep — from the mystery of the Trinity to the duties of a soldier, from tithes and fasting to contracts and inheritance. Here is a living voice from the medieval world, urgent and strange, and still strangely moving. Part of The World Scriptures Library.