15. Queen Gudit: The Anti Christian Usurper who reigned in Ethiopia for Forty Years.
Sometimes treachery pays off. It certainly did in the case of Gudit, a tenth-century Queen of Ethiopia or Abyssinia, as it was then known. The exact origins of Gudit are unknown. Ethiopian tradition states that she was a member of the Ethiopian royal family and either Jewish by marriage or descent. Other accounts suggest she may have been Muslim or even pagan. Gudit was reputedly very beautiful but also immoral. Sometime around 960 AD, She took advantage of a time of political instability within the kingdom to kill the rightful King, Hadani and seized control.
Unlike Arsinoe, Gudit appears to have got away with her treason. The warrior Queen consolidated her power by destroying as many of the remaining ruling dynasties as possible. The Ethiopian historian Ibn Haukal wrote of how she then began a reign of terror, destroying churches, persecuting Christians and imprisoning “many Ethiopians.” Her hold on her territory was so complete that Gudit maintained power for forty years. The terror inspired by unit’s reign was so profound that not only was it recorded by contemporary historians but also preserved in the oral tradition of northern Ethiopian peasants.