Saint Yared Creates the Sacred Chant of Ethiopia

By the sixth century, the northern Ethiopian kingdom of Aksum had already converted to Christianity. In this era, an Aksumite scholar, hymnographer, and composer named Yared created the chant tradition that Ethiopian churches still sing. According to Ethiopian tradition, Yared was born in Aksum on 25 April 505. Although later traditions surround his early education, he eventually entered the priesthood at the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion, an ancient spiritual center of the realm. His command of scripture and liturgical performance brought him into the royal circle of King Gebre Meskel, under whose patronage his musical and scholarly reputation flourished.

Yared is primarily celebrated for formulating zema, the indigenous chant tradition that remains central to the liturgy of both the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Churches. Ethiopian tradition also credits him with the system of musical notation, called melekket, that lets singers recall melodies from small written signs. Historians note, however, that surviving liturgical manuscripts carry no musical notation before the sixteenth century, when the system was codified. By organizing religious chants according to specific hours of the day and seasonal feasts of the Christian calendar, he supplied the empire with a unified liturgical structure that reflected both spiritual cycles and the agricultural realities of the Horn of Africa.