Coulibeaux, Jean-Baptiste

COULBEAUX, JEAN-BAPTISTE. - Lazarist missionary in East Africa, b. in 1843 and d. in Paris on 22 Oct. 1921. He reached Africa at only twenty-seven years of age and was among the first collaborators of Msgr. Giustino de Jacobis in present-day Eritrea, acquiring rich firsthand experience of the people and conditions of that region and of neighboring Ethiopia. Later, owing to the incidents of 1894 (the rebellion of the chief Bâhtâ Hagos

of Akkala Guzâj), difficulties arose with the military authorities of Eritrea; and the Holy See assigned to the Lazarists only the apostolic vicariate of Abyssinia, transferring the newly established vicariate of Eritrea to the Capuchins. C. therefore moved with his mission to the new seat of Alizienâ (in Agâmê), where he remained for another seven years with the title

(from V. Leraquin, Les pontificaux mss. des bibl. pubbl., Paris 1857, pl. 150) COTTA - C. with wide sleeves. Miniature depicting the blessing of bells. Pontifical of Antonio di Chalon, bishop of Autun (1483-1500). Autun, Municipal Library, ms. 129, f. 55.

of provicar. He returned to Paris in 1901.

His principal work is the Histoire politique et religieuse de l'Abyssinie, published posthumously by the Lazarist J. Baeteman (3 vols., Paris 1929), an interesting and lively presentation of the viewpoint of a person who, like C. himself, often effectively substitutes personal knowledge of the ethnic, political, and religious milieu in which that history unfolds for specific scholarly training.