This volume contains selected papers from the international conference Manuscripts and Texts, Languages and Contexts, which was held at the University of Hamburg in July 2014. The conference was organized by three projects funded by the European Union within the 7th Research Framework Programme IDEAS, all dealing with the written heritage of Ethiopia and Eritrea: Ethio-SPaRe: Cultural Heritage of Christian Ethiopia, Salvation, Preservation and Research (PI Denis Nosnitsin, Hamburg), TraCES: From Translation to Creation: Changes in Ethiopic Style and Lexicon from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages (PI Alessandro Bausi, Hamburg), and IslHornAfr: Islam in the Horn of Africa, A Comparative Literary Approach (PI Alessandro Gori, Copenhagen). With the focus on the written tradition, the articles cover the main themes of traditional Ethiopian studies. Texts and their contents but also material aspects of the manuscript witnesses as well as their broader historical context were taken into consideration. The volume contains a detailed index of persons, titles, places, and languages that facilitates access to the contents.