ARMENIAN CILICIA: Dawn, Splendor and Twightlight of a Christian Kingdom during the Crusades

ArmeniAn CiliCiA

ArmeniAn CiliCiA Xii -- XiV Century

Dawn, Splendor and Twilight of a Christian Kingdom in the Near East During the Crusades

John Armenia

To the loving memory of my parents

Copyright © 2010 John ArmeniaAll rights reserved.

ISBN: 1451512759 ISBN-13: 9781451512755Library of Congress Control Number: 2010903002

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, elec-tronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

FRONT COVER: Queen Ker-Anne Gospels manuscript completed in 1272 in Sis and illustrated by Thoros Roslin. It was commis-sioned by the queen on the occasion of her coronation and of her consort, King Levon. In this miniature, the royal couple is in their costumes imitates those of the Byzantine court, although collective portraits, fairly common in Armenian manuscripts, are rare in Byzantine pictorial art. The composition is truly admirable: the heads of the members of the kneeling royal family approximate a semicircle echoed by another semicircle of the lower part of the mandorla where in Jesus is seated. The long colophon lists all of the members of the royal family of both the king and the queen. The present folio from the above manu-script is frequently reproduced. Almost miracolously, the Queen Keran manuscript has retained the rich colors, not only through its profuse use of gold, but also due to the quality of the enamel. (Courtesy of Archbishop Nourhan Manoogian, Armenian Patriarchate, Jerusalem, 2563, fol. 380)

FRONTISPIECE: The text of the manuscript was completed by Constable Sembat, Hetum I’s brother, prior to 1265. It is the juridi-cal code already in use in the Latin principality of Antioch. In this manuscript the painter Sargis Pitzak represents King Levon IV in a scene of judgement. (Courtesy of the Armenian Mekhitarist Congregation, Venice. 107)

T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S

List of Maps .................................................................................................................................................................ivForeword by Father Levon B. Zekiyan ................................................................................................................vPreface ..........................................................................................................................................................................ixAcknowledgments ...................................................................................................................................................xiTransliteration of Armenian Names ................................................................................................................ xiii

PART I – THE KINGDOM OF CILICIAN ARMENIAIntroduction ............................................................................................................................................................... 21. Kingdoms of Greater Armenia during the High Middle Ages .........................................................19 The Kingdom of Ani .......................................................................................................................................21 The Kingdom of Vaspurakan ........................................................................................................................24 Forced Resettlement .......................................................................................................................................26 Manzikert, 107: Twilight of Christian Anatolia .........................................................................................29 Cilicia after Manzikert ....................................................................................................................................31 Geography of Cilicia ......................................................................................................................................33

2. The Near East at the Dawn of the First Crusade ...................................................................................34 Western Europe at the Dawn of the First Crusade ..................................................................................34 Pilgrimage ...........................................................................................................................................................37 Armenian Principalities .................................................................................................................................40 First Crusade: First encounters with the Latins ........................................................................................42 Capture of Antioch and Jerusalem .............................................................................................................47 The Consolidation of the Kingdom of Jerusalem ....................................................................................49

3. The Rubenian Dynasty in Cilicia Rubenian Princes or “Lords of the Mountains) (1080-1198) ................................................................................................................................52

Fall of Edessa and Second Crusade ............................................................................................................59 Thoros II the Great .........................................................................................................................................61 Mleh, ‘the Renegade’ .......................................................................................................................................64 Prince Levon II (1187-1198) and his royal ambitions .............................................................................66

Armenian Cilicia Xii -- XiV Centuryii iii

4. The Birth of the Kingdom .............................................................................................................................69 Coronation of Levon I – King of Armenians (1198-1219) ......................................................................70 Administration, Commerce, and Law in the New Kingdom .................................................................73 Levon’s Political Diplomacy ..........................................................................................................................76 The Twilight of One Dynasty and the Dawn of Another........................................................................77

5. The Hetumian Dynasty ..................................................................................................................................80 Hetum I: An Exceptional Monarch ..............................................................................................................80 Mongol Devastation of Armenia ................................................................................................................82 Emergence of Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt ..............................................................................................85 Mongol-Armenian military campaigns ...................................................................................................87 Levon II: Another great monarch ................................................................................................................91 The Sicilian Vespers (1289-1293) .................................................................................................................95

6. Hetum II: A King Becomes a Franciscan Monk ......................................................................................97 End of Outremer ..............................................................................................................................................98 Time for New Crusading Projects ............................................................................................................. 101 7. The decline of the Cilician Kingdom of Armenia ...............................................................................106 Levon III (1303-1307) ................................................................................................................................... 106 Oshin (1308-1320), Levon IV (1320- 1341, and the Papacy in Avignon .......................................... 107

8. The Lusignans: The Last Royal Dynasty of Cilicia................................................................................114 Guy (1342-1344) ........................................................................................................................................... 114 Constantine I (1344-1363) and Constantine II (1365-1373) .............................................................. 116 9. End of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia: Leon V Lusignan (1374-1375) ......................................119

PART II – AN INTERLUDE - THE KINGDOM OF CYPRUS10. Cyprus: An Introduction ..............................................................................................................................132 The Lusignans: the Creation of a New Royal Dynasty ......................................................................... 135 Richard the-Lion-Heart’s Conquest of Cyprus ....................................................................................... 136 King Guy of Lusignan - Lord of Cyprus .................................................................................................... 137 First King of Cyprus: Aimery of Lusignan ................................................................................................ 138 Structure of the Kingdom of Cyprus in the Twelth Century ............................................................... 143

11. The Lusignan-Antioch Dynasty ................................................................................................................145 The End of the Christian Lands in the Levant ........................................................................................ 146 A House Divided: a Fraternal Rivalry Ends into Tragedy ..................................................................... 147 Peter I: the Last Crusader King .................................................................................................................. 150 Preparing a Crusade ..................................................................................................................................... xxx

The Conquest of Alexandria ...................................................................................................................... 153 Peter’s Tragic Death ...................................................................................................................................... xxx The Twilight and End of Another Christian Kingdom of Cyprus ....................................................... 157 PART III – FROM THE FALL OF THE CILICIAN KINGDOM TO THE GENOCIDE

12. The Fall of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia: An Analysis ...............................................................162 13. Openness to Other Cultures, Societies, and Religious Views .........................................................168 Religious Overtures to Rome and Constantinople ............................................................................. 169 Progress Toward Religious Union with Rome ........................................................................................ 170 Religious Conflicts in Cilicia During the Fourteenth Century ............................................................ 175 The Evolution of an Armenian Society and Its Institutions ................................................................ 176 Cilicia: Nexus of International Commerce in the Eastern Mediterranean ...................................... 177 The Renewal of Intellectual Life ................................................................................................................ 178 The Art of the Book in Cilicia ..................................................................................................................... 180

14. Aftermath of the Fall of the Kingdom of Cilicia ..................................................................................182 1451: The Conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks .....................................................184 The Armenians in the Ottoman Empire ................................................................................................186 Armenian Centers of Independence ......................................................................................................187 Armenian Renaissance of the Eighteenth Century ..........................................................................188 The Final Solution to the Armenian Question .....................................................................................190

Epilogue: Descendants of Leon V Lusignan in Malta? .............................................................................. 192

Glossary ................................................................................................................................................................ 202

Selected Bibliography ..........................................................................................................................................205

Notes ...................................................................................................................................................................... 209

Index ...................................................................................................................................................................... 219

F O R E W O R D

The Cilician era in Armenian history is a period of a special interest with regard not only to the millennia-long existence of the Armenian people with its manifold vicissitudes, but even with re gard to world history.

Dr. John Armenia had the brilliant inspiration to dedicate a full monograph to Armenian Cilicia. It covers the three centuries of existence of this very peculiar and amazing entity, includ-ing its dramatic development from the status of a local principality to that of a kingdom. This kingdom, even if limited in its geographical scope, became, at some moments, a very important force in the balance of power among the great empires of the time. This began at the moment of inception of the new kingdom when Pope Innocent III saw in Armenian Cilicia the only state sufficiently strong to assure a Christian re-conquest of the Holy Land from Saladin’s Muslim forces. Until his death in 1190, the Holy Roman emperor, Frederick Barbarossa, had attempted to extend his influence to the eastern Mediterranean, by supporting Cyprus and Cilicia. But it was not until 1198 that Levon finally received a crown by recognizing the distant sovereignty of the pope and the emperor. The Byzantine emperor, not to be outdone, also sent a crown.

The monograph, written for a general audience, investigates Armenian Cilicia in its vari-ous as pects: political, military, social, religious, literary, artistic, economic--offering the reader a compre hensive glance of this small but important kingdom, both in its inner life and in its multidimensional international relations.

The main peculiarity of Cilicia’s Armenian kingdom is that its statehood was formed outside of the boundaries of the historical cradle of the Armenian nation: the Armenian Highlands. No doubt, Armenians could be found, starting from the most ancient times, in many localities at the borders of historic Armenia and beyond. But the homeland where Armenian identity and culture were forged was part of the land at the east side of the upper course of the Euphrates, the bibli cal river, between the Caucasian mountain chain to the north and Mesopotamia to the south. However, the formation of an Armenian state in Cilicia cannot be compared to those events, very frequent indeed in history, in which the formation of new national powers and of new states is due to invasions and to the expropriations of earlier occupants. The Armenian case is special in that the formation of a new Armenian state in Cilicia, a land of emigration

L I S T O F M A P S

1. Historical Armenia

2. Medieval and Modern Armenia

3. Armenian Lords in and around Cilicia at the end of the eleventh Century

4. The Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia

5. Cyprus

Armenian Cilicia Xii -- XiV Centuryvi vii

The present volume is an excellent introduction, for all interested people, of all these sub jects and still others of similar importance and fascination. John Armenia’s style–clear, fluent, and attrac-tive at the same time—already suggests the promise of the book’s success. We can only thank Dr. Armenia for this excellent book. He has provided a marvelous service both to Armenian culture, by making the history accessible to larger strata of readers, and to the readers’ culture, by enriching and expanding their view of the world.

Boghos Levon Zekiyan Chair of Armenian Studies, Ca’ Foscari University, Venice,

Chair of Armenian Church Institutions, Pontifical Oriental Institute, Rome

for the Armenians, was, to a great extent, the result of a policy of feudal exchanges between the Byzantine Empire and some princes of Greater Armenia, lands that remained after the col-lapse of the Artzruni and the Bagratid kingdoms (respectively, 1021 and 1045), effected by the Byzantine Empire. Although the Byzantine intent was certainly not to help the Armenian princes in building their own state—just the opposite, in fact–the process of their gradual emancipa-tion from the emperor’s servitude was still a result of this historical situation.

Another important feature of the Cilician era is the cosmopolitan composition of its so ciety. It is true that, since early antiquity, Armenians lived among and with different cultures. Their almost innate polyglot talent was well known since the earliest times, as already attested by the Greek leader and historian Xenophon in his famous book, the Anabasis (The March Up Country), in which he describes how the residual Greek mercenaries crossed the Armenian Highland toward the Black Sea after the defeat of Cyrus the Younger, who wanted to usurp the throne of his elder brother, Artaxerses II, the king of Persia. Nevertheless, the Cilician milieu had something new and still more instructive to offer to the Armenians: that living together with people of different ethnicities and cultural extractions was now relevant to their everyday life. In Cilicia, Armenians began to live side by side with Greeks, Syriacs, Arabs, Jews, Turcomans, Franks, and yet many other smaller ethnic entities. If this was for them a new experience, at least in its most current forms, we must emphasize that the Armenians seized the moment by real-izing the opportunity inherent in assimilating and, at best, evaluating their new situation. The most open minds among them did not hesitate to engage themselves in positive relationships, especially with Greeks, Latins, and Syriacs, but also with the Muslims. They even went so far as to start an ecclesiastical dialogue with both the Byzantine and the Roman churches. St. Nerses Shnorhali, one of most outstanding figures of both the Armenian and the Universal Church, fol-lowed by his great spiritual heir, his grandnephew, St. Nerses of Lambron, developed a vision of inter-Christian relations that were a prelude to, ante litteram, the ecumenical vision of the last hundred years; yet this modern endeavour has not yet reached, I think, some of the deepest insights of Shnorhali’s vision.

The Cilician period is also known for the peculiarities of its culture and art. A great many new trends flourished then. It is the time when the early secularization process of Armenian culture and society started. Treatises on medicine and civil law became more and more frequent. The spoken language enlarged its range. This phenomenon opened the path to a strong flourishing of popular poetry which, in later centuries and also outside of Cilicia, would reach peaks of abso-lute grandeur not only in the songs of such unique poets as Nahapet Kuçhak and Sayath Nova, but also among a great number of lesser poets. Absolute masterpieces were also produced in the field of miniature painting, with the court painter Thoros Roslin being the most emblematic artist for this creative vein. Cilicia’s fortresses, generally rebuilt by the Armenians on the founda-tions of an extant Byzantine nucleus, are reminders of sophisticated achievements in the field of architecture.

P R E F A C E

A deep respect for this ancient civilization, which has endured for almost three thousand years, a combination of pride and a sense of responsibility, and the fact that I and my ancestors bear the name of the country Armenia, have compelled me to write this book. The idea has been in incu bation since the age of seven, when I first discovered, while looking at a political map of Eurasia on the wall of my grade two classroom, that in the middle of the Caucasus region was a coun try named Armenia. But it was obviously not until much later that I began to dedicate myself to learning more about that country. This book, truly a labour of love, I humbly dedicate, first to the Armenian people, and secondly to my Armenia forefathers who, according to what I have learned from genealogical research, in all likelihood were proud Armenians.

The history of the Cilician principality, which later became the Kingdom of Armenian Cilicia, found in the following pages does not pretend to be comprehensive. In including a few intro-ductory pages on the history of Armenia preceding the establishment of this kingdom and the later history of the Armenian people after the fall of the kingdom in 1375 to the genocide of 1915, my only pur pose was to focus on some of the high and low points in the history of Armenia as a nation. While not a professional historian, I have made an attempt to analyze some of the fundamental problems faced by the Kingdom of Cilicia — political, military, and religious — all of which contributed in different degrees to its eventual demise.

It is a history rich in noble struggles but also in undeserved reverses of fortune, including the de termined plan by a tyrannical regime, the Ottoman Empire, to exterminate the Armenian na-tion and its almost three-thousand-year-old culture. Of this history I particularly wish to bring into re lief major historical events that marked the beginning and the subsequent flowering of Armenian culture in a geographical area separated by a few hundred miles from its original homeland. It is also a period quite rich in individual characters at a time when Christians in the Near East gradu ally became displaced by the much stronger Islamic powers.

Although it played an important role in the crusades, placed as it was between the Byzantine Empire and the crusader states of the Near East on one side and the Mongol and Islamic world on the other, Armenian Cilicia remains little known to the non-historian. Because of the role

Armenian Cilicia Xii -- XiV Centuryx

A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S

This piece of historical writing does not pretend to offer many original ideas. It is primarily meant to be a compendium of many works that have appeared in English, French, Italian, and some in Armenian translated into one of the above three languages, mostly published in the course of the last one hundred years. I am deeply indebted to the scholars and writers upon whose publica tions I have relied. Specifically, I would like to mention in particular Father Levon B. Zekiyan of Ca’ Foscari University in Venice, who in addition to reading the manuscript twice offered much counsel regarding issues pertaining to Armenian Christianity; to him also goes my deep gratitude for his friendship and his kind words of encouragement and support in the process of completing the manuscript, and for being the first to call to my attention the pres-ence of the Armenia family in Malta in the early 1500s. Many thanks also go to Professor Claude Mutafian for his two splen did works on Armenian Cilicia. The first, La Cilicie au Carrefour des em-pires, covers the history of the region of Cilicia from ancient times to the time of the kingdom of Armenian Cilicia, a work accompanied by many illustrations and maps. The second, the beauti-fully produced Le Royaume Arménièn de Cilicie, presents Armenian culture during the period of the kingdom with lavish il lustrations. I would like to extend my thanks to Professor Mutafian for his reading and correc tions of the Rupenian and Hetumian dynastic charts. I would also like to thank Professor George Bornoutian, Dr. Robert Bedrosian, Professor Laura Balletto, the late Professor George Hill, Professor Peter Edbury and Professor Nicholas Coureas. Thanks also to Mr. Bedros Tekeyan of Montreal for his kindness in allowing me to read a draft of a manuscript on the kingdom of Armenian Cilicia, Ms. Susan Young who designed the genealogical charts for Cilicia and Cyprus from my hand-drawn version and to Mr. Samuel Grigoryan for his many sug-gestions regarding Armenian genealogical issues and numismatics.

I am deeply grateful to Professor Corrado Federici of the Department of Modern Languages at Brock University, St. Catharines, Canada, who read early drafts of the manuscript, for his pa tience, his painstaking editing of the text, and his many valuable suggestions. I am especially grateful to Ms. Alice Caraprice, a former longtime senior editor at Princeton University Press. Her sug gestions for rephrasing, clarifications, additions, deletions have invariably resulted in improvement; I have adopted them readily and with gratitude. My gratitude also goes to the director of the Biblioteca Nazionale of Florence.

the founding fathers of the kingdom of Cilicia played in the successes of the First and Third Crusades, I have elected to include material that would serve to underscore their involvement in those crusades, but I have attempted to maintain the focus on Armenian Cilicia. In view of the close relationship between the two Christian kingdoms of Cilicia and the island of Cyprus, I have also decided to include a synopsis of the history of the Lusignan rule on that island, since the two kingdoms were linked by matrimonial alliances. Members of the Cypriot Lusignan family were crowned kings of Cyprus from the time of the Third Crusade, when both Aimery Lusignan and Levon Rubenian were crowned kings by the Holy Roman emperor Henry VI. Two of the last kings of the Cilician kingdom were also descendants of the Lusignan dynasty.

March 6, 2010

Armenian Cilicia Xii -- XiV Centuryxii

T R A N S L I T E R A T I O N O F A R M E N I A N N A M E S

Considering the phonetic differences between eastern and western Armenian pronunciations, I have used eastern Armenian because of its closer similarity to classical Armenian. But I have adopted the more commonly used forms whenever they were warranted due to a more wide-spread historical use or because they are easier to pronounce, as in Mekhitar, Catholicos, and Moses, rather than the Armenian Mkhithar, Kat

colikos, or Movseˉs. In general, I have employed

a simpler transliteration system with no diacritical mark (added to a letter to indicate a special phonetic value).

In addition, I am grateful to His Eminence Archbishop Khajag Barsamian, of the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Dr. Rachel Goshgarian, and especially His Eminence Archbishop Nourhan Manoogian, Vicar General of the Patriarchate, who granted me permission to copy the marvelous folio 380 from the Queen Keran Gospels manuscript, Jerusalem 2563; Professor Mutafian for permission to copy a number of illustrations from his books; Professor Robert Hewsen for permission to copy several maps; Dr. S. Karapetian of Research in Armenian Architecture (RAA) for the many photos of fortresses and churches from the RAA archives, which he kindly sent to me for inclusion in the manuscript; Ms. Sonia Tashjian for contributing her own photos, and to Dr. Artsvy Bakhchinian and Father Levon Zekiyan for suggesting several contacts.

Many thanks also to Count Charles Said Vassallo for making public on his web site maltesege-nealogy.com the information related to the Armenia presence in Malta and their connection to the Lusignan dynasty of Armenian Cilicia and Cyprus.

Lastly, I want to say how grateful I am to my wife, Maria, for her patience and for several years suffering my preoccupation with Armenian history and the genealogy of the Armenia family; and to my daughter Marisa and to my son-in-law Andrew (proud parents of our first grandchild, Sophie Saveria); my daughter Sarah, (proud mom of our second grandchild, Penelope) and my son, Salvatore, for their interest in the history of Armenia.

The author apologizes for any errors or omissions in the list of people and institutions that gave permission to copy illustrations included in the book. He would be grateful to be notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in a next edition or reprint of this book.

P A R T IT H E K I N G D O M O F C I L I C I A N A R M E N I A

introduction 3

I N T R O D U C T I O N

1. Mount Ararat with the Monastery of Khor Virap (“Deep Pit”) and vineyards. The monastery was built in the seventeenth century above a prison pit where King Tiridates held St. Gregory the Iluminator, toward the end of the third century. According to legend, the king had been turned into a wild boar. It was under the same king that Christianity was proclaimed the state religion. The site is a popular destination for pilgrims and tourists. (Courtesy of Peter Armenia)

On August 26, 1896, twenty-six Armenian men armed with revolvers stormed the Imperial Ottoman Bank in the banking district of Galata in Constantinople. In an act that would be cel-ebrated among young Armenian revolutionaries, the group took the European bank personnel as hostages. The bank director, Sir Edgar Vincent, had escaped through a skylight and hidden in an adjoining office. Only when it became obvious to the authorities that the desperate mem-bers of the Dashnak political party were ready to blow up the bank and everything in it, the gunfire between them and the young Armenians ceased. At that point, a bank clerk began to speak with the Dashnaks.

The young Armenians explained that they had undertaken this violent and desperate act to draw the attention of the European powers to the massacres in the provinces, which had cost over 100,000 Armenian lives in the years 1895 and 1896. They scolded the powers for collud ing with the sultan’s illegal removal of high officials in the Armenian community, including their patriarch. Their subsequent replacement by ineffectual officials had deprived the Armenian millet (nation) of their spokesman and defender. Among the list of demands were the follow-ing: the ap pointment of a European high commissioner who would supervise their six villayets (districts), the return of usurped properties, amnesty to political prisoners, and changes in the collection of taxes. The negotiations, carried on by a Russian ambassador, produced an agree-ment between the Sublime Porte, the government of the Ottoman Empire, and the Dashnaks. Ten of the conspirators were killed, while the rest sailed to Europe. But within a few hours, with the complicity of the po lice, the Armenians living in two districts were murdered by a mob. Over five thousand were killed in two days, with clear evidence that the massacres had been organ-ized by the Turkish authorities.

When news of the massacre of Armenians in Constantinople reached European capitals, they roused horror and revulsion. It prompted William E. Gladstone,

1 England’s liberal prime

minister, aged eighty six at that time, to deliver his last public speech at Liverpool.2

Gladstone’s earlier crusading spirit may have been dimmed somewhat by his age, but he did not hesitate to frame his attack against the Ottoman power in terms of the universal principle of justice. Again, the Conservatives under Disraeli accused him of warmongering against Britain’s old ally. Lord Salisbury, the Conservative party leader, who had been in favor of deposing Sultan Abdul Hamid, was forced to resign. The meeting of the European ambassadors by the end of the year reached a compromise solution, another futile reform scheme. Europe did not appear interested in a permanent solution to the problem. Guided primarily by self-interest, the European powers were concerned that their investment in the Ottoman Empire would be seriously jeopardized.

Throughout his four different periods of time as prime minister, Gladstone was well aware of the conditions under which the Armenians found themselves and was a vociferous opponent of Ottoman misrule. In the 1870s he made clear his opposition to the new sultan’s brutal treat-ment of non-Muslims. As conditions worsened towards the 1890s, a concerned delegation of British Armenians approached the retired prime minister to intercede on behalf of their fellow nationals. When Gladstone’s cabinet came to power in the summer of 1892 (this was his fourth time as prime minister), the hopes of the Armenians were high, and indeed the Liberal govern-ment began to send sharp notes to the Porte, the government of the Ottoman Empire. However,

Armenian Cilicia Xii -- XiV Century4 introduction 5

English influence in Constantinople had become negligible. In fact, some writers had taken the stance that English intervention only made matters worse. “The Turk begins to repress because we sympathize,” wrote David Hogarth, “and we sympathize the more because he represses and so the vicious circle revolves.”

These ongoing atrocities persuaded Gladstone out of retirement. His speeches, in which he denounced the sultan as “the great assassin,” rang around the world, highlighting the horrors that were taking place. His denunciation played no small part in bringing a temporary end to the atroc-ities. Indeed, his last public speech, in Liverpool, saw Gladstone protesting against the mas sacres of Armenians in Turkey. In gratitude for Gladstone’s help, the British Armenians gave him an illumi-nated manuscript and donated a stained-glass window, which still remains in the local church in Harwarden, North Wales. When, on May 19, 1898, he died, the Armenians lost a valuable ally.

3

Nineteen years after the Ottoman Bank incident, on Sunday morning of September 5, 1915, the French navy ship, the Guichen, a member of the Mediterranean French Fleet stationed in Egypt, was cruis ing near the Syrian coast in the vicinity of Kesab. During his watch, an officer scanning the coastline sighted two large white banners atop the cliffs overlooking the sea. One had a large red cross at the centre, while the other had “Christians in Distress” printed in bold letters. They had been hoisted on tall trees on Musa Dagh,

4 the Mount of Moses. Projecting itself against the blue

sea, Musa Dagh (Musa Ler – Armenian equivalent) is the most southern of the Amanus Mountains. The ancient city of Antioch is barely twenty miles east of the massive mountain, which overlooks the east ern Mediterranean. When, fifty-three days earlier, a community of over five thousand Armenians from six Armenian villages received an order of deportation from the Turkish authori-ties, they had already learned of the fate that awaited them from some of the Armenians who had escaped the deportations of Armenians in Cilicia. During the eight days they were given by the Turks to prepare themselves for their long journey, they sought shelter by climbing Musa Dagh. They were following their ancestral impulse, to organize their defense, with a few hundred rifles, by choosing a strategic position that rendered them almost invulnerable to attack.

As soon as the Turks discovered that the Armenians had moved to the mountaintop, they launched their attack. Repulsed, they returned in force with infantry and artillery. After the loss of several hundred of their men, the Turks sent 15,000 soldiers to besiege the defenders of Musa Dagh from the land side. From the sea, which has no ports on that coast, theoretically there was no hope that they could receive any assistance. Yet it is from the sea that their last ray of hope was materialized. Their message was detected by the French cruiser at the command of Captain Joseph Brison who sent a wireless message to du Fournet, the vice-admiral of the fleet. From his flagship, Jean d’Arc, Fournet ordered the bombardment of the Turkish campground and the Turks’ arsenal. A few hours later, the flagship, three more French warships, and an English war-ship joined the Guichen to rescue the Armenians of Musa Dagh. The epic story, immortalized by Franz Werfel in his novel The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, represents one of the very few suc-cessful episodes of armed resistance during the genocide of 1915 by Armenians, culminating in their miraculous res cue by a French warship.

5 With the almost complete annihilation of the

Armenian communities of the Ottoman Empire, the story of Musa Dagh became a powerful

symbol of the Armenian will to survive, even against impossible odds. It was the only time that the Western Allies, while at war with the Ottoman Turks, prevented the annihilation of an entire community during the Armenian genocide.

It was not the first time Armenians had pleaded with the English and French for protection against a Muslim power. Five centuries earlier, Leon V, he last king of Armenian Cilicia, ad traveled to Paris and then to London seeking help from the French and English kings to free their holy plac es from the Muslims. He had also hoped that the Christian West would return his kingdom to him, which had been overtaken by the Mamluks of Egypt in 1375. While his dream of having the kingdom of Cilicia restored to him never came to be, Leon eventually played a significant role in rousing the Europeans, who, three years after his death, launched the ill-fated Nicopolis crusade against the Ottoman Turks in 1396. From that moment on, the objective of the European states was no longer the rescue of Jerusalem and the other Christian lands in Outremer,6 but to defend the European lands from further Ottoman attacks. The greatest loss to Christendom was, without any doubt, the capture of Constantinople on May 28, 1453. All over Europe, the news of the fall of the capital of the Byzantine Empire to the Ottoman Turks, which had lasted over one thou-sand years, was a catastrophe on the same scale as the loss of Jerusalem to Saladin in 1187. The Ottomans would acquire Armenia in 1510 and destroyed Mamluk rule in Egypt a few years later.

Map 1. Historical Armenia. (Courtesy of Robert Hewsen)


rial necessary for the development of tools, metallurgy, and ceramic pottery. Evidence from the Sumerian city of Uruk (in present-day Iraq) has come to us, in the form of ancient clay tablets with inscriptions, stating that the people of the highlands who produced these artifacts were held in high esteem. The tablets reveal, in amazing detail, that the Sumerians were sending messages to the city-state of Aratta to the north asking its citizens to bring masonry material, gold, silver, and precious stones necessary for the building of a temple in Uruk. But it was not un-til 1967, when an expedition di rected by Dr. Khanzadian of the Armenian Academy of Sciences uncovered the ruins of an ancient city near the river Metzamor which flows at the foot of a hill. The Metzamor is the left tributary of the Arax. The city was defended by huge blocks and con-tained the buildings of the city’s ruler, a temple, and an observatory. Nearby was burial site for the rulers of the city; in their honor, horses, bulls, and people had been sacrificed. The discovery of iron production, and of copper and bronze objects, dating back from the third millennium b.c., confirms that this was the center of the ancient state of Aratta that was recorded in the Sumerian clay tablets.

Other archeological findings point to the Armenian Highlands as playing an essential role in the later development of the civilizations of the eastern Mediterranean and Mesopotamia. Around 1300 b.c., the Hittite Empire, then at its zenith, had concluded a peace agreement with Ramses II of Egypt, who had fought the Hittite to a stalemate. The clay tablet on which the treaty was written was one of the few thousands found in the Hittite capital city of Hattusa, in present-day Turkey. It was thanks to Swiss scholar Emile Forrer that, along with the Hittites, other forgot-ten peoples of the ancient world came to light. His work revealed that the records of the Hittite kings made frequent mention of the kingdom of Hayasa, the Hittite’s eastern neighbor. The two states frequently fought brutal wars, followed by peace treaties and arranged marriages between their dynasties. In one of these peace and friendship treaties, the king of Hayasa and the Hittite com mander used terms of respect, treating each other as equals.

Excavations in Erzinka (Erzinjan in Turkey) reveal a temple complex on the acropolis of one of the Hayasa cities in what is known as the Altyn-tepe (Golden Hill). Fragments of frescoes found on the walls of an adjoining palace show a priest who appears to be conducting a divin-ing cer emony by using a plantain tree. In his History of the Armenians, more than a thousand years later, the great Armenian historian Moses of Khorene writes that the descendants of the mythological Armenian Hayk divined the will of the gods by the rustling of leaves.8 Linguistic and geographical data and recent archaeological discoveries have led a number of Armenian scholars to conclude that the kingdom of Hayasa may have been the place where Armenian culture had its roots. The same scholars see the origin of the words Hay, which Armenians call themselves, and Hayasa, mentioned in the Hittite records, as more than mere coincidence.

After the collapse of the Hittite Empire in Western Anatolia in the thirteenth century, new Indo-European tribes entered the Armenian highlands, and after absorbing some of the indig-enous people, created a new federation under Urartian leadership. The first reference to Urartu can be traced back to the construction of a fortress at the foot of the Rock of Van, which became the burial place of a large number of Urartian kings. An inscription in Assyrian found in the royal palace of King Sarduri I (845-825 b.c.) suggests that the founder of the new dynasty in

The Place

As is the case with many nations, geography has played a significant role in the cultural his-tory of the Armenian people, a history that, for almost three millennia, has unfolded on the Armenian Highlands or the Armenian Plateau. This is a vast territory between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Lying between latitude 38° and 42° North and longitude 37° and 41° East, it covers a surface larger than France.

The most outstanding features of this plateau are two extinct volcanoes, Mount Ararat (5,172m) and Mount Aragatz (4,031m), the last one found in the present Republic of Armenia. Two more volcanoes are found nearby: Mount Sipan to the north of Lake Van, and Mount Nemrud to the east of the same lake, both in present-day Turkey. While Mount Olympus acquired a sacred meaning in Greek mythology as the residence of their gods, the noble Ararat, Masis, is a spiritual symbol of Armenian identity.

The presence of three great lakes—Sevan in present-day Armenia, Van in Turkey, and Urmia in Iran—was a decisive factor for settlement in that many area sites were chosen for human habita tion. Lake Van was specifically chosen as the seat of Urartu, or kingdom of Van, near the end of the first millennium b.c. Urartu is the name the Assyrians gave to the country that would later be called Armenia. On one of Lake Van’s four islands, Aghtamar, we can still admire the marvelous church built by King Gagik I more than fifteen hundred years after the fall of ancient Urartu.

Because of its ancient trade routes, which could be readily used for military purposes, the Armenian Highlands were fought over by a succession of conquerors. It is in these lands that sev eral rivers have their source: the Tigris, the Euphrates, and the Arax. Most of the flow of the Arax meanders through Armenia, which may explain why Armenians speak of it as eternal and refer to it as “Mother Arax.”

While mostly mountainous, Armenia does have lowlands. The largest of these is the Ararat plain, at the southern end of which rises Mont. Ararat. This plain is a fertile oasis where grains, grapes, pomegranates, figs, and apricots, known to the Romans as Armenian plums, were culti-vated since time immemorial. As poetically expressed by Hamlet Petrosyan, “it was the grape-vine and fruit trees that nourished their [Armenian] imaginations,”

7 as we see in the abundant

illustrations of vineyards in stone reliefs and miniature paintings of historic Armenia, perhaps the most striking form in the vine-scroll carved on the Church of the Holy Cross on Aghtamar Island in Lake Van.

The People

Who were the people that lived on these highlands? Evidence that the lands were the site of hu man civilization from the earliest times continues to be uncovered by archaeologists. Human skel etal remains and tools, dating back to more than half a million years ago, have been un-earthed. The ground, rich in obsidian (a volcanic stone), copper, iron, and tin, provided the mate-


The kingdom’s defenses were put to the test during its troubled history. In one of its dark-est moments, in 714, King Rusa I faced an attack on two fronts. Trouble began when a force of Cimmerian horsemen rode down the Caucasus and swept over the northern provinces of the kingdom. In a brave attempt to stop the marauders, Rusa marched against them, but lost much of his army before before he was forced to retreat to Van. News of Urartian setbacks was brought to the Assyrians, who lost no time in marching against Urartu and winning a deci-sive victory. Injured in the battle, the king died while fleeing home. The Urartians, now in the shelter of their fortresses, looked on helplessly as the Assyrians despoiled their land. But the Assyrians were unable to con quer the fortresses, which have been described as standing up to sixty feet high.

The most energetic builder appears to have been Rusa II, the last great king of Urartu. Little is known about him. He built fortress complexes throughout his realm on a much larger scale in the early eight century, when Urartu was at the height of its power. The unearthing of the ground plan at Karmir-Blur on the outskirts of Yerevan has revealed the use of more than one hundred rooms. They included wine warehouses with the capacity to store 9000 gallons of wine and 750 tons of grain.

Its days numbered, Urartu did attempt to recover from several Assyrian attacks. The final blow came not from its traditional enemy, the Assyrians, but from the Medes and the Scythians. The destruction of Kamir-Blur signaled the end of Urartian rule over the Arax plain. With the loss of this fertile region, the administrative superstructure centered in Van was no longer able to sustain itself. Within a few decades, Armenia’s first independent kingdom passed into the pages of history. The Urartian religion and its god Khaldi vanished with the kingdom. An appeal by the Jewish prophet Jeremiah to the king of Urartu for assistance against the Babylonian Nebuchadnezzar came too late, for the Urartians were now under foreign occupation them-selves. By the time Xenophon, the Greek general and historian, passed through Urartian terri-tory in 401 b.c., the Armenians were already prominent, but there were no reminders of Urartu.

The language spoken by the Urartians, probably related to the modern languages spoken in the North Caucasus, was already dead by the time of Christ. The word “Urartu” survived in the Hebrew language as “Ararat.” This is the name given to the mountain where, according to the biblical account, Noah’s ark came to rest.

Evidence of the historical existence of the kingdom of Urartu did not appear until 1827, when the German scholar Schultz discovered cuneiform inscriptions in what was an unknown language. He would later be murdered by Kurdish bandits. But it was not until World War II that interna tional archaeologists from Britain and Russia finally began to reveal the grandeur of this ancient kingdom.

In 1837, Henry Rawlinson, a British secret agent serving with the Persian army, found cunei-form inscriptions at 300 feet high on an isolated cliff-face on a road to Babylon. The inscriptions had been carved below basreliefs of the Persian god Ahura Mazda and of warriors. Among the figures was King Darius I (520 b.c.) with one foot on a prostrate man; facing him was a line of nine captured kings. Floating above them is the god Ahura Mazda, giving his blessing to the

the region of Van was adopting a friendly attitude toward the more powerful neighbor to the east, the Assyrians. And it is to the kingdom of Urartu that we now turn our attention in order to understand prop erly another important source of the cultural roots of the Armenian people.

“Urartu” referred to the civilization or kingdom that had grown on the Armenian plateau a few centuries earlier. Formed in the eleventh century in the area of Lake Van, the kingdom became an independent state by the start of the ninth. Sarduri I founded the new capital, Tushpa, on the edge of picturesque Lake Van. The capital was crowned with fortifications, built with mas sive stones typical of Urartian architecture. King Sarduri’s preoccupation with the safety of his kingdom was justified when it was attacked by the Assyrians who were deterred from making any attempt to storm the citadel. For the next two hundred years, Urartu played a leading role in the power politics of the Near East. It reached the height of its power under King Menua (c. 810-786), who built towns, fortresses, palaces, and temples, and laid out canals for the irrigation of gardens and vineyards.

Archaeologists tell us that the Urartians relied on a chain of fortresses to protect themselves against the Assyrians from the south as well as from fierce horsemen tribes, the Scythians and Cimmerians, coming down from Central Asia. The location of these strongholds, on crags, made them almost impregnable.

In 782 b.c, at about the same time that Rome was being founded, the Urartians founded the site that is presently called Karmir-Blur. The remains of this fortified city overlook the Arax River on the outskirts of Erevan, the capital of the Republic of Armenia. A similar site, Erebuni, is found on the opposite side of the city, to the southeast. At different times, both were provincial capitals of the kingdom of Urartu.

Excavations conducted over the course of twenty-five years under the direction of the Russian archeologist Boris Piotrovski revealed a very impressive picture of the Urartian civili-zation at the zenith of its power. The rich finds from these sites give us detailed information. The variety of ar chitecture, including fortresses, temples dedicated to the cult of Khaldi, the god of war, residential quarters, irrigation canals, and dams are evidence of the diligence of the Urartian rulers. They must have been proud to display their capacity to transform a dry, semi-desert into cultivated lands. Some of the more significant finds at Karmir-Blur provide evidence that the plain of Ararat was producing more cereals than the region of Van on the outskirts of the capital Tushpa. That viticulture was such an important activity in Urartu lends support to the belief that the people of ancient eastern Anatolia invented wine.

So that the reader will not be left with the impression that the Urartians spent all their energy on defense, we must note that they also built roads and canals. Like their neighbors the Sumerians, they gave much impetus to agriculture by building irrigation canals and plant-ing vineyards. The land surrounding Tushpa was irrigated by what is known as the canal of Semiramis. Still used today, it was built by King Menua and not by the mythical Babylonian queen Semiramis. With dams and ca nals, the Urartians transformed the lowlands into fertile fields suitable for gardens and vineyards. Urartian buildings set against the dramatic back-ground of alpine scenery surrounding Lake Van provided an architectural precedent for the Armenians.


By the sixth century b.c, the Armenians had established themselves as protagonists in the history of the Middle East, relating with the Assyrians to the south and the Persians to the east. It is from the south that Christianity would come to the Armenian lands several centuries later. During the period of the Achaemenid Empire, founded by Cyrus I in Persia in 553, Armenia fell under Iranian influence. Architecture and metal artifacts of the period, as well as the customs and manners of Armenians, reflect this cultural influence. Linguists have traced many Armenian words to Farsi, the language spoken by the Persians. Prior to the advent of Christianity, there is a pre ponderance of the characteristic loans from the Persian religion of Ahura Mazda, which was later reformed by Zoroaster in the same century BC. In the pagan religion of Armenia, Ahura Mazda became Aramazd and he remained the supreme god, the creator of sky and earth, and the father of the lesser gods, Vahagn and Anahit. The most revered of this triad of pre-Christian gods was Anahit, daughter of Aramazd. Vahagn, the Armenian version of the Greek Heracles, was the dragon killer; he was the most popular god in the pantheon. Notwithstanding these loans from Persian religion, the soft Mazdeism of the Armenians appears to have ignored the cult of the fire, which was central to Zoroastrianism.

It was in the central Ararat plain that Armenian kings extended their rule from the fourth century b.c. to the fifth century a.d. While it was quickly subjugated by Darius I, the first Armenian royal dynasty of the Yervandunis maintained a degree of political autonomy. The Persian domina-tion ended when the Persian Empire was crushed by Alexander the Great at Issus in 333 b.c. With the collapse of that empire, the Yervandunis were finally able to gain independence, but only over Greater Armenia and Sophene in the southwest. Here, Persian culture continued to influ-ence Armenian culture. By contrast, Lesser Armenia, or Armenia Minor, to the northwest of the Euphrates, was influenced by the Hellenized11 regions of Cappadocia and Pontus in Asia Minor. The death of Alexander in 323, after a drinking match with his officer that lasted several days, was fol lowed by a power struggle among several of his generals. The lands he had conquered in Asia and Africa were divided among them. The Assyrian Empire was claimed by Seleucus Nicator, and Egypt by Ptolemy, each of them leaving a dynasty that last several centuries.

After Seleucus’s assassination, his empire began to disintegrate until Antiochus III (223-187) came to power. A man of culture and great ambition, in order to revive the Seleucid Empire, he encouraged two Armenian noblemen, Artashes and Zariadris, to rebel against the Yervandunis and to become his vassals, and in so doing, he laid the foundations of the truly first Armenian kingdom. After Antiochus was defeated by the Romans at the Battle of Magnesia in 187, the Armenians established themselves as the dominant ethnic group in the Armenian plateau, ruled by Artashes I (189-160) and his kinsmen in the northern region, and Zariadris in Sophene to the south. From this point on, Rome’s presence in the Near East was very secure, as it encouraged the fragmentation of the Seleucid Empire into smaller states, including Armenia, Cappadocia, and Pontus. Recognized by Rome, Artashes’s kingdom of Armenia could be regarded as an independ ent state. But its independence would be predicated on the balance of power between the two major empires in the region: the Parthians in the East, and Rome in the West. Within a few dec ades, when both major powers were preoccupied with internal conflicts, a short-lived Armenian Empire would stretch from the Mediterranean to the Caspian Sea.

victorious king. In a scene that would have inspired the likes of movie director Steven Spielberg, Rawlinson crawled out on a narrow ledge to copy the Persian script. Within a few years, the se-cret agent/archaeolo gist presented a translation from Old Persian to the Royal Asiatic Society, which reads as follows: “I am Darius the king…, the king of Persia: These are the countries that listen to me: Persia, Elam, Babylonia, Assyria, Arabia, Egypt, the Sealand, Sardis, Ionia, Media, Armenia.”

10 Cambyses, the previous ruler of the Achaemenid dynasty, had died on his return

to Persia after his conquest of Egypt. Just prior to his death, he was preparing himself to put down a palace rebellion. The historical source at Behistun relates a complete plot to destroy the throne. After listing his legitimate descendants (which most historians discount), Darius lists the large number of people, including the people of Armenia, who were rebellious. Later in the same text, Darius declared that, over the course of several months, he fought several battles against Armenia, which eventually became a satrapy (prov ince) of the Persian Empire. The three-language inscriptions at Behistun (Old Persian, Elamite, and Akkadian) indicate that Armenia and Urartu both refer to the Armenian people, who, by that time, were securely estab-lished in their new country, they had begun to penetrate Urartian territory during the reign of Rusa II. The key to their quick success was their occupation of the more fertile lands, which gave them a clear political advantage over the other ethnic groups in the region.

Toward the end of the Urartian kingdom, the Armenian highlands teemed with local people and new tribes that invaded those lands. One of these groups, the Armenians, became dom-inant. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, the Armenians had originally come from Thrace (modern Bulgaria and eastern Greece), and then moved to Phrygia, in the western part of Asia Minor. They finally established themselves in the lands of Greater Armenia during the decline of Urartu in the seventh century b.c. The remaining Urartians were quickly assimilated by the Armenians. Scholars believe that the names of several Armenian dynasties of noble fami-lies may have survived into the Middle Ages.

When, more than one thousand years later, he first recorded their history, the Armenian historian Moses of Khorene was not aware of the existence of an earlier kingdom in the lands occupied by the Armenians. According to him, it was Aramu, the son of the mythical Hayk, who led his faithful Armenian followers to the valley of the Arax River. There they began to cultivate the land and built the city of Armavir, near present-day Yerevan.

From the earliest times, the Armenians called their country Hayastan, still the name of their country today. The language spoken by the Armenians, unlike Urartian, is an Indo-European lan guage, therefore related to Sanskrit, Persian, Greek, Italic, and other European languages. According to the classical view held by Herodotus and by some contemporary scholars, the ancestors of the Armenians seem to have emigrated from the Balkans by the end of the second millennium b.c. Since the 1980s, an alternative view has been proposed by two former Soviet comparative linguists (Ivanov and Gamkrelidze), which has attracted considerable attention from Armenian scholars. In this new perspective, the land of histori-cal Armenia was the cradle of the great family of Indo-European peoples. This view may go a long way toward explaining why Armenian appears to have the greatest number of archaic Indo-European terms.


Betrayed by his allies, the old warrior Mithridates of Pontus escaped to Crimea. Besieged by an uprising led by his son, the deserted king tried to kill himself. The poison failed to work because he had built up immunity to it. His own friends and protégés, who had been com-missioned by his son to kill him, ended his life by running swords through him. Of these two monarchs, the French historian René Grousset writes in his History of Armenia:“…to the wild initiatives by Mithridates Eupator one can contrast the more reserved and measured atti-tude of Tigran. The king of Pontus was indisputably one of the most dynamic personalities of his time, but he would lose his kingdom and, within a short time, his dynasty would end. By contrast, Tigran, though less spectacular than his father-in-law, left an immortal work: Armenia.”12

The Romans continued to advance toward the east, and the growing power of Iran gradu-ally erod ed the kingdom of Greater Armenia until it was restricted to the Armenian highlands. Reduced to a client state between its two powerful neighbors, Armenia clung to its precarious existence. A treaty between Rome and Parthia (Persia), the so-called Compromise of Rhandeia in a.d. 63, allowed the Armenian kings to be appointed from a cadet branch of the Arsacid of Persia, but they were to be invested by the Roman emperor. This dynasty ruled until the early fifth century. Armenian society was restructured on the model of the Parthians,13 the nobility was organized in an elaborate hierarchy, and the king was first among equals. The nobles, or nakharars, would rule their vast estates from fortresses. While it facilitated the defense of sin-gle fortresses, the moun tainous terrain also favored a centrifugal pattern, namely, the fight-ing among nobles that led to the undermining of the central authority of the king. Prominent among these clan-families were the Bagratid, who held the hereditary post of coronat, and the Mamikonians, who became sparapet, or commanders-in-chief of the armed forces.

By the beginning of the fourth century, Armenia experienced an event of great cultural signifi cance that would have a powerful impact on the development of the Armenian nation and on the identity of the Armenian people for centuries: its conversion to Christianity. Tradition has it that the apostles Matthew and Bartholomew preached the gospel in Armenia. The Armenian Church is therefore said to be a true Apostolic Church. The part of Armenia ruled by the Persians was subjected to pressure on both the religious and the cultural fronts. The tension between the two countries ran especially high when Armenia converted to Christianity under St. Gregory the Illuminator in a.d. 31414 during the rule of his cousin, King Tiridat III, who had been crowned by the Roman emperor Diocletian. This was a year after Emperor Constantine issued of the Edict of Milan, which favored, and not just tolerated, Christianity as a legitimate religion.

The decision of King Tiridat to convert Armenia to the Christian faith may be viewed as a po litical alignment with Rome, his powerful ally. Well versed in Western languages, Tiridat had been brought up in Rome and was initially opposed to the new faith. Unable to stop Gregory’s preach ing, he had him seized and tortured to force him to give up his faith. In the meantime, the king learned that Gregory was the son of his father’s murderer. This sealed the fate for Gregory, who was imprisoned in a snake-infested dungeon. Tiridat then pro-ceeded to persecute the Christians, including a group of young nuns, refugees from Rome,

To celebrate a new dynasty, King Artashes built the new capital city of Artashat on the Arax River. This city remained the capital of Armenia for the next four hundred years. The site of the city, on an outcrop of land at the foot of Mount Ararat, had been suggested to the Armenian king, according to Plutarch, by Hannibal. The Carthaginian general, recently defeated by the Romans, had retired to Armenia.

Under Artashes’s grandson, Tigran II the Great (95-55 b.c.) Armenia reached the zenith of its power. Energetic and ambitious, Tigran intended to make Armenia a premier power in the East. He first attacked the king of Sophene and annexed that country. By so doing, he realized the po litical union of the Armenian people. Tigran then extended his rule into Syria, north-ern Palestine, and westward into Cilicia and Cappadocia. During his reign, for a brief period of approximately ten years, the Armenian kingdom extended from Cilicia in the Mediterranean to the Caspian Sea. Tigran styled himself “King of Kings.” He built a new capital, Tigranakert, and populated it with Greeks and other Asiatic peoples forced to emigrate from Mesopotamia, Cappadocia, and Cilicia.

His next move, an alliance with King Mithradates Eupator of Pontus concluded with Tigran’s marriage to the king’s daughter Cleopatra, would eventually bring him into open con-flict with Rome. Realizing that their sovereignty over their kingdoms was threatened, Tigran and Mithridates wished to create a federation, a union between Armenia and Pontus, which would challenge Rome and Parthia. Considered by Cicero as the greatest military general after Alexander the Great, Mithridates was initially successful in defeating the Roman legions. He was honored as a liberator when he led the revolt against the Greek cities of Pergamum and Ephesus in Asia Minor against Roman oppression. For more than a decade he proved to be a major thorn for Rome until the Roman general Lucullus invaded Pontus.

When, in 69 b.c, Tigran refused to surrender his father-in-law, who had sought shelter in Armenia, Lucullus marched on Tigranakert. After the defeat of the Armenian army, the city fell to the besieging forces. The enormous amount of booty found in the city, which was still under construction, caused amazement for the Roman conquerors. With the fall of his capital, Tigran’s control over the lands he had conquered came to an end as several of his vassal states acknowl-edged Roman suzerainty. The Eternal City decided to subdue these oriental potentates once and for all by appointing a new general, Pompey, who was given full dictatorial powers. On the eve of Pompey’s invasion, Tigran’s three sons by Cleopatra rebelled against him. The two older ones, once caught, were condemned to death with their co-conspirators. Tigran, the youngest, took shelter at the court of his father-in-law, the king of Parthia. Once he learned that his grand-father had been defeated, the king’s son turned to Pompey in the hope that, once his father was defeated, he would be rewarded with the throne. Tigran II realized that the only recourse was to submit to Pompey, giving the Roman general a huge sum of money as war indemnity. In return, Pompey forgave him but stripped him of the lands he had conquered, leaving him only the realm of Armenia proper. He proclaimed that Tigran II be considered a friend of the Roman people, and in the end even returned some territory in Mesopotamia to him. Still bearing his title “King of Kings,” Tigran con tinued to rule peacefully for another decade before his death at age eighty-five.


restored to him. More importantly, the Persian king also accepted the condition stipulated by Vahan: freedom of Christian worship in all Armenian territories.

National Identity in the Early Middle Ages

In attempting to conceptualize “nation” and “identity”16

as they apply to Armenians, one is com-pelled to start with Moses of Khorene. As remarked by Hacikyan in The Heritage of Armenian Literature, “If the alphabet of Mesrop Mashtots created the literature of the Armenian people, the History of Moses of Khoren created their identity.”

17 Revered for many centuries as patma-

hayr, the father of Armenian history, he is also regarded as perhaps the representative of all the writers of classical Armenian literature. In his historical writing, he drew from the oral tradition, which can be traced back to the sixth century b.c. It is highly likely that, by Moses’ time, the Armenians had been recounting stories about their national origin and the deeds of their na-tional heroes for over one thousand years.

The dating of his work, although still a matter of great debate among scholars, may be traced back to the middle of the fifth century. What we can say for certain is that Moses is the first to offer a synthesis of Armenian mythology, religiosity, traditions, legends, songs, in other words, the first comprehensive picture of the ancestral culture of Armenia.

Contrary to medieval Christian thought, the concept of ethnicity in Moses is that Armenian ethnicity is separate from religion, though his vision of the world is clearly inspired by the Christian faith. The twin concepts of azg (ethnos) and hayrenik (country) are fundamental in his thinking. The first, azg, indicates a community that has acquired a collective conscience of itself, based on a common patrimony of history, customs, language, and the pursuit of common ide-als in the life of the community. The second, hayrenik, refers to the actual geographical space where the life of the ethnic community is located. For Moses, Armenian identity deserves to be studied and celebrated without any reference to Christianity. The interest and devotion that he feels for the heroes of pagan Armenia come through very clearly. But this secular conception of ethnos remains open to the spiritual and transcendental values brought by Christianity. He maintains that “the salvation of a nation can only be achieved by the nobility uniting around the central authority” of a king. For those feudal lords who, in times of national struggle seek to promote their selfish interest, he has only contempt.

Moses has written a history as a perpetual memorial for future generations. His history meant to reflect and inform the conscience of a people, as embodied in their ideals, their values, and their hopes. But more than anything else, it registers its perennial rebirth and regenera-tion. For Moses, the élan vital that directs and controls Armenian history can only be found on a higher plane, that of the Spirit. It is not weapons, material prosperity, or even the creation of an actual nation-state that will determine Armenian identity or that will assure its survival. The significance of the dra matic and often tragic history can only be found in the deepest core of the identity of this ancient people, immeasurably strengthened by its adoption of Christianity, which became its vital force.

and their abbess, Gayane. According to legend, as a punishment for this crime, the king was transformed into a boar and was healed only after accepting the Christian faith. Still only a monk, Gregory traveled to Caesarea in Cappadocia, where he was ordained priest and bishop. On his return, he baptized the king and his following in the Euphrates River. From then on, Gregory, with Tiridates’s support, converted the districts where people were will-ing to embrace the new faith. Wherever resistance to change was strong, Gregory, accompa-nied by royal troops, sacked pagan temples and confiscated their wealth, erect ing Christian churches on the ruins. The king then helped Gregory build the city of Etchmiazin, “the city where the Only Son descended.” Over the centuries, this city would become Armenia’s spir-itual and intellectual center. Nowadays, the patriarchal sees of Jerusalem, Constantinople, and the Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia in Lebanon, while autonomous, recognize the pri-macy of the Holy City of Etchmiazin.

The conversion of Armenia to Christianity, a major landmark in its history, has greatly con-tributed to the shaping and maintaining of Armenian identity until the present time. Christianity would be the vehicle for the preservation, in an adapted form, of the cultural inheritance out-lined previously in this historical introduction.

Less than a century after adopting Christianity, another momentous event would unite the Armenians and strengthen their identity: the invention of the Armenian alphabet by Mesrop Mashtots, a scholar and missionary, who is venerated as a saint by the Armenian Church. As noted by Professor Nina Garsoïan, the general population of Greater Armenia had been speak-ing the same language by the first half of the second century b.c. The alphabet soon acquired a miraculous aura, as some claimed that it had been received by Mashtots in a divine vision. For the first time, the Armenians would be able to translate Christian and Greek philosophical texts into their own language. However, the original purpose of the new alphabet was to allow the people to hear the words of the Scriptures in their own language. It is no surprise that the Bible was the first book to be translated from Greek and Syriac.

The combined force of the Christian religion and the newly created alphabet forged and preserved the Armenian ethos. The Armenians’ strong sense of cultural identity would not be shaken by the campaigns of the Persians to replace Christianity with their own Zoroastrian beliefs. The threat to the core of their identity as a Christian people only served to rally the Armenian nobility under Vardan Mamikonian. In 451, the Armenians, vastly outnumbered, were defeated, most dying in the epic battlefield of Avarayr. Prince Vardan and his 280 nakharars and would be raised to the pantheon of heroes. They would soon be canonized as saints by the Armenian Church. The Battle of Avarayr, although a military defeat, proved to be a spiritual victory. It acquired a deeply symbolic meaning as it united the twin concepts of nation and faith in the Armenian mind. Although the battle lasted only a day, it would be followed by what became known as the Vardanank War, a combination of “tenacious passive resistance and bitter guerrilla warfare,”15 a struggle championed and led by the wives of the Armenian princes who had died on the battlefield or had been exiled. The war, fought in defense of religious freedom and national identity, lasted until 484, when the king of Persia named the leader of the resist-ance, Vahan Mamikonian, marzipan (governor), and all the property owned by his family was


was to be regarded as the most egregious crime against one’s nation. For him, unity was a nec-essary condition during a war of independence; in his own words, “unity is the mother of good works, but disunity begets evil deeds.”19

The War of the Vardanank was not a religious war in the way the term is commonly used. The Armenians had no intention of imposing their religious belief; nor was it a war of religious intol-erance on their part. It was a war of political independence, a war to re-establish the Armenian kingdom lost only a few decades earlier.

The armed resistance to the Persians by the clergy and the widows of the fallen Armenian heroes finally ended with the negotiations between the two countries in 484. The Armenians were granted freedom of religion. Their attitude throughout had been not one of attempting to dominate another nation, but only be left undisturbed, with due respect to their faith and iden-tity. Avarayr became a symbol of resistance against foreign oppression, a war waged in defence of their religious beliefs and of their identity as a distinct people.

In light of the above history, some contemporary scholars view the Armenians as a prime ex ample of a nation whose roots can be traced back to ancient times. Others would argue that the term ethnie, or a proto-nation is a more appropriate term. Whether we speak of the Armenians in ancient times as an ethnie or as a nation, in the final analysis, we must agree with A. E. Redgate, the author of The Armenians (2000), when she remarks, “Most striking is the Armenian ethnic, political and cultural longevity, scarcely paralleled in European history” (p. 249).

2. The Battle of Avarayr, Hymnal. Vienna, W 189, ff. 239-240r. (Courtesy of the Mekhitaristen Kloster, Vienna)

Moses supplements his Hebrew, Assyrian, and Greek sources with oral traditions. His influ-ence on later historians and intellectuals has been unsurpassed. Through his writing of the entire history of the Armenians, Moses instilled in them a sense of belonging to a specific ethnic group that stretched across almost two millennia. Thanks to him, Armenian history is embedded in the biblical narrative, and so becomes an integral part of world history. He was and is still consid ered by Armenians the first national historian. It is through him that we learn how ‘Armenia’ and ‘Armenian’ came to acquire their meaning. Moses believed that “Armenian” derived from Aram, the name of the first king of Urartu. But we have to remind ourselves that these are not the names used by Armenians but were given to them by others. The Greeks took the name Armenia from the Persians, who in turn had taken it from the Arameans who staffed the chancellery offices in the Achaemenid Empire. The names which the Armenians used for themselves and their country are Hay or Hayk and Hayastan.

We owe to Moses of Khorene the myth of the origin of Hayk. Haik, as a direct descendant of Noah (through his son Japhet), is the father of the Armenians. Haik, a righteous man, after rebel-ling against Bel, the evil leader of Babylon, moved to the land where he settled with his family. He was pursued by Bel who was intent on his complete subjugation. In the primordial battle between Haik and Bel (good and evil), Bel was slain. Haik and his descendants, the Armenians, established their nation in the lands around Mount Ararat. The story is replete with symbols: Armenia as the cradle of civilization (the ark had landed on Ararat), the link between Armenian history and the biblical narrative, the rebellion against oppression, and the struggle for freedom and justice at the very core of the nation’s origin. As well, Mount Ararat becomes the symbol for a sacred landscape, the national homeland for more than three thousand years.

If we accept, as Adrian Hastings does in his book The Construction of a Nation, that the con-cept of nationhood can be traced back to the end of the first millennium of the Christian Era for the proto-English nation, based on their adoption of Christianity and the development of a written language, we must perforce conclude that the Armenians constituted a nation at least five hundred years earlier.

Yegishé, another Armenian historian who is described as second only to Moses of Khorene, is the first to draw a clear distinction between the secular and the spiritual aspects of the strug-gles the Armenians have been called to confront. The defense of Christian values, in contrast to those of a materialistic enemy, is judged by him as of fundamental importance. For him, it is the only hope for the Armenians is to preserve their independence as a people and to main tain their national identity. This struggle may require great personal sacrifices, at times even martyrdom.18

One of the disciples of Mashtot, Egishé had been in the service of Vardan Mamikonian, the sparapet or commander-in chief of the Armenian army. A participant in the insurrection of 451, he was later ordained as a celibate priest and was commissioned to write The History of Vardan and the Armenian War. The book covers the span of only twenty-three years and ends with the Battle of Avarayr. The Persian king Yazdegerd II’s attempt to impose Zoroastrianism in Armenia resulted in an uprising led by Vardan Mamikonian and the clergy. Despite the proximity of a fortified Byzantine garrison, the Armenian rebels did not receive any help from that quarter. The decision to fight the Persians, while far from unanimous ended on the plain of Avarayr where Vardan and more than a thousand of his men died. Vardan of Siunik, appointed governor by the Persians, and other Armenians deserted to the Persian side. For Yegishé, any such act of treason

Armenian Cilicia Xii -- XiV Century18

C H A P T E R 1

K i n g d o m s o f G r e a t e r A r m e n i a d u r i n g t h e H i g h M i d d l e A g e s

Map 2. Medieval and Modern Armenia. (Courtesy of Robert Hewsen)

The Coming of the Muslim Arabs

Half a century after the treaty between the Persians and the Armenians, the campaign by the Byzantines to heal the major divisions among the churches in its empire reached a peak under Justinian (527-565). His very ambitious project was to achieve the recapture of North Africa from the Vandals, and Italy and Spain from the Visigots. These goals were made possible by the very capable Armenian general, Belisarius. But most importantly for Armenians, Justinian decided to divide Armenia into four regions, entrusting the government of each region to a governor, thereby undermining the Armenian prince ly power of the nakharars. The Armenian reaction was not long in coming. The governor of Armenia I, who was disliked for his violence and rapacity was murdered. The violent Byzantine repression sent the insurgents to seek help from the Persians. The war between Byzantium and the Persia that followed was fought, nat-urally, on Armenian territory. An attempt by a number of nakharars who had emigrated to Constantinople to assassinate the emperor prompted Justinian to forcibly displace thousands of Armenians to the Balkans. It was during these political upheavals that an Armenian anti-Chalcedonian movement developed in earnest, helping to organize a strong defense against the policy of assimilation by the Byzantine Empire. Relative tranquility had returned to these lands for less than half a century before Armenia became the theatre for conflicts between the Byzantine Empire and Persia. The victory of the Byzantine emperor Heraclius over the Persians in 629 resulted in his recovery of the True Cross.

20 Within a decade, a new force would once

again conquer the Armenian lands. Sweeping like a wildfire out of the Arabian Peninsula, Islam spread quickly throughout the lands of Persia and Byzantium. Armenia was first invaded by the Arabs in 640. Justinian’s and Heraclius’s work quickly became unraveled.

A number of Syrian sources mention that, after the conquest of Armenia by the Arabs in the mid-seventh century, Armenian exiles settled in Cilicia. In the year 901, a significant wave of emigrants accompanied fifty Armenian nobles from Sassoun, fleeing the Turks. They crossed the Taurus Mountains and took refuge in Cilicia. In 962, Byzantine emperor Nicephorus Phocas, having recaptured Crete from the Arabs, campaigned in Cilician territory and took the cities of Anazarba and Marash. In an effort to guard the region against any further Arab attacks, he repopulated the area with large numbers of Armenians appointing some of them as governors of important cities and entrusting to them command of the local armies. He also offered them large tracts of lands. The lands of these chieftains gradually assumed hereditary status. By the second half of the tenth century, the Armenians in Cilicia, many of whom lived in fortresses that had been taken from the Arabs and Byzantines, were in sufficiently high numbers to request their own bishop at Tarsus.

For the first time in history, the coast of Cilicia would provide the Armenians residing in the region a strategic advantage over their compatriots in Armenia proper, by allowing them to come into close contact with the powerful European countries. By the end of the eleventh century, the influence of European culture, represented by the states founded by the crusaders (the kingdom of Jerusalem, the principality of Antioch, and the counties of Edessa and Tripoli), would have a con siderable impact on the emerging kingdom.

Armenian Cilicia Xii -- XiV Century20 Kingdoms of Greater Armenia during the High middle Ages 21

The Kingdom of Ani

During the late ninth and early tenth centuries, the gradual decline of Muslim rule, at a time when Byzantium was shifting to a more aggressive military policy, created a balance of power more favorable for Armenia. It is during this period that Armenians regained much of their political in dependence. The highlands that lie between Lake Van and the Caucasus Mountains were divided into a number of small principalities where the Bagratid and the Artzruni fami-lies led a resurgence of Armenian autonomy. The Bagratids had their base in north-western Armenia, the most distant region from Arab lands. As wealthy owners of silver mines, they were able to pursue a very ambi tious policy by buying adjacent territory. This family became the most powerful in all Armenia.

4. Ani, the Cathedral. (Courtesy of Sonia Tashjian).

Later in the ninth century, Emperor Basil I, descendant of one of the Armenian families that had migrated to Byzantium, founded the new dynasty of the Macedonian emperors. He gradually

3. Ani, showing a view of a section of the walls built by King Sembat. (Courtesy of Sonia Tashjian)

After their initial conquest, the Arabs allowed Armenia to maintain its administrative structure, requiring only the substitution of the Persian governor by an Arab ostikan. With the advent of the Abbasid dynasty in Baghdad in 750, heavy taxation, growing religious intolerance toward the Christian subjects, and the establishment of Arab emirates near Lake Van were perceived by the Armenians as a serious threat to their autonomy. These changes explain the revolts by the Armenian nobles which, in turn, provoked brutal repressions by the caliph and the demise of sev eral Armenian noble families, including the Mamikonians.

In the mid-ninth century, another punitive expedition to subdue the Armenian princes sent by a new and more energetic caliph in Baghdad under the leadership of a Turkish emir resulted in the exiles of many of the members of the princely Armenian families. Taken prisoners, many of these Armenian nobles feigned conversion to Islam. These dramatic events would be described in detail by Armenian historians, for example the description found in the celebrated epic David of Sassoun.


began a military advance against the Arabs, retaking the passes through the Taurus Mountains, without losing sight of the situation in Armenia. Aware of the danger posed by an alliance be-tween the Byzantines and the Armenians, the caliph crowned Ashot I Bagratid king in 884.

Not to be outdone, Basil lost no time in recognizing the new monarch. Following the spir-itual path of his late father, Sembat the Confessor, who had died as a prisoner in Samarra rather than renounce his Christian faith, Ashot remained faithful to the Armenian Church. Its support would serve to augment his power and prestige among the nakharars. He inaugurated a bril-liant period of cultural renaissance: during the five years of his reign, he emerged as a ruler with an iron will that was matched by a magnanimouos spirit, fully deserving the epithet “Great”.

The long and sad period, during which the country had been under foreign occupation, ap-peared to come to a close.

Ashot I was eventually succeeded by nine Bagratid kings, but the fragility of the Bagratids’ rule already became readily evident when Ashot’s son, Sembat I (890-912), succeeded him on the throne. The Bagratids attempted to unite the kingdom under their rule, but their strug-gles to overcome the opposition of the Armenian nobility began with the refusal by King Abbas of Kars, his paternal uncle, to concede to Sembat the succession to the throne. In so doing, Abbas ignited the fratricidal rivalries within the Bagratid family. A measure of the suc-cess of the Bagratid kings can be gleaned from the effectiveness of each in uniting the nobil-ity and balancing this attempt with the Arabs to the east and the Byzantines to the west. For Sembat, the situation was to im prove only for a brief time. When he appealed directly to the sultan in Baghdad to become his vassal, thereby bypassing the local Arab governor and emir Yusuf, Sembat incurred the anger of the latter, who hunted him down. His eventual surren-der did not prevent him from being tortured and decapitated. His body was then exposed on a cross.

Sembat’s tragic death served to end the support of the Armenian princes for the emir and ben efited the heir to the Armenian throne, Ashot II (913-928), who also received the sup-port of the catholicos. Concerned with the events in Armenia, the Byzantines invited Ashot to Constantinople. When he returned from the Byzantine capital with an army, he was recognized as King of Kings by the Arab governor.

In 961 Ashot III (the Merciful) was crowned king of Armenia in the presence of a large number of princes, and established Ani as capital of the kingdom. When a few years later Emperor John Tzimiskes appeared on the border, all the Armenians princes answered Ashtot’s call to present themselves to the emperor’s camp. The emperor made no attempt to enforce his authority, pro-ceeding instead to honor Ashot as his “beloved son.” The meeting of the combined forces of the Armenian kings and the various princes, according to historian Matthew of Edessa, would have formed an impressive army of up to 80,000 men. According to some estimates, Bagratid Armenia may have mobilized an army of up to 100,000 men. A third of the army would have consisted of heavy cavalry, the azatagund, or “noble legion,” which was the decisive element in battle as compared to the infantry and mercenaries. The supreme commander was the sparapet, who was elected from within the Bagratid family. Although they were prone to lack of discipline,

5. The Trebizond Gospels. This is a large-sized manuscript, its text evoking the spirit of the Armenians when semi-independent small kingdoms thrived in Grater Armenia. Scholars believe that it was a royal commission for the king of Ani. (Courtesy of the Armenian Mekhitarist Congregation, Venice, 240, fol. 10)


gation canals left by the Urartians. But it is the remains of the royal city on Aghtamar Island that cap tures the attention of present-day visitors. On this small island (less than one square mile), Gagik founded the capital of Vaspurakan. The royal palace, a large cube surmounted by a dome, had rooms decorated with murals and was surrounded by the treasury, storehouses, parks, as well as gardens with trees, and other vegetation for the relaxation of the king and his court. But the crowning achievement for Gagik was the building of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross very close to his palace. Unfortunately, only this monument of unsurpassed beauty survives. Built of pink sand-stone, the cathedral is best known for its high-relief sculpture, which covers the exterior walls and illustrates the Armenian concept of life as a garden. The king, depicted as a gardener sitting under a grapevine and pomegranate trees, tastes the new wine harvest. Strongly rooted in their Christian belief, the Armenians had been introduced several centuries earlier to the biblical legend of the Garden of Eden, where water flowed from the Tigris and Euphrates. They would gradually come to believe that they had a special connection to the lands described in Genesis. King Senekkerim (1003-1024) would later build the monastery of Varagavank on the slopes of Mount Varag to house a relic of the True Cross.

6. Church of the Holy Cross on Aghtamar Island, Lake Van, Turkey, tenth century. Many churches and palaces were erected on this island, but Holy Cross is the only one that has survived. The outside walls are covered with relief sculpture, depicting Biblical scenes. (Courtesy of RAA Archives: Photo by Samvel Karapetyan, 2007)

even when faced with the better organized Byzantine army, the Armenians were considered a force to be reckoned with.

Under the last two Bagratid kings, Sembat II and Gagik I, the city of Ani was transformed into a splendid capital, with many new buildings and paved streets. French historian Jacques de Morgan had this to say of the city of “one thousands and one churches”

.

In Europe, we still have a large number of cities surrounded by their medieval fortified walls: Avignon, Aigues-Mortes, Carcassone, in the south of France alone. But none of these can be compared with Ani because of the deep impression that the dead city still arouses in us today: lost in the middle of an immense solitude, still bearing the wounds it received during its agony. Ani under the Bagratids was a great, beautiful city, embellished with numerous churches, palaces, beautiful walls in many-colored stones.

21

Ani grew so rapidly that less than forty years after the construction of its fortified walls, a sec-ond line of fortifications was built, almost tripling the urban area. Many palaces and churches were erected. The growth of Ani was accompanied by the flourishing of classical literature, which inau gurated a new golden age. Today, what remains of Ani, the massive crumbling walls and towers and the soaring walls of the churches, is an impressive reminder of the wealth of this Armenian king dom. Of the “one thousand and one churches,” only eight are still stand-ing, but, alas, in extremely precarious condition. Among them is the magnificent cathedral, a testimony to Armenian artistic creativity and genius in architecture. The reputation of the cathedral architect, Trdat of Ani, spread beyond Armenia. He would later be summoned to Constantinople to repair the damage done to the great Byzantine cathedral of Hagia Sophia by an earthquake.

From early on, to avoid rebellion within the royal family and prevent alliances with for-eign rulers, the Bagratid kings of Ani adopted the policy of creating minor kingdoms for their sons and brothers, resulting in the emergence of several smaller kingdoms, a policy that led to fragmenta tion of the Armenian lands. During times of increased pressures from outside or in the absence of strong rulers, this same policy could spell disaster.

The Kingdom of Vaspurakan

South of the Bagratid kingdom of Ani, the rival kingdom of Vaspurakan was established by Gagik (908-937) of the Artzruni family under the protection of the Arab emir who hoped to use him to counter the Bagratids’ growing power in Ani. Feeling indebted to the emir, Gagik did initially participate in a number of campaigns against the king of Ani. However, the emir was re-lentless in his attacks against Armenia until he captured, first, Catholicos John and then Sembat.

Sembat’s tragic death was a brutal awakening for those Armenian princes who had sup-ported the emir. They joined Ashot II, the new king, of Ani in expelling the Muslims from many regions of Armenia with the help of a Byzantine army. The two Armenian kings, Ashot II, known as erkat (iron), and Gagik could now turn their attention to restoration, beginning with the irri-


during a subsequent visit that Gagik, a big and strong man, would punish Abulgharib and demanded respect from the old Armenian vassal. Gagik maintained the customs of vassalage of his kingdom in the lands to which his countrymen had emigrated.

In 1073, on his return from Cilicia, King Gagik arrived with one thousand troops near a for-tress in Cappadocia that belonged to three Greek Mandale brothers. The three brothers lost no time to satisfy the old hatred against the last Bagratid king by jailing him. Some of the Armenian princes, including his cousin Gagik-Abbas, the ex-king of Kars, unsuccessfully besieged the fort. It was at this point, according to the version of the story told by the chronicler Matthew of Edessa, that the Mandale brothers received the most perfidious counsel from the man who would play a considerable role in the next phase of the story of the creation of the Armenian principalities in exile, Philaretus Brachamus. Philaretus warned them that if they dared to free Gagik, they would be expected to pay a dear price. The three brothers, who clearly understood the message, proceeded to hang the king. Thus, the last Armenian king of the old Bagratid dynasty, Gagik II, hailing from a line that proudly claimed descent from the Biblical David and Bathsheba, was assassinated by Greeks.

After the king’s death, his son David seems to have been poisoned by Abulgharib. Further, Gagik’s grandson, Ashot, who was momentarily appointed governor of Ani by the local emir, also died poisoned by Muslims. During the same year, the old king of Kars, Gagik-Abbas, and his two sons were put to death by the Greeks, who wasted no time in annexing Kars to the empire. Thus, the kings of Ani, Kars, and Vaspurakan all had their lives extinguished by Greek or Muslim hands.24

The emigration of many of the princes and lords (some voluntary, some coercive) translated into a major drain of the political and military leadership of Greater Armenia; the guidance and de-fense of the majority of the population that remained in the ancestral lands were primarily left to the catholicos and the rest of the clergy. Of the magnificent metropolis of Ani, sacked by the Mongols in 1236, destroyed by an earthquake in 1319, and further devastated by the Mongol Tamerlane, only a ghost remained in the form of a village over the next few centuries. Nowadays, the ruins of the city of “one thousand and one churches,” just like the other great symbol of Armenian identity, Ararat, is located in Turkey, a country that continues to deny Ani’s historical past. This was visibly demonstrated when, in 1918, Turkish troops destroyed the three museums established in Ani by prominent Russian archeologist Nicolai Marr, who had carried out exten-sive excavations during the previous decades. As the first of the three museums, he chose what was thought to have been a royal palace during the existence of the Bagratuni kingdom.

25

Despite natural catastrophes and the battering of invaders, followed by the “dark cen-turies”26 under Turkish rule, Armenian identity would never be obliterated. Most, if not all, of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire and in the Diaspora clung tenaciously to their Christian heritage.

The Byzantine policy of resettlement of the Armenians in Cappadocia and Cilicia is iden-tified by some scholars as the primary cause of the collapse of the Byzantine defense of the former Armenian lands at the time of the first invasion by the Seljuk Turks. More precisely, Byzantine and Armenian scholars have long debated the issue of whether the Byzantine policy

Like the kingdom of Ani and the other regions of medieval Armenia, Vaspurakan was con-sidered a rich kingdom. In the basin of Lake Van, with its very favorable microclimate, grains, fruit trees, and vineyards were widely cultivated. Fishing in Lake Van, a very lucrative activity, provided consider able income to the royal treasury. Mineral wealth in the area, primarily lo-cated on the banks of the lake, consisted of potassium, borax, salt, and arsenic. The presence of these minerals suggests the development of the industrial production of glass, ceramics, and jewelry. But it was the textile industry that flourished, in particular, although most of the work was done not in laboratories but in family shops.

22

Forced Resettlement

When, in the second half of the tenth century, the international balance of power turned in favor of the Byzantine Empire, the threat to the independent Armenian kingdoms became ap-parent. Within a short time, the policy of incorporating Armenian lands, implemented by Basil I (867 886), was resumed under Basil II (976-1025). Unfortunately, the annexation of most of the lands of Armenia over the course of several decades occurred at a time when Turkoman tribes were intensifying their attacks in Asia Minor.

Basil II wanted to consolidate the eastern frontiers of the empire. He reorganized the upper Euphrates valley and northern Syria and brought the regions of Greater Armenia under impe-rial control. In 1020, King John Senekkerim of Vaspurakan, alarmed by Turkoman incursions, decided to offer his lands to Basil II (according to some sources over seventy fortresses and close to four thousand villages) in exchange for Byzantine territory around the city of Sebastea (now Sivas). He moved his entire family and 14,000 of his soldiers to their new home in Sebastea.

The last Bagratid king of Ani, Gagik II, did not have to wait long for his turn. Gagik, who as cended the throne when he was just sixteen, was initially able to resist the Byzantine attacks aimed at ending his kingdom. Sensing danger, he decided to travel to Constantinople to plead his case with Emperor Constantine IX, but was promptly imprisoned when he refused the emperor’s demands, to abdicate. Constantine incited the emir of Dvin to attack Ani from behind, capturing the fortified capital by way of a pincer movement. The pro-Byzantine governor of Ani surrendered the city. Upon his release from prison, Gagik resigned himself to the loss of his kingdom, for which he obtained lands in Cappadocia. When he later married the grandaughter of Senekherim, the old Artzruni king of Vaspurakan, he was able to increase his dominions in Cappadocia.

Matthew of Edessa wrote about Gagik, “always nurtured profound grief in his heart for [hav-ing lost] his ancestral home, which the apostate and perfidious nation of heretics had treach-erously seized.”23 We know that the final drama leading to his tragic death unfolded after his son David married the daughter of Abulgharib, an Artzruni prince who converted to Greek Orthodoxy and had been given Tarsus, in Cilicia, as a fief by the Byzantine emperor. But David would soon become embroiled in a squabble with his father-in-law, who imprisoned him. We do not know whether it was during his first visit to Abulgharib to arrange his son’s release or


Empire was reduced to a mere shadow of its former self. Short interim reigns by his pleasure-lov-ing brother, as well as by the husbands and adopted sons of his daughters Zoe and Theodora, then followed. Eventually, with Zoe’s third husband Constantine IX (1042-1055), the throne passed to the clans of the Monomachus and Ducas families, who, swiftly emptied the treasury that Basil had filled. To raise revenues for a flowering of the arts in Constantinople, the emperor cut back on the military and disbanded the provincial army of Armenia, reputed to have been 50,000 strong, and capable of having served as the principal defense against the Seljuk raids. Under his successor Constantine X Ducas (1059-1067), the Byzantine military was reduced to an army of cut-throat mercenaries who were quick to resort to mutiny when they were not paid. Further evidence of Ducas’ lack of foresight was the persecution of Armenians for their “unorthodox” religious views. Though they were the source of many of the empire’s best officers and warriors, the Armenians found themselves repressed and heavily taxed by their Byzantine overlords.

Manzikert, 1071: Twilight of Christian Anatolia

With the disbanding of the Armenian army, the eastern borders of the Byzantine empire were defenseless and exposed to Turkish attacks. Indeed, the situation deteriorated further. Prior to 1040, these invaders had been largely ignored by the Byzantines. The Turks were nomadic tribes from the steppes of Central Asia who had recently converted to Sunni Islam. One of the more dominant of these Turkish clans, the Seljuks, settled in Khurasan. From these bands, a remark-able warrior emerged, Tughrul Bey. In 1055, in response to an appeal of the caliph of Baghdad, Tughrul entered the city and restored the authority of the caliph, who, in turn, invested him with the title of sultan. Tughrul and his successor, his nephew Alp Arslan, would soon direct the ener-gies of their more undisciplined warriors into Asia Minor.

Meeting no serious resistance, Seljuk raids in eastern Anatolia, the lands of classical Armenia, would become a yearly occurrence. In 1064, the Armenian city of Ani was destroyed by Arslan and his tribes. Many of the churches were burned to the ground, and the inhabitants massacred or carried into slavery. King Gagik-Abbas of Kars, the last independent Armenian ruler, could nothing but hand over his lands to the emperor in return for territory in the Taurus Mountains. Large numbers of Armenians accompanied Gagik-Abbas to his new mountain home. Ani then became the launching point for Seljuk attacks. From 1065 onward, the great frontier-fortress of Edessa was attacked several times by the Seljuks, who occupied the passes of the Amanus Mountains, and, in 1067, sacked Caesarea in Cappadocia, as well.

In 1067, shortly before dying, the emperor obliged his young wife, Eudoxia, to swear that she would never remarry. After his death, however, when news of the sack of Caesarea reached Constantinople, Eudoxia realized that strong measures were called for: the empire needed a strong emperor. Released from her vow by the patriarch whom she led to believe she had fallen in love with his brother, she married Romanus IV (1068-1072), a member of the Byzantine mili-tary aristocracy and a capable leader.

of annexation was wise or whether the Byzantine emperors should have allowed the Armenian kingdoms to serve as a shield against invasion from the east. What can be said from Byzantium’s perspective is that these Armenian kings and barons could not be relied upon, at least not in a consistent fashion, as they often warred against one another. Such was the case of the sons of Gagik I who fought each other throughout their lives over the kingdom of Ani. Perhaps, even more importantly, Basil had embarked on his ambitious program of annexation to encourage Armenian princes to ally them selves with imperial interests rather than with the ambitious Byzantine aristocratic families who had staged a number of revolts against the empire.

It is important to point out that Armenian and Greek sources are often contradictory about this historical period. What we know for certain is that Emperor Basil II sought out many Armenians for service in the imperial army as well as for administrative posts. Most Armenians maintained allegiance to their traditional faith, while some embraced the Greek Orthodox reli-gion, a prerequisite for quick career advancement. Those who did not convert were perceived as “heretics.” They, in turn, felt alienated by court officials. Their animosity toward the Greeks did not abate. As a result, within the empire there was an ethnic population whose discontent was potentially dangerous. No longer bound by allegiance to local princes, as they had been in Greater Armenia, the Armenians began to wander about the empire.

While Basil II attempted to accommodate them, after his death many of these Armenian lead ers felt increasingly alienated from the imperial government. It is therefore not surprising that they would welcome the first crusaders as possible allies against the Byzantines, as we shall see in the following two chapters.

Less than two generations before the Seljuk Turks began to move into Anatolia, the Byzantine Empire was at the summit of its glory under Basil II. Perhaps the most formidable of all Byzantine emperors, Basil quashed all threats to his empire. He imposed imperial authority on all the Balkans after his great victory against the Bulgarians, which earned him the sobriquet “Bulgar-Slayer.” After defeating them, he reputedly put out the eyes of those he had captured, leaving only one in every hundred with one eye to use in stumbling their way back home.

Basil II consolidated the eastern frontier on the upper Euphrates and, as we have seen, an nexed the kingdom of Vaspurakan. He promoted dialogue and exchange among the vari-ous east ern churches. Through his efforts, the dome of the Hagia Sophia, built by Justinian, was restored under the supervision of the Armenian architect Trdat. He recognized that, even though they were at odds, Armenians and Byzantines had a great deal in common. To compen-sate them for the annexation of their lands, Basil extended religious tolerance to the Armenians. However, this freedom to worship was not upheld by the latter Byzantine emperors.

One indirect benefit of Basil’s authority over the Balkan peninsula, Asia Minor, and northern Syria was the support his empire provided to European pilgrims who wanted to travel by land to Jerusalem. The almost total collapse of the empire, after the defeat at Manzikert at the hands of the Seljuk Turks less than fifty years after Basil’s death, must have been perceived as devastat-ing by all Christians.

Unfortunately for Byzantium, Basil never married. His death in 1025 led to a succession crisis and ushered in a half century of incompetence and intrigue at the highest levels. The Byzantine


out of the Byzantine camp. When he was far enough from the large Byzantine army, thousands of Seljuks appeared from the hillsides, surrounded him and his rash companions, killing almost all of them. The general, ordered by Romanus to investigate rumors of a debacle, was forced to retreat. That night, the Turkish mercenaries in the Byzantine army, remembering that they were related to them, defected to the Seljuks.

The following morning, an ambassador sent by Arslan to propose a peace treaty was turned away. After the celebration of Mass and the parading of sacred icons before the infantry and cavalry, Romanus ordered his men to form a long straight line. They marched into the plain of Manzikert. The rear guard was commanded by Andronicus Ducas, one of the great landowners who secretly vied for the imperial robe. The Byzantine army continued to advance even while being tormented by Seljuk horsemen, who were luring groups of exasperated soldiers to break away from the Greek lines. Once isolated, these soldiers were ambushed by the Turkish legions.

When he realized that his force was far from the safety of the Byzantine camp, Romanus gave the order for an orderly retreat. This was the moment Arlsan had waited for. He ordered the main force of his army to attack the Byzantine soldiers who were turning to make their way back to camp. Thousands of mounted bowmen raced to cut off the Byzantine retreat. At this crucial mo ment, when it should have come to the rescue of the beleaguered army, the rear guard was told by Andronicus that Romanus had been slain. The collapse of the army was fol-lowed by a general slaughter. Not slain but wounded, the emperor was taken prisoner, freed only after payment of a huge ransom. Andronicus had promised him that he would be allowed to live out his life quietly on his estate, but this man betrayed him once more by blinding him and confining to a small island in the Sea of Marmora, where he died of his wounds. In the final analysis, Anatolia was lost as much by the tactics of the Seljuk Alp Arslan as by the betrayal of Greek magnates.

As we shall see, what happened at Manzikert on an August day in 1071 would set the stage for great movements of people that would change the eastern corner of the Mediterranean for many centuries to come. The battle, fought in the heart of historic Armenia, resulted in the con-quest of three quarters of Asia Minor by the Turks. Slowly, Christianity would be forced to retreat before Islam in this part of the world. At Ani, the third sultan, Malik-Shah, had ordered that the cross that topped the cathedral be buried under the entrance of a mosque, so that it could be stepped on by Muslim believers. The same sultan came to the Mediterranean coast, and, in a strangely symbolic act, immersed his sword into the sea. Was he dreaming of conquering that sea and all the lands bordering it?

Cilicia after Manzikert

Following the disaster at Manzikert, another wave of Armenian emigrants, led by their chief-tains from Cappadocia and Armenia, settled in Cilicia with the result that, by the time of the First Crusade in 1097, several Armenian principalities were already established there. Two of these dynasties, the Hetumians and the Rubenians, who were to become ruling families for almost

The Seljuk Alp Arslan was also a seasoned military leader. After capturing the Muslim cities of Mecca and Medina, he passed through western Armenia and captured Manzikert as well as the military outpost of Khilat on the northern shore of Lake Van. He then captured Edessa and Aleppo, and pressed on to Antioch. These victories gave the Seljuks full control of the lands of Greater Armenia. Arslan’s real objective, however, was to take on the Fatimids of Egypt, his most dangerous opponents, though he was well aware that the Byzantines were close allies of the Fatimids.

In contrast to Alp Arslan, Romanus’ military progress was far from smooth. In an attempt to ensure the safety of the Byzantine empire, he worked to rebuild the army in the hope that such a step would enable him to recover the lands lost to the Seljuks. The task was overwhelming, as the new emperor had neither the financial resources nor the time to bring it to a successful conclu sion. Early in his reign, Romanus led a disorganized but still powerful military force of mercenaries in search of Seljuk forces across Anatolia. He left the Armenian general, Philaretus, to defend the Euphrates frontier with a large force, while returning to Constantinople. The Turks managed to defeat Philaretus’ army, however, forcing Romanus to turn back. By that time, Alp Arslan had taken the town of Manzikert. Romanus then decided to return to Constaninople while his army still undefeated.

Romanus then spent almost a year preparing a grand offensive. In March 1071, he ferried a force estimated to be close 100,000 strong across the Bosphorus and began the daunting task of marching to eastern Anatolia to face the Seljuk Turks. His army was a mixed force of Greeks, Slavs, Normans, Armenians, Georgians, and even some Turkish bands of mercenaries. Some of these groups, (i. e., Armenians and Greeks) did not trust each other, while the Turkish troops were ethnically related to the Seljuks.

Arslan was leading his army south to battle the Fatimids in Egypt when he heard of the Byzantine advance and hurried north to meet the Byzantine forces. Romanus intended to cap-ture Armenian garrisons and fortresses before the Seljuk army could come up from the south. He entered Armenia along the southern branch of the upper Euphrates. In the summer of 1071, a war council was held. Believing that the country south of this meeting place could be eas-ily taken from theTurks, who were besieging distant Antioch, Romanus split his army into two divisions. He would march on Manzikert with half of his force, while the other half, headed by a Byzantine general and a Norman adventurer, would proceed toward Lake Van.

At Manzikert, Romanus received the news that Alp Arslan was approaching from the south-west. On August 19, 1071, while Romanus was waiting for the other half of his army to join him, Arslan attacked. The huge army that Romanus had spent a year assembling was now reduced to half, on the eve of one of the most momentous battles in history. No messenger came to inform him that a large part of his army was marching back to Constantinople. He was also unaware of the more immediate threat of thousands of Turkish horsemen hiding in the hills surrounding the plain of Manzikert.

When he finally sent one of his generals to investigate the lack of news from the other half of his forces, Romanus learned that the situation was serious. An Armenian commander, believ-ing that the Turks harassing the Christian forces were only a few bands of marauders, hurried


Geography of Cilicia

Before proceeding any further, it might be wise to present some basic details to orient the reader with respect to Cilicia, a region that in the High Middle Ages formed first a principality and then the kingdom of Little Armenia or Armenian Cilicia.

From ancient times, voyagers to this southeastern corner of Anatolia, which faces Cyprus, have marveled at the crown of mountains that encircle it, and at the deep valleys along which are found the only access roads leading to the coast. Cilicia could be seen as two countries in one: a long chain of mountains and a delta or plain, called the Gulf of Issus or Alexandretta (now Iskerendum). This “two-countries-in-one” had divergent paths of evolution. The architecture, for example, was adapted to the two different geographies, the coastline and the peaks of the peripheral mountains, which contained a high density of ruins of fortified cities and isolated forts constructed by a suc cession of conquerors.

The Cilician Kingdom of Armenia refers to a period in the history of the Armenian peo-ple when critical events were taking place in a setting well removed from the Armenian pla-teau, the ancestral homeland. The rugged nature of northern Cilicia may have reminded the Armenians who emigrated there of their homeland. In contrast to this harsh plateau, the much smaller Cilician plain was so fertile that it has been called the garden of Asia Minor; even today it is one of the most productive regions in the Near East. It yielded abundant quantities of wheat, cotton, and various kinds of fruit, and it was well known for its wine production. Raw silk, hides, wool, cot ton clothing, and goat hair were greatly prized. The forests of Cilicia provided plentiful timber for shipbuilding.

Entry from the north is by way of the Cilician Gates, a steep and narrow pass. It is on the southern side of this pass that the Hetumids or Hetumians established themselves in the castles of Lambron and Baberon. In fact, castles, fortresses, and monasteries were scattered in strategic locations throughout the mountains of Cilicia, built over the course of centuries by invaders: Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Armenians, and Turks. To the east, around the Gulf of Alexandretta, the plain is bounded by the Amanus Mountains, which end where Mount Cassius extends into the Mediterranean Sea. The Syrian Gates form a difficult pass through the mountains. They provide a route from Cilicia to Syria and Mesopotamia.

The Cilician plain is watered by three rivers, which bathed the cities of Tarsus, Adana, and Mamistra. The plain is the result of the accumulation of alluvial sediments. The Cilician seashore had several well-protected harbors. After the Armenians settled in Cilicia, ships from Venice, Genoa, Sicily, and Spain called at these ports. Shallow bottom boats and ships could navigate through the rivers, thus allowing the cities of Silifke and Tarsus to communicate directly with the Mediterranean Sea. Until the High Middle Ages, Tarsus was described by chroniclers as a large city ringed by walls with towers and city gates along its perimeter. It was in this city that some of the new Armenian barons of Cilicia installed their seat of government.

three centuries, faced each other within the borders of Cilicia. To the west, the descendants of Oshin, a lord from Gandzak (near present-day Karabagh), had left around 1070. He married the daughter of Abulgharib, a prince of the Artzruni royal family. A few years earlier, Abulgharib had been rewarded, for his loyalty to Emperor Constantine with the city of Tarsus as well as Lambron and Baberon, two important fortresses in western Cilicia. He later ceded Lambron to his son-in- law, Oshin. Built on a high spur overlooking Tarsus and the Cilician Gates, Lambron was thought to be impregnable. Oshin’s descendants, the Hetumians or Hetumids, remained loyal vassals of Constantinople for more than a century. Close to Lambron, they built the monastery of Sguevra, along with a mausoleum and scriptorium. Facing the Hetumians to the east were the Rubenians or Rubenids, the descendants of Baron Ruben, who established himself in the fortress at Vahka.

Most of the Armenian leaders who had been given lands along the Euphrates began their careers in the service of the imperial army. The Byzantine titles given to them by the emperor permitted them to claim that their authority was legitimate. Such is the case for the greatest of these Armenian nobles, Philaretus, but the same could be said for the lesser lords of Melitene, Tarsus, and Marash, as well as for the descendants of Ruben, who would establish the kingdom of Armenian Cilicia shortly before the end of the twelfth century.

After Manzikert, with the Byzantine Empire now on its knees, not only the triumphant Seljuks but other Turkish tribes, Kurds, Arabs, and the Armenians all attempted to wrest control of some of the lands inAsia Minor from the empire. The Byzantine emperor, MichaelVII, requested help from a cousin of Sultan Alp Arslan, who willingly obliged, by taking several fortresses as well as conquering the city of Nicea.

But not all of Asia Minor was in the hands of the Turks. The fortresses along the eastern fron-tier continued to resist under the guidance of Armenian leaders, among them Philaretus who, in 1079, took Antioch. Following Manzikert, he was the main defender of the population in east-ern Anatolia. Between 1073 and 1086, he formed a large principality in Cilicia and Syria. He had un der his command an army of supposedly 20,000 Armenian, Greek, and even Turkish warriors, with his main support a contingent of 8,000 Norman mercenaries who had joined him early on. Sheltered by the Taurus to the south, this ephemeral state knew relative tranquility, while most of the lands in Greater Armenia and Cappodocia were being torched. Although he was eventually recognized with the title of kuropalate, or duke, by the Byzantines, he was unable to receive any military assistance from them when he was simultaneously attacked by the Seljuk Turks of Asia Minor and of Iran. Despite his temporary conversion to Islam, he lost all of his lands. Antioch, the largest Christian city in northern Syria, fell to the Seljuks in 1084. After Philaretus’s disappear ance, a number of Armenians who appeared to have served under him seized control of cities and strongholds. Thoros seized power in Edessa, while his father-in-law, Gabriel, ruled in Melitene and resisted the Turkish attacks for several years. And lastly, Basil the Crafty, would rule several fortresses near the Euphrates River. These Armenian lords will later play important roles in the I Crusade.

It is of some interest to note that, at this time, merchants from the Italian port-city of Amalfi were trading with Antioch during Philaretus’s reign, while other merchants from Bari, one of the main Norman southern Italian cities, were trading at Tarsus in Cilicia as late as 1097.

the near east at the Dawn of the First Crusade 35

The feudal society in the above kingdoms was structured in such a way that the ties bound the lords, their vassals, clergymen, and peasants into a web of mutual obligations and rights, all interconnected within the Christian society.28 Central to such a society was the concept of the reciprocal feudal contract: the vassal owed something to the lord, just as the lord owed some-thing to the vassal. The vassal would render homage to the lord and promised him military aid and counsel; the lord owed protection to his vassal. Among the vassal’s obligations was to pay for the lord’s ransom if he was captured. By the end of the eleventh century, at the time of a lord’s depar ture on a crusade, the vassal was also obligated to serve in the military, which could be avoided by payment of money. This solidarity played a role of primary importance in enlist-ing for the crusades.

Over the countryside, minor lords began to acquire more land by terrorizing and extort-ing from peasants. “Deeply embedded”29 within the structure of society, the medieval church was wholly entangled in the feudal world. A religious ferment based on wish for a reform was pio neered by Cluny30 and several other monastic centers, with the goal of returning to the monastic ideal of Saint Benedict.31 By the year 1000, with the real and ever-present threat of violence undi minished, the Church began to deal with the issue by preaching the Truce of God (which banned lords from warfare on certain days of the week), and by creating Leagues of Peace (bands of knights, town burgers, and peasants who would attempt to keep the peace in the countryside). It is only natural that it was the Church that was concerned with establishing peace, as it represents the order wanted by God for his earthly kingdom.

Contrary to the view that the crusades were migrations of dispossessed nobles, they actually represent the achievement of agricultural technology and the spread of com-merce throughout Europe. The improved management of agricultural lands (i. e., the shift from two-field to a three-field system of cultivation, especially in northern Europe), better tools, the invention of the heavier plough, and milder weather all contributed to a dramatic increase in food production.

While most towns in Europe were overgrown villages, a few witnessed an intense urban development made possible by manufacturing and trade. This was particularly true in Italy, in the industrial cities of Milan and Florence, in the shipbuilding cities of Venice and Genoa, and finally in Rome, with the newly found power of the papacy in the late eleventh century. Without this economic prosperity and an increase in population, the crusades would have been unthinkable.

When, in 1073, the monk Hildebrand was elected as Pope Gregory VII, a clash occurred be tween him and Emperor Henry IV. The pope’s attempt to free the papacy from secular con-trol (one of his predecessors, a few decades earlier, had been elected by the emperor) precipi-tated a war. A powerful figure, Gregory forbade Henry the investiture of bishops. When Henry responded by deposing the pontiff, he was excommunicated. Threatened by his German vassals who sided with the pope, Henry decided to intercept him while he was traveling north to join the rebels. In one of the most dramatic scenes in Church history, Henry traveled to Canossa.32

In a sack cloth and barefooted, he stood in snow for three days until the pope relented and lifted the second excommunication decree. The excommunication resulted in Henry’s invasion

C H A P T E R 2

T h e N e a r E a s t a t t h e D a w n o f t h e F i r s t C r u s a d e

To better understand why the crusades came out of Western Europe and ventured into the heart land of the Islamic world to reclaim Jerusalem for Christianity, we now shift our narrative to the transformation of the European society during a period described as a “feudal revolu-tion.”

27

Western Europe at the Dawn of the First Crusade

In all of the kingdoms created by the fragmentation of the Carolingian Empire, society was po-litically organized along the kinship system. By 1095, France was nominally ruled, from the small region around Paris, by a king elected by six powerful lords or peers. The situation in England, after its conquest by William the Conqueror, the duke of Normandy, was unlike that in France. William and his heirs, by their tight control over vassals, were able to govern more effectively. But the Norman kings of England also remained Dukes of Normandy, thus vassals of the kings of France. This resulted in rivalries between the two monarchies over lands in central and north-ern France, which culminated, 250 years later in the One Hundred Year’s War. The third kingdom in western Europe, the Holy Roman Empire, was the direct descendant of Charlemagne’s king-dom. It was divided into five duchies that retained the power to elect the emperor. The three kingdoms were divided in tracts of land known as fiefs, each given to a vassal in return for mili-tary service. The lord who was given a fief would also be given peasants who lived and worked on that land.

In northern and central Spain, a number of small Christian kingdoms (Leon, Castile, Navarre, and Aragon) and the county of Barcelona were busy launching a serious challenge to Muslim power to the south. These kingdoms, due to the continuous warfare they engaged in, became more centralized. Royal fiefs were given to reward the vassals who helped in the war against the Muslims to the south.

Armenian Cilicia Xii -- XiV Century36 the near east at the Dawn of the First Crusade 37

This defeat, seldom mentioned in books on the history of Europe, was to be one of the worst disasters in the history of Christianity. Within ten years, this epic battle, fought in the heart of historic Armenia, would result in the conquest of three quarters of Asia Minor by the Turks. With Christian Europe now directly threatened by a powerful Muslim foe, the rulers of the west-ern na tions, both ecclesiastical and secular, knew it was time to act. When Emperor Alexius Comnenus made a direct request to the West for military assistance against the Seljuk Turks, Urban, in his vi sion as guide and defender of Christianity, would have included Constantinople, and the area from the Bosphorus to the Dardanelles, and certainly Jerusalem in his plans for a crusade where new massacres of Christians followed the war between the Egyptians and the Turks.

On November 27, 1095, from his papal throne set on a platform in an open field outside Clermont, Urban called all Christianity to arms. The speech he gave has come down to us in four versions, but none is thought to be an accurate account of what the pontiff in fact said. He began by telling the multitude gathered outside the French town that the Christians from Jerusalem and Constantinople had appealed for help against the Turks who were advancing into Christian lands, forcing the inhabitants to be circumcised and then defiling Christian altars and shrines. He also described the suffering of pilgrims who had journeyed to the Holy City. Then, with the fervor of a great orator, he appealed to the Christians of the West, poor and rich alike, to stop fighting and to go east in order to fight a righteous war. For all those who died in battle there would be absolution and remission of sins. The cry, “Deus le volt!” (God wants it) was the reply of the masses gathered at Clermont. The “crusade,” an idea that would take nobles and crowds of common people to the Near East, was born.

The call to arms could not have come at a more propitious time. The sultan Malik-Sha had died only three years earlier, and his empire, stretching from the Mediterranean to Central Asia, was divided among his children, cousins, and grandchildren. One son was barely able to main-tain a grip on Iran, while two of his nephews became emirs of Aleppo and Damascus. Asia Minor, from Nicea to Ikonium, under Suleiman, a ghazi (Turkoman warrior) became the fourth Turkish empire. Its rulers, regarding themselves as the successors to the Byzantine emperors, would call themselves the sultans of Rum, Arabic for Rome. All of these Muslim rulers, despite their family ties, were too divided to block the danger of crusaders coming from the west. In Egypt, the Fatimid caliph still held sway. In 1098, shortly before the arrival of the First Crusade, the Egyptians had taken Jerusalem from the Turks.

Pilgrimage

Before any crusade arrived in the Middle East, pilgrimages to the Holy Land had already played a remarkable role in Christian Europe. The perilous journey satisfied a yearning for spiritual re-juvenation, a movement from the mundane to the divine. When he founded the new capital of his empire, Constantinople, the first Christian Emperor, Constantine, ordered the transfor mation of Jerusalem into a Christian city. He also commissioned the rediscovery of Christian sites and

of Italy and a three-year siege of Rome. Refusing to surrender, Gregory decided to play one last card. He appealed to the Normans, who were led by Robert Guiscard, at that time occupied in a campaign in the Balkans against the Byzantine emperor. When the Normans finally appeared, Henry, outnumbered, withdrew. The Normans rescued Gregory but they gave in to an orgy of looting the city. Robert did not dare to leave the pontiff at the mercy of the angry Roman popu-lace, so he escorted Gregory to Sorrento, where he died a few months later in exile. But, in the end, Gregory had achieved his goal: to establish the claim to papal supremacy. But his attempts to send military aid to the East, as requested by Emperor Alexius, produced no results as the pope was embroiled in war with Henry IV.

Such is the background of the preaching of the First Crusade. Urban II (1088-1099) came to the papal throne in the aftermath of the war over the Investiture Controversy. Urban, a Frenchman, was also very much influenced by the reformist tradition of Cluny. The immedi-ate event that led to the First Crusade was the deteriorating military and political situation in the Byzantine Empire. Emperor Alexius appealed to the new pope for military aid (his original letter does not survive) by playing upon the interest of the West in recovering Jerusalem. He also expressed his desire to end the schism of 1054 between the Greek Orthodox and Latin Churches. The breakthrough came when Urban lifted the ban of excommunication on the imperial family, but not on the patriarch of Constantinople.

When, in the last days of June 1095, Pope Urban II moved from Italy to France to call for a crusade, people who knew him well had no doubt of the objective of his voyage. Faithful to memo ries of his youth spent at the monastery of Cluny, by 1089 he had already launched a French ex pedition, consisting mainly of knights from the Midi, the southern region of France, on the way to participating in the Spanish reconquista, the great military venture aimed at recover-ing the Iberian peninsula from the Muslims. The reconquista had many of the traits of military expeditions that came to be known as “crusade.”

To understand the reason behind such a momentous decision, we must imagine Urban medi tating in the Lateran palace, about the contemporary Christian world. Within the span of four decades, Islam had spread from the sands of Arabia to Syria, across North Africa, all the way to Spain. The birthplace of Christianity was under its rule. Close to the end of the tenth century, it was thought that the Holy Land would be liberated from the Islamic yoke. At that time, the Byzantine Empire was experiencing one of its many brilliant moments in the course of its one thousand’s year history, under the rule of John Zimisces. By 975, this emperor of Armenian ori-gin conquered the whole of Syria and established his court in Damascus. From there, he crossed into Galilee. He prayed on the banks of the Sea of Galilee and climbed Mount Tabor, the place of the Transfiguration. He was almost in sight of Jerusalem, which he had initially intended to visit, when he decided to pursue his war against the Arabs, who still controlled the coast of Lebanon. He had come so close to reaching his objective, Jerusalem, but instead decided to return to Constantinople, where he died shortly after. We will never know the turn history might have taken had he stuck to his original goal.

As we have already seen, the situation for Byzantinum quickly deteriorated with the advent of the Turks and the catastrophic defeat of the last soldier-emperor Romanus IV at Manzikert.


Islamic faith was born with the idea of jihad, or holy war, and with the express goal of pursu-ing an expansion of the lands of the Muslim faithful. The remarkable expansion of Islam from Arabia, throughout the northern coast of Africa, across the Strait of Gibraltar and into Spain in just a few decades was driven by the ideal of jihad. By contrast, in the eastern and western Christian empires a holy war could be waged only under special conditions. Not present in the New Testament, the concept of the crusade only emerged after a fusion of the Roman notion of just war and the visions of reli gious wars in the Old Testament. In practice, however, there was a tradition of using the sword to convert pagans in central and northern Europe. Charlemagne is reputed to have slain thousands of Saxons who resisted conversion. It is also well known that the Byzantines, when sending imperial armies into battle, used religious symbols. It was even claimed that St. George, on many occasions, was seen fighting in the Greek ranks.

In the decades leading up to the First Crusade, conflicts between the Muslims and the Christians in Al-Andalus (Spain) accelerated. After retaking Toledo in October 1086, Alfonso VI suf fered a crushing defeat at the hands of the Murabits of North Africa. In these wars emerged the colorful figure of Rodrigo Diaz, “el Cid”, who, while fighting the Moors, invoked his patron saint, St. James of Compostela, the Moorslayer. The struggle to return Spain to Christian control would con tinue for the next four centuries until the triumphal entry of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella into Granada in 1492.

At about the same time as the start of Spanish Reconquista, two Norman brothers, Roger and Robert Guiscard, conquered southern Italy and Sicily, the other melting pot in the western Mediterranean. The story of Normans in Sicily can be traced back to a group of forty young Norman pilgrims who had traveled to the shrine of the archangel Michael on Mount Gargano in Apulia. This initial trickle of pilgrims, easily persuaded by local rulers to remain in Italy as merce naries, soon grew into a migration of more footloose adventurers. Supreme among the Norman chiefs was Tancred of Hauteville. After the fall of Bari (1071), the last Byzantine strong-hold in Italy, Robert’s older son was invested duke of Apulia and Calabria. The younger son, Roger, crossed the Strait of Messina. Within a year, Palermo, where for more than a century the Muslims had ruled over Sicily, fell. In 1130, Norman Sicily was recognized as an independent kingdom, known as “the most brilliant and cultivated court in the Middle Ages.”34 In an attempt to further his personal ambitions, Robert’s grandson, Bohemond, attacked the Balkans, which were under Byzantine rule. Unsuccessful this time, Bohemond would have far better fortune in the Near East when he be came one of the leaders in the First Crusade.

Returning to the Near East, we find that, after their momentous victory at Manzikert, the Seljuk Turks began to wreak havoc in eastern Anatolia and turned their attention to the Armenian ter-ritories of Cilicia, Edessa, and Antioch. In 1074, Gregory II (Vkayaser - Martirophile),35 the re tired Armenian catholicos, undertook pilgrimages to Jerusalem, Constantinople, and Alexandria in Egypt. He also sent a delegation to Pope Gregory VII (1073-1085), to seek help against the Turkish invasions. He requested a pallium (a vestment worn by the pope) as a symbol of the fraternal re lationship between the two churches.

When he met the Armenian delegate, Pope Gregory VII, after first questioning him on his faith and the practices of his church, listened to the pleas for assistance. In a letter, the pope

relics from the time of Jesus Christ. News that Helena, the emperor’s mother, had found the True Cross on which Christ was crucified, arrived in Europe, stimulating a flow of pilgrims from the fourth century forward. Over the course of the next few centuries, frag ments of the True Cross, placed in reliquaries, were distributed by the Byzantines to foreign religious and military rulers. By the practice, these leaders were rewarded for their adher ence to the Orthodox faith. Some of them sought relics to confirm the legitimacy of their rule. One such relic was given as a gift to Gagik, the first Bagratid king of Armenia, by Emperor Monomachos.

A tradition of facilitating the perilous journey to Palestine developed in the late Roman world. The flow of pilgrims was not stemmed by the invasion and occupation of Palestine by the Sasanid Persians, who took the True Cross from Jerusalem, in the early seventh century, nor by the subse quent wars to regain Palestine, waged by the Byzantine emperor, the Armenian Heraclius. Realizing the importance of having a secure Armenia on his eastern front, Heraclius created the position of ishkhan, or prince of Armenians. On the eve of the Arab invasion, he reu-nited the eastern and western parts of Armenia under Theodore Rshtuni.

Even after the Arab occupation of Jerusalem in 638, Christian pilgrims continued to visit the Holy Land, and their right to do so was acknowledged by Islamic rulers. An agreement between the Arabs and the Armenians guaranteed the Christians freedom of religion. Muslim rulers in the lands traveled by the pilgrims rarely curtailed their crossings, since the pilgrims provided a source of income. By the early ninth century, the Holy Roman emperor, Charlemagne, had a hostel built in Jerusalem to welcome Christian pilgrims.

But in 1003, the eccentric Caliph al-Hakim33 began a systematic campaign against Christians and Jews. Most of the churches and synagogues were razed to the ground. The destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre resulted in an encyclical by Pope Sergius IV, in which the pontiff exhorted the faithful to send an army to save Jerusalem. Even though no army rescued the Holy City, pilgrims continued to travel to the Holy Land, usually with armed escorts led by nobles.

At the western end of the Mediterranean, Christian princes had been battling Muslims in Spain, southern France, and Sicily for almost two centuries. In the early ninth century Muslim armies occupied Sicily and southern Spain. The Macedonian emperors, most of them of Armenian origin, launched several attacks and retook southern Italy, but not Sicily. By the open-ing of the eleventh century, the balance of power in the western Mediterranean was shifting in favor of the Christian states. The republics of Pisa and Genoa began to assume the offen-sive, with the Pisans provid ing considerable support to Norman operations in Sicily. The Italian maritime republics quickly learned that cooperation with Christian princes could be of mutual benefit. The republics gained considerable knowledge with regard to currents, tides, sea lanes, and other conditions necessary to conduct military operations, as well as to expedite regular commerce. This knowledge laid the foundation for coordinated warfare between the fleets of these republics and European powers that was to become necessary during the crusades.

The Roman Church, which had encouraged the actions against Muslim powers in the West, had a clearly articulated doctrine of holy war. That concept was invoked by the three great civilizations: Islam, the Eastern Roman or the Byzantine Empire, and western Christendom. The


His dominion now stretched from Tarsus to the lands beyond the Euphrates. After securing a residence for the large number of Armenians fleeing the Seljuks, he became master of a vast territory, bounded on the west by the Amanus Mountains and on the northeast by the upper reaches of the Euphrates. Hence, he extended his possessions beyond the great river to include Edessa, and several other cities. All of northern Syria came under his rule. He had converted to the Greek Orthodox rite and, unlike most other Armenian leaders, he did not want to separate

Map 3. Armenian Lords in and around Cilicia at the end of the eleventh century. (Courtesy of Claude Mutafian)

from the empire. Both Ruben and Oshin were his vassals. Philaretus may have played a de-cisive role in the years follow ing the Manzikert disaster up to the arrival of the First Crusade by creating a base for the future kingdom of Cilician Armenia. Armenian chroniclers do not have much good to say about him, describing some of his acts as marked by cruelty and treachery. According to Matthew of Edessa, Philaretus became a renegade Muslim in his later years.

Vasak, another Armenian of distinguished ancestry, held power in Antioch until his assassina-tion in about 1080 by Greek soldiers. After exacting vengeance for this murder, Philaretus occu-pied the city. He appointed some of his officers to rule over a number of cities, including Gabriel in Melitene and Thoros in Edessa. All were former officials of the empire, but now they paid

exhorted Emperor Henry IV to go to the aid of the beleaguered Holy Lands. He even consid-ered leading an expedition himself to succour the Greeks, Armenians, and Syrians. Though he learned that the Armenian clergy did not mix water with wine, but used unleavened bread in the Eucharist, it is safe to state that Gregory VII and his immediate successors maintained a substan-tially positive view of the Armenian Church. After asking him to report on the progress made by that Church, the pope gave the Armenian prelate the pallium the catholicos had requested. The copy of a letter from the pope to the catholicos has come down to us. The letter shows that, at the dawn of the First Crusade, the relationship between the two Christian Churches, in contrast to the Armenian-Byzantine one, was auspicious. Except for a meeting between St. Gregory the Illuminator and Pope Silvester, which cannot be verified, there appears to have been very little contact between the two churches prior to this time. The exchange between Pope Gregory VII and Gregory Vkayaser opened a new era of communication, which would, however, lead to misunderstanding over the next three centuries. In Greater Armenia the overture by the catholicos to the pope was not received with much en thusiasm. In particular, the monasteries located near Lake Sevan rejected any influence by foreign churches, whether Greek or Latin. As we shall see, in the centuries that followed a real division between the more conservative prelates of Greater Armenia and the more liberal ones in Cilician Armenia would lead to a separation of the two church hierarchies, the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Armenian Catholic Church.

When the crusaders first arrived in Asia Minor toward the end of the eleventh century, the contacts between the Latins from the West and the Armenians increased considerably. Most Armenians living in Cilicia welcomed the Franks or Latins as their liberators from both the Seljuks and the Byzantines. The chronicler of the First Crusade, Fulcher of Chartres, author of the Gesta Francorum, so described the welcome given by the Armenians: “When we were passing by the towns of the Armenians, you would have been amazed to see them coming humbly to meet us, carrying crosses and banners and kissing our feet and garments for the love of God because they had heard that we were going to protect them against the Turks under whose yoke they had long been oppressed“.

Armenian Principalities

Twenty years before the First Crusade, Ruben and Oshin, the founders of the two dynasties that were to play a most valuable role in the creation and development of the kingdom of Cilician Armenia, were outdone by the Armenian general Philaretus. As was the case with several other Armenian leaders, Philaretus began his career in the imperial service. He served as general in the Byzantine army, under the command of Emperor Romanus, who appointed him governor of Melitene and Marash and commander-in-chief of the Euphrates region. After the defeat of Romanus at Manzikert, Philaretus refused to recognize the new Byzantine emperor, Michael Ducas, and declared himself independent. He took his army and moved to Melitene, where he established his own principality. In Cilicia, he conquered Tarsus, Mamistra, and Anazarba.


hands of the crusaders, only a few of the nobles remained in the Levant. The vast majority of those who did not perish during the many battles returned to their land of origin. While no one would seriously claim that most were saintly, the Christian crusaders adhered to their strong ethos, the fundamen tal Christian values of European society in the Middle Ages.

At the time of departure, set by Urban II for 15 August 1096, the crusading forces were an exceptionally large military operation. They would not reach Jerusalem until July 1099. The ar mies were commanded by Raymond, Count of Toulouse, the most powerful lord and the pope’s favorite, Bohemond and his nephew Tancred, both Normans from Sicily; Godfrey of Bouillion (Duke of Lower Lorraine) and his brother Baldwin of Boulogne; (Duke Robert of Normandy); Count Robert of Flanders; and Count Stephen of Blois, the son-in-law of William the Conqueror. Adhemar, bishop of Le Puy, was the pope’s legate. A few of these great lords had to liquidate a number of their properties to raise the funds needed to cover the expense of trans-porting a retinue of knights and soldiers.

These armies took different routes through Europe, with the first contingent reaching Constantinople by December 1096. Once he left his country of origin, the crusader had to con front the problem of the journey itself, though by the time of the First Crusade customary routes for pilgrimages were well established. The armies had to cross the mountainous Balkan Peninsula, and go through Hungary until they reached Constantinople. Another route for the armies com ing from southern France and southern Italy was across the Adriatic Sea and then along the Via Egnatia, the ancient Roman road that led to Constantinople. The Byzantine capital was the point of convergence for the four crusading armies.

In Constantinople, major differences arose between Emperor Alexius and the leaders of the crusade over provisions and the emperor’s request that the crusaders take an oath to return to Byzantine control any recovered territory. In her work, the Alexiade, Anna Comnena, the em peror’s daughter, who came to know the events of that period and the main actors, described the Franks as crude and greedy barbarians. It is not at all surprising that her father was glad to be rid of them, but not before honorably providing technical assistance and financial resources.

The crusaders assembled in Constantinople may not have fully realized the unprecedented challenges that lay ahead of them. They would have to overcome geographical, physical, and mili tary obstacles that taxed their considerable physical endurance and resolve.

By the end of May 1097, Godfrey’s army left Constantinople. When he reached Nicea, the heavily fortified capital of the Seljuk sultan, Kilij Arslan, Godfrey began to lay siege to it. When he came to the assistance of Nicea, Arslan was defeated. The sultan then fled, leaving his wife, family, and treasure behind. Just before the final assault by the crusaders, the Turks ceded the city to the Byzantines. The crusaders soon discovered that the city had capitulated to Alexius when they saw the imperial banners flying high above the city walls. It was during the siege of that city that the first recorded contact between the crusaders and the Armenians occurred, between Baldwin of Boulogne and the Armenian Bagrat, a former official in the Byzantine army, who became a military advisor and close friend to Baldwin.

After leaving Nicea, the main army marched through the sun-baked Anatolian plateau, traveling in a northwest-southeast diagonal direction. The heat and lack of supplies made the

trib ute to neighboring Turkish lords. By playing their foes off against one another, they main-tained a degree of independence.

By the end of the eleventh century, the Hetumians and Rubenians began to expand their ter ritories in Cilicia as the forces of the First Crusade entered Asia Minor. While the motive of the crusaders was ostensibly to expel the Turks, some of the Frankish barons who crossed Seljuk territories in Asia Minor carved out independent principalities for themselves. The Armenians in Cilicia were quick to realize that they had to reckon with the new Frankish rul-ers. For this reason, it is important to consider how the arrival of the First Crusade upset the fragile balance of power in the region. The power struggles among the Muslim, Byzantine, cru-sader, and later Mongol states in the Near East affected the course of Cilicia’s development during the next three centuries, and led to its eventual demise by the end of the fourteenth century.

First Crusade: First Encounters with the Latins

It was not until Urban II ascended to the papal throne that the idea of a crusade was ultimately realized. When, on a wintry day of November 1095, he proclaimed his support for the expedi-tion to Palestine and urged Christians to take up arms in order to recover the Holy Land, the pope framed his appeal as a pilgrimage, with the ultimate aim of the remission of sins for those who joined the crusade. In that sense, the great crowds of pilgrims along the roads to the pil-grimage sites, and above all to Jerusalem, were the forerunners of the crusaders. The primary targets of Urban’s appeal were not the masses, but armies of soldiers led by lords and knights who vowed to retake Jerusalem from the Muslims. Powerful lords were easily persuaded to join the expedition, each followed by his vassals and knights.

Those who responded to the call did so for a variety of reasons. While the question of moti-vation for such life-changing behavior is certainly a complex one, for many the spiritual privi-lege granted by the Roman Church was the basic motive. To those who died during the crusade, di rect access to heaven was guaranteed. Noblemen, prelates, and commoners believed that armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem would be the supreme sacrifice for the salvation of their souls. The pope also offered more concrete rewards to kings and nobles, merchants and commoners. They would be given a letter of protection, or safe conduct. It was also promised that their fami-lies and any property left behind would be protected.

In recent years, several scholars have analyzed a large number of documents related to the men and women who responded to and participated in the crusades. There is now strong evi-dence that, during the First Crusade, nearly 40,000 people traveled to the Holy Land. While a relatively small number of these were knights and nobles, it was they who led the armies. These crusaders were not, as was previously thought, landless barons or greedy merchants but lords of large estates. We also know that the financial cost to the nobles was staggering, a signifi-cant drain on the crusader knight and his family. The pope warned that land captured from the Muslims would be returned to the Byzantine emperor. By the time Jerusalem was finally in the


In an account of the First Crusade that is sympathetic to Tancred, the nephew of Bohemond of Taranto, Ursinus is given a prominent place. During his speech about his capture of Adana, Ursinus explained that he had been living free in the mountains, but was moved by the plight of his fellow Armenians who were subjected to Turkish domination. Aided by the Christians in the city, Ursinus liberated Adana. In Ursinus’ own words, his military victory assumes a religious meaning. “From this point on, Allachibar, which the infidels called out in prayer, was no longer heard in the city. It was replaced by the restoration of the words ‘Christ conquers, reigns, and commands.’” While he had never taken the crusading vow, Ursinus was a crusader nonetheless. His eagerness to cooper ate with Tancred contrasts sharply with Baldwin’s shallow greed.36

Several scholars have identified Ursinus with Oshin, the ruler of Lambron in the Taurus Mountains. Carrying with him the holy relic of the Apostle Peter’s finger, Ursinus had left his an cestral lands, taking with him his wife and several other Armenian nobles. He was clearly seen as a holy warrior by the Latin chronicler.

Baldwin, who by now had decided to rejoin the main army, heeded the advice of the Armenian chieftain Bagrat that his true destiny laid farther east. When he reached Mamistra, Tancred, by now justifiably suspicious of Baldwin’s motives, refused him entry into the town. After a brief scuffle between their contingents, the two crusaders reconciled. Leaving a small garrison in Adana and Mamistra, Tancred turned southward to the town of Alexandretta. Baldwin marched east, taking the new chaplain, the historian Fulcher of Chartres, with him. He moved toward the Euphrates with the firm intention of occupying a principality that would offer him large rewards. The lead ers of the crusade had evidently given him permission to take possession of as much territory as he wanted, on condition that such occupation would serve the crusaders’ long-range goal, the recovery of Jerusalem.

As Baldwin approached the Euphrates, the Armenian population of the villages he passed wel comed him. In January 1098, messengers from Thoros, the Armenian governor of Edessa, came to Baldwin, requesting help, as the city was under the threat of an imminent Turkish attack. Thoros, although a vassal of the Turks, acted as an independent ruler. Disliked by his compatriots for con verting to the Greek Orthodox religion, Thoros had been able to retain Edessa’s independence precisely by remaining a faithful vassal to the Byzantine Empire. The city of Edessa was at that time a small Armenian principality, a Christian enclave surrounded by bands of Turkish warriors. Almost miraculously, Thoros had maintained this Christian bastion in mostly Muslim territory, but he was beginning to vacillate. He had interpreted Baldwin’s capture of a nearby Muslim fortress as a provi dential sign. He was, however, exposed to the hostility of his compatriots for having converted to the Greek rite. He offered Baldwin money and rich gifts. Baldwin, who did not want to be a mere mercenary, refused at first but he changed his mind when Thoros proposed to make him co-ruler and heir by adopting him.

Baldwin entered Edessa to the acclaim of cheering throngs of Armenians. In a strange cer-emony that followed the Armenian adoption ritual, more suited to the adoption of a child than of a grown man, Baldwin stripped to the waist, while Thoros put on a very loose-fitting shirt, passing the same shirt over Baldwin’s head. Thoros and his newly adopted son rubbed their bare chests together. Baldwin then repeated the ritual with Thoros’s wife. With this adoption,

crossing quite difficult for the men and their beasts of burden. After Caesarea, the main army, guided by Godfrey, crossed the Anti-Taurus Mountains, passing through lands held by Armenian princelings, for the most part nominal vassals of the emperor, who welcomed the crusaders. This was the road rec ommended by the Byzantine guides who were following the emperor’s orders. Alexius was count ing on the active participation of the Armenians to recover territories lost to the Seljuk Turks. In Marash, an Armenian prince, Tatoul, a former Byzantine official and ruler of the town, gave the crusaders all the help he could muster, and, in return, had his authority over the city confirmed. Refreshed, the main army marched easily down into the plain of Antioch.

In the meantime, Tancred and Baldwin set off by taking another route, and proceeded toward the Cilician Gates by crossing the Taurus Mountains. They were to meet outside the walls of Tarsus. Some historians have treated this expedition into Cilicia as the private enterprise of two very ambitious princes. Professor John France, an expert at the University of Swansea, England on western warfare in the Middle Ages, has examined in considerable detail the likely reason for such an unusual expedition. He believes that it was part of what he defines as the “Armenian strategy” among the leaders of the First Crusade. He notes that the Armenian popu-lations of the cities in the path of the crusaders, suffering under Muslim overlords, assisted the crusaders in ejecting the Turkish garrisons. The strategy was to guarantee Armenian support in the hinterland and to provide much-needed bases in the area of Antioch. This strategy would have been discussed with Emperor Alexius either in Constantinople or in Nicea. Seen in this light, Tancred’s and Baldwin’s expeditions into Cilicia were less an expression of the princes’ opportunism and more a key com ponent of the crusaders’ overall strategy, an attempt to revive the independent principality cre ated by Philaretus before 1085. For the crusaders, the liberation of eastern Christian populations was a major objective, while also enabling the Byzantines to take the southern coast of Anatolia from the Turks.

As already stated, several fortresses in the Taurus Mountains were in the hands of Armenians, refugees who had emigrated from Greater Armenia to escape the Seljuk invaders. They had es tablished two principalities in the Cilician mountains. To the west of the Cilician Gates was the territory ruled by Oshin, the son of Hetum, with his headquarters in the castle of Lambron. He would occasionally launch incursions into the Cilician plain. East of the Cilician Gates, Constantine, the son of Ruben, had established himself in a castle north of Sis (present Kozan).

When Tancred reached the ancient city of Tarsus, which was held by a small Turkish gar-rison, the Armenian inhabitants opened the city gates to him. Baldwin, arriving a short time later, demanded that he and Tancred share the spoils. Although already accepted as their new ruler by the population of Tarsus, Tancred, clearly outnumbered by Baldwin’s troops, moved eastward. As he slung away, Tancred was approached by the ambassadors of the Armenian lord of Adana, Ursinus, who suggested to him that he attack the town of Mamistra, a few miles east. Here the Armenian population was more than eager for deliverance from the Turks, who quickly fled before he reached the town. He urged Tancred to destroy the bridge over a river to slow Baldwin’s approach. The two crusading leaders, finally agreing that neither party would remain in Cilicia, left a small garrison in Tarsus and Mamistra and rejoined the main crusader army.


the Armenians noticed the benefits that accrued to them: order, security, and wealth, all largely as a result of this cunning Frankish ruler, who could be more brutal than a Turk but was a great military commander. Besides, the Armenians, who in the past had suffered Byzantine religious persecu tions, found that the Franks harbored no racial or religious hostility against them.

Capture of Antioch and Jerusalem

In the meantime, the main crusader forces converged on Antioch, one of the great cities of the old Roman Empire and then the seat of a patriarch. In October 1097, the crusaders marveled to find there a great city surrounded by extremely fertile lands. Provisions were again plentiful. The famished army, its ranks much reduced during the four-month march through Asia Minor, was able to recover from its losses.

Bohemond, the Norman prince of Sicily, was clearly hoping that, just as Baldwin had done in Edessa, he could form his own principality by laying claim to Antioch. Believing that the city with its massive fortifications would not be easily taken and with winter fast approaching, the crusaders decided to wait until spring. But the winter of 1097–1098 was particularly severe. Starvation and disease struck the Christian army. Many knights were forced to slaughter their horses for meat. At this point, the crusaders received more bad news. The Fatimids of Egypt had captured Jerusalem from the Turks. The Turkish troops, displaced from the Holy City, joined the emir of Aleppo, who was coming toward Antioch to assist the garrison. It became imperative for the Christians to capture the city quickly. Fortunately for them, the Muslim army was held up in Edessa, trying to wrest the city from Baldwin.

The crusaders thus decided to attack Antioch, ruled by a Turkish commander and popu-lated mostly by Armenians and Greeks. Considering that the crusaders did not receive any help from the Byzantines, the siege was remarkable. Steven of Blois, one of the original crusade lead-ers, had fled across Asia Minor, falsely reporting to Alexius that the crusader army had been de stroyed. For this reason the Byzantines had not come to the crusaders’ rescue and retreated to Constantinople. The angry crusaders repudiated their oath of allegiance to him, believing he had betrayed them. The situation, however, were not as bleak as they seemed. Bohemond negotiated the cap ture of Antioch by bribing one of the lesser officials, an Armenian. On 3 June 1098, Bohemond and his men scrambled over the wall using a ladder that was waiting for them. Once the gates were opened, they captured the city in a few hours.

Within forty eight hours of their entry into Antioch, however, the crusaders were besieged by the Turkish army, which invested Antioch with full force. Under Bohemond’s brilliant and char ismatic leadership, the crusaders’ morale was raised, despite the setback, and they marched out of the city. Astonished by the size of the Christian army that had been holed up there, the emir requested a truce. Bohemond responded by engaging the superior Turkish army and recapturing Antioch.

At this point, the crusade was close to breaking up. Since Alexius was nowhere to be found, to Bohemond’s mind the emperor had forfeited his right to Antioch, he felt justified in claiming

Baldwin became co-regent of the largest and most powerful principality in the East. Determined to retain his power, he took charge of the combined armies.

The people of Edessa, who had been subjected to frequent Seljuk raids, could now feel more secure. Once established as co-ruler, his first task was to destroy one of the Muslim strong-holds, which could easily obstruct his communication with the rest of the crusaders. While the ex pedition was far from successful, Baldwin was able to capture a fort where he installed a great number of his knights to monitor the movement of the Turks. As a result, there was a decline in the number of raids.

What follows is a confusing story which casts Baldwin in an unfavorable light. According to the chronicler Matthew of Edessa, Armenian conspirators plotted in concert with Baldwin to assassinate Thoros. After attacking city officials, they marched on the prince’s palace in the cita-del. Hard-pressed, Thoros agreed to hand over the citadel and the city, on condition that he and his wife be allowed to retire to Melitene, where they would reside under the protection of his father-in-law, Gabriel. Even after Baldwin had sworn that he would guarantee Thoros’s life, the townspeople “committed a great crime in the presence of God.” They threw Thoros down from the ramparts. They then dragged his dead body through the city. The end of the story, as given by three Latin chroniclers, that Baldwin agreed only with great reluctance to his election as ruler of Edessa, appears implausible when we consider that Baldwin had much to gain from Thoros downfall, and if we were also to consider his conduct. From the start he did not appear to be too preoccupied with the crusade or its mission, and had abandoned the march to Jerusalem before any of the other crusader leaders to dedicate his energies to a more profitable enterprise.

As we have seen, during the crossing of Asia Minor, Baldwin and Tancred had abandoned the crusader army in an attempt to conquer Cilicia for Baldwin. The change of rulers in Edessa appeared to have had no noticeable effect on the lives of the 50,000-strong Armenian popula-tion of the city. Church services were held in both Armenian and Latin. To further legitimize his elevation to the princely throne in the eyes of the local population, Baldwin married an Armenian princess, Arda.

Envied by many of the crusader knights, Baldwin formed the first crusader state in the Middle East. However, his troops were few and he had to rely on Armenians he could trust. His pros pects for ruling were greatly enhanced when a large treasure was discovered in the citadel. The Armenians, who had so much resented the religious persecutions by the Byzantines, found in the rough Franks a more tolerant attitude.

Baldwin established a Frankish-Armenian county that would serve as the eastern barrier of the crusader lands for only half a century. Always in need of money, he imposed high taxes on both the wealthy and the commoners. But some Armenians soon came to resent the Frankish knights to Edessa who treated them with disdain. The Armenians were deprived of member-ship in the city council and their lands were given to the Franks. The story is told that some of them even contacted the Seljuks and asked their help in deposing Baldwin. When he learned of this conspiracy, he captured the two leaders of the plot and blinded them, while many who had participated in the intrigue had their noses or feet cut off. Many wealthy Armenians suspected of being accomplices were arrested and their fortunes confiscated. This was the last revolt. Soon


Remarkably, all four crusader states expanded, with three lasting almost a century. Edessa was the first to fall in 1144 when it was stormed by Zengi, the emir of Mosul. The loss of this ancient Christian city launched the Second Crusade in 1147. Led by the Holy Roman emperor, Conrad III, and the king of France, Louis VII, and his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, mother of King Richard the Lion-Heart, this crusade proved to be an ignominious failure. In fact, none of the subsequent crusades would meet the high expectations created by the outcome of the First Crusade.

After the capture of Jerusalem in July 1099, the many Armenian nobles who had emigrated from Armenia proper to Cilicia and the region of the Euphrates, first among them Philaretus, may have dreamed of a kingdom on the basis of the strong Armenian presence in these Byzantine territories, but nearly one hundred years would have to pass before the Armenian principality of Cilicia would become a kingdom.

The Consolidation of the Kingdom of Jerusalem

The Latin Christian presence in the eastern Mediterranean lasted almost two hundred years. By 1109, the First Crusade had established four settlements in the region: the kingdom of Jerusalem, the principality of Antioch, the county of Edessa, and the county of Tripoli. Whether these terri tories were early examples of western colonialism is still a controversial issue among historians. They did not seem to fit the traditional definition of colonies since their resources were not exploited by the crusaders’ homeland. It might be more appropriate to view them as religious colonies, settled with the express intent of securing control of the Holy Sepulchre. This immigrant Christian population maintained close contact with the homeland, particularly when the need for financial and military assistance arose.

Following the capture of Jerusalem, securing the Levantine cities on the coast became a high priority for both economic and military considerations. After success in Beirut, Tyre was not gained until fifteen years later. Ascalon, the major port next to the Egyptian border, con-tinued to elude the crusaders until its successful siege by King Fulk in 1153. As we have seen, the Latins had conquered part of Cilicia during the First Crusade. Their hold on this region was rarely secure. It was subject to invasions by the Byzantines who considered it imperial territory. Just as impor tantly, Rubenian princes contested its control and, by the late 1130s, they held the upper hand over the Franks.

Except for initial massacres of the native Muslim population, the Franks developed a rela-tively tolerant attitude toward the other Christians (Syrian and Armenian) as well as Jews and Muslims. The Jews were generally treated much better than their co-religionists in Europe. Intermarriages became common, particularly in the county of Edessa where the Armenian nobility were seen as worthy marriage partners by the Frankish princes and knights. We have already seen that Baldwin, even before becoming the count of Edessa, had married Arda. It was a political marriage, which assured him the allegiance of the mostly Armenian population. Later on, after his coronation as king of Jerusalem, where the Armenian presence was of much less

the city as his own. The Christian principality of Antioch was thus created. A significant blow would soon be dealt to the Christians when the plague struck, which took the life of Adhemar, the papal legate. He, the voice of reason, had done much to cool heads and to unify the crusader forces when tempers flared among the leaders of the city.

It was not until the early spring of 1099 that the remaining forces of the First Crusade marched three hundred miles south of Antioch, arriving in Jerusalem in June. With Palestine now in Fatimid hands, most of the Turkish emirs stood and watched as the crusaders, or Franks (as they were called by the Muslims), prepared to engage in a war with the Egyptians, who had recently occupied the city of Jerusalem.

The crusaders treated the Holy City as every other place that had offered resistance. Their fighting spirits were roused after listening to sermons that reminded them of their pur pose in coming to the Holy Land. With Godfrey of Bouillon, Baldwin’s brother as the supreme com-mander of the crusader army, they decided to take the city by storm. However, because they did not have the siege materiel or a sufficient number of scaling ladders, their initial at tempts were thwarted. When six English and Genoese ships sailed into the port of Haifa, bring ing much-needed material, the crusaders quickly constructed siege towers and catapults. As soon as they received news that a large Muslim army was approaching from Egypt, the crusaders, afraid of being trapped between the enemy inside Jerusalem and the enemy coming to retake the city, stormed the city.

On July 15, after battering the walls for many hours, they stormed into the city of Jerusalem. Later stories recounting how the crusaders were knee-deep in blood were clearly exaggerated. While it is true that many Muslims and Jews were killed, by the standards of warfare of the time, the whole non-Christian population of Jerusalem could have been slaughtered. In fact, many paid a ransom for their freedom, while others were simply expelled from the city.

Pope Urban II died on July 29, months before the news of the capture of Jerusalem by the crusaders was received in Europe. Against impossible odds, his dream had come true. The First Crusade is considered by many medieval scholars as the only crusade that turned out to be a stunning success. While we may marvel at how improbable it was for this enterprise to achieve its aim, the medieval Christian mind readily believed that the agent of its successful outcome could only be God himself.

Godfrey of Bouillon, the leading figure during the siege, took the title of Advocate of the Holy Sepulchre. When he died a year later, his brother Baldwin, Count of Edessa, was summoned and crowned king of Jerusalem on Christmas Day 1100 in a majestic ceremony. Tancred, who had been invested prince of Galilee, was initially unwilling to accept his position as Baldwin’s vassal. They had been in conflict since the early days of the crusade. Fortunately, the population of Antioch, leaderless after Bohemond’s capture by the Turks, offered him their principality. This great crusader principality gained a fearless defender while Baldwin remained unchallenged in the kingdom of Jerusalem to the south. A clever diplomat, Baldwin enlisted the help of the Italian maritime republics of Genoa, Pisa, and Venice to capture all the ports on the Levantine shore.


who promised that his second oldest daughter would marry the tall, handsome, and ambitious young Norman. His death during an expedition in Cilicia only four years later at the hands of Turkish emir proved an unmitigated disaster for Antioch. His heir, Constance, was just a child. The impatient and ambitious Alice assumed the regency without waiting for the king, her father, to appoint her. To legitimize her usurpation, she did not hesitate to request the protection of Zengi, the Turkish governor of Mosul, who posed the most serious threat to the Franks. But the messenger was stopped, and, when brought to the king, he revealed his mission. He was furi-ous at his daughter’s betrayal but eventually forgave her. This was Baldwin’s last political act. At his request, he was moved to the Holy Sepulchre, wanting to die close to Calvary. He then summoned his daughter Melisende, his son-in-law Fulk, and his grandson, the future Baldwin III. He gave them his blessings and abdicated in their favor, before donning a monk’s robe. The ceremony barely completed, he expired. He was mourned as a wise king. He had maintained and increased the patrimony bestowed upon him thirteen years earlier. Melisende’s two sons, Baldwin and Amalric, who succeeded her, mar ried Byzantine princesses. It is clear from their mat-rimonial alliances with the local Christians (Armenian and Greek) that the rulers of Jerusalem never ignored the significance of Eastern Christianity. From the time of the crusaders’ first arrival in Syria and Palestine to 1187, the year Saladin conquered Jerusalem, the local Armenians came to wield considerable wealth and authority. This was largely the result of the practice of “rough tolerance” shown by the Frankish authori ties who allowed the local Christians to follow their religious practices in a manner that might not have been acceptable in Christian Europe.39

significance, the union began to weigh on him. With the same ease he had shown previously when he deposed the patriarch, he compelled his wife to join the convent of St. Ann. Accused of bigamy for marrying a rich Sicilian princess while his first wife was still alive, Baldwin was excommunicated and died in 1118, on his way home from the Egyptian frontier. Though much different from his saintly brother Godfrey, from a political point of view he was up to the task he had undertaken. During his eighteen years of reign, he laid the groundwork for a monarchic tradition equal to that of the Capetian kings of France, or the Plantagenets in England.

While Baldwin, the first king of Jerusalem, lay dying, his cousin Baldwin Le Bourg, count of Edessa, was marching to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage. The strong support for his candidacy as new king from Joscelin of Courtenay quickly secured Le Bourg’s succession to the throne. He was crowned King Badwin II in the Church of the Holy Nativity. As a sign of his recogni-tion, Baldwin ceded Edessa to Joscelin. He had married Morphia, the daughter of Gabriel, the extremely wealthy lord of Melitene. The new king’s private life, unlike that of Baldwin I, was irreproachable. All of his life he remained faithful to this wife who gave him four daughters: Melisende, Alice, Odierne, and Yvette. All four proved to be very ‘dynamic’ personalities.

To find a suitable husband for his oldest daughter, Melisende, Baldwin sent two ambas-sadors to ask King Louis VI of France to select a French noble. The French king recommended Fulk.7 who would be the Count of Anjou, a choice supported by the pope and readily accepted by King Baldwin. Shortly after he arrived, Fulk and Melisende were married. The whole country rejoiced. The only person who appeared unmoved by the festivities was the queen herself, who was un impressed by the “short, wiry and red-haired middle man” forced on her daughter by political opportunism.

When the king died in 1131, the victim of a hunting accident, Melisende, Fulk and their infant son, Baldwin, were crowned as co-rulers, as the old king had wished. In spite of his repeated ef forts to rule on his own, Fulk could never acquire enough support from the city to displace the strong-willed Melisende. In the context of the times, for a woman to rule in her own right was extremely rare.

After Fulk’s death, Melisende and her son continued to have separate administrations. Melisende could not let go of power. It was only after a civil war, which further threatened the integrity of the kingdom, when the power of the Nureddin, the atabeg of Aleppo, was grow-ing daily, that she relented. But she still retained the patronage of the Church, which she used to the fullest when she bought the village of Bethany, where she built a convent in honor of Lazarus’s sisters, Martha and Mary. Her motive became quickly apparent when she appointed as abbess an elderly nun who died within a few months, leaving the way open for the election of Melisende’s youngest sister, Yvette, as abbess of the wealthiest convent in Palestine. Melisende is also remembered as a patron of the arts. The richly decorated psalter38 she commissioned, known as the Melisende’s psalter, was produced in the scriptorium of the Holy Sepulchre.

The difficulties caused by Queen Melisende paled in comparison to the storms created by her younger sister, Princess Alice of Antioch. King Baldwin had been relieved of the regency of Antioch when the young Bohemond II, the son of the great Bohemond, came of age and left Italy to take over his inheritance. He had been welcomed to Antioch by the king himself,

the rubenian Dynasty in Cilicia 53

The fall of the kingdoms of Ani and Vaspurakan to the Seljuk Turks, after brief rule by Byzanthium, was soon followed by a great Armenian migration to the southwest. This geopo litical climate would gradually lead to further development of the ancient Armenian culture in the twelfth century in a territory far removed from the ancestral homeland in Greater Armenia. During this period, Armenia lost its independence, but the new civic leaders would soon lay the groundwork for the creation of new state in Cilicia on the Mediterranean coast. Armenian Cilicia, as it came to be called, would be significantly influenced by the cultures of the western Mediterranean.

The Armenian population and its military leaders acquired control of the territories in Cilicia, Cappadocia, and northern Syria abandoned by the Byzantines in the decade of 1080. By the time the First Crusade arrived in eastern Asia Minor, a series of small Armenian principalities stretched from beyond the middle Euphrates River to the heart of the Taurus Mountains. The various Armenian princes, dispossessed by the Byzantines, had been given estates in southern Cappadocia. Many of their retainers had accompanied them. When the Seljuk invasion began in earnest, a stream of Armenians left their homes to join these new colonies until almost half of the Armenian population had moved to that region, later spreading out into the valley of the middle Euphrates. The districts they abandoned were filled not only by Turks but also by Moslem Kurds from the hills of Assyria and northwest Iran.

Unlike the lands under Philaretus and the city of Edessa, the Armenian territories in the less accessible Taurus region were more easily defended. Oshin, son of Hetum, founder of the Hetumian dynasty, controlled the mountains to the west of the Cilician Gates. His headquarters were in the castle of Lambron on a high spur overlooking the Cilician plain. He had been given the title of strategos, or military governor, of Cilicia by the emperor.

To the east of the Hetumian stronghold of Lambron lived another Armenian leader, Prince Ruben. Some historians identify Ruben as a relative of the slain King Gagik, no doubt bas-ing their assertion on the account that Ruben’s grandson, Thoros, avenged Gagik’s death by kill ing his assassins. Ruben founded a new Armenian dynasty, that of the Rubenians, which would occupy the throne of Cilicia a century later. Not much is known about his roots, or the man ner in which he made himself master of his new principality. Several historians wrote that he was related to the Bagratids and that he was the last descendant of King Gagik II, with one historian concluding that Ruben was the king’s brother. Another claimed that Ruben was one of several princes and loyal followers who settled into Gagik’s court in exile in the district of Caesarea in Cappadocia. After the Greek Mandales brothers assassinated the king, Ruben retreated with his family to the Taurus, taking refuge in a fortress, where he established the seat of his government.

Accompanied by other Armenian officers, Ruben was able to assemble a powerful force. In 1080, he occupied the inaccessible Taurus heights in the northern part of Cilicia. One of his mili-tary campaigns culminated in the capture of the Byzantine fortress of Barzaped (High Castle) northwest of Sis.

C H A P T E R 3

T h e R u b e n i a n D y n a s t y i n C i l i c i a

7. View of the acropolis of Anazarba. This fortress was captured by Prince Thoros I Rubenian in 1111, who undertook extensive reconstructions. It was later taken by Byzantine Emperor John who took Prince Levon his family to Constantinople. After his escape from Constantinople, Prince Thoros II recaptured the fortress in 1148. Prince Levon II (later king Levon I had the donjon repaired. Within a few years, the administrative and polical center of Cilicia was removed further north, to Sis. It was at Anazarba that Hetum II, his young nephew Levon III, and many Armenian nobles were treacherously murdered by Emir Bilargu in 1307. (Courtesy of RAA Archives: Photo by Raffi Kortoshian, 2007)

Armenian Cilicia Xii -- XiV Century54 the rubenian Dynasty in Cilicia 55

With the Byzantine Empire weakened after the defeat at Manzikert, Ruben felt strong enough to declare his independence from Byzantine rule. By this time, the Byzantine Empire was unable to suppress popular uprisings in the provinces. It was Ruben who planted the seed of a new king dom, Cilician Armenia, which prospered for almost two centuries. He broke with the Byzantines and took the title “Lord of the Mountains.” He died in 1095 and was buried in the monastery of Castalon. While historians continue to debate his ancestral roots, it is important to note the pivotal role he played in consolidating the national aspirations of the Armenians in Cilicia. More than a century would pass, however, before his great-great-grandson, Levon I would achieve rule over all of Cilicia as a king.

Armenian chroniclers speak of the common goal of the Rubenian grand barons or princes, their indomitable character, and a toughness that at times bordered on savagery, which they were not afraid to use to shake off the oppressive yoke of the Byzantines. Ruben and his descend-ants wanted to live freely, according to the customs and faith of their forefathers, but they also liked to harass their oppressor whenever opportunity arose.

The first three grand barons, Ruben, Constantine, and Thoros, extended their posses sions over many mountaintops and to the foothills. The next baron to advance toward the plain, Levon I, quickly lost all that he had conquered. However, the next four barons (Thoros II, Mleh, Ruben II, and Levon II), not only re-conquered what Levon I had lost, but succeeded in add-ing mountain territory and the Cilician plain. They expanded their possessions some times by appearing to submit to the Greeks, at other times by battling them, establishing treaties with the Turks, or allying themselves with the Franks. From the latter, they would borrow some customs, such as adopting western feudal dress. Many French names, such as Etienne, Henry, Alice, and Melisende, were used by the Armenian nobility. However, it must be noted that some Armenian customs were also adopted by the Latins, who would give their sons, born of Armenian moth-ers, Armenian first names, such as Levon, Hetum, or Thoros. Some even learned the Armenian language. As a result of this rapprochement of the Armenians and Latins, it is not too surprising that the Lusignan dynasty of the kingdom of Cyprus contracted matrimonial alliances with the Rubenians and Hetumians.

Constantine, the elder of Ruben’s two sons and heir to the throne, established his head-quarters at Barzaperd. After his father’s death, he extended his power eastward toward the Anti-Taurus and captured the great castle of Vahka. From this isolated old Byzantine garrison, he controlled an important route between Tarsus and Cappadocia. He was a staunch defender of an independent Armenian Church. He, too, hoped to establish himself in the rich Cilician plain, where a large number of Armenians resided.

When the crusaders crossed Asia Minor in 1097 and arrived in Cilicia, en route to the Holy Land, Constantine saw a great opportunity to free his lands from Byzantine domination. He readily gave assistance to the crusaders as they passed through the Taurus after their long march across the Anatolian plateau. He assisted them by providing food, horses, and weapons as well as guides.

During the long and difficult siege of Antioch in the winter of 1097, when he was informed of the famine afflicting the crusaders, Constantine sent them abundant provi sions. Basil the


The extent of Thoros’ conquests is not well known for lack of reliable sources. After his death in 1129, his body was interred at the convent of Trazark. His succession was faced with problems as his only son and heir was cast into prison and then poisoned by a group of merchants. The principality devolved to Thoros’ brother Levon.

Ambitious and cunning, Levon soon learned to exploit the hostilities between Byzantium and the principality of Antioch to his best advantage. Within two years of assuming the throne, he embarked on a program of territorial expansion, which ended with the capture of Gorigos, Tarsus, and Adana, thus extending his rule down to the Mediterranean shores. Levon’s expan-sionist policy was a major cause of the dispute between Armenia and the crusaders of Antioch, who wanted to take possession of the fortifications on the southern Amanus and the seacoast of the Gulf of Alexandretta. After an important fortress in the Amanus Mountains fell to Levon, the new prince of Antioch, Raymond of Poitiers, son of the Duke of Aquitaine, captured him, releasing him only after he surrendered Adana, along with 60,000 pieces of gold. He had hardly regained his freedom when he learned that Emperor John Comnenus was marching to ward Cilicia and Syria, with his immediate aim of putting a brake on the overly ambitious Levon and Raymond.

Like his father Alexius, John Comnenus was a very capable military leader. He saw as his sacred duty the restoration of the glory and power the empire had known during the days of Basil the Great. Since Manzikert, Byzantium controlled the northern, western, and southern coasts of Anatolia. To the southeast, theTurks were the subjects of the Seljuk sul tan of Iconium. But another Turkish tribe, the Danishmends, ruled to the north, along the Euphrates. In addition, a large number of Turkoman tribesmen had infiltrated the rich val leys of Phrygia where their flocks could pasture. All three Turkish groups became John’s first target.

After successfully checking a dangerous insurrection of Pechenegs, a Turkish tribe liv-ing across the Danube in Rumania, and launching no fewer than five expeditions against the Danishmends, John was determined to reacquire Antioch and Edessa. He thought of the Norman princes who ruled these two Christian cities as potentially in league with the Norman king Roger of Sicily who had his eye on the crusader states of Antioch and Jerusalem. The grow-ing power of the princes of Cilicia also disturbed the Byzantine emperor, who was determined to crush the emerging Cilician state. In the winter of 1137-1138, a Byzantine army invaded Cilicia and occupied the plain of Adana and the Gulf of Alexandretta. On his way to Syria, the emperor retook several of the coastal cities. After a siege of thirty seven days, the almost impregnable fortress of Anazarba fell as well. It is important to remember that John’s campaign had been facilitated by the Hetumians of Lambron and Baberon, who were more than happy to assist the emperor. By the spring of 1138, Cilician Armenia no longer ex isted. To secure the newly regained province of Cilicia, the emperor garrisoned it with 12,000 troops and then turned south to deal with Antioch, which had just emerged from a crisis. Barely eighteen, its young Prince Bohemond II had been killed by a Muslim warrior. His widow Alice, the daughter of King Baldwin of Jerusalem, without waiting for her father’s approval, had assumed the regency of Antioch. Alice searched for a husband for her daughter Constance until found a suitable choice in Raymond of Poitiers, uncle to Eleanor of Acquitaine, the queen of England. Any attempt by

Crafty, Oshin, and the monks of the Black Mountains also sent provi sions. Thankful for the aid received from their Armenian allies, the crusaders honored Constantine with the titles of marquis and knight. Emperor Alexius Comnenus would most likely not have considered this Armenian upstart favorably. He would certainly have demanded of him, as he did of the crusad-ers who stopped in Constantinople, an oath to return conquered territory to the empire. But it is doubtful that Constantine ever contemplated obliging the emperor’s demands.

Constantine gave his daughter in marriage to Joscelin, Count of Edessa, while princess Arda (her father’s name remains a mystery), as we have seen above, married Baldwin of Boulogne, the prince of Antioch. The mutual interest of crusaders and Armenians was served by these matrimonial links.

At his death, Constantine left two sons, Theodore or Thoros, and Levon. Thoros’ policy was to pursue amicable relations with the Franks of Edessa and Antioch while expanding his territory in Cilicia where the empire’s rule was quite weak. He added Sis and Anazarba, making the latter his new capital. To celebrate his victory, he constructed a church in that city, and it was there that King Gagik’s royal treasure was stored.

Early in Thoros’ reign, the center stage was occupied by religious conflicts. Catholicos Gregory II Vkayaser (one who loves martyrs), had a life long interest in collecting biog raphies of the Christian saints. The advances towards the Byzantine and the Catholic Churches were viewed with hostility by the Armenian high prelates, as the monasteries around Lake Van rejected any influence by foreign churches. Discouraged by the oppo sition to his ideas of reconciliation with other Christian churches, the catholicos went into virtual retirement in a Cilician monastery in the Black Mountains for the last years of his life. He allowed his nephew Barsegh to establish a separate catholicosate in the Bagratid capital of Ani. When Gregory died in 1105, Barsegh officiated at the funeral and was quickly recognized as the catholicos of Armenia. A few years later, while on a trip to the Holy Land, he and his advisors stopped in a Syrian village. The terrace they were on collapsed, fatally injuring the catholicos. Before expir-ing, he received assurance from the clergy that his cousin, another Gregory, would be elected to his seat. Only eight een years old at the time, the young man, already well known for his piety and wisdom, was thus anointed priest, bishop, and catholicos, all on the same day. News of the elec tion was met with great opposition in northern Armenia. The bishop of Aghtamar Island, David Tornikian, promptly convened a synod that declared the election invalid. The synod then invested Thornikian as catholicos. Gregory responded by summoning a synod, which met in a monastery in the Black Mountains where the nobles and clergy of Cilicia deposed and excommunicated David.

In 1112, in what appeared to be a premeditated act, Prince Thoros, son of Constantine, avenged the killing of King Gagik II by the Greek Mandales brothers. After he besieged their fortress, the three brothers were cap tured. Under torture, they produced Kagik’s royal robes and his sword. One of the brothers was beaten to death by Thoros, a second leaped to his death from the castle walls, while the third was taken by the Rubenian prince to Vahka. This episode is presented by Armenian chroniclers of the time as evidence of the Rubenians’ lineage from the Bagratid kings.


8. Anazarba (Courtesy of RAA Archives: Photo by Otmar Rohleder, 1976).

Fall of Edessa and the Second Crusade

After the departure of the Byzantine army, Raymond of Antioch wasted no time in retaking several fortresses in Cilicia. Manuel responded by sending an expedition and demanding that Raymond present himself in the Byzantine capital. Whether or not Raymond planned to submit to the em peror’s injuntion is not known.

the new prince to bargain with the emperor over the future of Antioch was doomed to fail-ure. It was only after the unconditional surrender of the city and the swearing allegiance, that Raymond and the Frankish nobility received generous gifts from the emperor.

On his way back to Constantinople, the emperor decided to complete his unfinished busi-ness with the Rubenid princes. He placed the fortress ofVahka where the Rubenians were hid-ing under siege. Within a few weeks, Prince Levon, his wife, and two of his sons, Thoros II and Ruben, were captured and sent off to prison in Constantinople. Within a short time Levon was dead, while his brother Ruben was first blinded and then murdered. Levon’s three other sons, Constantine, Mleh, and Stepan, took refuge with their cousin Joscelin, Count of Edessa, whose mother was Levon’s sister.

Within a few years, the lands conquered by the emperor had fallen back into Muslim hands. Feeling that he could not trust the Latin rulers of Antioch and Edessa, John prepared a new expe-dition against these two unruly Christian states. In the spring of 1142, the emperor set off with his four sons on what would be his last journey to the eastern provinces. Alexius, his heir, died within a few days. His second and third sons escort their brother’s body back to Constantinople. During the voyage, another son died, apparently by infectious disease. Heartbroken and with winter fast approaching, John decided to return to Cilicia, where he spent the winter months preparing for the next campaign. In the spring of 1143, while on a hunting expedition, John was accidentally wounded in one hand, which soon became seriously infected. As he lay dying, he placed the crown on the head of his youngest son, Manuel, his legitimate heir. Following his father’s death, the young emperor called off military operations and returned to Constantinople to strengthen his position at the court.


he re ceived a delegation from the Armenian bishops of Cilicia asking for support against the Byzantine emperor.

The Second Crusade began with a papal pronouncement, but it was inspired by the words of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, abbot of one of the leading Cistercian monasteries in Europe. The papal bull gave the usual indulgences, but the theater of the Holy War was extended to include Muslim Spain, and the still pagan Baltic lands, as well as the Levant.

Louis VII, king of France, and his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, knelt before the charismatic Bernard and received the cross at Vezalay, France. The other illustrious monarch who soon joined them was the Holy Roman emperor, Conrad III of Germany. In the summer of 1147, two large and dis-ciplined armies, led by the monarchs of France and Germany, left for the east. The German army in Constantinople arrived first, and, against the Byzantine emperor’s advice, decided to set off immediately for the Holy Land, without waiting for the French king to join him. At Dorilaeum, where the First Crusade had won its first significant victory, Conrad’s army was almost wiped out by the Turks. Conrad and the survivors of his army went to Nicea to wait for the French army. When they met, the two kings decided to march along the Mediterranean coast, thus avoiding Turkish territories. Progress for the crusader armies, continually harassed by the Turks, was quite difficult. The dis putes between the Greeks and the Latins, often ending in bloodshed, caused a rumor to spread that Emperor Manuel Comnenus was trying to weaken the crusaders’ spirits so that they could be more easily crushed by his friends, the Turks. Once the crusade reached the coast, King Louis, his wife, their court, and high nobles boarded Byzantine ships to reach Antioch, while the bulk of the army followed on land. In early 1148, the French soldiers marching east were massa-cred. Only a remnant of the huge army made it to Antioch; most lay dead in the lands of Anatolia.

When King Louis arrived in Jerusalem, Emperor Conrad was already there. At an assembly of all the leading barons they discussed various military objectives, eventually settling on an attack on Damascus instead of Edessa. The attempt to besiege Damascus was a failure. Within days the siege was broken and the Christian army retreated to Jerusalem. Conrad soon departed for Europe, while Louis delayed his return for several months. The story is told that in Antioch the brilliant and self-assured Eleanor had bedded her uncle, Raymond of Antioch, and that, as pun-ishment for her unfaithfulness, Louis had placed her under guard for the rest of the crusade. He was hoping to convince Eleanor not to end their marriage, as eventually it did, a few months after the couple returned to France. For many, she was partly to blame for the failure of the crusade.

The crusade was a disaster, as it failed to achieve its objective, the recapture of Edessa from the Muslims. Interpreting the success of the First Crusade as a sign of divine providence, the Christian people were profoundly shaken by the utter failure of the Second Crusade. Yet, Jerusalem and the Levant appeared to be secure for the time being.

Thoros II, the Great (1145-1168)

While Cilicia was being governed by the Byzantines, Thoros, unlike his father and one of his broth ers who had died in prison, succeeded in escaping from Constantinople. In a version of

9. Hromkla, the see of the catholicos. Located on the steep bank of the Euphrates River, at a good distance from Cilicia, the for-tress was given to Catholicos Gregory III, who was in search of a proper place for the patriarchal see, by the wife of Joscelin of Edessa. Hromkla fell to the Mamluks in 1292. (Courtesy of RRA Archives: Photo by Armen Hakhnazarian, 1975).

Before the year was over, the whole scene in the Near East, in French Outremer, changed drastically. On Christmas Eve of 1144, after a long siege and frightful butchery, Zengi, the emir of Mosul and Aleppo, who had preached jihad against the Christians, captured Edessa. He had been waiting for this moment. King Fulk of Jerusalem had died the year before when he was thrown from his horse. With a woman ruling in the Holy City and the other Christian leaders fighting among themselves, the time was ripe for a Muslim attack.

The Christians saw the loss of Edessa as a tragic reversal of their fortunes in the Levant. Count Joscelin II, however, managed to retake the city a year later, only to lose it again to Zengi’s son and successor, Nur-ad-Din, in 1146. The second capture was decisive. The County of Edessa, the first Latin state in the Levant, was also the first to fall.

News of the capture of Edessa horrified western Christendom. Shortly after his ascension, Pope Eugenius III (1145-1153) received a legation from Jerusalem, led by a bishop, which gave of ficial notification of the disaster and urgently requested reinforcements. At the same time,


ship between the Franks and the Cypriot government had been friendly. The sudden attack easily overpowered the Byzantine troops. The Armenians, under Thoros, and the Franks, under Reynald, looted and pillaged the island for three weeks. Most of the leading citizens and their families were carried off to Antioch and imprisoned until ransoms could be raised.

Determined to regain control of Cilicia once and for all, Emperor Manuel set out from Constantinople at the head of a large army with the aim of punishing the Armenians. He ap proached so quickly that Thoros, who was staying in Tarsus, barely had time to gather his fam ily and flee into the neighboring mountains. For weeks, the Greek army searched in vain for him. The emperor captured Cilician towns as far as Anazarba. His next goal was to conquer Antioch.

Reynald was panic-stricken, as he realized he had nowhere to hide. The emperor was deter-mined to punish him for the raid on Cyprus. Reynald knew that the only way to escape pun-ishment was by a public and humiliating submission. He sent emissaries to Manuel, offering to surrender Antioch. He then hurried to the emperor’s camp in Mamistra in Cilicia, barefooted, wearing a woolen tunic, and a rope around his neck, the point of his sword resting on his breast. After the emperor took the sword by the hilt, Reynald flung himself violently to the ground, where he lay prostrate for a long time. The emperor was pleased by this theatrical act of submis-sion, which he must have believed to be sincere.

The news of the emperor’s approach brought Baldwin III (1143–1163), king of Jerusalem, to Cilicia. He arrived a few days later with a large army. While he discussed plans for an alliance with the emperor, the king of Jerusalem was able to secure a pardon for Thoros. After submitting to Manuel Comnenus, swearing loyalty, and giving supplies and horses to the Byzantine army, Thoros was allowed to retain Cilicia, and Manuel is said to have bestowed the title of sebastos on him. On Easter Sunday of 1159, the emperor celebrated his victory with a solemn entry into Antioch.

Once again, Cilicia fell under Byzantine dominion, and governors were appointed in the main townships. But Thoros was free, had an intact army, and was able to keep his strong holds. Manuel must have realized that Thoros would serve him better as a vassal than as a captive. A break between the Greeks and the Armenians occurred when Stepan, the brother of Thoros, ignored the official truce. Stepan, who may have caressed the dream of creating a principality for himself, continued his attacks against Byzantine fortresses in the Amanus Mountains and the upper Euphrates. The Greek governor of Tarsus, promising him an official Byzantine title, convinced the valiant but gullible Stepan to accept an invitation to a banquet. Upon his arrival, he was promptly seized and thrown into a boiling cauldron.

Thoros and his brother Mleh lost no time in avenging their slain brother. They took up arms and massacred the Greek garrisons of some Cilician cities. Eventually, the Byzantine emperor, Manuel and Thoros were reconciled through the mediation of the new king of Jerusalem, Amalric I (1163-1174). Thoros realized that, in order to achieve his political goal of an independ-ent Cilicia, he required the support of the neighboring Christian states. In 1165, during a visit to Jerusalem, he promised Amalric that he would send aid, and is said to have offered to dispatch 30,000 Armenian settlers, a scheme that never materialized.

the story of this daring escape, the Armenian prince was assisted by a Greek princess who had fallen in love with him. In another version, it is the Emperor John himself who frees him from prison to serve in his army during his last campaign in Cilicia where Thoros remained after the emperor’s death. Regardless of the veracity of these stories, what is known for certain is that he initially went to the court of his cousin, Joscelin II of Edessa, where he gathered a company of trusted compatriots. He then crossed the Amanus and captured the family fortress of Vahka. His two brothers, Stepan and Mleh, joined him in the enterprise. Following several clashes with the Byzantine troops, he recaptured the cities of Sis, Tarsus and several other cities. Thus, Armenian control extended once again over the whole of Cilicia.

Emperor Manuel Comnenus’s reaction to the disturbing news from Cilicia was to appoint his cousin Andronicus as commander of the Byzantine army. Accompanying the Greek forces were several Armenian barons, including the Hetumians of Lambron and Barberon, who did not want to miss this opportunity to confront their Rubenian adversary in armed conflict. Andronicus had gained an unrivaled reputation for his exploits both on the battlefield and in bed. Bored while besieging a city, Andronicus deserted his military duties to seduce the sister of Bohemond III of Antioch and of the emperor’s own wife, Maria. In 1152, while the Byzantine general was occupied in these leisurely pursuits, Thoros was able to inflict significant losses on the Byzantine army. Many members of the Hetumian forces were taken prisoner, including Oshin of Lambron and his son Hetum. Oshin was released after payment of a ransom, but his son was kept hostage and was released only after an agreement was reached that he would marry Thoros’ daughter.

Outraged by the conduct of his cousin and not disinclined to use deceptive means, Manuel Comnenus persuaded the Seljuk Sultan Masud of Konia to launch an attack against the Armenians. In retaliation, Thoros ravaged Seljuk lands in Cappadocia while his brother Stepan routed the sul tan’s forces with the assistance of the Templars.

After the death of Sultan Masud in 1155, his son Kilij Arslan II decided on a radical change in politi cal alliances. Anxious about the growing power of Nur-al-Din, the emir of Syria, he read-ily conclud ed peace treaties with the Armenians and the Latins of Jerusalem and Antioch. Disappointed with the results achieved by his attack, by Muslim proxy against the Rubenians, the emperor turned to the Franks, namely Reynald of Chatillion. This move would prove to be an even more disastrous choice than the previous one. Reynald, who had come with the Second Crusade, had decided to stay in the East. He had married the widowed Princess Constance of Antioch. In return for being recognized as prince of Antioch by the emperor, he agreed to at-tack Thoros and his brothers. Unable to make any progress toward subduing the Armenians and believing that the emperor would not keep his promise of financial reward, Reynald allied himself with them. With Reynald’s implicit approval, Thoros could move toward the few remain-ing Byzantine strongholds.

To the utter astonishment of the emperor, Reynald and Thoros decided to attack the rich island of Cyprus, landing there in the spring of 1156. Cyprus, like Cilicia, had given considerable support to the crusaders during the First Crusade half a century earlier. Since then, the relation-


news reached them that he was preparing to return with a large force. Thoros’s son Ruben, heir to the principal ity, was taken to Hromgla for safety and placed in the care of Catholicos Nerses. This did not save the life of the young prince, however, who was murdered by Mleh’s agents.

Fierce and unscrupulous, Mleh embarked on a policy of conquest with Turkish help. At first, he besieged the Hetumians in Lambron. When his attempt to take the fortress failed after a long siege, he captured the Knight Templars’ castle at Baghras and drove them from the Amanus Mountains. With Turkish forces, he took Tarsus and several other cities on the Cilician coast, and routed the army of Constantine Coloman, the Byzantine governor. He took the governor prisoner before sending him to the sultan. Mleh’s growing power began to disturb the Latin princes. His hold on the fortress of Baghras was seen as a direct threat to the principality of Antioch. Bohemond III of Antioch appealed to King Amalric for some action against Mleh. The king marched up from Jerusalem and invaded Cilicia. In the spring of 1173, a punitive expedi-tion was launched against Mleh by Bohemond III, who was joined by King Amalric, and they advanced into the Cilician plain. But, when they heard that Nur-al-Din’s forces were on the move to support Mleh, the Latins were soon obliged to withdraw and Mleh hastened back home. In the same year, ironically, Emperor Manuel Comnenus recognized Mleh as prince of Cilicia.

Mleh’s reign, marked by wanton cruelty and destruction, alienated a good number of his sub jects. Yet, several historians paint a positive picture of him as an intelligent and farsighted ruler, well acquainted with the political situation in the region. Despite the violent manner in which he seized power, several sources suggest that he may be regarded as the liberator of his country from Byzantine and Latin yokes.41 He was certainly a unique character in Armenian his-tory. He ascended to power through his alliance with the Muslims who helped him liberate the Cilician plain from the Byzantines. The death of his Muslim protector, Nur-al-Din, spelled the end of Mleh as well. In May 1174, the Armenian nobles, no longer fearful of Muslim intervention, killed him.

The Armenian nobility elected Ruben III, Stepan’s older son and nephew of Thoros II, as prince. He and his brothers had been taken for safety by their Hetumid mother Rita to her brother’s castle in Baberon. As his first official act, as a simple precaution or an act of familial revenge, Ruben arrested Mleh’s assassins and had them put to death.

Ruben continued to strengthen the borders of his state. In 1180, Prince Hetum, the pro-Greek master of the Lambron fortress and a vassal of Emperor Manuel, began hostilities against Ruben. Ruben sent his brother Levon to encircle the fortress and to overthrow Hetum, who appealed to Bohemond III of Antioch. Bohemond offered to mediate in support of his ally Hetum. He invited Ruben to a meeting, and then imprisoned him. He then invaded Cilicia but was not able to capture any town or castle, as Levon had succeeded in rousing other Armenian barons to resist. Realizing that his attempt was fruitless, Bohemond agreed to free Ruben, in return for 30,000 dinars and the surrender of several towns. However, after the ransom was paid, these cities were quickly recaptured. In 1187, Ruben III, although an able ruler in his own right, abdicated in favor of his younger brother Levon and retired to the monastery of Drazark near Sis. This move by Ruben to abandon his official duties as prince in order to take monastic vows was to be later repeated by several Armenian kings.

With regard to the internal state of Cilicia during this period, the Byzantine occupation served to strengthen the Hetumians in the western region of Cilicia. But Thoros felt sufficiently strong to attack Oshin of Lambron. Alarmed by the continual struggle between the two most prominent Armenian dynasties, Catholicos Gregory III sent his brother Nerses the Gracious to reconcile the Rubenians and the Hetumians.

Thoros’ political stance with respect to Muslim Syria was unambiguous. When Emir Nur-al-Din threatened to attack Tripoli, Thoros allied himself with Bohemond III of Antioch and the Greek governor of Tarsus in an attack on the unsuspecting Muslims. The following year, the emir put together a much larger force. When the Muslims feigned flight, Bohemond rushed headlong after them, only to find himself surrounded. Most of the Christians ended up being taken prisoner. Thoros and Mleh managed to escape the battlefield. Among the prisoners were Bohemond and Hugh VIII of Lusignan. The latter, who had come from his native Poitou, in France, was the father of several sons. Among them were Aimery and Guy who, a few decades later, would acquire fame and fortune in the Levant. Thoros, taking advantage of the temporary absence of the emir, who was occupied in other ventures, captured several hundred Turks. By threatening to burn the captives alive, Thoros obtained the release of Bohemond and the Greek governor.

Shortly before Thoros’s death, Benjamin of Tudela, a Spanish rabbi, was visiting Jewish set tlements in the Near East. After passing through Constantinople, Rhodes, and Cyprus, he so journed in Gorigos, which he described as the western frontier of the land of Thoros, “Lord of the Mountains and King of Armenia.” The categorical manner in which the Spanish traveler described Thoros as king, although no monarchy had yet been established, suggests that Cilicia might have been only nominally under Byzantine rule.

In 1168, weary after nearly a quarter of a century of warfare with both Greeks and Turks, but likely pleased with his achievements, Thoros abdicated in favor of his son Ruben II and retired to a monastery, where he died a year later. Armenian sources describe him as, “of dark complexion, tall, curly-haired; of an imposing aspect, yet full of grace.” By a combination of military opera-tions and diplomacy, Thoros was successful in reestablishing the Armenian principality and, in so doing, laid secure foundations on which his successors might build a viable state.40

Mleh “the Renegade” (1170–1174)

In his attempts to reconquer lost Cilician territories, Thoros had received assistance from his brothers Stepan and Mleh. But in his later years, his two brothers wanted to act quite independ-ently, causing him considerable stress. This was particularly true of the younger Mleh, an even more impulsive spirit than Stepan. After taking the vows as a Templar, Mleh is said to have been in volved in a plot to assassinate Thoros. When the plan was discovered, he was expelled from Cilicia. He fled to the court of Sultan Nur-al-Din and may have converted to Islam. After he learned of Thoros’s death, Mleh invaded Cilicia with the help of Turkish troops provided by the sultan. At first, he failed to seize power, but the Armenian nobles ceded the throne to him when


The Europeans had learned that Cilicia was an important gateway to the Levant. The role that the principality might play in another crusade became crucial after the loss of Jerusalem, as the remaining crusader states depended on Armenian support. On the eve of the Third Crusade (1189), the Holy Roman emperor Frederick I Barbarossa sought Levon’s support. Pope Clement III sent a letter to Levon to inform him that the Third Crusade was being organized and to urge Levon to give assistance to the crusaders so they could achieve their sacred objective. Another papal letter with the same message was received by Catholicos Gregory IV. Levon realized that this event might significantly improve his political fortune. He replied to the pope’s letter, simulta neously writing to the emperor, promising his help, but also asking to be crowned king when the emperor arrived in the Near East. Both recipients of Levon’s letters agreed. Prince Levon and the Armenians of Cilicia must have awaited the arrival of the crusaders with great anticipation.

Catholicos Gregory IV, whose see in Hromkla was surrounded by Muslim territory, was well aware that, by agreeing to assist the crusaders as requested by the pope, the Armenians of Cilicia risked angering Sultan Saladin. The catholicos wrote emperor Federick announcing that he was preparing a reception for him. Frederick, who may have been seventy years of age, had been the first to mobilize his army and proceeded by land to Asia Minor After sweeping aside Turkish re sistance and occupying Konya, his army turned southeast, cutting through the Taurus Mountains. On June 10, 1190, with the heat unbearable, the sea must have been a welcome sight to the German army. Just past Seleucia (modern Silifke), Frederick, who was riding at the head of his army, spurred his horse toward the river Calicadnus (now Goksu). It is not clear whether the horse was spooked or the shock of the cold mountain water on his old body proved too much for him; but he died and the exact cause of death will most likely remain a mystery. While his body was rescued by his men, it was too late. He had apparently brought with him a royal crown, very likely the one requested by Levon. After the death of the emperor, the crusader army quickly fell apart, with many soldiers returning to Europe. Others carried the emperor’s body, preserved in vinegar, to Tarsus and then to Antioch. His remains were buried in the cathe-dral, where they rested until the fall of Antioch seventy-eight years later under Sultan Baybars, who burned the cathedral and most of the city to the ground.

At the news that the Holy Roman emperor and his army were arriving, Levon had sent a delegation headed by the archbishop of Tarsus, Nerses of Lambron. After surviving an ambush by Turkomen, the delegation reached Frederick’s army, only to learn that a few days earlier the em peror had apparently drowned.

Fortunately for the Christians in Outremer, the armies led by Richard the Lion-Hearted of England and Philip Augustus of France arrived mostly intact. Levon proceeded to assume an active role in the crusade. In 1191, he joined Richard in the conquest of Cyprus and later became the chief of the bridegrooms at Richard’s wedding to Berengaria. He then took part in the siege of Acre conducted by the French king, Philip Augustus.

Shortly after his return to his lands in Cilicia, Levon, who was likely to be entertaining dreams of joining his principality to that of Antioch, seized Baghras in the Amanus, a fortress that had been captured from the Templars by Saladin. Levon refused to give it back to the Templars

Prince Levon II (1187–1198) and his Royal Ambitions

Prince Levon would soon prove to be one of most far-sighted sovereigns in Armenian history. Within a short time, he completed the occupation of the entire territory of Cilicia, which ex-tended from Isauria to the Amanus range. Although he had a relatively small force, he attacked large bands of Turkomen and, after killing their leader, inflicted further losses on them.

Levon’s accession to the throne coincided with very grave events in the Latin East. Sultan Salah-ed-Din (Saladin, in western sources (1171–1193)), a former Kurdish officer in Nur-al-Din’s army, embarked on what was to become the greatest offensive against the kingdom of Jerusalem. After his sensational victory at Hattin against Guy Lusignan, king of Jerusalem, in June 1187, Saladin occupied a number of defensive positions on the coast before taking the Holy City on 2 October. His subsequent conquests reduced the Latin possessions to a few coastal areas that were totally isolated from one another, and to the Principality of Antioch. Consternation swept through Europe at the news of the Muslim victory at Hattin, as well as the loss of Jerusalem and almost all of Palestine. Preparations were soon under way for another crusade, coming at a most auspicious time for Prince Levon, in 1187, when his brother Ruben handed the rule of the principality to him.

10. Sis, the capital of the kingdom of Armenia. One of the impenetrable fortresses of the country, its citadel dominates the sur-rounding Cilician plan. During their reigns, Levon I and Hetum I undertook major reconstruction projects here. Hetum’s wife, Queen Zabel, is said to have built a hospital at Sis. From 1292 to 1375, it was the see of the catholicos. The Turks call the nearby modern city Kozan, while still referring to the fortress as Sis. (Courtesy of RAA Archives: Photo by Hartmut Hofrikhter, 1973)


C H A P T E R 4

T h e B i r t h o f t h e K i n g d o m

Map 4. The Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia (Courtesy of Robert Hewsen)

since con trol of the fortress was of considerable importance to Cilicia, as it would be a secure base from which to attack hostile forces. The possession of this outpost so close to Antioch served only to increase the animosity between Levon and Bohemond III. It would sour relations between these two Christian powers for the first half of the thirteenth century.

Angered because Bohemond had signed a peace treaty with Saladin and was delaying repayment of money owed him, Levon plotted to take his revenge. In 1194, shortly after the death of Saladin, he invited Bohemond to Baghras, ostensibly to resolve their differences. Upon Bohemond’s ar rival, Levon arrested him and his family, and took them to Sis. It was only through the intercession of Henry of Champagne, the king of Jerusalem, who went to Sis to negotiate Bohemond’s release, that he finally set his prisoner free, but only after Bohemond agreed to renounce his rights to the throne of Antioch. The treaty was sealed by the marriage of Levon’s niece Alice to Raymond, Bohemond’s eldest son, with the stipulation that the first son born from that union would inherit the throne of Antioch.

In 1196, the ambitious Levon revived the dream of his coronation. He sent a delegation led by the archbishop of Sis to Emperor Henry VI in Milan and then to Pope Celestine III in Rome. Concerned that the Armenian Church might choose not to cooperate with him, he had the recal-citrant Catholicos Gregory V imprisoned and then deposed with the help of the archbishop of Sis. While attempting to escape from prison by means of a rope, Gregory fell to his death when the rope broke. Levon had already arranged for the more compliant Gregory VI Apirat (1193–1203) to be elected as the new catholicos. Apirat, aged seventy two, was in favor of church unity with both the Latins and the Greeks. A large part of the clergy and nobility, particularly in the great monas tic and cultural centers in Greater Armenia, remained strongly opposed to any union with either Rome or Constantinople. Opposition to the new catholicos, who was very sympathetic toward unity with the other Christian churches, however, was so strong that a separate catholicos was elected in Ani. One historian calls into question Levon’s sincerity. What is clear is that Pope Innocent III does not appear to have had any doubts that Levon was sincere. There was some resistance to the ecclesiastical reforms, particularly in the monasteries of Sanahin and Aghbat in Greater Armenia, but, by and large, the authority of the Cilician catholicos was recognized.

While continuing to pursue his quest for a crown from the emperor and the pope, Levon pre sided with Catholicos Gregory and Nerses of Lambron over a council in Tarsus. They urged the twelve Cilician bishops to comply with the papal terms for the union of the churches. After lengthy deliberations, the council meeting ended with a compromise agreement as a token of compliance with the pope’s request.

The crown that Prince Levon had so avidly sought was sent by Emperor Henry VI along with another crown for Aimery Lusignan of Cyprus. Although the pope and the emperor had died a few months earlier, in 1197, a delegation headed by the imperial chancellor Conrad, bishop of Heldensheim, and the papal legate, Cardinal Conrad of Wittelsbach, traveled to the Levant. They first stopped in Cyprus, where they crowned Aimery king of Cyprus. Before Levon was able to receive his crown, Cardinal Conrad met with the twelve Armenian bishops to receive their assur ance that they sincerely professed the Catholic faith. It was only after Levon convinced some of the more reluctant bishops that the oath demanded by Conrad was simply a political gesture that the coronation ceremony was held.

Armenian Cilicia Xii -- XiV Century70 the Birth of the Kingdom 71

The coronation marked the recognition of Armenian Cilicia as an independent state. Levon could claim a status equal to that of the other Christian kings of Jerusalem and Cyprus. The event also meant that the newly independent Armenian nation would be perceived as inte-grated with the uni versal Catholic Church and no longer looked upon as heretical. Hailing the change of status of Cilicia to a kingdom, Armenians may have felt that the ancient kingdom of Armenia was restored by Levon.

History was cruel, however, to Levon’s most ardent supporter, Nerses of Lambron, who died shortly after the coronation, in July of the same year, at age forty eight. He had worked very dili-gently to create a single community of Christians by attempting to bring together Armenians, Latins, and Greeks. In his willingness to accommodate all, he antagonized the more conservative element in the Armenian Church. Some monks from the monasteries in Greater Armenia had written to Levon to complain about Nerses’s attitude toward other Christians. Levon warned his faithful bishop to curb some of his liturgical and disciplinary innovations. Nerses’s reply is an elo-quent testimony of enlightenment and tolerance, providing a window into the period, remind-ing us, that even amidst frequent episodes of violence, one can find the noblest sentiments.

To answer charges against him, Nerses had written the following letter, explaining that he sought to achieve communion of all Christians without regard to ethnic origin:

The grace of God has given me an understanding, which surpasses indifferent traditions so my only concern is for fraternal charity. To my eyes, the Armenian is the same as the Latin, the Latin is like the Greek, the Greek resembles the Egyptian, and the Egyptian is no different from the Syrian. If I should declare myself partisan of only one nation, how can I be in com-munion with others? By the grace of Christ, I would destroy all barriers of separation. My affection extends to the churches of Latins, Greeks, and Syrians and of Armenia, I remain serene in the midst of them all, and without concerning myself with their particular customs.

42

But Nerses had been proud of his Armenian heritage, manifested in his encouragement of the production of illuminated manuscripts. Some of the surviving manuscripts were specifically com missioned by him. He was also in Jerusalem when the city fell to Saladin in 1187 and left an eyewit ness account of the warfare between the crusaders and the Muslim forces.

A skilled diplomat, King Levon succeeded in creating a powerful and unified state. He estab-lished alliances with other rulers around his kingdom, namely the kings of Cyprus and Jerusalem, and the Byzantine emperor. Through his second wife, Sybilla, he became the son-in-law of King Aimery of Cyprus. His daughter Rita, from his first marriage to Isabelle of Antioch, married John of Brienne, king of Jerusalem.

With the express purpose of gaining their assistance in the defense of his borders, Levon granted territories to the military orders of the Hospitallers and the Teutonic Knights. He was praised by his contemporaries for his political and diplomatic successes and was frequently spo ken of as “Levon the Magnificent.” His reign marks one of the highest points in the develop-ment of the kingdom. He successfully resisted Saladin who emboldened by the military suc-cesses against the Franks, had launched repeated attacks against Cilicia. During his last military campaign against Cilicia, in the spring of 1193, Saladin became ill and died. In the same month and year as Leon’s coronation, a new pope, Innocent III, was elected in Rome. A man born to rule, with exceptional gifts of very keen intellect and strong character, and with rare skills in

11. Sis, the impressive remains of the walls and towers of the citadel. (Courtesy of RAA Archives: Photo by Harmut Hofrikhter, 2007)

The Coronation of Levon I – King of Armenians (1198–1219)

On 6 January 1198, on the Feast of the Epiphany, Levon was crowned king of the Armenians. The coronation took place at the Cathedral of Santa Sophia in Tarsus. It was an impressive ceremony, attended by all members of the Armenian ecclesiastical and lay hierarchy: Latin, Greek, and Syrian dignitaries as well as delegates sent by the caliph. Levon was first crowned according to the Latin rite as vassal of the Holy Roman emperor by being handed a scepter. He was then anointed king of all Armenians by Catholicos Gregory VI. As was customary, Levon was required to take an oath of allegiance to the Armenian Church. There is evidence, in a manuscript dated 1198, that he also received a crown sent by the Byzantine emperor, Alexius III, which may explain the presence of the Greek metropolitan of Tarsus. Given the apprehension about Levon’s faith expressed by the more conservative Armenians, it is not surprising to learn that the catholicos administered the oath of loyalty in his capacity as protector and guardian of the Armenian Church.

The only copy of the coronation list is attributed to Sembat, the constable of the kingdom. The list contains the names of the most prominent Armenian civil and ecclesiastical person-alities. It begins with the names of the prelates, bishops, and archbishops, all preceded by the title “Ter”. These are followed by the names of the princes, called ishkhan in Armenian, with the names of their respective fiefs. Several names of Frankish lords are also noted.


handling men, Innocent had an exalted conception of his position. As Vicar of Christ, the media-tor between God and man, he believed in a fully theocratic vision, that he had been given the universal (Catholic) Church and whole world to govern. One of his overriding concerns was the crusade. A firm believer in crusading, he saw in the Cilician kingdom the only other state, besides Cyprus, strong enough to aid in a Christian reconquest of the lost Holy Land.

As the price to pay for his crown, Levon readily acknowledged the distant sovereign powers of the pope and the emperor, seeking to solidify his kingdom with the western world.

Administration, Commerce, and Law in the New Kingdom

Levon’s coronation brought unity and prosperity to the kingdom by achieving significant social and cultural reforms. He began his rule by attempting to control the unruly barons, fostering new relations between them and the crown, similar to those in effect in medieval European states, thus gradually modifying the ancient Armenian feudal system of the nakharars. The barons lost some of their independence and were bound by closer ties to the king. He also introduced the French offices of constable, seneschal, bailiff, and other titles into Armenian institutions.

With the principality elevated to the rank of kingdom, Knights Orders were introduced in imitation of the Frankish custom. Cilician rulers would confer the honorific title of knight on their own subjects, with great festivities accompanying the ceremonies. As in Europe, jousts during tournaments and the hunt became popular sports for the nobility. The status of the peasants also appears to have improved, as they became freeholders of their land.

Levon also established orphanages, hospitals, and schools. In the various monasteries, callig raphy and the manuscript arts were strongly encouraged. A large number of magnificent manu scripts were produced during his reign. French and Latin became acceptable languages at the court, and the western feudal dress code became the custom among the nobility, though the population at large does not seem to have accepted these changes.

Levon celebrated his coronation by issuing gold coins. But most coinage was minted in silver and copper. The Armenian dahekan, the equivalent of the dinar, was minted in both silver and gold.

In matters of law in Cilicia, a monk from Gandzak, Mkitar Gosh (d. 1213), compiled a manual to assist judges in the evaluation of cases that come to their court. The manual provided the foundation for Armenian jurisprudence for the next several centuries. As Peter Cowe noted, Gosh’s legal treatise was not meant as a legal code in the manner of the later Napoleonic code, where the legal issues were based on ethical and moral principles, but appears to have been shaped by the legal thinking of the day and the legal sections found in the Old Testament.

During the reign of Levon’s successor, Hetum I, Gosh’s manual would be one of the sources, together with an Armenian translation of the Assizes of Antioch, on which Sembat, the constable of the realm, based his major legal reorganization. Written in the Armenian vernacular of the day, this code is based on the regulations governing the relations between vassals and lords in western European feudalism. The Armenian translation of the Assizes assumes considerable importance since the original French text has been lost.

12. The Crucifixion in the New Testament of Skevra (1193). It was copied and illustrated for Nerses of Lambron and his brother Hetum III. (Courtesy of Armenien Mekhitarist Congregation, Venice. 1635, fol. 248. v.)


14. Ayas, the island fortress. In 1271, during his travel to China, Marco Polo visited Ayas. He was amazed by the intense com-mercial activity of this port-city. It was the main crossroad through which most trade was funneled into Cilicia. The land castle, a mere few hundred yards from the sea fortress, is of later Turkish construction. Presently known as Yurmatalik, Ayas is a prosper-ous sea resort. Like Sis and Anavarza, Ayas appears to have been administered directly by the king as his personal possession. The city was finally captured by the Mamluks in 1337. (Courtesy of RAA Archives: Photo by Raffi Kortoshian, 2007)

to build a powerful kingdom. The importance of this treaty for Venice was the central position of Cilicia, situated between Asia Minor and Syria. Caravans from Asia would reach Alexandretta (Iskenderun) in Cilicia after crossing the Syrian Gates through the Amanus range. After Egypt, Cilicia became the second great commercial zone in the Near East for many of the western states and the Italian republics.

The privileges of the treaty for Venetians were of a significant commercial and fiscal na-ture. The Venetians were guaranteed absolute freedom of movement throughout the ter-ritory of the kingdom, with safe conduct provided for merchants and their commodities. They were also given concessions in the matter of rights to shipwrecks, respect for testa-mentary rights of Venetians residing in the kingdom, and the administration of justice of Venetians by their co-nationals, or, in their absence, the archbishop of Sis. But the High Court of the kingdom would hear cases of homicide or disputes between Venetians and non-Venetians. While they were also granted their own commercial establishments and their

13. In the silver coin above (in a much larger scale than its actual size), Levon, wearing the royal crown, is represented kneeling in front of Christ. The legend reads: “Levon king of the Armenians.” The obverse shows a lion on each side of the cross. This coin appears to have been struck to commemorate the coronation. (Courtesy of Claude Mutafian, Le Royaume Arménièn de Cilicie)

The construction of a new, strong state began in a variety of fields, including trade and com merce, and resulted in increased prosperity for the new kingdom. The Cilician harbors, particu larly Ayas (Lajazzo) and Gorigos (which Levon had rebuilt), were entrepot points for international vessels. Products brought by caravan from Central Asia, as well as local products, were exported or exchanged for manufactured goods brought to Cilicia by European traders. These merchants could find in Ayas all kinds of oriental products: spices, perfumes, silver, copper, iron, tin, cor-als, pearls, woolen cloth, fine textiles from India, oil, soap, gems, raw silk, carpets from Iran, and items such as sugar and safron. Timber from the Taurus forests was in demand for shipbuilding. However, Cilicia did not build ships in any significant number. The treaties with the Italian mari-time republics, therefore, assumed great importance for the Cilician kingdom.

Soon after Levon’s coronation, Genoa and Venice sent emissaries to Cilicia, seeking trade agreements and privileges. Some commercial ties had already existed between Venice and the principality of Cilicia at the time of Thoros II. These became stronger under Levon I. Venetian doc uments of the period refer to the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia as Armenia, Ermenia, or Hermenia, while at times only the city of Ayas is noted.

The first commercial treaty between Venice and Cilicia was stipulated in 1201, a product of the diplomatic activity of the Venetian Doge Enrico Dandolo. Within three years, the doge, in his mid-eighties, would be playing a crucial role in the capture of Constantinople by Venetians and Franks during the Fourth Crusade. Levon’s motivation for making such a treaty was his ambition


the son of Saladin, emir of Aleppo, and the Knights Templars on one side; the sultan of Egypt, Saladin’s brother, and the Knights Hospitallers supporting Raymond-Ruben, on the other.

Levon was quick to support the rights of his great-nephew Raymond-Ruben. With the help of the Hospitallers, Levon waged repeated assaults, managing the occupation of Antioch in 1203. It was then that a papal delegation arrived in the city. Levon’s attack on the city led to a deterioration in his relationship with Pope Innocent III who, exasperated by Levon’s obsti-nacy, excommunicated him. Levon’s initial reaction was to abolish the Latin sees of Tarsus and Mamistra, but he gradually softened his position. Under the pretext of a Muslim attack, Levon took possession of Antioch and installed Raymond-Ruben as king. He hastened to inform the pope of this move, announcing that he had reopened the Latin bishoprics in Cilicia, and rein-stated the fortress of Baghras to theTemplars.

Unfortunately, this “victory” was short-lived. Raymond-Ruben proved to be both an unpop-ular monarch and an ungrateful great-nephew, alienating his uncle. The Latin and Greek mer-chants of Antioch resisted the growing Armenian power and supported Bohemond, who retook possession of Antioch and expelled Raymond-Ruben. Now married to a Lusignan, he moved to Tarsus where he was promptly imprisoned by Constantine of Baberon, a member of the Hetumian dynasty and Levon’s first cousin. As we shall see shortly, Constantine may have had a different person in mind as heir to the kingdom: his own son.

In 1219, Levon died without realizing his dream of uniting Cilicia and the Principality of Antioch. During his twenty-one-year reign, he formed alliances with the crusaders, and encour-aged interna tional commerce, and “raised his people to unparalled prosperity, earned the name of Magnificent, and was altogether one of the wisest and most be neficent monarchs in medi-eval history”.44

But with the death of Raymond-Ruben, Levon’s plan to build a united, strong Christian state had failed. Had he succeeded, a powerful state is likely to have emerged, and the history of the region might have been different. From this point on, the fortunes and the history of Cilician Armenia would be closely affected by the constellation of powers in the Middle East and Asia Minor, the future crusades by the West, the Mongol invasions, and the advances of the Mamluks of Egypt. The only power that would no longer pose an existential threat to Cilicia, after the fall of Constaninople during the Fourth Crusade in 1204, was the Byzantine Empire. As long as it was able to balance the various external forces and its own internecine conflicts, Cilicia would con tinue to prosper as the crossroad of major trade routes.

The Twilight of One Dynasty and the Dawn of Another

It was under very unusual circumstances that Zabel, Levon’s daughter, ascended to the throne upon her father’s death. While Levon was a very clever and valiant king, his complicated person-al life caused great misgivings among the nobles and the Armenian clergy, as well as keen ri-valry between a number of pretenders to the throne. During his marriage to Isabelle of Antioch,

own church in Mamistra, the Venetians did not receive any similar concessions in the new capital Sis.

The Genoese had been the first to obtain such concessions from Levon I, only a few months earlier. They were granted more territory than the Venetians, with commercial establishments and churches in Sis, Mamistra, and Tarsus, in exchange for the important mediating role they played at the courts of the emperor Henry VI and Pope Innocent III in support of Levon’s quest for a royal crown. The Genoese obtained complete freedom of movement and of commerce in all of the ter ritory in possession by the king and his barons.

The drafting of the contracts, in Latin, between Levon’s kingdom and the Italian republics fol lowed precise models. The text commenced with an invocation to the Trinity, followed by “Leo, filius Stepani, de potenti genere Rupinorum, Dei gratia rex Armenorum.” Levon would then sign his name in Greek (in red ink), and then in Armenian letters. The treaties with Venice and Genoa illustrate Levon’s great capacity to adapt to changing circumstances in order to expand his role into the international sphere.

The juridical realm also dealt with rights to shipwrecks found around the coast. It is impor-tant to bear in mind that goods confiscated from shipwrecks were a very important source of income for many states on the seacoast. The king agreed to renounce the customary rights to shipwrecked Genoese ships and Genoese goods stowed on ships of any other country that might land on the Cilician coast. In Cilicia the royal court regulated disputes that arose from claims to such goods. The two most important custom offices were in Tarsus and Ayas, with duties for goods in transit exacted at the custom office of La Portelle on the road leading from Alexandretta in Cilicia to Syria. The duty levied on both imported and exported goods amounted to four percent of their value.

Levon’s Political Diplomacy

Notwithstanding the matrimonial links between the Franks and the Armenians and their sense of Christian solidarity, there was still friction. Disputes over territory emerged between the Normans of Antioch, who considered themselves lords of Cilicia, and the Rubenians, who did not hide their interest in the Syrian capital. The primary source of their dispute was the fortress of Baghras in the Amanus region.

Levon’s ambition was to establish a strong Franco-Armenian state by creating marriage alliances with the rulers of Cyprus, Antioch, and Byzantium. His niece Alice married Raymond, the eldest son of Bohemond III, prince of Antioch. She was soon widowed and was left with a son, Raymond-Ruben, who became the legitimate heir to Antioch. In 1201, after the death of his grandfather, Raymond-Ruben claimed the throne of Antioch. But his uncle Bohemond IV, a younger son of Bohemond III, was supported by an anti-Armenian faction. He was hoping to unite the principality of Antioch with the city of Tripoli, of which he was already count.

The dispute over the succession between Bohemond IV and Raymond-Ruben escalated into a war. The two contestants quickly formed coalitions with their neighbors: Bohemond with


The regent Constantine urged Bohemond to recall the Seljuks, telling him to come to Cilicia, and get his son. He then arranged for the emir of Aleppo to advance on Antioch. When he arrived in Cilicia, Bohemond was told that his son was dead. Shaken by the news of his son’s murder, he had little time to nurse his grief, forced as he was to hurry back and defend his capi-tal against the attack from the emir of Aleppo. Constantine had waited long enough to realize his plan. With the support of the Armenian nobles and the catholicos, he imposed on the young widow Zabel the marriage to his own son Hetum.

But Zabel, who was still heartbroken over her husband’s death, had escaped to Seleucia, to be with her mother, who was staying with the Knight Hospitallers. Undeterred, Constantine took up arms and laid siege to their fortress. The knights decided to sell him the fortress and return Zabel, and the young queen was taken to Tarsus. The regent received the consent of the catholicos and the majority of Cilician barons. In June 1226, Zabel married Constantine’s son Hetum.

The reluctant Zabel would become a model queen, wife, and mother. For several years she re fused to live with her new husband, but finally relented. She had no children for the first eleven years, but eventually gave birth to five sons and three daughters. The daughter of a great king and a pious Lusignan mother, she thus united the two Armenian dynasties, the Rubenians and the Hetumians, on the throne of Armenia, and in so doing, ended the long-standing rivalry between these princely families.

a daughter Rita was born. The queen had allegedly been unfaithful, or so the catholicos claimed. Upset by that revelation, Levon imprisoned her in the fortress of Vahka, where she died.

Before his death, Levon had designated his daughter (1219–1253) as his successor. She was born from his second wife Sybilla, the daughter of Aimery of Lusignan, the king of Cyprus, and Isabella, and the beautiful the widow queen of the king of Jerusalem Henry de Champagne. Isabella, aged only twenty six, was already on her fourth marriage. She was the grand-daughter of Geoffrey of Anjou, also known as Geoffrey the Handsome, one of the great French nobles, who was to become the founder of the Plantagenet dynasty of England. Now Levon thought it was time for him to consider Zabel’s future, and the nobles promised to serve her as if she were the son he never had. Levon promised Zabel in mar riage to the son of the king of Hungary.

Zabel was placed under the regency of Baron Adam of Gaston. But this Armenian knight was murdered by the Islamic sect of the Assassins, leaving Constantine, who replaced Adam as regent, free to pursue his own ambition if only the last two claimants to the throne could be disposed of. First in line was Rita, who had married John of Brienne, king of Jerusalem. In 1220, when John and Rita claimed the throne of Cilicia for their son, both Rita and her son died mys-teriously. The other pretender, Raymond-Ruben, Levon’s initial candidate, had already died in prison.

In the meantime, the situation in the Levant was quickly becoming untenable. The Seljuk Sultan Kaikobad of Konya, which now occupied the western Taurus and Isauria, threatened the Armenian kingdom from the west and north. The sultanate had become a first-rate power. Constantine and the barons of Cilicia realized the need to fill the vacant throne and made another attempt to form an al liance with Antioch in order to defend their country against the growing Seljuk threat. Constantine suggested to Bohemond IV of Antioch that his eighteen-year-old son, Philip, marry Zabel, with the understanding that he would be loyal to the Armenian Church and respect Armenian traditions. In 1222, Queen Zabel married Philip (1223-1225), who accepted the above conditions and swore to adhere to the Armenian way of life. The marriage, which was to foster a new age of peace and tranquility between Cilicia and Antioch, served its immediate purpose. The sultan turned his atten tion away from Cilicia and moved against his Muslim neighbors to the east.

The Armenians hoped that Philip would become a good Armenian, but, within a year, he vio lated their trust. First, he hurt their pride by replacing Armenian barons with Latins. As if this were not enough, he smuggled part of the royal treasures from Sis to Antioch, and into the pos-session of his father. This last act sealed his fate. One night, while the young couple was on their way to Antioch, he was seized by the regent, Constantine, and his soldiers and was thrown into prison. When his father refused to return the stolen treasures, Philip was murdered. Zabel, who had fallen in love with Philip, was crushed by grief over the loss of her husband. His death could only serve to further deteriorate the strained relationship between Cilicia and Antioch, with Bohemond threatening to invade Cilicia. Constantine’s response was to expel members of the Latin clergy from Tarsus and Mamistra. The pope’s protestations had no effect on Constantine. Bohemond al lied himself with the Seljuk sultan of Konya, and together, they ravaged northern Cilicia. Soon the Armenians would be reduced to becoming the sultan’s tributaries.

the Hetumian Dynasty 81

C H A P T E R 5

T h e H e t u m i a n D y n a s t y

Hetum I: An Exceptional Monarch

Soon after Zabel and Hetum’s coronation, the regent Constantine thought of ways to reconcile Armenia and the papacy. He sent messages to the pope and to Emperor Frederick II expressing loyalty in the name of the young royal couple. Silver coins were minted bearing the effigies of both Zabel and Hetum. Gradually, Hetum assumed power and proved to be one of the most brilliant figures in Armenian history.

While the early years of his term were relatively peaceful, Hetum did have to confront dif-ficult times. The dethroning of the prince of Antioch, who died in captivity, caused discord between the two families of Cilicia and Antioch. Initially, Bohemond, Prince of Antioch and his ally, Henry, the king of Cyprus, tried to persuade the pope to arrange the divorce of the young heiress Zabel from Hetum, thereby depriving him of his right to the throne. But Bohemond and Henry were warned by Rome not to interfere. Hostility eventually ended with the marriage of Hetum’s sister Stephanie to King Henry Lusignan of Cyprus, paving the way for a general recon-ciliation between Armenia and Cyprus.

Hetum’s reign was the longest of any king of Cilician Armenia. Under the guidance of his father Constantine, Hetum had to confront immediate problems on the western frontier. A few years earlier, the Seljuk sultan of Rum had occupied Antalya, a move that opened the way to potential attacks on the kingdom of Cilicia. Unrest along the western frontier culminated in the capture of Alanya and Anamur. The relative peace of the early years of Hetum’s reign came to an end when Sultan Kaikobad invaded Cilicia in 1233. Hetum had to make territorial concessions, namely, give up the coastal towns west of Silifke. Soon, a more serious threat to the security of the small Armenian nation appeared on the eastern horizon.

Armenian Cilicia Xii -- XiV Century82 the Hetumian Dynasty 83

chief ), on a delegation to Karakorum to the court of the Mongha Khan. During his travels to Mongolia, he wrote to King Henry I of Cyprus describing the destruction of the Muslim cities at the hands of the Mongols. The letter was also read by King Louis IX of France (St. Louis), who was in Cyprus in 1248 during the Seventh Crusade, the first of his two crusades. Louis proposed collaboration between the Mongols and Franks and sent a delegation, but not until 1253, after his army suffered a humiliating defeat in Egypt.

The delegation to the Mongols was headed by the Franciscan friar William of Rubruck. A keen observer and meticulous reporter, William reached Karakorum, going deeper into Mongol territo ry than any previously recorded European explorer, twenty years before Marco Polo. He recorded Mongha Khan’s view of religion, the khan describing the relationship among various religions by opening his hand and remarking, “Just as God has different digits to the palm, so He has given different religions to men.” William also debated with Buddhists and Nestorian Christians, who maintained that Jesus had two distinct natures. Mongha Khan was said to favor the Nestorians, though the Buddhists felt they were the khan’s favorites, a sign of his all-inclu-sive faith. Since Christians made first contact with the Mongols in the 1220s, they launched mis-sions in the hope of converting the Mongols so they could be allies against Islam.

15. This inscription in the sea castle of Gorigos celebrated Hetum I’s reconstruction of this fortress. (Courtesy of RAA Archives: Photo by Raffi Kortoshian, 2007)

Mongol Devastation of Armenia

The Mongols would become the most serious danger to the relative stability of the Near East. Two decades earlier, Mongol hordes, known in the West as the “Nation of the Archers,” had been united under Genghis Khan. He advocated nothing less than the domination of the then known world. The Mongols advanced from Central Asia to the west. Following Genghis Khan’s death, his son Ogdai Khan entered eastern Europe, after conquering China and Russia. Within a short time, the Mongols, headed by the new khan, overran the countries west of the Caspian Sea, spreading desolation everywhere and leaving in their trail nothing but ashes, ruins, and heaps of corpses. The suddenness, cruelty, and scale of the disaster were unprecedented.

The Mongol invasion of the lands of Greater Armenia began in earnest in 1236. Along with their families, the Mongols brought their herds and sophisticated siege machinery. Noting the sub mission of Prince Zakarian of Lori in Greater Armenia, and the fact that the Mongols spared cities that willingly surrendered, the remaining princes followed suit. Nonetheless, Ani and Kars were not spared devastation. Kiev, in the Ukraine, was destroyed in 1240. After annihilating an army of Poles and Germans in Lower Silesia, the Mongols poured into Hungary and Croatia, and reached the shores of the Adriatic Sea. By 1245, all of Greater Armenia and Cilicia were under Mongol lordship. However, thanks to Hetum’s political foresight, the kingdom of Cilicia would continue to prosper for a few more decades.

Hetum realized the danger the Mongols posed to the existence of his kingdom. It also became clear to him that the pope and the Holy Roman emperor might not marshal military aid to the Christian Levant against the Mongols. A perceptive politician, Hetum was most likely aware of the extent of the destruction in the lands of Greater Armenia and of the fact that the remaining na kharars avoided further devastation to their lands by surrendering to the Mongols without a fight. Like the rulers of other Christian states in the Levant, he faced a clear dilemma, each option having potentially catastrophic consequences: present a united front consisting of Franks, Armenians and the powerful Turks against the Mongolian invaders, or declare himself vassal of the khan. Hetum concluded that only an alliance could stem the Mongols advance. It was certainly an audacious move to make common cause with the Mongols, who were known for their appalling acts of dev astation. Yet, many of the Mongol princes had shown themselves to be well disposed toward the Christians and saw the Muslim Seljuks and Mamluks as their common enemy.

When the Seljuk army was completely routed by the Mongols, Georgian and Armenian troops fought alongside the Mongol army. Most of Anatolia was overrun. Meanwhile, the sul-tan’s wife and daughter had sought refuge at Sis. Realizing that the Mongols were a greater threat to the security of his country than the Seljuks, Hetum felt he had no choice but to betray the hospitality he had granted to the sultan’s family. With the help of Armenian nobles, the sul-tan invaded Cilicia, but only succeeded in seizing a few forts.45

In a shrewd political move, Hetum recognized that he could obtain protection from the Mongols. As we shall see, his kingdom would certainly need it to survive against the Mamluk onslaught. In 1247, he decided to send his elder brother, Constable Sembat (his commander-in


of relative security to the Kingdom of Cilicia for almost a half century, it also provoked many Mamluk invasions of Cilician Armenia. The Armenians would be punished for their collusion with the Franks but, most of all, for the assistance they provided the Mongols during the period of the Mamluk-Il-Khanid wars.

Emergence of the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt

At this point it might be instructive to devote some time to the emergence of the Mamluk power in Egypt, which would prove to be the nemesis of the two remaining Christian states in the Levant, the kingdoms of Cilicia and Cyprus. But first, it is important to sketch out a number of develop ments in Islam since the time of the Abbassids.

Shortly after the Prophet Muhammed’s death in 632, the first dynasty of hereditary caliphs, the Umayyads, was centered in Damascus, where the first Islamic state was born. When they were overthrown by the Abbassids in 749-750 during a palace revolution, the transfer of power repre sented a major shift in the axis of the Islamic civilization. In addition to establishing their capital in Baghdad, the Abbassids drew on the administrative talents of Iran. This caliphate is remembered as the first true Islamic empire. It adopted many Persian intellectual and ceremo-nial traditions.

By the late eighth century, the caliphate extended its borders toward the Caspian and Aral seas, into the steppes that had been settled by the Turks a century earlier. From the early ninth century, the Turks began to play an increasingly important role, first as nomads in search of fresh pastures and later as mercenaries in the Abbassid military organization. These included sol diers of fortune, such as the Seljuk Turks, but also slaves, known as Mamluks. Many were enslaved following military actions by rival Turkish tribes. In some cases these boys had been sold by their families in order to give them a military career. A Mamluk began as a pagan or infidel, as Muslims could not be enslaved. Once converted to Islam, he would gain his emanci-pation or manumission. The sons of Turks, generally highly regarded by the caliphate for their military prowess, provided the largest number of Mamluk slaves.

During the initial phase of training, young recruits would be given religious instruction, but they were also trained in the military skills necessary to become members of an elite force, typi cally the cavalry because of the heavy reliance on horse archers in the Mamluk armies. The horse archer would rely on a short recurved bow, made from layers of horn, sinew, and wood. This type of bow, superior to the English long bow in range, accuracy, and force of penetration, required considerable upper body strength. But beyond that, Mamluk soldiers were members of the ex tended family of their master. Many would be taught literary and administrative skills. They formed a military caste, which was not based on a hereditary principle or blood ties for promotion, but on the Mamluk’s skills and the bond he developed with his master.

By the mid-ninth century, the Abbassid caliphate was fragmented into several dissident groups. One of these, the Fatimids, who were very much in the tradition of the Shi’tes, traced their ances try back to Ali, the prophet’s cousin, and his wife, Fatima, Muhammed’s only daughter.

Sembat returned home with the khan’s pledge that the Mongols would protect the Armenian kingdom from Mamluk attacks. He also brought an invitation from the Mongol emperor to King Hetum to visit Karakorum. But Hetum’s visit to Mongolia was delayed by Queen Zabel’s sud-den death in January 1252. Her passing caused grief for the king and their children as well as conster nation for the entire Armenian nation. Described by her contemporaries as a pious and charitable woman, Zabel was instrumental in building a church and a hospital, where she fre-quently tended to the sick. Also a patron of the arts, she gave generously to scholars. She was the mother of three sons, one who died in childhood, and Levon and Thoros, the latter dying in a battle against the Mamluks. She also had two daughters, Euphemia and Sybil; the latter mar-ried Bohemond VI of Antioch.

In 1253, Hetum set out for Karakorum to visit Mongha Khan. Undertaking such a voyage, which meant a two-year absence from his kingdom, must have been truly extraordinary for a sov ereign, though he could not have left the defense of his lands in the hands of anyone more capable than his brother Sembat. To some it must have seemed a strange proceeding for a Christian king to leave his court and to act as his own ambassador to a “barbarian” dwelling in the steppes of Central Asia. Traveling in disguise through Turkish Anatolia, he then crossed into Russia, where he was received by the Mongol general who had defeated the Seljuk Turks a decade earlier, who now escorted him as far as Greater Armenia. Here Hetum linked up with princes in Greater Armenia and, after passing north of the Caspian Sea, he arrived at Mongha’s court, where he stayed for only fifteen days. Mongha received Hetum honorably and gave him many gifts. After urging him to convert to Christianity and to baptize his people, the king also petitioned him to build Christian churches in all Mongol lands and to free Armenians from taxes. After he heard the king’s peti tion, according to the historian Hayton of Gorigos, Hetum’s nephew, Mongha Khan spoke:

We do reply, King of Armenia, that we will grant all your prayers. And, we, in the first place, Who are the Lord by the grace of God, will be baptized and accept your faith, our Lord Jesus Christ. I will have all those of my house baptized, and believe in the Christian faith. But I will not force anyone, for faith and belief do not require force. To your second request, we reply that we wish perpetual peace and friendship, we and our people, with the Christians. To the Christian churches and to the clergy of whatever sort, religious or secular, we will give the freedom, and will not suffer that anyone might be molested. As to the matter of the Holy land, we would say that we would willingly in our own person undertake the conquest of the Holy Land… But inasmuch as we have other business, we must give commandment to our proud Hulagu Khan and he will accomplish this task and deliver Holy Jerusalem from the hands of the infidels, and return it to the Christians.

46

On his way back to Cilicia, Hetum passed through Greater Armenia. As the first king of Cilician Armenia to come into direct contact with the population of the mother country, Hetum was warmly welcomed by many Armenian princes, bishops, and abbots. He also met Mongha’s brother, Hulagu, the khan (governor) of Persia. Hulagu was married to a Nestorian Christian and remained a faithful protector of the Armenians until his death. Hetum was back in Sis by the end of 1255. It would appear that Hetum’s secret wish was not only to protect his kingdom, but also to enlist Hulagu’s help in launching his own version of a crusade in order to liberate the Holy Land. While the “Armenian-Mongol alliance” is celebrated by some Armenian histori-ans (Mutafian’ Le Royaume armenién de Cilicie) as Hetum’s “stroke of genius,” providing a sense


During the 1250s, the Bahri rule was beset by factional strife and Baybars was forced into exile. The rival parties soon reunited in the face of a new force appearing in the Middle East. Within ten years, the Mongol onslaught would help to establish the Bahri Mamluks as the defenders of Islam against the newcomers and their allies, the Armenians and the Georgians.

Mongol-Armenian Military Campaigns

Following their conquests, the Mongols carried out a census of their empire, including the Caucasian lands. In 1256, the Mongol Il-Khanid state was established in Iran and was granted to Hulagu, Mongha Khan’s brother. One immediate consequence for Armenia and Georgia was that the nakharars would be obliged to provide several thousand troops and to participate in all mili tary campaigns conducted by Hulagu.

Between 1256 and 1260, Hulagu conquered the territories of Iran and Mesopotamia, after first defeating the Assassins at Alamut. The hostility toward the Assassins was presumably due to the report that they had sent envoys to the courts of France and England in an attempt to arrange a joint Christian and Muslim defense against the Mongols. The Seljuk sultan of Anatolia also submit ted to the Mongols.

Hulagu’s invasion force numbered over 100,000 men and included Georgians and Armenians, with the Armenian contingent being the second largest, outnumbered only by the Mongols. The presence of such large numbers of Christian troops in Hulagu’s army raised the hopes of the na tive Christians in Syria that the Mongols would soon end the Muslim domina-tion. In 1258, Baghdad became the next target. The center of the Muslim faithful was taken after a five-day siege. The last Abbassid caliph was put to death, after he revealed to Hulagu the hiding place where he had stored his treasure. Only the Christians, who had taken refuge in their churches, were saved at the request of Hulagu’s wife, who appears to have been a deeply religious Nestorian Christian.47

While the news of the fall of Baghdad threatened the whole Muslim world, the Christian com munities throughout the Near East rejoiced. Hulagu was hailed as the new Constantine. To most Christians, it must have seemed that the death knell had finally sounded for Islam, particu-larly since many Mongol rulers, who were Christians themselves, favored the local Christians. With the Abbassid caliphate in Baghdad now gone, the Muslim world appeared to be up for grabs for any ambitious and determined Muslim leader. Hulagu set his sights on Syria. After he took Aleppo, the ancient city of Antioch would have been next, but it was saved by Prince Bohemond VI, who hurried to pay homage to Hulagu, most likely under the wise counsel of his father-in-law Hetum. Hetum was rewarded by Hulagu with some of the spoils and was able to recover the Cilician forts he had lost to the Seljuks earlier in his reign.

On March 1, 1260, the Christian-Mongol army entered Damascus. The citizens of that ancient capital of the caliphate saw, for the first time, a Mongol, Hulagu, and two Christian rulers, King Hetum and Prince Bohemond, ride in triumph through their streets. With Syria now secure, the combined forces soon turned south, ready to invade Egypt, where the Mamluk sultan resided.

After rallying Berber forces in North Africa, the Fatimids achieved their dramatic success when they occupied Cairo and took over Egypt. Mecca and Medina fell, and Baghdad, the seat of the caliphate, followed soon after. From that point on, the Sunni Abbassid caliphate in Baghdad faced a very challenging opponent. Within a few years, the Fatimids ruled as a Shi’te caliphate in Egypt. The two Islamic powers in the Middle East soon reached a stalemate, which was even-tually broken by the arrival of the Seljuk Turks who swept through the Near East and quickly restored the power of the Abbassid caliphate. With the Seljuk also came the decisive attack on the Byzantine Empire, ushering in the period of the crusades.

Just prior to the First Crusade, Fatimid power in Egypt was revived under the rule of the vizir Al-Jamali, a Muslim Armenian. His co-nationals, now a major force in his army, were so numer-ous that they had Armenian churches built in Cairo for their families, the sign of an enlightened ruler. The Armenian soldiers consisted primarily of mounted archers and, during the rule of this vizir, there was a reduction in the number of Turks in the Egyptian forces.

Al-Jamali’s rule continued with his son Al-Afdal, who was the vizir at the time of the fall of Jerusalem to Christian forces in July 1099. The crusaders were aware that the Egyptians had re-conquered the Holy City from the Turks the year before. The Egyptians must have been quite surprised when the Muslim Armenian vizir’s offer to allow access to small groups of crusaders into Jerusalem was rejected. The Egyptian army appears to have been caught by surprise by the appearance of the crusaders and was crushed when it tried to retake the fort of Ascalon, the port closest to Egypt.

As was the case of the Abbassids in Baghdad, the army of Fatimids of Egypt was a compos-ite force, which included a very large Mamluk component. Al-Afdal’s long reign of peace with the new crusader kingdom of Jerusalem ended when he was assassinated in 1121. Armenian troops, however, continued to play a significant role in the Fatimid armies of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, with several vizirs selected from the officers’ ranks. Their primary responsibil-ity appears to have been the defense of Egypt against the Seljuks.

Prior to the Third Crusade, Saladin deposed the Fatimids, bringing Egypt into the fold of Sunni Islam, and replaced them with his own clan, the Ayyubids. His armies also employed a large number of Mamluks. While defending his hard-won Palestinian territory against the forces of Richard the Lion-Hearted during the Third Crusade, Saladin relied heavily on both Mamluk and Kurdish forces.

The Mamluks in the Egyptian army would eventually become the dominant element under the rule of one of Saladin’s sons, Najam ad-Din, who reigned from 1240 to 1249. One of the Mamluk regiments at the time of the Seventh Crusade became famous for driving back King Louis of France and his troops in Mansura, on the way from Damietta to Cairo. The French army was forced to surrender, while the king and the bulk of his troops were held captive until an enormous ransom could be arranged. Though a pious and inspirational figure, King Louis appears to have lacked the military leadership needed. The sultan’s young son, Turanshah (Saladin’s grandson), was no more effective as a military leader. He arrived in Egypt and began to appoint his own Mamluks to positions of power. Another group of Mamluks, the Bahri, led by Baybars, eventually succeeded in killing Turanshah.


reached by the eminent historian Canard, who wrote that the Mamluks were bound to do the Armenians the greatest possible ill, and to take away their independence, as they eventually did in 1375. For their part, the Armenians were to fight through more than a century against their ‘implacable enemy’.48

Hetum’s territorial gains during the initial phase of the Mongol-Mamluk War only served to focus the Mamluks’ military energy against his kingdom. Some of the attacks against Cilicia, while inspired by the Mamluk masters, were carried out by vassal emirs in Syria. Hetum’s retali-atory raids into northern Syria further strengthened Baybars’ resolve, but he bided his time by dealing with the Armenian incursions.

In 1265, Hetum managed to deter the Egyptian sultan from attacking Cilicia after gather-ing his forces near the Syrian Gates. As a rare example of the Armenians’ ability to defend their frontier, this incident sheds light on the composition of the Armenian army during Hetum’s reign. Once the crisis passed, the king’s troops headed back to their villages, while those who had responded to the levy also headed home. From this, we can deduce that the army was made up of contingents from the different communities scattered across the lands of Cilicia, which were expected to fulfill their military obligations. It would appear that a number of mili-tary contingents were commanded by barons. Hetum’s army, which had blocked the Mamluk advance in 1265, consisted of both royal and baronial forces. Unfortunately, the total number of Armenian forces is not available because Armenian chroniclers usually give only the noblemen and the number of mounted troops and no specific figures for the foot-soldiers, archers, and mercenaries.

In addition to the regular troops, the Armenians, who had a reputation as experts in siege war fare and military architecture, had very capable engineers. Their knowledge was invaluable in the construction and repair of the many strongholds in the rocky outcrops that encircled the Cilician plain. The Armenian field armies, able to muster no more than five thousand soldiers with a core of five hundred highly trained mounted knights, were clearly outnumbered by the Mamluk forces in the second part of the thirteenth century. But the great number of fortifi-cations built on rug ged terrain was an important factor in the kingdom’s ability to retain its independence until 1375, which would prove to be a mixed blessing for Armenian rulers. Some barons could rebel with virtual impunity, knowing that their remote strongholds would keep them safe from the reach of the king. Already evident during King Levon I’s reign, the problem of unruly barons would reach a critical level in the fourteenth century.

Baybars’ opportunity for revenge against the Christians came when Hulagu, Hetum’s protec-tor, died in 1266. In the summer of that year, Baybars appeared outside the walls of Acre with a large and well-armed force. From spies in the city, the sultan received disappointing news. He learned that the garrison had been reinforced recently and was not likely to surrender on any terms. By means of a ruse that had worked well in the past, he outfitted thousands of troops to resemble a crusader army. His troops rode through the orchards around Acre, killing Christians in the nearby villages and destroying everything in their path. But they could not take Acre because the guards in the watchtowers had seen them coming and, realizing that they were Muslims in disguise, had sounded the alarm. Baybars withdrew from Acre and captured a castle

Hulagu sent an emissary to Egypt to demand the sultan’s submission. The sultan, Qutuz, replied by assassinating the ambassador and made preparations to meet the Mongols in Palestine. At this juncture word reached Hulagu that the Mongha Khan had been killed while on a military campaign in China. He realized that, in order to preserve his succession, he needed to return immediately to his homeland. He marched the bulk of his army to Karakorum, leaving a much smaller force with his deputy Kitbuga. Despite Hetum’s appeal to the Frankish principalities to join the campaign, the crusader states decided to adopt a policy of neutrality in the war between the Muslims and the Mongols. In fact, the garrisons in Acre and Sidon not only refused to join, but they allowed the Mamluk Egyptian army to pass through their territory.

Having learned of the dramatic reduction in the size of the Mongol army, Sultan Qutuz seized the opportunity. With the sultan in command and his emir Baybars leading the vanguard, the Mamluks headed north into Palestine. In one of the most decisive, but largely forgotten bat-tles in medieval history, the two armies met at Ain Jalut, the Pools of Goliath. But the Mamluks had the larger army and they knew the terrain well. Qutuz resolved to maximize these advan-tages. On September 3, 1260, he laid an ambush with the greater part of his army while Baybars, leading a small detachment, retreated. The move was a stunning success. Failing to notice that the ground was perfect for an ambush, the Mongols rushed headlong toward Qutuz’s men. Suddenly, in their wild pursuit, they reached the place where the main part of the Mamluk army was waiting. The Mamluks gained a significant advantage by positioning themselves on high ground, with the sun rising behind them. The Mongol army, which included Georgian and Armenian troops, broke ranks and tried desperately to fight its way to safety but was cut down by Baybars. The leader of the Mongol forces was taken prisoner and brought before the sultan, who had him beheaded. Hetum and Bohemond managed to return to their lands.

At this biblical location of Palestine, Islam was saved from the most dangerous threat it had faced until then. Had the Mongols been victorious, there would have been no Muslim state worthy of the name. The victory at Ain Jalut, however, gave the Mamluk sultanate of Egypt supremacy in the Near East until the rise of Ottoman power. It also sealed the fate of Outremer, as the Muslim powers in the region would be very eager to finish off the enemies of their faith.

A week after the battle, Qutuz entered Damascus and, within a month, he recovered Aleppo. He then set out on his triumphant return to Egypt. But he grew suspicious of his brilliant lieu-tenant, Baybars, who demanded the governorship of Aleppo. Qutuz refused to give it up. He had underestimated Baybar’s penchant for treachery. A few days later, the sultan was stabbed to death while hunting. With the blood of two sultans on Baybar’s hands, no one would dare to question his intention to succeed. And it was as a sultan that he returned to Cairo. A cruel man, with no pity or remorse, he would be recognized as the founder of the Mamluk state. Baybars (1260 1277) proved to be a ferocious and hyper-energetic man, spending most of his time in the saddle or in military camps. Perceived as a leader of a jihad against Mongols, crusaders, and Armenians, Baybars was able to legitimize his rule. Even during the short periods of rela-tive quiet in the Mamluk-Mongol War that was to rage for at least fifty years, he would provoke conflict among the Turks in Anatolia, the crusader states, and the Armenians. Beyond the osten-sible need for jihad, he most likely harbored a strong motive for revenge. This is the conclusion


as much as any other period of Armenian history, Hetum’s kingdom was also characterized by a flowering of the arts.

Manuscript schools or scriptoria associated with Hetum’s family produced very innovative manuscripts. The recently established order of the Franciscans, who had been sent by the pope to convert the Mongols, opened new contacts with the West. In addition, manuscripts given by King Louis IX of France to Franciscan friar William of Rubruck, in the French Gothic style, are likely to have had a significant influence on Thoros Roslin, the greatest of the Armenian painters of the period. His non-Armenian surname suggests that his father may have been from the Scotland. It was in Hromgla, where Catholicos Constantine resided, that Thoros created rich illuminations. Most of his work was commissioned by either the royal family or the catholicos. By fusing the new foreign sources of inspiration with Armenian images, Thoros did not simply copy, but cre-ated original designs. Seven manuscripts signed by him and three attributed to him survive. His work ended soon after the Mamluk raid on Cilicia in 1266. His last work was produced for baron Vasak, the king’s nephew. It is thought to have been ordered to celebrate the return of the baron from Egypt where he had been sent to ransom the heir to the throne, Prince Levon II.

His older brother, Constable Sembat, advisor and supporter, is also a remark able figure. He wrote the most judicious survey that we have of the kingdom of Cilicia’s troubled events. He also translated the Assizes of Antioch and thoroughly revised the Armenian Law Book of Mkhitar Gosh, writing the text in the Cilician vernacular, thereby facilitating the implementation of the law by lay justices.

In the diplomatic sphere, Hetum’s remarkable intelligence is perhaps best summarized by René Grousset: “History ought to salute him as one of the most lucid, one of the most powerful political geniuses of the Middle Ages.”50

Levon II (1269–1289): Another Great Monarch

King Levon II was crowned after mourning the death of his father for three months. Endowed with many outstanding qualities, he was described as “a pious, charitable, and intelligent ruler” and a sup porter of scholars. The Bible and other important works of earlier Armenian writers and translators were copied under his auspices. Levon and his wife, Queen Ker-Anne, are im-mortalized in Armenian iconography in the form of miniatures found in several manuscripts they commissioned. Two por traits of him by Thoros Roslin survive. The artist mentions Levon by name in the colophon to the Jerusalem Manuscript 2660 and describes him as resembling his father Hetum in behavior, adding that he hated injustice and loved truth. Some sources men-tion that he was a very skilled horseman and brave warrior, as well. At the time of Levon’s ascen-sion to the throne of Cilicia, the country was surrounded by Muslim states and it was in ruin. During a short reprieve, Levon attempted to pursue a policy of reconstruction, trying to rebuild his army and to restore the country, which had been destroyed by the Mamluk invaders. He re-newed the privileges granted to the Venetians and rebuilt Ayas which, once again, became an active commercial center.

overlooking the Sea of Galilee. Reneging on his promise to allow the garrison to go free, he had all the occupants beheaded as they marched out.

At the news of Hulagu’s death, Hetum attempted to negotiate a truce, hoping to use timber from the southern Taurus forest as a bargaining tool since timber was needed by the Mamluks for shipbuilding. But the sultan was determined to wage war. After failing to bargain with him, and knowing that more Mamluk attacks were forthcoming, the Armenian king hurried to seek Mongol help from Abaga, Hulagu’s son at Tabriz. But he could not obtain assistance from the new khan who was focused on his own conflict with the Golden Horde, the Mongol Muslim Khanate to the north.

In Hetum’s absence, the storm burst on Cilicia. The Armenian army, led by his sons Levon and Thoros, assumed a defensive position by the Syrian Gates, with the Templars at Baghras guard-ing the flanks. Clearly outnumbered, the Armenians were no match for the Mamluks. Thoros was slain and Prince Levon taken prisoner, as was the son of Constable Sembat. By all accounts, Levon and his cousin were treated well. In 1266, in memory of the slain Thoros, a chapel, most likely commissioned by his father, was built in the Armenian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. Also from Hetum’s period is a massive, two-paneled door of olive wood at the western entrance of the Church of the Holy Nativity in Bethlehem. While the door is in poor condition, we can still admire its intricately carved designs of a khatchkar, the Armenian stone cross.49

In their attempt to halt the Mamluk advance, Hetum’s forces had been swept aside. The Mamluks sacked the coastal cities of Cilicia. On its way to Sis, the Egyptian army destroyed sev-eral fortresses. The capital of Cilicia was sacked, but the citadel did not fall. The cathedral was burned down and thousands were slaughtered. In the meantime, Qalaoun, one of the Egyptian emirs who would become sultan, and his Mamluks sacked Ayas, Adana, and Tarsus. By the end of September, the victors retired to Aleppo with nearly 40,000 captives and plenty of booty.

In 1268, it was time to take Antioch, which had been in Christian hands for more than 170 years. A Mamluk army was under the personal command of Baybars, who ordered the assault and massacre of the population. The immense quantity of booty was distributed among the sultan, the emirs, the troops, and those who had volunteered to engage in the jihad.

Distraught over the terrible military blow his kingdom was dealt and the death of one of his sons, and with the Mamluk threat gaining momentum, Hetum negotiated the release of the one son who was still captive in Egypt. His son Levon had been allowed to make a pil-grimage to Jerusalem while still in captivity. His release could only be achieved by accepting very harsh conditions and by ceding a series of fortresses along the Syrian border. Levon even-tually gained his freedom after Hetum agreed to release the sultan’s favorite friend, the Red Falcon, who had been captured by the Mongols and given to Hetum. Once the conditions were met, the king abdicated in favor of his son and retired to a monastery, where he died a year later, in 1270.

Hetum proved to be one of the most brilliant figures in Armenian history. His long reign is par alleled by the long catholicosate of Constantine I (1221–1268), who was a strong supporter of the Hetumians. Constantine even stood as godfather at the baptism of Hetum’s heir, Levon. This is a pe riod of extraordinary activity in many cultural domains. Although marked by warfare


of attacking the Muslim fortresses along the Euphrates, while the other, led by the brother of the Mongol khan, would be the main assault force. Accompanied by the Armenians, this force now marched into Syria, where a small group of Hospitallers joined them. The two armies met on October 30, 1281, near Homs. When he was wounded in the course of the battle, the Mongol leader ordered a retreat. Levon and his troops found themselves isolated and suffered heavy losses. The allied forces of Mongols and Christians suffered a crushing defeat.

Sultan Qalahun was determined to punish the Armenians for their alliance with the Mongols at the battle of Homs. An expedition sacked Ayas again in 1283. In the face of these repeated raids on his kingdom, Levon was forced to seek a truce with the Mamluk sultan. Initially, ambas-sadors sent by the Armenians to the sultan were imprisoned until Levon sent as ambassador the Grand Master of the Templars to plead clemency toward the king. The conditions of the truce, which was to last ten years, ten months, ten days, and ten hours, were heavy. Among the terms of this treaty, imposed on the Armenians, were the following:1) payment of a million sil-ver dirhams;2) release of all imprisoned Muslim merchants, and compensation for their losses; 3) surrendering fugitives and granting Muslims full freedom to trade and purchase slaves, what-ever their nationality or religion. For his part, the sultan agreed to release Levon’s ambassadors, Armenian merchants, and their goods. The treaty placed much emphasis on mercantile rela-tions, with clauses concerning the se curing of trade, especially with regard to the raw material for the sultan’s army, slaves, and horses. Levon also pledged not to conspire in further invasions of the sultanate. The treaty with the sultan enabled Levon, who settled in Tarsus, to carry on the restoration and rebuilding of his destroyed country. Foreign vessels could again be seen in the port of Ayas, and commerce was revived.

Upon his death in February 1289 at the age of fifty three, Levon was survived by nine of the eleven children he had by Queen Ker-Anne. The sons listed, in order of birth, were Hetum, Thoros, Sembat, Constantine, Nerses, Oshin and Alinah.

Levon was esteemed and loved by his people. Stories of his captivity by Baybars, when Levon was just a young prince, would be written into ballads. The duel between the prince and Baybars during equestrian festivities held by the sultan was celebrated in song. In a manner reminiscent of other members of the royal family, in a portrait by Roslin, the young Prince Levon wears a halo. According Professor Chookaszian this was not the only time in Armenian iconog-raphy that Armenian royalty had been depicted as saints. On the island of Aghtamar, King Gagik Artzruni of Vaspurakan was also represented with a halo around his head.

While it was the object of frequent attacks during King Levon’s reign, Cilicia was still quite prosperous. The city of Ayas saw its fortunes increase after the fall of Antioch in 1268 at the hands of the Muslims. It played a very significant role in that it allowed the penetration of Christian merchants into Asia Minor and Central Asia. From Ayas a road led north to the Black Sea coast and also to Tabriz in Persia, and from there to India and China. Marco Polo, before undertaking his journey to Cathay (China), was in Cilicia. In his Milione (Travels), after making a distinction between Greater and Lesser Armenia (Cilicia), he dedicates a few lines to the latter: “The king of Lesser Armenia dwells in a city called Sebastoz, and rules his dominions with strict regard to justice. The towns, fortified places, and castles are numerous.”

It was early in Levon’s reign, in 1271, that Marco Polo passed through Cilicia. The Venetian described with amazement the bustling port of Ayas. But the city, so important to the economic prosperity of the Armenian kingdom, continued to be a desirable target for the Mamluks of Egypt.

Baybars invaded Cilicia again in 1275, rapidly advancing as far as Gorigos. Arab sources note, as justification for this attack, Levon’s failure to pay the required tribute, attacks on caravans, and the rebuilding of fortresses, all of which were against the terms of the truce, it is more likely that Baybars attacked to neutralize the Cilician Kingdom before dealing with the Mongols. Ensconced safely in a fortress, Levon abandoned the kingdom without offering resistance. Tarsus was taken, the royal palace and the church of Santa Sophia were burned, and most of the civilian population was either killed or taken captive to Egypt. Ayas was set on fire, the ware-houses were looted, and the population fled to a new fortress built on an island facing the port.

The Muslim invasion is described in the following graphic account by the Arab historian al- Makrizi. The Egyptians had brought dismantled boat with them to cross rivers. The sultan, at the head of his troops, had rejoined his two emirs. He sacked the capital Sis, also demolishing the Takavor’s (King’s) palace and the king’s gardens. Other troops were sent to the sea coast where they seized many vessels, after slaying the ships crews. Finding Ayas undefended, they burned much of it to the ground. Up to two thousands Armenians and Franks that had taken refuge in that city were drowned. The quantity of plunder, as described by al-Makrizi, was incalculable.51

Not yet completely defeated, Cilicia’s struggle against the enemy continued. In 1276, there were other invasions, mainly by Turkomen. This time, the Armenians successfully repulsed the at tacks, although the venerable Constable (he was sixty-eight-years old) lost his life in battle when his horse bolted and crushed him against a tree.

In 1277, while launching a new expedition, Baybars died (apparently poisoned, although some Armenian sources claim he died from a wound received from an Armenian archer). He had proven to be the greatest enemy of the Christians since Saladin. Unfortunately, he did not have many of the qualities that the crusaders had admired in Saladin. Outlasting most of the Latin states, the kingdom of Cilician Armenia would struggle after Baybars’s death. But the period of glory for the small kingdom was clearly over.

The struggle for power among Mamluk leaders that followed Baybars’ death gave the embat-tled Christian kingdom a temporary respite. King Levon and the new Mongol Abaka Khan sent embassies to the pope and to King Edward of England, asking them to organize a new crusade. It soon became evident that the West was in no position to respond to Levon’s request.

In 1281, the Hospitallers, the Templars, and the Count of Tripoli, Bohemond VII, signed a ten-year peace treaty with Egypt. In the same year, the Mongols planned an attack on the Mamluks and the help of the Franks was sought once again. The Mongols promised to send 100,000 troops to Syria, but even this promise did not encourage the Franks to offer their assistance. By contrast, the Armenians longed to throw in their lot with the Mongols once more. The com-bined force, though smaller than originally anticipated, still created significant problems for Sultan Qalahun’s Mamluks. The whole army numbered 80,000, including 30,000 Armenians and Georgians under King Levon. The Mongol force was divided into two. One was given the task


During the thirteenth century, this small Christian kingdom, surrounded by an ocean of Muslim powers, dominated the eastern Mediterranean. Goods and people originating in Cilicia flowed into Genoa, Venice, Messina, and other Italian ports. The flow was not limited to commercial and mercantile exchanges, as attested by the Armenian cultural and religious presence, particu-larly in Venice, but also in other Italian cities. Further evidence of the communication between Cilicia and Italy, which remained alive during the succeeding period, is to be found in the many manuscripts and other documents in the Vatican Library. Even after the disappearance of the kingdom of Cilicia, the cultural and religious rapport with Italy, as well as with other European countries, would con tinue to flourish.

The Sicilian Vespers

During the decade following the defeat of the Mongol-Armenian allied forces at Ain Jalut in 1260, the Mamluks had their eyes fixed on the lands of Outremer, their ultimate aim being the destruc tion of the crusader states and the kingdom of Cilicia. Baybars set out on a system-atic policy of taking the remaining Frankish fortresses and ports. He may have been motivated more by strate gic thinking than by religious belief, and the fear of a continuing alliance among the Mongols, the Franks, and the Armenians, or worse still, a large crusade from the West. Those states might have been saved, perhaps only temporarily, if the Christian nations in Europe had put aside their own preoccupations and marched to the defense of their beleaguered Christian brothers in the East, but they failed to do so.

In order to gain a better understanding of the reasons for the lack of a unified European response, we need to move our focus halfway across the Mediterranean. In 1270, King Louis IX, during his second Crusade, was hoping to convert the emir of Tunis before going on to fight Baybars. His brother, Charles I of Sicily, also began to develop an interest in the Levant. After he defeated Manfred and Conradin, the last two descendants of Emperor Frederick II, Charles suc-ceeded in disposing of, once and for all, the imperial house of Hohenstaufen. The leadership of Europe passed to France. Now master of Provence and much of Italy and the most powerful ruler in Europe, Charles was close to realizing his dream of marching to Constantinople in order to found a great Mediterranean empire.

He quickly proceeded to make Naples the capital of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, estab lished a bureaucracy run by French nobles, monks, and priests, and ruled with scorn as an absolute ruler. He was preparing himself to lead his fleet, now in Messina, to a conquest of Constantinople, when on Easter Monday 1282 the Sicilians unleashed their hatred. The Byzantine emperor Michael VIII Paleologus, would be saved by the people of the Sicilian capi-tal of Palermo. On that fateful eve of Easter Sunday, a French soldier had offended a young married woman with his insolent atten tion. It was more than her husband could tolerate. He drew his knife and killed the Frenchman. The murder was followed by a riot, and the riot led to the slaughter of more than two thousand Frenchmen, a massacre known as the “Sicilian Vespers.” The revolt quickly spread to Messina, where the French fleet, which was being

16. Marco Polo in Cilicia (1271). In his Travels (Italian Milione) Polo speaks of a king [Levon II] who maintains justice in his lands and is a vassal of the Tartar (Mongol). (Courtesy of Mutafian)


C H A P T E R 6

H e t u m I I ( 1 2 8 9 – 1 2 9 3 ) : A K i n g B e c o m e s a F r a n c i s c a n M o n k

In the last decade of the thirteenth century, the prospect for survival of the remaining Christian lands was becoming bleaker. The Mamluks were close to accomplishing their goal of eliminat-ing all the Christian territories in the Middle East. Edessa had fallen in 1146, Jerusalem in 1187, Antioch in 1268, and Tripoli in 1289. Only the city of Acre was left on the coast. Before his death, the sultan had begun seriously to plan a siege of this Christian stronghold. It was the first major campaign of his son and successor, al-Ashraf Kalil, who presented himself in a letter to the mas-ter of the Templars as “Sultan of Sultans, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Malik al-Ashraf the Mighty, the redoubtable, the chastiser of the Franks and of the Tatars and of the Armenians.”

53 While

it lasted only three years, al-Ashraf’s rule proved that the Mamluks were returning to a more aggressive policy.

It was at this critical time that Hetum, Levon’s eldest son, ascended the throne, inheriting a kingdom which was in desperate economic, political, and military straits. His reign opens a period in the history of Cilician Armenia during which strong and imaginative leadership was sorely lack ing. A vacillating personality, the Armenian king appeared to prefer a life more suited to the monastic ideals. He built a monastery in Mamistra where he frequently sought solitude. It is important to note that, at this time, the Franciscans had two other monasteries in Cilicia: in Tarsus and in Sis.

Hetum’s unabashed preference for the Roman Church quickly brought him into conflict with many high-ranking members of the Armenian clergy. During a synod in Sis in 1289, he de posed Catholicos Constantine II for being opposed to the degree of conformity urged by Pope Nicholas IV. He brought, as successor to the deposed catholicos, Stepan, who was abducted by the Mamluks three years later during the fall of Hromkla.

Aware of the Mongol’s weak response to the growing threat posed by the Egyptian Mamluks, Hetum had sent a letter to Pope Nicholas IV, carried by one of the most brilliant Franciscans of the time, John of Monte Corvino. The pope (himself a Franciscan) sent his reply with the Franciscan, who passed through Cilicia on his way to see Kublai Khan in China. He transmitted

readied for an assault on Constantinople, was destroyed. Pope Martin IV excommunicated the rebels.

The war of the Sicilian Vespers, which was to continue well into the next century, was to have a major impact on the states in Outremer. Pope Martin proclaimed a crusade against the kings of Aragon who had accepted the invitation by the Sicilians to govern their island. The papacy was financially ruined in its attempt to restore the Anjou kings in Sicily. Most European countries de clared themselves for either the Aragonese or the French. In Constantinople, the emperor, who may have provided financial backing to the rioters, could sigh with relief. The Mamluks, as well, would have reacted with relief at the news of the collapse of Charles’ dream of a crusade to the East. Both Baybars and Qalahun had feared the French king’s intervention in the affairs of the Middle East. Now, there was no one coming from the West who might be able to restrain the Mamluk sultan.

It was the Mongols who sounded the alarm. In 1287, the Mongol Il-Khan of Persia, Hulagu’s grandson Argun, sent a Christian ambassador to the west. After first visiting Constantinople, he journeyed to Naples, Genoa, Paris and Bordeaux, where King Edward I of England was residing. In Rome, he received Holy Communion from the new pope, Nicholas IV. Everywhere he went, he stressed the urgent need for a crusade to save Outremer, but he was not promised any firm and definite undertaking. Undeterred, Khan Argun then dispatched a Genoese with letters to the pope and to the French and English kings. This time Argun was more explicit and proposed an alliance. If the two kings were prepared to send armies and recover the holy places, he would happily hand them over. But neither the French king nor the pope was contemplating a crusade to the East until the Sicilian question was resolved. His third attempt was no more successful, but he was already dead by the time the news reached the Mongol capital.

This lack of response from the West is particularly surprising coming as it does at a time when a treatise on crusading was published, showing how easy it would be to land a western army in the vicinity of Ayas and, from there, to join the Mongols. By 1289, Argun’s worst fears were con firmed when, two months after the death of Armenian king Levon II, Sultan Qalahun positioned his army beneath the walls of Tripoli. The city was captured after the desertion of its defenders. Had an alliance with the Mongols been achieved, the Mamluks’ power would have been crippled, if not destroyed. As it was, it survived for nearly three centuries, eradicating the remaining Christian states in the Near East, in the process, including the kingdom of Cilicia.

News of the fall of this crusader city prompted Pope Nicholas IV to send money and galleys, and to negotiate with King Edward of England the launch of a passagium, or crusade, to be led by the king. An attack by a large and disorderly force of Italians, who, after arriving at Acre, mas-sacred peaceful Muslim merchants had infuriated Qalahun. He demanded that the murderers be handed over. Not satisfied with the apologies by the Christian authorities, the sultan treated the unprovoked attack on his Muslim subjects as the casus belli, and began to prepare an expe-dition against Syria.

Armenian Cilicia Xii -- XiV Century98 Hetum ii (1289–1293): A King Becomes a Franciscan monk 99

to double the tribute he had been paying. The murder of the sultan in the same year, followed by bloody palace intrigues, a famine, and a plague that spread throughout Egypt and Syria, gave the kingdom a few years of relative peace. Fearing the plague as a sign of divine retri-bution against the Egyptians for attacks on the Christians, the new sultan freed some of the Armenian prisoners and returned the church relics, taken from Hromkla.

A year later, discouraged by the countless difficulties besetting his kingdom, Hetum gave in to his inclination toward a monastic life. Following in the footsteps of his grandfather who had abdicated in 1269, Hetum also abdicated (in favor of his brother Thoros) and became a Franciscan monk. He assumed the name Hovannes (In Italy, Hetum was known as Giovanni de Armenia) and retired to a monastery. His motive for his conver sion to the Catholic faith remains unclear. It might have been based on the need to convince the pope that he was sincere in his intention to unite with the Latin Church.57 However, he did not stray very far from the centre of political power in Sis. And, in fact, Thoros does not appear to have been crowned or to have had coins issued bearing his name. Within two years from the date of Hetum’s abdication, at the urging of Thoros and Armenian nobles, Hetum emerged from his monastic retreat. Otto Von Grandison, a native Swiss who had accompanied Prince Edward on his crusade of 1271, along with several other Cypriot nobles after the fall of Acre, was invited to wit ness the transfer of power back to Hetum. This may have been his way to obtain the pope’s approval for the trans-fer of power from Thoros back to him. He may have been prompted by the dramatic changes taking place in the il-khanate of Persia following the assumption of power by Ghazan, the new Mongol khan. To renew the Armenian-Mongol alliance, Hetum promptly visited the khan of Persia, Ghazan, who reassured him that he would not cease to battle the Mamluks.

Hetum abdicated on at least three occasions. He may have been motivated by a sincere desire to enter the monastic world and by the grief he may have experienced in watching disasters befall his kingdom. His return to the throne may have been brought about by feelings of guilt caused by his awareness of what his royal duties required of him. This internal conflict is likely to underlie his ambivalence between the crown and cloister, which characterized most of his reign.

Hetum cast around for allies. He made urgent appeals to Pope Nicholas IV, King Philip IV of France, and King Edward I of England, which brought only negligible help. But the kingdoms of Aragon and Naples and the Republic of Genoa were now competing with one another to win the favor of the Mamluks and to ratify treaties of commerce with them. To strengthen his ties with Cyprus, he acceded to a request from King Henry II of Cyprus to give his sister Isabelle as wife to Aimery, his brother and lord of Tyre. As already noted, he had tried to revive the Mongol alliance by visiting Ghazan Khan, from whom he received a promise of military as sistance. Unfortunately for the Armenians, Ghazan, who had just come to power in 1295, soon converted to Islam. The story of the kingdom of Cilicia might have had a very different ending had the Mongols not converted to Islam.

Despite his conversion to the Latin rite, Hetum also decided to seek an alliance with the Byzantines. Two of his sisters were engaged to Byzantine princes. While one died during the voy age to join her promised husband, his sister Maria married Michael Paleologos, the future Emperor Michael IX. After his return to Sis after visiting Ghazan, the king traveled to

the pope’s felicitations to Hetum, who had recently been crowned king, for his profession of faith. The pope wrote letters to the other Oriental patriarchs, urging them to protect some Catholic missionaries in their countries (Georgia, Ethiopia, Syria), and inviting them to join the Roman Church. In his personal letter to the king, the pope encouraged him to persevere in his faith. It would appear that Hetum wanted to do more; soon he would also become a Franciscan monk.

End of Outremer

In early 1291, al-Ashraf decided to move against Acre. He assembled forces from both Syria and Egypt, and asked that they first congregate in Damascus. The siege of Acre began in earnest in March 1291. The city, the Latins’ main port on the Levantine coast, was heavily garrisoned. After a hard-fought siege, which lasted eighty days, the city fell. Demoralized, the remaining crusader strongholds on the Levantine coast fell in quick succession. Fearful of crusader resurgence, the sultan ordered the destruction of the conquered cities; he was concerned that a future crusad-ing fleet might establish a bridgehead. The crusader states created by the First Crusade two centuries earlier were thus wiped out, and little trace of them remained. Never again would Europeans rule lands in the eastern Mediterranean. The Muslim perspective was best summa-rized by an Arab historian, who states that, with Palestine now fully in Muslim hands, Syria and all the coastal zone had been ‘purified’ of the Franks, the same people who two centuries earlier had been close “to conquering Egypt and subduing Damascus. Praise God!”

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In the spring of the following year, the Egyptian sultan led an army against the fortified see of the catholicos at Hromkla on the Euphrates. Hetum attempted to assist the defenders of the fortress. To confound the Mamluks, he had his cavalry dress as Mongols, hoping to exploit their fearsome reputation. The tactic failed. After an intensive bombardment by a large number of siege engines, and the sapping of the foundations, the citadel fell in May. When the city capitu-lated, all the men were put to the sword, women and children were taken into captivity. The catholicos, also taken prisoner, would die in captivity. The Egyptians looted churches and stole precious relics and treasures. Also captured was an important relic, St. Gregory’s right hand. The most senior bishop in Greater Armenia would view the fall of Hromkla as “a form of divine retri-bution for this devia tion from Armenian tradition.”55

Hetum appointed Gregory VII of Anazarba, a partisan of the Latin faction in Cilicia, as catholi-cos. Gregory, known as the “catholic” catholicos, convinced of the virtue of submitting to the Roman Church, transferred the catholicosate to Sis. As a consequence of this act, the Armenian Church in Cilicia lost its independence by becoming closely allied with the temporal power of the monarch, and in doing so, colliding against the religious sensibility of the population at large and the conservative prelacy in Greater Armenia.56

The fall of Hromkla in 1292 must have triggered a deep crisis throughout the kingdom. In 1293, the Mamluk army stationed in Damascus received orders to march on Sis. To ward off the attack, Hetum was forced to cede three key fortresses on the eastern front and pitifully agreed


Pontiff had recommended the king of Armenia to the kings of France and England, explaining to the western rulers that “the kingdom of Armenia was located near the Holy Land and, if the army of Christian faithful was to reach it, as planned, it is with the assistance of the Armenians that they could hope to recover it.”59

On this occasion as well, the Mongol-Armenian victory was short-lived. With Ghazan’s return to his lands, his lieutenants proved unable to consolidate the gains of 1299 at Homs. In July 1300, a delegation sent by Ghazan, Hetum, Henry II of Cyprus, and Jacques de Molay urged the pope to launch an all-out crusade. This decisive offensive war was supposed to be a great alliance between the Mongols and the countries of Europe against the Mamluks, and the pope encour-aged the western rulers to start preparations for a crusade. But the crusade never materialized.

In 1301, a second expedition by the allied Mongol-Armenian force was abandoned because of bad weather. Two years later, a third expedition ended in disaster for the Mongols, with many drowning in the Euphrates. Hetum took refuge at Ghazan’s court. The Egyptians redoubled their attacks against Cilicia in 1302 to punish Hetum for the military assistance given to the Mongols. In a second punitive expedition, they took back all the territory the Armenians had recovered after the ephemeral victory at Homs.

Worse was to come. During the two decades after Ghazan’s death in 1304 (the Mongol leader had by then adopted Islam as the official faith in all of his lands), relations between the Armenian kingdom and the Mongols deteriorated to such a point that the Mongol overlords became openly hostile toward the Christians.

Time for New Crusading Projects

It is in this climate that, during the decades that follow the fall of Acres to the Mamluks, several “recovery treatises” were proposed. By this time, the Karamanids were the most powerful of the Turkish states in Anatolia, while the Ottoman Turks, who would have a “brilliant future” in the following century, were only beginning to assert their power near present-day Ankara. The Seljuk Turks never recovered from their crushing defeat at the hands of the Mongols in 1243. The goal of all these crusading projects circulating in the courts of Europe during the first two decades of the fourteenth century was the recovery of the Holy Land, then in the hands of the Mamluk sultans. What distinguished these projects in their several variants was whether the emphasis was placed on a direct attack on Egypt by a naval blockade, or reaching Syria and then Palestine by land (following in the footsteps of the First Crusade), or by sea. One more variant was also discussed, which would utilize Cilicia and Cyprus to first establish a bridgehead before launching an all-out attack on Egypt.

It was not, however, until the War of the Sicilian Vespers came to a close with the treaty of Caltabellotta (1302) that the realization of any crusading project had any hope of succeed-ing. The revival of the crusading ideal was certainly helped by the flourishing cult of the great crusader-king, St. Louis, who had recently been canonized.

Constantinople accompanied by his brother Thoros. The visit lasted six months. One is left won-dering about the king’s judgment in his decision to take an extended leave at such a critical time. Hetum left his brother Sembat (r. 1296-1298) as deputy governor of Cilicia. Profiting from Hetum’s prolonged absence, with the benediction of Catholicos Gregory, who betrayed his ben-efactor and protec tor, and the collusion on the part of some of the barons, Sembat had himself anointed king of the Armenians. He then went to pay a visit to Ghazan. On his return to Cilicia with his new wife, who was a member of Ghazan’s family, he had his men intercept Hetum and Thoros near Caesarea. He ordered that his brother Thoros be strangled and had Hetum impris-oned and partially blinded with a hot iron.

Now a fourth brother, Constantine, enters the stage. At the news of the killing of Thoros and the maiming of Hetum, Constantine decided to rebel against the usurper. The rebellion was suc-cessful and Sembat was imprisoned. Hetum was freed in 1298. In the same year, the Mamluks, prompted by internal dissension and fratricidal wars in the Armenian kingdom, decided to attack Cilicia and attempted to capture Sis. They sacked the cities of Adana and Mamistra and took sev eral fortresses. Another plot by Sembat, who had convinced the younger Constantine to help him overthrow Hetum, was uncovered. Hetum, who by now had recovered his sight, was restored to his throne. His two brothers were arrested and dispatched to Constantinople, where they died.

The king could still count on the Mongols for help against the Mamluks who invaded Cilicia in 1299. Despite the fact that he had converted to Islam, Ghazan led a combined Armenian and Mongol army against his new co-religionists, the Mamluks. When messengers arrived in Cyprus to warn King Henry of the coming battle, a contingent was hastily put together. Jacques de Molay, the Grand Master of the Templars, was given command of one wing of the Mongol army, while Hetum took command of the Armenian army. According to some sources, the par-ticipated in the en suing battle while donning his Franciscan garb. Altogether, there were more than a hundred thou sands troops: contingents from Cyprus and Georgia, more than fifteen thousand from Armenia, many thousands of Mongols. Ghazan decided that the time had come to rid Syria of the Mamluks. Hetum, who knew the Mongol leader well, accompanied the com-bined army on its march to Homs, halfway between Aleppo and Damascus. The crushing victory against the Mamluks at the “second battle of Homs” gave hope to the Armenians.

For six months the Christians, with the help of the Mongol army, were in effective control of the Holy Land. Cilicia belonged once again to the Armenians; the cities of the seacoast as far south as Gaza and Jerusalem itself belonged to the Christians. At Easter, services were held in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. On that occasion, the Knights Templar and the Hospitallers entered the city in triumph. Jerusalem apparently came under Hetum’s authority. When he first entered the city to commemorate his victory, the Armenian king built an altar in the Church of St. Mary and had an expensively decorated wooden door made for the church. It was perhaps at this time that he gave his scepter as a gift to the Armenian monastery of St. James.58

The news of the victory by the Mongols in 1299, and the false rumor that they were planning to return Jerusalem to Christianity, reaching Europe shortly before Pope Boniface VIII declared the Jubilee for the year 1300, were seen by the West as a gift from God. The previous year the


At Pope Clement’s court in Poiters appeared a monk from the monastic order of the Premonstratensians at the monastery of Bellepais in Cyprus. After leaving Cyprus in 1307, he joined the pope’s entourage, given the express order by the pope to write what became his greatest work, La Fleur des istoires de l’Orient. The writer was an Armenian prince, Hayton of Gorigos. He had dictated his magnum opus to Nicholas Falcon, who then translated it from French into Latin. The treatise is divided into four parts. The first is a description of the kingdoms of Asia, starting with Mongol northern China. Chapter 9 is devoted to Greater Armenia, while the last chapter in the same section describes Cilicia, Hayton’s birthplace. The third part, a his-tory of the Mongols, is especially precious, as it is written by one of the actors in the events of the day.

While the content of the first three sections corresponds with the title of the ensemble, it was the fourth part, the plan for a new crusade, which had been ordered by the pope. It was natural for the pontiff to take advantage of the visit in France of the Lord Hayton of Gorigos, who had been sent there by Aimery Lusignan, the governor of Cyprus. The pope availed him-self of the unique opportunity to have in his presence a true connoisseur of the Levant. After presenting the enemy (the powerful Egyptian Mamluks), Hayton goes on to expose his view (in chapter II) for the organization and deployment of a petit passage, consisting of one thousand knights, and three thousand soldiers in ten galleys, to be sent to either Cilicia or Cyprus. The force would strengthen the blockade against Egypt and link up with the new Mongol khan, Ghazan’s son. The expedition proper, the passagium generale, would take one of three possi-ble routes: through North Africa, via Constantinople - the most dangerous, as it travels across Turkish territory in Anatolia, - or by sea to Cyprus. In August 1307, Hayton presented the pope with a copy of his manuscript.

While Hayton’s ideas for a crusade appear to have received a favorable reception from Clement V, they were savagely attacked by some of the authors of the various crusading projects. Hayton’s suggestion to seek support from the Armenian kingdom was the object of the sharpest critique by Grand Master Jacques de Moulay, who, as already noted, believed that the Armenians would not be in any shape to provide the critical support needed.64

Notwithstanding the limited success of his mission, Hayton nevertheless received much praise in several of the letters written by Pope Clement. What does not transpire in these papal missives is the role played by the Armenian prince as an envoy of Aimery of Lusignan of Cyprus. At that time, the island kingdom was the scene of important political events. It appears that Hayton’s interest went beyond those of an objective chronicler of historical events. He had been exiled there by Hetum II for having been involved in the plot by Sembat to overthrow him. Born around 1240, he had married a Cypriot woman from the noble family of the Ibelins. Given Hetum’s ambivalence between the throne and the monastery, the atmosphere at the Armenian court at Sis would have been favourable to intrigues. It is then quite possible that, in 1293, the Lord of Gorigos would have had a part in the conspiracy against his relative, King Hetum, who had just joined the Franciscan order. He left the country a year later, and traveled to Persia and France. In 1308, Hayton returned to Cyprus. While he failed in his mission to con vince the pope to confirm Aimery governor for life (he offered 10,000 florins as an enticement),

During his sojourn in Poiters two years after his election to the papal throne, Clement V (1305-1314) made his crusading intentions known by requesting advice from the Grand Masters of the Hospitallers and Templars. Since he did not believe that the Armenians would be able to provide sufficient reinforcements, Jacques de Molay, the Master of the Templars, advocated a pas sagium generale, a massive military operation, a true crusade. He went as far as to suggest that the Armenians were unstable allies who, “when confronted about Latin concerns on reli-gious matters and before a strong enemy, could be expected to refuse to cooperate and/or flee to the mountains.”60 The harsh assessment by Molay is likely to reflect a lack of understanding of the complexity of the issues faced by the Armenians and their need to retain a semblance of independence, at least of their religious beliefs, and their reluctance to a passive submis-sion, predicated on the affirmation of the primacy of the pope over the catholicos and patri-archs in the East, and “observation of liturgical celebrations according to the Latin calendar.” As an example, the adding of water to wine during the Eucharist provoked the most contention. Maintaining that Christ’s flesh was “incor rupt” even before resurrection, Armenian theologians saw the use of leaven in the bread of the Eucharist and the adding of water to wine as inap-propriate, both conjuring an image of corruption of Christ’s body and His “salvific” blood. One Armenian bishop (Orbelian) drew an analogy be tween the Catholic and Byzantine practice of mixing water and wine and the Chalcedonian view of the two natures of Christ.

At the start of the year 1307, perhaps secretly under Hetum’s prompting, Catholicos Gregory VII wrote the king a letter, a document whose lack of coherence suggests the effect of the termi-nal illness that would kill him within a few months. Gregory urged the king to convoke a synod, which was convened in March 1307 in Sis. Hetum opened Gregory’s letter. Under his duress, the proposed changes were accepted without discussion. The most contentious of these issues, the mixing of water and wine, would be confronted frequently by the Armenian clergy.

The forced conformity to Latin practice, to the point of a seeming dismissal of the traditional Armenian Church practices, did not settle these differences. Instead, they were brought into the open and caused many lay and spiritual leaders and a large part of the population to feel betrayed. Anger and resentment seething under the surface spilled forth two years later when a counter-counsel was organized in Sis.

Perhaps the most wide-ranging projects for a crusade were those offered by the secular Franciscan friar Ramon Lull, a prolific writer and philosopher of Majorca, known as “Doctor Illuminatus”.61 His writings on the crusade ranged from the expulsion of the Moors of Granada (an event which did not occur until almost two centuries later under King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Elizabeth of Castille), to blockading Egypt, crusading against Constantinople, and conduct ing missionary activity in Tunis. In his “torrential activity,” crusade, and religious mis-sion, his desire for martyrdom and hope for a final conversion of all people to the Christian faith are continu ously juxtaposed.62 The fact that Lull offered so many disparate views on crusading is a convincing illustration of the enormously complicated act of reaching a well-considered decision with regard to how and where the resources of the Christian West could be most effectively directed in the quest to recover the Holy City. As pointed out by Professor Norman Housley,63 even the difficulties of sim ply finding and assembling the necessary resources, prior to the launch of any such project, are perhaps not fully appreciated.


he carried with him a letter regarding the Templars, which some would later suggest contained a bull authorizing Aimery to arrest the Knight Templars in Cyprus. By then, as we shall see, this order of knights was close to being eliminated. As soon as he learned that Hetum II (now re-gent) and his nephew, King Levon III, had been assassinated by a Mongol governor, Hayton lost no time returning to Cilicia. Under the new king, Oshin, another of Hetum’s brother, Hayton received the rank of constable of the kingdom. Aimery would eventually send his Armenian wife, Isabelle, to Cilicia to arrange with King Oshin, her brother, to accept King Henry as an exile, thinking that by doing so he would put an end to any loyalist movement. Professor Mutafian believes that Hetum of Gorigos may also have played a role in persuading Oshin to confine the Cypriot king. Once in Ayas, negotiations by a papal legate failed to convince Henry to make peace with his brother. Only the murder of Aimery by one of his own knights (presumably as part of a conspiracy) put an end to Henry’s six-month-long exile in Cilicia, which could be ef-fected only through delicate negotia tions by a papal embassy with Oshin. As for the monk/diplomat/warrior Hayton, he continues to be regarded as a major witness to the events occur-ring in this transition period from the fall of Acres (1291) to the end of the Mongol-Armenian alliance (ca. 1320), and the beginning of the end for the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia.

17. Hayton the Historian offering his work to the Pope. Original in French and then translated by prince Hayton of Gorigos, the son of Oshin, one of King Hetum I’s brothers, and first cousin to the late King Levon II. (Courtesy of Mutafian, BN. Fr. 1225, fol. 1.)

Decline of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia 107

that conforming to Latin practices without regard to the Armenian religious heritage amounted to nothing less than a national sin. The events which transpired later the same year would be per-ceived as divine punishment for such a betrayal of the religious identity of the Armenian nation. By now, with the adoption of Islam by the Mongols as their state religion, the Armenians had come to realize that the once secure alliance with the Mongols was becoming unreliable.

At this critical juncture, the Mongol emir Bilarghu, who had his residence in Sis, embraced the new faith with enthusiasm. He wanted to erect a mosque in Sis. Hetum was not in favor of such a plan and decided to complain to the khan of Persia. The emir, fearful of the khan’s reaction, decided to act. On November 18, 1307, Levon and Hetum, both unaware that the Mongols had learned of the complaint that Hetum had lodged against him with the khan, accepted an invi-tation to a banquet by Bilarghu to discuss their political differences. Levon and Hetum went to Anavarza ac companied by forty dignitaries. Shortly after their arrival, Bilarghu had them seized. In one of the most dramatic episodes in Armenian history, Hetum, Levon, and all the nobles ac-companying them were brutally put to death. The suggestion by some modern historians that the massacre may have been instigated, if not orchestrated, by the anti-union Armenian faction, while not supported by extant medieval sources, cannot be summarily dismissed.

Oshin (1308–1320), Levon IV (1320– 1341), and the Papacy in Avignon

In the first twenty years of the fourteenth century, two events occurred in quick succession in Europe, which would have indirect repercussions on the kingdom of Cilicia. The first was the dispute between the king of France, Philip the Fair, and Pope Boniface VIII. The conflict was pre-cipitated by the taxes levied by Philip on clerical income without the express consent of the pope, who issued a bull of excommunication against the king in 1303. Philip tried to forestall the excom munication by having the pope seized and brought before a council. The outrage was too much for Boniface who died shortly afterwards. What followed, under the heavy influ-ence of Philip, was the transfer of the papacy to Avignon, in Provence, where the next seven popes, all Frenchmen, would be under close scrutiny and would have to conform to the policies dictated by the king of France. Avignon became not only a great cultural center and a state marked by pomp, but it was also a site for the sale of indulgences for a variety of dispensations: from legitimizing children to allowing marriage within the prohibited degree of consanguinity. As a sign of its confusing policy in this period, the papacy imposed a special tax for the crusades, which continued to be proclaimed but were seldom launched, while selling dispensations to the Italian Republics of Genoa and Venice allowing them to trade with the Muslims.

The second event was the attack unleashed by King Philip on the Knights Templar in 1307. Insatiable in his demands, Philip required the new pope, Clement V, to authorize the trials of the Templars for heresy and, with his authority, confessions were extracted by means of torture. The Grand Master himself, Jacques de Molay, had been the king’s friend and was godfather to his daughter. A great defender of the Christian kingdoms of Cilicia and Cyprus, he was broken

C H A P T E R 7

D e c l i n e o f t h e A r m e n i a n K i n g d o m o f C i l i c i a

Levon III (1303–1307)

During the first decade of the fourteenth century, the conflicts over the nature of the relation between the monarchs and the catholicos of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia and the Church of Rome intensified. In order to receive aid essential for the security, indeed the survival, of his nation, the Armenian king made concessions to the papal requests. In so doing, he alienated the clergy and the nobles of Greater Armenia.

Hetum retired again to a monastery and abdicated in favor of his nephew Levon III, son of Thoros II and Margaret of Lusignan, sister of King Henry of Cyprus. Through Catholicos Gregory VII, Levon attempted to introduce changes into the liturgy of the Armenian Church that would make it conform to the Roman Catholic liturgy. While negotiations were underway for the ac ceptance of these changes, the patriarch died. Levon and Hetum called a council of ecclesias-tics and princes to discuss the regulations proposed by the late catholicos. The primary issues to be discussed were (1) the two natures of Christ;(2) the feast and vigils;(3) the inclusion of the phrase “who is crucified for us” in the Trisagion; and (4) the most contentious, the mixing of water in wine in the Eucharist. At the Council of Sis in March 1307, the policies inspired by the Gregory VII were adopted, which led to a resolution ratifying the union of the Churches and the use of Latin during the liturgy. This result could only be achieved with the collusion of the king and his pro-Latin supporters and despite protestations from a large section of the population. A large number of bishops who favored the Armenian Orthodox creed did not sign the conciliar docu ment. According to Professor Levon Zekiyan, Catholicos Gregory appears to have suffered from “ecclesiastical inferiority,” acting as a servant of the Church of Rome, rather than the head of an independent Church. The tone of Gregory’s letter, described by some as “defensive, apolo-getic, and anxious,” may reflect Gregory’s ‘desperate’ state of mind.

65

It was the issue of the mixing of water and wine that brought the discussion to the forum of the general population from the atmosphere of the court and monastic conclaves, which believed

Armenian Cilicia Xii -- XiV Century108 Decline of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia 109

The synod called by Oshin in Adana caused the resurfacing of the old problems regarding union with the Church of Rome. Soon, he was forced to break up a large demonstration in Sis, which was protesting a plan to accept papal authority and to introduce Catholic practices into the liturgy of the Orthodox Armenian Church. It appears that the riots had been orchestrated by monks and religious men, priests and deacons, doctors of theology and bishops and many lay people, who refused to accept the mixing of the water with wine, and other innovations. The king, with the agreement of the patriarch and the barons, arrested all of them, imprisoned the doctors of theology in the citadel [Sis], putting several of them to death.67

The riots had followed the decision of Catholicos Constantine to accept papal primacy in ex change for more western aid against the Mamluks. In stark contrast was the view held by Stepanos Orbelian, the most senior of the prelates in Greater Armenia, who remained very unyielding in his stance, maintaining that, “it was better to go to hell with one’s forefathers than enjoy the delights of heaven with the diophysites.”68

As previously noted, Hetum II had given his sister Isabelle (Zabel) in marriage to Aimery of Lusignan, the prince of Tyre. It is from this union that the Lusignan kings of Armenia issued. Aimery’s brother Henry II was crowned king of Cyprus in 1288. Within a few years, it became clear he was unable to handle the difficulties facing him, exasperating his brothers and his vas-sals. He failed to follow the advice of the latter by not awarding trade privileges to the Republic of Genoa, and he had conflicts with the Knights of St. John and the Templars, whose headquar-ters were in Cyprus. Aimery, certainly more popular than the king, had criticized him for not pro-viding help to the kingdom of Armenia when, in the face of continued Mamluk attacks, aid was desper ately needed. He declared his brother too ill (he was epileptic) to rule the realm and, with the support of leading vassals and without resorting to violent means, took control. He then decided to exile Henry and his royalist supporters to Cilicia, where they would be kept under Oshin’s guard. During the dispute between the two brothers, the Hospitallers supported Henry while Oshin supported Aimery. Aimery was assassinated in 1310. Only after several ambas-sadors were sent to Oshin, assuring him that Isabelle and her children were safe, Henry was allowed to return to Cyprus. While the possibility of Armenian participation in Aimery’s coup d’état has been raised, and the likelihood that Hayton the Historian may have been one of the main agitators, no convinc ing proof has been found.

Hopeful of aid from the West, Oshin followed a pro-Latin policy, which while approved by his court, was vigorously fought by the clergy and the majority of population. The alternative was a more “eastern” policy of compromise, or more accurately submission, to the Muslim powers.

While his connections by marriage to the kings of Cyprus and his pleas to the papal court failed to bring Oshin any help, he was able to restore various fortresses and appears to have managed to defend his country. He also restored churches, especially in Tarsus where he also built the magnificent Church of Santa Sophia, which was later converted into a mosque.69 Oshin died in 1320, likely poisoned by his cousin and by his brother-in-law, also named Oshin, who was the Lord of Gorigos and son of Hayton the Historian and claimed to be acting as regent for the young heir, Levon IV. The regent married the late king’s widow. He then arranged the mar-riage of his own daughter, Alice, from a previous marriage, to the young king. In 1323, to prevent the rise of any other claimants to the throne, he had Isabelle, the widow of Aimery of Cyprus,

by tor ture and then burned at the stake. The pope had insisted that the Templar estates be pre-served for the benefit of crusades to regain the Holy Land. Eventually, he would agree to grant all the Templar lands to the Knight Hospitallers. The long and exhausting trial of the Templars doomed Pope Clement’s aspiration for a general passagium. He was forced to rely on King Philip’s commit ment to a crusade. Early in the reign of Pope Clement V, the first of the popes during the period in Avignon called by Petrarch the “Babylonian Captivity,” the Armenian archbishop of Mamistra was sent by the Armenian lay and church authorities to request aid. In 1308, Clement attempted to organize an expedition in response to King Oshin’s pleas for help against Mamluk Egypt, but King Philip showed little or no interest in the project. When the expedition finally got under way in 1310, the Hospitallers hijacked it to consolidate further their conquest of Rhodes, which was to become their center of operation for more than a century and a half. Contrary to the general expectation by many Europeans that the kingdom of France would be the pope’s leading and most reliable partner in crusading, Philip the Fair and his advisers would get their hands on church revenue and never participate in any crusade. Less than ten years later, the van-guard force of a crusading fleet promised by the pope to King Oshin was finally prepared, only to be lost in a naval battle off Genoa, fought between the Guelphs (the pope’s supporters) and the Ghibellines (the emperor’s supporters) of Italy, at a time when one city was pitted against another, and one ruler against another. This division had begun with the relentless campaign by Pope Innocent to undermine the power of the emperor in Italy. Gone were the days when the pope held the posi tion of impartial judge of dynastic disputes between Christian rulers. He had become one of the two contestants fighting for power in the Italian peninsula.

These events occurred during the reign of King Oshin (1308–1320). The throne had devolved to him after the slaughter at Anazarba, as Hetum II and his nephew Levon III left no offspring. Oshin was married to a daughter of Hayton the Historian. Fearing for his own life, after learning of the murder of his brother Hetum and his nephew Levon, initially he sought refuge in the for-tress of Sis. Once he felt more secure, he gathered what remained of the nobles of the kingdom, attacked the murderous emir Bilarghu, and expelled him from Sis. This Mongol general was later executed by the khan of Persia. Within a few months, Oshin had himself crowned in Tarsus.

Although Cilicia was in desperate need of help from the Christian West, it is clear that a large number of Armenian laity and prelates were vehemently opposed to a church union with Rome. One of these prelates, Sarkis, the archbishop of the Armenian diocese of Jerusalem, was so opposed to the unionist plan that he sought protection from the sultan of Egypt. In 1311, he became the first patriarch of the independent Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which exists to this day.

During a synod in 1316 in Adana, Oshin, who appeared unconcerned by what had transpired in Jerusalem, demanded that the clergy maintain strict adherence to the nine articles of faith that had been adopted by the Armenian clergy under Levon III. One of these, the acceptance of the dyophysite doctrine,66which acknowledged the two distinct natures of Christ, would place the Armenian Church in communion with the Latin Church. Oshin must have realized that no aid would be forthcoming from the West without a public submission to the papacy. After the death of his Armenian wife, he married a western princess, Joanna, the daughter of the prince of Taranto, in the hope that his chances of receiving the aid necessary to defend his kingdom might improve.


18. King Levon IV. The style is reminiscent of the Armenian tradition of giving the king a pose as an oriental potentate, which was adapted even by this pro-Latin monarch. The folio is from a copy of the Assises d’Antioch by Constable Sembat. (Courtesy of the Armenian Mekhitarist Congregation, Venice, 107)

and the eldest of her four surviving sons imprisoned and then murdered. Guy, another son who would later become king of Cilicia, spent several years in Constantinople, where his maternal aunt, Rita, by marrying Michael IX Paleologus, had become Empress Maria. Guy had married the first cousin of Emperor John Cantacuzenes.

It was during these times that the Mongol governor of Anatolia, who had converted to Islam under Ghazan, broke the traditional pro-Armenian alliance and invaded Cilicia. In another raid, in 1322, the Mamluks destroyed the fortress of Ayas. Despite his bad relation with the king of Cilicia, Henry II of Cyprus lent his support by sending military assistance to the embattled kingdom, dis-patching ships with much-needed supplies to Cilicia. In the same year, Pope John XXII preached another crusade in support of Cilicia and appealed to King Charles IV of France. But instead of providing what was really needed, a permanent naval presence in the East, Charles agreed only to send a squadron of ships for one year. In response to the new crisis in the Near East, Pope John also arranged for money to be sent to Armenia. This money was used to repair the destroyed fortifications in the port of Ayas and elsewhere. In the end, no expedition was sent.

Another effort to save the assailed kingdom came when the newly elected catholicos, Constantine IV of Lambron, who traveled to Egypt in 1323, signed a fifteen-year truce with the Mamluks, but only after making a solemn promise to renounce any request for further assistance from the West. The sultan demanded the cession of the territory east of the river Pyramus and the payment of 16,000 gold dinars to compensate the Egyptian merchants for the loss of com merce.

Between 1320 and 1337, the Mamluks sent four punitive expeditions into Cilicia, in part for the Armenians allegedly defaulting on their annual tribute. During an invasion in 1332, Ayas was occupied by the emir of Aleppo, acting as an agent of the Sultan. The city was forced to add 50 percent of its customs revenues to the annual tribute to Egypt. The sultan discovered that Levon IV had sent an ambassador to the new pope, Benedict XII, who recommended that a load of grains be sent to the beleaguered Armenians. In response, the sultan replied with two more attacks, in 1335, when he annexed the left bank of the river Pyramus, and again in 1337, when he conquered Ayas and devastated the capital Sis, forcing Levon to comply with the terms of the previous agree-ment. The Muslim conquest of the port of Ayas was a major setback for the commercial interests of the kingdom. Yet, despite the desperate situation of Armenian Cilicia, the Christian kingdom continued to be portrayed in a Spanish portulan, a nautical chart of the period, surrounded by a rectangle which holds the Cilician lion, the heraldic emblem of the Armenian kings.

Following is a striking description by the Venetian nobleman Marino Sanudo, written in 1321, of the geopolitical forces confronting the Armenian kingdom: “The King of Armenia is under the fangs of four ferocious beasts. The Lion are the Tartars, to whom he pays a heavy tribute; the Leopard, the Sultan, who daily ravages his frontiers; the wolf or the Turks, who destroy his power; and the serpent, or pirates of our seas, who worry the very bones of the Christian Armenia.”70

Sanudo then summarizes the dramatic situation in Armenian Cilicia at that time: “With the Mongol conversion to Islam, the Armenians lost any hope of further assistance in their strug-gles. They also became subjected to religious persecution.” In his project for a crusade, Sanudo advised the pope first to weaken Egypt by means of a total blockade, and then to launch a direct attack on that Muslim country. Although not in favor of depending on Armenian support, Sanudo did propose sending a special force to aid Cilicia.


Opposed to the pro-Latin policy of King Oshin was the more “eastern” policy maintained by an other Oshin of Gorigos, the regent during the early years of the reign of King Levon IV. When the king reached the age of majority, their relationship began to show significant strain. In a fit of rage, Levon disposed of his troublesome regent once and for all by having him executed. He showed no greater pity toward Oshin’s daughter Alice, his wife and queen, who was ac-cused of infidelity. In all likelihood the regent was eliminated because the king believed that this Armenian nobleman had been responsible for the death of his father. Still believing that he might obtain relief for his king dom by another convenient matrimonial alliance, in 1333 Levon married Constance of Aragon, the widow of Henry II of Cyprus and daughter of the king of Sicily.

The crowning of the new queen only hastened the process of Latinization at the Armenian court. In view of the fact that no children were born of his second marriage, Levon recalled his Lusignan cousins Guy, Jean, and Bohemond of Lusignan, the elder sons of Aimery, the late gov-ernor of Cyprus, and the Armenian princess Isabelle, who were entrusted with the main offices of the realm.

By this time, nearly all projects that had the aim of recovering the Holy Land, or assisting Cyprus and Armenia, had been put on hold. The next attempt to launch a crusade appeared more serious. Philip VI, the new king of France, came near to initiating another passagium, when he took the cross in 1332. He began by collecting more taxes and he tried to pressure the papal curia to use the Catholic Church funds from outside France for the crusade. But the plan for a new cru sade turned into a dead end with the start of the Hundred Years War between France and England in 1337. But the concept of a crusade continued to exert a powerful influence on the minds of people such as Philip de Mézières and the papal legate Peter Thomas, until it reemerged in full force with King Peter of Cyprus (to be discussed more fully in chapter 11).

It would appear that Armenians were perceived by some influential Western sources as unreli able allies. A case in point is the view expressed by a Dominican friar in a Directorium ad passagium faciendum, a proposal for a crusade in pamphlet form addressed to King Philip VI, which maintained that the Armenians had not been truly “converted” to the Catholic faith: when hard-pressed by the Turks, the Armenians have made a union with the Church of Rome and have expressed orally and in writing their profession of faith but “the leopard cannot change its spots or the Ethiopian his skin: they partake of every error known in the East. Their King (Levon II) had nine children, and all, sons and daughters alike, have come to a violent end, except one daughter and no one knows what her end will be”.71

While the truth was not quite as bleak as the friar had portrayed it, the description of the bloody feuds within the Armenian royal family would certainly have created an unfavorable im pression in the West, and likely disinterest in considering financial support for the kingdom much less in a crusade. This same friar reminded the French king of the promise to unite the Armenian Church with Rome made by Levon I at his coronation, a promise that had not been kept. The friar recommended that Dominican and Franciscan convents be opened in Cilicia, and that the teaching of the Latin language be enforced. Clearly, the Dominican friar did not have much understanding of the historic role the Armenian Church had played in the Armenians’ need to defend their religious freedom and cultural identity, from that day in June 451 at Avarayr,

19. The privileges granted by King Levon IV to the Sicilian (1331, text in Armenian with Latin translation). Levon had married Constance, the daughter of Frederick II of Aragon, King of Sicily. This is the forth and last of the commercial privileges that has come down to us in Armenian. (Courtesy of Claude Mutafian)


C H A P T E R 8

T h e L u s i g n a n s : T h e L a s t R o y a l D y n a s t y o f C i l i c i a

King Guy (1342–1344)

At a time when the Mamluks were pressing more and more on the embattled kingdom, the bat tle lines between the two clans, the conservative Orthodox Armenians and the pro-Latin faction, were clearly drawn. An Armenian delegation headed by Daniel of Tabriz, a Franciscan monk, was sent to the Pope in Avignon by Catholicos James, charged with the task of bringing the ‘profession of faith’ and to once again request help. But another Armenian monk, Nerses Balients, has already been doing nefarious work by spreading rumors, raising serious questions over the veracity of the Armenian supposed ‘profession of faith.’ Nerses went on to present a list of ‘117 errors’ commit ted by the Armenian Church. Notwithstanding the courageous defense of the Armenian Church by Franciscan Daniel, who refuted every single one of the ‘errors’ listed by Balients, Benedict XII remained unconvinced. Nothing was left for the pope to do but to send two stern letters In August 1341, one addressed to the catholicos and the other to king Levon IV, warning them that no help would be forthcoming as long as ‘heretical’ practices were not totally extirpated once and for all.

After Levon’s murder, very likely by Armenian nobles opposed to his pro-Latin bias, the new pope, Clement VI (1342-1352), announced in a letter his formal nomination of Guy of Lusignan the next king of Armenia. He is the late king’s first cousin, born of a French father (Aimery Lusignan of Cyprus) and an Armenian mother (Isabelle Hetumian). Guy and his younger brother Jean had been prominent political and military figures in the service of Constantinople.

But the barons of Cilicia offered the crown to Jean, who declined the nomination and instead urged his brother Guy to take the crown, which was rightfully his, in any case. Initially, Guy de murred. Ruling a kingdom in distress hardly aroused much enthusiasm in him. His brother Jean, who at this time was living in Cilicia, agreed to act as the regent in the interim until Guy finally consented to being crowned toward the end of 1342. Perhaps in an effort to be

when Vardan Mamikonian and the flower of the Armenian army had perished. For almost half a century what became known as the Vardanank war was followed by bitter guerilla warfare, championed by the wives of the princes who died in the battle and supported by the Armenian Church. In 485, the king of Persia reluctantly granted the Armenians freedom of worship.

In 1344, in response to an initiative first proposed by Hugh IV of Cyprus, Pope Clement VI, the Venetians, and the Hospitallers, a flotilla of galleys was assembled. The small Christian force won a decisive victory over a Turkish fleet. This success was overshadowed quickly by the much more exciting event of the capture of Smyrna, which had become a major port. The port was held by the Christians for less than fifty years, before being conquered by Tamerlane.

Hugh, like the kings of Cilicia, clearly understood that the security of his own kingdom could only be achieved by alliances with the western countries. Clement’s hope had been to use Smyrna as a bridgehead for expansion into Anatolia. But, within a few years, Genoa and Venice were at war with each other and the Christian league came to an end.

In Cilicia, after the death of Catholicos Constantine IV, Jacob II of Tarsus, a staunch national-ist, was nominated catholicos in 1327. As if in response to the new catholicos’s ultra-nationalist stance, an order called the Unitors, under the leadership of Hovhannes of Karni, a Dominican monk, gained strength. The aim of the order, in the most slavish of the pro-Latin tendencies, was to replace the Armenian Orthodox rite with the Latin rite of the Roman Catholic Church. The king’s extreme pro-Latin attitude led to a further deterioration in relations between the two reli gious factions. Threatened with excommunication by the catholicos, Levon promptly replaced him with a more moderate prelate, Mekhitar I (1341-1355). But when a pro-Latin Armenian bishop, Nerses Balients, approached the catholicos in the hope of winning support for a drive to unite the two Churches, Mekhitar put a stop to any further proposals for a union with the Church of Rome. Soon after, Balients traveled to Avignon, the seat of the papacy in France, for an audience with Pope Benedict XII, and presented him with a list of “117 errors” committed by the Armenian Church.

In response to these charges of erroneous articles of faith, the pope asked an Armenian priest, Daniel of Tabriz, to write a letter to Levon IV and one to the catholicos. Daniel had been sent to Avignon by Levon to persuade the pope of the unjust accusations leveled against the Armenian Church. In his letters, the pope demanded that the union of the two churches be proclaimed. In 1341, following a riot fomented by the nationalist party, Levon IV was brutally murdered. Barely thirty years of age, Levon left no heir.

Armenian Cilicia Xii -- XiV Century116 the lusignans: the last royal Dynasty of Cilicia 117

In 1347, with the help of troops sent by the Grand Master of the Hospitallers from Rhodes, Constantine’s small army was able to recover Ayas. However, by the end of that year the Mamluks blockaded the port while the Turks of Iconium (Konia) marched on Tarsus. In the face of a dete riorating situation for Cilicia, King Constantine sent a request for help to Pope Clement VI and received some money. Within a short time, he abandoned any hope of mili-tary victory and ceded Tarsus and Adana to the sultan. From that time on, Cilicia lost all access to the Mediterranean Sea, with the coast all its harbors in Mamluk hands, the only exception being the port of Gorigos.

Constantine I died of natural causes in 1363, surprising for an Armenian monarch of this period, but without heirs. The throne of what remained of Cilicia was unoccupied for two years, probably a sign of the hesitation of the Armenian barons to nominate a king. One party appealed to the pope for a resolution of the succession crisis. Pope UrbanV (1362-1370) expressed his preference for Leon Lusignan, a second cousin of Peter I of Cyprus, who at that time was visit-ing Europe with hopes of mounting a major crusade under his leadership. He had taken with him Bohemond, the older son of Jean, King Guy’s younger brother. After Bohemond’s death in Venice in 1363, the hereditary right to the crown of Cilicia passed to his younger brother Leon, who at that time was twenty years of age.

While in Venice, Peter received two letters from Pope Urban V, one addressed to Levon of Lusignan and the other to the bishops and nobles of Armenia, dated April 3, 1365, recommend-ing they accept Leon as their rightful king. In his missive to the Armenians, the pope prom-ised to send aid to fight against the infidels. By the time Peter I returned to Cyprus the same year, Constantine had died and his first cousin Constantine II, had been named as successor. At that point, Peter chose not to send the letters he had received from the pope, either to Leon Lusignan or to the bishops and nobles of Armenia. In the meantime, pressed by the Karamanid Turks on his western borders, Constantine took the bold step of requesting assistance from Peter and offered him the port and castle of Gorigos and the crown of Armenia, according to Jean Dardel, Leon V’s secretary. The poet William of Machaut, who wrote a musical drama about Peter’s chivalric figure, spoke of a tentative meeting between himself and King Constantine. But Peter waited in vain for his Cilician counterpart.

The Armenian sources are silent about many of the events occurring during this period. While in Venice in 1368, during a second trip to the West for the purpose of obtaining additional financial and military aid, Peter I received an ambassador from Armenia offering him the crown. It is likely that he had entertained the idea of joint ownership of the kingdoms to increase the security of his kingdom of Cyprus. On his way back to Cyprus, he stopped in Greece to arrange the marriage of his cousin Leon Lusignan to the daughter of the Lord of Acadia. Once back In Cyprus, he spoke to Leon of the accord he had reached, but again, he failed to mention the let-ters he had received from the pope. One might reasonably think that Peter himself was quite interested in acquiring Cilicia. The reported existence of a coin issued by Peter as tagavor (king) would lend support to the hypothesis, but no such coins was ever found.

After Peter’s death in 1369, peace was negotiated between Cyprus and Mamluk Egypt. That same year, Cilicia, by now reduced to the immediate environs of the capital Sis, with Anavarza,

accepted by the Armenian population, he assumed a more eastern name, Constantine, and the Catholicos Mekhitar referred to him as “King Constantine.” However, the coins struck during his reign clearly show his name as “King Guy,” which suggests that he may have wanted to present himself with his French first name to the West.

In the hope of receiving additional military and financial assistance from the West, Guy began his reign by following the pro-Latin policy of his predecessors from the time of Hetum II. Two Armenian embassies were sent to Avignon to request aid, the first in 1343, which the pope sup ported, and a second, the following year, to discuss the results of the earlier synod at Sis, with reference to the list of ‘117 errors’ that showed the lack of compliance of the Armenian Church with the Latin rite.

Faced with a divided kingdom, Guy became isolated and began to surround himself with French-speaking favorites. A very brave knight, he began his reign by refusing to pay the custom-ary tribute to the sultan of Egypt. This move led to renewed attacks on Cilicia by the Mamluks in 1343/1344. Unfortunately, he did not try to renew ties with his cousin Hugh IV of Cyprus, as the two had not resolved their dispute over the inheritance of the lands of Aimery of Lusignan in Cyprus. But it was mainly his concessions to Rome that threatened his royal authority.

Once again the Armenian “nationalist” party expressed its strong adherence to its religious views, preferring the threateningly close Muslim powers to the more distant and, in their view unsupportive, the western Catholic nations. Guy’s pro-Rome policy, vigorously opposed by the traditionalist Armenian Church, alienated the majority of the Armenian population. In November 1344, during another rebellion, the Armenians murdered Guy, his brother Bohemond, and 300 French nobles. Guy’s plan had been to achieve the union of the Armenian Church and the Roman Catholic Church, hoping that the union would help secure a much-needed military and financial aid. The nationalist party and the barons rejected his plan, preferring to gain peace through concessions to the Muslims rather than reliance on help from the West, which might never materialize. Of Guy Lusignan, Jean Dardel, the friar confessor and chronicler of King Leon V, wrote, “A great loss to Christianity, the death of such a good prince, fearless, brave, and highly enterprising.”

Constantine I (1344–1363) and Constantine II (1365–1373)

After Guy’s death, the throne was offered by the nationalist party to Constantine I from a collat-eral branch of the Hetumians. The new king married Marie, the widow of King Oshin. Constantine I appears to have been an intransigent representative of the Armenian nationalist party.

In one of his first acts on the domestic front, an attempt to uproot the Lusignan dynasty from Cilicia, Constantine confiscated the property of Lady Soudane, the wife of Jean of Lusignan, and the mother of the last king of Cilicia, Leon V. He then proceeded to confine her and her two chil-dren, Bohemond and Levon, in the sea castle of Gorigos. He ordered their murder, but Soudane managed to escape with her two young sons to Cyprus, where King Hugh IV took them under his protection.72


C H A P T E R 9

E n d o f t h e A r m e n i a n K i n g d o m o f C i l i c i a : L e o n V L u s i g n a n ( 1 3 7 4 – 1 3 7 5 )

It is indeed with sadness that we come to the present point in our narration, of the end of this Christian kingdom: a nucleus of admirable force around which it was possible to save the future of the Christian faith in the lands of the Near East. Now assailed with furor by the Mamluks, this people, who strove so hard to maintain their independence, would be destined to fall victim to a much superior military power. Abandoned by the indifference of the princes of the West, they fought, as the ancient Maccabees, for their faith and for the land of their ancestors. A ray of hope shined briefly when Peter Lusignan of Cyprus launched his crusade and briefly captured Alexandria (chapter 11 for a full account of Peter’s exploits). The last king, Leon V, another Lusignan prince, was destined to witness the painful end to this glorious kingdom, when his hope in assuming the throne had been to restore its greatness.

Leon’s life was certainly marked by tragedy from very early on. The grandson of Aimery of Lusignan, Leon was a descendant of the princes of Poiters who had vowed to deliver the Holy Land from the Muslims. Leon appears to have been born in Sis in 1342, when his father Jean of Lusignan, Count of Tyre, guarded the crown for his brother Guy after the murder of Levon IV.

Leon was only two years of age when his father died and when King Constantine I confis-cated his father’s property and confined him, his mother Soudane, and his brother Bohemond on the island castle of Gorigos. According to Dardel, Soudane was the daughter of King George V of Georgia, a descendant of a branch of the Bagratid dynasty that had fought val-iantly against the Mongols.74 Constantine’s aim was to dispose of the whole family by means of poison. When that attempt failed, he ordered that they be drowned. Aware of the continu-ing threat to her life and to the lives of her small children, Soudane escaped from Gorigos and took shelter in Cyprus under the protection of King Hugh IV.

Once Constantine II disappeared from the scene, the rebellious Armenian nobles elected the widow Queen Marie regent. Realizing the seriousness of the threat to the survival of her coun-

and some fortresses in the northern and north western regions, was pressed to accept new and humiliating terms. It is quite possible that the naval expeditions launched by Peter against the Mamluks delayed the eventual downfall of Cilicia, but only for a few years.

After an unremarkable eight-year reign, Constantine II, disliked by his subjects, was assassinat ed in 1373 during a palace revolution. His murder precipitated a quick selection of his successor.

Leon Lusignan, who was still residing in Cyprus and had been imprisoned in Famagusta on suspicion that he was a conspirator in the murder of King Peter, was the candidate preferred by the pro-Latin party. Not surprisingly, a large number of Armenians found the appeal of the Lusignans, of these true chilvaric knights, solidly established in their kingdom in Cyprus and highly regarded in the West, as their only source of hope for their enfeebled kingdom.73

Armenian Cilicia Xii -- XiV Century120 end of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia: leon V lusignan (1374-1375) 121

hoped to receive assistance from the West to create a base from which to launch attacks and eventually recover the kingdom. While we may pay homage to Leon’s patriotic spirit, such a venture was likely headed for disaster.

In their effort to found a state away from their ancestral lands, the Rubenian princes first, and Levon the Magnificent and the Hetumian dynasty after him, had resisted the Byzantines, Seljuk Turks, Turkomen, and Mamluks, as well as other Christian lords in the Near East. For three cen turies, “la Petite Armenie” or Cilicia was a constant battleground. Within two hundred years of the First Crusade, all the Latin states in Outremer had capitulated under the onslaught of Islam. Of the two Christian powers left to defend themselves against a much stronger and vindic-tive enemy, Cyprus and Cilician Armenia, the latter’s days were numbered. Isolated and feeling abandoned by the western powers, which were preoccupied with their own political conflicts, the small kingdom was powerless to defend itself against the rage of its nemesis.

In 1369, Cilicia had been forced to accept new and humiliating terms by the Mamluks. The eloquent evocation of the condition of Cilicia in its last few years by the great historian Jacques de Morgan paints a tragic picture: “The situation is truly desperate, and the bells that ring the crown ing of the new sovereign announce the funeral knell of the last Armenian Kingdom.” Leon did not seem to despair. Unfortunately, his hopes that western and Cypriot aid would arrive were dashed. Old Europe remained indifferent even under the threat of their excommu-nication as decreed by Urban V. In addition, the Genoese who now controlled Cyprus, did not want to compromise their commercial interests with Mamluk Egypt.

Leon finally realized that he could wait no longer. As he had promised King Peter II of Cyprus, he remained in the island fortress of Gorigos. Before setting out with his followers, he sent his pregnant wife and his mother to Gorigos for safety. After a hazardous journey through a coun-tryside infested by hordes of Muslim troops, he arrived in Sis, where he was given a very warm welcome by the catholicos, the clergy, and the nobles of the capital, which was surrounded by the enemy. There, his wife and his mother soon joined him.

To Leon’s utter dismay, scrutiny of the royal treasury disclosed that it had been emptied by members of the regency council. Only one of them was imprisoned for the theft, while the rest were granted clemency. Leon wished to have the coronation ceremony consecrated by a Latin bishop, but relented and agreed to be crowned twice on September 14, 1374, first by a Latin archbishop and then by Catholicos Paul. His wife Margarite was crowned in the same manner. This double consecration ceremony was reminiscent of the joint crowning of the first king of Cilicia, Levon the Magnificent, who almost two hundred years earlier had understood the need at least to appear to compromise with Rome. Now, as then, the double coronation was per-ceived as of fensive by the nationalist party.

The only account we have of Leon’s seven-month reign is Jean Dardel’s. According to Dardel, some Armenians and with catholicos first among them, most likely painfully aware that fur-ther resistance would only come at the expense of Armenian blood, were secretly negotiat-ing to de liver Sis to the enemy. In their defense, they were probably not aware of the fact that the Mamluks would capitalize on their knowledge of the dissension among the embattled Armenians. From a military perspective, Leon was fully justified in identifying as betrayal the

try, Marie sent the archbishop of Sis to the pope in order to have him recommend a husband for her from among the western princes, a man who might be capable of defending the kingdom. Even before Constantine was assassinated, Pope Gregory XI recommended Otto of Brunswick, a no bleman who had the necessary qualities to become a suitable husband for Marie. The pope also urged Prince Jean of Cyprus, the Venetians, the Genoese, and the Knights of St. John in Rhodes to provide help to the Armenians. Rather than leave Europe for a beleaguered kingdom in the Near East, Otto chose to tie the knot with the queen of Naples instead.

At the start of the reign of King Peter I of Cyprus, Leon was still living in Cyprus. When, in his attempt to launch a new passagium, he traveled to Europe, Peter took Bohemond, Leon’s older brother, with him. However, this young man, chosen as the legitimate successor by Pope Urban V (1362-1370), died in Venice in 1363. During the following two years, the coinage of Armenia re vealed that a Leon was King of Armenia; this information, however, is not supported by any other source. Could it be that the future King Leon V, in the face of almost insurmountable obstacles, decided to abdicate in favor of Constantine II? Strangely enough, Father Jean Dardel, who would later do his utmost to extol the virtues of King Leon, makes no mention of it.

Toward the end of his second voyage to the West, Peter received a letter from Urban V, a letter that has become famous, dated April 3, 1365. This is the first official document that men-tions Leon.75 In this letter, addressed to the religious and political leaders of Armenia, the pope writes that the kingdom of Armenia “is recognized as belonging by right to our son, the noble Leon de Lusignan.” Peter is alleged to have received another letter addressed to his cousin Leon, which seems to have disappeared. In an interesting move, Peter decided not to send either let-ter. Could he have caressed the dream of uniting the two kingdoms of Cyprus and Armenia, in the hope of creating a stronger state able to defend itself against the attacks of the Mamluks? While we may never know the answer to this tantalizing question, it is a likely possibility, for we learn that Constantine II offered the crown of Cilicia to King Peter. After Peter’s murder in 1369, the letter came into the possession of his brother Jean, regent of Cyprus; it is not until 1373 that the letter was finally in Leon’s hands. A year earlier, Leon attended the coronation of Peter II, and was promoted to “seneschal of Jerusalem.” However, his good fortune would not last. After the Genoese occupation of Cyprus following Peter’s murder, Leon was imprisoned in Famagusta, as were many other nobles suspected of having played a part in the regicide. Leon was able to prove his innocence by producing the papal letter, which were at first held back by Peter I and then by his brother Jean. In the letter, Leon is described as the legitimate king of Armenia.

To ease his enormous financial debt to the Genoese, the new king of Cyprus, Peter II, finally agreed to allow Leon to leave Cyprus, but only after renouncing his claim to his grandfather Aimery’s property and transferring it to Eleanor, the widow queen. Leon’s crown and wardrobe were restored to him only after he paid 300 ducats. He also had to promise not to set foot in the city of Gorigos, but was permitted to land at the sea fortress facing the city. The whole transac-tion amounted to a considerable ransom for his liberty. Finally, Leon left Cyprus on Easter Day of 1374, beginning another adventurous phase of his life.

Landing at Gorigos, the only city on the coast not held by the Mamluks, he considered attack ing Tarsus, the old capital city of Cilicia. He could rely on a limited number of troops, but


subjects, assuring them that only through their heroic deeds would they be able to liberate their country from the Muslim yoke.

When the Muslim army renewed the attack, the king at one point had the door opened, and he sallied forth with his soldiers. He was struck by a metal shard, which injured his head, where-upon he returned to the castle. After he had the projectile removed and his wound dressed, he ordered his soldiers inside and the door of the castle locked. That same evening he received a letter from the emir, which stated, “his lord the sultan of Babylonia (Egypt) has sent him to learn if the king surrendered the castle of Sis, gave up the Christian faith and became a Muslim, if so, the sultan will make him Grand Admiral and will restore to him his country.” Leon’s reply to several such entreaties by the emir was always the same: he would choose death over the renunciation of his faith. He offered to pay tribute to the sultan as in the past if the siege were raised and his possessions restored.

Leon yielded only when a Cypriot knight and a number of accomplices broke into his quar-ters and took him, as well as the queen and their infant daughter, prisoners. Only then did he agree to surrender. On April 13, 1375, less than a year after he landed on Armenian soil, with his head bandaged and barely able to walk, Leon, his family, and their entourage were taken to Aleppo. A pigeon, sent from this city toward the Nile River, would soon announce the news of the fall of the capital of Cilicia to Sultan al-Ashraf Shaban.

The only Christians to be winners in the downfall of Cilicia were the Venetians. Their com-merce with Egypt, only briefly interrupted, continued to grow for the rest of the fourteenth cen tury. Their archrivals, the Genoese, also continued to enjoy renewed commerce with the Mamluks after the debacle of the siege of Alexandria.

In July of the same year, the captive Leon was in Cairo with his queen and their two infants. The sultan agreed to allow the return of the catholicos and other Armenians to Sis while the old Queen Mariam, the widow of King Constantine I, chose Jerusalem.

While in Cairo, despairing over the loss of his kingdom, Leon found unexpected solace in the community of Armenians in that city who must have understood the personal drama of the de posed monarch. The colony of Armenians embraced this man who, by his epic resistance, was the symbol of the independence of Cilicia. Prominent Armenian residents finally convinced the sultan to release Leon from captivity and to allow him the freedom to wander in the city. He was also accorded a pension and other privileges customarily given to royal prisoners.

The efforts to liberate Leon by Peter II of Cyprus, Pope Gregory XI, the queen of Naples, and the emperor of Byzantium did not have the desired effect on Sultan Shaban. A fortuitous break for Leon finally occurred in March 1377, when Shaban was assassinated during a palace coup while making preparations to make the haji. His murderers placed his son on the throne. It was during this disorderly period that many noble pilgrims passed through Cairo on their way to Jerusalem. One of these was the French friar, Brother Jean Dardel. Dardel learned, from long conversations with the king, of his many adversities, and took his suffering to heart. Dardel tried to comfort Leon and willingly took on the responsibility of presenting his case to the western kings and princes. He was retained by Leon as his confessor and secretary until September

defeatist behavior of the Armenians who colluded with the enemy. In Dardel’s words, Catholicos Paul“preferred the temporal domination of a Muslim sovereign to the spiritual supremacy of the Pope.” In response to the appeal of those Armenians who were betraying Leon, the emir of Aleppo, Ishk-Timour, sent 15,000 additional troops to complete the task of overrunning the for-tress. Early in 1375, a major attack on the city by the forces of Sultan al-Ashraf Shaban invested Sis. The lower city was pillaged, with many of its inhabitants slaughtered or taken captive, but the citadel remained impregnable.

20, Sis - View of one of the round towers. (Courtesy of RRA Archives: Photo by Raffi Kortoshian, 2007)

By this time, among all the cities and fortifications of Cilicia, Sis, Anavarza and some fortresses in the northern region of the kingdom were still unoccupied by the enemy. Two Turkomen emirs under the command of the sultan now threatened the outskirts of Sis. At this time, the un-happy nationalist party of Armenia offered the crown to Ashot, the brother of King Constantine II’s wife, who was living in Cairo, appealing to him to come at the head of an Egyptian army. This step would soon prove unnecessary. With his knights, his close advisor Souhier Doulcart, who was the marechal, Leon assembled the catholicos, the clergy, the nobles, and all of the oc-cupants of the castle who promised loyalty to their Christian faith and to him. While wait ing for the final assault, Leon attempted to confront the agonizing situation by encouraging his


21. King Leon V Lusignan. (Courtesy Claude Mutafian).

1379, when he left for the West bearing the royal ring engraved with the crest of the kings of Armenia, and several letters for European sovereigns.

When he arrived in Barcelona in the spring of the following year, Dardel found the Spanish monarch, Peter IV the Ceremonious, disinclined to dispense money from the royal treasury. The persevering messenger then traveled to the King John of Castile and did not leave his side until his efforts were crowned with suc cess. It was not until August 1382 that Dardel could finally return to Egypt, bringing with him a considerable sum of money as ransom, a golden cup, and 3,000 squirrel pelts for the sultan and the regent.

On October 7, 1382, Leon finally regained his liberty and left Alexandria, with Rhodes as the next port of call. He left his deceased queen and their only child buried in Egypt. In his sadness, he was haunted by the desire to reconquer the kingdom of Cilicia with western aid. As a guest of Grand Master of the Knights of St. John Jean Orsini in Rhodes, Leon felt some joy as he visited Princess Isabelle, his cousin, the daughter of King Guy.

From that day on, in every port, he was received with the honors due a brave king. In all the countries of Europe he visited, he was considered a legendary hero, a great patriot who had sac-rificed himself in the defense of one of the two remaining bastions of Christianity in the Near East. In Venice, where he landed in December 1382, Leon prayed at the tomb of his older brother Bohemond. He crossed Venetian territory, passed through Milan and Turin, stopping in Avignon in March 1383, to visit Pope Clement VII. Most likely aware of the p olitical ramifications of his decision, the kings of France and Castile had recognized Clement. Leon chose this pope over the Roman pope Urban VI, who was known to have a violent temperament. Clement felt safer in Avignon than in Italy under the benevolent eye of the king of France. Clement received Leon with great solemnity and awarded him the “Golden Rose.” The services of Brother Jean Dardel to the Christian cause and most notably to Leon were appreciated by Clement, who elevated the faithful chaplain to the rank of bishop of Benevento in August 1383. He died in December of the follow ing year, leaving a written record, deemed to be largely accurate, of the last days of the kingdom of Cilicia.

After a two-month stay in Avignon, Leon traveled to Spain, first to Aragon and then to Castile, to thank the two Spanish kings for all they had done to free him from captivity. His encounter with King John of Castile, as described by Jean Dardel, took place in an ambiance quite different from what he had seen earlier. John was traveling with a large entourage, including a cardinal, other prel ates, princes, and high dignitaries to marry the daughter of the king of Portugal. When Leon, who had decided to go to the city where the wedding was to take place, caught sight of John, he sank to his knees and gave thanks to his liberator, who quickly gave him a warm embrace and comforted him with brotherly tenderness. The next day, Leon was chosen as the sponsor at the wedding of John and the new queen of Castile.

While in Segovia, following the consecration of the newly elected bishop, Leon recounted the tribulations he had endured. He then eloquently pleaded with John to help him recover his lost kingdom. The Spanish king responded in a magnanimous manner, naming Leon


forty horses and all their armour, all the time he is on our soil, on sea or on land, from the time he comes until he returns freely.”77

Soon Leon crossed the English Channel with a large retinue and arrived at Dover. While he was met and entertained by many lords, an air of suspicion persisted, aroused by fear of an immi nent French invasion. It was only on the authority of the earl of Buckingham that he was allowed to travel to London. Toward the end of 1385, during his reception in London by King Richard II, Leon was escorted to Eltham to celebrate Christmas with the royal family. A number of conferences were held a few days later during which he exposed the deplorable state of the Near East, which, for over sixty years, had suffered devastation at the hands of the Turks and Mamluks; and then he expressed his hopes. After conveying the admiration of the people of the Orient for the English accomplishments in politics, Leon mildly rebuked the assembled lords at Westminster for letting the hostilities with the French drag on for so long. The war between the two great Christian powers, a shameful and useless war without winners, Leon counseled, must cease in order to devote the military efforts of the Christian nations to the “holy” enterprise of breaking the intolerable Muslim yoke on the Christians in the Near East. Only then could the lands of “Bethlem and Zion” be retaken from the “infidels.”

The English king appeared ready to conclude a peace treaty and announced the depar-ture of his ambassadors for France while encouraging Leon to continue his efforts. He also offered to speak with King Charles. Unfortunately, the high promise of diplomacy soon faded. The delegates from the two countries, including Leon, met to study the terms of a peace treaty. Regrettably, after a close examination of the various articles of the treaty, the delegates did not arrive at an agree ment and the peace conference failed.

Despondent, his hopes crumbling, Leon settled permanently at the Palais des Tournelles. After leaving the Louvre, King Charles transferred his residence to the Palace of St. Paul, across from Leon’s hotel. The two kings became close friends. Leon’s advice was frequently sought out by Charles, who held him in great esteem. While the rent of the three Spanish cities given to him by King John of Castile was rescinded by his successor in April 1391, Leon continued to receive the pension assigned to him by his good friend Charles.

In his palace, Leon led a calm life. He is likely to have spent much time meditating over his turbulent past, a past marked by extraordinary vicissitudes. He knew the glory of a fallen hero, followed by the long and painful Egyptian captivity. His young spouse and one small child had died while he was still in Egypt. When he traveled to Europe, respected and admired as a leg-endary hero, wherever he went he was given a triumphant welcome. Eventually, he must have realized that it would be impossible to fulfill his dream of the return of his lost kingdom.

Documents show that he was still actively involved in the peace talks between France and England until a few months before his death. At the end of 1392, he returned from eastern Europe where he had traveled to gather information about the Ottoman Turkish incursions there. The belief that he had retired from public life in 1386 appears to be without foundation. In May 1393, in a village on the banks of La Somme, near Abbeville, the kings of France and England met and made one last effort to end the struggle between their two kingdoms. Among King Charles’s del egates moved a royal visitor, Leon V of Lusignan, as observer and attendant to

Lord of Madrid, Villareal, and Andular for the remainder of his life. John promised to give Leon six galleys and six transport ships, to be delivered when he was ready to attempt to recover the Kingdom of Cilicia. Unless matched, however, by similar offers from the other European sover eigns, John’s promised help would be inadequate for the fulfillment of the overall goal of launching a crusade to recover the kingdom. Leon received more personal gifts from the king of Navarre. At the Aragonese court, King Peter IV’s eldest son John promised Leon five armed galleys within six months.

Leon’s entry into Paris in June 1384 is recounted in the book Religieux de Saint-Denis. King Charles VI considered it a glorious event to receive an illustrious prince who came from so dis-tant a country. Leon was received by Charles and his entourage of cardinals, priests, dukes, bar-ons, and knights. A banquet in his honor was held in the palace of the Louvre.76 In recounting his life, he showed an unwavering will to overcome his reversals of fortune. It was his guest’s courage and strength of character that Charles wanted to reward. Just as importantly, he valued Leon’s modera tion and sagacity. He offered Leon a considerable sum of money and an annual pension of 6,000 gold francs. Leon settled in Paris, residing at the Hôtel des Tournelles.

While small in stature, Leon was described as a man of great virtue, intelligence, and per-spicacity, and also quite affable. In his customary ways, he displayed “the agreeable elegance that distinguishes a great prince.”

It was the French capital that would soon offer Leon a chance to pursue international diplo-macy. There he met Philippe de Mézière, le vieux pe’ lerin who, since the time of Peter I of Cyprus, had been a fervent supporter of the crusading ideal. Philippe became one of Leon’s staunchest supporters.

At this time, the Hundred Years War cast a dark shadow over France and England, with England insisting on restitution of the duchies of Aquitaine and Normandy. An armistice between the two great powers was due to expire at the start of 1386. The French King’s Council was to assemble for the purpose of deciding whether to continue the war, justified by the numerous violations of the treaty by the English.

Leon realized that peace was necessary before any substantive help to Armenia could be considered by the two western kings. In fact, from a military perspective, nothing less than a full crusade would have a chance to recover the lost kingdom. He hoped that, by capitalizing on the respect in which he was held by King Charles and the French court, he might bring about a lasting peace before making an appeal for the cooperation he needed.

According to French historian Jean Froissart, Leon was allowed access to the floor of the King’s Council, but remained silent until the council members, who favored peace, requested Leon’s wise counsel. His speech was listened to respectfully. In faulty French, Leon offered his me diation. He counseled peace and stated that he would direct all his efforts to resolving the discord. His advice was accepted by the council. His intention to act as a mediator was com-municated to King Richard II of England who issued a letter patent for Leon: “The King to all his admirals etc. Salutation. Be it known to you that when the illustrious Prince Leon, king of the Armenians, reaches our English soil, in order that he might come and return in safety, with this letter we take under our protection the king with his subjects and servants…of every rank, with


accompanied by four torchbearers. The monks concluded that Leon’s burial was being con-ducted according to a ritual customary for Armenian kings, although no specific reference to this effect is contained in the will. The use of white garments was, indeed, a symbol of mourning in keeping with Armenian and all Eastern Church ceremonies, in contrast to the Latin custom of using black as the color of death and mourning. Or, did Leon simply want to live up to the role of the Oriental, an exotic ruler which he had played in his years in exile? In having the gold crown placed next to his head, he no doubt must have wanted to let the spectators know that it was a king who was being buried that day.

At his funeral, royalty and nobility viewed the ceremony, held in accordance with the Armenian burial rite, with a likely mixture of sadness and curiosity. His body lay reposed, garbed in white sat in, his face and feet uncovered. He was buried at the monastery of the Celestine Brothers. During the ravages of the French Revolution, his ashes along with those of French kings were scattered to the wind. Years later, his tomb was transferred to a crypt in the Cathedral of St. Denis. We can still view his tombstone, bearing the epitaph: “Here lies the very noble and excellent Prince Leon V of Lusignan, Latin king of the Kingdom of Armenia who rendered his soul to God on the 29th day of November of the Year of Grace 1393. Pray for him.”

22. Leon V of Lusignan, king of Armenia (1342–1393, reigned 1374–1375) Cathedral of St. Denis, Paris. (Courtesy of Claude Mutafian)

In 1396, three years after his death, what Leon had so ardently hoped for took place: the “big-gest and most ambitious of the century’s crusades,” the Nicopolis campaign, made possible by the truce between England and France. The expedition was launched in response to the ad-vance of the Ottoman Turks in the Balkans after the defeat of the Serbs at Kosovo in 1389. The

Charles. Only a few months from his death, Leon was still a fervent voice attempting to stir the French and English to launch a crusade.

He may have died not as a result of a lingering illness but rather suddenly at the end of 1393. In the summer of the previous year, he had composed his will.78 In drawing his last will and testa ment79 in the presence of four witnesses, he listed the executors he had designated: Philippe de Mézière, the knight and chancellor of Cyprus, the prior of the church where the burial was to take place, and his two chamberlains. The will is composed in European fashion. During his eight-year stay in Paris, Leon had ample opportunity to become familiar with the legal practices in France. One must remember that in Cilicia and Cyprus, where he had spent his life before coming to Europe, had adopted Latin legal practice.

Following the customary reference statement of his faith and the invocation to all the saints, he gave his instruction about his burial, which was to take place at the Church of the Celestines in Paris. He clearly did not want his body transported to Cyprus or Cilicia. Then follows a clause where Leon, after making a request to pay all outstanding debts and to make reparation for any unlawful acts he may have been guilty of, bequeathed the sum of 100 gold francs to Etienne, knight of Sis/Ayas of the kingdom of Armenia. The question regarding the identity of this per-son, not named in any other source, is naturally raised. He is not named by Dardel in reference to Leon’s expedition to Sis and his brief reign there. The large sum of money and Leon’s instruction to make reparation for injustices he may have committed naturally raise the question whether Leon may have felt especially guilty about the nature of his relationship with this knight of Sis, leading one to suspect that he may have been an illegitimate son. Etienne may have been born in Cyprus in the early 1360s, when Leon was in his late teens or early twenties.

After the more important part of the will, Leon gave specific instructions regarding the dispo sition of his estate. He instructed that his entire possessions be divided into four parts. One portion of the money from the disposition of his possessions was to be distributed to churches in Paris for saying Masses for the Dead in his name and for alms. Another portion was to be used to create an endowment for the church where he would be buried. A third portion was for the care and education of another illegitimate son, Guyot, until his twentieth birthday. Guyot was born in Paris and would have been ten or eleven years old in 1392. He may have lived with his mother, but noth ing is known of her. We do know that the financial situation would improve for Guyot through the intercession of Pope Benedict XIII and King Charles VI, until he earned a post as canon, first in Amiens and then in Arras in 1398. Guyot later abandoned his religious career and became captain in the fort of Ambleux, thanks to the good relations that his father Leon had established in his relatively short stay in Paris.

Leon of Lusignan died on November 29, 1393, after he made his confession and received the last rites. The monks of Saint Denis describe the burial, which must certainly have aroused great interest, as follows: “His relatives wore white garments, in order to pay him their last respects, to the great astonishment of the spectators, who had never seen anything like this. The body, dressed in white, was placed on a bed draped with white cloth: a golden crown was placed beside his head, and those who carried the torches, as was customary for royal burials, were also dressed in white.” The coffin was carried by twelve poor men, also dressed in white, and


P A R T I IA N I N T E R L U D E : T H E K I N G D O M O F C Y P R U S

Turks were now at the frontier of Hungary and Venice feared for the safety of the Adriatic Sea. The subsequent stunning defeat at Nicopolis of the large international force, which had set out to push the Turks across the Bosphorus, was followed by the decapitation of several thousand Christian prisoners.

Cyprus: An introduction 133

We have seen how, at the time Levon IV ascended to the throne in 1320, the glory of the Kingdom of Cilicia had faded to the point that it was no more than a dream. Although connected with the ruling houses of Cyprus, Naples, and Aragon, the Hetumians were regarded as outsid-ers and their religious practices were thought to be of dubious orthodoxy by the papacy. Even among some of the people dedicated to crusading, this kingdom was of peripheral significance.

With no hope of support from the former Mongol allies after their conversion to Islam, and no aid from the West on a scale they hoped for, the Armenians of Cilicia would likely have expe-rienced states of mind ranging from feelings of powerlessness over the continued threat to the existence of their country to despair. It would appear that the baronial faction exploited the anti-Latin sentiments to their own advantage, thus undermining the power of the crown. By the time of Levon’s murder in 1341, the country had descended into near anarchy. Following their ascension to the throne of Cilicia in 1342, the dynasty of the Lusignans of Cyprus could only fail in their at tempt to bring the Armenian Church closer to Rome.

In presenting the final chapters in the history of the Kingdom of Armenian Cilicia, we have become keenly aware of the growing interdependence of Cilicia and Cyprus as the only two sur viving Christian kingdoms in the East in the first half of the fourteenth century after the fall of Acre in 1291. For this reason, the close link between the two kingdoms in the second half of the century warrants a detailed treatment.

In the following chapters we present an overview of the dynastic links between Cyprus and Cilicia from the Third Crusade to the end of the fourteenth century, when the Lusignans occu-pied thrones of both Cilicia and Cyprus. A more comprehensive analysis of the religious, social, and political factors that led to the demise of the last two Christian kingdoms in the Near East must be left to scholars.

In 58 bc, Cyprus was annexed by Rome as a part of the adjacent province of Cilicia on the mainland. The island was later given by Caesar to his mistress Cleopatra, a transfer subsequent ly confirmed by her husband, Mark Anthony. It became separated from Cilicia under Emperor Augustus. When the Roman Empire was divided in ad 364, the island was naturally assigned to the eastern Empire. Under Emperor Heraclius, who was of Armenian origin, large colonies of Armenians established themselves in Cyprus.

In 647, the Arabs launched an expedition against Cyprus, which they occupied until it came under the Byzantine rule with Emperor Manuel I. The Greek and Arab communities lived in har-mony for some time. Shortly after 965, Emperor Nicephorus Phocas, after freeing Cilicia from the Arabs, sent troops to occupy Cyprus. The Christian population could again feel that they were full citizens of the empire. However, the island governors appointed by Constantinople fre-quently clashed with the archbishop of Cyprus. On several occasions, the governors attempted to involve the Cypriot population in rebellion against the empire, which was crushed.

The political situation in the whole Near East changed dramatically when, in the mid-eleventh century the Seljuk Turks began to raid the lands of the Byzantine Empire. These raids climaxed in victory at Manzikert in 1071. Within the next ten years they controlled most of Anatolia and its coastline. While Cyprus was not directly affected by the change in power, its communications with Constantinople were disrupted, particularly after a Turkish emir occupied the important

C H A P T E R 1 0

C y p r u s : A n I n t r o d u c t i o n

Map 5. Cyprus The Kingdom of Cyprus and the Crusades, 1191—1374 by Peter W. Edbury Copyright © 1991 Cambridge University Press. Reprinted with permission

In the previous chapters we presented an outline of the migration of the Armenians from their ancestral homeland in the Armenian Plateau to Cilicia. We have attempted to provide an inte grated picture of the political, military, and socio-cultural motives of the historical figures that were instrumental in shaping the history of the Armenians during the existence of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia

Armenian Cilicia Xii -- XiV Century134 Cyprus: An introduction 135

Jerusalem. In fact, it is shortly before the launch of the Third Crusade that a dynasty of French origin, the Lusignans of Poitou, came to assume a considerable prominence in the history of the few remaining years of the kingdom of Jerusalem. But it was in Cyprus that this French dynasty enjoyed singular prestige and great fortunes in the history of the latter crusades until it too, like Cilician Armenia, was engulfed by the waves of Muslim expansion in the eastern Mediterranean.

The Lusignans: The Creation of a New Royal Dynasty

The lords of Lusignan80 in Poitou, France, had been vassals of the king of England since 1154, and it was as a vassal that Guy of Lusignan went to Cyprus81 to pay homage to Richard I. According to legend, they derived their descent from the marriage of one their early ancestors to a fairy, Melusine, who appeared in the air, half serpent and half queen, when one of the lords of Lusignan was about to die. Guy had been brought to Jerusalem by his brother Aimery, constable of the kingdom, who had suggested Guy as a new husband to Sybilla, the widowed queen of Jerusalem. The queen was completely captivated by the handsome Lusignan and soon they were married.

From the time when Baldwin IV (the Leper King) was elected to the throne of Jerusalem in 1174 until the battle of Hattin in 1187, the external threat posed by Saladin, as well as internal dissension among the Latin nobles, had troubled the kingdom. Baldwin, forced by his leprosy to give up the throne, appointed Guy as regent. After Baldwin’s death in 1185, his sister Sybilla was proclaimed queen and Guy became king. Guy was to be the last king of Jerusalem to be crowned in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. However, his succession to the throne had not been favored by most of the native barons, who saw him as an adventurer. His quick rise to power had provoked their jealousy, as they feared that this upstart might jeopardize their interests. It became apparent that the kingdom of Jerusalem was a state divided and on the verge of civil war. At this most inop-portune point, the redoubtable Reynald of Chatillon reenters the stage by precipitating a crisis for the kingdom when he attacked a caravan of Muslim pilgrims. When Guy requested that Reynald make restitution, he flatly refused. The truce with Saladin was now broken.

Saladin, who was still trying to overcome what other Muslims perceived as his humble Kurdish origins, began to preach jihad, or holy war. He mobilized a large army, invaded the king-dom from the north, and attacked the town of Tiberias. When the news of the attack reached the Christians, Guy summoned a council of war to his tent. He asked the count of Tripoli for his opinion, since Tiberias was in his territory and the count’s wife was defending it. The count advised not to risk an all-out battle with Saladin. While he accepted the advice initially, Guy changed his mind when the Grand Master of the Knights Templar persuaded him to battle.

The next day, the army tried to take a short route across the barren hills of Galilee. The Christian army reached the two hills called the Horns of Hattin where the king decided to stop for the night. The following morning, on July 4, 1187, the Muslims began a relentless attack that continued through the day. The Christian infantry, dying of thirst even before the battle started, soon broke ranks. The desperate knights could only postpone eventual defeat. Soon after, the Muslims captured the Holy Cross, which had been a source of inspiration for the Christian army.

port-city of Smyrna. This allowed him to build a fleet and to capture the Aegean islands of Chios, Lesbos, Samos, and Rhodes. Emperor Alexius Comnenus was able to dispose of this trouble-some neighbor by advising the emir’s son-in-law to murder him. After the emir’s death, Alexius began to adopt a more aggressive policy toward the Seljuk Turks. He realized that he needed military aid from western Europe to defend his lands.

The Turks carved out several states in Anatolia, which resulted in a disruption of the pilgrim-age routes. The overland journey of Christian pilgrims from Europe to the Holy Land had now become much more difficult. By the time of his death in 1125, Alexius had recovered all the coastal lands of Anatolia as well as the islands, more by diplomacy than by warfare.

In the first half of the twelfth century, Cyprus enjoyed a period of tranquility and prosperity. During the course of the first two crusades, the island was spared the wars and invasions that troubled Anatolia and the Middle East. However, the island’s peace was broken in 1156 when the Armenian Prince, Thoros II, and Reynald, the prince of Antioch, invaded the island.

In 1146, after his escape from Constantinople, Thoros had become the new prince of Cilicia. As we have already seen (Chapter 3), he gradually reconquered his father’s territories, as well as Tarsus, Mamistra, and the Cilician plain. Thoros’s efforts to achieve a unified Cilician princi-pality provoked a vigorous reaction from Emperor Manuel. In a sly diplomatic move, Manuel promised Reynald of Chatillon that he would recognize him as prince of Antioch if he agreed to recapture the territory that had been lost to Thoros. When at the start of the military opera-tion Reynald de manded subsidies from the emperor, Manuel told him to wait until after the main task of removing Thoros was completed. In 1156, Reynald thus decided to join force with Thoros, with the media tion of the Templars, and the two princes launched a piratical raid on Cyprus. The invaders overran the meager defenses of the island, pillaging churches and monas-teries and forcing the farmers to ransom their herds. Then, before the imperial fleet could arrive, they sailed away with their booty. Two years later, when Manuel marched into Antioch, Thoros and Reynald were pardoned by the emperor only after making a humiliating public apology.

Later, after the disaster at Myriokephalon in Phrygia in 1176, when the imperial forces were ut terly defeated by the Seljuk Turks, Emperor Manuel lost control of southern Anatolia and Cyprus became isolated. The defeat benefited the Armenians of Cilicia, as they would probably have been next on Manuel’s list, if he had won a victory against the Turks.

By the end of Manuel’s reign, Isaac Ducas, a junior member of the imperial family, was ap pointed governor of Cilicia. When he crossed into Cyprus, he appointed himself emperor. Isaac, a political opportunist, was concerned mainly with his own survival. Fearing that a cru-sade might be coming from the West to recover the Holy Land and threaten his kingdom, he decided to place himself under Saladin’s protection.

After three decades of disasters, including several earthquakes, the invasion by Thoros and Reynald, and another invasion by a Mamluk fleet, Cyprus was reduced to an impoverished state. The fall of the kingdom of Jerusalem in 1187 at the hands of Saladin, in addition to depriving Cyprus of one of its primary commercial markets, was a major political threat to the island’s independence.

Like Cilicia, Cyprus played an important role during the First Crusade. Both countries would play a much more significant role in the Third Crusade, launched in response to the loss of


East. Once there, Philip left Sicily before Richard. His voyage to the Holy Land went smoothly, and he arrived safely in Acre, the main port, bringing new forces to the kingdom of Jerusalem. He began to press the claim of Conrad of Montferrat as king of Jerusalem. Conrad, a count in northern Italy, was a vassal of the French king.

In contrast to Philip’s unremarkable voyage, Richard’s would prove to have much more drama. In Sicily he met with his younger sister, Joanna, widow of the Norman King William the Good, and Eleanor of Acquitaine’s youngest daughter. After several months in Sicily, during which he exhibited his impulsive character, he managed to extract a large sum of money from Tancred, the new king of the island. Eleanor, his very resourceful mother came to meet him, bringing with her Princess Berengaria of Navarre, a young lady whom she had designated as the spouse for her son. Because it was Lent, their marriage could not be celebrated in Sicily. Richard, whose sexual proclivity was unclear, was in no hurry to marry.

When his fleet left Sicily, Richard’s sister and his new fiancée traveled with their retinue and most of the royal treasury in three dromons, the slowest ships in his fleet. After provisioning in Crete and Rhodes, the fleet encountered a violent storm and one of the ships was shipwrecked off Cyprus. At that time, the island was in the hands of the rogue Byzantine governor Isaac. He arrested some of the survivors and then tried to charm Richard’s sister and Princess Berengaria, who were unharmed and anchored off the island, by promising hospitality. The two royal ladies did not believe Isaac’s promises and refused to come ashore. When he learned of Isaac’s ruse, Richard was furious. He knew that Isaac was hated by the Cypriots for his cruelty and for rob-bing them of their lands. Richard went to the rescue of his sister and fiancée. Within a few hours the city of Limassol was in Richard’s hands, but Isaac had slipped way. Shortly after his arrival in Cyprus, Richard sent a ship to Acre to announce his imminent arrival on the Levantine coast.

King Guy of Lusignan, Lord of Cyprus

The day before Richard’s marriage to Berengaria, King Guy of Jerusalem arrived with a delega-tion of leading crusaders, including his brother Geoffrey, the prince of Cilicia, Levon II, (later crowned King Levon I) and other nobles to Cyprus to offer Richard their services. While still the titular king of Jerusalem, Guy was a shell of his former self. After the Battle of Hattin, he had spent a year in captivity. At the time of his release, he had promised Saladin he would never again take arms against Muslims. Within a short time, he had broken that promise and had mounted an unsuccess ful siege against Acre. After the death of his wife Sybilla and her two infant children, Guy’s claim to the throne of Jerusalem was contested by her half-sister Isabelle married to Conrad of Montferrat, a man favored by the barons. However, the succession crisis would not be resolved until the arrival of the two Europeans kings, Richard and Philip. On May 12, 1191, Richard celebrated his marriage to Berengaria, who was crowned Queen of England. Guy Lusignan and Prince Levon II of Cilicia were present at the ceremony. According to some chroniclers, Levon was Richard’s best man at the wedding.

The arrival of Guy and his supporters was well timed, as Richard had fallen ill and could not proceed in his battle with Isaac. The last phase in the conquest of Cyprus began in earnest the

After Saladin ordered the final assault, thousands of Christian soldiers were killed or captured. Guy, Reynald of Chatillon, and many other knights were taken prisoner and brought to Saladin’s tent. Saladin offered King Guy a seat next to him and offered him water. Guy knew that, accord-ing to Arab tradition, a prisoner who is given food or water has his life spared. After he drank, Guy handed the water to Reynald. The sultan then said to Guy that, as the water had not been given to Reynald personally by him, he was not obliged to show him mercy. A short time later, Saladin had Reynald beheaded. Two hundred Templars and Knight Hospitallers suffered the same fate. Guy was released by Saladin a year later. The victory essentially ended the kingdom of Jerusalem.

Considering the strongly-held partisan views about him, Guy’s character is difficult to assess. While the kingdom’s barons had favored a peace policy with Saladin, the court supported Guy. Like Guy, they were first-generation settlers and favored a more aggressive solution. Reynald of Chatillon, who had gained infamy for his unprovoked attack on Cyprus and had spent fif-teen years in a Muslim prison, was the major advocate of a more aggressive policy toward the Muslims. Ironically, a few years earlier Guy had adopted a more cautious military stance, refus-ing an all-out battle with the Muslims. This strategy had helped Guy to reach a temporary stale-mate with Saladin. At that time, the same old barons had criticized him for his unwillingness to join battle. Guy’s later success in Cyprus suggests that, in addition to his qualities as a fierce fighter, he could also be a good statesman.

Richard the Lion-Heart’s Conquest of Cyprus

In April 1191, a powerful fleet, said to consist of more than two hundred ships, set sail for Palestine from Sicily; on board the admiral ship, the king of England, Richard Plantagenet, also known as Richard the Lion-Heart, was leading his own army in the Third Crusade.

According to some reports, when news of Jerusalem’s fall to Saladin on July 4, 1187, reached Europe, Pope Urban III died of a heart attack. His successor, Gregory VIII, was committed to preaching a new crusade. King Philip II of France, King Richard of England, and the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick I Barbarossa, agreed that a major military intervention in the Levant was nec essary. They decided to put aside their political differences and to lead three great armies to fight Saladin, who, by then, was thought to be the greatest Islamic conqueror of all time. The prepara tion for the crusade had been long in the making because of its complexity.

As already noted in chapter 3, with the death of the emperor by drowning while crossing a river in western Cilicia the German army quickly disintegrated. The majority of Frederick’s forces went home, while some proceeded to Acre. Until then, panic had struck the Turks at the pros-pect of facing the immense and well-disciplined army. Now, sensing the unique opportunity, they attacked the leaderless German soldiers without mercy. Only a few thousand of the larg-est Christian army ever assembled for a crusade limped into Antioch, with the emperor’s body, preserved in vinegar, in tow. The most impressive of the three European armies that had caused the most worry for Saladin thus never showed up in Palestine.

The armies of King Philip and King Richard, however, proceeded by ship from ports in south-ern France to Messina, the city in northeastern Sicily chosen for their rendezvous en route to the


23. The Lusignan Castle. From the manuscript “Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry”. Located near Poitiers, the castle was owned by the Lusignans. (Courtesy of Mutafian).

day following Richard’s wedding, after Isaac declared that he would drive the invaders off his island. This gave Richard a pretext for subduing Cyprus. While he took charge of the fleet, he placed Guy in command of the army with the aim of sweeping the island. When he saw Richard’s and Guy’s forces converging on him, Isaac sent his wife and daughter to the castle of Kyrenia, hoping that he might join them later, cross to Cilicia, and take refuge there. Seeing that resist-ance was hopeless, Isaac’s daughter fell on her knees in front of King Guy, and Isaac was put in chains. He ended his days in a Syrian prison. His wife does not appear to have survived, while his daughter, initially taken hostage, later became a member of Queen Berengaria’s retinue.

To fulfill his main mission, which was to regain the Holy Land from the Muslims, Richard tried to extract as much money as he could from his conquest of Cyprus. The island may have seemed of little value to him at the time, since he decided to pass it on to the Templars for 100,000 dinars, with 40,000 as a down payment. With the Templars’ exploitation of the island to pay their debt to Richard, the Cypriots rebelled. The suppression by the knights led to the massacre of many Greeks. The Templars appealed to Richard to cancel the sale of the island, and he agreed to turn it over to Guy on the same terms. Local bankers lent Guy the down payment of 40,000 dinars and assumed responsibility for paying the rest of the loan to Richard. With that purchase, the Lusignan dynasty was founded. It was to rule Cyprus for almost three hundred years.

Contrary to the opinion of many of his adversaries, who thought of him as impulsive and sim ple-minded, Guy adopted many sensible policies when, in the fall of 1192, he took many of his sup porters to Cyprus. First, he assured the terrified Greek population that they would be safe from physical harm. Then, he gave fiefs to hundreds of knights who had lost their feudal domains in the kingdom of Jerusalem, and handed over many parcels of land to common peo-ple. He also provided dowries to widows who lost their husbands and their lands to Saladin. Many people came from Jerusalem, Antioch, and Armenia to settle on the island. Some of the chroniclers suggest that even some of Guy’s most venomous critics must have grudgingly rec-ognized that the Latin settlement of Cyprus was a success. Guy never assumed the title of King of Cyprus, only that of Dominus, or Lord. He governed from 1192 to 1194, when he died without leaving heirs.

First King of Cyprus: Aimery of Lusignan

Guy’s brother Aimery, who had been appointed by Guy constable of Cyprus, was then elected by the Cypriot nobles as their lord. He is one of the principal characters in the affirmation of Cyprus as a regional power in the eastern Mediterranean. Of rather prickly nature in his youth, Aimery developed into a fascinating character and became a wise monarch.

One of his first acts of Jerusalem was to attempt to reconcile with Henry of Champagne, nephew of Richard Lion-Heart and king of Jerusalem. The grandson of King LouisVII of France and Eleanor of Aquitaine, he had at one point been promised the kingdom of Cyprus. A poor relation ship existed between the Lusignan brothers and Henry, who regarded Cyprus as a dependency of Jerusalem.


Aimery made it known to Henry that he would be pleased to meet him in Cyprus, to free Bohemond III of Antioch. Henry accepted the invitation of Aimery to be in Cyprus on Henry’s return to Jerusalem. At that time, Henry was visiting King Levon I of Cilicia, to urge him to free Bohemond III of Antioch. Henry accepted the invitation and the offer of the county of Jaffa to him in exchange for his recognition of Aimery’s lordship over Cyprus and the cancellation of Guy’s remaining debt of 60,000 bezains to Henry. Aimery confirmed the support of Cyprus in the event of military need. Their peace was sanctioned by marriage alliances: Aimery’s first three sons were to wed Henry’s first three daughters. This manner of disposing of one’s progeny at a tender age was almost commonplace in that era. His only surviving son would eventually marry Henry’s daughter Alice.

Aimery moved to transform his possession of Cyprus into a dynastic realm. He replenished the island’s treasury. He then replaced the Greek ecclesiastical administration with Catholic bish ops, his first step in realizing his ultimate ambition to be anointed king by the pope. He displayed a keen political sense by paying homage to Henry VI, the Holy Roman emperor, at the time the most powerful ruler in Europe. The emperor appointed his imperial chancellor Conrad, bishop of Heidelsheim, and entrusted him with the coronation. Aimery was crowned in the Cathedral of Santa Sophia (currently, the Selimye Mosque) in Nicosia in September 1197.

The Lusignan fortunes did not end here. Within a year, a tragic event happened in Acre: while inspecting his troops from a gallery, King Henry died when he fell onto the courtyard below. The barons of Jerusalem again faced a crisis of succession. Aimery’s name was put for-ward by the archbishop and it was approved. He accepted marriage to the widow Isabelle of Ibelin. In October 1198, he was crowned king of Jerusalem in the city of Tyre, where the kings were invested after the loss of the kingdom of Jerusalem. From Aimery and Isabelle’s union were born one son and two daughters.

One of several events took place during Aimery’s reign that promoted a very congenial re lationship between him and King Levon of Cilicia. Aimery’s wife Isabelle and her children had been captured by a Greek pirate in a small village near Famagusta, and were taken to Cilicia. She was freed only after Levon, who was already enjoying a very amicable relationship with Aimery, demanded that the pirate bring the family to him unharmed. Once freed, the family was brought to Korikos to be reunited with Aimery. In 1210, after he divorced his first wife, Levon married Aimery’s daughter Sybille.

The Lusignan king proved to be a man of considerable political clear-mindedness and modera tion. After the death of Saladin In 1193, he negotiated a truce with Saladin’s brother. The period of tran quility that followed was particularly advantageous to Cyprus, since the social structure had been strengthened by settlements of Europeans who were given privileges: Genoese, Venetians, Pisans, Franks, Provençals, and Catalans occupied feuds or developed com-merce and trade.

To replenish the treasury, which had been depleted by his brother’s generosity, Aimery took steps to increase revenues. Careful that the crown of the kingdom of Jerusalem might unduly bur den his island kingdom, he kept the administrative and economic management of Cyprus separate from that of the kingdom of Jerusalem. He was likely aware that, following his death,


had received his crown from Frederick’s father, Emperor Henry VI. He then took the young king to the mainland as hostage. The two would eventually reach an agreement, but not before Frederick was recognized suzerain of the island.

When he returned to the West in 1229, Frederick left the administration of the island to five of his representatives, who imposed heavy taxes. A series of popular revolts, under the leader-ship of the Ibelins, led to a war that lasted almost four years until the Ibelins won a decisive vic-tory over the imperial forces. It was not until Pope Innocent IV annulled the imperial suzerainty over the Lusignans that Cyprus could regain its independence.

While it regained some of its former territories and wealth, Jerusalem was finally lost to the Mamluks in 1244 after a major military defeat. Soon after, Cyprus became a point of reference for crusaders and was the base from which King St. Louis IX of France launched the Seventh Crusade. He and his brother Charles of Anjou were welcomed with great honors by King Henry. The cru saders spent the winter in Cyprus. In May 1249, the two kings set sail for Damietta in Egypt, which was easily captured. King Henry returned to Cyprus, though he left his knights and infantry in Egypt. On the march to Cairo, the Christians suffered a great military disaster, which culminated in the capture of King Louis and the surrender of the entire army. The king was released after a huge ransom was paid. After spending four years in Acre in an effort to restore the kingdom of Jerusalem, Louis returned to France.

Henry I died in 1253 (he was only thirty six years old), leaving his kingdom to his infant son, Hugh II, born from his marriage to Pleasance of Antioch. Chroniclers describe him as being of an exceptionally placid nature.

Structure of the Kingdom of Cyprus in the Thirteenth Century

Before continuing with the historical narrative of the Lusignan dynasty, it may be worthwhile to give an overview of the political structure of the kingdom of Cyprus, which was copied from the kingdom of Jerusalem and introduced by the Lusignans, with some concepts borrowed from the island’s Byzantine past. At the time of his coronation, the king swore to observe the Assizes of the kingdom (i. e., of Cyprus) and the customs of the ancient kingdom of Jerusalem. The two crowns were incorporated in 1267 under Hugh III, with the king receiving the crown in separate ceremo nies, the first as king of Cyprus in Nicosia, and the second as king of Jerusalem in Famagusta. It is in this ceremony that the king honored a number of nobles with the ti-tles of high-ranking officials in the defunct kingdom. A group of prestigious nobles held the authoritative titles: constable, the supreme commander of the army; seneschal, or grand mas-ter of the court, treasury and the king’s representative; chamberlain, who administered the act of homage paid by the nobles to the king; marshal, lieutenant of the constable; and grand turkopalier, who commanded the light cavalry. All of these changes had been introduced from France into the East. When in 1394 James was crowned king of the now defunct kingdom of Armenia, after the death of Leon V, he appointed Cypriot knights as marshall and chamberlain of Armenia.

the kingdom of Cyprus would automatically pass to his heirs, while that of Jerusalem would be decided by the High Court.

Aimery did not enjoy this prosperity for long. In 1205, while in Tyre, he ate some spoiled fish, immediately felt ill, and died a few days later. His sudden death caused a period of crisis in the two kingdoms, more so since Queen Isabelle died shortly thereafter as well.

The heir to the crown of Cyprus was Aimery’s ten-year-old son, Hugh. He was the first in a series of boy-kings who were subject to a regent, at a critical moment for the kingdom. The law would not allow the coronation until the prince heir reached fifteen years of age. Even though boys were weaned by harsh military and civil education, it is difficult to imagine how any of them could develop independent personalities. None of these kings appears to have left a last-ing im pression on the political scene of the time.

As soon as he reached the age of majority, Hugh I (1205–1218) demanded an accounting of the kingdom’s finances from the ambitious regent, who may have lined his pockets with the kingdom’s funds. With little support on the island, the regent took flight with his family to Acre.

As stipulated in an accord between his father and the king of Jerusalem, Hugh married King Henry’s daughter Alice. They had four children, the male heir to the throne of Cyprus and three girls. Isabelle married the prince of Antioch. From this union, a second Lusignan dynasty in Cyprus would follow a few decades later.

Under Hugh, the great Cathedral of Santa Sophia in Nicosia was built in the Gothic style of central France. The cathedral became the church were the Lusignan kings were crowned, and it was also their preferred burial place. Hugh made important donations to the military orders, the Hospitallers and the Templars, granting them the right to build their own castles. He died in Tripoli where he had journeyed to witness the wedding of his sister Melisende to Bohemond IV of Antioch.

Hugh’s only son, Henry, born shortly before his death, was assured a long regency. Queen Alice became regent and guardian of her infant son, assisted by her two uncles, Philip and John of Ibelin. During Henry’s early years, she sheltered him so that he did not have to participate in the disastrous Fifth Crusade in which Cyprus was represented by a small contingent. A major part of his reign (1218-1253) was dominated by the Lombard War with the Holy Roman emperor.

When the grandson of Frederick Barbarossa, Federick II, was crowned emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in 1220, he was pressured by Pope Onorius III to undertake a crusade. Frederick was particularly admired by many of his contemporaries. He was known as Stupor Mundi, the world’s wonder: a very sharp intellect, with an insatiable thirst for knowledge (he knew many languages, including Arabic, and wrote poetry); he was truly an exceptional monarch. He is seen by some scholars as a key figure between the medieval and the modern world. These quali-ties were matched by a highly unscrupulous and ruthless character, of which he gave proof in Cyprus. During his journey to the East in 1228, known as the Sixth Crusade, Frederick entered into ne gotiations with the sultan of Egypt and within a few months concluded a peace treaty that was to last ten years. By virtue of this treaty, Jerusalem was opened up to the Christians. Prior to reaching Palestine, he stopped in Cyprus, where he put forward his claim that King Henry was his vassal, a claim based on the fact that the first Lusignan king of Cyprus, Aimery,


C H A P T E R 1 1

T h e L u s i g n a n – A n t i o c h D y n a s t y

When King Hugh II of Cyprus died at only fourteen years of age, the original direct line of the Lusignans became extinct, leading to a dynastic dispute between two claimants, both sons of the late King Henry’s sisters. After considerable debate, the High Court of Jerusalem came down on the side of Hugh of Antioch-Lusignan whose father was Henry of Antioch, and his mother, Isabelle of Lusignan, who was already regent of Jerusalem. By adopting his mother’s name, he founded the second Lusignan dynasty, known as the Antioch-Lusignan line. With him, the kings of Cyprus again took the titles of both kingdoms.

Hugh III is a rare character in the history of Cyprus. He is described by some of the chroni-clers of the time as handsome, of “noble appearance,” and gifted with foresight and initiative. He had the misfortune to govern in a particularly difficult period, and a cruel fate doggedly pursued him and his numerous offspring.

The final years prior to Hugh’s death coincided with a great revival of the powerful Muslims, under the leadership of the new sultan, Baybars, a cruel man who acquired his kingdom by means of palace intrigues. Taking advantage of the weakness of the Christians, due to divisions among the local states, and a lack of interest on the part of the Western powers, he launched a series of of fensives against the cities of Outremer. At the same time, one of his more capable emirs, Qalahun, conducted a violent campaign against Tripoli, Antioch, and the Kingdom of Cilicia. It was during these particularly trying times that Hugh III was crowned king, on Christmas day of 1267, in the cathedral at Nicosia.

We have already seen how the appearance of the Mongols a few years earlier had opened pros pects for new alliances and for a change in the balance of power in the region. Friendly to Christian missionaries who for several centuries had traveled in the Far East, the Mongols appeared open to a political and military alliance against the Muslims. An embassy from Pope Gregory X, which had accompanied the Polo family, however, did not produce the hoped-for results. The Western powers threw away the opportunity and reacted with indifference, if not

We know that the kingdom was seen as a dependence of the Holy Roman Catholic Empire. The first of its kings, Aimery of Lusignan, had been given a scepter and a diadem by the emperor. Unfortunately, only the royal seals, but no crown jewel or other royal insignia, can be found. The garments worn by the king, as depicted in the coinage, appear to be similar to those seen on the seals of the kings of Jerusalem.

The political organization of the small kingdom was based on European feudal principles. The small ruling class was mostly of French origin and French-speaking, with an overwhelm-ing Greek indigenous population and a few hundred Syrians and Armenians living primarily in Famagusta. These latter communities followed their own legal practices. The territory was divided into land owned by the king and fiefs held by the nobles on condition of rendering military services.

As the strong foundation of the political structure of the realm, the Haute Cour or High Court, with the king presiding over all the barons, was the main constitutional body. Its proce-dures and laws were imported from Jerusalem. The court decided on questions of royal suc-cession and ren dered judgment in cases involving charges against any member of the nobility as well as on all mat ters concerning fiefs and the alienation of royal lands. Beyond its purview were matters relating to religion, marriage, and rights of succession, which were decided by the Church. For resolution of conflicts among members of the middle class, or between this class and the nobility, there was the Cour des Bourgeois, the Lower Court.

The control of towns, public roads, and fortifications was in the hands of the king. He leased out his villages to the nobles. The granaries of the king and the nobility, the main source of wealth, exported their products. Coinage, and even the fisheries and production of the salt, were a royal monopoly.

The peasants were divided into two groups: the lowest, the serfs who were attached to the land; and a class of emancipated freemen who owed their lords part of the produce. Many travel ers to the island during the Lusignan period commented on its wealth. As everywhere else in the Middle Ages, the peasants were likely to be no worse off under the Lusignans than under the previous Byzantine or, subsequently, under Turkish rule.

The Lusignans retained ownership of all the castles on the island. Keenly aware of the Mamluk threat, they spared no expense in improving the castles inherited from the Byzantines at Nicosia, Kyrenia, St. Hilarion, Buffavento, and Kantara. When they took over control of the island in the last decades of the fifteenth century, the Venetians rebuilt these medieval fortifica-tions according to the latest concepts of military science to meet the challenge posed by the powerful Turkish cannons.

Armenian Cilicia Xii -- XiV Century146 the lusignan–Antioch Dynasty 147

In the meanwhile, Sultan Qalahun reached a nonaggression treaty with the Mongols, who had lost hope in any alliance with the Western powers and the papacy. The Mamluk army moved to ward Syria. After the fall of Tripoli, Henry managed to patch together a truce with the Mamluks lasting ten years, ten months, and ten days. The calm did not last long, however. Henry’s request for help from the West resulted in a counterproductive assault by a small Christian military con-tingent that persecuted the local Muslim population. On his deathbed, the sultan asked his son al-Ashraf to solemnly swear that he would expel the Christians from Palestine.

On April 6, 1291 the final siege of Acre brought about a union of all the Latins in one of the most heroic pages of the crusading era. The city was defended with desperation. Henry, arriving with re inforcements during the siege, stayed until it was clear the city was lost to the enemy. After the fall of Acre, one by one the remaining cities (including Beirut) along the coast of Palestine fell, closing the era of the crusades begun two hundred years earlier. After the initial shock, Cyprus went into a prolonged state of mourning. A century later, travelers to the island noted that Cypriot ladies wore a black veil as a sign of sorrow whenever they went out of their houses.82

When the news of the fall of Acre reached Europe, it provoked more consternation than hor-ror. Any feeling of grief over the loss was commingled with recrimination against the Cypriot king and the Italian republics, which were accused of cowardice. The fundamental problem, as noted by Professor Peter Edbury, the eminent historian of the kingdom of Cyprus, was an insuf-ficient military force, totally inadequate to the task of mounting an effective resistance. The reinforce ments brought by Henry to Acre would appear to be the upper limit he could reason-ably spare from the defense of his island.

Henry found himself reigning during very difficult times. Immediately following the fall of the crusader lands, the island was invaded by large numbers of refugees. The barons and clerics of the kingdom of Jerusalem, as well as the Templars and the Hospitallers, flocked to the island. The old conflicts and rivalries between Genoese and Venetians were also transferred to Cyprus.

A House Divided: A Fraternal Rivalry Ends in Tragedy

The king did his best to cope with the multiple problems faced by the kingdom. He increased the tax burden even on the Catholic Church, and took a very firm stance toward the Genoese for their acts of piracy in Cypriot waters. Less effective were his military initiatives. When Il-Khan Ghazan of Persia proposed another alliance with Cilicia and Cyprus in 1300, a small corps of Cypriot forces under the command of Henry’s brother Aimery sailed with the Templars and the Hospitallers. They waited for the arrival of the Mongols, but when they did not arrive, the Cypriots came under attack and were forced to retire to their island after suffering severe losses. This was the start of a major quarrel between King Henry and his brother Aimery, who later used the king’s alleged apathy in the face of Mamluk aggression as one of the grievances to justify a coup d’ètat in 1306, which could only be achieved with the support of the Templars and many prominent barons. Aimery also cited Henry’s fail ure to support his relatives on the throne of Cilician Armenia and the kingdom’s poor administration.

outright hostility, to the overtures of the Mongols. Only King Hetum I of Cilicia, as we have already seen, accepted his condition as vassal to the Great Khan.

During these years, Hugh III endeavored to build a united front to stem Baybars’s advance, but his efforts met with little success. His intense diplomacy between Cyprus and the remain ing Christian lands were met with disinterest by the lords of Tyre and Acre, who elected to make separate peace agreements with the Mamluks. The Muslim conquests continued at a quick pace. Antioch was subjected to a siege, and, when the ancient city fell in 1268, Baybars took an enormous amount of booty. As so often happened after a successful siege, the profits provided an additional stimulus for other campaigns against the crusader states.

When he heard the news of another crusade being lanched by King St. Louis, Baybars re turned to Egypt. The death of the St. Louis in Tunisia (near the ruins of ancient Carthage) in 1270 left the sultan free to devote his attention to his next conquest; the Crac de Chevaliers, the for midable castle in northern Syria held by the Hospitallers. After the Muslims brought down the outer defensive walls, the defenders retreated to the inner fortifications. It was only a matter of time before these defenses and the whole castle were taken. After surrendering the castle, the Hospitallers were allowed to retire to Tripoli. The most formidable fortress in the Near East, the Crak de Chevaliers, its majestic walls even now dominating the Syrian landscape, had fallen as well.

In an attempt to prevent the Cypriot kings from providing further assistance to the Christians on the mainland, Baybars launched a naval attack against Cyprus. However, this attack against the island kingdom ended in disaster when the Muslim fleet was destroyed in a storm off the Cypriot coast. Following this debacle, Baybars concluded a truce, which gave Acre, the last Christian bas tion in Palestine, a few more years of life.

To make the Lusignan king’s task of defending Outremer even more difficult, the Cypriot knights began to accept military missions in Outremer with less enthusiasm, and this only after reaching an agreement that the king would not demand their support on the mainland for more than four months a year.

After his death in 1284, the king’s body was transported to Cyprus and buried in the cathe-dral at Nicosia. He has been judged by some historians as an indecisive man, lacking in com-munication skills. But the chronicles of the time also present him as solicitous during his reign, citing the fact that, during an epidemic that struck the island, he sold much of his personal property to pro vide for the needs of his people. Also to his merit, he promoted the erection of the magnificent Bellapais Abbey for the Augustinian monks.

End of Christian Lands in the Levant

Hugh’s eldest son, John, who died within a year, was succeeded by his fourteen-year-old broth-er, Henry II (1285–1324). Henry’s coronation as king of Jerusalem a year later was celebrated with the enactment of scenes from the romance of the Knights of the Round Table. Alas, the festivities only masked the grave state of the remaining Christian lands.


selves in Nicosia and made a public confession of their treason, instead of being sentenced to death they were held in confinement for several years. Perhaps in an attempt to bury the whole matter, the king decided not to confiscate their fiefs, an act that was done much later, by Hugh IV.

The last fourteen years of Henry’s rule were far from tranquil. He would never leave his pal-ace without being accompanied by knights with drawn swords, perhaps fearful of further plots against him. He did show leniency toward his brother’s widow, whom he allowed to return to Cyprus with her sons. After Isabelle returned to her native country, she and two of her chil-dren met their death in a Cilician prison on orders of the new regent of that country, Oshin of Gorigos. Her third son, John, would be the father of the future King of Cilicia, Levon V.

The state of war against the Mamluks was to remain a preoccupation for the rulers of Cyprus for more than a century. Henry’s policy toward crusading was recommended to Pope Clement V: “Cyprus rather than Armenia as a base, Egypt rather than Armenia or Syria as the objec-tive.” Henry’s view is understandable in light of the negative relationship that had prevailed with King Oshin of Cilicia since his release from captivity in that country. Yet, when in 1322 the Mamluks overran Ayas, he sent help and his ships ferried many of the survivors to Cyprus. It is important to note that the island did not have many ships and for every transport operation it had to count on the demanding Italian maritime republics. With the Mamluks threatening to invade Cyprus, Henry also appealed to Pope John XXII. The result of the pope’s preaching a new crusade in support of Cyprus and Cilicia was the sending of squadrons of ships to the East for one year. As noted by Henry’s contemporaries, such a move failed to achieve anything of signifi-cance, but served only to further antagonize the sultan.

Henry’s family life may not have been any happier than his public one. His marriage to Constance of Aragon, daughter of Frederick, king of Sicily, was childless. Henry’s ruthless character was a per-fect match for the times. Enigmatic and restless, he displayed an icy self-control. Strangely enough, the health problems that had afflicted him in his youth disappeared after his restoration. In the remaining years of his reign, Henry faced more challenges, among them the charge of heresy laid against the Templars by the king of France and the pope. The end of a series of trials brought about the dissolution of the order, the transfer of their properties to the Knights Hospitaller, and their imprisonment. With a lackluster performance as a monarch, Henry died in 1324 at age fifty seven. His mother, who saw her family so tragically torn apart, died a short time after.

Henry was succeeded by his nephew Hugh IV, who was crowned with his wife Alice of Ibelin in Nicosia. Another coronation followed a month later as sovereigns of the kingdom of Jerusalem in the new Cathedral of Saint Nicholas in Famagusta, the city closest to the mainland. The thirty-five years of Hugh’s rule were characterized by other natural calamities, including the plague that struck Europe in 1348.

Hugh showed himself to be an overly cautious ruler. He refused the offer by the Armenians of Cilicia to place Gorigos under his protection, which would have created a Cypriot military base for the defense of the coast against attacks by the Turks. During the early years of his reign his main goal was to stabilize the troubled relations with Venice and Genoa, as well as to develop commerce with Florence, the Catalans, and the city of Montpellier. Famagusta, the prin-cipal port of the island, achieved a pre-eminent position in the Levant. Many European travelers of that time spoke of the wealth of the kingdom.

For Cilicia, the loss of Palestine to the Mamluks brought a rapid deterioration of its security against a foe far superior in strength. The final scene on the beleaguered kingdom was drawing to a dramatic close. Aimery was particularly concerned for the fate of Cilicia, as he had married Isabelle, the sister of King Oshin. Unable to handle the difficulties facing him, Henry exasper-ated his brothers and his vassals. He failed to follow the advice of his vassals in not awarding trade privileges to the Republic of Genoa and had conflicts with the Knights of St. John and the Templars, who had their headquarters in Cyprus. However, despite the pressure and abuse, Henry refused to submit. It became clear that Aimery was aiming to take control, and the queen mother at tempted in vain to persuade him to change his mind. Aimery declared that the king was too ill to rule effectively and assumed control of the kingdom by proclaiming himself “governor.”

Aimery later accused his brother of appealing to Pope Clement V for help against the insur-gents and sent an embassy, led by Armenian nobleman Hayton of Gorigos to counter his broth-er’s accusation. Hayton, by then a monk at Bellapais, was the author of La Fleur de l’histoire de la terre d’orient, a work he had dictated, at the order of Clement V, while he was in Poitiers in 1308. Thought by some to be the main agitator in the coup against Henry, Hayton failed to convince the pope of the legitimacy of Aimery’s usurpation of his brother’s throne. Upon his return to Cyprus, he brought news of the pope’s unwillingness to support Aimery. He also carried back papal letters to arrest the Templars in Cyprus.

In 1310, Aimery had his brother, the king, arrested and sent to Cilicia to be placed in the custody of his brother-in-law, Oshin. A month later, a papal nuncio was sent with the task of rec-onciling the two brothers. The nuncio conveyed the message that opinion in Europe was against Aimery, who stated he would never agree to surrender his title. When the nuncio traveled to Cilicia, Henry, compelled by the harsh conditions of his confinement, agreed to have his brother rule as governor for life. Aimery’s success was short-lived. Before he could sign the accord, he was assassinated by a gentleman of his court who, after decapitating him and cutting off his right hand, disappeared. The motive for this murder has remained obscure.

Negotiations were under way with King Oshin to bring about Henry’s return from Cilicia. An agreement was eventually reached with Oshin to allow the simultaneous departure of Henry for Cyprus and the return to Cyprus of his sister Isabelle, Aimery’s wife, and her children. The widow had to accept the fact that her first son, Hugh, could never aspire to the throne of Cyprus. When the Cypriot ship that was transporting them reached Ayas, there were moments of great tension while awaiting the exchange of the respective hostages. When the king was safely aboard, the boy, pushed forward by his mother, paid homage to the king. Henry’s kindly attitude toward his nephew encouraged Isabelle who threw herself at the king’s feet and swore alle-giance to him. She then opened a small chest containing the crown jewels, which her husband had seized. She tried in vain to recover for herself and her children the large fortune Aimery had accumulated during his gov ernorship of Cyprus. Before leaving Cilicia, she begged the king to punish her husband’s assassins.

When he landed in Famagusta, Henry was greeted with jubilation. Once restored to the throne, the king’s first act was to order those who had participated in the rebellion to give them-selves up. At this point, he chose to be merciful. When most of these men finally presented them-


sensual man. He was also given to displays of piety. We find that in 1353 he was absolved by the pope from the vow of visiting the tomb of Saint James of Compostella in northern Spain, but he proceeded with his pilgrimage nonetheless. During the voyage to that holy site, he consumed only bread and water and abstained from eating meat. He appeared consumed by an inner fire, an intense faith, perhaps expressed to the point of fanaticism. He could inspire the devo-tion of men of the stature of Saint Peter Thomas, the papal legate, and of Philippe de Mézières, who became his chancellor. Leading artists of the period, such as Jean Froissart and William of Machaut, were his chroniclers.84 Petrarch and Chaucer had words of praise for this man.

Some have compared Peter to a brilliant shooting star, his passing as quick as his spectacular rise. We could dare say that the germ of his downfall was in his temperament: excessive needs and unrealistic goals, he was a creature of earlier times, when the chivalric ideal was more in fashion.

24. Gorigos. The fortifications include both a land and a sea castle. Second only to Ayas, it guards the road going from Silifke to Tarsus. While commercially less important, for strategic reason (it was directly across Cyprus) it would become quite important militarily. Late in the 1200s, Hetum the Historian would be the master of the port. In a farsighted move, Peter I of Cyprus took control of this port when it became clear that the Mamluks would soon conquer all of Cilicia. (Courtesy of RAA Archives: Photo by Raffi Kortoshian, 2007)

Shortly after his coronation, the people of Gorigos offered him the city with the request that he protect them against the Turks; they were undoubtedly not inspired by the king of Cilician Armenia. Peter accepted the offer of what he thought would be a valuable base on the coast

Well-versed in Greek and Latin, Hugh was also a man of wide culture. He engaged in an intense correspondence with western Europe, which today gives us an abundance of informa-tion on the life of the times. He was also a patron of literature and the arts. He commissioned Boccaccio to write Genealogy of the Gods, a work that was dedicated to him.

While Hugh governed wisely, he possessed character traits that can hardly be seen as attrac-tive. He could be vindictive even with members of his family. His two sons, Peter and John, had as men tor Philip de Mézières, a teacher of influence who instilled in the princes sentiments of nobility and religious fervor. As titular count of Tripoli, Peter founded the Order of the Sword, which suggests an early interest in reawakening the spirit of adventure, the desire to travel to the West in order to find corresponding aspirations among western knights, and to launch a war against the Muslims. The order survived until the fall of the Lusignans in Cyprus. It may have served as a source of inspiration for later military orders headed by European monarchs.

Shortly after the death of his eldest brother, Guy, when he became heir-apparent to the king dom, Peter is reported to have had a vision in which Christ “urged him to undertake the Holy passage” and re-conquer his heritage, the kingdom of Jerusalem.83 Barely seventeen, Peter did not hesitate to take the vow of crusader in response to the earlier vision. Among the first knights he recruited were noble pilgrims who, coming from Europe, had stopped in Cyprus on their way to Jerusalem. Because of his father’s disapproval of such an order, he conferred membership secretly. In defiance of their father’s objections to their proposed travel, and with the help of a friendly knight, he and his brother John set out for the West, where they hoped to raise men for a crusade. Arrested by their father’s agents, they were released only at the pope’s intercession. The young Prince Peter must have placed his plan for a new knightly order in abey-ance until his father’s death. Once safely on the throne, he appointed Mézières as chancellor; the Carmelite Peter Thomas had been appointed papal legate to the East by Pope Innocent VI. Preparations for a full-scale crusade were set in motion, including the restoring of the Order of the Sword. Since then, a sword was associated with the Lusignan royal arms.

Peter I, the Last Crusader King

Hugh reconciled with his son Peter in 1358, then abdicated and ceded the throne to him. Five years earlier Peter had married Eleanor of Aragon, the sister of King Peter IV of Aragon. Hugh had previously arranged for him to marry his cousin, Eschiva of Montfort, who, as last heir of the lords of Tyre, was a wealthy landowner in Cyprus. Initially the pope turned down a request for dispensation that would have allowed the couple to marry, as they were closely related. But when a new pope was elected, through the intervention of a cardinal who was related to Eschiva, the petition was accepted. When Eschiva died a few years later, Peter’s father, who val-ued both wealthy and diplomatic links with other Mediterranean powers, sought to marry off his son to one of the junior branches of the kings of Aragon.

Seen by his contemporaries in the West as the shining star in the history of Cyprus, Peter had many qualities that contributed to his spectacular success. When he acceded to the throne at age thirty, he was at the height of his virility, a model of chivalry, but also a passionate and


After visiting Venice and Genoa, he was warmly received in Avignon by Pope Urban V and King John of France. Urban supported with enthusiasm Peter’s project and described him as “athlete of Christ.” A passagium generale, or major crusade, was proclaimed by the pope under the com-mand of the king of France, he too a firm supporter of the crusade.

Peter then began an intense tour of all the major European courts, including Flanders, England, and Germany. Edward III gave him a ship. With regard to the serious matter of the crusade, the death of one of his strongest supporters, King John II of France, who was to accom-pany him on the crusade, caused problems in recruiting among the French nobility. This also meant that Peter was now the de facto head of the crusade. He remained for the coronation of the next king of France, Charles V, and heard the mass celebrated to the music of Guillaume de Machaut, the poet and composer who was later to honor Peter’s memory in his opera La Prise d’Alexandre.

Peter’s final visit was to Emperor Charles IV in Prague, where a conference was arranged with the kings of Poland and Hungary. Peter spent more than two years in Europe. While he had been shown lavish hospitality, he was disillusioned by the meager practical results. He had paid for all the costs of ships, sailors, and men-at-arms. He finally arrived in Venice in November 1364, where he remained until the following June. While in Venice, he lodged with Federico Cornaro, who gave him 60,000 ducats for the crusading project and appeared to have accepted membership in the Order of the Sword. The Venetian Republic had placed only one galley at his disposal.

In June 1365, carried swiftly by favorable winds, Peter sailed from Venice to Rhodes, where the Christian ships had gathered. The fleet assembled there was certainly impressive, with the king’s brothers, John and James, also taking part in the expedition. The Greek island, then under the pos session of the Hospitallers, was the scene of a formidable array of sixty Cypriot galleys, four from Genoa, thirty three horse transports, and ten merchantmen and other small vessels.

At the hour of departure from Rhodes, during the first week of October 1365, Peter Thomas mounted the high stern of the king’s galley. With the king standing next to him, the papal legate blessed the soldiers and sailors assembled there for the mission. With the flag of the red lion of the Lusignans raised over the stern, trumpets blared, and thousands of voices cried: “Viva Sire Peter, contra Saracenos Infedeles!” It was only after taking fresh water at a small island in the Gulf of Adalia that Peter announced his destination.

The Conquest of Alexandria

These military preparations had not gone unnoticed by the Muslims, who believed that the Christian expedition would be directed toward the Syrian coast. Peter encouraged such a per-ception by making public statements to the effect that all Christian traffic with Syria was to be stopped. Alexandria of Egypt, the real objective, was taken completely by surprise when Peter’s fleet arrived.

of Anatolia, facing Cyprus. Gorigos was held under Cypriot jurisdiction until 1448. In 1361 he assembled a fleet of over 120 large and small ships and attacked the Turkish fortress of Adalia (now Antalya) and other ports along the Anatolian coast. Emboldened by his early success, Peter decided to take on the voyage to Europe he had been dreaming about since his teen years, to convince the rul ers of the West of the necessity of launching a new crusade against the center of Muslim power. To achieve this goal, he would need more than just a handsome pres-ence; his best diplomacy, an engaging personality, the power of his convictions, and the ability to persuade would be required.

In October 1362, he sailed from Paphos with his young son, the future King Peter II, Philippe de Mézières, and Peter Thomas, the papal legate. Before leaving, he entrusted the kingdom to his brother John; his younger brother, James, was given the post of constable. It is to Peter’s credit that, despite suffering sea-sickness, he traveled so extensively.

25. Andrea Bonaiuti’s The Church Militant, Santa Maria Novella, in Florence. From right to left (top row): Count Amadeus of Savoy, King Peter I of Cyprus, Emperor Charles IV, Pope Urban V, a papal legate, and Juan Heredia, the Grand Master of the Hospitallers. (Courtesy of Salvatore Armenia)


The glorious early phase of Peter’s reign is matched by a very dramatic ending. Stories by a number of chroniclers suggest that Peter’s judgment had begun to falter. One instance serves to illustrate the point. A quarrel with a knight in Cyprus ended with Peter accepting a challenge to a duel to be fought in the presence of the pope and the king of France. For a king to travel to Europe to fight a duel with a foreign nobleman of modest rank suggests poor judgment. There is support for such an opinion in a papal letter cautioning the king to desist, that such a duel would constitute an abandonment of royal duties. It is not clear whether Peter’s impaired judg-ment was the result of the severe fevers that began to afflict him during the Alexandria expedi-tion. It is also entirely possible that the increasing isolation and the profound disappointment from the abandonment of the crusade by the West may have played a determining role on his labile emotions.

When Peter finally returned to Cyprus, a very unpleasant surprise awaited him. He learned from the viscount (guardian of the royal household) that rumors were circulating at court that Queen Eleanor had been unfaithful. The king was far from a model husband himself. A charge of adultery against the queen was an entirely different matter. The king tried to find out the truth, but he was met with silence. He summoned his vassals, who, fearful of the likely repercussions if they corroborated the story, suggested that the viscount had concocted the story himself. The man was found guilty by the High Court, and was thrown into prison where he died soon after.

The effect of this episode was to foster an atmosphere in which Peter distrusted the nobles and they, in turn, feared him. He became offensive and despotic in his dealings with them. Within a few months, the barons decided to intervene and sent a delegation to the king’s brothers, John, the prince of Antioch, and James, the constable. The brothers tried to intervene on behalf of the barons by requesting a meeting with the king who, suspecting treason, grew angry and dismissed them brusquely.

It is not exactly clear what happened at this point, as there are conflicting versions of the fi nal drama. What is known for certain is that in the early morning of January 17, 1369, a group of nobles and the king’s brothers went to the royal apartments. The nobles presented their reason for wanting the meeting with him, which was to convince him to submit to the oath of good gov ernance. While James and John were out of the king’s bedroom, three barons rushed at the king as he was trying to dress, and stabbed him. The chamberlain completed the act by beheading the king. While Cypriot writers, drawing on the official account of Peter’s murder, dis-sociate the king’s brothers from the murder, some writers in the West, particularly Philippe de Mézières, believed that James and John were accomplices in the crime. However, the fact that neither James nor John had offered their candidacy to the throne after Peter’s death casts seri-ous doubts on the accusa tion of fratricide made against them in the West.86

Peter’s brother John acted as regent until the king’s son was crowned as Peter II (1369–1382). Queen Eleanor, who was convinced of John’s complicity in the murder of her husband, held in check her hatred and desire for vengeance. She did not act until years later. In the meantime, she maintained amicable relationships with her brothers-in-law, while secretly sending letters to the pope and to the king of France asking that they intervene to bring the princes to justice. What proved to be even more dangerous was her soliciting Genoa to intervene militarily in

The change in strategy in this expedition as well as in those that followed shows how deeply the concept of a crusade had changed. Very few people entertained thoughts of a reconquest of the Holy Land; the aim now was to strike the Muslim world and harm it in the bloodiest pos-sible way, and to launch raids for the purpose of acquiring wealth. The chivalric exploits of the times of Saladin and Richard Lion-Heart were a thing of the distant past.

The capture of Alexandria exemplified this new spirit of crusading: surprise assault, the city taken in a few days, and the massacre of as many as 12,000 people, and with at least 5,000 taken as slaves. The sack of Alexandria was total. Even the houses of western merchants were looted. Peter’s plan was to strengthen the city’s fortifications and then to march to Cairo. While he had the support of Peter Thomas and Philippe de Mézières, a war council, including his two brothers and the Hospitallers, was mostly in favor of evacuating the city before a likely violent counterof fensive by the Mamluks. Many were preoccupied with getting away with the loot. Peter was bit terly disappointed; the decision to withdraw had turned the joy of the victory into disillusionment over its short-lived results.

In a letter to Boccaccio, Petrarch describes the outcome of the sack of Alexandria in the fol-lowing words:

The conquest of Alexandria by the king of Cyprus, a great and memorable achievement, would have afforded a powerful basis for the increase of our religion had the spirit shown in its taking been equaled in its holding. He, indeed, it is reputed, was not lacking in it but rather his company, collected mainly from the transalpine races, who always excels at the begin-ning rather than the end of things. These men, having followed a pious king not from piety but from greed, deserted him in the middle of his glorious undertaking, departing with their spoils to frustrate his pious vows while satisfying their own avarice.

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Peter was the last to return to the ships. He saw his kingdom after a three-year absence. News of what happened in Alexandria brought a new wind of euphoria to take the cross, and some fa mous warriors, such as the Green Count of Savoy, were ready to help the king of Cyprus. But the Venetians were quick to spread the false news that Peter had made peace with the sultan of Egypt. Also worth noting is the slyness of the Genoese, who took part in the expedition with ships, while their men did not go ashore, in the end they also claimed part of the loot.

On Pope Urban’s advice, Peter began half-hearted negotiations with the sultan. At first to buy time, he requested that the kingdom of Jerusalem be returned to the Christians. The Cypriot fleet, readied for an attack against Beirut and the Syrian coast, sent help to Gorigos dur-ing a Turkish assault. He then carried out a series of raids with a powerful force against Tripoli and Tortosa, as well as Ayas. Eventually, Peter agreed to more serious negotiations. He returned those captives that had not been carried to western Europe and exchanged ambassadors with the sultan.

Peter knew very well that his goal of recovering the Holy Land was no closer and realized that this could only be achieved by another major crusade. So, once more, in 1368, he traveled to Naples, Greece, and Rome. But he could not persuade any Christian prince to join him in another crusade. His friend and supporter, Pope Urban V, now insisted that Peter accept nego-tiations with the sultan mediated by Venice and Genoa.


wife, Heloise of Brunswick, he was finally released in 1382, only after agreeing to severe terms and the cession of Famagusta to the Genoese.

Peter II died, without heir, the same year of his uncle’s release from custody. The legitimate successor, Prince James, reigned until his death in 1398. He left eleven children sired with his de voted wife, Heloise.

By the time James I acceded to the throne of Cyprus, there had been much intermarriage between the Lusignan kings of the island and the royal house of Cilician Armenia. Almost all of the Hetumians after Levon II (1269-1289) descended through the female line from Aimery of Lusignan, who was governor of Cyprus. As we saw, Leon V, a direct descendant in the male line of the Lusignans of Cyprus, ascended the throne in 1374. As we have already seen, his effec-tive reign as the last legitimate Armenian king was brief, for in 1375 he was taken prisoner by the Mamluks in Sis. When he died in Paris in 1393, his second cousin James, as closest kinsman, assumed the crown of Armenia. It was the first time that a king of Cyprus took the title ‘King of Cyprus, Jerusalem and Armenia,” ironically, at a time when the power of the king of Cyprus was so markedly diminished. His successors on the Cypriot throne styled themselves kings and queens of Jerusalem, Cyprus, and Armenia. Their crest was quartered with the Armenian lion.

The Lord of Anglure, a French traveler who visited Cyprus during James’s reign, described him as a very good-looking man who spoke French fluently. One cannot but admire the inner strength and dignity with which he bore the many adversities and the long imprisonment in Genoa. Once king, he led a life inspired by tolerance, blending his regal duties with his interest in the arts. His family life after his return to Cyprus was tranquil. His son, and heir, was named Janus after the mythical founder of the city of Genoa, where he was born.

The Twilight and End of Another Christian Kingdom, Cyprus

King Janus (1398–1432), who was born in captivity in Genoa, did not have the patience or the diplomatic gifts of his father, James. It is likely that the difficult childhood and adolescence dur-ing the sad Genoese period caused him to develop a strong tendency toward aggressive solu-tions. In view of the circumstances of his birth, it was natural for him to be driven by the obses-sion to expel the Genoese from his country, but he was unsuccessful in two campaigns. Genoa proposed to him the purchase of Famagusta, but he could not raise the large amount of money necessary for the purchase of that port-city. A new agreement was signed, with the usual extor-tion by the Genoese. To cover the expenses of the expedition, the king agreed to hand over the crown jewels to the Grand Master of the Hospitallers, to be held as security.

The king began to launch raids with his galleys against the Syrian and Cilician coast. When a new sultan came to the throne, Janus was given a harsh warning, which went unheeded. In 1425, the sultan sent an expedition that devastated Famagusta. A year later, the Mamluks defeated the disorganized and undisciplined Cypriot forces Janus had been able to collect. Thousands were either killed or taken captive to Egypt. The king, his brother Henry, and a group of knights per formed acts of great valor, trying to rally the Cypriot troops. Janus continued to

Cyprus. This last plea found the sympathetic ear of the Genoese doge, providing the republic of Genoa with a motive for expanding its maritime power in the region.

Almost ten months passed before the second coronation of Peter II as king of Jerusalem. It was during this ceremony that a violent quarrel erupted between the Venetians and Genoese over a futile question of protocol. The Genoese had in the past claimed the privilege of hold-ing the right rein of the king’s horse, but on this occasion the rein was taken by the Venetian counsel, who saw his community as more important since it was more numerous than that of the Genoese. The quarrel flared up again during the evening banquet when the Cypriots sided with the Venetians. Genoese shops were looted; many of the Genoese citizens were injured and some killed.

Order was restored, and the king and constable guaranteed that the citizens of Genoa and their goods would be protected against any further attacks. However, nothing could now stop Genoa, which made preparations for a massive naval expedition. The explanation provided by the Genoese doge to the pope, who tried to intervene in an attempt to avoid open conflict, was that the intervention of the republic had been expressly requested by Queen Eleanor, whose husband had been assassinated by members of the current government headed by Prince John.

Cyprus prepared for war, and the major work of reinforcing the defenses began. The Genoese galleys appeared in front of Famagusta in March 1373. Peter sent his uncle, Prince James, to inspect the defenses but forbade him to commit aggressive acts against the Genoese; he was probably hoping that the situation could be resolved by peacefully.

The Genoese soon showed their true intent, which was to occupy Cyprus. They attacked the zone around Paphos and besieged that town. The Cypriots were reduced to fighting a guerrilla warfare against the occupying Genoese army. After the king was taken captive by the Genoese, a peace treaty was eventually signed in 1374. James, their most effective adversary, was taken hos tage to Genoa with his wife, Heloise of Brunswick, until the terms imposed on the kingdom were fulfilled. Cyprus was to pay an indemnity of over two million gold florins over the period of twelve years and an annual tribute of 40.000 gold florins in perpetuity. Until the indemnity was paid in full, Famagusta and its port were to remain in Genoese hands. Nicosia and the rest of the island, except Famagusta, would be returned only after an initial payment of 90,000 gold florins within six weeks of the signing of the treaty.

The end of this story, worthy of a Shakespearean tragedy, took place a year after the peace. In 1375, Prince John was invited to dinner by Peter II and his mother, Queen Eleanor. Toward the end of the dinner a last dish, covered, was brought with solemnity to the table. When Eleanor un covered it, Peter’s bloodstained gown appeared. She asked John if he recognized the gown, a signal to some men to burst into the room and slaughter Prince John. Shortly after Peter’s mar-riage to Valentina Visconti in 1378, Eleanor’s hostility toward the young queen convinced Peter to send his mother back to Barcelona, were she died in 1417.

During the war with Genoa, Prince James, Peter’s uncle, showed himself to be an energetic defender of the island against the superior Genoese forces. He survived a series of adversities until he ascended to the throne many years later. After languishing in a Genoese prison with his


she learned that the king had had a son with Marietta. In the presence of the king, she bit off Marietta’s nose, leaving her deformed for the rest of her life.

The marriage to Queen Helena produced no male heirs. Two girls were born within a short time; one died in infancy and the second, Charlotte, became the legitimate heir to the throne. Charlotte was raised under the influence of the mother, absorbing fully the Greek culture and only speaking Greek. She intimidated her father, and later dominated her husband, Louis, the duke of Savoy.

The king’s natural son with his mistress Marietta developed into a very energetic and ambi tious young man, quite the opposite of his father. Gifted with courage and great physical strength, he also became a superb horse rider. While quite close with his mother, he tried to get on with his father’s family. James became a remarkable man. The good-looking son of two strik-ingly handsome parents, he was raised by his mother and adored by his father. Some predicted that such a high-spirited youth would unlikely be satisfied with anything but the highest posi-tion in the kingdom, and he was suspected of having secret designs on the crown.

James’s half-sister Charlotte, a couple of years younger, became engaged to John of Coimbra, the grandson of the king of Portugal. When John later expressed strong disapproval for Helena’s pro-Greek policies, the young man was poisoned; the queen was suspected of having played a role in his death. Charlotte, now a widow, appealed to her brother to avenge her husband’s death. James, only seventeen at the time, willingly obliged. He hired two Sicilian assassins, who, at a signal from him, killed the chamberlain who was suspected in the murder of Charlotte’s hus-band. James then escaped to Rhodes, where he was welcomed by the Grand Master of the Order of St. John. Six months later, he secretly returned to Cyprus with a number of men. The High Court, well aware of the king’s fondness for his son, consented to a dismissal of criminal charges against James. He was reinstated to the archbishopric see, and its revenues were restored to him. While things appeared to go well, intrigues against him would soon reach a high point.

Another candidate to be Charlotte’s new husband was proposed by the Genoese. King John began negotiations with the duke of Savoy and the duchess, John’s sister, Anna Lusignan. The fact that the Genoese had strong ties with the dukes of Savoy would certainly serve to strengthen their control of Cyprus. The proposal was opposed by the queen on the grounds that it would violate the Greek Orthodox Church’s prohibition of marriages between first cous-ins, but it was supported by the king. The deaths of Helena in March 1458 and King John II two months later led to a quick halt to any further marriage negotiations. The wedding, which took place later that year, would close a turbulent period for the kingdom. But the new chapter in the kingdom’s history would prove to be even stormier.

When Charlotte was crowned after the deaths of her parents in 1458, James appears to have made an open and sincere profession of loyalty to his half-sister. Initially, she appeared to wish to involve him in state affairs. Many of the barons, however, were worried that he might try to usurp Charlotte’s throne. It was not a secret that John II had expressed his wish to have the High Court consider making his son the heir to the throne. Unfortunately for James, the fact that the court did not come to a decision while John was still alive meant that he would have little chance to become king without his father’s support.

fight valiantly. After being wounded on the face, he was captured, and he was taken prisoner to Cairo, barefoot and in shackles. The unfortunate king was held in captivity for ten months before finally being ransomed only at a great price, thanks to the pope who authorized the sale of indulgences for that purpose. Broken in spirit, he returned to Cyprus. Having to recognize the Mamluk sultan as his suzerain was a disgrace hard to bear for the proud Lusignan king. A large and powerful man, his humiliations left an indelible mark. In 1432, after a series of strokes, he died at fifty eight years of age. His contemporaries describe him as a man of many good quali-ties, including a degree of scholarship, but he was also given to impetuous acts.

Later that year, Janus’s only son was crowned as John II. Soon after his coronation, he sent the customary embassy to the pope to announce his accession. New and more significant were the emissaries to the sultan of Egypt. The envoys carried the new king’s promise to pay tribute and, perhaps even sweeter to the ear of the sultan, the king’s acknowledgment as the suzerain of Cyprus. By so doing, John most likely averted any further Mamluk expedition against his lands. However, other Muslim powers were threatening the kingdom from the southern Anatolian coast. In 1448, Gorigos, wrested from the Turks by Peter I, fell into the hands of the emir of Karaman, while an invasion by the emir of Alanya, on the southern coast of Turkey, was barely prevented only through the intervention of the Hospitallers. To the northeast, the Ottoman power, temporarily weakened by Tamerlane’s’ Mongols, was on the rise and threatening the small kingdom. Attempts by the king to sensitize the European powers to these threats were not successful until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453.

By this time, the kingdom was burdened by massive financial debts to the Genoese, to which were now added those to Egypt as well as the various loans from the Hospitallers, Venice, and pri vate individuals. In addition, the destruction suffered during the recent invasions and the dramatic decrease in her international commerce all caused extreme poverty in Cyprus.

Meanwhile, the young king married Medea of Montferrat; within two months the bride was dead. In a marked departure from previous policy the Lusignans had pursued toward the Orthodox Church, John married for the second time a full-blooded noble Greek woman, Helena Paleologa, the grand-daughter of Emperor Manuel II. This marriage, celebrated in 1442, was a harbinger of other grave events in the remaining decades of the kingdom. A princess, Helena came to be very resentful of subjection of the Greek population by a foreign dynasty. She brought a large group of compatriots, including her stepbrother whom she managed to nominate chamberlain. Not happy with the degree of influence she had acquired, she secured for herself the title of regent from the High Court. She took advantage of the king’s passivity and called to her court a large number of her compatriots. At her insistence, a series of political ini-tiatives were passed by the court to favor Greek Orthodox clerics. She also resisted the Catholic Church’s designs on the island. At this time, the French language was gradually being replaced by a lingua franca, a hybrid language, a mixture of Greek, French, and Italian.

Not unexpectedly, Helena’s domineering personality was also manifested in her private life. Her vindictiveness toward a rival would match that of King Peter’s wife, Queen Eleanor. She had a fierce hatred for her husband’s mistress, Marietta of Patras, the mother of the future king, James II, who was reportedly of a milder nature. The tragic-comic denouement occurred when


P A R T I I IF R O M T H E F A L L O F T H E C I L I C I A N

K I N G D O M T O T H E G E N O C I D E

Within a short time, unusual measures were taken to protect the queen. A plan was hatched to neutralize James, by murdering him. The hostility toward him during the coronation cer-emony, when he was told to stay away and the later attack on his palace by soldiers were a clear signal that his life was in danger. He traveled to Cairo, where his gallant bearing and persuasive skills captivated the sultan and his court. He promised to be a faithful subject and sought the sultan’s support in securing the kingdom on the premise, quite convincing to a Muslim audi-ence, that a male claimant to the throne should take precedence over a female one. With a fleet of eighty ships, he landed in Cyprus in September 1460 and advanced on Nicosia and then on the Genoese population in Famagusta. Charlotte and Count Louis of Savoy, her new husband, took refuge in the castle at Kyrenia. By 1464, James was master of the whole island.

Charlotte made several journeys to the West, pleading for support from the pope and European kings to restore the throne to her, but to no avail. While she received moral support from Pius II, who had a strong dislike for James, whom he considered an infidel (though James never converted to Islam), she was met with indifference by other European powers. Most sur-prising was the lack of interest by his father-in-law in Savoy. By 1485, long after her rival half-brother had died, she finally abandoned hope and resigned her rights. She made formal con-cession of her crowns of Cyprus, Jerusalem, and Armenia to the House of Savoy.

For his wife, James chose a Venetian, Caterina Cornaro. With cunning and foresight, Venice adopted Caterina as daughter of the republic. If she were to survive both her husband and any heir, Venice would inherit the crown. James died in 1473 at age thirty three, at the height of his physical powers, giving credence to the suspicion that he may have been poisoned by Venetian agents. Before his death, he made a last testament in which he bequeathed Cyprus to Caterina and to the child she was expecting. If the child were to die, the inheritance would pass to James’s natural children Eugene, John, and Charla, in that order. These children were trans-ferred from Cyprus to Venice and Padua (with their grandmother Marietta of Patras), where they could be kept under close supervision.

Caterina’s only child, James III, died within a year. She remained queen until 1489, when, under increased pressure, she was persuaded to yield the kingdom to the Republic of Venice, and she accepted the lordship of the town and countryside of Asolo at the foot of the Dolomites, where she became a patron of the arts and of celebrated scholars, such as Pietro Bembo, one of the key figures in the Italian Renassaince. His Asolani is an important document of the time of Caterina and the “court” she kept in Asolo. She died in 1510.

The political history of medieval Cyprus is concerned with the Lusignan kings, a ruling house alien to the people of the island who were mostly Greek in language and religion. As was the case with the Lusignan kings of Cilician Armenia, although to a lesser degree, the barrier of religion prevented any real fusion between the native people and the Latins during the three centuries of their rule.

the Fall of the Cilician Kingdom of Armenia: An Analysis 163

Peter’s arrival in England had been announced during a tournament held in that country a few years earlier which Armenian and Cypriot knights, as well as knights from France and Spain, attended. Sadly for Peter and his dream of recovery of the Holy Land, despite pressures from the pope, King Edward refused once again to assume the cross. He went so far as to mock Peter, that if he were successful in recovering Jerusalem, the kingdom of Cyprus should revert to the English crown, as it had been entrusted to Guy of Lusignan by his ancestor King Richard Lion-Heart. Edward’s unwillingness to participate in a crusade also meant that the French and the Scots, fear ful of English attacks on their frontiers, would also not invest in crusading activity in the East. It ultimately proved fatal to Peter’s crusade. Years later, Meziérés blamed Edward for the failure of the French kings to recover the Holy Land. Any plan to help Cilician Armenia would have been considered a lower priority to the recovery of the Holy Land. In 1369, the return to hostilities by France and England postponed any further serious crusading plan.

When he first visited England in the winter of 1385-86, Leon V, just as did his Cypriot cousin King Peter, who had also traveled to England twenty years earlier, defined peace between England and France as a necessary condition for a successful crusade against the Ottoman Turks and the Mamluks. One of the English lords was plainly cynical in describing the exiled Armenian king as a mercenary “happier in flight in foreign lands than ruling peacefully in his own” (cited by Tyerman 1988). In fact, Leon played a central role as a diplomat and peacemaker between England and France, and must share some of the credit for the truce of 1389. Through patient and persistent work in his personal contacts, Leon was finally able to convince some of the aggressive personali ties surrounding the English king of the reasonableness of a crusade to free the Holy Land.

In France, Mézières, who left Cyprus after Peter’s assassination, became tutor to the young King CharlesVI, who became a passionate defender of the crusader ideal. Mézières appears to have had numerous contacts with LeonV. As we have seen, he was one of the executors of Leon’s will. When, in 1395, he wrote to King Richard II of England expounding a plan for a crusade that would recover the Holy Land and defeat Islam in the Near East, Mézières emphasized the need for peace among European countries, especially France and England, and unity among the Christian forces. At this time England and France were engaged in peace talks once again.

An unusual character, Peter the Hermit, a Norman squire and one of Mézières’ converts, vis-ited both royal courts in an attempt to convince the two kings to end their bloody war. The Ottoman threat in the Balkans drove the nations closer. A twenty-eight year long peace was cemented by a marriage between Richard’s son and Charles’ daughter. In March 1396, the two warring nations, now allied in a common purpose, and King Sygismond of Hungary launched a cru sade to save Christendom from the Ottoman Turks. The most important crusade, the Nicopolis Campaign, organized to check and reverse the advance of the Turks into Europe, turned into a worse disaster than the crusade of St. Louis 150 years earlier.

From the first crusade on, the pope and the Western powers were acutely aware of the fi nancial and human cost of crusading. Except for a few, most crusaders did not go on a crusade for profit or to satisfy a yearning to colonize far-flung places. The price in human suffering was ex ceedingly high. It has been estimated that, over the course of a crusade, a third of the nobles

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T h e F a l l o f t h e C i l i c i a n K i n g d o m o f A r m e n i a : A n A n a l y s i s

Could the kings of Armenian Cilicia have saved their country from demise in 1375? What were the reasons for their failure to do so? While some historians lay most of the blame on the failure of the Western powers to provide military aid in the form of a major crusade, it is more likely that there was no single reason for the fall of the kingdom.

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Other Attempts at Crusading

During the fourteenth century, European enthusiasm for crusading was quite alive and per-sisted well into the 1500s and beyond, but the crusading spirit was mostly channeled into national wars between France and England, or into the Baltic crusades. Yet, crusading for the recovery of the Holy Land remained a practical possibility, with much logistical and techni-cal advice provided by propagandists, the foremost being Philippe de Mézières, Peter I’s councilor.

Preparation for the launching of a general passagium in 1333, when England’s King Edward III was primarily interested in settling once and for all his claim to Scotland and to Gascony in France, came quickly to naught. Within two years, Edward would promise to diplomats coming to his court from the Levant that he would help Armenia. In what English historian C. Tyerman (1988) describes as the gesture of a “brazen hypocrite,” Edward commiserated with King Guy, in 1343, that he had wanted to help, but his “great war” with France prevented him. There was nothing left for the pope to do but to cancel the crusade.

Following the treaty of 1360 between France and England, a large number of mercenaries, the Free Companies in England and France, released many knights who took part in Peter I’s attacks against Turkish and Mamluk ports. The presence of these knights may have led Peter to think that he might be able to summon a great force from Europe.

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regions, as well as lookout posts, served as bases where Armenian troops would assemble to guard the frontier.

No longer effective in halting the invaders from ravaging the plain, these defensive strate-gies would eventually fail with the massive incursions in the fourteenth century. But Armenian soldiers could still retire to the shelter of the strongholds in the interior. In a citadel such as Sis they could hold out until the enemy was forced to retreat for lack of food supply or the approaching winter.

26. Sis, remains of the citadel. (Courtesy of RAA Archives: Photo by Raffi Kortoshian, 2007)

The impressive remains of the fortresses in Cilicia have led some scholars to argue that there was another factor that contributed to the remarkable resiliency of the Armenians: visibility be-tween fortresses. The archeologist R. W. Edwards believed that the visibility of each fortress with two other fortresses both in the Cilician plain and in the highlands allowed them to commu-nicate. It is quite likely that a large number of the strongholds in Cilicia were part of a network, which in cluded Ayas, Misis, Yilan, Anavarza, and Sis. These structures could communicate with one another by using fire at night and smoke during the day, and so provide an early warning system. Even by the time the Mamluks conquered eastern Cilicia in 1337, the kingdom still con-tained “forty castles and fortresses, each with its own lord.”

88 But, as pointed out by Molin (2001),

were killed, while the death toll among the soldiers was probably considerably higher. The idea that the pope would attempt to convince the rulers of France, Spain, England, and the Italian maritime republics to launch a crusade to save the Kingdom of Cilicia, whose Church was per-ceived in the West to be “heretical” and unwilling to comply with repeated demands to unite with Rome, was simply unrealistic. The Lusignan kings understood this reality and attempted to persuade, perhaps too forcefully, the nobles and prelates of the dying kingdom that it was the only way Europe might seriously consider sending substantial aid in materials and forces. Even if a crusade could have been launched to rescue Cilicia, considering the abysmal outcome of most of the other crusades, it is highly unlikely that it would have reversed the fate of the Cilician kingdom.

After the Mamluks conquered Acre in 1291 and the other cities and fortresses held in Palestine and Syria, Cilicia became their main objective. They began to launch attacks with destructive regu larity, each attack reducing the kingdom’s territory. The earlier raids in the last decades of the thir teenth century, whose primary aim was to gather booty, were followed by large military campaigns directed at the permanent conquest of territory. Some of these attacks may have been prompted by what the Mamluks must have perceived as a weakness of the Armenian kingdom: the volatile history of the Armenian monarchy during the late thir-teenth and early fourteenth centuries in its squabbles and outright displays of murderous rage among some of the members of the royal family. This was the view of Hayton the Historian who, in a summary of the 1298 invasion, states that “the Saracens, who were by no means sleeping, saw that so many scandals and quarrels were flourish ing between the brothers, the sons of the Armenian king, and attacked the kingdom of Armenia manfully and powerfully.” What is amaz-ing is that the Armenians were able to hold out for almost ninety years after the fall of Acre. All things considered, the survival of the kingdom was a signifi cant achievement due in part to the inner resources and strengths of the Armenian kings, princes, barons, and common soldiers, as well as to external factors. Even with the Hetumian tradition of abdication, the kings were still forceful and able commanders and diplomats. They led a substantial army in defense of the kingdom and took advantage of any Mamluk distraction and the frequent revolts that beset the Mamluk sultanate to win back land they had previously lost.

Political and Military Factors in the Demise of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia

From a military perspective, what mainly helped the beleaguered Armenians to maintain inde-pendence until 1375 was the sheer strength of so many castles in the rugged terrain of Cilicia. But their field armies were hopelessly outnumbered and incapable of effective defense. The mountain passes, the Cilician Gates in the Taurus and the Belan Pass through the Amamus, were of great military significance. Invaders used these routes to gain entry into Cilicia. The Armenians’ main de fensive strategy was to attempt to block them at one of those passes before they could spill onto the Cilician plain. Fully aware of the numerical superiority of the invad-ers, they tried to ambush the enemy in the narrow mountain passes. The castles in the frontier

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XXII for rebuilding the sea castle of Ayas and other fortifications. Until its final days, before the Mamluk conquest in 1337, the Armenians continued to expand the economic life of the city. Even though the people lived under conditions of now chronic instability and the ever-present threat posed by the Mamluk Empire, Armenian creativity did not appear to have been stifled. It was, however, the mountain fortresses that survived the longest, allowing the kingdom to sur-vive until 1375. During the final siege of Sis, numerous attempts by the Mamluks on the inner citadel failed “because the castle was very strong, and well manned, and well equipped with stones and trebuchets on the walls, which the king [Leon V] had placed there, and so there was nowhere the castle could be attacked except in front of the gate.”90

What, then, could have saved the kingdom? The most reasonable plan appears to be the fol lowing, suggested by Professor Peter Edbury: “Really what was needed was a permanent naval presence in the East to stop illegal trade, lend aid to Armenia and prevent any invasion of Cyprus.” But even that might have proved totally inadequate to the task of stemming the waves of Muslim conquests, first in Anatolia and Egypt, and then on European soil.

“The network could only have worked if there had been close cooperation between the various royal and non-royal garrisons stationed across the Cilician plain.”

89 But the sheer strength of

the baronial castles and their isolated positions may also have served to encourage rebellion against the king.

In the first half of the fourteenth century, the religious disputes between the pro-Latin kings and the barons who chose the more traditional Armenian Church continued to escalate until they erupted into open rebellion, which only served to further weaken the kingdom. The bar-ons exploited the popular anti-Latin sentiments to undermine the power of the crown, particu-larly during the last phase of the kingdom’s existence, when it was ruled by the Lusignans. In quick succession, two kings, Levon IV and Guy Lusignan, were killed on orders of the nationalist party bent on resisting any plan to introduce Catholic practices into the Armenian Church, an event that would eventually lead to acceptance of papal authority. In the need to maintain their national identity, as enshrined in their traditional religious faith, the barons’ actions, while understandable, would prove to be shortsighted.

By contrast, the limited number of strongholds held by the Lusignan kings in Cyprus appeared to have been more effective. Their royal policy of retaining control over the fortresses in the kingdom may have been well understood by Levon the Magnificent, who realized that intimidating unruly barons did not guarantee their loyalty. His way of securing the almost impregnable fortress of Lambron is a case in point. He sent a message to Hetum of Lambron that he wanted to es tablish a bond of friendship with him by giving the daughter of his brother Ruben in marriage to Hetum’s oldest son. This done, he invited Hetum to the wedding. When the Hetumians arrived in Tarsus, he had them seized. This act allowed him to occupy their for-tress without shedding blood. Realizing that he could no longer act as independent rulers, the Hetumians agreed to be loyal to King Levon and in return received back their lands, minus Lambron.

Levon and his daughter Zabel’s husband, Hetum, had successful reigns. However, underly-ing tension caused by discontent would surface during the rule of the later kings. The closer links with the West fostered by Levon, which led to his receiving the crown from the Holy Roman emperor, caused consternation among some members of the nobility who were fearful that the rapproche ment with the papacy would result in the eventual loss of autonomy of the Armenian Church. Regrettably, the aggressive independence that Levon had tried to stamp out reappeared during the later history of the kingdom in the form of hostility of many Armenian nobles and churchmen toward westerners.

The tension increased in the first decades of the fourteenth century among the prelacy and the nobles, and spilled over into plots and rebellion prompted by a combination of politi-cal ambi tion, personal acrimony, and religious conflict. The aggressiveness, which occasionally resulted in the imprisonment, mutilation, and even murder of members of the King’s own fam-ily, although not a peculiarly Armenian characteristic, can be viewed as a sign of the desperate times the kingdom was going through.

The Armenians did continue to keep alive even the more exposed cities on the Cilician plain, especially Ayas. In 1328, they received a contribution of 30,000 florins from Pope John

Openness to Other Cultures, Societies, and religious Views 169

Religious Overtures to Rome and Constantinople

After the Arab invasion in the sixth century, the religious and cultural life of Armenia experi-enced a revival with the Bagratuni dynasty. However, friction between the kings and the Church increased to the point where the kings had the final say on the election of the catholicos. But they continued to be crowned by the catholicos, who would also use his pastoral authority to reconcile feudal disputes between kings and princes. In the middle of the tenth century, the see of the catholicos was moved from Vaspurakan to Ani until the city was annexed to the Byzantine Empire. With the fall of Ani to the Seljuks in 1064, the see was moved to several locations until, in 1148, the Church gained the fortress of Hromkla on the Euphrates. The catholicos’s residence was to remain at this location until it succumbed under Mamluk attacks in 1292, an event that forced the catholicos to take shelter in the capital Sis, under the protection and control, at times overbearing, of the Cilician kings. In 1441, the catholicosate was transferred to Echmiadzin in northeastern Armenia.

The westward migration, first to Cappadocia and then Cilicia, at the dawn of the crusad-ing pe riod brought Armenians into closer contact with both Byzantium and the Latins. The increased contacts between the Armenian and the Byzantine Churches led to a dialogue between Emperor Manuel Comnenus and Catholicos Nerses the Gracious (Shnorali) (1166-73). The overture made by the Armenian Church reaches a deep maturity under the ecumenical spirit, ante litteram, of Nerses, who was also a poet and mystic. While not widely known in the West, this catholicos was one of those rare luminaries who saw in clear terms that the funda-mental requirement for union among the Christian Churches had to be faith in Christian char-ity and the belief that the union was a divine act. All differences with regard to rites, traditions, and even dogmatic formulations were secondary. As a corollary, none of the parties desiring union could require anything that is not strictly necessary for the unity of faith.91 But the wise catholicos was fully aware that an even tual union could only be achieved by the consensus of the majority. In a private message, Emperor Manuel had encouraged Nerses to work with the Armenian prelates to accept the union, but he was aware of the difficulty the catholicos would be facing in getting the agreement needed from them.

Even Nerses’s death and the defeat of the Byzantine emperor by the Seljuks at Myriokephalon in the summer of 1176 did not stop the negotiations. Three years later at the Council of Hromkla, convened by the catholicos, Gregory, with thirty-three bishops in attendance (ten were from Greater Armenia), the difficulties could not be resolved.

Despite the impassioned and eloquent plea for mutual understanding by the twenty six-year old Nerses of Lambron, the Armenian archbishop of Tarsus, and the spiritual heir and grand nephew of Nerses the Grateful, no consensus could be reached. The young Nerses had been ordained priest by his great uncle, Nerses the Gracious. He was the descendant of two of the most prominent Armenian families, the Pahlavuni on his mother’s side, and the Hetumians on his father’s. Described by his contemporaries as one of the most brilliant minds of medi-eval Armenia, a great writer, an orator, a polyglot, and a diplomat, he was the perfect choice to continue the ecumenical efforts undertaken by his illustrious relative. In his relatively brief life,

C H A P T E R 1 3

O p e n n e s s t o O t h e r C u l t u r e s , S o c i e t i e s , a n d R e l i g i o u s V i e w s

27. The Catholicosate see of Sis. After the fall of Hromkla to the Mamluks in 1292, the see was moved to the old capital city of Sis.

The photograph shows the battlements at the start of the twentieth century. (Courtesy of Mutafian)

Armenian Cilicia Xii -- XiV Century170 Openness to Other Cultures, Societies, and religious Views 171

cant causes of its deterioration is to be found in the long-standing rivalry between the sover-eigns of Cilicia and Antioch, with each trying to annex lands belonging to the other. The conflict gave rise to open warfare following the death of Prince Bohemond III of Antioch in 1201. The succession to his throne was sought after both by his son, Bohemond IV, who was already Count of Tripoli, and by King Levon, who was supporting his great-nephew Raymond-Ruben. While the pope initially favored Levon, the king’s unwillingness to give up the fortress of Bagras, his assault on Antioch in 1203, and the subsequent ejection of Latin archbishops from Tarsus and Mamistra compelled the pope to excommunicate the king. But Levon would gradually soften his position until he restored Bagras to the Templars. When, in 1216, Antioch was threatened by the Muslims, Levon occupied the city. The pope was forced to accept the fait accompli, and the Latin patriarch was on hand to crown Prince Raymond-Ruben. He soon alienated the Armenians in the city. Bohemond recaptured his princely throne within three years and expelled his adver-sary. His son and heir, Bohemond V, would maintain good relations with the papacy. He would later marry the grandniece of Pope Innocent III. Their son, Bohemond VI, would restore good relations with the Armenians of Cilicia, with the alliance sealed by his marriage to King Hetum’s daughter Sybille.

While it did not receive a general consensus, and even though not all the liturgical customs criticized by the Latins were modified, the union appears, at least on the surface, to have been largely realized under Hetum. King of the most politically active state in the Levant, he contrib-uted greatly to military expeditions against the Muslims. During his reign, Catholicos Constantin I con ceded the primacy of the pope. On his initiative, and with the consensus of the bishops of Cilicia and Greater Armenia, significant changes in church discipline were introduced following the Latin rite, under Roman pressure. These “reforms” may be taken as further evidence of con-cessions to the papacy. In return, Pope Gregory IX (1227-1241), who was respectful of the tradi-tions of the Armenian Church, stopped an attempt by the Latin patriarch of Antioch in 1237 to compel the catholicos to submit to him. The pope would eventually agree that the Armenian churches in Jerusalem and in other crusader territories were to be under the exclusive jurisdic-tion of the catholicos.

At about this time (1250), the crusade of King Louis IX in Egypt had failed, despite the king’s heroic actions. Earlier in the campaign, his brother Robert of Artois had convinced him to reject the offer of the sultan, who, in order to recover Damietta from the crusaders, offered Jerusalem to the king. An identical offer had been made thirty years earlier during the Fifth Crusade by the Egyptian sultan, Saladin’s nephew Al-Khamil--the exchange of Damietta for Jerusalem. Pelagius, the papal legate, had replaced Jean of Brienne, the king of Jerusalem, as the military leader. This Spaniard, who had been chosen by Innocent III as the peacemaker between the Greek and Roman Churches, displayed an intolerant attitude in his diplomacy. After silencing the king, Pelagius declared that he wanted both Egypt and Jerusalem. The sultan, who appears to have inherited Saladin’s virtues, will remain famous for a meeting with St. Francis of Assisi, but also for having peacefully negotiated a treaty with Emperor Frederick II. As we shall see, it was Francis who opened a new door to the Muslims, who understood that an infidel should not be forced but gently persuaded to convert. During the Fifth Crusade, after preaching to the crusaders

he gave rise to a polemic that has lasted up to the present time. The Roman Catholic Church considers him as one of theirs, while the Armenian Apostolic Church does not share the view.

The decision reached by the Council at Hromkla was left vague and would be ignored in the end. The letter reached Constantinople in 1180 when Manuel was already dead. His death and the internal unrest that followed in Constantinople insured that the negotiations would never succeed. The tireless Armenian archbishop took the initiative one more time in Tarsus in 1196, insisting that the Greek Orthodox and the Armenian Churches professed, fundamentally, the same faith; their differences were ultimately semantic. Nerses would later head a delegation to Constantinople, where he found the Greeks quite cool to any further prospects of union. Frustrated by what he perceived as their intransigence, he returned to Cilicia, with the schism between the two Churches remaining unresolved. The Fourth Crusade and the troubled politics that preceded it put an end to any further hope for union for the two Christian Churches.

The failure of the delicate negotiations of these long-standing religious disputes, which had kept the two Churches apart for several centuries, was unfortunate. The ecumenical spirit shown by the Armenian representatives, who had been willing to concede many points at issue, had been extraordinary. With the collapse of negotiations imminent, the Armenians soon turned their at tention to establishing friendly relations with the crusader states. Saladin’s ascension to power in Egypt and Syria in the 1170s and his victory at Hattin in 1187 must certainly have caused consider able anxiety for the Armenians in Cilicia as well as for Cyprus and the remaining crusader states.

Official contacts between the Latin and the Armenian Churches had begun shortly before the First Crusade. Prior to that time, Armenian pilgrims had traveled to Rome at the end of the first millennium to gather at the gravesite of Saints Peter and Paul. With the creation of the county of Edessa and the principality of Antioch, conflicts between the Latin and the Greek Orthodox Churches arose. In Antioch, the Greek patriarch was exiled and replaced by a Latin bishop. By contrast, the Franks’ policy toward the Syrian and Armenian Churches was to allow them to retain their bishops. The Armenian catholicosate, in particular, drew close to the Latin Church of that city, after Emperor John Comnenus’s invasion of Cilicia in 1138. A letter has come down to us from Pope Innocent II to Catholicos Gregory III in which, after describing the Armenian profes sion of faith as orthodox or correct, the pope recommended that the Armenian Church be guided by him. The next pope, Lucius III, also affirmed Armenian religious orthodoxy and hoped for a union. As we have already seen, three letters from Pope Clement III to Prince Levon Rubenian and to Catholicos Gregory IV encouraged them to help the crusaders.

Progress toward Religious Union with Rome

We have also seen how Rome’s interest in Cilician Armenia grew stronger during the papacy of Innocent III, who dedicated himself to solving all religious problems in Europe and the Near East. While his election as pope followed that of Levon as monarch only two days later, their relation ship was to experience alternating periods of highs and lows. One of the most signifi-


tions would win the release of the last few thousand Latin prisoners from Egypt, but would also include an agreement that the Egyptians and the Franks would conduct a joint campaign directed at the conquest of Damascus by the Egyptians and Jerusalem by the Franks. It was only through the intervention of the caliph of Baghdad that the fratricidal war between the two Muslim powers could be avoided. St. Louis began searching beyond the Muslim world for a more secure ally in a future crusade.

He did not have to cast his sight far, in fact, less than a few hundred miles separated where he was at that time from Cilicia. As we have seen, this kingdom had been an ally of the Franks of the crusader states for more than 150 years, and its destiny was closely bound with that of the Christian lands in the Near East. At the same time, as we have seen, the principality of Antioch and the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia were in a state of open warfare since Philip, Zabel’s first husband and son of Bohemond IV, had been snatched from her arms. She had tried in vain to protect her beloved husband with her own body, and when that failed, she begged for his life. He was cast in prison, where he died a short time later. After a long resistance, Zabel finally agreed to marry Hetum, the son of the regent Constantine. The hostilities between the two bor-dering Christian states, however, did not cease; only the Muslims benefited from this rupture. St. Louis, who wanted to reconstitute a united Christian front that could oppose the forces of Islam, compelled a recon ciliation of the rulers of Antioch and Cilicia.

What could be more powerful than a marriage alliance? In 1254, the new prince of Antioch, Bohemond VI, married Princess Sybille, daughter of King Hetum and Queen Zabel. From this un ion would grow a close political and military alliance between Cilicia and Antioch. This Frankish-Armenian bloc, which covered the lands from the Taurus Mountains to Beirut, would be able to mount a serious resistance to the powerful Muslims. Also of considerable merit was Louis’ politi cal alliance with the sect of the Old Man of the Mountains, the leader of the sect of the Assassins, which strengthened the defense of the northern section of the county of Tripoli.

But even more audacious was St. Louis’ attempt tocreate a base for an alliance with the Mongols who had recently appeared on the scene. Soon after he arrived in Cyprus and was preparing for the Egyptian campaign, St. Louis read a letter addressed by Constable Sembat of Cilicia to King Henry of Cyprus, his sister’s husband. In the missive, the constable recounted his travel to Samarkand on his way to Mongolia. He went on to describe the destruction of Muslim cities by the Mongols, and the Mongols’ respect toward Christians. Many members of the Mongol princely families, related to Monga Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan, were prac-ticing Christians of the Nestorian confession.

While still in Cyprus, the king of France received two Christian ambassadors from the khan’s representative in Iran who was sending good wishes for a victory against the Muslims. After his debacle in Egypt, St. Louis decided to send an embassy to the Great Khan Mongha in Karakorum, headed by a Franciscan, William of Rubruck, who had expressed his wish to settle in Mongol ter-ritory to preach the Gospel. The description of the travels of St. Louis’ envoy through the inter-minable Eurasian steppes, the Mongol horsemen and their customs, and the splendor of the emperor’s court has remained famous. In his last audience with the Great Khan in 1254, Rubruck was given the reply to the French king’s proposal. The reply, which began with the formal

during their attack on Damietta, he had also visited al-Kamil. The meeting with the sultan is nar-rated in Western Franciscan sources and is indirectly confirmed by an Arab source. The role of St. Francis in the history of missions to the Near East by Franciscan friars and his attitude toward the crusading movement, have been debated at great length. The poor friar from Assisi insisted on what he considered the center of his “Christian proposal”: the renunciation of any form of power, including the use of dialectical argumentation or of technical knowledge designed to convince. Francis, who quite likely was op posed to war, certainly understood that the crusade he had joined was not a mission aimed at converting the infidels. But he could not have attempted to divert the course of the crusade with out breaking his vow of obedience that compelled him to respect the pope’s orders; it was indeed under the pope that the crusading movement had its direct origin. What we know for certain is Francis’s awareness that Islam is part of the provi-dential design. The Muslim may appear as “wolf”; but even the “wolf” is our brother.

It was precisely Frederick II, despised by the papal curia as the “baptized sultan”, who had been interested in maintaining a good relationship with the Egyptian sultan. Frederick, who had been excommunicated by the pope for his dilatory tactics in leading a crusade, had been invited by the sultan to defend him against the attacks by his brother and his Turkish allies. According to the treaty of Jaffa of 1229, the sultan, in return, ceded the three holy cities of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Nazareth to the Christians. While it was not the complete restoration of the old kingdom of Jerusalem, it was nevertheless a worthwhile compromise. Jerusalem, rec-ognized as a holy city by both Islam and Christianity, would be managed as a type of religious condominium. To the Christians in Outremer, Frederick’s obvious admiration for the Muslim faith and Arabic civilization was deeply shocking. The fact that he spoke Arabic fluently with his Muslim interlocutors could only serve to make him even more unpopular. When Frederick visited the Dome of the Rock, and ex pressed regret for not having been able to hear the call to prayer by the muezzin (who had been ordered to be silent as a sign of respect to the emperor’s presence), the Christians present must have been horrified by his attitude. It is not surprising to learn that, by the time he was ready to depart from the port of Acre on his return to Europe, he was pelted with offal by the butchers of the city. He had been in the Near East for slightly more than a year.

Contrary to Frederick’s quick departure from the Holy Land, St. Louis stayed in the Levant four more years. After he gained his freedom, he immediately went to Syria. The fearless cru-sader, who initially had refused to attempt any compromise with Egypt, after having acquired new knowledge of the complexity of the Levant through his harsh experience, would become a diplomat without any preconceptions. He and King Hetum I of Cilicia would be much more inclined to entertain new and unexpected alliances in the defense of the Holy Land. Within a short time, they would both send separate embassies to the Mongols. Perhaps for the first time in European history up to that time, St. Louis would cast the base of a wide-ranging diplomacy. He exploited the division within Islam, between the descendants of Saladin, the legiti mate dynasty in Syria, and the Turkish Mamluks who had assassinated their own sultan in Egypt. The court in Damascus, like the one in Cairo, began to offer an olive branch to St. Louis. The man who was vanquished in Mansuria could now dictate some conditions of his own. The negotia-


the Christian faith. In 1244, Innocent decided to send missionaries to all Christian nations in the East. We suspect that such a group must have scored some positive results as King Hetum made a request for the foundation of a Dominican monastery in Cilicia. Within a short time, however, Cilicia became the exclusive province of the Franciscans.

Religious Conflicts in Cilicia during the Fourteenth Century

The first two councils of 1307 and 1316, held in Sis and Adana, respectively, had been inspired by Catholicos Gregory, with the connivance of the kings. The councils were marked by the strong support for ecclesiastical communion with Rome, but they also revealed a strong impulse to adopt a Latinization of the Armenian liturgy. A sense of ecclesiastical inferiority that appears to have af fected the catholicos underlies the statements promulgated by the councils. The modi-fications in the liturgical rite (i. e., the wine unmixed with water, and the adoption of the Latin calendar) adopted by the two councils would smooth the way for the pope to declare “catholic” the prelacy, the nobility, and the population of Cilicia.

The proceedings of the Council of Sis of 1342 are quite dissimilar in many respects. Catholicos Mekhitar wanted to appear neither as a servant nor a rival to the pope. In his typical humble but assertive way, he dared to protest against the accusation of the ‘117 errors’ with which the papal court with had charged the Armenian Church. Mekhitar, a man who clearly understood the need for mediation, wanted to reach some sort of compromise with the Latin Church.” He is united with Rome, but she is not subordinated to Rome,”as a prominent Armenian Church historian points out.

The conflict between the Latinophile and the national or nationalistic currents in the Armenian Church was undoubtedly aggravated by the creation of the order of the Unitors. In founding con vents in Armenian territory, the Dominican missionaries, were instrumental in training a number of native missionaries called the United Brothers, or Unitors, whose main aim was to secure union with Rome. Their founder, John of Karni, must have gone too far in his zeal, as Pope Benedict XII was forced to have the Armenians assemble the Council of Sis in 1345 to repudiate the errors ascribed to these monks. The cries of unorthodoxy did much to estrange Armenia from the West.

One of the Unitors was Bishop Nerses of Balients, who in open conflict with Catholicos James, sought shelter in Avignon, where he denounced the ‘117 errors’ of his native Church. From this point on, the Armeno-Latin relation would be marked by growing suspicion.

The last council of Sis of 1361, convoked by Catholicos Mesrob I (1359-72) resulted in an order for the full restoration of the Armenian liturgical tradition. While he was interested in a continued cultivation of an open and friendly relation with Rome, the catholicos wanted to modify the requirements for a union dictated by the papal curia. But, more importantly, he wanted to uphold the traditions of the Armenian Church, considered as essential elements of the ethnic and cultural identity of his people.

clause of the belief of the Mongols’ universal sovereignty, and ordered the king to consider himself a vassal of the Mongol emperor, must have seemed insolent to the French court. Under the formal style of Mongol protocol, Mongha Khan hoped to inaugurate a regular diplomatic exchange, with the clear intention to attack the Muslim world from the rear with the support of the Christian forces. Rubruck, who at various times had expressed a wish to meet with King Hetum, went to Sis. While there he learned that Hetum had formed an alliance with Mongha Khan. He left Cilicia a few months before the king’s return from Mongolia.

However pronounced their rudeness or their pretension of a universal empire, the Mongols would be seen by the Christians in the Levant as natural allies and providential saviors. The myth of Prester John had become reality. For centuries, it had been a tale familiar to many Europeans who believed that a powerful Christian ruler from the Far East, perhaps a descendant of one of the magi who came to Bethlehem to see the infant Jesus, would come to reclaim the Holy Sepulchre for his fellow Christians. It comes as no surprise that Christians, after centuries of Muslim rule in the East, were praying that the Great Khan and his Mongol hordes would come to rescue them.

No other Christian leader had understood better than King Hetum of Cilicia the impor-tance of intervention of the Mongols in the secular battle between the Cross and the Crescent. We have already seen that to benefit his kingdom and the crusader states, the Armenian king had not hesitated for an instant to accept the protection of the Mongols against Sunni Islam. After his brother’s travel to Mongolia, Hetum went of his own accord as a vassal to visit the Monga Kkan near Karakorum. Unlike other visitors who had been summoned against their will or representa tives of kings who professed independence, Hetum was given a very warm reception by the Khan. At a formal reception, he was treated as the chief Christian advisor to Mongha Khan on matters relating to territories in Western Asia and the Middle East. The Khan gave Hetum his promise that he would protect the Armenian Christians and that their churches would be free of taxation. He then announced the great news that his brother Hulagu, who had been nominated Ilkhan of Persia, was readying himself to attack the sultanates of Damascus and Egypt, and, with their help, Jerusalem would be delivered to the Christians. In a single stroke, the ancient Christian lands would be established under the Great Khan’s protection.

The possibility of an alliance between the Christian powers and the Mongols was also under stood by Pope Innocent IV (1243-54) early in his reign. His mission in 1245 to the Great Khan, headed by Giovanni di Piano Carpino, was one of several sent by the pope. One visit by the Franciscan monk Domenic of Aragon to the Kingdom of Cilicia was viewed by the pope as playing an important role in the mediation between Europe and the Mongols, but it does not appear to have made any contacts with the Mongols. However, a number of other events occurred in 1247 in Mongol lands that gave substance to the hope for an alliance: including the presence of a number of Christian dignatories at Great Khan Kuyuk’s enthronement. Carpini was among them as was Constable Sembat, who was there to represent his brother, King Hetum. From Samarkand he wrote to his brother-in-law, the king of Cyprus, and “reported on the good treatment the Christians were receiving at the Mongol court”.

While we know that Dominicans had been sent to Armenia by Gregory IX, it was not until the reign of Innocent IV that a true missionary policy was conducted to attract the Mongols to


them are still standing, as those at Anazarba, Lambron, Hromkla, and the two castles of land and sea at Gorigos. In the monastery-fortresses, such as at Hromkla, life for the catholicos and the bishops would have been similar in style to that of princes. It is here that the Armenian cultural patrimony gathered with various kinds of church books, while the libraries were enriched by the presence of important works of art and other precious objects. Of the many ecclesiastical buildings, only two remain, the little church built by Thoros II at Anazarba, where an inscription lists his great ancestors, and the chapel in the sea castle at Gorigos, where one can still see some fragments of a painting.

Cilicia: Nexus of International Commerce in the Eastern Mediterranean

The society of the kingdom was quite diversified, with Armenians constituting the majority and Greeks, Syrians, Franks and Muslims the minorities. The Armenian nobility, which as we have al ready seen adopted many of the customs of the Frankish nobility, were the holders of lands given for rent to the paroikos (Greek for peasant). The class of businessmen and artisans, who appeared to have been free from any feudal constraints on them, progressed quite well as the cities and towns in Cilicia developed.

In the midst of the urban population of Tarsus, Gorigos, Ayas, Adana, and Misis were Venetians, Genoese, Florentines, Sicilians, Catalans, and people who came from the south of France. The geographical location and its resources must undoubtedly have played a major role that favored the commercial importance of Cilicia or “Piccola Armenia” or Petite Arméniè, as it was known in the West. Several roads, some ancient, crossed Cilicia. At the start of the thir-teenth century a major road to Ayas, passed by the capital of the Kingdom at Sis, and crossed Asia Minor before branch ing off toward Tabriz, and from there, reaching Central Asia and China. This road is described by Balducci Pegolotto, a notary of the Florentine Bardi company, in his manual La Pratica della mer catura, composed during the first part of the fourteenth century. The author, who visited Cilicia in 1336, besides giving us a list of products available there, pro-vides much information with regard to taxes and custom duties to be paid, and equivalences between Armenian weights and measures and those of Venice, Genoa, Montpellier, London, Bruges, and Messina. He cites many goods and commodities: silver, copper, iron for weapons, wood for shipbuilding, gold and silver to mint coins (in Sis), spices, silk, camelots (combination of wool and goat’s hair), and the rougher fabric of hair from goats, bred in great numbers in Cilicia, known as cilicium.

Some Italian merchants had probably been in that territory when it was under Byzantine rule. Shortly after the coronation of Levon the Magnificent, Western diplomats were present at his court. As early as March 1201, a Genoese ambassador signed a commercial treaty with the king that would become the model for subsequent ones, such as the one negotiated with the Venetian ambassador, sent by the doge, Enrico Dandolo, in December of the same year. The Italian mer chants had their own district, with a loggia where most commercial interactions would take place, a church, and houses; all was under the direction of their respective consuls.

The Evolution of an Armenian Society and Its Institutions

Armenian institutions could not but evolve when they came in contact with Europeans in Armenian Cilicia.

94The founders of that principality, while claiming a hypothetical Bagratid

origin, were basing their authority on the fact that they were either old Byzantine officers (Philaretes) or chieftains of people recently emigrated from the ancient motherland (Hetum and Ruben). In the new lands of Cilicia, they used the title of Armenian ishckan (prince) or the Norman baron until the coming of the Rubenian prince, Levon II. Not satisfied with the title of Prince of the Mountains, the ambitious Levon, who appears to have cultivated a close rela-tionship with Aimery of Lusignan, the Lord of Cyprus, must have been in full agreement with the latter, that they were superior to the princes of Antioch or the counts of Tripoli and fully deserving of a royal crown. Within the span of three months, Aimery and Levon would fulfill their dream. In September 1197, Aimery was proclaimed king of Cyprus in the Nicosia with the scepter and crown sent by the Holy Roman emperor through his chancellor, the bishop of Hedelsheim. Barely three months later, during the Feast of the Epiphany, Prince Levon of Armenia was crowned with great pomp in a similar ceremony. He received the scepter from the same Latin bishop, but was then anointed by the catholicos after swearing allegiance to the Armenian Church.

By the time Levon’s son-in-law, Hetum, was crowned, the new king would reject any notion that he owed the crown to a Western or Eastern emperor. While he accepted his position as vas-sal of the very distant Mongol Great Khan, he maintained that his power was a divine right, as he was God’s representative in his country. His western-styled crown and the scepter with the fleur de lys would earn him the salutation by the kings of France as “cousin d’Erménie”. The grand offic ers of the court surrounding the king substituted French for Armenian titles. Constable displaced sparapet, the head of the army who is assisted by marshals; other offices include the chamberlain (the guardian of the royal treasury), and the chancellor, an office occupied by the archbishop of Sis, who is responsible for translation services as well as presiding over the Low Court. Some func tions, from ancient times, are maintained in the original language. Such is the case of awag baron (the first born), who was the heir, and the tagatir (the man who crowned him, typically his father). It is important to note that from the reign of Levon I, the baron could only hold his power after paying liege homage to the king during the investiture ceremony, whereby he was bound to provide military service.95

The great majority of the population was rural, residing in the highland valleys of Cilicia. A set tlement typically consisted of a large fort surrounded by scattered villages. The Armenians who had migrated to Cilicia appear to have favored dispersed settlements over the life in urban cities. It is precisely for this reason that the capital of the kingdom was moved to the fortress of Sis on a mountainous crop at the foot of the Taurus Mountains.

The great Armenian lords made use of a network of fortresses, several of which had ini-tially been taken over from the Arabs and the Byzantines, but they also built new ones. These were similar to those built by the crusaders in the Holy Land. Inside the external circuit of walls sur rounding a fortress were the princely abode, military halls, churches, and archives. Some of


the case of Gladzor, Goshavankh, and Tatev. These schools produced a large number of histori-ans, scholars, philophers, and poets.

In Cilicia, as well, the Rubenians and Hetumians established monasteries. The most active cent ers were in Drazark (the burial place of kings), Akner, and mainly, in Skevra, thanks to the influence of Nerses of Lambron. The convent/citadel of Hromkla, the seat of the catholicos from 1152 to 1292, developed into a great center of advanced studies and teaching. Here, vardapets (doctors of religious studies) from Cilicia and Greater Armenia would frequently cross paths. Cilicia came to be known as “the land of philosophers and lovers of learning.”98

The educational programs offered by these institutions of higher learning included the clas-sical trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic) and quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music), with theology being the pinnacle of all learning. The study of Plato, Aristotle, the neo-Platonic philosophers, the fathers of the church, in addition to the great Armenian theologians, favored in trospection and reflection. Towards the start of the fourteenth century, some allowed themselves to be seduced by the Western way of thinking introduced by the Dominicans.

During this period, the Armenian language became affected by the external influence of con tacts with new people. The office of the chancellor of Sis began to use, Latin and French, in ad dition to Armenian. This resulted in the introduction of the letters <f> and <o> in the Armenian alphabet, bringing the number of letters to thirty eight. Even more important was the use of Middle Armenian, or the language spoken by the masses. As it was to happen in Europe with Latin, the classical Armenian language (or grabar) became the language of the church. This new “vulgar” language was used by Constable Sembat to compile his legal treatise On the Judgement of Kings, by Nerses the Gracious to write his fables, by Mekhitar of Her to pro-duce his medical masterpiece The Consolation of Fevers, and by Hovhannes of Erzinga his best-known work, the treatise of as tronomy, Concerning the Adornments of the Heavens.

Written primarily in the classical language, Armenian historical works had been of high artistic quality until the early twelth century. Afterwards, history was replaced by chrono-logical records of relatively low artistic merit. Such is the case of The Chronicle of Matthew of Edessa, which was resumed by another priest until 1162. A chronicler of the later Rubenian and Hetumian period, Constable Sembat, has been wrongly credited with this Chronicle, which covers the period 950- 1274. While much of the work was completed by later redactors, it gives precious information on the kingdom of Cilicia, the principality of Antioch, and the rule of Saladin and the Mamluk’s in Egypt. Although not that of a true man of letters, Sembat’s writing has secured for this great mili tary leader and diplomat a firm place in Armenian literary and legal history.

Religious literature would evolve grandly in Cilicia. The cosmopolitan nature of the society, where Armenians lived in close contact with Syrians, Greeks, and Latins, fostered the develop-ment of the ecumenical spirit of the two great church fathers, Catholicos Nerses Shnorali and his great-nephew Bishop Nerses of Lambron. In Shnorali’s Elegy for Edessa, the city is personi-fied as a widow seeking succour from the rest of the Christian world. In this moving poem, the catholicos exalted the solidarity behind the diverse Christian community that defended the city against the Muslims. But it is in the sacred literature that his contribution shines the bright-est. From the vast poem Jesus, the Son to the beautiful prayer I Confess with Faith and the many

Settled primarily in the western part of Cilicia, Greeks had their own bishops in Tarsus, Adana and Misis. The French, many of whom were descendants of the crusaders, were also numerous. Three Greek bishops and nine Frank nobles appear in Levon’s coronation list.

While the Genoese merchants had been given considerable privileges at first, some restric-tions to the same privileges were introduced when a new treaty was signed in 1215. Their com plete freedom of movement and of commerce was renegotiated in order to exclude some ter ritory belonging to barons who had opposed the previous ample concession by the king. Other limitations were also introduced in the administration of justice. The Genoese citizens would continue to be judged by their own tribunals, except for the crimes of robbery and mur-der, which were judged by the High Court.

It is not until 1241 that the name of Ayas (known to the Italians as Laiazzo) first appears in documents. Located at the western end of the Gulf of Alessandretta, it was an excellent port. Its historical importance increased substantially after the fall of Antioch in 1268, even more after the end of Outremer with the fall of Acre in 1291. Following the Mongol conquests in Asia and the es tablishment of the Pax Mongolica in territories under their dominion, commercial traffic became an essential feature of the economic life of their empire. From Cilicia Western mer-chants could reach the ancient Silk Road, which crossed Asia Minor and reached Central Asia, opening the door to the huge Mongol Empire where they could obtain precious products from China, mainly silk and spices.

A multitude of Italian businessmen were also present in Cyprus, especially in its port of Famagusta. Between Cilicia and Cyprus also grew a very active commerce. Gradually, as Cilician territory was lost to Mamluk attacks (we recall the destruction of the fortress of Ayas in 1322, its temporary reconstruction and its final fall in 1337), it was replaced by Cyprus.

In addition to Venetians and Genoese, numerous Italians from many other cities were present in the Armenian kingdom, including some Sicilians. This last group of merchants became more numerous following the privilege granted to them by King Levon IV in 1331, within a few months after his marriage to Constance, the daughter of King Frederick of Sicily, and the widow of King Henry II of Cyprus. This is the last of the privileges that has come down to us drafted in Armenian, translated into Latin.

While it is true that with the decline and eventual disappearance of the kingdom of Armenian Cilicia the intense commercial traffic ceased, it is also true that the deep cultural and religious connections between Cilicia and the West (particularly Italy and France) never died.97

The Renewal of Intellectual Life

It was in the monasteries of Greater Armenia that intellectual, literary, and artistic materials were stored. Through donations from the most influential noble families, the monasteries owned much land, villages and schools. Education remained the exclusive right of many monasteries, which became centers of higher learning, meriting their title of hamalsaran (university), as was


ancestors of the king and queen. On a background of embossed gold, the elegant and animated figures stand out against fantastic architecture. We must thank Father Time for dealing kindly with this beautiful work of art. As so aptly described by Professor Nersessian, “the miniatures have retained their rich colors, which have an enamel quality. The brilliant effect is enhanced through the profuse use of gold, not only for the background, but also for the figures.” The royal couple and their five chil dren, all kneeling in prayer to the heavenly vision of Christ (with the Virgin and John the Baptist at his sides), are depicted in their splendid ceremonial robes remi-niscent of those of the Byzantine court.

The influence of Chinese art on Armenian manuscript painting in another work can be seen in a Chinese dragon adorning the bottom of the cape of an Armenian bishop, in the wandering clouds, the blue flying dogs. These pictorial elements clearly illustrate the influence of commer-cial and diplomatic relations cultivated by Cilicia monarchs with the Far East. However, while elements in Armenian illumination may have been borrowed from distant lands, of the West or the Far East, they are fully integrated in harmonious compositions where “nothing is out of place.”102

The illuminated manuscripts of the Kingdom of Cilicia continue to dazzle the modern reader with their stunning beauty and virtuosity, evoking as they do the cosmopolitan and highly civilized society that created them. They hold a privileged place in the history of medieval art. Threatened by the Mamluks of Egypt, this brilliant artistic production would last until the sec-ond half of the fourteenth century. The last surviving manuscript, a beautiful hymnal commis-sioned by King Constantine II (1365-73), is the work of Sargis Pitzak, another great manuscript painter. The use of high-quality vellum and the gold-burnished background are proof of the high standards of Cilician manuscript production right to the end of the kingdom.

sharakans (hymns), and in all of his many other compositions, Nerses the Gracious proved to be the “most prolific author of his time.” In his ecumenical spirit, shown soon after his election as catholicos in 1166, he issued four encyclicals on the unity of all Christian churches, three addressed to Emperor Manuel and one to Patriarch Michael of Byzantium.

Following in the footsteps of his illustrious relative the catholicos, Nerses of Lambron the bishop, in his Synecdotal Discourse, rises above all divisions in the Christian faith by laying bare its unity in charity, human love, brotherhood, and the spiritual aspirations of humankind. The stature of these clergymen in the religious field is such that they emerge from the context of medieval Christianity as precursors of present-day ecumenical principles.99

The Art of the Book in Cilicia

Cilicia, open on the Mediterranean with close military and cultural links to the kingdoms of Jerusalem and Cyprus and the other Frankish states, after becoming an independent kingdom in 1198, joins the ranks of the nations of that period. In the following century, it developed excellent relations with the Mongol Empire while the Church gradually opened communica-tion with prel ates of the Greek, Syriac, and Latin rites. During this period, the work in the scrip-toria in Armenian monasteries where the writing and illuminating of manuscripts took place was limited mainly to copying of other works. One of the first such manuscripts, the Book of Lamentations of Gregory of Narek, dated 1173 and copied for Nerses of Lambron, is still close to the model of Byzantine art. A Gospel made for Nerses a few years later reveals the fusion of the Frankish-Armenian culture “swirling together in Cilicia in this period”

100 during the reign

of Levon the Magnificent. The reper tory of miniatures gradually becomes richer, reaching its zenith in the second half of the thirteenth century. But even in the early manuscripts of this period, the ornate initials, the symbols of the evangelists, and the ornaments at the margins of the manuscript pages become essential ingredi ents in later Cilician production.

Of more than 22,000 manuscripts held in a number of museums around the world, just over five hundred have been definitely identified as belonging to the Cilician period. To the reader who is interested in further study of this field of Armenian art we suggest the magisterial work of Serarpie der Nersessian. In the following paragraphs we will limit our discussion to some of the characteristic traits of these manuscripts.

With the coronation of King Hetum and under the patronage of Catholicos Constantine I (1221-67), manuscript production associated with the new dynasty, entered a new era of experi mentation and innovation. Like Nerses of Lambron, the catholicos appears to have been willing to explore new contacts with the West. The manuscript painters treat religious scenes with great virtuosity, drawing from the Italian Gothic style.

It is in this artistic production that we identify the work of Thoros Roslin,101 the most famous of Armenian artists, at the Hromkla scriptorium. The famous Gospel book (Jerusalem, ms 2563), commissioned by King Levon II and his wife Queen Ker-Anne, is considered to be the finest manu script by the artist. The long colophon lists all the members of the royal family and the

Aftermath of the Fall of the Kingdom of Cilicia 183

peasants and migrant workers, remained on the Cilician plain until the catastrophic events of World War I.

Many members of the nobility established themselves in Constantinople, Greater Armenia, and Georgia. The merchants emigrated to Poland, Italy, and France. Along with the diaspora move ment, an equal but opposite phenomenon is witnessed in the building of semi-auton-omous centers of armed resistance. Among those who remained in what had now become Muslim lands, some craftsmen and members of the army converted to gain an economic advantage. The bulk of Armenian peasantry in Anatolia held on to their ancestral Christian faith.

In the century after the collapse of the last Armenian kingdom in 1375, Cilicia and Greater Armenia would once more become the sites of wars between foreign nations. But Armenia would first experience another great blow: the last great invasion from Central Asia. In the course of three successive campaigns, Timur (surnamed Leng or Lame), also known in Europe as Tamerlane, brought destruction and terror from Samarkand to the Aegean Sea. While he claimed descent from Genghis Khan, his forebears appear to have been Turkish. At least a dozen colophons speak of the devastation of the lands of lords and peasants who had been too slow to submit to him. However, the most unmistakable mark of his passage was the heaps of thousands of skulls of those who resisted his sieges.

During Timur’s third campaign, the Ottoman sultan Bayezid was besieging the walls of Constantinople. He was the descendant of a young warrior named Othman (or Osman), who had declared himself independent from other Turkish tribes. When his grandson Suleyman cap-tured Gallipoli, on the European side of the Dardanelle Strait, the Ottomans began their relent-less cam paign of attacking and conquering Christian possessions.

When Bayezid received the news of the coming of Tamerlane, he lifted the siege at Constantinople and hurried eastward with his army to face the intruder. Bayezid was the same man who, in 1396, had smashed a Christian army estimated at 100,000 at Nicopolis. The sultan’s decision to lift the siege would give the Byzantine capital a fifty-years reprieve from assault. The clash between these two ferocious warriors took place near Ankara in 1402. Bayezid, taken pris-oner, was paraded through the streets as a trophy. But fate was not kind to either of the Turkish leaders. The Ottoman sultan committed suicide while a captive. Tamerlane, after defeating the Golden Horde and conquering Delhi, returned to his capital, taking with him many Armenian craftsmen to transform Samarkand into a magnificent capital city. He died while planning an inva sion of China. The Armenians, the Byzantines, the Muslim emirs in Iran and Syria, and the Mamluks of Egypt must have been greatly relieved, but not for long.

After Tamerlane’s death, the vast empire he had conquered fell apart. In Anatolia and Syria, the Ottomans and Mamluks could resume their unfettered rule. In Mesopotamia, western Iran, and Armenia, two Turkoman clans, known as the Black Sheep and the White Sheep, fought for control. They would be replaced by the arrival of a new Muslim power at the close of the fif-teenth century, the Savavids they, as well, of Turkish origin. The Savavid were Shi’te and not Sunni like their western neighbors, the Ottoman Turks. During the sixteenth and part of the seventeenth centu ries, they would confront each other, on Armenian lands.

C H A P T E R 1 4

A f t e r m a t h o f t h e F a l l o f t h e K i n g d o m o f C i l i c i a

While the collapse of the Kingdom of Cilicia did not spell the end of Armenians in Cilicia and cer tainly not in Greater Armenia, the end of the last Armenian kingdom was followed by a long pe riod of decadence in the political situation and the culture. All the lands peopled by Armenians for several centuries, for two millennia in the case of the Armenian Highlands, would be the theater of more invasions, wars, and struggles by competing empires, the Ottomans first against the Safavid Persians, and then against the Russian Empire.

The Armenians responded to these cataclysmic events in two seemingly opposite reac-tions: on one side, with massive movements toward Iran, India, Western Anatolia (including Constantinople), the northern Caucasus, Crimea, Poland, the Balkan countries, France, and Italy; on the other side, with the creation or maintenance of centers of armed resistance.104

Crimea, for example, where Genoese colonies were well established, Armenian merchants and craftsmen were numerous enough to merit for the Crimean peninsula the name “Maritime Armenia.” In Italy, from the thir teenth century onward, we see a large number of churches, monasteries, and Armenian hospices in Rome, Milan, Leghorn, and other cities, where the hospices served as hostels for pilgrims and merchants. In France, where traces of Armenians are rare for that era, an old village named “Desarmeniens” suggests an Armenian presence. One cannot exclude that some Armenians may have followed King Leon V to France after the fall of Cilicia. Even more striking is the discovery of the surname Armenia in Sicily and Malta from the early fifteenth century to the present time. Given the significance of such a finding for Armenian historiography, the author, who has conduct ed a comprehensive research of the surname Armenia in Italy and Malta, has elected to include some of his findings in the epilogue.

For another fifty years after the fall of the kingdom to the Mamluks, the true masters of the country were Turkomen tribes. A few Armenian princes, entrenched in the mountains sur-rounding Cilicia, such as Hadjin, Zeitun, and Tomarz, managed to preserve their independence until the end of the ninenteenth century. The largest number of Armenians of Cilicia, mostly

Armenian Cilicia Xii -- XiV Century184 Aftermath of the Fall of the Kingdom of Cilicia 185

the Islamic tradition and promised by the sultan, the sultan rode into the city. He dismounted outside the doors of the cathedral and sprinkled some dirt on his turban--a strange gesture of “humility” for a twenty-one-year old who saw himself as the Islamic Alexander. With the Cross quickly replaced by the Crescent, the Church of the Holy wisdom became a mosque.

When news of the fall of Constantinople reached Pope Nicholas, he did his best to gal-vanize the Christian princes to launch a new crusade. In the climate of the humanism of the Renaissance, no such adventure would be seriously contemplated. The last Greek throne in Asia Minor, the Empire of Trebizond, headed by David Comnenus, was to surrender to the Sultan in 1461. He, his children, and one nephew would be executed in Constantinople, their bodily remains cast to the dogs outside the city walls.

The Ottomans continued their conquests: Mamluk Cairo (1517), Belgrade (1521), Rhodes (1522); but they failed to take Vienna in 1529. They failed again in Malta in 1565 and at the naval bat tle at Lepanto in October 1571 (see the Epilogue for an account of the siege of Malta). Venice had held Cyprus for eighty one years after Queen Caterina Cornaro was forced to abdi-cate. The end of Venetian rule came at the hands of the Ottomans on August 5, 1571, only a few weeks before the great naval battle at Lepanto, fought in the strait between the Gulf of Corinth and the Ionian Sea. The Venetians fought with great determination and courage for less than five weeks. The defense of Famagusta, which had lasted almost eleven months, is described as one of the greatest epic bat tles in siege warfare. When the Venetian commander Marcantonio Bragadin capitulated, his offer was accepted by Mustafa Pasha. Bragadin and his officers who had survived the siege were initially received with the utmost courtesy, then, suddenly, Mustafa gave a signal for the massacre that would follow. Bragadin’s fate was reserved for Mustafa him-self, who cut the Venetian’s ears and nose, leav ing him to suffer for two more weeks, by which time he was seriously ill. The end of his torment came when he was taken to the main square, tied to a column and then flayed alive. He is said to have borne this torture in silence, until he expired half an hour later. His skin was stuffed with straw and paraded through the streets mounted on a cow, then was taken as a trophy to the sultan. Nine years later it was stolen by a survivor of the siege and taken to Venice, where it was transferred to his final resting place in the Church of Saints John and Paul.

During the first decade of the seventeenth century the Persians shah, Abbas I, after failing in his attempt to drive the Ottomans out of eastern Armenia, forced almost 300,000 Armenians from their homeland, with several thousand dying while crossing the Araxes River. They were com pelled to settle in Isfahan, the capital of Persia. Here the exiles founded New Julfa, which became a center of trade, business, and culture for the next two centuries, with commercial activities ranging from India to Europe. Despite the Armenians’ success in settling in Persia, contemporary Armenian historians described the deportation as a catastrophe, resulting in the depopulation of the historic lands. With further migrations toward the northern Caucasus, Crimea, Poland, the Balkan countries, France, and Italy, the Armenians remaining in Ottoman Turkey eventually became a minority in the lands they had inhabited from time immemorial.

In this period of diaspora, or dispersion, and decline, their spirit of resolve would enable the Armenians to continue somehow to remain active in areas relatively untouched by political

1451: The Conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks

During the first two decades of the fifteenth century, the Ottomans resumed their expansion into the Balkans, winning stunning victories against the Greeks, Serbs, Hungarians and crusader states. They soon recovered their possessions in Anatolia. Like the Mamluks in Egypt, they were greatly strengthened by a practice similar to their devshirme, the levy of boys among the sub-jected Christian populations who would later be recruited into the Ottoman army, another army of slave-soldiers. In so doing, the Turks would channel the fighting spirit of young Christian boys to serve further Ottoman wars of expansion.

On May 29, 1453, Mehmed II, within two years of his succession, began the last siege of Constantinople. The Theodosian walls, which had withstood sieges by the Persians, Arabs, Bulgars, and Russians, had been breached once only before during the assault of the Fourth Crusade. But the Middle Ages were now a thing of the past. A few months before the attack, a German engineer had presented himself to Mehmed and offered to build him cannons that “could blast Babylon it self.” When, early in April, the new cannons opened fire, the end of Constantinople was very near. The only hope left to the emperor was a relief expedition from Venice. The brave and energetic emperor had shown himself to be flexible in religious matters and was ready to accept union with the Catholic Church. But he had badly misjudged the oppo-sition from the Greek clergy. Only when all hope was lost, on the last Monday in the empire’s history, with the bells tolling from the churches, did representatives of the two churches lay down their differences. A procession of the population of Constantinople, the emperor first, Orthodox Greeks and Catholic Italians together, made its way to the Church of Hagia Sophia. During the last few hours, with the worst crisis the empire had ever experienced imminent, all liturgical differences were put aside. The Christian ca thedral was once more the spiritual center of Byzantium. The final attack began on Tuesday, May 29, when the silence of the night was shattered by trumpet blasts, the hammering of war drums, and the “the bloodletting Turkish war cries to produce a clamor fit to waken the dead.”105 The peal of the bells of all the churches was the signal to the Christian populations that the final as sault would soon start.

According to one version of the story of Constantine’s death, when the Turks began pouring in through the open breaches created by the cannon balls, he and his followers threw them-selves into the fray. He was killed by some Janissaries (elite guard of Ottoman troops) before they re alized who he was. His body was never recovered. After the fall of the city, Constantine would become a legendary heroic figure. Many Greeks believed that he was not dead (his body was never recovered), that he had been turned into a marble statue, and that he would come back as an avenging angel to drive the Turks out of their city. For details of the last days of Constantinople, the reader is directed to the masterly work by Lord John Julius Norwich, Byzantium.

By noon the same day, the streets of Constantinople were awash in blood. Houses were ran sacked or burned, churches razed, children and women raped and then impaled. The priests officiat ing the matins continued with their liturgy, still standing near the high altar up until the slaughtering began. At the end of the three-day orgy of looting, as was customary in


The diaspora, which may at first appear to run contrary to the natural need to establish roots in one’s ancestral land, has had as a paradoxical effect, a cautious adaptation in the lands of emigration. But it also manifested a constant effort to maintain and, indeed, enrich Armenian culture in one’s new country. In Constantinople, which would become the leading center of the diaspora of Armenians until the latter part of the nineteenth century, an elite of bankers, money lenders, and industrialists would emerge and assume the leadership of the whole Armenian community in Ottoman Turkey. They became the representatives of the community to the sul-tan. Unchallenged in their powers, they appointed and controlled the patriarch. The lives of the members of the whole community were placed in the hands of this important leader.

Armenian Centers of Independence

It should come as no surprise, in light of the Armenians’ need for independence, that the col-lapse of the kingdoms of Greater Armenia and Cilicia would not end their yearning for autono-my. In a number of strongholds, perched on almost inaccessible mountaintops, some members of princely houses, namely in Karabagh, Hadjin, and Zeitun, managed to preserve their inde-pendence until the end of the nineteenth century. It was at Zeitun, north of Sis, that a small principality, under the rule of four parons, or barons, was able to maintain a semiautonomous existence. (Zeitun was then divided into four quarters, headed by the descendants of princely families, who likely emigrated from Ani.) This state of affairs existed until the central Ottoman government tried to curb signs of growing unrest among the people of Zeitun in 1862. A new sense of national consciousness, which came to be known as the Armenian Question, was re-awakened, following the example of the wars of independence in the Balkans and the Italian Risorgimento, which climaxed in 1860. From that point on, the Ottomans attempted to settle hundreds of thousands of displaced Muslims from the Balkans into the area around Cilicia. Under the pretext that Zeitun had not paid its taxes, a large Ottoman army, supported by ir-regular troops laid siege to Zeitun. The defenders managed to inflict heavy losses against the Turks and captured cannons and ammunitions. The Armenians asked for help from Napoleon III of France. The blockade was eventually lifted under French pressure, on condition that a Turkish garrison be left in Zeitun.

The civic historical archives of the city of Milan contain a letter by Leon, baron in Zeitun, dated March 12, addressed to Garibaldi.107 The document, written shortly after the victory of the mountain people of Zeitun, is a heartfelt appeal by the Armenian prince to the “hero of the two worlds,” who had become famous in South America and then on the Italian peninsula. Garibaldi was asked to become the liberator of the Eastern Christians, to lead two thousand of his famous “Garibaldini” troops in a reconquest of Cilicia. With Garibaldi’s moral and material help, Leon was convinced that victory would be assured. Michael Bakunin, the Russian anarchist, had also writ ten to Garibaldi to encourage him to lead the Greeks and Armenians in a movement of national independence. It is doubtful that, even if Garibaldi had agreed, such a plan would have prevented the ultimate fate of the Armenians in Ottoman Turkey.

events. This was the case in the monasteries of Gladzor and Tatev, which became major cent-ers of learning for religious studies as well as for the arts and sciences. To cite just one spe-cific example of the cultural products created by these monasteries, one has only to recall the influence, on the Gospels of Glaznor, of the Cilician masters in the art of manuscript illumi-nation, Roslin and Pitzak. The monasteries would engage in a long struggle in resisting the influence, not all of it ne farious, of the drive by the Dominican Brothers, the Frates Unitores, to convert Armenians to the Latin Church. We should also recall one of the more significant posi-tive results of such contacts with the West: the introduction of printing shops. The Armenians had set up their own presses in Venice in the first decade of the sixteenth century. It was to Italy that a large number of Armenians emigrated after the fall of Cilicia in 1375. According to Father Ghevond Alishan, as many of 30,000 of Armenians lived in Italy at the start of the fifteenth century.

The pendulum would finally swing toward the Christian side in 1683, at the Ottomans’ sec-ond attempt to take Vienna, at that time the capital of the Hapsburg Empire under Emperor Leopold I. The Protestant Hungarians, feeling oppressed by the Catholic Hapsburgs, had risen in open revolt, and in a moment of folly had invited the Ottoman sultan, Mehmed IV, to come to their aid. The sul tan lost no time to come to the “rescue” of the beleaguered Protestants. Vienna would most likely have fallen if it had not been for the arrival of the Polish army led by King John Sobieski. Caught between the fire of the Viennese garrison and the brilliant Polish king’s army, the Ottomans raised their tents. It was the last time the Crescent would seriously threaten the Cross.

The Armenians in the Ottoman Empire

A reading of the colophons of the manuscripts for the following two centuries reveals that the themes of tribulations and persecution at the hands of the Muslims, the loss of the country, the exile, and the importance of having effective leaders become the leitmotifs in subsequent Armenian history up to the present time. Just to remind the readers, the colophon in Armenian refers to “memorial’”. In the colophon, the writer or scribe, after recording for posterity the name of the sponsor or owner, would identify himself with a number of deprecatory words of his unworthy life. In a final section, the colophon would give a historical account of important contemporary military and social events. Until the fall of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, the manuscripts where the colophons would be found were commissioned by members of the royal family or by the high-ranking clergy. It is hardly surprising to learn that after the fall of the Cilician kingdom, the colophons make no mention of any Armenian kings. From then forward, manuscripts would be commissioned or sponsored by the heirs of medieval feudal families, members of the high prelacy in monasteries or in the community, rich merchants, or wealthy peasants. The colophons would frequently include the psychological effects of separa-tion from family and from familiar landscapes.


Mekhitar, who was given the baptismal name of Manuk (meaning child, a common name among Armenians to honor Jesus), was born in Sebastia (Sivas) in 1676. He entered the monastic life at age fifteen, when he assumed his grandfather’s name, Mekhitar (the consoler). This was at a time when the Armenian monasteries were mainly interested on keeping alive the ethnic traditions. He spent his youth in search of an education and spiritual formation in several monasteries in his Aftermath of the Fall of the Kingdom of Cilicia native city first, and then in Ecthmiatdzin, Sevan, and Cyprus. In Erzorum, he had his first encoun ter with Catholic doctrine when he met a Jesuit who may have inspired him to go to the West to pursue his religious dream, that of founding a new order. With that ideal in mind, he arrived in Constantinople, where, in 1700, he founded the nucleus of a monastic order, not in the Armenian Orthodox but in the Catholic Church, after having converted to that faith. He could stay only briefly in the capital, forced out by the intolerant patriarch of Constantinople. Any further opposi tion would likely have caused his prosecution by the secular Ottoman authority. At that time, the patriarch, a friend of the Grand Mufti, was known for his anti-Catholic excesses.

After a clandestine departure, Mekhitar first moved to Modon, in Morea (Greece) (at that time a Venetian colony), until it too fell to the Ottomans in 1715. By this time, he understood that his work could not continue under the control of the Crescent. Two years later, seeking asylum, he came to Venice, where the Serenissima granted him the island of San Lazzaro in the lagoon. On this small island, the small religious community of Armenian monks settled permanently.

At this time, the views between the followers of the patriarch of Constantinople, moti-vated by their intolerant attitude to any opposition, and the excessive zeal of those Armenians who, in their quest for a union with Rome, felt it necessary to “correct” the Armenian rite, appeared irreconcil able. But Mekhitar was fully prepared to act as the bridge between the two Churches. He was con vinced that there was no significant obstacle for a full commun-ion of faith between the Armenian Church and that of Rome. He insisted that there was no need to create a distinct and separate Catholic Armenian hierarchy. However, he did reject the excessive Latinizing practices advocated by some Armenians recently converted to the Catholic faith. He was opposed to following their example; for him, one could be a “good Catholic and a good Armenian.” Unfortunately, Mekhitar remained an original thinker, mis-understood by the extreme nationalists, by the Latinophiles, and barely tolerated by the Roman curia.

While from a religious perspective Mekhitar’s work is best defined as ecumenical, at a cul-tural level it is a fully Christian humanism. The basic principle, enunciated by him in the intro-duction to his Armenian edition of the Bible, is a proclamation of the fundamental natural and humanistic values, which he perceived as separate from those deriving from spiritual and reli-gious values. He declared that he was not prepared to sacrifice his faith to his nationality, nor his nationality to his faith.

Equally as significant as Mekhitar’s ecumenical work was the crucial role he and his order played in fostering a “national awakening” of the Armenians. To achieve this Armenian Renaissance the Mekhitarists would employ two primary means: their schools and their press.

Armenian Renaissance of the Eighteenth Century

From the time of the Cilician kingdom, several of the Armenian catholicoi, in Sis and Etchmiadzin, had expressed their respect toward the pope. This trend was to continue over the course of the next four centuries. In 1550, Catholicos Stephanos was in Rome during the Jubilation year, and during the next century, several of the catholicoi maintained a correspondence with the Holy See, at times sending a delegation representing the Armenian Church. At the time of his death in 1680, Jacob IV called to his bedside the Latin archbishop of Constantinople to express his regret for having failed to fully realize the union of the two Churches. It is during the second half of the seventeenth century, a period of relative tranquility after the earlier campaign of Shah Abbas, that a political and cultural revival occurred, thanks to efforts of some of the more enlightened catholi coi of Ecthmiadzin in the arts, architecture, and miniature painting, but less so in the literary and scientific fields. While these may be best described as “more or less iso-lated achievements”, they set the stage for the cultural renaissance that was to come in the fol-lowing century, away from the historical frontiers, first in Greece and then in Venice, under the Mekhitarist religious order.

28. Venice, the island of St. Lazzaro. (Courtesy of Father Levon B. Zekiyan)


the Metz Yeghern, the Great Crime, the first genocide of the twentieth century. The Armenian adjective metz is to underscore the magnitude and meaning of this event in the history of the Armenians, which is indelibly inscribed in the psyche of the survivors. Up to one and a half mil-lion Armenian people were killed during the genocide, with almost as many forced to leave their ancestral land. While the largest number would spread all over the world, a significant number would survive in a corner of what was once Greater Armenia, in the new Republic of Armenia. In the smallest of the former Soviet republics, with a surface area of 30,000 square kilometers (equal to that of Sicily, Belgium, or the American state of Maryland), only forty miles from its capital, Yerevan, stands the tallest mountain of the historic Armenian Highlands, Mount Ararat. Held sacred by the Armenians since time immemorial, and a powerful symbol of their identity, Ararat, while so tantalizingly close, does not belong to Armenia; it was annexed along with a large chunk of historical Armenia, by Turkey in 1921. However, Ararat remains, just like the museum of the Matenadaran, the shrine of the Armenanian language, and Ecthmiadzin, the Armenians’ holiest site, at the core of the identity of this ancient people, who, against all odds, have survived to the present day.

The Final Solution to the Armenian Question

In the last two decades of the 1800s many young Armenians joined recently created political parties. They began to call for reforms and requested that the Europeans pay attention to the Armenian Question. A group of Armenian youths, against the advice of their elders, gathered to formulate a petition. Their demonstrations led to a confrontation in which a number of the pro testers were killed after refusing to disperse.

In 1894, the Armenian mountaineers of Sassoun, after a long period of oppression, mainly by a system of double taxation, rose in armed revolt against Kurdish tribal chiefs and govern-ment tax collectors. After a month of resistance against government troops, the Armenians agreed to surrender, but only after they were given the word by the Turkish commander that their petition for reforms would be delivered to the “Bloody Sultan”, Abdul Hamid II. Once dis-armed, however, the Armenians were shown no mercy. Their priests were tortured, murdered, and then mutilated. Women were raped while children were put to the sword or had their heads smashed. By the end, three thousand Armenians had been killed.

Germany, Austria, and Italy, the future Triple Alliance in World War I, showed little interest in placing pressure on the sultan, while British, French, and Russian ambassadors limited them-selves to proposing that Turkey engage in a program of reforms. The sultan’s response was to stonewall. For Sultan Abdul, the political awakening of the Armenians had to be squelched at all costs, lest it lead to the loss of Anatolian lands to them. By the end of 1895, to forestall any such eventuality, the sultan proceeded to give orders to launch attacks on Armenian towns and city quarters in the six Armenian villayets, or provinces. During these massacres, an estimated 200,000 Armenians were killed. Under threat of death, entire villages were converted to Islam. Hundreds of churches and monasteries were either destroyed or converted into mosques. In Urfa (medieval Edessa), the cathedral to which 3,000 men, women, and children had escaped, was set on fire by the troops. Anyone who attempted to escape was shot.

And again, what did the Europeans do? Just as they had done four centuries earlier in Cilicia: they just stood passively by. Driven by national rivalries and their shortsighted self-interest, they were unwilling to intervene militarily, their inaction serving to encourage the continuation of vio lent acts against the Armenians. Europe’s only response was a note of protest to the sultan.

In the two years of 1895–1896, to retaliate against the carnage taking place in many Armenian villages, 1500 mountaineers of Zeitun, blocking 50,000 Turkish troops and Kurdish and Circassian irregulars, stopped the projected extermination in the province of Adana. It was the last time the proud Zeitun mountaineers would be successful. In March 1915, fully in the context of World War I, the Turkish government of the Young Turks began to implement its genocidal plan, not surpris ingly in Zeitun and Van, the two main centers and the symbols of Armenian resistance. It would be against the Armenians of Zeitun and many other towns of Cilicia, where Armenians had known the splendor of the kingdom of the Rubenians, Hetumians and Lusignans, that the Ottoman Turks would start their “infernal descent” into the genocide of this very ancient people. By mid-April, they had killed or deported most of the population of the province of Adana. This would be only the beginning, however, of the immense catastrophe,

Descendants of leon V lusignan in malta? 193

durance, and mental capacity were largely undiminished, hardened by a year108

spent as a slave on a Turkish galley. Aware that the Turks would attempt to repeat their success at Rhodes, he wasted no time in setting about improving the fortifications of Malta. The great commotion all over the island throughout the day made it clear what was happening on this small island, only sixty miles south of Sicily. In the early morning of that Friday in mid-May, the Mediterranean haze gradually lifted off the calm waters toward the eastern horizon of the island, and sentries in the forts of St. Elmo and St. Angelo sighted a great fleet of ships spread out in the shape of a half moon. Soon the morning silence was broken by three booms of the cannons from each fort, repeated from the old walled capital city of Mdina, in the center of the island, and a last vol-ley from the island of Gozo. By that signal, the knights of St. John and the whole population of the Maltese islands were alerted that they would soon be invaded by a huge army of Ottoman Turks. During the previous autumn, the Maltese had been warned by agents in Constantinople of intense activity in the Turkish shipyards, that an armada of ships would be launched in the coming spring with the aim of conquering the Maltese islands.

When early the morning of the same day, the Turkish fleet appeared off the Maltese coast, it was not the first time that the galleys of Ottoman Turkey attacked Malta, nor the last. Terrified, the population began to flee from the villages. The historian Antonio Bosio relates the sequence of events of that day in great detail.109 The Universita’ (city council) of Mdina, the old capital of Malta where most of the nobility resided, decided to send the patrician Luca de Armenia to the Grand Master, John La Valette, to ask whether Mdina should be evacuated and its citizens transferred to the town of Birgu, where the Hospitallers where installed. He was also to request a supply of troops, weapons and ammunitions, if needed.

A year earlier, the sultan Suleyman the Magnificent, “Lord of the Lords of this world, Possessor of Men’s Necks, King of Believers and Unbelievers, King of Kings, Emperor of the East and West, the Shadow of the Almighty dispensing Quiet in the Earth,”110 was presiding over a formal meeting. At age seventy, the sultan had spread his dominion from Austria to the Persian Gulf. The only place where his armies had failed was at Vienna. He had driven the Knights of St. John, the Hospitallers, from Rhodes in 1522. Wanting to show that he could be magnani-mous in the face of the suicidal bravery of the knights, the youthful sultan spared their lives on condition that they would not launch any more attacks against Ottoman lands and shipping. While watching them depart from the island they had occupied for more than 120 years, he is reported to have turned to his Grand Vizir, and said, it saddened him to force that brave old man (Grand Master of the Hospitallers) to leave his home. He would soon regret his lenient treatment of the Knights.

For seven years, the knights, renowned for their bravery and their expertise in naval warfare, contemplated a reconquest of Rhodes. The Grand Master began searching at European courts for the funds to launch the campaign. In the spring of 1529, rumors were spreading that the fleet the Hospitallers were preparing to launch an attack from Malta. At the same time, two spies were sent to Rhodes for the purpose of determining the most opportune moment for the attack. The Hospitallers hoped that Ahmed Pasha, the Turkish victor of Rhodes in 1522, who was conspiring against the sultan and wanted to reestablish the Mamluk Empire in Egypt, would

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D e s c e n d a n t s o f L e o n V L u s i g n a n i n M a l t a ?

29. Mdina, the old medieval capital of Malta. (Courtesy of Peter Armenia)

Sometime late in the evening of May 18, in 1565, a Maltese nobleman came to pay a visit to Grand Master John La Valette while he was reviewing the troops. La Valette had fought during the great siege of Rhodes at age twenty eight. Almost seventy now, his physical strength, en-

Armenian Cilicia Xii -- XiV Century194 Descendants of leon V lusignan in malta? 195

of Muslim blood. By 1501-02, they sailed some galleots (small galleys) off the Tunisian island of Jerba, and were soon taken into the service of some princes of the Barbary coast, seizing passing ships and their merchandise and slaves. In 1504, the brothers seized two papal galleys loaded with precious goods from Genoa and brought them to Tunis. This and similar victories won for the brothers the re spect of the Ottoman Turks, as they always referred to themselves as officers of the sultan. In the following year, they continued to attack Maltese and Spanish ves-sels and became masters of the island of Jerba, which had only recently been handed over to the viceroy of Sicily by the Maltese captain Pietro de Armenia. Captain Pietro was killed in 1508, most likely during a naval battle with the Barbarossa brothers. Maltese documents refer to him and his siblings with the Latin epithet Impax, meaning fearless and warlike.

While the fact is perhaps somewhat peripheral to the sphere of geopolitical interest of the Spanish kings of Aragon, in the fifteenth century Malta had attracted several supporters of the crown who quickly became its aristocracy. They were given military and civil position in the gov-ernment of the island and rights over much of its real estate. The military campaigns in North Africa by the Aragonese kings provided this new aristocracy with the opportunity to join their privately owned vessels with the king’s fleet. They were also expected to defend isolated territo-ries and the coastal towns of Sicily, which were frequently the object of razzias, or raids launched by the Muslim rulers of Tunis and by the Ottoman Turks. The Maltese corsairs acted both as en trepreneurs and as captains of the royal navy. A number of powerful families were granted fiefs by the crown for military services rendered. Among these powerful clans was the Armenia family.

After the death of his brother Aruj, Kheir Barbarossa made a formal presentation of the con-quered territory, as the province of Algiers, to Selim I (the Sot), the Ottoman sultan. For Selim, who had just conquered Mamluk Egypt, these newly acquired North African territories meant that he could now seriously consider extending his territories all the way to the Atlantic coast. Aware that his Turkish navy could not match that of Venice and Genoa, he invited the famous corsair to come to Constantinople. After Kheir arrived with many presents, also presented the bishop of Pamplona and two hundred young women destined for the sultan’s harem,—“each car rying gifts of gold or silver”— he was appointed admiral of the Turkish fleet by Selim.

During his year-long stay in Constantinople, Kheir Barbarossa oversaw the building of an en tire new fleet. In 1534, taking his new fleet out of the Golden Horn, he passed through the Strait of Messina, heading up the Tyrrhenian coast toward Naples. His secret mission was to capture a special gift for the sultan: Giulia Gonzaga, the widow of Vespasian Colonna, lord of the city of Fondi, southeast of Rome. Described as the most beautiful woman of the day, painted by Titian and celebrated by the poets Tasso and Ariosto, Giulia had gathered around herself a small court of poets, philosophers, and artists. On the night of the attack, Giulia, who was at the nearby castle of Sperlonga, received a warning just before the arrival of the pirate, and escaped in her nightdress. As expected, however, Fondi was attacked, churches were desecrated, and many women and chil dren were carried away as slaves.

In the end, by February 1538, the emperor, the pope, and Venice formed the League of Nice to stem the Turkish attacks. Emperor Charles V entrusted the Christian fleet to the Genoese

keep the promise of help he had secretly conveyed to the knights. After they assassinated Ahmed Pasha, the Turks, who had grown suspicious of a possible conspiracy between the Greek nobles and the Muslims in Rhodes, had many of them executed. By 1529, the Hospitallers did not have much choice but to accept the donation of Malta by Emperor Charles V. The island was granted as a fief in perpetuity in return of the annual gift of a Maltese falcon to CharlesV, the Spanish king and later emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

When he learned that Emperor Charles had donated Malta to the knights, Suleyman knew that “the cursed rock” would be a barrier to further expansion of his powers. His ambition had been to use Malta as a steppingstone to Sicily and from there to the Christian lands in south-ern Europe. In 1564, the celebrated knight of Malta, Fra Lescault, better known as Romegas, had been ordered by the Grand Master La Valette to capture a large Turkish vessel, which was loaded with precious cargo owned by Suleyman’s daughter born to his beloved Ukrainian wife, Ruxelane. When she informed him of the loss of the ship, its cargo, and the capture of her child-hood nurse, the almighty sultan flew into a fury. The knights had gone too far and provided him with a splen did pretext, if he needed one. With his ambition for conquest unfettered by his advanced age, he decreed that, “the military state par excellence [Ottoman Empire] would be deployed against the island of Malta and the knights of the Order of St. John. “Those sons of dogs”, who had been spared only by his clemency at Rhodes forty three years earlier, would finally be crushed.111 Indeed, the force that the Ottoman sultan hurled against them—an army of 40,000 men with horses, can nons, ammunition, and other military supplies, as well as food and water for cooking, embarked on well over two hundred ships—was one of the largest ever. The caesar, as he called himself, had one single great obsession, the expansion of the dar al islam: the capture of Malta, only a day’s sail to the land of Sicily, which would in turn provide a perfect springboard to a landing in southern Italy, would realize his vision of turning the Mediterranean into a Muslim sea. What was at stake in Malta was Islam’s last attempt at changing the “confes-sional geography of the lands ringing the ancient sea.”112 Opposing this force were only six hundred knights and a few thousands Maltese irregulars.

We have already seen how the middle of the fifteenth century had witnessed the major cata clysmic event of the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Four decades later, at the other end of the Mediterranean, the expulsion of the Moors of Spain under Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabelle of Castille would lead to a massive migration of Muslims from the lands of Spain (Arabic al Andalus), where they had lived for over seven hundred years. The nearest land, the coast of North Africa, could be easily reached by crossing the Strait of Gibraltar, where they would nurse their longing for revenge among the native coreligionists. The coast from Tunis to Algiers, a fer-tile strip of land over a thousand miles long, offered many points of anchorage and became the ideal ground from which they could launch piratical attacks against Spain, the Balearic Islands, Sicily, Corsica and southern Italy.

Of all the Muslim pirates that plied their trade in those waters during the first decade of the next century, two became celebrated in Turkish annals: the brothers Aruj and Kheir-ed-Din. Their father, who had been taken prisoner in the Greek island of Lesbos, was forcibly con-verted to Islam and became a janissary. All four sons, known as Barbarossas, did not have a drop


likely with some persuasion by Pietro) had raised the flag of the Spanish king on the island. Pietro himself handed over the keys of the city to the viceroy.

Details of Pietro’s family and descendants are described by Francesco Abela.114 For his mer-its and service to the Spanish crown, Pietro was honored by King Ferdinand with the post of “keeper of the city” and the barony of Baccari, a prominent feudal land in Malta. But before he could take possession of the lands, he was killed in a naval battle with the Moors. Maltese histo-rian Giovanni Francesco Abela also mentions Matteo D’Armenia; he was either Pietro’s brother or his son. For his military exploits against the Ottoman Turks, Matteo was granted the barony of Benwarrad by King Ferdinand of Spain. The royal privileges granted to Pietro were transferred to his son Antonio.

One of four siblings, Antonio had two older brothers, both Dominican priests. He became vice-portulan of the Maltese Islands in March 1527 after a recommendation by Emperor Charles V to the viceroy of Sicily. He served as judge and jurat in Malta and as a secretary to the vice-roy.115 His two sons were Fra Leone, a Dominican friar, and Luca. Fra Leone was known as a good preacher who appears to have spent his life traveling through Europe. Respected by Pope Paul III, Fra Leone lived in Rome, Venice, Naples, Parma, and Florence.

His younger brother, Luca, appears to have led a very active political and military life. Luca was sent to Sicily as a jurat of the Universita’ in 1541. We know that he also played a major role dur ing the Great Siege of 1565.116 He must have been an able military leader since he is mentioned as head of a large number of soldiers during the siege. Not deterred by the much larger Turkish force, he fought valiantly. From written documents, we know that he and his men fought throughout the siege, which lasted almost five months. He is remembered as one of the heroes of this siege.

At first sight, Malta did not appear to be a place that could withstand a siege against a huge armada. But Grand Master La Valete was determined not to repeat the experience of los-ing Malta as it happened forty three years earlier at Rhodes. Upon becoming Grand Master in 1557, perhaps the finest general the Order of St. John had known, he succeeded in raising the considerable sum of money necessary to improve the defenses of the Maltese islands. By 1565, a complete transfor mation of the island was achieved under his orders.

The fortifications of Birgu, which had previously been a fishing village, were strengthened, its narrow streets becoming the residences for the separate auberges (hotels) of the eight national Langues or Tongues, of the knightly Order. In Birgu were also the arsenals and the storerooms for the collection of weapons and munitions. At the end of Birgu was the massive Fort St. Angelo. The town was surrounded by a continuous line of defenses, with St. Angelo itself separated from Birgu by a narrow ditch. At the southern end of Senglea, the other small penin-sula poking into the waters of Grand Harbour, Fort St. Michael, which had been completed a few years earlier, was provided with a larger cannon.

Across the mouth of the narrow stretch of water separating Birgu from Senglea, a heavy chain had been placed to block access to enemy ships. The only relatively weak point in the array of fortifications was Fort St. Elmo, built at the bottom of Mount Sceberras, the site of modern

admiral, Andrea Doria. On September 27, 1538, at Preveza, off the western coast of Greece, Barbarossa defeated the disunited Christian fleet. Dissent among Doria on one side and the Venetians and the papal fleet on the other, as well as his premature withdrawal from the battle prevented any coordi nated effort against the Turkish fleet. For almost thirty years afterwards, the Mediterranean would witness the primacy of the Muslim naval initiative. The “unholy” al-liance between the Turkish sultan and King Francis I of France would offer Suleyman what he must have ardently desired: the chance to split the forces of Christendom. Whenever the Turkish fleet sailed in French waters, it would be welcomed in “magnificent style.” It must have certainly been a time of disgrace for many French officers to see the results of the risky relationship be-tween France and the sultan. The Turks must have thought that now was the time to attempt a complete domination of the Mediterranean. A few years after Preveza, during a major offensive in southern Italy, Barbarossa was accompanied by the French king’s ambassador while raiding Apulian, Calabrian, and Sicilian towns. In Reggio Calabria, the Spanish governor’s daughter was kidnapped and sent to Barbarossa’s harem. By this time, Rome took the place of Constantinople as the mythical Red Apple, the dreamed-of capi tal of the world to be conquered by Osman’s descendants, a short distance across the Adriatic or from northern Sicily. The sultan could now count on a fleet, unequaled in the whole of the Mediterranean, which could be deployed very rapidly.

But it is time now to return to the story of the siege of Malta. That night in May 1565, a noble-man, Luca de Armenia, waited patiently until he was ushered into the presence of Grand Master of the Order of St. John, La Valette, who was occupied with military preparations until late. The Grand Master still found time to meet that night with Armenia for a “private audience.” Luca was assured that, in case of need, all necessary supplies and troops would be sent to Mdina. Next morning, a company of soldiers was sent with a large quantity of ammunitions.

Luca, called by the Maltese who knew him well, as the “old patriot,” was no ordinary noble-man. There is suggestive evidence that he was the scion of the famed Lusignan dynasty, the great-great- grandson of Etienne d’Armenia, the natural but illegitimate son of King Leon V of Armenia.

From his last will, we have learned that Leon V Lusignan, the last monarch of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, had two illegitimate children. The older one, known as Etienne, knight of Sis and Ayas, may have been born in Cyprus, but nothing is known of his mother’s identity. According to Count Said Vassallo,113Etienne settled in Malta where he married a noble woman, Eleanor Gatto. With him began a family of corsairs who would be fighting against Muslim attacks on Christian ship ping in the Mediterranean. The family apparently took the Latin surname “de Armenia.” Etienne’s grandson, Pietro served as a captain of a galley owned by Giovanni De Nava; he also owned his own sailing ships.

Pietro de Armenia was described by Professor Godfrey Wettinger as “the best known of the Maltese ship captains at the turn of sixteenth century.” In the last decade of the previous cen-tury he had become embroiled in a rebellion on the island of Djerba, off the coast of Tunisia, against the Afsid rulers. The viceroy of Sicily had learned from Pietro that the inhabitants (most


was in the offing. For the first time in two hundred years, the Christian states would stop fight-ing one another in a serious attempt to stop the Muslim advance.

It was not until Pope Pius V formed the Holy League in May 1571 that the necessary funds were raised. The pope obtained the support of the princes of the various Italian states in this en deavor. Most surprisingly was that even Venice and Genoa came on board. With the endorse-ment of the two maritime republics, and by patient argument, Pius was eventually able to win over Philip II of Spain, the “champion of Christiandom” who was much more concerned with the danger posed by the Moorish states in North Africa. The pope, Spain and Venice, and the signatories of the Holy League, committed themselves to gathering two hundred galleys, six large galleasses,117 one hundred transport ships, fifty thousand soldiers and four thousand cav-alrymen. The Christian fleet collected at Messina. A crucifix hung from every bow, and banners were blessed by the bishop who had been sent by the pope. The command of the fleet was placed on Don Juan of Austria, the twenty-two-year old half brother of Philip, the king of Spain who had already distinguished himself in waging war against the Barbary corsairs and Turks in North Africa and for putting down a rising of Moriscos in Spain, within no time and wasting no mercy. He was ultimately responsible for the success of the “holy mission.” While in Messina, the papal delegate had given the young commander the private assurances from the pope that he would undoubtedly earn a kingdom as a reward.

On October 7, 1571 the two fleets met at the entrance to the Gulf of Patras in the Ionian Sea.118

The Christian fleet carried a standard of Jesus crucified, the Ottoman standard bearing the name of Allah embroidered in gold. The Christians, who just two days earlier had learned of the fall of Famagusta in Cyprus, the slaughter of twenty thousands of its inhabitants, and the horrendous death of Marcantonio Bragadin, were filled with rage and wanted revenge. The opposing order of battle of the two fleets, which were numerically close, appeared to be a mirror of each other. Of a total of close to six hundred galleys operating in the Mediterranean at the time of the battle, close to 80 percent were present at Lepanto, underscoring the importance of the naval engagement.

The initial clash must certainly have been awe-inspiring. The withering fire from the six Christian galleasses, which were sitting like fortified castles between the two approaching fleets, punished the Muslim galleys as they tried to pass them. In an attempt to outflank the Christian fleet, a Turkish squadron commander swung his contingent of galleys toward the coast. The Venetian commander Barbarico reacted quickly to the Muslim maneuver by placing his galley straight in their path. A hail of arrows fell on his ship, one inflicting a mortal wound to his left eye. Federico Nani, Barbarico’s capable deputy, himself wounded several times, repelled the Ottoman assault.

With the other Venetian galleys soon joining the fray, the Turkish ships were driven ashore. The end came with the death of Ali Pasha, the Ottoman fleet admiral, followed by the capture of his flagship. At the sight of the green standard of Islam torn down, replaced by a Christian banner, the Ottoman resistance quickly crumbled. Of the great Muslim fleet, only a few galleys under the command of a Christian renegade of Calabrian origin managed to escape.

Despite their resounding victory, the Christians mourned the loss of at least 8,000 men.120

But the Turks may have lost as many as 30,000, several thousands being veteran sailors and

city of Valletta. Standing on fairly low ground, the fort could be easily dominated by enemy artil-lery placed on the slopes.

La Valette was as ready as he could ever be for the imminent invasion--he had food, water, gunpowder, and cannon shot–and had a pontoon bridge built across Galley Creek that would al low soldiers to rush to the defense of their comrades on either peninsula. The only thing in short supply was men. La Valette had no more than six hundred knights and eight thousand Maltese citizens, who, while a hardy group of guerrilla fighters, had little expertise in siege war-fare.

But Malta could boast an astonishing natural anchorage, the Grand Harbour, defended by the small fortress of St. Elmo, which survived the remorseless bombardment by the besieging army for more than a month. After its fall, all but a few of the surviving defenders were decapi-tated by the Turks. The morning after, June 24, the feast day of St. John, the patron saint of the Order of the Maltese Knights, Maltese swimmers found the bodies nailed to wooden crosses on bobbing rafts. The message from the Turks, delivered by such barbarous means, was quite clear: no mercy would be shown to Christians, dead or alive. Valette did not hesitate to send his reply by executing scores of Turkish prisoners. He then ordered that their severed heads be rammed into two cannons and fired back into the ruins of the destroyed fortress.

With the Turks’ first objective achieved at such a huge cost—almost a quarter of the army was decimated—the old general Mustafa Pasha exclaimed: “If so small a son has cost us so dear, what price must we pay for the father,” referring to the formidable Fort St. Angelo. The arrival from Sicily of a relief force of one thousand on the same day that St. Elmo fell, accompanied by the news that Dragut, the celebrated Turkish corsair, had been killed by a cannon shot, had a most salutary effect on Maltese morale.

But as the siege drew on, the loss in men, the fatigue of the remaining attackers, the spread of dysentery in the Ottoman camp and the diminishing food supply and gunpowder all began to take effect, resulting in a lessening of the efforts and the intensity of the bombardment by the besiegers. The dispute between the Ottoman army commander Mustafa Pasha, who was prepared to spend the winter months (he was hoping to starve the Maltese into submission), and the admiral Piale Pasha, who wanted to get his fleet ready to return to Constantinople, followed by the appearance of a relief force of nine thousand men led by the viceroy of Sicily, sealed the fate of the Turkish mission. Mustafa tried to rally his troops while they were prepared to board their ships, but it was in vain. Attacked on all sides, they could only leave with a con-siderable loss of lives.

The massive military power launched against the small island convinced the knights that any dream of returning to Rhodes, now well in the grasp of the Ottomans, was hopeless. Valette and his knights celebrated the victory by giving thanks to the Blessed Virgin in the Church of St. Lawrence, which was adorned with the portraits of the Grand Masters. The dream of recovering the lost Holy Land would remain a mere illusion.

While the idea that the Ottoman army was invincible had finally been punctured with its seri ous defeat in Malta, it still presented a formidable threat. Within six years, as we have already seen, the kingdom of Cyprus fell to the Ottoman Turks. But at the same time, a major offensive


forced to concentrate its efforts on consolidating those it had already acquired. Unfortunately, the raids would continue along the Sicilian and Corsican coasts until the early nineteenth cen-tury. Now, however, it was not the Turkish navy that was operating, but pirates from the North African coast who continued in the highly lucrative slave trade until the end of the nineteenth century.

Many people in Europe would have hoped for an all-out attack on Ottoman power, a purely utopian goal. There was no chance of a political or military victory. Despite the common fear of the Turk, the conflicts and discord among the member states of the Holy League would continue. But the memory of that day of October 7, 1571 would be indelibly inscribed in the European psy che, when the concord among some of the Christian nations (Italy, Spain, Venice) was suf-ficient to defeat the Ottoman Empire, which in the sixteenth century had reached the zenith of its power on land and at sea. With the battle of Lepanto, this power began to decline. The myth of Turkish invincibility had been shattered. As the great French historian Braudel wrote: “The Christian vic tory over the Muslim world blocked the way to a future that was very dark indeed.”

janissaries. A total of 130 ships, mainly galleys, had been captured (close to one hundred had been sunk) and were divided among the powers of the Holy League. But certainly most gratify-ing was the freeing of 15,000 Christians who had served as slaves in the Turkish galleys.

News of the victory at Lepanto was greeted with celebrations across Europe. In Rome, it was announced by the return of Marcantonio Colonna, the commander of the papal contingent of ships, who rode to the capitol on a white horse; trailing him were long lines of Turks shackled in heavy chains. Pius V is said to have presaged the outcome of the battle the evening before the day when it was fought. Clergy and laypeople, who had spent days in anxious prayers, broke out in chants of joy and relief. Rome received the dispatch from the Venice patriarch by fast cou-rier. Pius V, who almost single-handedly had organized the Holy League, almost canonized Don Juan by quoting from the Gospel: “God sent a man by the name of John.” He begged the victors to seize the moment, to unite in a crusade to drive the Turks out of Europe and the Holy Land. He went so far as to appeal to the shah of Persia to join a Christian assault on the Ottoman Turks. We can imagine that Prince Don Juan would certainly have been happy to oblige and to press on the attack on Turkish power, but he had been given clear orders by his brother, King Philip, to return home. The king had received intelligence that France, concerned with the altered bal-ance of power in the Mediterranean, had concluded an alliance with the sultan. Philip was also involved in a major dispute with England over the Spanish possessions in the Netherlands.

In Venice, the population was in a state of mourning over the loss of Cyprus and filled with rage over the devilish treatment of Bragadin. When they saw the galley of Captain Giustiniani trail ing Ottoman banners in the water, thousands rushed to hear the good news, the mood changing quickly to one of jubilation. A high mass of Thanksgiving followed the Te Deum in the cathedral of St. Mark. Only the Ottoman subjects, living in the Fondaco dei Turchi (the Turks’ center of com mercial activities), did not take part in the celebrations. Fearful for their lives, they locked them selves in their quarters.

Lepanto was unquestionably the greatest naval battle of modern times. For Cervantes, it was “the most memorable occasion either past or present ages have beheld, and which future will never parallel.” It inspired poets and artists for many years to come. But its detractors sug-gested that it was an “empty” victory. For them, the innumerable deaths and the drain on the economies of European countries had been for naught. But one only needs to consider the situation prior to Lepanto: Cyprus captured, other Greek islands (Crete, Corfu), southern Italy, Venice, Spain, Vienna, and even Rome, still exposed. Spaniards in the Balearic Islands and south-ern Italians had lived with the fear of Muslim corsairs swooping down on cities and towns close to the coastline and abduct ing men, women, and children to sell into slavery. They could not be chastised for believing that the Turks had every intention to subjugate them, turn churches into mosques, and force them to convert to Islam. Ottoman sultans had been announcing their intention of making Europe Muslim for several decades.

From a military perspective, Lepanto held a preeminent symbolic position. It finally raised the Christian world from a chronic state of anxiety: the terror of a sudden apparition of the Turk. The Sublime Porte was forced to abandon any ambitious project of dominion over the Mediterranean, of landing or conquest of new territories in European soil, and instead was

G l O S S A r y 203

Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom): The cathedral in Constantinople dedicated by Justinian in 548. Converted into a mosque by the Ottoman Turks in the sixteenth century, it is presently a museum.

Hayk: Considered the forefather of the Armenian nation, Hayk is said to be a direct descendant of the biblical Noah. He was supreme god in the Armenian pagan pantheon.

Hospitallers (also Knights of St. John): A monastic order, organized in 1119 in Jerusalem. They were entrusted with many castles in Outremer. After the fall of Acre in 1291, they waged wars against the Mamluks and later the Ottoman Turks from their bases in Rhodes, Cyprus, and finally in Malta.

Il-Khan: A subordinate of the Mongolian Great Khan. For example, it was the title of the khan of Iran.

jihad: The religious duty of holy war waged to extend the “House of Islam” against the unbelievers.

mamluk: A Turkish slave soldier in Ayyubid Egypt (1171-1250). In 1250, the mamluks overthrew the Ayyubid sultan. The sultan was chosen among the mamluk generals until 1517.

nakharar: In ancient and medieval Armenia, it refers to a noble of the highest rank.

Outremer (“Overseas”): The four crusader states established in the Levant as a result of the First Crusade: the kingdom of Jerusalem, the principality of Antioch, the county of Edessa, and the county of Tripoli.

sparapet: Commander-in-chief of armed forces in ancient, medieval Armenia, and during the pe riod of the Kingdom of Armenian Cilicia.

Shi’te, Sunni: The main religious divisions of the Muslim world. The Shi’ite saw the overthrow of the Sunni caliphate as the first step to a restoration of a pure Islam.

sultan (“guardian”): The Turkish commander defending the caliph, who was the religious leader of Islam. Tugril Bey became the first sultan in 1055 when he occupied Baghdad.

Templars: The military monastic order of the Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon. In 1123, they were granted the Temple of Solomon as their headquarters by King Baldwin II. The order amassed properties and engaged in banking. In the first decade of the fourteenth cen-tury, King Philip of France confiscated the order’s properties and charged many members with heresy and immorality.

G L O S S A R Y

Byzantium: The name of the Greek colony founded on the site of modern Istanbul in 668 BC. On the same site, Constantine founded the city of Constantinople, or New Rome, in a.d. 330. The word Byzantium refers to the Eastern Roman Empire from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries to distinguish it from the Roman Empire.

caliph: A religious and political heir to the prophet Muhammed.

catholic: The term used to designate the Latin-speaking church that accepted the primacy of the pope in Rome.

catholicos: The chief prelate or Supreme Head of the Armenian Church. The Armenian catholi-coi are elected for life. Today there are two catholicosate sees. The traditional seat of Catholicos of All Armenians is in Etchmiadzin, near Yerevan. The other, deriving from the time of the Kingdom of Armenian Cilicia, has had its seat in Antelias, near Beirut in Lebanon, since shortly after the genocide of 1915.

colophon: A note written by the scribe, usually at the end of a manuscript. Sometimes the colo-phon may contain invaluable historical and religious information for scholars. It may contain the name of the illuminator or painter who created the illuminated pages. The painter was at times the scribe--the person who wrote or copied the manuscript.

Dashnak party: Founded in 1890 in Tiflis, Georgia, the manifesto of the party called for all Armenians to unite for national liberation.

emir or amir: The title given by the caliph to a governor.

galley: The primary warship used in the Mediterranean since the eleventh century. Great Schism (July 16, 1054): The mutual excommunication of the Western Catholic and the Greek Orthodox churches in Constantinople. The papal bull of excommunication was not lifted until 1969.


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N O T E S

Introduction

Note: The author would like to credit and thank Dr. A. E. Redgate, who used the case of the English Prime Minister William E. Gladstone (1809–1898), as an illustration of several western leaders who, concerned with the fate of the Armenians over their “remarkable long history, took up their national cause.

1 See A. E. Redgate. The Armenians.

2 Cited by Winston Churchill as his inspiration, William Gladstone was for the promotion of peace and understanding among nations. In April 1876, in the wake of the violent repression of the Bulgarian uprising by the Ottoman Turks, he published a pamphlet, Bulgarian Horrors and the Questions of the East. In it,‘he “Grand Old Man” attacked the indifference of his political op-ponents.

3 Joan George, Merchants in Exile: The Armenians of Manchester, p. 113.

4 Edward Minassian, Musa Dagh,. The five Allied ships transported the entire population of men, women, and chidren, more than four thousand of them in all, to Port Said, Egypt. At the end of World War I they returned to Musa Dagh, where they remained. They were forced to abandon the area, which was under French Mandate, when it was annexed by Turkey in 1939.

5 While the Turkish siege in the real-life story lasted fifty-three days, Werfel, who was a deeply religious man, had altered its duration to present the title of the story as an example of Biblical deliverance, such as the forty days of Noah and his family in the Ark.

6 Outremer, from French, meaning “overseas,” comprised the four crusader states in the Near East established after the First Crusade: the kingdom of Jerusalem, the principality of Antioch, and the counties of Edessa and Tripoli.

7 L. Abrahamian, and N. Sweezy, eds, Armenian Folk Arts, Culture and Identity, p. 25.

8 Boris Baratov, The Armeniad, 2005.

Venice, 2000. Zekiyan, B. L. Religious Quarrels of the 14th Century Preluding to the Subsequent Divisions and Ecclesiastical Status of the Armenian Church, Venice, 2000.

Armenian Cilicia Xii -- XiV Century210 nOteS 211

30 The monastery of Cluny, in southern France was given by Duke William the Pious of Aquitaine to a group of Benedictine monks, in 911, specifying that the monastery was to be outside all lay interference, which had become commonplace in western Europe, where powerful nobles often interfered with the elections of spiritual leaders such as abbots and bishops. From then on, Cluny was going to be operated as the model that Saint Benedict of Nursia had preached in ancient times. Over the course of the next two centuries, Cluniac monks reformed many mon-asteries across Europe. Beyond this spiritual regeneration, the Cluniacs came to emphasize the superior power of spiritual versus secular authority. This view held by the Catholic Church, led to the open conflict between the Holy Roman emperor Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII. What precipitated the war was what came to be known as the Investiture Controversy, with the pope maintaining that the emperor had no moral right to invest bishops. When he rejected the pope’s arguments, Henry was promptly excommunicated.

31 The Cluniac monks reformed the liturgy, perfected choral music, and created the rich service seen to this day in traditional Catholic churches.

32 A town in the foothills of the Appennines near Parma.

33 According to Runciman, al-Hakim’s reign of terror against the Christians lasted from 1004 to 1014. By the end of that period, hundred of churches had been burned, and many thousands of Christians, in order to save their lives, had adopted Islam. The persecution of Christians sud-denly ended when the sultan became convinced that he was divine, supported in such a delu-sion by his friend Darazi. He began then to persecute the Muslims, forbidding them to celebrate Ramadan. To escape the Muslim fury, Darazi escaped to Lebanon, where he founded the sect of the Druzes. More mysterious was the fate of Hakim who disappeared.

34 John J. Norwich, The Middle Sea: a History of the Mediterranean, p. 99-100.

35 Gregory II was the son of Gregory Magistros Pahlavuni, the Bizantyne governor of Mesopotamia and Vaspurakan. His nomination was sanctioned by the Greeks after he agreed to take up resi-dence not in Armenia but in the new lands given to Gagik of Kars. The new catholicos declined the invitation by Philaretus to reside within his principality, consenting to having another catholicos elected there. When thirty thousands Armenians moved to Egypt in 1074/75 under the protec tion of the new vizir Al-Jamali (an Armenian who had converted to Islam), Gregory II visited the community and appointed his nephew Gregoris as catholicos (M. Ormanian, The Church of Armenia, p. 42). Starting from Gregory, the seven patriarchs who succeeded him were all from the same Pahlavuni family.

36 Cited in The Crusades and the Christian World of the East, by Christopher MacEvitt, p. 57. Ursinus is mentioned by a crusader historian, Ralph of Caen. See also The Gesta Tancredi of Ralph of Caen: History of the Normans of the First Crusade by B. S. Bachrach and D. S. Bachrach, 2005, pp. 11, 63, and 65. Armenian sources describe him as a chieftain faithful to Abulgharib, the latter, his father-in-law, ceding him Lambron.

37 Fulk had close connections in the West, having given his son Geoffrey in marriage to Matilda, the heiress of Henry I of England.

9 B. M. Fagan,, ed., The Oxford Companion to Archaeology, p. 732.

10 Cited in Marc Van de Meiroop, A History of the Ancient Near East, p. 291

11 Hellenism is a term used to describe Alexander’s program to forge a hybrid civilization that would combine the best features of the Hellenic or Greek civilization with those of the Non-Greek world.

12 René Grousset, Histoire de L’Arménie, p. 100 (Translated by the author).

13 The Parthians were a nomadic tribe which had migrated from Central Asia to the southern shore of the Caspian Sea after the time of Alexander. By the 3rd century BC, the Parthians, a peo-ple subject to the Persians, had become masters in Iran.

14 The traditional and official date for the conversion, which has had a long history of its own, has been established as that of 301. Among the various scholarly opinions regarding the conver-sion date, the most widely accepted places it in 314. Whatever the historical truth, it is important to note that Armenia is the first national Christian kingdom or country, although the city-state of Edessa was converted almost one hundred years earlier.

15 Zekiyan, The Armenians, p. 52

16 For this section, the author is deeply indebted to the writings of Professor Levon Boghos Zekiyan of the University of Venice.

17 Agop J. Hacikyan, The Heritage of Armenian Literature, 2000, p. 310

18 Hacikyan, p. 241

19 Hacikyan, p. 242

20 The True Cross is the name for physical remaints which, by a Christian tradition, are believed to be from the cross upon which Jesus was crucified.

1. Kingdoms of Greater Armenia during the High Middle Ages 21 J. De Morgan, Histoire du peuple armenien, p. 121.

22 Gérard Dédéyan, ed., Storia degli armeni, p. 206.

24 Matthews of Edessa, Armenia and the Crusades – Ten to Twelfth Century (A. E. Dostourian).

25 L. Abrahamian, Armenian Identity in a Changing World, pp. 318-319.

26 C. Walker, Armenia, p. 31.

2. The Near East at the dawn of the First Crusade 27. R. W. Winks and T. F. Ruiz, Medieval Europe and the World, p 119.

29 See Winks and Ruiz, p. 130.


52 The term passagium refers to a crusade or expedition, that had as its goal the recovery of the Holy Land. By the early fourteenth century, after the fall of the Palestinian coast to the Mamluks, the proponents of a crusade thought that the expedition should take place in two distinct phases: the first (the passagium particulare) was aimed at establishing a foothold, while the sec-ond (the passagium generale), was the all-out attack on the Mamluk lands.

6. Hetum II: A King becomes a Franciscan Monk

53 A. D. Stewart, The Armenian Kingdom and the Mamluks, p. 71.

54 Gabrieli, Arab Historians of the Crusades, p. 346.

55 Peter Cowe, in Armenian Cilicia, p. 247.

56 Claude Mutafian, Le Royaume Arménien de Cilicie, p. 71.

57 In a portrait of Hetum found in the Church of S. Francesco a Ripa in Rome by Father Alishan in the late 1800s, the king, dressed in Franciscan garb, is holding a sword. It is part of an affresco painting depicting six Christian kings, including Hetum as “re Giovanni d’Armenia”, all six kings dressed as Franciscans.

58 Claude Mutafian, Le Royaume arménien de Cilicie, p. 73.

59 Jean Richard, The Great Story of the Crusades, p. 483.

60 David Bundy,”The Trajectory of Roman Catholic Influence in Cilician Armenia; An Analysis of the Councils of Sis and Adana,” Armenian Review 45 (1992), pp.73-89.

61 The key event in Lull’s life remains his religious conversion. Schopenhauer, the pessimistic phi-losopher, gave the following description of the conversion. “Hence men who have led a very adventurous life under the pressure of passions, men such as kings, heroes, or adventurers, have often been seen suddenly to change, resort to resignation and penance, and become hermits and monks. To this class belong all genuine accounts of conversion, for instance, that of Raymond Lull, who had long wooed a beautiful woman, was at last admitted to her chamber, and was looking forward to the fulfillment of all his desires, when, opening her dress, she showed him her bosom terribly eaten away with cancer. From that moment, as if he had looked into hell, he was converted; leaving the court of the King of Majorca, he went into the wilderness to do penance.” He became a hermit for the next nine years (The Word as Will and Representation, pp. 394-395.

62 When already an octogenarian Lull embarked for the third time for NorthAfrica. While pro-claim-ingtheGospel, he was almoststonedtodeathbyanangrycrowdofMuslimsintheTunisianci-tyof Bouje. Rescued by a Genoese ship, he expired when he reached his beloved island, Majorca. Doctor Fantasticus, the crazy philosopher, as he called himself, he tried to remain faithful to the two ideals that he had loved: Francis of Assisi and the “pure madman”. Cardini, Europa e Islam, pp. 155-156.

38The first psalter, a collection of 150 songs from the Old Testament, was composed, according to tradition, by King David.

39 C. MacEvitt, The Crusades and the Christian World of the East..

40 C. Mutafian, Le royaume arménien de Cilicie, p. 31.

3. The Rubenian Dynasty in Cilicia

The author would like to thank and credit Professor Claude Mutafian for his pioneer work and Professors Richard Hovannisian and Siman Payaslan (Editors of Armenian Cilicia) and Professor Gérard Dédéyan (Ed. of Storia degli armeni) for more writings on the Kingdom of Armenian Cilicia.

41 René Grousset, L’Empire du Levant.

4. The Birth of the Kingdom

42 Recueil des historiens de Croisades: Doc. Arm., 1:579).

43 Peter Cowe, ‘Medieval Armenian Literal and Cultural Trends’, p. 312, in Richard Hovanissian (ed.), The Armenian Peoplefrom Ancient to Modern Times, 1997.

44 Will Durant, The Age of Faith, p. 652.

5. The Hetumian Dynasty

45 It is worth remembering that, during this period, Hetum issued bilingual coins. On one side, he is mounted on a horse and holds a scepter, while on the obverse the name of the sultan is inscribed in Arabic letters. The reason for the minting of these coins has been debated by schol-ars. Hetum continued to issue the coins until 1245-1246, after he had already allied himself with the Mongols. Was he still trying to appease the sultan for having betrayed his friendship, or was he trying to buy time? (See E. D. Stewart, The Armenian Kingdom and the Mamluks, p. 44)

46 Hayton of Gorigos, La Flor des Estaire de la Tere d’Orient, 1529, translated by the author.

47 The Nestorians believed that the Council of Ephesus in 431 had failed to adequately differenti-ate between Christ’s Divine and human nature.

48 C. Canard, Le Royaume d’Armenie et les Mamelouks jusqu’au traité de 1285.

49 J. G. Ghazarian, The Armenian Kingdom in Cilicia during the Crusades, p. 60.

50 René Grousset, Le Royaume armenien de Cilicie.

51 Jacques De Morgan, The History of the Armenian People.


76 The Louvre, at that time a huge fortress, was the French king’s oldest residence. Clustered around it were a number of hotels.

77 Cited in C. J. Walker, Visions of Ararat, p. 8.

78 Langlois, V. Trésor des chartes d’Armenie. Venice,

79 The author is indebted to Dr. Henriette Kühl (Leon V von Kleinarmenien) for discussing Leon’s testament in several emails.

10. Cyprus: An introduction

80 Of Lusignan, the quiet town in western France, a few miles south of Poitiers, very little remains. Depicted in the Tres riches heures manuscript of the Duke of Berry, Lusignan was in the twelfth century the political center of powerful lords who could trace their ancestry back to the tenth century.

81 Sir George Hill, A History of Cyprus.

82 L. de Mas Latrie, Histoire de l’Isle de Chypre sous la Maison de Lusignan, 1852-61.

11. The Lusignan-Antioch Dynasty

83 Sir Harry Luke, “The Kingdom of Cyprus, 1291-1361” in, A History of Crusades, ed. Kenneth Setton, Vol 3, (London, 1975), p. 353.

84 Machaut’s rhymed chronicle, La Prise de Alexandrie, is one of the primary sources on Peter’s life.

85 Senilia, book VIII, ep. 8 (July 20, 1367); cf. Hill, History of Cyprus, II, 335, note 3.

86 P. Edbury, “The Murder of King Peter of Cyprus (1359-1369)”, Journal of Medieval History, pp. 219-233.

12. The fall of the Armenian Kingdom of Armenia: an analysis

87 The author would like to credit and thank Professor Kristian Molin for several of the ideas ex-posed in the following analysis. See Molin, Unknown Crusader Castles.

88 Alishan, Sissouan, p. 469.

89 Molin, Unknown Crusader Castles, p. 159.

90 Dardel, Chronique p.73.

63 Norman Housley, The Later Crusades,

64 Claude Mutafian, Héthoum de Korykos historien arménien, Cahiers de recherches médiévales, 1996.

7. The decline of the Cilician Kingdom of Armenia

65 D. Bundy, The Trajectory of Roman Catholic Influence in Cilician Armenia, p. 80.

67 Cited by V. M. Kurkjian, A History of Armenia, p. 254.

68 At the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon in 451 it was decreed that Christ’s two na-tures were not separate but united without division or confusion. This belief in the natures of Christ, human and divine, became known as diophysitism and was adopted by both the Byzantine and the Roman Church. In contrast to it, monophysitism, the belief in one sin-gle nature of Christ, was adopted by the Armenian, the Coptic, the Syriac and the Ethiopian Churches.

69 The mosque is now known as Kilisecami. It is the ancient basilica, the Church of Santa Sophia, where King Levon I had been crowned in 1198. Following tradition, many other kings of Armenian Cilicia were crowned in the same church. While now a mosque, it has an Armenian inscription carved above what was the door to the sacristy.

70 Cited in C. Mutafian, La Cilicie au Carrefour des Empire, p. 81.

71 Cited in T. S. R. Boase, The Cilician Kingdom of Armenia, p. 30.

8. The Lusignans: The Last Royal Dynasty of Cilicia

72 The only source for this story is Jean Dardel, the secretary and chaplain of King Leon V Lusignan, who, according to some historians, may have been prone to present his master in an idealized-fashion. According to Count Rudt de Collenberg, foremost genealogist/historian of the Kings of Cilicia, “Lady Soudana” is a “poor, pure and snobbish invention.” See Rüdt-Collenberg (1963), p. 181.

73 Dedeyan’s, Storia degli Armeni, p. 341.

9. End of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia:

74 With regard to the identity of King Leon’s mother, please see reference note #72.

75 V. Langlois, Trésor des chartes d’Armenie.


113 Count Charles Said Vassallo, MaltaGenealogy.com. This was confirmed in personal communica-tion with the author.

114Abela, Della Descrittione di Malta, pp. 451-454.

115 Cassar, O Melita Infelix. Professor Carmal Cassar of the University of Malta wrote in 1981 that he had discovered a poem Ad Patriam, by Luca, who signed himself as Patricius Melivetanus. It is the only contemporary poem, Latin verse, by a Maltese. Also known as Melita Infelix, the poem may have been composed during the first few days of the siege.

117A galleass was a large and heavily armed galley, the product of long tradition of experimen-tation by Venetian engineers. One of them, the Armenian Antonio Surian, devised a method to stop the cannons on the ship’s side from recoiling against the rowing benches.

118 For a masterful description of the actual battle, we would like to suggest Niccolo Capponi’s Victory of the West, 2006 and John F. Guilmartin’s Galleons and Galleys, 2002.

119 It has been estimated that more than a quarter of a million trees had to be cut to build the two fleets.

120 Among the Spanish soldiers wounded was Miguel Cervantes. He had chosen military service to escape jail. He had sailed from Messina with the armada of Don Juan. During the battle, although ill, he insisted on fighting and was put in charge of a boat loaded with soldiers. Struck twice in his chest, he received a third gun shot wound, which permanently maimed his left hand, remarking that it had been “for the glory of the right”. He was then recovered with many thousands of other soldiers in Messina. He saw more military action in North Africa until he was captured by Barbary corsairs and sold into slavery. It was only five years later, after his mother and his sisters (from their marriage dowry) were able to raise sufficient ransom money, that he was freed.

13. Dilemma of the Armenian Church in Cilicia

92 Levon B. Zekiyan, in Dedeyan’s Storia degli Armeni. The author would also like to credit and thank Prof. Zekiyan for much of the material in this section.

93 Levon Zekiyan, Religious Quarrels of the 14th Century Preluding to the Subsequent Divisions and Ecclesiastical Status of the Armenian Church, Venice, 2000.

95 See Chapter 8 in Histoire du people arménien, ed. Gerard Dédéyan.

96 It was worn by sailors and fishermen, as it was least likely to be damaged by water.

97 Laura Balletto,“Il commercio armeno-italiano”, in Roma-Armenia (ed. C. Mutafian) p. 197.

98 Hacikyan, The Heritage of Armenian Literature, vol. 11, p. 207.

99 Zekiyan, Armenia and the Armenians, p. 28.

100 See Helen C. Evans, “Cilician Manuscript Illumination,” in Matthews and Wieck, Treasures in Heaven, p. 71.

101 Roslin’s non-Armenian last name suggests that he may have not been 100 percent Armenian.

102 See Der Nersessian, Miniature Painting in the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, vol. I, p. 125.

103 See Evans, Cilician Manuscript Illumination, in Matthews and Wieck, Treasures in Heaven, p. 83

14. Aftermath of the Fall of the King of Cilicia

104 Hewsen, Robert H. and Khosdegian, Ghewond, Lo sfaldamento dell’unita’ nazionale e la dias-pora, in Dedeyan. G., Storia degli Armeni.

105 Norwich, Byzantium: The Decline and Fall, p. 432.

106 As reported by Bournatian, A Concise History of the Armenian People.

107 Kuciukian, Garibaldi: Libera l’Armenia, at www.stmoderna.it, accessed April 17, /2005.

Epilogue — Descendants of Leon V Lusignan in Malta?

109 Bosio, Dell’Istoria della Sacra Religione et Illustrissima Militia di San Giovanni Gierosolimitano, pp. 515-516.

110 Bradford, The Great Siege of Malta, p. 15.

111 Bradford, The Great Siege of Malta, p. 20.

112 O’Shea, Sea of Faith, p. 303.

I N D E X *

A Abbassid caliphate, 84-5, Abela, Francesco, 197 Abulgharib 26-7, 31, 215 Acre 67, 87-8, 95-8, 133, 136-6, 141-144, 146-7, 164,

172, 174, 202 Adam of Gaston, regent, 78 Adana, 33, 44-5, 57-8, 90, 100, 108, 117, 175, 177,

205, 214 Adhemar, bishop of Le Puy 43 Aghtamar Island 6, 24-5, 57, 94 Ahura Mazda 9, 11 Aigues-Mortes, 24 Aimery Lusignan, governor, 64, 100, 105, 109, 113,

115, 138, 141, 147-148, 156, 176 Aimery Lusignan of Cyprus, king, 68, 115, 144 Al-Afdal, 86 al-Ashraf Kalil, 97 al-Ashraf Shaban,122 Al-Jamali, Egyptian, vizir, 86 Al-Khamil, sultan, 170 al-Makrizi, 92 Aleppo, 29, 37, 47, 50, 60, 77, 79, 87, 90, 101, 110,

122-3 Alexander the Great, 11-12, 185, 211 Alexandretta (now Iskerendum), 32, 45, 71 Alexandria, 39, 121, 153-4, 205 Alexiade, 43 Alfonso VI, king of Spain, 39 Alishan Ghevond, 186 Alp Arlsan, 29-32 Amalfi, 32 Anatolia or Asia Minor, 28-9, 31-2, 44, 57, 61, 82, 88,

114, 123, 151, 167, 183

Anavarza, or Anazarba, 18, 40, 52, 56, 58-9, 63, 76, 98, 107, 165, 176

Andronicus, governor 31, 62Andronicus Ducas, 30Ani, 20-1, 23-4, 26-7, 29, 31, 53, 68, 82, 167, 185

king of, 22, 24-5, 27annexation of Armenian lands, 26-8 Antioch, 29, 32, 39, 41, 43-4, 46-8, 50, 56-9, 61-3,

66-8, 71, 76-9, 143-4, 168-9, 171 ancient city of 4, 86prince of Antioch, 56, 62, 79, 132, 140, 153

Antioch-Lusignan dynasty, 143 Antiochus, III 11 Apostles Matthew and Bartholomew, 13 Aquitaine, 125 Arabs, 217 Aragon, 34, 98, 101, 111-12, 123, 131, 147-8, 172,

192 kings of 95, 148 Ararat, 6, 8-9, 11, 16, 27, 189, 207, 214 Ararat plain, 6 Arax, or Araxes, River 8, 10-11 Armenia, kingdom of Greater, 11, 66, 100, 109, 120,

128, 163 Armenian Apostolic Church, 40, 172 Armenian army, 12, 16, 29, 89, 100, 114 Armenian bishops, of Cilicia, 60 Armenian catholicoi, 187, 201 Armenian Catholicosate, 1170, 205 Armenian Centers of Independence, 187 Armenian Church, 13-14, 23, 40, 68, 70-1,

79, 106, 108, 113-16, 132, 166, 169, 175, 188, 201

Armenian Church in Cilicia, 97, 215 Armenian churches in Jerusalem, 169

Armenian Cilicia Xii -- XiV Century220 inDeX 221

Armenian culture, 7 Armenian dynasties, 63, 78 Armenian Genocide, 5, 221 Armenian Highlands, 6-7, 10, 13, 180 Armenian identity, 6, 14-15, 27, 209 Armenian Mekhitarist Congregation, 22, 111 Armenian monastery of St. James, 101 Armenian nobility, 14, 23, 49, 56, 65, 177 Armenian origin, 36, 38, 132 Armenian Plateau, 6, 8, 11, 33 Armenian Question, 185, 187 Armenian Renaissance, 185-187 Armenian strategy, 44 Armenian translation of Assizes of Antioch, 73 army, mamluk, 85, 88, 90, 98, 146 Arslan, Alp 29-30, 43 Artashat, 11 Artashes and Zariadris, founders of Armenian

dynasties, 11 Artzruni families, 21, 24 Asia Minor, 10, 26, 28-9, 31-3, 36-7, 40-1, 46-7,

67, 185 Asolani, 160 Asolo, 160 Assyrians, 6-10, 15, 33 Avarayr, Battle of, 14, 16-17, 113 Avignon, 24, 106-7, 113-15, 124, 152, 175 Ayas see Laiazzo

B Baccari, a prominent feudal land in Malta, 197 Baghdad, 20, 23, 29, 84-6, 173, 202 Baghras, fortress of, 65, 76 Bagrat, Armenian chieftain, 43, 45 Bagratids, 13, 21-4, 26-7, 38, 55-7, 119, 175 Bahri rule, 86 Balducci Pegolotto, 177 Baldwin, crusader and count of Edessa, 43-51,

63, 135 Balletto, Laura, 204 Barbarossa, Kheir, 195 Barbarossas, Muslim pirate brothers, 194 Barbary Coast, 194 Barcelona 123, 156 Baybars, sultan, 86, 85, 97, 145

Bayezid, sultan, 183 Behistun, Rock of, 10 Beirut, 49, 147, 154, 201Bel, 16 Belan, Pass 164 Belisarius, 18 Bembo, Pietro, Venetian writer, 160 Benjamin of Tudela, a Spanish rabbi, 64 Berengaria, wife of King Richard Lion-Heart, 67, 136 Bilarghu, emir, 107 Birgu, city in Malta, 193, 197 Bishop Nerses of Balients, 175 Black Mountains, 56-7 Black Sheep, 183 Boccaccio, 154 Bohemond I of Hauteville, 39, 42, 44, 48, Bohemond III of Antioch 62, 64-5, 68, 76 Bohemond IV, 171, 173 Bohemond Lusignan, Leon V’s brother, 120 Bohemond of Hauteville, 42, 44 Bohemond V, 80 Bohemond VI of Antioch, 84, 170 Book of Lamentations, 180 Bosio, Antonio, 193 Bragadin, Marcantonio, 185, 200 Braudel, Fernand, French historian, 200 British Armenians, 3-4 Byzantine army, 24, 30, 40, 43, 58-9, 62-3 Byzantine Empire or Byzantium, 5, 18, 21, 26, 28-9,

32, 36, 38, 45, 55, 57, 77, 87, 171, 186, 210 Byzantines, 18, 22-3, 28-30, 32-3, 37, 39-40, 42-4,

46-7, 49, 53, 55-6, 61-2, 65, 100, 121, 144

C Cairo, 85, 87, 121-2, 142, 152, 157, 160, 174Calicadnus, (now Goksu), 67 caliph, 20, 22, 29, 71 Canossa, 35 Cappadocia, 11-13, 26-7, 29, 31, 53, 55-6, 62, 169 Castile 34, 123, 126 Caterina Cornaro, queen of Cyprus, 158 cathedral of Edessa, 188 Cathedral of Saint Nicholas in Famagusta, 149 Cathedral of Santa Sophia in Nicosia, Cyprus 40 Cathedral of Santa Sophia in Tarsus, 70

Cathedral of St. Mark, Venice, 192 Catholicos Constantine I, 89, 182 Catholicos Constantine II, 96 Catholicos Constantine IV, 113 Catholicos Constantine IV, of Lambron 109 Catholicos Gregory II Vkayaser, 56 Catholicos Gregory III, 60, 63, 170 Catholicos Gregory IV, 67, 170 Catholicos Gregory V, 68 Catholicos Gregory VI, Apirat, 68, 70 Catholicos Gregory VII, 101, 105 Catholicos James IV, 188 Catholicos James II, 115, 175 Catholicos Mekhitar I, 114, 114, 175 Catholicos Nerses Shnorali, (the Gracious), 63, 169,

179 Catholicos Paul I, 120 Catholicos Stepan, 95 Cervantes, 200 Charles of Anjou, brother of St. Louis 95 Charles VI, king of France 125, 127 Charlotte Lusignan, queen of Cyprus 158 Chaucer, 151 Christian faith, 13, 15, 23, 84, 102, 119, 122, 174,

179 Christianity, Armenian, adoption of, 15-16 Church of the Holy Cross on Aghtamar Island in

Lake Van, 6, 25 Cilicia and Cyprus, 85, 100, 106, 127, 131, 145, 176 Cilician Gates, 31, 33, 44, 55, 162 Cilician Kingdom of Armenia, 33, 71, 75, 91, 163,

167, 186Cleopatra, 12, 131 Cluny, 35-6 Colonna, Vespasian, 195 colophons, 90, 183, 186 Comnena, Anna, 43 Comnenus, Manuel, 63 Compromise of Rhandeia, 13 Concerning the Adornments of the Heavens, 179 Conrad bishop of Heidelsheim, 68, 141 Consolation of Fevers, 178 Constable Sembat, 78, 82, 90, 111, 174, 179 Constance, the daughter of King Frederick II of

Sicily, 149, 178

Constantine, the regent, 78 son of King Levon II 93, 100,

Constantinople 3, 23-4, 28-31, 36-7, 43-4, 52, 58, 63-4, 95, 99, 12, 133, 170, 182, 194

Constantinople, fall of, 1453Count Amadeus of Savoy, 50 Cyprus, conquest of 67, 137

D Damascus, 36-7, 61, 84, 97, 99, 170, 172 Damietta, 85, 141, 169-70 Daniel of Tabriz, 113 Dardel, Jean 115-16, 118, 120, 122-3, 127 Darius, 10 Dashnaks, 3 De Armenia, Maltese family:

Fra Leone, 195, Luca, 193, 197, Pietro, 195-97 Desarmeniens, village in France, 182diaspora, 183Diaz, Rodrigo, el Cid, 39 Don Juan of Austria, 198 Doria, Andrea, Genoese admiral 196 Dragut, 198Drazark, monastery, 65, 179

EEchmiadzin, 169, 188, 191 ecumenical spirit, 169 Edbury, Peter, historian, 132, 147, 167 Edessa, 18, 23, 26, 29, 32, 39-41, 45-9, 55-6, 58-62,

98, 170, 179 Egypt, 4-5, 10-11, 30, 37, 39, 48, 85, 90, 98, 101, 110,

123, 142, 153, 157, 170-74 el Cid, 39 Emperor Alexius I Comnenus, 37, 56, 134 Emperor Alexius III, 70 Emperor Basil I, 21, 26, 133 Emperor Basil II, 22, 32, 56-7 Emperor Charles IV, 153 Emperor Charles V, 194 Emperor Conrad, III 61 Emperor Constantine IX, 26, 28 Emperor Constantine X, 28 Emperor Federick I, Barbarossa, 67, 136, 142 Emperor Frederick II, 80, 95, 142


Emperor Henry IV, 35 Emperor Henry VI, 68, 75, 142 Emperor Heraclius, 18, 38, 132 Emperor John Comnenus, 57-58, 170 Emperor John Tzimiskes, 23 Emperor Justinian, 18, 28, 202 Emperor Leopold I, 186 Emperor Manuel Comnenus, 58-9, 61-3, 65, 134

169, 179 Emperor Michael IX Paleologus, 110 Emperor Michael VIII Paleologus, 95 Emperor Napoleon III, 187 Emperor Nicephorus Phocas, 18, 133 Emperor Romanus IV Diogenes, 29-31, 40 Empire of Trebizond, 185 Enrico Dandolo, Venetian doge, 7,54, 175 Erebuni, 8 Erevan, 8 Etchmiadzin, 167, 187, 200 Etienne, son of King Leon V, 128, 196 Euphrates, 6, 11, 13, 25, 31-2, 40, 45, 48, 57, 60, 92,

98, 101, 169 Europeans in Armenian Cilicia, 176

F faith, profession of 98, 113, 115 fall of Ani to the Seljuks in, 106, 170 Famagusta, 118, 120, 141, 143, 149, 156,

160, 178, 185, 199 Fatimids, 29-30, 41, 47, 85-86 Ferdinand, king of Aragon, 39, 102, 197 Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabelle of Castille, 194 Fifth Crusade, 142, 171 First Crusade, 31, 34-7, 39-45, 47-9, 51, 53, 61-2, 86,

96, 101, 121, 135, 163, 172The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, 4 Fourth Crusade, 75, 79, 170, 184 France, John, historian, 44 Franciscans, 90, 97, 173 Free Companies in England and France, 162 Froissart, Jean, historian, 126, 151 Fulcher of Chartres, historian, 45

G Gabriel, Lord in Melitene, 41 Garibaldi, Giuseppe, Itallian patriot, 187

Garsoïan, Nina, historian, 14 Genghis Khan, 82, 175, 185 Genoa and Genoese, 33, 35, 38, 75, 95, 101, 107, 114,

120, 123, 139, 147, 152-9, 177, 195 Geography of Cilicia, 32 Ghazan, 100-103, 110, 147 Ghibellines, 110 Gladstone, William, PM of England 3-4 Gladzor, 181, 187 Godfrey of Bouillion, 42 Golden Horde, 90, 183 Gonzaga, Giula, 195 Gorigos, 57, 64, 74, 83, 103, 109, 117, 119-20, 141,

149, 151, 154, 158, 176 Goshavankh 178 Gozo, 193Great Schism, 202 Great Siege of 1565, Malta, 193-198Greek Mandales brothers, 26, 57 Greek Orthodox religion, 27, 45 Green Count of Savoy, 152 Gregory of Narek, 178 Grousset, Rene’, historian, 12, 201 Guyot, son of King Levon V, 127

H Hacikyan, A. J., 14, 204, 209, 215 Hadjin, 180, 185 Hagia Sophia 24, 28, 182, 200 Hattin, battle of, 66, 133, 135, 168 Hayk, 16, 200 Hayton, the Historian, 84, 103-108, 148, 164Holy Land, 36-8, 42, 48, 56-7, 61, 83, 99-100, 106,

112, 118, 132, 135-6, 151-2, 160-1, 170, 175Holy League, 196-8 Homs, Battle of, 66, 135, 137, 171 Hospitallers 72, 77, 92, 100, 102, 108, 114, 116, 142,

146, 152, 158, 193, 203Heritage of Armenian Literature, 14, 20 Herodotus, Greek historian, 10 Hetum II’s coronation, 79 Hittite Empire, 7 Hôtel des Tournelles, 125 Housley, Norman, historian, 101 Hovhannes of Karni, Unitor, 113 Hromkla, 60, 67, 96-8, 166-8, 174, 177

Hromkla scriptorium, 179 Hugh VIII, Lord of Lusignan, France, 64 Hulagu 83, 86, 88 Hundred Years War, 112, 125

Iidentity, Armenian, 13-15, 17, 127, 189, 202 Ibelins, 102, 139-44 Iconium (Konia), 116, 121Isaac, governor of Cyprus, 135 Isabelle, wife of Aimery de Lusignan, 104 Isabelle of Antioch, first wife of King Levon I, 77

JJacques de Molay, Grand Master of Templars, 99,

101, Jean Lusignan, the father of Leon V, 114-116,

regent of Cyprus, 119 Jerba, island of Tunisia, 195-96 Jerusalem, kingdom of, 18, 49, 66, 132-6, 139, 141,

145, 147-150, 154, 157, 171, 172-173, 181Jihad, 38, 87, 89, 200Joscelin I, Count of Edessa, 58 Joscelin II, Count of Edessa 60

K Kaikobad, sultan, 78 Karabagh, 185 Karakorum, 82-3, 88, 173-74 Karamanids, 100 Karmir-Blur, 8-9 Kars, 23, 26-7, 29, 81 Khaldi, Armenian pagan god, 8-9 Kilij Arslan II, sultan, 62 King Ashot I, 23-4, King Ashot II, 24, King Aimery of Cyprus, 137 King Amalric Jerusalem, 51, 63, 65, 71 King Baldwin II of Jerusalem, 50, 58 King Baldwin III of Jerusalem, 50, 63 King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem, 134 King Charles IV of France, 109 King Charles V of Spain, 151, 192 King Charles VI of France, 16 King Constantine I of Cilicia, 115-16, 118, 122 King Constantine II of Cilicia, 115-16, 118-19, 121,

180

King Darius I, 9-10 King Edward III of England, 161 King Francis I of France, 196 King Fulk of Jerusalem, 49, 60 King Gagik-Abbas, 26-7, 29 King Gagik I, 6, 24, 26-7, 38, 56 King Gagik II, 26-7, 55-7 King Guy of Jerusalem, 133-6 King Henry I of Cyprus, 145 King Henry (of Champagne) of Jerusalem, 68, 136 King Henry II of Cyprus, 98-100, 104-5, 108-9,

139-42, 144-46, 171, 176 King Hetum I of Cilicia, 66, 78-9, 81, 83, 90, 98, 103,

121, 143, 146, 151, 164, 166, 171, 174 King Hetum II of Cilicia, 98-102, 105-6 King Hugh I of Cyprus, 140 King Hugh II of Cyprus, 141, 143 King Hugh III of Cyprus, 141, 143-6 King Hugh IV of Cyprus, 115, 118, 146-149 King James I of Cyprus, 141, 150-1, 153-5, 160King James II of Cyprus, 154, 156-9 King Janus of Cyprus, 155-6 King Jean Brienne of Jerusalem, 71, 78,172 King John II of Cyprus, 156-8 King John of Castile, 123 King John II of France, 152 King Leon V of Cilicia, 5, 117-29, 145, 146, 157, 163, 167, 182, 193-6 King Levon II of Cilicia, 55, 90-3, 112, 136, 156, 176,

180 King Levon III of Cilicia, 104-08 King Levon IV of Cilicia, 106-12, 115, 119, 132, 166,

178 King Levon I, the Magnificent, 70-1, 73-5, 77, 88,

112, 120, 140, 165, 169-170, 178 King Louis IX, (St. Louis), of France, 61, 82, 85, 89, 94,

100, 142, 145, 163, 170-73 King Louis VII of France, 137 King Menua, 8 King Mithradates Eupator of Pontus, 12 King Oshin of Cilicia, 104, 106-8, 112, 115, 146-149 King Peter I of Cyprus, 116, 118- 19,125, 149-60, King Peter II of Cyprus, 50, 120-124, King Peter of Aragon, 148 King Philip, married to Queen Zabel, 68 King Philip II of France, 126, 135


King Philip II of Spain, 198 King Philip the Fair of France, 107 King Richard II, the Lion-Heart, 67, 86, 126, 134-7,

153, 163 King Rusa, I 8 King Rusa II, 9 King Sarduri I, 7-8 King Sembat I, 23 King Sembad II, 23 King Senekherim, 25-6 King Tigran II, the Great, 12-13 Kingdom of Ani, 21 Kingdom of Jerusalem, 49 Kingdoms of Greater Armenia, 21, 23, 25, 27, 29, 31,

33, 129, 209 Knights of St. John, see Hospitallers, Knights Templar, 62, 64, 67, 76, 89, 92, 97, 100,

106-08, 133, 137, 141, 146 Konya, 78 Kosovo, Battle of, 129

LLa Fleur des istoires de l’Orient, 103, 147 La Valette, Jean de, Grand Master, 192, 195-96 Lady Soudane, mother of King Leon V, 116 Laiazzo see Ayas, 73-6, 90-2, 96, 105, 110, 150, 153,

165, 177, 196 Lake Sevan, 6, 40 Lake Urmia, 6 Lake Van, 6, 8, 20-1, 25, 29-30, 56 Lambron, 31, 33, 44-5, 55, 58, 62-5, 67-8, 71-2, 110,

166, 169, 176, 178 League of Nice, 195 Lepanto, Battle of, 185, 198-200 “List of 117 errors”, 115 Lord of Anglure, 157 Louis, the duke of Savoy, 158 Lucullus, 12 Lusignan-Antioch Dynasty, 147-49, 153, 157, 159 Lusignans, 64, 66, 78, 106, 115, 119, 127-8, 132-37,

143, 157, 166

M Maltese island, 182-185, 193-199 Mamikonians, 13, 20

Mamistra, 33, 40, 44-5, 63, 76-78, 97, 100, 133, 171 Mamluk-Il-Khanid Wars, 85 Mamluks. 60, 75, 84-6, 88, 92, 95-102, 109, 115-22,

145-47, 157, 163-5, 182 Manuscripts, Armenian, 70, 90, 95, 103, 138,

178, 184, 199 Manzikert, Battle of, 28-32, 36, 39-40, 55, 57, 132 Marash, 18, 31, 40, 43 Marietta of Patras, the mother of King James II, 158 Marino Sanudo, 110 Mark Anthony, 132 Masis, or Ararat, 6, 9-12, 16, 27, 191Masud, sultan, 62 Matthew of Edessa, 23, 26, 41, 45, 179Mdina, 193,Mehmed II, sultan, 184 Mehmed IV, sultan, 186 Mekhitar of Sebastia, 189 Mekhitar of Her, 179 Melitene, 31-2, 40-1, 46, 49 Melusine, 134 Menua, King, 8 Mesrop Mashtots, 14 Messina, 177 Metzamor River, 7 Misis, 165, 177 Mithridates Eupator, 12 Molin, Kristian, historian, 165 Monga Kkan, 175 Mongol Devastation of Armenia, 81 Mongolia, 84 Montpellier, 177 Moors of Granada, 102 Moses of Khorene, 7, 10, 14-16 Mount Ararat, see Ararat, Mount Sipan, 6 Musa Dagh, 4 Mustafa Pasha, Ottoman general, 185, 198 Mutafian, Claude, historian andscholar, 85, 105 Myriokephalon, Battle of, 133, 169

N Nebuchadnezzar, 9 Nerses Balients, 114

Nerses of Lambron, (Saint), 67-8, 72, 178 Nicea, 32, 37, 43-4, 61 Nicolai Marr, archeologist, 27 Nicopolis Campaign, 129, 163, 183 Nicosia, 140-45, 147, 156-58, 176 Normandy, 126 Nur-al-Din, sultan, 60-2, 65

O Oshin of Gorigos, regent 147 Othman, sultan 181 Otto of Brunswick 119Ottoman Bank incident 3 Ottoman Turks 5, 100, 128, 156, 161, 181-5, 187-8, 191-193, 195-7, 198, P Outremer 5, 67, 87, 94-5, 143-4, 170, 176, 200, 205,

208Orsini, John, Grand Master 33, 83-4, 92, 98, 102, 172,

182-3, 198,

PPalais de St. Paul, 126 Palestine 38, 42, 47, 50-1, 66, 86-7, 97, 100, 134, 140,

209 Parthia, 11-13 Pasha, Ali, Ottoman admiral 197 Persia, 9-11, 13-18, 200, 208 Peter the Hermit, 161 Petrarch, Francesco, 107, 149, 152 Petrosyan, H., archeologist, 6 Philaretus, 26, 29, 31-2, 40-1, 44, 48, 55, 173, 210 Philippe de Mézières, 112, 125, 127, 148-50,

152-3, 160-1, 205 Piotrovski, Boris, archeologist 8 Poiters, 100, 102, 118, 146 Polo, Marco, 144-5, 162 Pompey, 12 Pontus, 11-12 Pope Benedict XII, 109, 113-14, 173 Pope Benedict XIII, 127 Pope Boniface VIII, 99, 106 Pope Clement III, 67, 168 Pope Clement V, 100, 102, 106-7, 146-7 Pope Clement VI, 113-14, 116

Pope Clement VII, 123 Pope Eugenius III, 60 Pope Gregory IX, 169, 172 Pope Gregory VII, 35, 39-40, 210 Pope Gregory XI, 119, 122 Pope Innocent II, 168 Pope Innocent III, 68, 75-6, 169 Pope Innocent IV, 141, 172 Pope John XXII, 109, 147, 164 Pope NicholasIV, 95-6, 98 Pope Onorius III, 140 Pope Pius II, 158 Pope Pius V, 196-7 Pope Urban II, 36, 42, 48 Pope Urban III, 134 Pope Urban V, 116, 119-20, 150 Pope Urban VI, 123 Prince Bohemond III of Antioch, 169 Prince Constantine Rubenian, 26, 44, 55-6 Prince Jean of Cyprus, 119 Prince Levon, son of Hetum I 83, 89 Prince Levon I Rubenian 52, 56-8 Prince Levon II Rubenian 52, 62-8, 89-90, 135, 174 Prince Mleh, the Renegade, 55, 58, 62-5 Prince Oshin, brother of Hetum II 105 Prince Raymond-Ruben, 78, 171 Prince Ruben III Rubenian, 65 Prince Sembat, brother of Hetum II, 100 Prince Stepan Rupenian, 58, 62-5, 98 Prince Thoros, brother of Hetum, II, 100 Prince Thoros I Rubenian, 52, 55, 84 Prince Thoros II the Great, 32, 41,

45-6, 55-8, 61-5, 74, 84, 90-91, 93, 99, 106, 133, 176

Prince Zakarian of Lori, 82 Princess Constance of Antioch, 62 Pyramus River, 110

Q Queen Caterina Cornaro of Cyprus, 160 Queen Charlotte of Cyprus, 159 Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, 48, 61, 135 Queen Eleanor of Cyprus, 120, 150, 155Queen Helena of Cyprus, 156 Queen Ker-Anne of Cilicia, 90


Queen Melisende of Jerusalem, 50-1, 56 Queen Semiramis, 8 Queen Sybilla of Jerusalem, 133 Queen Zabel of Cilicia, 66, 78-9, 84, 109, 173 Qutuz, sultan, 86-7

R R. W. Edwards, archeologist, 163 Ramon Lull 101 Rawlinson, Henry, archeologist, 9 Raymond of Poitiers, prince of Antioch, 42, 57-9,

61, 68 Religieux de Saint-Denis, 126 Republic of Armenia, 6, 8 Reynald of Chatillion, 62-3, 135 Rhodes, 64, 108, 116, 120, 124, 133, 136, 153, 159,

185, 192, 197, 202 rights to shipwrecks, 75 Rita, daughter of King Levon, 77-8, 108Robert of Flanders, 43 Roman Catholic Church, 38, 42, 97, 114, 116, 170 Ruben, founder of Rubenian dynasty, 31, 40, 44,

55-6 Rubenian Dynasty, 31, 41, 55-8, 62-3, 77-79, 178,

190 Rusa, II 9-10

S Saint Denis, 127 Salah-ed-Din, see Saladin, 5, 51, 66-8, 72, 77, 86, 93,

13637, 153, 172, 179 Samarkand, 173, 183 San Lazzaro, monastery in Venice, 189 Sargis Pitzak, 181 Sassoun, 18, 20, 190 Savoy, 159 Scythians, 8-9 Sebastea, 26 Second Crusade, 48, 59, 61-2 Segovia, 123 Seleucid Empire, 11 Selim I, sultan, 195 Seljuk Turks, 27-30, 32, 37, 39-40, 43, 46, 53, 79, 82, 84Sembat constable, 70, 74, 84, 179 usurpeur, brother

of Hetum II, 93, 100, 103

Sembat II and Gagik I, last Bagratid kings, 23 Sembat the Confessor, 22 Serarpie der Nersessian, art historian, 180 Seventh Crusade, 83, 86, 142 Shaban, 124 Shah Abbas, 188 Sharakans, 179 Sicilian Vespers, 95, 101 Sicily and Sicilians, 33, 38-9, 42, 47, 58, 95, 112, 135-,

182, 190, 193, 197 Silk Road, 78 Sis, 55-6, 65-6, 68, 76, 97-9, 102, 106, 116, 119, 121-3,

128, 165, 168, 174, 187 Sixth Crusade, 140 Skevra, monastery, 176 Sobieski, Jean, king of Poland, 184 Souhier Doulcart, 121 Sparapet, 13, 16, 23 St. Bernard of Claivaux, 61 St. Francis of Assisi, 171 St. Gregory, the Illuminator, 2, 13, 40, 98 Stephen of Blois, 43 Suleyman the Magnificent, 193-95 Sultan Abdul, 188 Sybilla, daughter of Aimery I of Cyprus, 77 Synecdotal Discourse, 177 Synod of Adana, 117

TTamerlane, 27, 114, 183 Tancred, king of Sicily, 136 Tancred of Hauteville, 43 Tarsus, 18, 26, 31-3, 40, 44, 56-7, 62-5, 67-8, 71, 76-9,

90-3, 108-110, 117, 169, 177 Tatev, monastery, 176, 183 Taurus Mountains, 18, 21, 29, 44-5, 53, 67, 173, 176 Third Crusade, 67, 85, 132, 134 Thomas, Peter, 151-3 Thoros of Edessa, 32, 41, 45 Thoros Roslin, 89-90, 180 Tigranakert, 12 Tiridat, King, 2, 13 Tomarz, 182 Tornikian, David, 57 Trdat of Ani, Armenian architect, 24, 28

Treaty of Caltabellotta, (1302), 100 Tripoli, 18, 77, 92, 96, 134, 141, 144, 149, 154, 171, 176 True Cross, 18, 25, 37-8 Tughrul Bey, sultan, 29 Turkey, 4, 6-7, 25, 27, 158, 190 Turkish fleet, 114, 193-96 Tyerman, C., historian, 162

U Unitors, 114, 175 Urartu and Urartians, 6-10, 15, 24 Urfa, medieval Edessa, 188 Ursinus, 44-5 Uruk, Sumerian city, 7

VVahka, fortress, 31, 56, 58, 62, 78 Vardan Mamikonian, 14, 16, 111 Vaspurakan, 24-8, 53, 93, 169 Venice, 75, 91, 94, 114, 117, 120, 123, 152, 160,

177, 184, 188, 195-9, 200

Vezalay, 61

W Werfel, France, writer, 4 White Sheep, 183 William of Machaut, poet, 117, 151 William of Rubruck, 83, 91, 173 William the Conqueror, 43

Y Yazdegerd II, Persian king, 16 Yegishé, 6 Yervandunis dynasty, 11

Z Zeitun, 182, 187, 190 Zekiyan, Boghos Levon, Armenian theologian,

linguist and historian,106, 188 Zengi, 48, 50, 60 Zoroastrianism, 11, 16 [Created with TExtract / www.Texyz.com]

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