Leon V of Armenia
The Cathedral Basilica of Saint Denis
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The medieval Kingdom of Armenia, also known as Bagratid Armenia (Armenian: Բագրատունյաց Հայաստան Bagratunyats Hayastan), was an independent state established by Ashot I Bagratuni in 885 following nearly two centuries of foreign domination of Greater Armenia under Arab Umayyad and Abbasid rule which at various times had held the thrones of Armenia and Georgia.
Armenian presence in Cilicia dates back to the first century BC, when under Tigranes the Great, the Kingdom of Armenia expanded and conquered a vast region in the Levant. In 83 BC, the Greek aristocracy of Seleucid Syria, weakened by a bloody civil war, offered their allegiance to the ambitious Armenian king. Tigranes then conquered Phoenicia and Cilicia, effectively ending the Seleucid Empire. The southern border of his domain reached as far as Ptolemais (modern Acre).
Many of the inhabitants of conquered cities were sent to the new metropolis of Tigranakert. At its height, Tigranes’ Armenian Empire extended from the Pontic Alps (in modern north-eastern Turkey) to Mesopotamia, and from the Caspian to the Mediterranean. Tigranes invaded as far south as the Parthian capital of Ecbatana, located in modern-day western Iran.
In 27 BC, the Roman Empire conquered Cilicia and transformed it into one of its eastern provinces. After the 395 AD partition of the Roman Empire into halves, Cilicia became incorporated into the Eastern Roman Empire, also called the Byzantine Empire. In the sixth century AD, Armenian families relocated to Byzantine territories. Many served in the Byzantine army as soldiers or as generals, and rose to prominent imperial positions.
Cilicia fell to Arab invasions in the seventh century and was entirely incorporated into the Rashidun Caliphate. However, the Caliphate failed to gain a permanent foothold in Anatolia, as Cilicia was reconquered in the year 965 by Byzantine Emperor Nicephorus II Phocas.
With the two contemporary powers in the region, the Abbasids and Byzantines, too preoccupied to concentrate their forces in subjugating the people of the region and the dissipation of several of the Armenian nakharar noble families, Ashot was able to assert himself as the leading figure of a movement to dislodge the Arabs from Armenia.
Ashot’s prestige rose as he was courted by both Byzantine and Arab leaders eager to maintain a buffer state near their frontiers. The Caliphate recognized Ashot as “prince of princes” in 862 and, later on, king in 884 or 885. The establishment of the Bagratuni kingdom later led to the founding of several other Armenian principalities and kingdoms: Taron, Vaspurakan, Kars, Khachen and Syunik.
Unity among all these states was sometimes difficult to maintain while the Byzantines and Arabs lost no time in exploiting the kingdom’s situation to their own gains. Under the reign of Ashot III, Ani became the kingdom’s capital and grew into a thriving economic and cultural center.
The first half of the eleventh century saw the decline and eventual collapse of the kingdom. With Emperor Basil II’s string of victories in annexing parts of southwestern Armenia, King Hovhannes-Smbat felt forced to cede his lands and in 1022 promised to “will” his kingdom to the Byzantines following his death.
However, after Hovhannes-Smbat’s death in 1041, his successor, Gagik II, refused to hand over Ani and continued resistance until 1045, when his kingdom, plagued with internal and external threats, was finally taken by Byzantine forces.
The Caliphate’s occupation of Cilicia and of other areas in Asia Minor led many Armenians to seek refuge and protection further west in the Byzantine Empire, which created demographic imbalances in the region. In order to better protect their eastern territories after their reconquest, the Byzantines resorted largely to a policy of mass transfer and relocation of native populations within the Empire’s borders.
Nicephorus thus expelled the Muslims living in Cilicia, and encouraged Christians from Syria and Armenia to settle in the region. Emperor Basil II (976–1025) tried to expand into Armenian Vaspurakan in the east and Arab-held Syria towards the south. As a result of the Byzantine military campaigns, the Armenians spread into Cappadocia, and eastward from Cilicia into the mountainous areas of northern Syria and Mesopotamia.
The formal annexation of Greater Armenia to the Byzantine Empire in 1045 and its conquest by the Seljuk Turks 19 years later caused two new waves of Armenian migration to Cilicia. The Armenians could not re-establish an independent state in their native highland after the fall of Bagratid Armenia as it remained under foreign occupation.
Following its conquest in 1045, and in the midst of Byzantine efforts to further repopulate the Empire’s east, the Armenian immigration into Cilicia intensified and turned into a major socio-political movement. The Armenians came to serve the Byzantines as military officers or governors, and were given control of important cities on the Byzantine Empire’s eastern frontier.
The Seljuks also played a significant role in the Armenian population movement into Cilicia. In 1064, the Seljuk Turks led by Alp Arslan made their advance towards Anatolia by capturing Ani in Byzantine-held Armenia. Seven years later, they earned a decisive victory against Byzantium by defeating Emperor Romanus IV Diogenes’ army at Manzikert, north of Lake Van. Alp Arslan’s successor, Malik-Shah I, further expanded the Seljuk Empire and levied repressive taxes on the Armenian inhabitants.
After Catholicos Gregory II the Martyrophile’s assistant and representative, Parsegh of Cilicia’s solicitation, the Armenians obtained a partial reprieve, but Malik’s succeeding governors continued levying taxes. This led the Armenians to seek refuge in Byzantium and in Cilicia. Some Armenian leaders set themselves up as sovereign lords, while others remained, at least in name, loyal to the Empire.
The most successful of these early Armenian warlords was Philaretos Brachamios, a former Byzantine general who was alongside Romanus Diogenes at Manzikert. Between 1078 and 1085, Philaretus built a principality stretching from Malatia in the north to Antioch in the south, and from Cilicia in the west to Edessa in the east. He invited many Armenian nobles to settle in his territory, and gave them land and castles. But Philaretus’s state began to crumble even before his death in 1090, and ultimately disintegrated into local lordships.
One of the princes who came after Philaretos’ invitation was Ruben, who had close ties with the last Bagratid Armenian king, Gagik II, and was an offshoot of the larger Bagratid family. Ruben was alongside the Armenian ruler Gagik when he went to Constantinople upon the Byzantine emperor’s request. Instead of negotiating peace, however, the king was forced to cede his Armenian lands and live in exile. Gagik was later assassinated by Greeks.
In 1080, soon after this assassination, Ruben organized a band of Armenian troops and revolted against the Byzantine Empire. He was joined by many other Armenian lords and nobles. Thus, in 1080, the foundations of the independent Armenian princedom of Cilicia, and the future kingdom, were laid under Ruben’s leadership. His descendants were called Rubenids (Armenian: Ռուբինեաններ) or Roupenids, an Armenian dynasty who dominated parts of Cilicia, and who established the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia.
After Ruben’s death in 1095, the Rubenid principality, centered around the fortresses of Bardzrberd and Vahka, was led by Ruben’s son, Constantine I of Armenia; however, there were several other Armenian principalities both inside and beyond Cilicia, such as that of the Het’umids, an important Armenian dynasty founded by the former Byzantine general Oshin, and centered in Lampron and Babaron at the southern end of the Cilician Gates.
The Het’umids have always contended with the Rubenids for power and influence over Cilicia. Various Armenian lords and former generals of Philaretos were also present in Marash, Malatia (Melitene), and Edessa, the latter two being located outside of Cilicia.
During the reign of Constantine I, the First Crusade took place. An army of Western European Christians marched through Anatolia and Cilicia on their way to Jerusalem. The Armenians in Cilicia gained powerful allies among the Frankish Crusaders, whose leader, Godfrey de Bouillon, was considered a savior for the Armenians.
Constantine saw the Crusaders’ arrival as a one-time opportunity to consolidate his rule of Cilicia by eliminating the remaining Byzantine strongholds in the region. With the Crusaders’ help, they secured Cilicia from the Byzantines and Turks, both by direct military actions in Cilicia and by establishing Crusader states in Antioch, Edessa, and Tripoli.
To show their appreciation to their Armenian allies, the Crusaders honored Constantine with the titles of Comes and Baron. The friendly relationship between the Armenians and Crusaders was cemented with intermarriages frequently occurring between them. For instance, Joscelin I, Count of Edessa married the daughter of Constantine, and Baldwin, brother of Godfrey, married Constantine’s niece, daughter of his brother T’oros of Marash (also known as Thatoul). The Armenians and Crusaders were part allies, part rivals for the two centuries to come.
The son of Constantine was T’oros I, who succeeded him in around 1100. During his rule, he faced both Byzantines and Seljuks, and expanded the Rubenid domain. He transferred the Cilician capital from Tarsus to Sis after having eliminated the small Byzantine garrison stationed there. In 1112, he took the castle of Cyzistra in order to avenge the death of the last Bagratid Armenian king, Gagik II. The assassins of the latter, three Byzantine brothers who governed the castle, were thus brutally killed.
Eventually, there emerged a type of centralized government in the area with the rise of the Rubenid princes. During the twelfth century, they were the closest thing to a ruling dynasty, and wrestled with the Byzantines for power over the region.
Thoros was the father of Arda of Armenia, the first queen consort of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Thoros’ allowing Baldwin I of Jerusalem, who was then Count of Edessa, to marry his daughter, gave Baldwin a legitimate claim to Edessa since it was within the traditional area of Armenia.
Thoros failed to pay the full dowry he had pledged. Also with Baldwin becoming King of Jerusalem, he no longer felt a need to have alliances with the Armenians. Baldwin had his marriage to Arda annulled. About the same time the forces of Edessa drove Thoros from his domain. He was then forced to flee to Constantinople and became part of an anti-Crusader faction in Constantinople advocating that the Byzantine Empire reassert its traditional hold on Armenian territories that were now held by the Crusader States.
Prince Levon I, T’oros’ brother and successor, started his reign in 1129. He integrated the Cilician coastal cities to the Armenian principality, thus consolidating Armenian commercial leadership in the region. During this period, there was continued hostility between Cilician Armenia and the Seljuk Turks, as well as occasional bickering between Armenians and the Principality of Antioch over forts located near southern Amanus.
In this context, in 1137, the Byzantines under Emperor John II, who still considered Cilicia to be a Byzantine province, conquered most of the towns and cities located on the Cilician plains. They captured and imprisoned Levon in Constantinople with several other family members, including his sons Ruben and T’oros. Levon died in prison three years later. Ruben was blinded and killed while in prison, but Levon’s second son and successor, T’oros II, escaped in 1141.
T’oros returned to Cilicia to lead the struggle with the Byzantines. Initially, he was successful in repelling Byzantine invasions; but, in 1158, he paid homage to Emperor Manuel I through a short-lived treaty. Around 1151, during T’oros’ rule, the head of the Armenian Church transferred his see to Hromkla. Ruben II, Mleh, and Ruben III, succeeded T’oros in 1169, 1170, and 1175, respectively.
Prince Leo II (Armenian: Լեւոն Ա Մեծագործ, Levon A Metsagorts), also Leon II, Levon II or Lewon II (1150-1219), one of Levon I’s grandsons and brother of Ruben III, acceded the throne in 1187. He was the tenth lord of Armenian Cilicia or “Lord of the Mountains” (1187–1198/1199), and the first king of Armenian Cilicia (1198/1199–1219). He became known as Levon the Magnificent, due to his numerous contributions to Cilician Armenian statehood in the political, military, and economic spheres, or Lewon I.
He fought the rulers of Konya, Aleppo, and Damascus, and added new lands to Cilicia, doubling its Mediterranean coast. At the time, Saladin of Egypt defeated the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which led to the Third Crusade.
Prince Levon II profited from the situation by improving relations with the Europeans. Cilician Armenia’s prominence in the region is attested by letters sent in 1189 by Pope Clement III to Levon and to Catholicos Gregory IV in which he asks Armenian military and financial assistance to the crusaders.
Thanks to the support given by Levon to the Holy Roman Emperors (Frederick Barbarossa, and his son, Henry VI) he elevated the princedom’s status to a kingdom. On January 6, 1199, the day Armenians celebrate Christmas, Prince Levon II was crowned with great solemnity in the cathedral of Tarsus, in the presence of the Syrian Jacobite patriarch, the Greek metropolitan of Tarsus, and numerous church dignitaries and military leaders.
While he was crowned by the catholicos, Gregory VI Abirad, Levon received a banner with the insignia of a lion from Archbishop Conrad of Mainz in the name of Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor. By securing his crown, he became the first King of Armenian Cilicia as King Levon I.
During his reign, Leo succeeded in establishing Cilician Armenia as a powerful and a unified Christian state, and his pre-eminence in the political arena cannot be overestimated. He eagerly supplied the armies of the Third Crusade with provisions, guides, pack animals and all manner of aid, besides pledging the cooperation of his army. Under his rule, Armenian power was at its apogee: his kingdom extended from Isauria to the Amanus Mountains (now Nur Mountains in Turkey).
Levon’s growing power made him a particularly important ally for the neighbouring crusader state of Antioch, which resulted in intermarriage with noble families there, but his dynastic policies revealed ambition towards the overlordship of Antioch which the Latins ultimately could not countenance. They resulted in the Antiochene Wars of Succession between Levon’s grand-nephew Raymond Roupen and Bohemond IV of Antioch-Tripoli.
Their capital was originally at Tarsus, and later became Sis. Cilicia was a strong ally of the European Crusaders, and saw itself as a bastion of Christendom in the East. It also served as a focus for Armenian nationalism and culture, since Armenia proper was under foreign occupation at the time.
The Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia (Middle Armenian: Կիլիկիոյ Հայոց Թագաւորութիւն Kilikio Hayots Tagavorutyun), also known as the Cilician Armenia, Kingdom of Cilician Armenia, Kingdom of Cilicia, Little Armenia or New Armenia, was an independent principality formed during the High Middle Ages by Armenian refugees fleeing the Seljuk invasion of Armenia. Located outside of the Armenian Highland and distinct from the Armenian Kingdom of Antiquity, it was centered in the Cilicia region northwest of the Gulf of Alexandretta.
The new Armenian state established very close relations with European countries and played a very important role during the Crusades, providing the Christian armies a safe haven and provisions on their way towards Jerusalem. Intermarriage with European crusading families was common, and European religious, political, and cultural influence was strong.
It served for almost three centuries as a bastion of Christianity in the Near East, collaborating with crusades and crusaders while at the same time trying to maintain a balance with the rising powers in its neighbourhood and beyond that professed Islam.
Constantine of Baberon (died c. 1263), a powerful Armenian noble of the Hetoumids family (also transliterated Hethoum, Hetoum, Het’um, or Hayton from Armenian: Հեթում), also known as the House of Lampron (after Lampron castle), and Lord of Baberon and Princess Alix Pahlavouni of Lampron, was the son of Vassag, the maternal uncle of king Leo I (1150 – 2 May 1219).
Queen Isabella of Armenia (Armenian: Զապել), also Isabel I or Zabel I, (1217-1252) was the queen regnant of Cilician Armenia (1219-1252). She had inherited the throne from her father and was proclaimed queen under the regency of Adam of Baghras, but he was assassinated; and Constantine of Baberon (of the Hethumian family) was nominated as guardian.
At this juncture, Raymond-Roupen, grandson of Roupen III (the elder brother of Isabella’s father, King Leo I) set up a claim to the throne of Cilician Armenia; but he was defeated, captured, and executed.
In 1219, after a failed attempt by Raymond-Roupen to claim the throne, Levon’s daughter Zabel was proclaimed the new ruler of Cilician Armenia and placed under the regency of Adam of Baghras. Baghras was assassinated and the regency passed to Constantine of Baberon from the Het’umid dynasty, a very influential Armenian family.
In order to fend off the Seljuk threat, Constantine sought an alliance with Bohemond IV of Antioch, and the marriage of Bohemond’s son Philip to Queen Zabel sealed this; however, Philip was too “Latin” for the Armenians’ taste, as he refused to abide by the precepts of the Armenian Church.
In 1224, Philip was imprisoned in Sis for stealing the crown jewels of Armenia, and after several months of confinement, he was poisoned and killed. Zabel decided to embrace a monastic life in the city of Seleucia, but she was later forced to marry Constantine’s son Het’um in 1226. Het’um became co-ruler as King Het’um I.
Constantine of Barbaron was soon convinced to seek an alliance with Prince Bohemond IV of Antioch, and he arranged a marriage between the young princess and Philip, a son of Bohemond IV. Philip, however, offended the Armenians’ sensibilities, and even despoiled the royal palace, sending the royal crown to Antioch; therefore, he was confined in a prison in Sis (now Kozan in Turkey), where he died, presumably poisoned.
The unhappy young Isabella was forced to marry Constantine of Barbaron’s son, Hethum (died 1271), who then became the first of the Hethumid; although for many years she refused to live with him, but in the end she relented.
The apparent unification in marriage of the two principal dynastic forces of Cilicia (i.e., the Roupenids and the Hethumids) ended a century of dynastic and territorial rivalry and brought the Hethumids to the forefront of political dominance in Cilician Armenia.
The Rubenid dynasty fell in 1252 after the death of the last Rubenid monarch Queen Isabella, and her husband Hethum I became sole ruler, beginning the Hethumid dynasty, founded by Hethum I. The Hethumids were the rulers of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia from 1226 to 1373.
Hethum was a major player in the political struggles and shifting alliances around the Crusader states, as the Armenians had ties with all sides. They were primarily aligned with the Europeans, but during Hethum’s reign, the rapidly expanding Mongol Empire became a concern.
The Lusignan House was a royal house of French origin that originated in Poitou near Lusignan in western France in the early 10th century. By the end of the 11th century, they had risen to become the most prominent petty lords in the region from their castle at Lusignan.
In the late 12th century, through marriage and inheritance, a cadet branch of the family came to control the Kingdoms of Jerusalem and of Cyprus, while in the early 13th century, the main branch succeeded in the Counties of La Marche and Angoulême.
As Crusader princes in the Latin East, they soon had connections with the Hethumid rulers of the Kingdom of Cilicia, which they inherited through marriage in the mid-14th century. The Hethoumids ruled Cilicia until the murder of Leon IV in 1341, when his cousin Guy de Lusignan was to replace him as Constantine II of Armenia, the first king of the Lusignan dynasty.
The Lusignan dynasty was of French origin, and already had a foothold in the area, the Island of Cyprus. There had always been close relations between the Lusignans of Cyprus and the Armenians. However, when the pro-Latin Lusignans took power, they tried to impose Catholicism and the European way of life. The Armenian leadership largely accepted this, but the peasantry opposed the changes. Eventually, this led way to civil strife.
Constantine III (also Constantine V; Armenian: Կոստանդին, 1313-1362) was the King of Armenian Cilicia from 1344 to 1362. He was the son of Baldwin, Lord of Neghir, a nephew of Hethum I of Armenia, and a distant cousin of Constantine II. When Constantine II was killed in an uprising in 1344, Constantine III succeeded him.
Constantine III attempted to wipe out all rival claimants to the throne; he gave orders to kill Constantine II’s nephews, Bemon and Leo, but before the murder could be carried out they escaped to Cyprus. During his rule, Kingdom of Cilician Armenian was reduced by Mamluk raids and conquests. They conquered Ajazzo in 1347, Tarsus and Adana in 1359.
Constantine III was the first husband of Maria, daughter of Oshin of Corycos, who served as regent of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia from 1320 to 1329, and Jeanne of Anjou (died March 1323), Queen consort of Armenia by her first marriage and a member of the Capetian House of Anjou. He was predeceased by his two sons. Upon his death from natural causes he was succeeded by his cousin Constantine IV (died 1373).
Joan of Anjou was a daughter of Philip I, Prince of Taranto of Anjou, usually referred to simply as the Angevins, a noble family of Frankish origin that emerged as the rulers of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Kingdom of England in the 12th century, and his first wife Thamar Angelina Komnene, a member of the ruling house of the Despotate of Epirus.
Philip I of Taranto was titular Latin Emperor of Constantinople (as Philip II), despot of Epirus, King of Albania, Prince of Achaea and Taranto, and Lord of Durazzo. Born in Naples, Philip was a younger son of Charles II of Anjou, King of Naples, and Maria of Hungary, daughter of King Stephen V of Hungary.
The Capetian House of Anjou, also known as the House of Anjou-Sicily and House of Anjou-Naples, was a royal house and cadet branch of the direct House of Capet, or the Capetian dynasty, also known as the House of France, which is among the largest and oldest European royal houses, consisting of the descendants of King Hugh Capet of France in the male line.
In modern times, both King Juan Carlos of Spain and Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg are members of this family, both through the Bourbon branch of the dynasty. Along with the House of Habsburg, it is one of the two most powerful continental European royal families, dominating European politics for nearly five centuries.
Constantine IV was the King of Armenian Cilicia from 1362 until his death. He was the son of Hethum of Neghir, a nephew of Hethum II of Armenia. Constantine came to the throne on the death of his cousin Constantine III, whose widow, Maria, daughter of Oshin of Corycos, he married. He is usually considered one of the Lusignan dynasty.
Constantine formed an alliance with Peter I of Cyprus, offering him the port and castle of Corycus. On Peter’s death in 1369, Constantine looked for a treaty with the Sultan of Egypt. The Barons were unhappy with this policy, fearing annexation by the sultan, and in 1373 Constantine was murdered. Upon his death he was succeeded by his distant cousin Leo V, who would become the last king of Cilician Armenia.
In the late 14th century, Cilicia was invaded by the Mameluks. The fall of Sis in April, 1375 put an end to the kingdom; its last King, Leon V, from the French Lusignan line, found it impossible to withstand the siege on the capital Sis by the Egyptian Mamelukes – a powerful sultanate of the time – less than a year after his own coronation.
Leon V was kept in captivity in Cairo until 1382, when he was ransomed with the generosity of Spanish kings and granted safe passage and died in exile in Paris in 1393 after calling in vain for another Crusade, and henceforth rulers were only claimants to the throne.
He was given the title of Chief Magistrate of Madrid, Villareal, and Andujar. Although nothing much came out of that “Señoria” (“Lordship”) over Madrid, in fact being somewhat controversial for the local population, there still exists a Calle León V de Armenia in the Spanish capital today.
The Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia ended in 1375 with the deposition of Leo V. The exiled King Leo spent much of the following years going from court to court in Western Europe. He tried to serve as a diplomat mediating between France and England, in the hopes of leading a drive to liberate Cilicia, without success. He died in 1393.
The remains of the last Armenian king were desecrated during the French Revolution four hundred years later, but his tomb was later relocated to the Basilica of St. Denis, alongside other members of French monarchy, where it rests to this day.
The title was claimed by his cousin, James I of Cyprus, uniting it with the titles of Cyprus and Jerusalem. The last fully independent Armenian entity of the Middle Ages was thus decimated after three centuries of sovereignty. After Charlotte of Cyprus ceded the throne to the House of Savoy in 1485, the title fell out of use until after 1861.
Cilicia
Kingdom of Jerusalem
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