Материал: Payaslian S., The History of Armenia From the Origins to the Present

Fatimid-Byzantium relations improved somewhat in 987, after the Byzantine military had consolidated its control in Aleppo and Egypt had removed the restrictions on Byzantine merchants. Byzantine-Fatimid relations continued to oscillate between intense hostility, as in 995 when their forces clashed for control over Aleppo, and strategic alignment, as during the period from 1027 to 1071, when Seljuk attacks on Byzantine forces escalated.12

The emergence of the Fatimid Armenians in the latter part of the eleventh century was the culmination of cooperation between the Paulicians and Tondrakians, two movements that had challenged the authority of the Armenian Church and state, and the Arab conquerors.13 As some Armenians had embraced Islam during the Arab conquest, they gradually had made inroads into the civilian bureaucracies and armed forces of the caliphate. Muslim Armenians began their political career in Fatimid Egypt in 1074, by which time an estimated 30,000 (and perhaps as high as 100,000) Armenians lived there. The earliest signs of political ambitions among Muslim Armenians appeared under Amir Aziz al-Dawla, Fatimid Muslim Armenian governor of Aleppo between 1016 and 1022, who sought to create his own government in Aleppo. He was assassinated by another Muslim Armenian, Abu’l Najm Badr al-Jamali, who later served as governor of Damascus. When Egypt was in political turmoil in the early 1070s, the Fatimid caliph al-Mustanshir called on Badr al-Jamali to restore stability in Egypt. Having accomplished his task and successfully defended Egypt against Seljuk Turks invading from the north, Badr al-Jamali was appointed wazir (vizier, prime minister) of the Fatimid government, which enabled him to establish the Jamali dynasty within the Fatimid dominion. Armenian wazirs ruled Fatimid Egypt for nearly ninety years.14

Badr al-Jamali ruled (from 1074 to 1094) through a tightly controlled military dictatorship, utilizing administrative centralization to strengthen the Egyptian economy and to integrate rural and urban financial and commercial relations. He enjoyed wide support among the Muslim Arabs for his efforts to restrengthen Egypt, but the fact that he also maintained his own Armenian military forces generated opposition from some Arab quarters against his “foreign” rule. His son, Abu’l-Qasim al-Afdal (1094–1121), continued his father’s policies and organized his Armenian military unit, the Afdaliyya, named after him. He suffered a major defeat against the Crusaders in 1099, and although he retaliated in 1102, the Crusaders began to expand throughout the Middle East, including the conquest of Palestine, which at the time was under Fatimid rule. Relations between the Fatimid caliphate and the Armenian Church improved considerably when the Armenian Christian Prince Vahram (Bahram) Pahlavuni, son of Grigor Pahlavuni Magistros, served as Fatimid wazir from 1135 to 1137. Grigor Magistros had served as Byzantine Duke of Vaspurakan and Mesopotamia, and Emperor Constantine IX

Monomachus, having conquered Bagratuni Ani in 1045, ordered Grigor to defend his realm against the threat of local and invading Muslims. The last Armenian wazir, Ruzzik ibn Tala’i, briefly led the Fatimid government from 1161 to 1162 and was assassinated in 1163. His death was followed by years of power struggle and political turmoil, putting an end to the Armenian wazirate in Fatimid Egypt.15 In 1169 the Ayyubid Salah ad-Din seized power and in 1171 removed the last Fatimid Shi‘ite caliph. The Ayyubid dynasty ruled Egypt until 1250 and Syria from 1183 to 1260, during which period the Armenian Rubenian princes in Cilicia, having enjoyed sufficient domestic power and international prestige, established a kingdom in the region.

WARS OF LIBERATION

By 1100 the Rubenians commanded sufficient force and loyalty to emerge as the leading princely house and to weather the complexities arising from Byzantine, Seljuk, Arab, and Crusader conflicts. The Byzantine empire generally preferred to cooperate with the Hetumians, as the Rubenians, with the support of the Franks, agitated against Byzantium for total independence. In 1080 Ruben rebelled against Byzantine rule in northeastern Lernayin Kilikia and between 1080 and 1095 established his control over the territory. Ruben’s son and successor, Constantine (1095–1102), consolidated power over the region centered at the fortress of Vahka and expanded his domain throughout Cilicia at the expense of Byzantines and Seljuks.16

The Crusaders appeared in the Middle East to “liberate” Christendom from Muhammedan forces.17 Armenians in general welcomed them with open arms, and the Cilician monarchs even granted land and fortresses (as beneficium) to them in return for economic and military support. As the Crusaders expanded their influence in the region18 and their military campaigns passed through Cilicia, and princes Constantine and Oshin, believing this opportunity would strengthen their position against the Seljuks, cooperated to reassert Christian dominion in the Middle East against the Muslim threat. Beginning in 1098 the Crusaders established their first state at Edessa (Urfa), followed by Antioch, Tripoli, and Jerusalem, the seat of the Crusader kingdom. Because of their proximity, these states greatly influenced the internal politics of the Armenian principalities, especially under the constant pressure of Byzantine emperor Alexius I Comnenus (r. 1081–1118) to regain control over Cilicia. Thereafter, the sons of Constantine, Toros and Levon, were engaged in constant struggles against the Crusaders and Byzantium to maintain their independence. Toros, continuing his father’s balance-of-power policies, sought to cooperate with the Crusaders and the Byzantines while expanding his domain over Sis and Anazarba, “the seat of his barony.”19 Toros

was successful in securing Cilician independence from both powers but failed to prevent further Seljuk attacks on eastern Cilicia. Despite their cooperation, the benefits accrued to Armenians in Cilicia in the early phases of the Crusader invasions proved ephemeral, as the Crusaders’ intervention in Cilician affairs in fact weakened the Armenian leadership.

In the 1130s the Crusader principality of Antioch posed the greatest threat to Cilician Armenia, as Prince Raymond, the successor of Bohemund II, attempted to extend his control over southeastern Cilicia.20 Unable to achieve his objective through military means, in 1136 he invited Prince Levon to Antioch, where he held the Armenian prince hostage and demanded the territories of Mamistra (Misis), Adana, and Sarvandikar in exchange for his release. Levon consented, but no sooner had he regained his freedom than he reconquered the lost lands.21 Despite their conflicts, immediately thereafter Cilicia and Antioch agreed to cooperate against the common enemy, the Byzantine emperor John II Comnenus (r. 1118–1143). In 1137 the emperor captured the cities of Tarsus, Adana, Mamistra, and Anazarba, and as he prepared to attack the region of Vahka, the Antioch principality agreed to recognize Byzantine supremacy, a policy that isolated Levon against the Byzantine military campaigns. The Byzantine army captured Vahka in 1138, removed the last center of resistance at Raban, and took Levon and his family to Constantinople as prisoners. Levon died in captivity, but in 1142 his son Toros escaped to Cilicia to reorganize the Armenians for independence from Byzantium.22 Soon thereafter the Armenian Church too established itself in the region. In 1147 the catholicosate seat was transferred from Tsovk, where it had been for more than thirty years, to the monastery of Hromkla (1147–1293) on the Euphrates, which at the time was within the jurisdiction of the Franks based at Edessa.23

The timing proved propitious. Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Comnenus (r. 1143–1180) was preoccupied with events on the European front, while Zangid troops under the leadership of Zangi, the founder of the Zangid dynasty (1127–1222), were strengthening their control over Mosul and Aleppo. They directed their expansion largely toward the south, although in the initial phases they seized Edessa in 1144. Two years later the Aleppine Zangid Nur al-Din (1146–1174), Zangi’s son and successor, defeated the Crusader principality of Antioch and in 1154 advanced southward to Damascus and Egypt.24 Nor did the Byzantine attempt under Andronicus Comnenus—with the complicity of Prince Oshin of Lampron—to reassert control over Cilicia prove successful, and in 1152 Toros defeated both in a critical battle near Mamistra. At the same time Sultan Mas‘ud of Iconium (Konya) and Nur al-Din divided between themselves the Cilician territories under the Crusader state at Edessa. Mas‘ud took Marash, Kaysun, Marzuban, and Aintab, while Nur al-Din took Guros, Azaz, Ravandan, Tel Bashir, and Tel Khalit.25 By the time this

phase of the military conflict with Byzantium had ceased, Antronicus had fled. Oshin was required to pay 40,000 Byzantine gold to regain his freedom as well as give his daughter in marriage to Toros’s son, Hetum. For a short time Toros appeared to have secured a guarantee from Byzantium not to appoint a governor to Cilicia.26 An attempt by Manuel I to recruit Mas‘ud’s support against the Rubenians proved fruitless. Prince Reynald of Châtillon of Antioch did capture some Cilician cities, but he subsequently refused to hand them over to Byzantium. Weary of Byzantine intentions, he instead agreed with Toros in 1155–1156 to attack Byzantine forces in Cilicia and Cyprus.

In 1158 Manuel I counterattacked and temporarily captured parts of Cilicia, and for a while it appeared that Cilicia would fall under Byzantine domination. The Seljuk threat at Konya and the principality of Antioch, however, was too crucial for Manuel to remain content with maintaining partial suzerainty over the region, and he went as far as soliciting the support of his former enemy Nur al-Din. Having failed in Konya, in 1164 Manuel solicited the support of Toros and Prince Bohemund III of Antioch (1163–1201) against both the Seljuks in Konya and Nur al-Din. Manuel I failed to sustain their cooperation, however. After the military alliance with Byzantium collapsed, Toros regained and maintained his independence until his death in 1169, succeeded by Ruben’s short reign (1169–1170).27 The military defeats suffered at the hands of the Konyan Seljuks at the Battle of Myriocephalum in 1176 forced Byzantium to withdraw its troops from Cilicia and northern Mesopotamia, thus creating an opportunity for the Rubenian and Hetumian houses to assert control. Despite their weakening hold on Cilicia, between the 1150s and the 1180s, the Byzantine governors (e.g., Andronicus in 1162; Constantine Calamanus in 1164), viewed the Rubenian princes as their subjects and tried to dominate the Cilician political scene. Beginning in the closing decades of the twelfth century, however, under the emperors Isaac II Angelus (r. 1185–1195) and Alexius III Angelus (r. 1195–1203), Byzantium entered its phase of long decline after the Crusaders sacked Constantinople in April 1204.28

Meanwhile, the struggle for power among the Rubenians led to the emergence of Mleh (1170–1175), one of Toros’s brothers and said to have caused the murder of Ruben (Toros’s son), as the uncontested leader of Cilicia. Mleh, whose relations with Toros had deteriorated in the mid1160s, had served in the military of Nur al-Din. In 1172–1173, with Nur al-Din’s blessings, Mleh defeated the Byzantine army in Cilicia, captured the cities of Adana, Mamistra, and Tarsus, and established Sis as the political and administrative center of Cilicia. Sis (modern Kozan), which Nur al-Din granted to Mleh for his loyalty and cooperation against the Crusaders and Byzantium, remained the Cilician capital until 1375. Mleh, however,

failed to defeat the pro-Byzantine Hetumians at Lampron. In the spring of 1173 Bohemund III and the neighboring anti-Mleh barons mobilized forces to capture Mleh, and a year after Nur al-Din’s death in 1174, the Hetumians, supported by the Armenian ecclesiastical leaders, conspired to kill him as punishment for his cooperation with the Muslim Nur al-Din. Mleh was succeeded by his nephew Ruben (1175–1187), who, to redress the murder of his uncle, killed the conspirators. He freed Adana and Tarsus from Byzantine rule, but, like his predecessor, he failed to unite Hetumian Lampron with Cilicia. His successor, Prince Levon, finally defeated the Hetumians and began the process of consolidating power over Cilicia as an independent state.29

The Crusaders, urged by Pope Innocent III (1198–1216), redoubled their efforts to maintain control over the Frankish states, especially in reaction to the military threat from Egypt by the Ayyubid Salah al-Din. Between 1185 and 1187 the latter had expanded his control northward to Damascus, Aleppo, Diarbekir, and Mayyafarqin, followed by Hattin, Acre, Galilee, Samaria, and Jerusalem. The Battle of Hattin (1187), where the Aquitainian king, Guy de Lusignan, had commanded the Frankish forces to their miserable defeat, proved a turning point, as much of the Frankish territories quickly fell to Salah al-Din.30 Encouraged by his military successes against the Franks in the Arab countries, Salah al-Din launched a series of military campaigns against Cilicia but failed. His last offensive was aborted when he fell ill in Damascus and died on March 3, 1193. Nor was Bohemund III successful in defeating Prince Levon. In 1194, when Levon met with him ostensibly to negotiate the future status of Baghras (Gaston), Levon held him hostage and forced him to sign an agreement that provided for Bohemund’s withdrawal from Baghras, the return of territories seized from Ruben, and the marriage of Bohemund’s son, Raymond, with Levon’s niece, Alice.31

Levon’s military and political successes enhanced his international prestige, and on January 6, 1198, he was crowned as Levon I, King of Cilicia, accepting crowns from both the Byzantine emperor Alexius III Angelus (r. 1195–1203) and Holy Roman emperor Henry VI. The coronation took place at the cathedral in Tarsus. In attendance were the Armenian catholicos and a host of foreign dignitaries, including the papal envoy Conrad of Mainz, the Greek metropolitan of Tarsus, and the patriarch of Syrian Jacobites. Conrad of Mainz presented Levon “with the royal insignia, his crown having been brought from the Emperor Henry VI by the imperial chancellor, Conrad of Hildasheim.”32 Levon I thus revived the Armenian kingdom, albeit not in historic Armenia. In the absence of an Armenian kingdom in Greater Armenia, the Cilician kingdom came to represent the Armenian people. Armenians in their historic homeland in Erzerum, Sebastia, and Van and as far away as the Crimea recognized the Cilician kingdom.33