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THE CILICIAN KINGDOM
Cilicia developed into an economically dynamic and prosperous society during the reign of Levon I. He cultivated close ties with commercial networks in Genoa and Venice and alliances with the Teutonic and Hospitaller Knights. Under Levon I, the kingdom minted its own gold and silver coins, one of the paramount privileges of sovereign rule. The geostrategic location of Cilicia on the northeastern corner of the Mediterranean Sea, its ports, roads, and rivers directly linked its economy with the centers of world trade (e.g., Genoa, Venice, France, Crimea) and markets throughout Asia, and the monarchy financed enormous infrastructural development. The various taxes collected from trade and domestic market transactions and transport brought immense wealth into the economy and for the king.34 Levon maintained a considerable degree of independence from Byzantium and Rome despite their pressures to bring the Armenian king into their fold.
SOCIAL STRUCTURE
The Armenian social structure in Cilicia fundamentally reflected the feudal traditions and institutions as developed over the centuries in Greater Armenia.35 At the apex of the hierarchy was the king and the royal court. Next were the nobility; however, in Cilician Armenia feudal lords and barons replaced the nakharars. The smaller landholders were granted the right to serve in the military as cavalry. A merchant capitalist class emerged in the urban centers. They were primarily engaged in trade, but the wealthier families also purchased lands. Of the 1 million total population in Cilicia, nearly 50 percent resided in urban areas, but the barons and aristocratic classes resided in mountain castles isolated from the towns. As in Greater Armenia, the mountainous terrain provided defenses locally, but the scattered communities of the nobility also encouraged centrifugal tendencies. Finally, the Armenian Church also acquired vast tracts of land, and by the thirteenth century the enormous wealth it accumulated in Cilicia enabled it effectively to exert a considerable influence on society and foreign policy.36
Two general socioeconomic classes developed in Armenian Cilicia: azats and anazats. The former was led first by the “lords” (or “princelings”) and after the establishment of the kingdom, by the king. The feudal hierarchy consisted of secular and religious authorities and the landowning classes. The anazats were city and rural dwellers. The Armenian feudal system in Cilicia was largely built on the existing
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Byzantine social structure and estates granted to the Armenian lords who had served as vassals with various military and administrative responsibilities in the Byzantine bureaucracies. After the establishment of the kingdom in 1198, the Armenian monarchs also relied on vast networks of patronage in the form of allotment (benefice) of lands (including fortresses, castles, forests, mines, ports) and distribution of wealth. Cilician political customs and administrative practices, as developed under the Armenian nakharar houses, included the appointment of the high-ranking nobility to hereditary offices and grants of fiefs in exchange for loyalty and military service.37
ADMINISTRATIVE STRUCTURE
The administrative structure of the royal court in the Cilician kingdom also resembled the structure found in Greater Armenia but with greater Byzanto-European cultural influences. The principal administrative offices included the sparapet, the bail, the baillis royaux, the chancellor, the senechal, and the maksapet (superintendent of custom houses). The sparapet (or comes stabuli or constable in the European tradition) performed similar functions as in Greater Armenia (e.g., the Mamikonians) but also had the added responsibilities of the bdeshks to guard the fortress towns along the borders of Cilicia. Unlike the Mamikonians, however, no single family monopolized the sparapetutiun; instead, the Cilician kings entrusted loyal princes with the office. The bail (custodian) specifically referred to individuals who served as custodians of the throne in times of vacancy or served as regents (tagavorahayr) for royal heirs. The royal custodian (baillis royaux) functioned as ambassador and represented the Cilician king in foreign countries. The offices of the chancellory and the seneschal performed similar functions as those in Greater Armenia.38 Cilicia’s geographical position as an international trade center with major port cities made the office of the maksapet one of the most important administrative institutions. It supervised a network of custom houses, bringing revenues from trade transactions at the ports as well as the transfer of goods on land and rivers. The kingdom’s expanding economy and international economic ties also contributed to the development of its legal system.39
JURISPRUDENCE AND THE LEGAL SYSTEM
The legal structure in Cilician Armenia was shaped by Armenian secular and religious traditions, various Middle Eastern and Roman legal traditions, and Byzantine jurisprudence. The sources of law in Cilician Armenia
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included, for example, Assyrian law, the Latin Assizes of Antioch,40 Roman law, Byzantine law, royal decrees issued by the Armenian kings, international treaties, church canons and decisions by church councils (e.g., the Sis Council of 1243) issued as official proclamations (kondak) by the catholicos, as well as the legal opinions and works by major juristphilosophers, including Nerses Shnorhali, Mekhitar Gosh, Smbat Sparapet, and Kirakos Gantzaketsi.41
The legal structure consisted of two parallel secular and ecclesiastical judicial authorities, although the royal court and the monarchy always acted as the final arbiter. At the apex of the secular system was the high or royal court located at Sis. It exercised jurisdiction over cases involving, for example, international trade and financial disputes, inheritance rights within the royal family, administrative issues, authorization to construct fortresses and cities, taxation, criminal cases involving citizens of foreign countries, and capital punishment.42
Below the royal court was the court of princes, presided over by the “prince of princes”; it addressed disputes between the princes, barons, and the major feudal lords. This court also performed appellate functions, as it could confirm or reverse decisions by the lower courts. The latter heard cases involving ownership of private property, primogeniture, inheritance, adoption, debt and amortization of debt, dowry, marriage (age, religion, relations), and divorce. As the national economy and urban centers grew and trade became an essential source of revenue, Levon II (r. 1271–1289) established the bail courts (bailia regis) in the major cities and ports to resolve disputes between merchants and between foreign merchants and local citizens.43
The structure of the religious court was similar to that of the secular court system. At the apex was the court of the catholicosate led mainly by the court of the archbishop at Sis, followed by the bishopric courts. The archbishop of Sis, who also served as the royal chancellor, exercised jurisdiction over both civil and criminal law, particularly in cases between citizens and foreigners, and crimes by foreigners. The religious court had dual jurisdiction. It heard cases involving the clergy, disputes between Christian and non-Christian citizens, and offenses (meghk) committed against church canons and religious doctrines in general.44 In certain legal areas, such as marriage, the religious courts shared responsibilities with their secular counterparts.
CILICIAN ARMENIAN CULTURE AND
THE SILVER AGE
The invention of the Armenian alphabet in the fifth century under the Arshakuni dynasty in Greater Armenia had inaugurated the Golden Age.
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During the twelfth century, referred to as the Silver Age, Armenian culture, now in Cilicia (beyond the historic Armenian homeland) experienced remarkable cultural developments in the cosmopolitan environment.45 The commercial and diplomatic ties with the major trading centers in the West complemented the domestic advances in the sciences, theology, and philosophy by renowned scientists, philosophers, writers, poets, and painters. Among them were writers Catholicos Nerses Shnorhali (the Gracious, 1102–1173); his nephew and successor Grigor Tgha (ca. 1130–1193); Nerses Lambronatsi (Nerses of Lambron, 1153–1198); Hetum Patmich (Historian) of Korikos (thirteenth century), author of La Flor des Estoires de la Terre d’Orient in Old French for Pope Clement V (1305–1314); the chronicler Smbat the Constable (1208–1276), the brother of King Hetum I; the medical writer, Mekhitar Heratsi (Mekhitar of Khoy, ca. 1120–1200); the philosopher Vahram Rabuni (thirteenth century); the musicologists Toros Tapronts and Gevorg Skevratsi (thirteenth century); and the renowned miniaturists Grigor Mlichetsi (Krikor Mlijetsi) of Skevra (twelfth century), Toros Roslin of Hromkla (thirteenth century), and Sargis Pitsak (Sarkis Bidzag) of Sis (fourteenth century).46
Cilician cultural leaders maintained close ties with foreign cultures and introduced them to Armenians. For example, Grigor II Vkayaser (1065–1105) translated works from the Greek Orthodox Church into Armenian. Nerses Lambronatsi translated various Latin ecclesiastical rites. Armenian jurisprudence and philosophy also benefited from translations of various Latin, Greek, and Syriac secular and religious works. By the twelfth century, the Armenian Cilician kingdom had become home to some of the most productive Armenian religious and cultural institutions (e.g., scriptoria) as in Sis, Hromkla, Anazarba, Tarsus, Lambron, and Korikos.47 It must have been possible to imagine that the losses suffered in Greater Armenia could be compensated for with productive work in the fortress-monasteries and cathedrals ensconced in the beautiful mountains and vales of Cilicia.
CILICIA BETWEEN EAST AND WEST
The Cilician kingdom confronted a host of military conflicts and diplomatic tensions as shaped by the geopolitical environment in which it conducted its domestic affairs. The foreign policy objectives of the kingdom included, in addition to commercial relations, the formation and reformulation of alliances with or against the Crusaders, Mamluks, Seljuk Turks, and Mongols, and control over strategic areas, such as the port city of Ayas, and Antioch, Baghras, and Payas.48 These foreign policy issues were compounded by incessant internal tensions, particularly those pertaining
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to succession. Despite its access to the sea, the Cilician kingdom lacked effective institutional mechanisms to rectify the shortcomings of the Arshakuni and Bagratuni political systems. In fact, access to the sea appeared largely irrelevant to the internal dynamics of the clash between centrifugal and centripetal tendencies. The Mamluk invasions further complicated the regional conflicts, exacerbated the internal divisions, and ultimately led to collapse of the Cilician kingdom.
The Crusaders and the Seljuk posed the principal threat to the monarchy soon after its establishment. Armenian secular and religious leaders were fully aware of the political implications of accepting a crown from the Holy Roman emperor for the coronation of Levon I. In granting a royal crown, Pope Innocent III and his envoy Conrad of Mainz expected the Armenian monarchy to acknowledge the Pope as the supreme leader of Christendom, a papal policy objective since the First Crusades. Levon I, in his turn, granted lands to the Crusader orders; the Hospitallers received Seleucia, Norpert (Castellum Novum), and Camardias, and the Teutonic Knights, Amoudain and Haruniye.49 Initially the interests of the Crusades and the Cilician kingdom coincided, as both sought to contain Seljuk and Byzantine expansionism.50 To strengthen his ties with the West, Levon I and his supporters were willing, as a matter of formality, to “concede a ‘special respect’ to the pope as the successor of St. Peter.”51 The Armenian Church, however, vehemently opposed such foreign doctrinal encroachment on Armenian orthodoxy and religious cum national prerogatives, and widened the proand anti-Rome factional chasms (reminiscent of the proand anti-Persia factional struggles that had divided Greater Armenia centuries earlier).
In 1215 the Fourth Crusade attempted to strike against Salah al-Din’s power in Egypt but the Ayyubid caliph refused to capitulate, and in their struggle for regional hegemony, both powers sought to expand their dominion across Cilicia. Salah al-Din had become a formidable regional force in control of both Egypt and Syria, but the Crusaders, having attacked Constantinople in 1204, felt confident of their military power to push farther east and south.52 In efforts to reassert his control in regional geopolitics, Levon I, after much machination and maneuver, in 1216 succeeded in gaining control over Antioch by placing his grandson Ruben Raymond in power. Three years later, however, members of the local Antiochene nobility conspired to overthrow Ruben Raymond, while Seljuk troops invaded Cilicia, causing heavy Armenian losses and physical damage in some areas, such as Lampron. Seljuks took a number of Hetumian princes hostage, whose release Levon I secured only after submitting to Seljuk demands. Levon promised to surrender a number of fortresses as a ransom to the Seljuk Sultan, to provide 300 soldiers per annum, and to pay annual taxes.53