¯niko Instituto Byzantio
¯n, 2002, pp. 25–39.
80
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70 Anthony Kaldellis, Hellenism in Byzantium: The Transformation of Greek Identity and the Reception of the Classical Tradition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 42–111; Gill Page, Being Byzantine: Greek Identity before the Ottomans, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008, pp. 46–52, 76–85, 267–9.
71 Speros Vryonis, ‘Byzantine cultural self-consciousness in the fifteenth century’, in Slobodan Curcic and Doula Mouriki (eds), The Twilight of Byzantium: Aspects of Cultural and Religious History in the Late Byzantine Empire. Papers from the Colloquium Held at Princeton University 8–9 May 1989, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991, pp. 5–14 at 5–6; Angelov, ‘Byzantine ideological reactions’, pp. 299–303.
72 George Akropolites, Χρονικη
´ Συγγραϕη
´, A.D. Panagiotou (ed.), Athens: Kanake
2003, pp. 117–21, 293–305; George Pachymeres, Georges Pachymérès Relations Historiques, Albert Failler (ed.), Vitalien Laurent (tr.), Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae 24, 5, Paris: Belles Lettres, 1984–2000, I.519–24; Nikephoros Gregoras, Nicephori Gregorae Historiae Byzantinae, Immanuel Bekker and Ludwig Schopen (eds), Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae 12, Bonn: Weber, 1829–55, pp. 148–9; Nicol, Last Centuries, pp. 22–4; George Ostrogorsky, ‘The chancery of the Grand Komnenoi: imperial tradition and political reality’, Αρχει´ον Πο´ντου 35, Athens, 1979, 299–332 at 321–32.
73 D.M. Nicol, The Despotate of Epiros, Oxford: Blackwell, 1957, pp. 187–8; D.M. Nicol, The Despotate of Epiros 1267–1479: A Contribution to the History of Greece in the Middle Ages, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984, pp. 35–7.
74 Dimiter Angelov, Imperial Ideology and Political Thought in Byzantium 1204–1330, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 83–4, 102–5; Angelov, ‘Byzantine ideological reactions’, 295.
75 Angelov, ‘Byzantine ideological reactions’, 295–6; Nikolaos Oikonomides, ‘La chancellerie impériale de Byzance du 13e au 15e siècle’, Revue des Etudes Byzantines 43, 1985, 166–95 at 184–5, 191, 194.
76 Theodore Metochites, Miscellanea Philosophica et Historica, C.G. Müller and Theophilus Kiessling (eds), Leipzig: Vogel, 1821, reprinted Amsterdam: Hakker, 1966, pp. 230–7, 725–6, 751–7; Ihor Sevcenko, ‘The decline of Byzantium seen through the eyes of its intellectuals’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 15, 1961, 167–86 at 181–6; Angelov, Imperial Ideology, pp. 197–8; Nicol, ‘Byzantine political thought’, pp. 75–6.
77 Harris, Byzantium and the Crusades, pp. 94–101.
78 Lilie, Crusader States, pp. 51–3.
79 A.J. Simpson, Studies on the Composition of Niketas Choniates’ Historia, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 2004, pp. 25–63.
80 Choniates 538–9.
81 Choniates 61, 68–70.
82 Choniates 416–17: ‘Ανcρ διa µνÜυης γεσθαι γαθς καd διηνεκος καd µακαριζεσθαι δικαιως το τÛλους παρa το ς εϕρονοσιν ξιος, ο µÞνον οτιπερ εs εrχε το γÛνους καd πολλν κ τριγονιας κατρχεν θνν λλ οτι τÿ το Χριοτο
πÞθÿω πυρουµενος περ τοfς πουδÜποτε τν τÞτε Χριοτιανν ατοκρατορος
πατριδα καd χλιδcν βασιλειον καd ναπαυλαν καd τον οκακοι µετa τν ϕιλτατων
λβον καd τeν περÜϕανον βιοτον παρωοαµενος ειλετο συγκακουχε σθαι το ς κατa Παλαιοτινην Χριοτιανο ς πbρ το νÞµατος το Χριοτο καd τς το ζωοπαρÞχου
ταϕου’ Translation from Niketas Choniates, O City of Byzantium: Annals of Niketas Choniates, H.J. Magoulias (tr.), Detroit: Wayne State University, 1984, pp. 228–9; see also Choniates 412–17; Harris, Byzantium and the Crusades, pp. 138–40.
83 Akropolites, Χρονικη
´ Ευγγραϕη
´, pp. 20–7; Ruth Macrides, ‘1204: the Greek sources’,
in Laiou (ed.), Urbs Capta, pp. 141–50.
84 Page, Being Byzantine, pp. 90, 129–37, 172–6.
81
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85 Demetrios Chomatenos, Demetrii Chomateni Ponemata Diaphora, Gunther Prinzing (ed.), Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae 38, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2002, pp.
372–3 (no. 114); Pseudo-Kodinos, Traité des offices, Jean Verpeaux (ed. and tr.), Paris: Éditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1966, pp. 257–8; Angelov, Imperial Ideology, pp. 387–92.
86 Pachymeres, Georges Pachymérès Relations Historiques, I.136–7; Pseudo-Kodinos, Traité des offices, pp. 255–6; Angelov, ‘Byzantine ideological reactions’, 307–9.
87 Franz Miklosich and Joseph Müller (eds), Acta et Diplomata Graeca Medii Aevi: sacra et profana, collecta et edita, 6, Vienna: Scientia Verlag, 1860–90, II.190–2.
88 Angelov, Imperial Ideology, pp. 351–416.
89 Kaldellis, Hellenism in Byzantium, pp. 219–24, 283–388; Vryonis, ‘Byzantine cultural self-consciousness’, 7–14; Michael Angold, ‘Byzantine “nationalism” and the Nicaean Empire’, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 1, 1984, 49–70 at 50–6, 62–8; Paul Magdalino, ‘Hellenism and nationalism in Byzantium’, in Tradition and Transformation in Medieval Byzantium, Aldershot: Ashgate, 1991, pp. 10–18.
90 Kaldellis, Hellenism in Byzantium, pp. 295–6, 338–40, 354–9.
91 Page, Being Byzantine, pp. 186–208, 221–32; David Jacoby, ‘The encounter of two societies: western conquerors and Byzantines in the Peloponnesus after the Fourth Crusade’, American Historical Review 78, 1973, 873–906 at 891–903.
92 Page, Being Byzantine, pp. 209–17; Jacoby, ‘The encounter’, 897–8; Teresa Shawcross, The Chronicle of Morea: Historiography in Crusader Greece, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009, pp. 190–219.
93 Page, Being Byzantine, pp. 209–24.
94 Doukas, Ducas Istoria Turco-Bizantina (1341–1462), Vasile Grecu (ed.), Bucharest: Editura Academiei, 1958, p. 329; Nicol, Last Centuries, pp. 377–8.
95 Kaldellis, Hellenism in Byzantium, pp. 300–1, 311, 338–42, 349–68, 381–3, 393–4; Page, Being Byzantine, pp. 123–9, 146–72, 210–18, 270–7.
96 George Akropolites, The History: Introduction, Translation and Commentary, Ruth Macrides (tr.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, pp. 89–90.
97 Vryonis, ‘Byzantine cultural self-consciousness’, 8–9.
82
4
C O N F L I C T A N D
C O H A B I TAT I O N
Marriage and diplomacy between Latins
and Cilician Armenians, c.1097–1253
Natasha Hodgson
In recent years, historians have increasingly emphasised the importance of marriage and family ties between early crusaders and established Christian groups in northern Syria during the process of settlement in the Latin East. As the First Crusaders travelled through strategic areas en route to the Holy Land such as Cilicia, the Taurus Mountains and northern Syria, they came into contact with a range of existing Christian communities, predominantly comprised of Greeks, Armenians and Jacobites.1 Some were governed by Armenian lords displaced from their ancestral homelands by the expansion of the Byzantine Empire in the early eleventh century, or by later advances of the Seljuk Turks. These nobles occupied frontier cities on the edge of Byzantine territories, administering rule on behalf of the Greeks, or striving to establish their own independent lordships.
Most historians agree that when the First Crusaders began to settle in the East, a special relationship grew up between the Latin newcomers and the Armenian Christians. Key leaders of the crusade married into Armenian noble
families in order to establish themselves, gaining lands, military support and much-needed cash in order to pursue their campaigns. The important influence of Armenian intermarriage on the throne of Jerusalem has attracted considerable attention.2
However, the legacy of these matches and new relationships in the later twelfth and thirteenth centuries between Armenian nobility and Latin settlers in northern Syria have yet to be fully explored. This chapter will address the issue of cohabitation and identity in a rather literal sense, focusing on the role played by marriage in what has been christened the ‘brilliant diplomacy’ of Cilician Armenia during the period in which the kingdom developed to its height.3 As Mutafian and other modern historians have emphasised, the Armenians created a range of political ties with Latins, Greeks, Muslims and Mongols in their attempts to preserve a degree of independence, often in recognisably distinct phases, but dynastic links were usually confined to the Christian groups.4 This chapter will focus on the period in 83
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which the Rupenids and later Hethoumids built and consolidated the kingdom of Cilicia before Hethoum I officially placed it under Mongol overlordship during his visit to Qaracorum in 1253. Particular emphasis will be placed on dynastic ties between northern Syria and Cilicia, and their impact on the survival of an independent Christian presence in the Near East.
In western historiography the crusades have perhaps played an exaggerated role in the study of Armenian history and culture.5 ‘Greater’ Armenia, located in the region between the Pontus and Taurus mountain ranges has a unique position in the context of ‘East–West’ conflict and contact. In the first millennium of the Christian period, the geographical situation of the Armenian plateau made it a
‘buffer state’:6 a strategically desirable prize for the Romans and Byzantines in opposition to the rival empires of the Persians, Arabs, Seljuks, Mongols and Mamluks. Throughout their history, the Armenians have fought to preserve their political, cultural and religious independence from dominion by foreign powers.
They have survived as an ethnic and religious minority while their homeland was under Byzantine, Arab, Mongol, Turkish, Russian and Soviet rule. Even during the medieval period, influential expatriate populations flourished in Macedonia, Thrace, Cappadocia, Bithynia, Anatolia, Georgia, Cilicia and Cyprus.
Armenia lays claim to the title of oldest Christian state, derived from the establishment of Christianity as the official religion in 301. Non-Chalcedonian doctrine and an alphabet specially designed to enable Christian teaching in the Armenian language have helped to preserve this distinctive culture. With the re-emergence of Armenia as a new republic in the post-Soviet era, scholars have identified a need to provide historical continuity to the existence of a people who suffered greatly to keep their identity under foreign rule. The idea of a shared heritage helps to create and maintain links with the present-day Armenian Diaspora.7 There is a palpable desire to ‘rewrite’ the history books in order to reflect the contribution of Armenian subjects to wider historical events and underline their importance in political, economic, cultural and social terms.
In undertaking such work, however, the historian must tread carefully to avoid associating modern and politically sensitive issues with the medieval past.
This trend has been reflected in recent crusade historiography, where scholars have increasingly emphasised the central role played by Armenians in supporting and facilitating the early crusaders’ settlement of the Eastern Mediterranean region. The sense of the First Crusade as a western ‘achievement’ has rightly given way to a more subtle understanding of the existing political, military and social undercurrents in the Near East, all of which made possible the capture of Jerusalem by a loose coalition of European warriors and pilgrims in 1099. Some modern textbooks on the crusades now have a section specifically devoted to the role of the Armenians, while others incorporate them under the wider context of native Christians and settlement.8 In a study specifically devoted to Armenians and crusading, J.H. Forse was keen to maximise the beneficial aspects of relationships with Armenians for the First Crusaders, suggesting that closer social, cultural and religious ties existed between the two than other Christian groups in the East. The 84
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presence of common enemies in the form of Turks and Byzantines bound them closely together, despite occasional land disputes between individuals.9
The Armenians of the ancestral homelands beyond the immediate vicinity of Cilicia, however, seem to have attached less significance to the arrival of the crusaders. R.W. Thomson, in his examination of how the crusaders impacted on the broader Armenian world view, suggests that ‘a general lack of interest in the West’ persisted until the late twelfth century.10 He emphasised the comparative insignificance of crusader activity to the Armenian people and culture, exposing the flaws in a western historiographical approach that has focused on interaction with Europe rather than the Armenian experience as a whole. This is partly because the Armenian language, so crucial to the preservation of Armenian culture, is still a very specialised area of study for most historical academics.11
However, in a collection based on conflict and cohabitation during the era of the crusades, it is not the place of this chapter to challenge such limitations by focusing solely on an Armenian perspective. Instead, intermarriage will provide a focal point for interaction between the two cultures.
It is to Cilicia and its immediate vicinity that we must turn in order to look for the impact of the Latins’ arrival on existing social and cultural circles, and where the closest ties developed between Frankish and Armenian aristocracies. Its geographical situation made it a highly strategic area, with defensible positions in the mountains guarding trade routes between Anatolia and Syria, and controlling access to the Mediterranean and Cyprus.12 A collection of essays edited by Boase gave a brief overview of historical events in this region at the time of the crusades, but focused predominantly on its surviving fortifications and the influence of the military orders.13 Mutafian has also published extensively on this area, emphasising the central role of Cilicia between empires and charting the development of the kingdom to its fourteenth-century demise.14 Ghazarian’s study runs from the ancient and medieval roots of Cilicia into the fifteenth century, but gives only a cursory overview of this period and is aimed at a more popular audience.15
One of the latest and most exhaustive contributions to the early period of crusader settlement is Dédéyan’s account of interrelations between Armenians, Muslims, Greeks and Latins up to 1150. He discusses how Armenian nobles, ecclesiastics and society as a whole adapted not only to the arrival of the crusaders, but to the changing role of the Byzantine Empire and the political shifts in the Muslim world. He concurs that, despite their occasional disagreements, the Armenians found the Latins more tolerable neighbours than the Byzantines, and finds examples of cross-cultural convergence from both perspectives among aristocratic and ecclesiastical circles.16 Finally, a recent collection of essays entitled Armenian Cilicia addresses political, cultural and social issues relating to the area from the medieval to modern periods.17
To date, historians of the Latin East have emphasised Armenian involvement in the early period of crusader settlement, especially in northern Syria, but the later twelfth and early thirteenth centuries have received comparatively little attention since Claude Cahen’s 1940 study, La Syrie du Nord.18 During the last quartile of 85
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the twelfth century, Byzantine imperial power in northern Syria began to wane; growing Muslim unity all but forced the Latin Christians out of the kingdom of Jerusalem, and Armenian lords made a bid for supremacy over Antioch. Cilicia emerged as a kingdom in its own right, with dedicated support and approval from the West, and the Armenian Church was recognised by the papacy.19 Growing Armenian interest in Cyprus with the establishment of the first Armenian archbishop, Tateos, in 1179 also became apparent. By
the mid-thirteenth century, however, a new threat was encroaching from the East: the Mongol Empire. The Christians in the Latin East were caught in a vice as the Mamluks also rose to power in the south. By the 1250s, Bohemond VI of Antioch-Tripoli was prepared to swear allegiance to the Mongols in order to support his Cilician father-in-law, King Hethoum. This suggests that the alliance had become critical to securing Latin survival in the north.20
The relationship between ruling families in northern Syria was consolidated at least in part through dynastic alliances. Marriage is, of course, only one aspect of medieval diplomatic practice. As MacEvitt asserts, while it is tempting to view relations between the Franks and indigenous peoples solely in terms of religiously oriented conflict, the ‘network of families, civic relationships, professional ties, and associations with churches, shrines and holy places’ often crossed those boundaries, and were sometimes more important for establishing both group and individual identities.21 Dynastic alliances between ruling families, however, were the linchpin of political stability. They included transactions of land and cash, created networks for military support, and forged ties of kinship and obligation.
When considering the role of marriage in any medieval context, the source material is primarily concerned with three key issues: the legitimacy of a marriage; the fulfilment of its agreed terms; and succession. Even within the confines of medieval Latin Christianity, these issues and the practices associated with them varied widely and were often hotly debated. When intermarriage between cultures and religious denominations occurs, a further set of problems may be presented to the historian. Armenians, as non-Chalcedonians, were technically viewed as heretics, but it seems that from the start marriage between Latin newcomers and established Christian populations was deemed acceptable. Rüdt-Collenberg suggests that Armenian practices remained reasonably similar to western and Orthodox patterns in terms of age of marriage, divorce and remarriage, although the murky politics that characterised the nascent kingdom of Armenian Cilicia seems to have led to a rather high proportion of noble marriages ending in violent deaths. Despite adhering to different degrees of separation, the Armenian Church also appears to have become increasingly tolerant of marriage between near relatives before the thirteenth century.22 MacEvitt believes it unlikely that either Frankish or Armenian partners saw conversion as a necessary prerequisite to such a match during this early period.23
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