[231] The same may be true of Maghak'ia's teacher, vardapet Yovhannes kaxik 0rotnec'i, "son of the great prince Iwane, from the line of the first princes of Siwnik" (437). At the end of our period, the Spanish ambassador Clavijo reported on a similar situation. Enroute to Timur in 1403, Clavijo lodged in the southeastern district of Maku with the Armenian lord of that mountainous area, a Roman Catholic named Nur ad-Din:
The governor [Nur ad-Din] further had at home there another son, younger than that other, and in conversation he informed us that this second son of his, not being a man of arms like his brother, but learned and a skilled grammarian in the Armenian language, he desired that should God grant us to return home from Samarqand passing by the way of this his castle, he would fain confide this youth to our care, to carry him with us to Spain. Then our King, who, he trusted might favor him, would recommend him to the Pope, beseeching his holiness to ordain him a bishop over his father's province. It is indeed a wonder how the Christians of this Castle of Maku hold their own thus surrounded by the Moslem folk and so far estranged from all Christian succour: they are in fact of the Armenian nation, but of the Roman Catholic belief, and they serve God in the orthodox rite (431).
The above quotation has elements in
common with Rubruck's remarks also. Shahnshah and Nur ad-Din both
were attempting to ally with the might of the Catholic Church,
to bring in a powerful foreign power to give them political [232]
leverage at home or (perhape better) to secure the future existence
of the family holdings--under control of the clerical rather than
secular lords of the family.
With the Islamization of the Mongols,
the naxarars were under direct pressure to convert. However,
the polygamy of the late 13th century naxarars may indicate
that some lords were easing into the Islamic practises of their
Mongol overlords even before being obliged to apostasize. Perhaps
they practised two religions. Specific references to the conversion
of lords in contradistinction to the general conversion
of the populace, abound from sources dating to the end of our
period. Clavijo and T'ovma Mecop'ec'i both mention the Armenian
prince Taharten, governor of Erznjan. His son by a daughter of
the emperor of Trebizond, was a Muslim and (perhaps because of
his faith) Timur's governor of the same city (439). Another probable
Armenian lordly convert to Islam is the emir Ezdin of Van, whom
T'ovma Mecop'ec'i described as being "of the line of king
Senek'erim", i.e., of some Arcrunid background (440). [233]
The Timurids forced certain princes to convert. Bagarat, king
of Georgia, was forced to convert, but the apostasy was only temporary,
and to save his life (441). In the late 14th century, Timur's
grandson, 'Umar, forced several conversions:
During the first year of his reign, he forcibly made to apostasize three princes of our people who had remained like a tiny cluster of grapes among us: the son of Iwane and grandson of Burht'el, Burht'el ter of Orotan, of the Orbelean family; his brother Smbat whom they took with his family to Samarqand (but subsequently, through divine mercy and their prayers they returned to their patrimony); the ter of Eghegis named Tarsayich, son of Gorgon they caused to apostasize; the ter of Maku they detached from the false and diophysitic [beliefs] of Aght'armayut'iwn [Roman Catholicism], and the son of an azat (azatordi) named Azitan from Aghc'uac' village in the Ayraratean district. Later, however, they repented and became true Believers in Christ and heirs of the Kingdom (442).
The ter of Maku referred to in
the above quotation probably is the first son of Clavijo's host,
Nur ad-Din. Clavijo related that Nur ad-Din came to terms with
Timur, and pledged to serve in his army with 20 horsemen (443).
[234] But this was not enough. Timur demanded religious adhesion:
Next, Timur, noting that the lord of the castle had so fine a son, it were, he said, indeed a pity the youth should be kept mewed up at home, and he, Timur, would receive him, carrying him off in his train to become the companion of his grandson. This prince, the grandson of Timur is named Omar Mirza, and he was at that time already established as governor ruling over the whole of Weetern Persia, in which region Maku is included. The young man whom Timur thus carried off in his train is at this present moment living with Omar Mirza, and has been raised to be a commander in his army. But they have forced him against his will to become a Moslem, having bestowed on him the name of Siurgatmish, and he now is captain of the guards of Omar Mirza. Outwardly he professes himself a Moslem: but not of free will, for at heart he is still a Catholic (444).
As a result of the unsettled, unsafe times, some lords of completely impregnable fortresses, unable to maintain themselves in any other way, turned to banditry. Prime sources of loot were the increasingly rare caravans passing over the bandit's lands, or even booty captured from Timurids and Turkmens. Sometimes bandit lords operated alone, sometimes in alliance with others, Christian or Muslim. T'ovma Mecdp'ec'i speaks of one such mixed group of Kurdish Muslim and Armenian Christian brigands from Sasun and Xut' which looted a Timurid camp [235] in southwestern Armenia in the early 1390's (445). The Spanish ambassador Clavijo encountered Caucasian bandits both enroute to Erzinjan from Trebizond in 1403, and on his return, again in northwestern Armenia and southwestern Georgia: "for though they are Armenians and profess to be Christians, all are robbers and brigands; indeed they forced us, before we were let free to pass, to give a present of our goods as toll for right of passage" (446).
The lord encountered in the Trebizond
area in 1403, probably a Graeco-Georgian, was typical of this
group of mountain lords:
He proceded to explain to us that he lived in that barren land, where indeed we found him now at peace, but that he had continually to defend himself against the Turks who were his neighbors on all sides, against whom he was ever at war. Further he said he and his men had nothing to live on, except it were what they could get given them by those who passed through their country, or what they could come to by plundering the lands of their neighbors, and hence he, Cabasica, must now implore of us to give him some aid as a free gift in the form of money or goods. In answer we stated that we were ambassadors and not merchants, being envoys whom our mastsr the King of Spain was sending to the Lord Timur, and that further we carried no goods with us except what we were bearing as gifts to Timur. That Tatar ambassador of Timur, who was our travelling companion, here broke in, saying that though he well knew the Emperor of Trebizond was the overlord of all that country, he was in fact none the less a vassal potentate tributary to Timur, wherefore it was incumbent [236] on him, Cabasica, that we all should be allowed to pass those borders without let or hindrance. To this Cabasica, backed by his men, replied that this all might indeed be very true, but that they were in a state only able to exist by what they cou.ld obtain in the manner that had been set forth to us; averring that by necessity their stress of wherewithal to eat would cause them even to plunder and raid into the homelands of the Lord Timur himself (447).
Despite the extremely bleak situation
across the Armenian highlands at the end of the 14th century,
the sources still report a few instances of secular and clerical
Armenian lords enjoying some influence with the Timurids. Among
the secular rulers belong the unnamed woman ruler of Igdir castle
(448), and the Armenian lord of Bayazid (449). Another such lord
was the Roman Catholic Nur ad-Din, mentioned earlier (450). Among
the clerical lords enjoying some influence with the Timurids belong
the director of Mecop' monastery, Yovhannes (451), and the noted
intellectual, vardapet Grigor Tat'ewac'i, who was a confidant
of Timur's son, Miran (452).
[237] At the beginning of this chapter
it was mentioned that Adontz, Manandyan, and Toumanoff disagreed
on the duration of the naxarar "system". Toumanoff
placed its destruction in the 11th century, Adontz in the early
13th century and Manandyan, after the mid-14th century, though
each of the scholars acknowledged that vestiges of the "system"
survived into later times. From the quantitative standpoint, Toumanoff
was quite right in placing the beginning of the end in the 11lth
century. After the Saljuq invasions, the number of remaining naxarar
Houses (which had steadily declined from about 50 in the 5th century
to 20 ca. 800 A.D.) (453) numbered about five: the Arcrunids,
Bagratids, Mamikonids, Orbeleans, and Pahlawunids. From the standpoint
of "naxarar ways" which Manandyan spoke of without
defining, at the end of the 14th century there were still some
"naxarars" alive in Armenia, as this chapter
has attempted to demonstrate. Adontz, however, who wrote of a
"system" destroyed in the early 13th century was incorrect
in his hypothesis. To Adontz, hereditary tenure and seniority
were fundamental features of this "system", yet he himself
admitted that beginning already in the 5th century, the rule of
seniority was being undermined. By the 10th century a fundamental
change had occurred in the essence of the "system" (454).
What the Mongol invasions swept away [238] was a lordly society,
but one more sentimentally reminiscent of, than actually resembling,
the Arsacid naxarars so brilliantly described by Adontz.
This study has examined various aspects
of Armenian history during the 13-14th centuries. Commencing with
a review of the Armenian and non-Armenian sources (chapter one),
the political and military history of Armenia in our period, and
in the period immediately preceding it was presented in chapter
two. The third and final chapter concerned Armenia's nobility,
the naxarars.
From 1220, when the Mongols first appeared in the Caucasus, to 1385 when Tokhtamysh invaded, a period of 165 years had elapsed. During that time different parts of Armenia had experienced no less than 12 foreign invasions, and the severity of Mongol rule had triggered three Armeno-Georgian rebellions. Mongol centrifugation had resulted in two major uprisings of Mongol nomads resident in the Caucasus itself. Moreover, with the collapse of the Il-Khanid state in the 1330's, a condition of "internal war" had existed in most parts of historical Armenia, as mutually antagonistic bands (and armies) of Mongol, Turkmen, and Kurdish nomads fought one another and the sedentary native population. Religious persecution and economic chaos had long since become the norm. In 1386-87, 1394-96, and 1399-1403, Armenia was subjected to what were perhaps the most brutal invasions yet, led or directed by Timur. [240]
By focussing on the information regarding each of the major invasions provided in the Armenian, Georgian, and relevant non-Caucasian sources, the specific features of each have been set forth.
Each successive invasion--Saljuq (11th
century, introduced as a prototypical example), Khwarazmian, Mongol
and Timurid--pushed before it, brought along with it, or dragged
in its wake into Asia Minor, thousands of virtually uncontrollable
nomadic warriors who (when totally unchecked) devastated the cities,
searching for plunder, destroyed the countryside and the complex
irrigation systems, turning cultivated fields into pasturage for
their sheep herds, and reduced the possibilities for internal
and international trade by infesting the trade routes between
cities, and attacking caravans. Following the noted Mongolist,
Bertold Spuler, we have described this element as Turkmen, under
which is understood not necessarily or solely a Turkic or Turcophone
population, but rather that plunder-hungry element among the nomads,
in contradistinction to those forces interested in the establishment
of stable forms of government, and a sedentary or semi-sedentary
existence. Centralizing forces within the various Turco-Mongol
societies described, were obliged to support a very delicate balance.
On the one hand, the warlike Turkmens were the best, most determined
fighters, and so were necessary for victorious expeditions, On
the other hand, the Turkmens' impulse to [241] destroy and move
on had to be fought--sometimes literally--in order for the more
sedentary elements to impose taxation on the conquered peoples,
and attempt to exploit them in a more systematic fashion. But
eventually the Turkmens were victorious, destroying the organized
Turkish and Mongol states.
As was pointed out in the final chapter,
the wild, unrestrained, plunder-hungry element was present from
the very first, during the Mongol invasions and of course during
the domination of Armenia (beginning in 1236). In a sense, even
the "centralizing elements", or let us say "representatives
of the central government"' became "Turkmenized".
The Mongols did not know the meaning of fair taxation; application
of the principle of peaceful exploitation through taxation was
not well understood by the rulers of the various nomadic societies,
and as a result, conquered countries were squeezed dry of human
and material resources. With the Islamization of the Mongols,
and the ethnic fusion of Turkic and Mongol groups, aIl aspects
of life became further "Turkmenized". The illegal, extraordinary
exactions placed upon taxed communities (reported in the sources
almost from the first) were thereby given a religious justification.
Once again under the Mongols, as had happened during the invasions
of the Saljuqs and the Khwarazmians, fanatical Islam was wed to
the nomads' [242] lust for booty. From toward the end of the 13th
century to beyond the end of the l4th century, anti-Christian
persecutions prevailed almost uninterruptedly. What earlier had
been punishment meted out to an occasionally recalcitrant naxarar
became the generalized fate of all Christians refusing to convert.
Nomads of all kinds of backgrounds, circulating in different parts
of the Armenian highlands, attacked churches, monasteries, wealthy
and poor Christians.
During the resurgence and expansion
of Georgia in the late l2th and early l3th centuries, the Georgian
monarchs used three control mechanisms in dealing with the nobles:
(1) manipulation of precedence among the lords and its corollary,
the co-optation of allegiance; (2) circumvention of the lords,
and (3) de-naxararization. By the end of the l2th century
the Georgian Crown had managed temporarily to rein in the most
dangerous centrifugal forces--but only for the moment. In that
brief historical moment (from the last decades of the l2th century
until ca. 1236) Georgian culture flourished and blossomed. Under
the aegis of the Georgian Crown and the Armeno-Georgian family
of Zak'arean/Mxargrceli, Armenia recovered much of its irredenta,
and flourished as a united state.
[243] The nobility of the Zak'arid revival
consisted of different elements: men of ambition and military
talents from newly-arisen families, who were rewarded by their
Zak'arid overlords with grants of land and/or the rights of administration;
mecatun merchants; the remnants of the ancient dynastic
families: Mamikonids, Bagratids, Arcrunids, Orbeleans, and others,
who in the changed situation of the early 13th century all became
Zak'arid vassals; and the clerical nobility representing the different
Armenian churches.
It must be stated that the Zak'arid
revival was of such short duration that the achievement--a centralized
Armenian state under Georgian overlordship--is difficult to evaluate.
As we illustrated, during the Zak'arid revival and throughout
the 13th century there were numerous conflicts among the naxarars
(secular and clerical) over land. The lords in this period were
not quarreling over more orchards and choice hunting grounds,
but over the tolls for right of passage from the trade routes
criss-crossing the highlands. There were other superficial similarities
with Arsacid naxararism, but we stress that they were more
apparent than real. The feud, an important feature of Arsacid
naxararism, existed in the 13th century as well, but the
obligation of blood vengeance had been [244] replaced by an elaborate
schedule of payments of "blood price" with each class
of society having its monetary worth, written into a law code.
The old term for the inalienable clan patrimony, the hayrenik',
which in Arsacid times had meant land, in the 13th century referred
to both moveable and immoveable property, hereditary or purchased,
and included money and shares in business enterprises as well.
The service obligation of a subordinate to his lord in this period
did indeed include military service, but the vassals also paid
taxes in cash. Hereditary tenure and seniority were not the main
features of this society. Many of the principals of the day were
appointees of the Zak'arids, rewarded for their talents. The Zak'arids
established marriage ties with the most prominent of the old prestigious
families of eastern Armenia. Thus, for a brief moment, it appears
that a feudal "command" type of society had been generated--with
the prfncipals appointed by the Zak'arids and firmly under their
control.
In this connection, it is most interesting
to note certain remarks made by Adontz toward the end of his study,
as he compared and contrasted hie interpretation of the genesis
of the naxarars with the legendary account provided by
the late 8th century antiquarian, Movses Xorenac'i:
[245]...Our own analysis justifies [Xorenac'i's] interpretation since it too has shown that the naxarar system did in fact consist first of native [i.e., dynastic] and later of foreign [i.e., Arsacid] elements. The fundamental difference lies in the fact that according to Xorenac'i, the great naxarardoms were descended from single individuals, while in our analysis they were derived from previously independent ethnic groups.
It is evident from the examples just cited that for Xorenac'i two qualities were the bases of naxarar status: service and nobility, i.e., superiority of blood... In Xorenac'i's opinion, the aristocracy consisted of the more ancient families, primarily those presumably descended from Hayk, which were already present in Armenia at the time of the coming of the Arsacids. According to us, the aristocracy consisted of the houses which had developed through the disintegration of tribal relationships.
For Xorenac'i as for us, land tenure also provided the material basis of the naxarar system. Promotion to the rank of naxarar according to him was nothing more than a grant of lands. Nobility and naxarar status were synonymous concepts for him or every reason that all nobles possessed lands, and lands were granted in hereditary tenure (455).
We maintain that for the early 13th
century, both Adontz and Xorenac'i were correct. Zak'are came
very close to Xorenac'i's first Arsacid king, "Vagharshak"
in establishing a regime. In a sense, he generated new families
through association with his own. But curiously, the tendency
toward convergence--mecatuns investing in land, and the
remnants of the few ancient dynastic families diversifying into
trade--coupled with that strong hereditarizing [246] principle
which has never ceased to operate in Armenian society--led to
a "re-seeding" of what might seem like classical Arsacid
naxararism, but in fact was a structure resting on a completely
different base. It is very important to underline the fact that
in a country with as developed a historical consciousness as Armenia,
and as ancient a literature, a certain amount of evocation of
the antique past pervades many sources dating from much later
times. Just as the Sasanian Persians hearkened back to their Achaemenid
"forbears" and adopted certain ceremonial and/or sentimental
forms to stress this identification, so too did the Bagratids
and Zak'arids look to the Arsacids for symbolic identification.
Thus certain similarities of terminology found in Arsacid and
Zak'arid sources must be analyzed on an individual basis, before
any assumptions of identity may be entertained.
It is important in this regard to note
that on the eve of the Turco-Mongol invasions of the 13th century,
the term naxarar already designated different types of
lords, just as (in a later period) the term melik did.
As Hewsen noted:
By the end of the Mongol period, the Caucasian social structure had to all intents and purposes been destroyed in Armenia; its princely houses exterminated, [247] submerged by the egalitariansim of Islam which recognized no princely dignity, or incorporated into the surviving Caucasian social structure in Georgia. Only here and there, notably in the mountains of Karabagh and Siwnik' some vestiges of the old princely houses survived and retained some measure of local autonomy. This social disintegration is clear from the disappearance of the old Armenian princely titles, so important in the Caucasian social system, and their replacement by one new and flexible term, 'melik' , the very all-purposeness of which is an indication that the fixed social framework was no longer there. It would appear then, that the title 'melik' was used simply to designate any of the few surviving members of the Armenian nobility of old who retained any kind of social position in a world which had become the world of Islam; whether one had been a naxarar (dynast) or merely an azat (member of the gentry. Indeed, as we shall see, the term was applicable to municipal ethnarchs and, in time, it would appear, even to mere village chiefs (456).
We might ask, parenthetically, if indeed
even in Arsacid times the term naxarar had a single sense
or meaning.
It was pointed out in chapter three
that as regards control mechanisms, the Mongols invented nothing
new. Furthermore, naxarar reactions to the different control
techniques used by the Mongols before and after their Islamization
were varied, but also contained no new elements. Naxarar
reaction to the invasions was clear: when united military resistance
proved impossible, the naxarars holed up in their mountain
fortresses; when [248] they learned that the Mongols spared those
submitting peaceably, the naxarars submitted, making separate
often highly advantageous arrangements with their new overlords.
As for the domination, naxarar reactions to Mongol control
techniques in thd 13-14th centuries may be grouped under five
major headings. The lords: (1) attempted when possible to exploit
the rivalry between different centers of Mongol authority; (2)
rebelled, when feeling themselves sufficiently powerful and when
driven to it by Mongol excesses; (3) emigrated from the Armenian
highlands in large numbers; (4) Islamized in large numbers, and
(5) withstood everything, retaining the Christian faith and also
a certain leverage with the Turco-Mongol regimes. Some lords of
totally impregnable fortresses became caravan-looters and bandits.
Other lords sometimes were able to retain certain privileges and
even family lands through the process of giving their lands to
religious establishments under the control of clerical representatives
of the secular lord's own family.
Robert Bedrosian
Long Branch, New Jersey
1978