Page:Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects.djvu/171

posed largely of the sweepings of Asia Minor, Christian tribes which had taken refuge in the mountains. Their religion was partly Greek, partly Armenian, for the Armenian Catholicos, after resting for a century and a half in Mesopotamia, took refuge at Sis, and founded there an independent or national Catholicate at the close of the thirteenth^[1] century. Their rulers were princes descended from the house of the Bagratidæ, who had governed the Greater Armenia as kings from the year 885 to the reign of Constantine Monomachus, and had then merged their hazardous independence in the mass of the Greek empire^[2]. After the seizure of Asia Minor by the Seljuks, the few of the Bagratidæ who had retained possession of the mountain fastnesses of Cilicia or the strongholds of Mesopotamia, acted as independent lords, showing little respect for Byzantium save where there was something to be gained. Such was the lord Taphnuz of Edessa, on whose inheritance Baldwin of Boulogne founded his principality; such were the lords Leo, Thoros, Melier, and Rupin of the Mountains, who ruled Cilicia during the twelfth century; trying to balance their position between the Byzantine and Latin influences on each

The custom-house, towards Iconium, was at Pilerga, and the passes Westward were at Germanicopolis and Claudiopolis.

1. The Catholicate was without fixed residence from 1066-1114; it was then settled at Hrom-Gla, on the Euphrates, in the principality of Edessa, where it remained until 1292, when it settled at Sis.
2. The Armenian historians describe the Greater Armenia after the fall of the Arsacidæ, under Arsaces IV, A.D. 387, as divided between Persia and Byzantium; the Arsacide rulers governing as tributaries until 428. From 438 to 625, it was governed by Persian governors, 'Marzbans,' frequently native Armenians of the house of the Bagratidæ; from 632 by a Curopalates or patrician named at Constantinople; sometimes by the patriarch, sometimes by the Khalif. In 885 the Bagratide, Aschod I, was recognised by the Khalif Motamed as king, and was crowned. His successors were Sempad I, 890; Aschod II, 914; Apas, 928; Aschod III, the Merciful, 952; Sempad II, 977; Kakig I, 989; John Sempad and Aschod IV, 1020; Interregnum, 1040; Kakig II, 1042. Kakig gave up his kingdom to Constantine Monomachus in 1045, and was murdered in 1079. These kings reigned at Ani. There was another principality at Kars, which surrendered to Constantine Ducas in 1064. Senekerim John, king of Vasburagan, had, in 1021, surrendered to Basil II, and received Sebaste in Cappadocia; and Abelgarib had Tarsus as a separate lordship from Constantine Monomachus in 1042.—The Bagratidæ claimed an Israelite origin. S. Martin, Mémoires Historiques et Géographiques sur l'Arménie.