Armenians

By the beginning of the medieval period, Armenia, a state whose history stretched back nearly a millennium prior, was caught in the midst of a conflict between two giants. Hostilities had flared up between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Sasanian Persian Empire, both of which often sought to set Armenia up as a buffer state to deter invasions along their northern frontier. As Roman power waned, the Persians gained the upper hand, but their oppressive overlordship – especially the persecution of Armenian Christians in an attempt to spread Zoroastrianism – sparked constant tensions. These culminated in the Battle of Avarayr (451), where the magnate Vardan Mamikonian – who lives on in Armenian national lore – died defending his homeland.

The Near East was changed forever in the 7th century when the forces of the rising Arab Caliphate poured into the Levant. Withered by mounting internal crises and constant conflict, Persia and Byzantium – the medieval iteration of Eastern Rome – were unable to fend off the Arab invasions, causing the former to collapse entirely and the latter to lose most of its territory in the Levant and Africa. Armenia, formerly coveted by both powers, was then conquered by the armies of the new Umayyad Caliphate. History repeated itself, however, as an outsider’s oppressive rule once more led to violent rebellions. After the Abbasid Caliphate replaced the Umayyad Caliphate, Armenia gradually drifted further and further towards autonomy.

By the late 9th century, the balance of power had shifted once more. A rejuvenated Byzantium had diminished Abbasid power along the frontier, offering Armenia the opportunity to extricate itself from foreign domination. Ashot I (9th century) of the Bagratid family shrewdly allied himself with the Byzantines and became Armenia’s first king in four centuries. The fledgling Armenian kingdom remained in a precarious position and was invaded by the Caliphate’s vassals several times, but during the 10th century gradually stabilized, capitalizing on the resurgence of lucrative trade routes and the political fortunes of its powerful neighbors.

Trouble arrived once more during the 11th century, however, as the Byzantines sought to fully incorporate Armenia into their domain. Simultaneously, massive invasions of Seljuk Turks rocked the Middle East, thoroughly redefining the balance of power and ravaging much of the region. As Seljuk incursions tore Armenia apart, Byzantium – albeit loosely – incorporated the leftover pieces. These shifts led to a mass migration of Armenians to Cilicia in southeast Anatolia, where they established a new state on the periphery of the Byzantine Empire. Crucially, these nomadic invasions also led the Armenians to incorporate cohorts of composite bowmen into their armies as a recourse against large mounted forces.

Cilician Armenia initially sat in a precarious position, but that swiftly changed when the Crusades led thousands of European soldiers to attack the Seljuks and neighboring Islamic states in Palestine and the Levant. The Armeno-Cilicians allied with the crusaders and fought with them on several occasions against their mutual foes. Byzantium made further designs on the region during the 12th century, but under the leadership of Thoros II the Great, the Armeno-Cilicians prevailed. As the Mongol invasions of the 13th century rang the death-knell for many of the region’s states, Cilician Armenia wisely allied with the Mongols, but then struggled against the rising Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt and Syria. The last straw for the battered kingdom was Tamerlane’s invasion of 1400, which reduced it to a minor polity wedged between the rising superpowers to come.