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The Crown of Togarmah: Mediating Discourses of Sovereignty in Cilician Armenia
Abstract
This paper will discuss the composite configurations of Cilician Armenian kingship, as represented in the premodern Armenian versified chronicle known as Vahram’s Chronicle. In doing so, this paper will utilize Cilicia’s unique geopolitical position as a means of exploring the multiple languages of sovereignty across Armenian, Persian, Mongol, and Latin discursive fields. By using Cilician Armenia as a case study, this paper will connect the literary techniques at play in the chronicle with Cilicia’s involvement in various diplomatic and cultural spheres of influence over the course of the kingdom’s lifespan—roughly between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. Through this approach, the paper will analyze the various axes of boundary making in the chronicle, in addition to arguing for the broad communicability of Christian and Islamic models of sovereignty across the medieval Middle East. Vahram’s Chronicle, written by the secretary of the Cilician king Levon II (1236-1289), is a particularly compelling example of the fluidity of models of sovereignty and sacral kingship at play in a Cilician context, both in terms of its content and literary style. The chronicle discusses the life and times of the various lords and kings of Cilician Armenia, giving particular consideration to the various traits that associated the success of the rulers to the prosperity of the kingdom as a whole. The lives of the various subjects of Vahram’s Chronicle are also told in relation to the polities neighboring Cilician Armenia, emphasizing the close connections between the Armenian lords and their Byzantine, Seljuq, Mongol, Mamluk, and Crusader counterparts in a manner that draws attention to the parallels present in their respective models of kingship. The text also details a family history for the ruling Het‘umids that genealogically connects the dynasty to the Rubenids who preceded them as kings of Cilicia, as well as to the Bagratuni kings of Greater Armenia (885-1045). In doing so, the chronicle serves to reinforce the dynastic legitimacy of the Het‘muids by connecting them to a broader tradition of Armenian kingship in a way that disengages this Armenian kingship from its territorial claims over Greater Armenia (Eastern Anatolia and the South Caucasus).
Discipline
History
Geographic Area
Anatolia
Sub Area
13th-18th Centuries