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Church and State in the Kingdom of Cilician Armenia, 1198-1375

Church and State in the Kingdom of Cilician Armenia, 1198-1375

By Charles A. Frazee

Byzantine Studies / Etudes Byzantines, Vol.3:2 (1976)

Introduction: Cilcian Armenia had its origins in the eleventh century as a result of the Seljuk Turkish invasion of eastern Anatolia, the Armenian national homeland.  Too few in numbers to mount a successful resistance and unwilling to live under foreign domination, perhaps a fourth of the total Armenian population sought security within the borders of the Byzantine empire, settling in the underpopulated province of Cilicia.  Here the Armenian princes established themselves in fortresses perched on mountain tops surveying the river valleys where some of the exiles farmed the land while others took to commerce in the towns bordering the Mediterranean.

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