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65-584: The origin of the Mamikonians is shrouded in the mists of antiquity. Movses Khorenatsi in his History of Armenia (traditionally dated to the 5th century) claims that in the year of the death of Ardashir I (i.e., 242) a nobleman of Chen ( Old Armenian : Ճեն , plural Ճենք , Chenk’ , thought to refer to China ) origin named Mamgon fled to the Persian court after being sentenced to death by Arbok Chen-bakur, his foster brother (or half-brother) and

130-573: A failed uprising against their brother, King Chenbakur. The Parthian king settled the two brothers and their household in Armenia, where they founded the Mamikonian clan. Another 5th-century Armenian historian, Pavstos Buzand , also mentions the reputed Chinese/ Chen origin of the Mamikonians. In his History of Armenia , he twice mentions that the Mamikonians descended from the royal house of Chenk’ /China and as such were not inferior to

195-542: A full-scale insurrection that had to be quelled through swift military intervention, eventually sparking war with the Sassanids. Though weakened by numerous invasions and the legal reforms of Kings, the nakharar structure remained virtually unchanged for many centuries and was finally eliminated during the Mongol invasions in the thirteenth century. Certain aspects of the nakharar system remained intact in Armenia until

260-481: A great Armenian rebellion against their Sasanian overlords, provoked by Yazdegerd II 's attempts to impose Zoroastrianism on Armenia and other outrages. The rebellion was opposed by a party of pro-Persian Armenian nobles led by marzpan Vasak Siwni . Although Vardan and many other leading Armenian noblemen died at the Battle of Avarayr in 451, the continued insurrection led by Vardan's nephew Vahan Mamikonian and

325-519: A history of Armenia, especially the biographies of Armenian kings and the origins of the Armenian nakharar families. Armenian historian Artashes Matevosyan placed Movses' completion of History to the year 474  CE based on his research on the Chronicle by the sixth-century Armenian historian Atanas Taronatsi. One of his primary reasons for taking up Sahak Bagratuni's request is given in

390-636: A marvelous speech at the dinner table. One of the Catholicos' students was able to identify Movses as a person Gyut had been searching for; it was soon understood that Gyut was one of Movses' former classmates and friends. Gyut embraced Movses brought his friend back from seclusion and appointed him to be a bishop in Bagrevan . Serving as a bishop, Movses was approached by Prince Sahak Bagratuni (died in 482 during Charmana battle against Persian army), who, having heard of Movses' reputation, asked him to write

455-425: A member of it, to whom the title of nahapet "chief of the family" or tanuter "master of the house" was given. Other members of a nakharar family in their turn ruled over smaller portions of the family estate. Nakharars with greater authority were recognized as ishkhans (princes). This system has often been labelled as feudal for practical purposes; however, there are differences between this system and

520-465: A non-Mamikonian noble, Smbat Saharuni . On this event, the family leadership passed to Mushegh's brother, Manuel Mamikonian , who had formerly been kept as a hostage in Persia. The Mamikonians at once broke into insurrection and routed Varazdat and Saharuni at Karin . Varazdat fled abroad and Manuel installed the two underage sons of Pap, Vagharshak (Vologases) and Arshak as kings of Armenia under

585-476: A part of a general trend in those years to reexamine critically classical sources, Khorenatsi's History was cast into doubt. The conclusions reached by Alfred von Gutschmid ushered in the " hypercritical phase" of the study of Khorenatsi's work. Many European and Armenian scholars writing at the turn of the twentieth century downplayed its importance as a historical source and dated the History to sometime in

650-647: A particular social function: in Armenia a member of the Arshakuni family was chosen as king, who was consequently a sort of primus inter pares ; the Mamikonians fielded the sparapet , one of the Bagratunis was the cavalry chief ( aspet ) and king crowner ( tagadir ), and so on. The nakharar system appears to have originated near or before the beginning of the Common Era, probably emerging under

715-523: A rebellion, and through the Battle of Vartanantz convinced the Persians that conversion would come at too high a price, eventually leading to the Nvarsak Treaty . In western Armenia under Byzantine rule, Justinian 's reforms removed the martial role of the nakharars , as well as attempting to annex estates from Armenian nobles. The nakharars , angered at their restriction in power, began

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780-480: A very ancient period until the death of the historian. His History served as a textbook to study the history of Armenia until the eighteenth century. Movses's history also gives a rich description of the oral traditions that were popular among the Armenians of the time, such as the romance story of Artashes and Satenik and the birth of the god Vahagn . Movses lived for several more years, and he died sometime in

845-683: A wedding ... and instead, I found myself grieving at the foot of our teachers' graves ... I did not even arrive in time to see their eyes close nor hear them speak their final words. To further complicate their problems, the atmosphere in Armenia that Movses and the other students had returned to was one that was extremely hostile and they were viewed with contempt by the native population. While later Armenian historians blamed this on an ignorant populace, Sassanid Persian policy and ideology were also at fault, since its rulers "could not tolerate highly educated young scholars fresh from Greek centers of learning". Given this atmosphere and persecution by

910-719: Is known was a certain Vache Mamikonian ( fl. 330–339). According to Pavstos Buzand, Vache Mamikonian, son of Artavazd and sparapet of Armenia, was ordered by King Khosrov III to exterminate two feuding noble families, the Manavazians and the Ordunis. Vache also successfully defended Armenia against Sanesan , the invading king of the Maskuts , slaying the latter in a battle near Oshakan Fortress and receiving new holdings as reward. He later fell in battle against

975-449: Is the Book of Letters (sixth century), which contains a short theological treatise by "Movses Khorenatsi". The third possible early reference is in a tenth-eleventh centuries manuscript containing a list of dates attributed to Athanasius (Atanas) of Taron (sixth century): under the year 474, the list has "Moses of Chorene, philosopher and writer". Beginning in the nineteenth century, as

1040-569: The Arab conquest of Armenia in the late 7th century, especially relative to their great rivals, the Bagratunis (Bagratids), who were generally favored by the Arabs. Several Mamikonian nobles served as presiding princes of Armenia under Arab rule, but the house lost its traditional office of sparapet to the Bagratunis in the 8th century. Grigor Mamikonian led a rebellion against Arab rule but

1105-690: The Armenian alphabet . Moreover, he claimed to have written his history at the behest of Prince Sahak of the Bagratuni dynasty . He is recognized by the Armenian Apostolic Church as one of the Holy Translators . The exact time period during which Movses lived and wrote has been the subject of some debate among scholars since the nineteenth century, with some scholars dating him to the seventh to ninth centuries rather than

1170-578: The Arsacid rulers of Armenia. Although it seems that the legend of Mamikonian origins, even if untrue, does indeed concern China, more recent scholarship suggests that Chenk’ is to be identified either with the Tzans , a Kartvelian tribe in the southern Caucasus , or with a Central Asian group living near the Syr Darya river. Nicholas Adontz believed the legend to be "a confusion, prompted by

1235-570: The Artaxiad dynasty and existing during the entire Arsacid period in Armenia and for centuries after its end. The nakharars survived the fall of the Arshakuni dynasty and the subsequent placement of the Marzban Governor-Generals by Sassanid king, and allowed a great deal of autonomy for the vassal state, up until the attempted conversion of Armenia to Zoroastrianism by Yazdegerd II , in which Vartan Mamikonian led

1300-680: The Bagratunis claimed Davidic descent and the Artsrunis claimed royal Assyrian ancestry. The later medieval Armenian author Vardan Areveltsi mentions that the Chenk’ live in the Caucasus near Derbend . One scholar argued in the 1920s that the Chenk’ were a Turkic group that lived by the Syr Darya. The Mamikonians feature prominently in the works of most of the classical Armenian historians. Pavstos Buzand speaks highly favorably of

1365-521: The Bible according to the Koine Greek original, or translating it into Armenian a second time, they decided to send Movses and several of their other students to Alexandria , Egypt —one of the great centers of learning in the world at the time—to master Hellenic learning and the literary arts. The students left Armenia sometime between 432 and 435. First they went to Edessa where they studied at

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1430-664: The Early Middle Ages is quite obscure. In the period between 655 and 750 they are not documented at all. What follows below is their reconstructed genealogy between the 5th and 7th centuries. The necropolis of the Mamikonian family was at the 4th-century Saint Karapet Monastery (also known as the monastery of Glak) in the mountains directly northwest of the plain of Mush in Taron. Movses Khorenatsi Movses Khorenatsi ( c. 410–490s AD; Armenian : Մովսէս Խորենացի , pronounced [mɔvˈsɛs χɔɾɛnɑˈtsʰi] )

1495-543: The Georgian lands. The latter-day Georgian feudal houses of the Liparitids-Orbeliani and Tumanishvili are sometimes surmised to have been descended from those princes. Several scholars—most notably Cyril Toumanoff and Nicholas Adontz —have suggested a Mamikonian origin for a number of leading Byzantine families and individuals, beginning with the emperor Philippikos Bardanes in the early-8th century,

1560-678: The partition of Armenia between the Sasanians and the Romans. Pavstos writes that Manuel was succeeded by his son Artashir as sparapet . Hamazasp Mamikonian is recorded as the family patriarch in 393. He married Sahakanoysh, daughter of Patriarch Isaac the Great . She was a descendant of the Arsacid kings and Saint Gregory the Illuminator . Through this marriage, the Mamikonians gained

1625-505: The Armenian province of Taron or Turuberan . Some sources call Movses Taronatsi ('of Taron'). However, Malkhasyants contends that if Movses had been born in Khorni, he would have been known as Movses Khornetsi or Khoronatsi. Malkhasyants instead proposed as Khorenatsi's birthplace the village of Khoreay ( Խորեայ ) in the Haband district of the province of Syunik , which is mentioned by

1690-625: The Bagratuni family" then these events should have been central theme of his history; the skilful handling of which brought the Bagratid pre-eminence. ... The ecclesiastical interests do not point to the eighth century. There is no echo of the Chalcedonian controversy which engaged the Armenians from 451 to 641 when the ecclesiastical unity formulated by the council of Theodosiopolis was renounced. Gagik Sargsyan , an Armenian scholar of

1755-551: The Bagratunis. One Kurdik Mamikonian was recorded as ruling Sasun c. 800, where the Surb Karapet Monastery and family seat was. Half a century later, Grigor Mamikonian lost Bagrevand to the Muslims, reconquered it in the early 860s and then lost it to the Bagratunis, permanently. After that, the Mamikonians pass out of history. After their disastrous uprising of 774–775, some of the Mamikonian princes moved to

1820-459: The Classics and a leading biographer of Khorenatsi, also criticized Thomson for his "anachronistic hypercriticism" and for stubbornly rehashing and "even exaggerating the statements once put forward" by the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century scholars, particularly Grigor Khalatiants (1858–1912). Sargsyan noted that Thomson, in condemning Khorenatsi's failure to mention his sources, ignored

1885-455: The Persian side, including Vasak's renegade brother Vahan Mamikonian. Vasak was later flayed alive after being lured to Persia for peace negotiations together with Arshak II. Shapur laid waste to Armenia and installed Meruzhan Artsruni and Vahan Mamikonian as governors (according to Pavstos, Vahan was later killed by his own son, Samuel). Vasak was succeeded as sparapet by his son Mushegh I Mamikonian , who restored Arshak's heir, Pap , to

1950-476: The Persians and was succeeded as sparapet by his son Artavazd, who was a child at the time, since "no other adult could be found in that clan." This episode and others in Pavstos' History illustrate the nature of the office of sparapet as the exclusive and hereditary possession of the Mamikonian clan. The family reappears in chronicles in 355, during the reign of Arshak (Arsaces) II . At that point

2015-403: The Persians, Movses went into hiding in a village near Vagharshapat and lived in relative seclusion for several decades. Gyut, Catholicos of All Armenians (461–471), one day met Movses while traveling through the area and, unaware of his true identity, invited him to supper with several of his students. Movses was initially silent, but after Gyut's students encouraged him to speak, Movses made

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2080-481: The conclusions of the scholars of the hypercritical school and placed Khorenatsi back in the fifth century. Additionally, several of Khorenatsi's claims and references have been proven by contemporary ethnographic and archaeological research. During the second half of the twentieth century, the arguments made by the hypercritical school were revived by a number of scholars in Western academia. Robert W. Thomson ,

2145-470: The country's subjugation by the Persians, the Mamikonians often sided with the Eastern Roman Empire , with many family members entering Byzantine service, most notably Vardan II Mamikonian in the late 6th century after his failed revolt against Persia. Vardan's failed revolt marked the beginning of the decline of the Mamikonian dynasty in Armenia. The power of the Mamikonians waned further with

2210-731: The daughter of Mushegh VI, the last living Mamikonian prince. This marriage created the Kaysite dynasty of Arminiya centered in Manzikert, the most powerful Muslim Arab emirate in the Armenian Highlands region, and thus ending the existence of the Mamikonian line in Armenia. Only secondary lines of the family survived thereafter, both in Transcaucasia and in Byzantium. Even in their homeland of Tayk, they were succeeded by

2275-625: The death of Peroz I resulted in the restoration of Armenian autonomy and religious rights with the Treaty of Nvarsak (484). Vahan was confirmed as sparapet by the Persians and appointed marzpan of Armenia in 485. Vardan Mamikonian, immortalized by the histories of Ghazar Parpetsi and Elishe , is venerated as a saint by the Armenian Church and commemorated by many churches in Armenia and an equestrian statue in Yerevan . After

2340-433: The death of the last hereditary Patriarch of Armenia , Isaac in ca. 428, when they inherited many Church lands through the marriage of his only daughter to Hamazasp Mamikonian. The family first appears in the early 4th century, although Toumanoff asserts that Mancaeus, who defended Tigranocerta against the Romans in 69 BC, was a member of the dynasty. The first Mamikonian lord, or nakharar , about whom anything certain

2405-581: The dispute over Khorenatsi's dating continued and that "no final agreement on this subject has yet been reached" at the time. Almost immediately, Thomson's arguments were criticized and challenged by a host of scholars both in and outside Armenia. Vrej Nersessian , the curator of the Christian Middle East Section at the British Library , took issue with many of Thomson's characterizations, including his later dating of

2470-444: The dynasty, while Movses Khorenatsi is noticeably hostile to them and minimizes their role. Under the late Arsacid Kingdom of Armenia , the family occupied a preeminent position among the Armenian noble houses: they were hereditary commanders-in-chief of the army ( sparapet ) and royal tutors ( dayeak ) and controlled large domains, including most of Taron and Tayk . The Mamikonians later increased their property further with

2535-471: The fact that "an antique or medieval author may have had his own rules of mentioning the sources distinct from the rules of modern scientific ethics". Thomson's allegation of Khorenatsi's plagiarism and supposed distortion of sources was also countered by scholars who contended that Thomson was "treating a medieval author with the standards" of twentieth-century historiography and pointed out that numerous classical historians, Greek and Roman alike, engaged in

2600-684: The family chief was sparapet Vasak Mamikonian . When Arshak II sided with the Sasanian Empire against the Eastern Roman Empire, Vasak raided Roman lands for six years. After Arshak switched to the Roman side against Persia, Vasak Mamikonian commanded the Armenian defense, winning a series of victories against Shapur II's forces, although he was unable to capture the rebellious Armenian nobleman Meruzhan Artsruni . After years of warfare, multiple other Armenian lords defected to

2665-534: The family's power came in the mid-770s with the defeat and death of Mushegh VI Mamikonian at the Battle of Bagrevand against the Abbasids . After the battle, Mushegh's two sons took refuge in Vaspurakan and were murdered by Meruzhan II Artsruni. Mushegh's daughter was married off to Djahap al-Qais, a tribal chief who settled in Armenia and seized part of the former Mamikonian lands and legalized it by marrying

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2730-486: The feudal system later adopted in Western Europe . The estate as a whole was actually ruled by a single person, it was nonetheless considered the property of his whole enlarged family, so that, if the ruler died heirless, he was succeeded by a member of a different branch of the family. Furthermore, the ruler was allowed to alienate a part of the family estate only to another member of the family or by permission of

2795-453: The fifth. Movses gives autobiographical details about himself in his History of the Armenians . Later Armenian authors provide additional details about Khorenatsi's life, although according to scholar Stepan Malkhasyants , these are not reliable. Movses's epithet, Khorenatsi, suggests that he was born in a place called Khoren or Khorean. According to one older view, Movses was born in the village of Khorni (also called Khoron or Khoronk) in

2860-420: The first part of Patmutyun Hayots , or History of the Armenians : "For even though we are small and very limited in numbers and have been conquered many times by foreign kingdoms, yet too, many acts of bravery have been performed in our land, worthy of being written and remembered, but of which no one has bothered to write down." His work is a first historical record that covered the whole history of Armenia from

2925-458: The formal regency of their mother, Zarmandukht . Manuel also married his daughter Vardandukht to Arshak III and accepted the suzerainty of the Sasanian Empire, as Roman power had effectively ended in the East following the defeat at Adrianople in 378. Armenia was to retain its autonomy but be overseen by a marzpan (governor) appointed by the Persian king. Manuel's death c. 385 precipitated

2990-557: The former holder of the chair in Armenian Studies at Harvard University and the translator of several classical Armenian works, became the most vocal critic of Khorenatsi with the 1978 publication of his English translation of History of the Armenians . Thomson labeled Khorenatsi an "audacious, and mendacious, faker" and "a mystifier of the first order". He wrote that Khorenatsi's account contained various anachronisms and inventions. In 2000, historian Nina Garsoïan wrote that

3055-454: The general and usurper Artabasdos in the mid-8th century, the families of men like Alexios Mosele or Empress Theodora and her brothers Bardas and Petronas in the 9th century, and the Phokas family in the 10th century. However, as the Armenian historian Nina Garsoïan comments, "[a]ttractive though it is, this thesis cannot be proven for want of sources". The history of Mamikonians in

3120-637: The king of Chenk’ , due to the scheming of a third brother and prince, Bghdokh. Chen-bakur demanded Mamgon's extradition from Ardashir's successor, Shapur I , who instead exiled the prince to Armenia, where he entered the service of the Armenian king Trdat and received land for him and his entourage to settle, founding the Mamikonian dynasty. A slightly different story is recorded in the Primary History traditionally attributed to Sebeos , according to which two noble brothers from Chenastan named Mamik and Konak, sons of Karnam, fled to Parthia after

3185-464: The late 490s  CE . Three possible early references to Movses in other sources are usually identified. The first one is in Ghazar Parpetsi 's History of the Armenians (about 495 or 500 A.D.), where the author details the persecution of several notable Armenian individuals, including the "blessed Movses the philosopher", identified by some scholars as Movses Khorenatsi. The second one

3250-543: The local libraries. Then they moved towards Jerusalem and Alexandria. After studying in Alexandria for seven years, Movses and his classmates returned to Armenia, only to find that Mesrop and Sahak had died. Movses expressed his grief in a lament at the end of History of the Armenians : While they [Mesrop and Sahak] awaited our return to celebrate their student's accomplishments [i.e., Movses'], we hastened from Byzantium , expecting that we would be dancing and singing at

3315-517: The love of exotic origins, between the ethnicon čen and that of the Georgian Čan-ians ( Tzanni ) or Lazi [...] who were settled in the neighbourhood of Tayk῾." He derives the dynasty's name from Georgian mama , meaning father, combined with the Armenian diminutive suffix -ik . This view is shared by Cyril Toumanoff , who describes the Mamikonians as the "immemorial dynasts of Tayk῾." Other Armenian dynasties also claimed foreign royal ancestry:

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3380-524: The modern criticism of Khorenatsi to the misinterpretation of interpolations into the work from later times. Today, Movses Khorenatsi's work is recognized as an important source for the research of Urartian and early Armenian history. It was Movses Khorenatsi's account of the ancient city of Van with its cuneiform inscriptions which lead the Société Asiatique of Paris to finance the expedition of Friedrich Eduard Schulz , who there discovered

3445-456: The previously unknown Urartian language . The following works are also attributed to Movses: Nakharar Nakharar ( Armenian : նախարար naxarar , from Parthian naxvadār "holder of the primacy" ) was a hereditary title of the highest order given to houses of the ancient and medieval Armenian nobility . Medieval Armenia was divided into large estates, which were the property of an enlarged noble family and were ruled by

3510-534: The same practice. Aram Topchyan, then a research fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem of Armenian Studies, agreed and noted that it was odd that Thomson would fault Khorenatsi for failing to mention his sources because this was an accepted practice among all classical historians. Historian Albert Stepanyan notes that "some skepticism remains regarding the person and work of Khorenatsi", but he affirms Khorenatsi's fifth-century dating and attributes

3575-451: The seventh to ninth centuries. Stepan Malkhasyants, an Armenian philologist and expert of Classical Armenian literature, likened this early critical period from the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries to a "competition", whereby one scholar attempted to outperform the other in their criticism of Khorenatsi. In the early decades of the twentieth century, scholars such as F. C. Conybeare , Manuk Abeghian , and Malkhasyants rejected

3640-402: The thirteenth-century historian Stepanos Orbelian . According to this view, the name Khoreay developed from the earlier unattested form Khorean . Accepting Khorenatsi's claimed fifth-century dating, Malkhasyants proposes 410 as the approximate year of his birth, arguing that he probably would have been a young man of about 22 or 23 upon journeying to Alexandria , where Movses writes that he

3705-480: The throne c. 367/370 with the support of an imperial army sent by the emperor Valens . Mushegh drove the Persians out of Armenia and brutally punished the provinces that had revolted against the Arsacid monarchy, restoring the kingdom's former borders. Following Pap's murder in 374, Mushegh acted as regent for the new king Varazdat (Varasdates) . Varazdat attempted to free himself of Mamikonian tutelage by ordering Mushegh's murder and replacing him as sparapet with

3770-506: The western part of Taron centered on Ashtishat , as well as Bagrevand and Ekegheats (Acilisene). Hamazasp and Sahakanush's eldest child Vardan Mamikonian is revered for his leadership of the Armenian rebellion against Persia in 450/451 (called Vardanants’ paterazm in Armenian, meaning "the war of Vardan and his companions"). After Vardan became sparapet in 432, the Persians summoned him to Ctesiphon . Upon his return home in 450, Vardan repudiated Zoroastrianism and instigated

3835-509: The whole enlarged family. This may also explain why Armenian feudal families were normally endogamic , in order not to scatter parts of their property, as would have happened if they had to give a part of their property to another family as dowry. Endogamic marriages had a religious reason too, particularly before Christianity, because Armenian paganism favoured marriages between relatives very highly. Each nakharar had his own army, depending on his domain. The national force or "royal cavalry"

3900-461: The writing and his contention that Khorenatsi was merely an apologist work for the princely Bagratuni dynasty: If so, how does one explain then Moses's complete preoccupation with the events preceding A.D. 440 and his silence regarding the events leading up the Arab incursions and occupation of Armenia between 640–642? Moreover, if the definite purpose of the History was for "boosting the reputation of

3965-502: Was a prominent Armenian historian from late antiquity and the author of the History of the Armenians . Movses's History of the Armenians was the first attempt at a universal history of Armenia and remains the only known general account of early Armenian history. It traces Armenian history from its origins to the fifth century, during which Movses claimed to have lived. His history had an enormous impact on Armenian historiography and

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4030-522: Was defeated and forced to flee to Byzantium in ca. 748. By 750, the Mamikonians had lost Taron, Khlat, and Mush to the Bagratunis. In the 770s, the family was led by Artavazd Mamikonian, then by Mushegh IV Mamikonian (+772) and by Samuel II. The latter married his daughter to Smbat VII Bagratuni , constable of Armenia. His grandson Ashot Msaker ("the Carnivorous") became forefather of the Bagratuni rulers of Armenia and Taron. The final death-blow to

4095-656: Was sent after the Council of Ephesus of 431. Malkhasyants postulates that Khorenatsi received his initial education at the school in Syunik founded by Mesrop Mashtots , the creator of the Armenian alphabet , before being sent to Vagharshapat to study directly under Mashtots and Catholicos Sahak Partev . After the Council of Ephesus, when Mashtots and Sahak were correcting the Classical Armenian translation of

4160-608: Was under the sparapet , a commander-in-chief who presided over the whole of the nation. After the country's Christianization , schools and courts were all run by the Armenian clergy . In 4th-century Armenia, as in Parthia , large estates were hereditarily possessed by noble families and actually ruled by one of their members. The whole enlarged family was devoted to the worship of the same ancestors, lived in small fortified villages and spent most part of their time in hunting and in banqueting. Furthermore, each nakharar family had

4225-419: Was used and quoted extensively by later medieval Armenian authors. He is called the "father of Armenian history" ( patmahayr ) in Armenian, and is sometimes referred to as the "Armenian Herodotus ". Movses's history is also valued for its unique material on the old oral traditions in Armenia before its conversion to Christianity. Movses identified himself as a young disciple of Mesrop Mashtots , inventor of

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