Mamikonian

For other uses, see Mamikonian (disambiguation).

Mamikonian
Country	Armenia Persia
Founded	314
Founder	Artavasdes I
Current head	Extinct
Final ruler	Musel VI
Titles	Prince of Tayk Prince of Taron Regent of Armenia Marzban of Persarmenia
Dissolution	1189
Cadet branches	Liparitids Tumanishvili

Mamikonian or Mamikonean (Classical Armenian: Մամիկոնեան; reformed orthography: Մամիկոնյան; Western Armenian pronunciation: Mamigonian) was an aristocratic dynasty which dominated Armenian politics between the 4th and 8th century. They were the most notable noble house in Early Christian Armenia after the ruling Arsacid dynasty and held the hereditary positions of sparapet (supreme commander of the army) and dayeak (royal tutor), allowing them to play the role of kingmaker for the later Armenian kings. They ruled over extensive territories, including the Armenian regions of Tayk, Taron, Sasun, and Bagrevand, among others. The Mamikonians had a reputation as supporters of the Roman (later Byzantine) Empire in Armenia against Sasanian Iran, although they also served as viceroys under Persian rule. Their influence over Armenian affairs began to decline at the end of the 6th century and suffered a final, decisive blow after a failed rebellion against Arab rule over Armenia in 774/75.

Origin

The origin of the Mamikonians is shrouded in the mists of antiquity. Moses of Chorene 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, Chenkʻ, 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 the king of Chenkʻ, 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 conventionally attributed to Sebeos, according to which two noble brothers from Chenastan named Mamik and Konak, sons of Karnam, fled to Parthia after 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/Chenkʻ origin of the Mamikonians. In his History of Armenia, he twice mentions that the Mamikonians descended from the royal house of Chenkʻ/China and as such were not inferior to 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 the Chenkʻ are 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 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 Taykʻ." He derived the dynasty's name from Georgian mama, meaning father, combined with the Armenian diminutive suffix -ik. Other Armenian dynasties also claimed foreign royal ancestry: the Bagratunis claimed Davidic descent and the Artsrunis claimed royal Assyrian ancestry. The later medieval Armenian author Vardan Areveltsi mentioned that the Chenkʻ 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. Edward Gibbon in his The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire writes that the founder of Mamikonian clan was not Han-Chinese but merely from the territory of the Chinese Empire and ascribes a Scythian origin to the clan's founder Mamgon, stating that at the time the borders of the Chinese Empire reached as far west as Sogdiana. Another theory proposes that the family originally immigrated from Bactria (present northern Afghanistan) under the reign of Tiridates II of Armenia.

Early history

Expansion of the territories of the House of Mamikonian.

Illustration of Vardan Mamikonian in the 1898 book Illustrated Armenia and Armenians

15th-century miniature depicting the Battle of Avarayr (451)

The family first appears in the early 4th century. Under the late Arsacid Kingdom of Armenia, the family occupied an important position: they were hereditary commanders-in-chief (sparapet) and royal tutors (dayeak) and controlled large domains, including most of Taron and Tayk. The Mamikonian increased their property further with 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 first known Mamikonid lord, or nakharar, about whom anything certain is known was a certain Vatche Mamikonian (fl. 330–339).

The family reappears in chronicles in 355, when the bulk of their lands lay in the province of Tayk. At that point the family chief was Vassak Mamikonian, who was the sparapetof Armenia. Later, the office of sparapet would become hereditary possession of the Mamikonians. Vassak Mamikonian was in charge of the Armenian defense against Persia but was eventually defeated through the treachery of Meruzhan Artsruni (c. 367–368).

Following the defeat, Vassak's brother Vahan Mamikonian and multiple other feudal lords defected to the Persian side. The Emperor Valens, however, interfered in Armenian affairs and had the office of sparapet bestowed on Vassak's son Mushegh I Mamikonian in 370. Four years later Varasdates (Varazdat), a new king, confirmed Mushegh in office. The latter was subsequently assassinated on behest of Sembat Saharuni who replaced him as sparapet' of Armenia.

On this event, the family leadership passed to Mushegh's brother, Manuel Mamikonian, who had been formerly kept as a hostage in Persia. The Mamikonids at once broke into insurrection and routed Varasdates and Saharuni at Karin. Emmanuel, together with his sons Hemaiak and Artches, took the king prisoner and put him in a fortress, whence Varasdates escaped abroad. Zarmandukht, the widow of Varasdates' predecessor, was then proclaimed queen. Emmanuel came to an agreement with the powerful Sassanids, pledging his loyalty in recompense for their respect of the Armenian autonomy and laws.

Upon the queen's demise in 384, Manuel Mamikonian was proclaimed Regent of Armenia pending the minority of her son Arsaces III and had the infant king married to his daughter Vardandukht. It was Manuel's death in 385 that precipitated the country's conquest by the Persians in 386–387.

Hamazasp Mamikonian was recorded as the family leader in 393. His wife is known to have been Sahakanoush, daughter of Patriarch Isaac the Great. She was a descendant of the Arsacid Kings and Saint Gregory the Illuminator. They had a son, Vardan Mamikonian, who is revered as one of the greatest military and spiritual leaders of ancient Armenia.

After Vardan became sparapet in 432, the Persians summoned him to Ctesiphon. Upon his return home in 450, Vardan repudiated the Persian (Zoroastrian) religion and instigated a great Armenian rebellion against their Sassanian overlords. Although he died in the doomed Battle of Avarayr also known as Battle of Vartanantz (451), the continued insurrection led by Vahan Mamikonian, the son of Vartan's brother, resulted in the restoration of Armenian autonomy with the Nvarsak Treaty (484), thus guaranteeing the survival of Armenian statehood in later centuries. Vardan is venerated as a saint and commemorated by many churches in Armenia and an equestrian statue in Yerevan.

After 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.

With the Arab conquest of Armenia in the late 7th century, the power of the Mamikonian began to decline, especially relative to their great rivals, the Bagratids. Grigor Mamikonian led a rebellion against Arab rule but was defeated and forced to flee to Byzantium in ca. 748. By 750, the Mamikonians had lost Taron, Khelat, and Mouch to the Bagratids. In the 770s, the family was led by Artavizd 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 Bagratid rulers of Armenia and Taron.

The final death-blow to 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. In its aftermath, Mushegh's two sons took refuge in Vaspurakan and were murdered by Merouzhan II Artsruni, and his 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 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 the Bagratids. 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 Bagratids, permanently. After that, the Mamikonians pass out of history.

After their disastrous uprising of 774–775, some of the Mamikonian princes moved to 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 usurper Phocas in the early 7th century, emperor Philippikos Bardanes, the general and usurper Artabasdos in the mid-8th century, and the families of men like Alexios Mosele or Empress Theodora and her brothers Bardas and Petronas in the 9th century. However, as the Armenian historian N. Garsoïan comments, "[a]ttractive though it is, this thesis cannot be proven for want of sources".

Genealogy

Republic of Armenia coin depicting Vardan Mamikonian

The history of Mamikonians in 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.

Hamazasp I Mamikonian, married to Sahankanoysh of Armenia

1. Vardan I (+451) (saint)

1.1. Shushanik (+October 17, 475, Tsurtavi, Georgia) (saint)

2. Hmayeak I (+June 02, 451, in Tayk, region, Armenia)

2.1. Vahan

2.1.1. Vard

2.2. Vasak

2.2.1. Manuel

2.2.1.1. Gaghik

2.2.2. Vardan II

2.2.2.3. Mamak (fl. 590)

2.2.3 daughter

2.2.3.1. Mushegh II (+c. 593)

2.2.3.1.1. Kahan Gail (fl. 592-604)

2.2.3.1.1.1. Smbat the Valiant (fl. 604)

2.2.3.1.1.1.1. Mushegh III (+636)

2.2.3.1.1.1.1.1. Grigor I (fl. 650)

2.2.3.1.1.1.1.2. Hamazasp II (fl. 655)

2.3. Artaches

2.4. Vard

3. Hamazaspian

Necropolis

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.

See also

• Vardan Mamikonian
• Saint Shushanik
• Battle of Avarayr
• Union of the Armenian Noblemen
• Sophie Audouin-Mamikonian, French pretender to the throne of the Ancient Kingdom of Armenia.

Sources

• Bedrosian, Robert (1981). "China and the Chinese according to 5-13th Century Classical Armenian Sources". Armenian Review. 34 (1–133): 17–24.
• Garsoian, Nina (2005). "MAMIKONEAN FAMILY". Encyclopaedia Iranica.
• Garsoïan, Nina G. (1991). "Mamikonean". In Kazhdan, Alexander (ed.). The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-504652-8.
• Moses Khorenatsʻi (1978). History of the Armenians. Translated by Thomson, Robert W. Cambridge, Massachusetts & London: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-39571-9.
• Toumanoff, Cyril (1963). Studies in Christian Caucasian History. Georgetown University Press. OCLC 505712128.
• Toumanoff, Cyril (1969). "The Mamikonids and the Liparitids". Armeniaca. Venice: 125–137.

Further reading

• Andrews, Tara (2018). "Mamikonean clan". In Nicholson, Oliver (ed.). The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-866277-8.
• Mamikonean, John (1985), Robert Bedrosian (ed.), History of Taron, New York{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

External links

• Resources for adults and children from Diocese of Armenian Church of America