Leon V (Armenia)

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King Leon V with courtiers, miniature by Sarkis Pitzak, 1331

Leon V. , Armenian Լեիոն Դ, translit. Levon IV , (* 1309 ; † August 28, 1341 ) was the last king of Lesser Armenia from the Hethumid dynasty . He ruled from 1320 to 1341. Leon was the son of King Oshin and Isabelle of Korykos . He became heir to the throne after the death of his father at the age of eleven.

During Leon's minority, Oshin von Korykos , his uncle and father-in-law exercised the reign. During this time the kingdom was threatened by the Mamluks and the Mongolian Empire of the Ilkhan . In 1320 the Egyptian sultan al-Malik an-Nasir Muhammad conquered and devastated parts of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia. In a letter dated July 1, 1322, which he sent from his seat in Avignon to the Mongolian Il-Khan Abū Saʿīd , Pope John XXII remembered . these to the alliance that his ancestors had with the Christiansclosed and asked him to intervene in Cilicia . At the same time, he recommended that he give up Islam and embrace Christianity . The Mongolian troops that were sent to Cilicia did not reach the country until a 15-year truce had already been negotiated between the Armenian Catholicos Constantine and the Egyptian sultan.

The regent Oschin von Korykos had married his stepmother Johanna von Anjou, a daughter of the titular emperor of Constantinople , Philip I of Taranto . Leon was forced to marry Oschin's daughter Alix von Korykos (by his first wife, Margarete d'Ibelin) on August 10, 1321. Oshin murdered a number of members of the royal family in order to consolidate his own power. Leon reacted to this, after he had reached the age of majority in 1329, also with violence. Oshin of Korykos, his brother Constantine, constable of Armenia and lord of Lampron, and Leon's wife Alix were killed on the king's orders, Oshin's head was sent to the Il-Khan and the head of Constantine to Sultan an-Nasir.

Leon was strongly pro-Western and favored a union of the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Roman Catholic Church . This aroused the displeasure of the Armenian barons. His second marriage, which he entered into on December 29, 1331 with Konstanze, the daughter of the Sicilian king Friedrich II. And Eleonores (daughter of Charles II of Anjou ) and widow of Henry II of Cyprus , intensified the anti-Western resentment.

When an-Nasir invaded the country again in 1337 and conquered Ayas , Leon was forced to sign a humiliating truce, accept territorial losses and promise not to conclude any agreements with the West. He spent the last years of his reign in the citadel of Sis , hoping for help from the west. On December 28, 1341 he was murdered by the barons. His only son with his wife Alix, Hethum, died before 1331. The barons chose his cousin Guido von Lusignan as his successor.

literature

  • Thomas SR Boase (Ed.): The Cilician Kingdom of Armenia. Scottish Academic Press, Edinburgh 1978, ISBN 0-7073-0145-9 .
  • René Grousset : L'Empire du Levant: Histoire de la Question d'Orient. Nouvelle édition revue. Payton, Paris 1949, p. 401.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ also Leon IV, since some historians count King Leon II as Leon I. Counting as Leon II includes the Rubenid "lords of the mountains".
  2. ↑ Oshin of Korykos was the brother of Leon's mother Isabelle of Korykos. Leon's marriage to Oshin von Korykos' daughter Alix von Korykos made Oshin his father-in-law.
  3. ↑ Serge Jodra: Imago Mundi. Dictionnaire biographique, Les hégémonies mongoles
predecessor government office successor
Oshin of Armenia King of Lesser Armenia
1320–1341 		Constantine IV
personal data
SURNAME Leon V.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Levon V.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION King of Lesser Armenia
BIRTH DATE 1309
DATE OF DEATH August 28, 1341