Smbat Sparapet
Smbat Sparapet or Sempat Sparapeţ (* 1208 ; † 1276 ) was a medieval Armenian chronicler and constable of Lesser Armenia .
He was a brother of the king Hethum I. Klein Armenia, son of Henry I of Cyprus and as a constable at the court of King Leon II. Was Smbats main performance - in addition to the guided Chronicle - probably the approximation of Armenian legislation to that of the Latin Crusaders States especially that of Antioch .
Life
Smbat says he was born in 1208. He was brought to his court by King Leo, who always tried to gather scholars and men experienced in warfare around him, and finally appointed him constable.
Smbat mastered both Greek and the Norman Crusader French. He was very educated and had his own library, which contained, among other things, a Bible (which is now in Matenadaran) and works by Aristotle , Gregory of Nyssa , Dionysus Areopagita and Cyril of Alexandria .
In 1246 Smbat moved into Tarsus together with King Leo and in 1250 he headed an embassy to the Mongols ("Tatars"). This mission is also evidenced by a letter to Henry I of Cyprus.
Smbat had two sons, Hethum (Hayton) and Vasil (Basileus), who both died in quick succession in 1269.
timeline
The chronicle he wrote covers the years 951–1162 AD. It was continued by an anonymous author until 1331.
As sources, Smbat mainly used Matthias von Edessa and the continuation by the priest Gregorios . The documents of the royal chancellery were of course available to him for contemporary events.
The chronicle was handed down by:
- two manuscripts in Echmiadzin and several copies from the 19th century
- a sketchy manuscript from Istanbul, probably from the late 13th century, now in San Lazarro , Italy. The beginning is missing, so the name of the author has not been passed down, and some authors like Leo Alischan see it as the independent work of another author.
Other works
Sempat translated the Assises of Antioch , which Simon Mansel had made available to him, from French into Armenian. At his request, Smbat's translation was checked for accuracy in Antioch. Apparently, it was used by small Armenian courts to judge. In 1265, Smbat revised the code of law that had been drawn up in 1184 by Mkhitoschar Gosch in Armenia and translated an abridged version into a more contemporary language ( Central Armenian). Besides the "rules" of the davit , son of Alavik, it is the most important source of Armenian legislation.
Smbat also wrote a summary of the Dialectica of John of Damascus .
expenditure
An Armenian edition of the Chronicle was published in 1856 by Osgan from Yerevan in Moscow , another published by Garapet Chahnazarian in Paris in 1859 . Seropé Akelian undertook another text edition in 1956 ( Smpada Sbarabedi Darekirk ), which appeared in Venice and is based on the Istanbul manuscript. Lacunae were replaced by the translation by Langlois and excerpts from Matthias von Edessa.
The influential translation into French by Victor Langlois (1862) is incomplete. A French translation of part of the chronicle is contained in Eduard Dulaurier's “Recueil des historiens de Croisades” (Paris 1869). Sirarpie The Nesessian submitted an English translation.
literature
- Sirarpie Der Nersessian : The Armenian chronicle of the Constable Smpad or of the "Royal Historian". In: Dumbarton Oaks Papers. Vol. 13, 1959, pp. 141-168, doi: 10.2307 / 1291131 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bayarsaikhan Dashdondog: The Mongols and the Armenians (1220-1335) (= Brill's Inner Asian Library. Vol. 24). Brill, Leiden et al. 2011, ISBN 978-90-04-18635-4 , pp. 80 f.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Smbat Sparapet |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Sembat Sparapet, Sembat the constable |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Armenian chronicler |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1208 |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1276 |