Poland and Hungary. In all these places they founded colonies, keeping their language, religion and national feeling. This wandering became a special note of the Armenians; it is one of the striking likenesses between them and the Jews. Like the Jews, they formed foreign colonies in many countries; they had special quarters in cities. Obeying the law of the land in which they found themselves, they yet always remained a foreign element, in no way amalgamating with the native population. Such is still their condition in many parts of the world.
A great number fled westward into Cappadocia, Cilicia and towards the Taurus mountains in the south of Asia Minor. Here they founded a new Armenia (Cilician Armenia), and established a kingdom (their last independence) which plays an important part in both ecclesiastical and political history. Rupen, a relation of the last Bagratid King, Gagik II, came to Cilicia with the remains of the nobility. In 1080 he made himself master of a fortress on the Taurus. Here he founded a principality, which after a century became an independent kingdom. The Crusaders were already in Syria. At first Rupen and his successors acknowledged the suzerainty alternately of the Latin Prince of Antioch and of the Roman Empire at Constantinople. They were content with the title baron. But they obtained a large territory in Cilicia. Their capital was Sis, north-east of Adana, on an affluent of the river Pyramus.[1] A new factor now enters, Latin influence on Armenians, of which many traces still remain (p. 416). The Barons of Sis, remembering the long persecution of the Byzantines, hating Moslems as their deadly enemies, eagerly welcomed the Crusaders. When these passed through Cilicia they supplied them with food, horses and weapons. They joined them in their war and intermarried with the families of Frankish princes. So Cilician Armenia was very considerably Latinized. The Church became Uniate (p. 415); the state adopted Western titles, customs, law; it even used French and Latin for its official documents. There were one or two quarrels with the Franks, but they did not prevent the general good understanding. Leo (Ghevont) I, Baron of Sis (1129-1139), fought Byzantines and Turks successfully; then he fought Raymond of Poitiers, Prince of Antioch (1136). But he
- ↑ They had a Patriarch of Sis, whose successor still bears the title (pp. 417, 430).
