The End of Armenian Rule in Cilicia

CNG 85, Lot: 128. Estimate $300. Sold for $320. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

ARMENIA, Cilician Armenia. Royal. Levon V. 1374-1393. BI Denier (14mm, 0.42 g, 9h). Crowned bust facing / Cross pattée, with pellet in each angle. AC 503 var. (rev. legend); CCA -. VF, toned, minor porosity. Rare.

From the R.A. Collection.

The final Latin king of Cilician Armenia, Levon V was elected to the throne following the death of his distant cousin, Gosdantin IV, in 1373. After a brief regency by Gosdantin’s widow, Levon was crowned the following year at Sis, his brief reign marked by numerous disputes among various factions, such as the leading nationalists who could not accept a Catholic king with a Catholic ruling class. Within a short period, at the invitation of the nationalists, the Malmuk Emir of Aleppo besieged Levon’s capital, with the latter courageously holding out for several months before surrendering in 1375. Levon and his family were taken as prisoners to Egypt, and Armenian rule in Cilicia ended. His ransom paid, Levon was freed in 1382, at which point he traveled to Paris where he died the following year.

Following Levon’s death, James I of Cyprus, a distant cousin, claimed the title King of Armenia, formally gaining the position in 1396. The title was in name, as the Mamluks had finally succeeded in reducing the Kingdom of Armenia to the city of Korikos alone (the city itself having been held under Cypriot rule since Peter I’s conquest there in 1361). From this point forward, the titular pretense was merged with that of Jerusalem and Cyprus, and passed through three more generations of the Lusignans, culminating with the family of James I’s illegitimate great-grandson, James II.