https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9806-8748
![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
Nersēs of Lambron (d. 1198) was a prolific Armenian writer whose works contain several colophons, of which five have a bearing on the Third Crusade. While some colophons serve as prefaces to his writings, others are addenda on circumstances at the time of writing or on later events. The scant history of scholarship devoted to them reveals an unwarranted assumption that has led early scholars to conclude that Nersēs was in Jerusalem when the city fell to Saladin in 1187. The article focuses on the five colophons in chronological order, offering a literary-historical analysis. The colophons composed in quatrains are of particular interest, as are others where a continuator’s hand is discernible—whether on the piety of Benedictine monks in the Holy City or on naval movements around Acre. While the study disproves the assumption that Nersēs was in Jerusalem then (or at any time), it underscores the historical significance of these colophons in reflecting Armeno-Cilician sentiments during the period—such as toward the apparently unsatisfactory outcome of the battle of Arsuf (1191). Subsequent hopes of victory and the eventual redemption of Jerusalem were hence anchored in the nascent kingdom of Cilician Armenia (1199–1375). The conclusion draws attention to the absolute necessity of scrutinizing ‘eyewitness’ accounts surrounding the crusades and to the need of reading the rest of Nersēs’s colophons critically.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 The complete works of Nersēs of Lambron are currently being edited at the Institute of Ancient Manuscripts, Mashtots‘ Matenadaran, Yerevan, for inclusion in the important series Matenagirk‘ Hayoc‘ (Armenian Classical Authors) began in 2003. For a brief survey of his writings see Nersēs Akinean, Nersēs Lambronac‘i Ark‘episkopos Tarsoni, keank‘n ew grakan vastaknerĕ handerj azgabanut‘eamb Pahlawuneac‘ ew Lambroni Het‘meanc‘ [Nersēs of Lambron, Archbishop of Tarsus: His Life and Literary Works with an Ancestral History of the Pahlavunis and the Het‘umids of Lambron], Azgayin Matenadaran [National Library] 179 (Vienna, 1956), 131–243. For his published writings see Robert W. Thomson, A Bibliography of Classical Armenian Literature to 1500 AD (Turnhout, 1995), 175–8.
2 Nerses of Lambron: Commentary on the Revelation of Saint John, trans. Robert W. Thomson, Hebrew University Armenian Studies 9 (Leuven, 2007). The commentary is based on that of Andreas Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia (written late in the sixth century, amplified by Arethas Bishop of Caesarea c. 895), which Nersēs translated after learning about it on his visit to Antioch in 1176. See also Nersēs of Lambron: Commentary on the Dormition of Saint John: Armenian Text and Annotated Translation, ed. and trans. Robert W. Thomson, Armenian Texts and Studies 1 (Leiden, 2017).
3 For a comprehensive introduction to Nersēs, see Boghos L. Zekiyan, ‘Nersēs de Lambron’, Dictionnaire de Spiritualité (Paris, 1982), 11: 122–34; cf. Mesrob Ashjian, St. Nerses of Lambron: Champion of the Church Universal (New York, 1993), 7–43, and Thomson, Commentary on the Revelation of Saint John, 10–14.
4 Łewond Ališan, Hayapatum [Armenian History], 2 vols. (Venice, 1901–2), 2: 430–50. These and few others are dispersed chronologically among editions of colophons (see the next note) and scattered in catalogues published by the repositories of Armenian manuscripts, on which see Bernard Coulie, ‘Collections and Catalogues of Armenian Manuscripts’, in Armenian Philology in the Modern Era: From Manuscript to Digital Text, ed. Valentina Calzolari, with the collaboration of Michael E. Stone, Handbook of Oriental Studies 23/1 (Leiden, 2014), 23–64.
5 See especially Garegin I Kat‘ołikos [Yovsēp‘eanc‘], Yišatakarank‘ jeṙagrac‘ [Colophons of Manuscripts] (Antelias, 1951), with much reliance on Ališan; and Artašes S. Mat‘evosyan, Hayeren Jeṙagreri Hišatakaranner, E–ŽB dd. [Colophons of Armenian Manuscripts, V–XII Centuries], Nyut‘er hay žołovrdi patmut‘ean [Themes in the History of the Armenian People] 21 (Yerevan, 1988). Mat‘evosyan accounts for sixteen colophons chronologically dispersed among those by others (nos. 229, 233, 236, 239, 244, 245, 246, 263, 289, 292, 293, 300, 302, 303, 304, 305?) while omitting a significant one: the second colophon—of the year 1190—discussed in this article.
6 Much has been written in Armenian on the significance of Armenian colophons. In Western languages, see Avedis K. Sanjian, ‘The Historical Significance of the Colophons of Armenian Manuscripts’, Le Muséon 81 (1968): 181–95; idem, Colophons of Armenian Manuscripts, 1301–1480: A Source for Middle Eastern History, Harvard Armenian Texts and Studies 2 (Cambridge, MA, 1969), 1–41; Michael E. Stone, ‘Colophons in Armenian Manuscripts’, in Scribi e colofoni: le sottoscrizioni di copisti dalle origini all’avvento della Stampa, ed. E. Condello and G. De Gregorio (Spoleto, 1995), 463–71, repr. in Michael E. Stone, ed., Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha and Armenian Studies, 2 vols. (Leuven, 2006), 2: 477–85; Gérard Dédéyan, ‘Les colophons de manuscrits arméniens comme sources pour l’histoire des Croisades’, in The Crusades and Their Sources: Essays Presented to Bernard Hamilton, ed. John France and William G. Zajac (Aldershot, 1998; repr., 2016), 89–110; Anna Sirinian, ‘On the Historical and Literary Value of the Colophons in Armenian Manuscripts’, in Armenian Philology in the Modern Era, ed. Calzolari, 65–100.
7 Ališan, Hayapatum, 2: 440 n. 2; cf. idem, Sissouan ou l’Arméno-Cilicie, description géographique et historique (Venice, 1899), 92.
8 Mkrtič‘ (Episkopos) Aławnuni, Miabank‘ ew ayc‘eluk‘ հay Erusałēmi [Members of the Brotherhood and Visitors to Armenian Jerusalem] (Jerusalem, 1929), 396–7.
9 Akinean, Nersēs Lambronac‘i, 37–8; cf. 184–8. To his credit, Akinean has a question mark next to a subheading of §7, ‘Nersēs in Jerusalem?’ in the book’s table of contents (p. ix), but raises no question(s) in the pages where the subject is presented (37–8). The perceived problems presented in this article are nowhere addressed.
10 On this extant manuscript, produced during Nersēs’s lifetime, see below, note 70.
11 The Het‘umids hail from Ganjak in Arcax, Eastern Armenia. Led by Ōšin I (c.1040–c.1110), they possessed the fortress in 1071/2. They were part of the Byzantine-contrived mass migration of Armenian nobility from Eastern Armenia into Cilicia in the second half of the eleventh century; see Gérard Dédéyan, ‘L’immigration arménienne en Cappadoce au xie siècle’, Byzantion 45, no. 1 (1975): 40–115.
12 Francis C. R. Robinson and Patricia C. Hughes, ‘Lampron [sic]—Castle of Armenian Cilicia’, Anatolian Studies 19 (1969): 183–207.
13 On whom, and for a family tree, see Abraham Terian, Magnalia Dei: Biblical History in Epic Verse by Grigor Magistros: Critical Text with Introduction, Translation and Commentary, Hebrew University Armenian Studies 14 (Leuven, 2012), 6–10, 173.
14 We learn from Nersēs’s biography of the year 1190 by his pupil and scribe Samuēl of Skewṙa, appended to the Commentary on the Psalms, that Šahanduxt made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1169, after leaving the young Smbat (Nersēs) ‘at the feet’ of her uncle. Aławnuni, disregarding the latter point, refers to her pilgrimage under Nersēs’s name, in the same entry, thus adding to the impression about Nersēs’s being in Jerusalem perhaps also at an earlier date: Aławnuni, Miabank‘ ew ayc‘eluk‘, 397.
15 Book II of the Dialogues is all about the life of St. Benedict (c.480–c.547). Nersēs details his interest in Western spirituality in a colophon of the year 1179, recalling his visit to Antioch possibly in 1176 and his positive impressions about the Benedictines (Ališan, Hayapatum, 2: 437–40 [no. 5]; Yovsēp‘eanc‘, Yišatakarank‘, 477–80 [no. 218]; Mat‘evosyan, Hišatakaranner, 226–8 [no. 244]); more on this colophon, below.
16 Nersēs’s admiration for the Franks has its precedent in the presentation of the Franks as Romans and their ‘apocalyptic’ return to power in the region as of the First Crusade, as seen by Eastern Christians tired of Byzantine hegemony. See Christopher MacEvitt, ‘True Romans: Remembering the Crusades among Eastern Christians’, Journal of Medieval History 40 (2014): 260–75; cf. Robert W. Thomson, ‘The Crusades Through Armenian Eyes’, in The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World, ed. Angeliki E. Laiou and Roy Parviz Mottahedeh (Washington, DC, 2001), 71–82.
17 Since it was customary to receive the crown from either an emperor or the pope, Leo wrote to the pope and to the emperor asking that he be crowned king while the emperor was in the East. Both recipients of Levon’s letters agreed, and a crown was promised by Frederick I Barbarossa. Since the First Crusade, realizing the importance of the Armenian dominance in Cilicia, the papacy had attempted to impose doctrinal and liturgical unity with the Armenian Church, and this was its opportunity. On the crisis created by Levon’s royal ambitions, see Abraham Terian, ‘Church-State Relations at the Dawn of Kingship in Cilician Armenia’, Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies 13 (2003–2004): 5–17.
18 See Isabelle Augé, ‘Papauté, Latins d’Orient et Croisés sous le regard de l’archevêque de Tarse, Nersês Lambronatsi’, in La Papauté et les croisades / The Papacy and the Crusades, ed. Michel Balard (London, 2011), 217–27; cf. Isabelle Augé, Églises en dialogue: Arméniens et Byzantins dans la seconde moitié du XIIe siècle (Louvain, 2011), and Abraham Terian, ‘To Byzantium with Love: The Overtures of Saint Nerses the Gracious’, in Armenian Cilicia, ed. Richard G. Hovannisian and Simon Payaslian, UCLA Armenian Culture and History Series: Historic Armenian Cities and Provinces 7 (Costa Mesa, CA, 2008), 131–51.
19 As a consolation to Levon, Bishop Hermann of Münster handed the Latin text of the coronation ritual to Nersēs to translate in the meantime (see Nersēs’s colophon of the year 1190, translated below). The coronation of Levon took place eventually, on 6 January 1199, with a second crown sent to him perhaps earlier by the Byzantine Emperor, Alexios III. For more, see Ani Atamian Bournoutian, ‘Cilician Armenia’, in The Armenian People: From Ancient to Modern Times, ed. Richard G. Hovannisian, 2 vols. (New York, 1997), 1: 273–91 (280–3), and also Vahe T‘orosyan, ‘Kilikiayi Hayoc‘ t‘agawor Lewon Mecagorci t‘agadrman xndri šurǰ’ [On the Problem Surrounding the Coronation of Levon the Great King of Cilician Armenia], Ēǰmiacin 73, no. 12 (2016): 84–112.
20 Leonce M. Alishan (Łewond Ališan), Léon le Magnifique, premier roi de Sissouan ou de l’Arménocilicie, trans. George Bayan (Venice, 1888), 96–119; Jacob G. Ghazarian, The Armenian Kingdom in Cilicia during the Crusades: The Integration of Cilician Armenians with the Latins, 1080–1393, Caucasus World 27 (Richmond, 2000), 122–8, 143–6. It is conceivable that a substantial part of the ‘turcopole’ cavalry, the Levantine recruits of mounted archers, were provided by Levon, who had cultivated a special relationship with the Knights Hospitaller and Guy de Lusignan.
21 Nerbołean i Surbn Nersēs Lambronac‘i [Encomium on Saint Nersēs of Lambron], Sop‘erk‘ Haykakank‘ [Armenian Writings] 15 (Venice, 1854); also in Ališan, Hayapatum, 2: 414–26.
22 For his eulogy in verse, see Ališan, Hayapatum, 2: 450–4; for a French translation, idem, Sissouan ou l’Arméno-Cilicie, 100–3; cf. (anon.) ‘Ołbk‘ i Tēr Nersēs Arhiepiskopos Tarsoni, asac‘eal Xač‘atur paštōnēi norin ašakerti’ [Eulogy on Lord Nersēs Archbishop of Tarsus, Recited by His Pupil Xač‘atur], Bazmavēp 32 (1874): 242–3; and Ep‘rem Pōłosean, ‘Xač‘atur ašakerti Ołb i Nersēs Lambronac‘i’ [Eulogy on Nersēs of Lambron by the Pupil Xačatur], Handēs Amsōreay 68 (1954): 251–6.
23 Full text of the colophon in Ališan, Hayapatum, 2: 437–40, at 440 (no. 5); cf. Yovsēp‘eanc‘, Yišatakarank‘, 477–80, at 480 (no. 218). Mat‘evosyan, adhering to Matenadaran MS 4947 (fols. 1r–2v, including Nersēs’s preface to his translation of Benedict’s Rules and Pope Gregory’s Dialogues) and discerning a continuator’s hand at this juncture, deletes the next two quatrains in Hišatakaranner, 226–8, at 228 and n. 1 (no. 244).
24 Ališan rightly surmises that the ‘witness’ here is Pope Gregory the Great, his bearing witness to the sanctity of Benedict (Hayapatum, 2: 440 n. 3).
25 Allusion to the parable ‘The Man Not Wearing the Required Wedding Garment’ (Matthew 22.11–13), illustrative of the Last Judgment. By this, the continuator implies that he is to be as truthful in his statement as when approaching God on Judgment Day.
26 Łewond Ališan, Sisuan, hamgrut‘iwn Haykakan Kilikioy ew Lewon Mecagorc [Sisuan: A Compendium on Armenian Cilicia and Levon the Magnificent] (Venice, 1885), 447–9; Armenian text of the Latin coronation rite, at 472–5 (apparatus). Cf. idem, Léon le Magnifique, 107–8. See also Derenik Davt‘yan, ‘T‘agadrut‘yan cesĕ Hayoc Ekełec‘um’ [The Coronation Rite in the Armenian Church], Vardapetakan thesis, Gēworgean Hogewor Čemaran, Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, 2001, 75–91 (recension A); 92–105 (recension B). For yet another, shorter liturgy that nonetheless seems to combine elements from an earlier Armenian coronation rite and from the preceding, see Davt‘yan, T‘agadrut‘yan cesĕ, 65–9 (recension A); 70–72 (recension B). The main manuscripts are cited by Davt‘yan. On the prominence of the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia and the significance of the coronation rite, see Ioanna Rapti, ‘Featuring the King: Rituals of Coronation and Burial in the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia’, in Court Ceremonies and Rituals of Power in Byzantium and the Medieval Mediterranean, ed. Alexander Beihammer et al., Comparative Perspectives Series: The Medieval Mediterranean 98 (Leiden, 2013), 291–335.
27 Armenian ‘Yovsēp’, simply the first name of Yusuf ibn Ayyub ibn Shadi, better known as Salah-ad-Din (Saladin).
28 Either Pope Gregory VIII who initiated the Third Crusade during his brief papacy (1187) or his successor, Pope Clement III (1187–91) who engineered it. As in the next two colophons, the author uses the title Hayrapet for the bishop of Rome, a title reserved for the head of the Armenian Church and corresponding to ‘patriarch’ in the Eastern Churches (see below, notes 47 and 56). Such use of the title is not atypical during the dominance of the Latinophile Het‘umids. Cf. the ascription ‘patriarch of Rome’ in the extended colophon by Samuēl of Skewṙa to Nersēs’s Commentary on the Psalms (quoted below, in the concluding remarks).
29 Text in Yovsēp‘eanc‘, Yišatakarank‘, 535–40, at 537–8 (no. 243), based on Matenadaran MS 3211, a Great Euchologion dated to the seventeenth century, fols. 158v–159r (described in Mayr c‘uc‘ak hayerēn jeṙagrac‘ Maštoc‘i Anuan Matenadarani [General Catalogue of Armenian Manuscripts of the Mashtots Matenadaran], ed. Ōnnik Eganyan et al., ongoing multivolume series [Yerevan, 1984–], 10: 923–4); cf. Ališan, Hayapatum, 2: 443–6, at 444–5 (no. 8). Ališan rightly observes that Nersēs’s earlier translation of the Latin rites did not include the much guarded text of the coronation rite (ibid., 446 n. 3). Perhaps inadvertently, the colophon is not found in Mat‘evosyan’s edition.
30 Detailed description of the manuscript and complete texts of the unique parts of its contents—including the poem considered here and two others—are found in Mayr c‘uc‘ak hayerēn jeṙagrac‘ Maštoc‘i Anuan Matenadarani, 2: 117–34.
31 Yovsēp‘eanc‘, Yišatakarank‘, 569–72 (no. 256), dates the poem to 1193. Mat‘evosyan, Hišatakaranner, 249–50 (no. 263), dates it to 1187, and without division into quatrains—based on Matenadaran MS 345, Bible dated to 1270, fol. 557r–v (Mayr c‘uc‘ak hayerēn jeṙagrac‘ Maštoc‘i Anuan Matenadarani, 2: 126–7).
32 Text in Mat‘evosyan, Hišatakaranner, 230 (no. 246); based on Jerusalem St. James MS 313 (Mayr c‘uc‘ak jeṙagrac‘ Srboc‘ Yakobeanc‘ [Grand Catalogue of St. James Manuscripts], ed. Norayr Połarean (Bogharian), 11 vols. [Jerusalem, 1966–1991], 2: 169).
33 Hayapatum, 2: 100–2. Het‘um II was born in 1266, while the earliest extant textual evidence for the poem is from 1270. Moreover, Ališan miscalculates the years of the Armenian era given in the first quatrain, arriving at 1287 instead of 1187 (2: 102).
34 He also copied the Ecclesiasticus of Ben Sira (fols. 475v–486r) and supplied nearly all the marginal corrections.
35 As if the biblical oracles against Jerusalem and Judah prior to the exile, seen as divine wrath for sins committed (e.g., Isaiah 1–5, 29, 39; Jeremiah 2–35, 39; Ezekiel 4–5, 8–11, 15–16, 22–24), portend future calamities in Jerusalem; cf. Matthew 24–25 and parallels.
36 Corresponding to 1187 (636 + 551, when the Armenian Era was introduced), the year of the battle of Hattin and the end of the Latin (crusader) kingdom of Jerusalem.
37 A round figure since the founding of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem in 1099.
38 Armenian ‘Yovsēp’, as in the previous colophon.
39 Lit., ‘Ishmaelite’, a commonplace designation in Armenian medieval sources for Moslems in general.
40 A rather odd designation of the various ethnicities united under Saladin.
41 At the height of his power, Saladin also ruled over the whole Arabian Peninsula, parts of western North Africa, and Nubia.
42 Commonplace explanation—ever since biblical times—for calamities in life and in history.
43 Cf. Ezekiel 28.23 (said of Sidon).
44 Echoing Psalm 79.3; cf. the colophon of the year 1198 to the Commentary on the Revelation of Saint John, where this verse is quoted.
45 Echoing Psalm 123.4; cf. Jeremiah 20.7; Lamentation 3.14, 63.
46 Mirroring a traditional Christian perception of the Apostles, of whom Peter was the representative according to the Synoptic Gospels, whereby they are seen as successors of the Hebrew Prophets in the scope of redemption.
47 As in the preceding and following colophons (see above, note 28, and below, notes 56 and 73), either Pope Gregory VIII who initiated the Third Crusade during his brief Papacy (1187) or his successor, Pope Clement III (1187–91) who mobilized it by sending Josias, archbishop of Tyre, to persuade Henry II of England (r. 1154–89) and Philip II of France (r. 1180–1223) to take charge.
48 The eastern Mediterranean is the general destination inferred here, from the port city of Tarsus to the Syro-Palestinian coast—Acre in particular. Tarsus, like the ports of Cyprus, would have been a natural calling port on the way to Acre. Cf. ‘in this direction’ in the preceding colophon of the year 1190.
49 Acre, so named by Ptolemy Philadelphus II of Egypt (r. 285–246 BC) after conquering the city, renamed Acre by the Franks, for St Jean d’Acre, in 1104.
50 Conceivably the year 1189, marking the beginning of the siege of Acre (August 1189–July 1191), before the arrival of Philip on 20 April and Richard on 8 June 1191. On the military history of the siege, see John D. Hosler, The Siege of Acre, 1189–1191: Saladin, Richard the Lionheart, and the Battle that Decided the Third Crusade (New Haven, 2018).
51 To the Last Judgment following death; the separation of the righteous and the wicked, ‘the sheep and the goats’; Matthew 25.31–46.
52 The heavenly Jerusalem, Galatians 4.26; Hebrews 12.22; Revelation 3.12; 21.2, 10.
53 Philip II, who joined forces with Richard the Lionheart.
54 The unspecified arrival place could be taken either broadly, as the northeastern Mediterranean, or narrowly, referring to ports under Armenian control, including Tarsus, the metropolis of which Nersēs was the archbishop at an early age. From there the final destination, Acre, was some 300 miles by sea. The fourth year, conceivably the spring or summer of 1191, since the author is silent about the ensuing crusader victory at Arsuf in the autumn.
55 The poem seems to predate the defeat of Saladin by Richard the Lionheart at Arsuf, on 7 September 1191.
56 On the use of the title Hayrapet (‘patriarch’) for the bishop of Rome, see above, note 28.
57 Text in Ališan, Hayapatum, 2: 430–1 (no. 1); Yovsēp‘eanc‘ simply refers to the date of the manuscript’s restoration to Nersēs, Yišatakarank‘, 557–8 (no. 249).
58 Text in Mat‘evosyan, Hišatakaranner, 301–2 (no. 300), from Matenadaran MS 10480 dated to 1286, where later on the author refers to events of 1187 and 1198 (424v–425r); cf. Ališan, Hayapatum, 2: 432–4 (no. 3); Yovsēp‘eanc‘, Yišatakarank‘, 623–4 (no. 283).
59 Nerses of Lambron: Commentary on the Revelation of Saint John, trans. Thomson, 16–19; cf. Robert W. Thomson, ‘Saint Nersēs of Lambron and the Book of Revelation’, in Between Paris and Fresno: Armenian Studies in Honor of Dickran Kouymjian, ed. Barlow Der Mugrdechian, Armenian Studies Series 13 (Costa Mesa, CA, 2008), 199–218.
60 The Julian year was 31 January 1198–30 January 1199. Cilician chroniclers and less known clerics in colophons mentioning their presence at the coronation, concur on this date. Rare exceptions—subject to scribal errors—are Vardan Arewelc‘i (d. 1271) and Smbat Sparapet (d. 1276); the former dates it to 1197, and the latter to 1198. See Robert W. Thomson, ‘The Historical Compilation of Vardan Arewelc‘i’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 43 (1989): 125–226, at 211–12 and n. 1. However, Smbat, a brother of King Het‘um I of Cilician Armenia (r. 1226–70) and a primary Armenian source on the history of the crusades, names Step‘anos, the successor of Nersēs, as the archbishop of Tarsus at Levon’s crowning; see Sirarpie Der Nersessian, ‘The Armenian Chronicle of the Constable Smpad [sic] or of the “Royal Historian”’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 13 (1959): 141–168, esp. 150–5 on the years 1187–93; cf. Vazgen A. Hakobyan, ed., Manr žamanakagrut‘yunner, XIII–XVIII cent. [Minor Chronicles, XIII–XVIII Centuries], 2 vols. (Yerevan, 1951–6), 1: 51–2. The major disagreement among medieval writers is on the order of the Latin and Armenian coronation rites. For a survey of the incongruities, see T‘orosyan, ‘Kilikiayi Hayoc‘ t‘agawor Lewon Mecagorci t‘agadrman xndri šurǰ’, 84–112.
61 Nerses von Lambron, Die Ungeduld der Liebe: zur Situation der christlichen Kirchen: Synodalrede zu Hromkla (1179); Brief an König Lewon II (1195), ed. and trans. Iso Baumer, Sophia 36 (Trier, 2013), 132–66. Text in Atenabanut‘iwn ew t‘ułt‘ ew čaṙk‘ [Synodal Oration, Epistle, and Discourses] (Venice, 1838), 203–42; for a study, see Grigor A. Hakobyan, ‘Nerses Lambronac‘u ‘T‘ułt‘ aṙ Levon Ark‘ayn Hayoc‘’ namakĕ’ [The Letter of Nersēs of Lambron: ‘Epistle to Levon the Sovereign of Armenia’], Lraber hasarakakan gitut‘yunneri [Herald of the Social Sciences] 31, no. 10 (1970): 73–80.
62 An evident mistranslation by Thomson; lit., ‘it was the pupil of our eyes’ (akn ēr ew ačac‘ meroc‘); cf. Zechariah 2.8, ‘In pursuit of his glory, he sent me against the nations plundering you, for whoever touches you touches the pupil of his eye.’
63 Cf. the allusion to this Psalm above, at note 44.
64 Henry VI (r. 1191–7), eldest son and successor of Barbarossa, who sent a crown for Levon’s coronation.
65 Alexios III Angelos (r. 1195–1203), not to be outdone by Henry VI and the papacy, also sent Levon a crown—possibly earlier than the Roman.
66 Text in Mat‘evosyan, Hišatakaranner, 302 (no. 300; based on Matenadaran MS 10480, dated to 1286, fols. 424v–425r); cf. Yovsēp‘eanc‘, Yišatakarank‘, 623–4 (no. 283; based on St. James MS 1930, dated to 1323, fol. 424r–v); and Ališan, Hayapatum, 2: 432–4 (no. 3). Ališan hardly ever specifies his local manuscripts; his text agrees with that of Yovsēp‘eanc‘.
67 Nerses of Lambron: Commentary on the Revelation of Saint John, trans. Thomson, 5–6: ‘For visibly to our eyes the holy city of Jerusalem where God has trodden has been ravished from the service of the Christians by the sword of the Ishmaelites in 636 [1187] of the Armenian era. Over it, many torrents of blood were shed of the many nations of the Latins, who had set sail in many companies in ships, and with firm faith and courageous valour arrived in Palestine. There they were struck down as corpses around the city according to the Psalm: “And there was no one who buried [them],” and we remained “an offence to our neighbours” until the completion of the year 647 [1198]. In that year was raised to greater honour the king of the Armenians Leon, from the Rubenids, pious and victorious through God. The fame of his valour moved the great emperor of Old Rome, Henry, and of New Rome, Alexios, who crowned him with precious gems in the church of Tarsus, which is tended by my unworthiness.’
68 Nerses of Lambron: Commentary on the Revelation of Saint John, trans. Thomson, 29–33. See also Igor Dorfmann-Lazarev, ‘Robert W. Thomson, Nerses of Lambron. Commentary on the Revelation of Saint John (Comprehensive Review)’, Le Muséon 122 (2009): 231–6.
69 Marcus Bull, Eyewitness and Crusade Narrative: Perception and Narration in Accounts of the Second, Third and Fourth Crusades, Crusading in Context (Woodbridge, 2020); see also Benjamin Z. Kedar, ‘The Tractatus de locis et statu sancte terre ierosolimitane’, in The Crusades and Their Sources, ed. France and Zajac, 111–33, demonstrating the misuse of the Tractatus.
70 The manuscript, copied during Nersēs’s lifetime and the archetype of all extant copies of the Commentary, is in the collection of the Venetian Mekhitarists (MS 1134); see Mayr c‘uc‘ak hayerēn jeṙagrac‘ matenadaranin Mxit‘areanc‘ i Venetik [Grand Catalogue of the Armenian Manuscripts in the Library of the Mekhitarists in Venice], ed. Barseł Sargisean, Grigor Sargsean, and Sahak Čemčemean, 8 vols. (Venice, 1914–98), 6: 871–6, esp. 874–6 for the colophon (fol. 663v) and the vita (fols. 663v–666r).
71 Yovsēp‘eanc‘, Yišatakarank‘, 539–52 (nos. 244 and 245), rightly separates the vita (no. 245) from the following two-part colophon (no. 244, where the year of Jerusalem’s fall is ՈԻԵ [1176], an obvious corruption), albeit by transposing them; whereas Mat‘evosyan, Hišatakaranner, 255–61, at 260 (no. 270; where the year of Jerusalem’s fall is ՈԻԷ [1178], another obvious corruption), fuses the vita and the two-part colophon into a single narrative, following Matenadaran MS 1526, copied in Yovhannavank‘ in 1293–4, fols. 853r–857v (at 857r); see Mayr c‘uc‘ak hayerēn jeṙagrac‘ Maštoc‘i Anuan Matenadarani, 5: 323–30.
72 The manuscripts have varying dates due to early scribal error(s); here I follow the 1190 archetype, penned by Samuēl.
73 On the use of the title Hayrapet (‘patriarch’) for the bishop of Rome, see above, note 28.
74 Arm. gan, a continuous present tense.
75 Culminating in 1190—the year of the colophon.
76 St. James MS 326, a miscellany of the years 1199–1202, the major part of which (fols. 278r–385v) is a translation of Ephrem’s memre on Nicomedia, of which some survive in Syriac (Bogharian, Mayr c‘uc‘ak jeṙagrac‘ Srboc‘ Yakobeanc‘, 2: 196–9). For the Armenian translation see Charles Renoux, ed., Memre sur Nicomédie: Fragments de l’original syriaque et de la version arménienne. Introduction et notes, Patrologia Orientalis 172–3 (37/2–3) (Turnhout, 1975).
77 See the colophons cited by Bogharian, Mayr c‘uc‘ak jeṙagrac‘ Srboc‘ Yakobeanc‘, 2: 196–9; e.g., fols. 284v, 295v, 304r, 321v, 327v, 349v, all in pages written by Yovhannēs.
78 See Hasmik Badalyan, ‘Skevṙayi vankĕ 12–14-rd darerum ev mez hasac jeṙagrakan žaṙangut‘yunĕ’ [The Monastery of Skewṙa during the 12th-14th c. and the Heritage of Manuscripts that Has Come Down to Us], Ēǰmiacin 57, no. 4 (2001): 81–91, accounting for 75 such manuscripts. For a detailed history of the literary life there, see Ališan, Sisuan, 86–107.
79 For an English translation, see Abraham Terian, From the Depths of the Heart: Annotated Translation of the Prayers of St. Gregory of Narek (Collegeville, 2021).
80 Badalyan, ‘Skevṙayi vankĕ’, 81, 87. The Gospel, described by Garegin Sruanjteanc‘, T‘oros Ałbar, Hayastani čambord [Brother T‘oros: Traveler in Armenia], 2 vols. (Constantinople, 1879–84), 2: 442–4, was lost during the Armenian genocide of 1915; the prayer book is kept at the Matenadaran in Yerevan (MS 1568). Nersēs’s two colophons of the year 1197 were written in conjunction with his visit to Constantinople as ambassador of the catholicos and of the future king (Mat‘evosyan, Hišatakaranner, 292), one appended to his Commentary on Proverbs (no. 292), which he compared with other commentaries on Proverbs and Job at the patriarchal library, and the other appended to his notes on Armenian Christology formulated during previous dialogues with the Byzantines (no. 293). These were written when in poor health and with hands trembling. In them he refers to Skewṙa as his comfortable home, and Tarsus just a place to visit.
81 Among other pupils, with writings about their beloved prior and archbishop, are Xač‘atur and Grigor of Skewṙa; Akinean, Nersēs Lambronac‘i, 5–7, 70–4. It is important to note that Nersēs of Lambron had a nephew (sister’s son) by the name Nersēs of Lambron and also a cleric, who owned a copy of the Commentary on the Psalms penned for him in 1204 by Xač‘atur, in which the nephew has a colophon in addition to one by his maternal uncle—not found in the 1190 manuscript. This lost documentary witness from 1204 was the exemplar of Matenadaran MS 990 dated to 1675 (see fols. 730r–v, 745r–746r [Mayr c‘uc‘ak hayerēn jeṙagrac‘ Maštoc‘i Anuan Matenadarani, 3: 1639–40]; cf. Matenadaran MS 2613, dated to 1681–2, fols. 681r–682r [Mayr c‘uc‘ak hayerēn jeṙagrac‘ Maštoc‘i Anuan Matenadarani, 8: 718], for a similar sequence of colophons by Nersēs and his nephew). The scriptorium was burnt down by Turkomans in 1275; Badalyan, ‘Skevṙayi vankĕ’, 84.
82 See, e.g., Mat‘evosyan, Hišatakaranner, 267–8 (no. 275), 296 (no. 295), the first written in Skewṙa in 1192 and the second in Hałbat (northeastern Armenia) in 1198; both seem to consider the Third Crusade a failure.