“The House of a Prince Named K'urd”: Strategies of Legitimation and Power of Memory in Thirteenth-Century Armenia
Résumé
In 1254, Kʻurd I Vachʻutian hosted King Hetʻum I of Cilicia at his castle in Vardenis (Armenia) on his way to the then capital of the Mongol kingdom, Karakorum. Kʻurd was married to Khorishah, a princess of the ancient and noble Mamikonian family, and had inherited the title of Ishkanats Ishkan (Prince of Princes) from his father Vachʻē. Vachʻē was of obscure ancestry and had earned the title and territories through military merit in the early thirteenth century, when he fought with Iwanē and Zakʻare Zakʻarian against the Seljuks in order to regain the Bagrationi territories on behalf of the Georgian Meʻpe (sovereign) Tʻamar. This father-son duo became prolific patrons, founding large, important monasteries and promoting construction both inside and outside their territory. How was it possible for the Vachʻutian family to become a widely recognized nobility within the span of only two generations, so much so that they hosted a king and appeared in no less than two chronicles of the time? The paper aims to explore this path to legitimacy by analyzing the possible strategies adopted by the Vachʻutian family, as exemplified in their architectural patronage. In fact, the buildings they commissioned seem to display some decorative features peculiar to the architecture promoted by the ancient Armenian nobility; in addition, some – such as the gavit of Sanahin – were strategically placed in architectural complexes previously established by such nobility – for example, the ninth- and tenth-century Bagratuni royalty – in a dynamic of renovation and regeneration of spaces linked to the memory of ancient power.