Bandlien, THE ARMENIAN EMBASSY TO KING HAKON V OF NORWAY

Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies 23 (2014), pp. 49-82

Printed in the United States of America

RMENIAN

MBASSY TO

ING

ÅKON

ORWAY

JØRN

ANDLIEN

During the late reign of King Håkon V Magnusson (r. 1299–1319), an

Armenian embassy came to Norway. The visit of the Armenians has been
mentioned only twice in earlier historiography. In 1859 the Norwegian
historian P.A. Munch dated the embassy to 1315 and connected their arrival in
Norway to the good relations King Håkon V’s grandfather, Håkon IV
Håkonsson (1217–1263), had with King Louis IX of France (1226–1270).
Munch speculated that the Armenians had heard about the Norwegians’ good
reputation as fierce warriors, especially at sea, and that they wanted military
assistance for their wars against their Muslim enemies.

Munch attributed the

embassy to King Hugh (probably mistaking him for King Henry II of Cyprus)
and his wife, a daughter of King Frederick III of Sicily.

Paul Riant, in his groundbreaking work on Scandinavian pilgrimages and

crusades to the Holy Land published in 1865, pointed out that Munch must
have been in error in placing King Hugh in Armenia. Riant dated the embassy
to 1314 and speculated that Joan of Anjou, grandniece of King Louis IX of
France, had persuaded her husband King Oshin of Armenian Cilicia (1307–
1320), to ask for military assistance from the Norwegian king.

Alternatively,

Riant suggested that the Armenian nobleman, historian and monk Hayton of
Korykos, had met Norwegians at the Council of Vienne in 1311–1312 who
might have given him the impression that the Norwegian king could assist in
the defense of the Kingdom of Armenia. However, since King Oshin did not
marry Joan of Anjou until 1316, and Hayton of Korykos most likely did not
attend the Council of Vienne, Riant’s explanations of the Armenian embassy
to Norway cannot be sustained.

There has been scant devotion to this embassy in more recent studies,

despite the publications of many comprehensive works on the kingdom of
Armenian Cilicia and its relations to Europe since the time of Munch and

Peter A. Munch, Det norske Folks Historie, 6 vols. in 8 (Christiania: Malling, 1852–1864),

vol. IV:2 (1859), pp. 624–625.

Munch also was wrong in thinking that a French dynasty ruled Armenian Cilicia already at

this time. Moreover, Constance, the daughter of Frederick III, did not marry Henry II of
Cyprus (1285–1324) until 1317 and Leo IV of Armenia (1320–1341) in 1331.

Paul Riant, Expéditions et pèlerinages des Scandinaves en Terre Sainte au temps des

croisades (Paris: Lainé et Havard, 1865), p. 394.

50 Bjørn Bandlien

Riant.

The Armenian embassy to Norway deserves a new evaluation,

especially considering the growing interest and research in political, economic
and military relations between Western Europe and Armenian Cilicia after the
fall of Acre in 1291. Several proposals were made to recover the Holy Land
through the kingdom of the Armenians, at the same time as merchants
maintained the trade routes into Asia through Ayas, the main harbor of
Armenian Cilicia. This study intends to discuss the background of the
Armenian embassy to Norway, and thus attempt to shed some light on the
economic and political relations between Northern Europe and the Eastern
Mediterranean in the early fourteenth century.

The Armenian embassy to Norway in the Icelandic Annals

The Armenian embassy is mentioned very briefly in three Icelandic annals.

For the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, these annals are
generally well informed concerning events in the kingdom of Norway. None
of them agree, however, on the year of arrival at the Norwegian court. The
Gottskalk’s annals date the visit to 1313 and report that in this year there
“came envoys from Armenia to Norway with treasures to King Håkon.”

The

Gottskalk’s annals are preserved in a manuscript from the sixteenth century,
written by the priest Gottskalkr Jónsson (d. 1593). For the period up to the
year 1394 Gottskalkr Jónsson based his annals on earlier, now lost annals
written in northern Iceland.

Occasionally, his annals misplace events from the

early fourteenth century concerning foreign matters.

Among the entries given

The embassy is not treated in the survey by Artsvi Bakhchinyan, “Armenian-Scandinavian

Relations from the Early Middle Ages to the Eighteenth Century,” Journal of the Society of
Armenian Studies 11 (2000), pp. 65–79, but is mentioned in his

Armenians in Scandinavian

Countries: Armenian-Scandinavian Historical and Cultural Relations (From the Beginning to
Our Days) (Yerevan: Hayastani Hanrapetut’yan Gitut’yunneri azgayin akademia, Patmut’yan
institute, 2010), p. 30 [in Armenian].

More famous is the visit of Armenian bishops in Iceland

in the eleventh century, see Yaroslav R. Dachkévytch, “Les arméniens en Islande (XIe
siècle),” Revue des études arméniennes, n.s., 20 (1986–1987), pp. 321–336 and Jan Ragnar
Hagland, “Armenske biskopar på Island?,” in Från Bysans till Norden: Östliga
kyrkoinfluenser under vikingtid och tidig medeltid, ed. Henrik Janson (Stockholm: Artos,
2005), pp. 153–163; Margaret Cormack, “Irish and Armenian Ecclesiastics in Medieval
Iceland,” in West over Sea: Studies in Scandinavian Sea-Borne Expansion and Settlement
before 1300: A Festschrift in Honour of Dr Barbara E. Crawford, ed. Beverly Ballin Smith,
Simon Taylor and Gareth Williams (Leiden: Brill, 2008), pp. 227–234.

Islandske annaler, inntil 1588, ed. Gustav Storm (Oslo: Kjeldeskriftfondet, 1888), p. 343:

komu sendibodar hingad af Armenia j Noreg med gersimar til Hakonar kongs.

Gustav Storm, “Forord,” in Islandske annaler, pp. xxv–xxxii.

Recent reconsiderations of the Icelandic annals as historical sources are found in Eldbjørg

Haug, “The Icelandic Annals as Historical Sources,” Scandinavian Journal of History 22
(1997), pp. 263–274; Elizabeth Ashman Rowe, “The Flateyjarbók Annals as a Historical
Source,” Scandinavian Journal of History 27 (2002), pp. 233–242. The most comprehensive

The Armenian Embassy to King Håkon V of Norway 51

an erroneous dating are the weddings of two Norwegian princesses, both
named Ingebjørg, to the Swedish Dukes Erik and Valdemar. The annals place
the weddings in the year 1313 instead of 1312. A similar misdating concerns
the return of the Norwegian legates from the council of Vienne; they came
back to Norway in 1312, not in 1313. The deaths of King Philip IV of France
and Pope Clement V are found under the year 1315 instead of 1314, and the
alleged poisoning of Emperor Henry VII is dated to 1314 rather than 1313.
These entries indicate that many dates concerning non-Icelandic events during
the reign of Håkon V are dated one year later than they should. This would
point to the conclusion that the Armenians visited Norway in 1312 rather than
1313. However, this is not a pattern that concerns all dates on Norwegian or
European events, and we can only conclude that the Gottskalk’s annals are
difficult to use to date events with certainty.

According to Annales regii (also known as Konungsannáll), “envoys came

from Armenia to King Håkon with precious gifts” in 1314.

These annals were

initiated by an Icelander who ended his entries in 1306, but there are many
later additions by different scribes. The notice concerning the Armenian
envoys was written by a scribe active c. 1500. This scribe added notes for
some of the years in the period 1263–1320 from other annals (some of them
lost) and historical writings.

Under the year 1314 the same scribe correctly

added a note on the death of Pope Clement V (20 April 1314) and the Battle
of Bannockburn (24 June 1314). The scribe also added other entries for some
of the years in the period 1263–1320, all of them dated correctly.

Finally, the Flateyjarbók annals simply states that in 1315 there “came

envoys from Armenia to King Håkon.”

These annals are part of a large

compilation, consisting mainly of sagas, written in the late 1380s at the farm
Viðidalstunga in northern Iceland on commission by the magnate Jón
Hákonarson. The annals in the manuscript for the period until 1388 were
copied by the scribe Magnús Þórhallsson from several other annals.

outline of the various annals, the manuscripts, the various scribes, and their sources is still
Gustav Storm’s introduction to the standard edition published 1888.

Islandske annaler, p. 150: komo sendi vtan af Armenia til Hakonar kongs med dyrum

giofum.

Storm, “Forord,” p. xii.

The scribe writing in c. 1500 is especially concerned with the offices of lawmen, the

embassies from the Norwegian king to Iceland, as well as some notes not found elsewhere in
other annals, for example, a note on the Scottish attack on Berwick in January 1316 (p. 151),
and the arrival of Tunisian envoys in Norway in 1263 (p. 135).

Islandske annaler, p. 393: komu sendimenn af Armenia til Hakonar kongs.

Magnús Þórhallsson used the Lögmannsannáll, but also Annales vetustissimi,

Skálholtsannáll and other, now lost annals, see Rowe, “The Flateyjarbók Annals,” p. 234. He

52 Bjørn Bandlien

However, the entries for the early fourteenth century concerning the
Norwegian court are probably based on an eyewitness account. The
grandfather of Jón Hákonarson, the Icelander Gizurr galli (1269–1370), had
become a liegeman of King Håkon V in 1309. He returned to Iceland in 1312,
but returned to the court of Håkon V in 1315 and stayed there probably until
1319.

Gizurr galli must have been well informed on foreign embassies to the

court of King Håkon in these years, although he probably did not meet the
Armenian envoys personally. He could have told his grandson, Jón
Hákonarson, about this event. It is reasonable that Jón then made sure their
visit to King Håkon V was included in the annals of his large and prestigious
manuscript.

Still, this does not prove that Magnús Þórhallsson got the date for the

Armenian embassy to Norway right. Scholars have noted that Magnús
Þórhallsson failed to collate many of the entries found in his sources. There
are several misdatings, and some events are mentioned under two different
years.

The Flateyjarbók annals even have inaccuracies relating to events

during the stay of Gizurr galli in Norway. One example, of some relevance
here, is the entry describing how the Swedish dukes Erik and Valdemar fell in
a skirmish in Sweden in 1317, apparently in connection with a raid into
Sweden by the army of King Håkon V. All other sources tell that the two
dukes were imprisoned and starved to death early in the year 1318, and
nothing is mentioned of a Norwegian intervention in Sweden at this time. This
flaw is included even though Gizurr galli himself was involved in the episode.
He is said to have been imprisoned and not released until early spring 1318. If
Gizurr galli indeed was imprisoned, it is more likely that this was in
connection to the confusion after the deaths of the two dukes in 1318, and
then his release would be in springtime in 1319.

For other erroneous entries

for the early fourteenth century, the dates also tend to be one year too late.

also used Konungsannáll, but could obviously not have used the note on the Armenians here,
since this was added by a scribe c. 1500.

On the career of Gizurr galli in Norway, see Jón Jóhannesson, Íslendinga saga II:

Fyrirlestrar og ritgerðir um tímabilið 1262–1550 (Reykjavík: Almenna bókafélagið, 1958),
pp. 302–308; Elizabeth Ashman Rowe, The Development of Flateyjarbók: Iceland and the
Norwegian Dynastic Crisis of 1389. The Viking Collection 15 (Odense: University Press of
Southern Denmark, 2005), pp. 245–246.

Rowe, “The Flateyjarbók Annals,” p. 234.

On the inaccuracies of the Flateyjarbók annals concerning Gizurr galli’s imprisonment in

Sweden and its account of the deaths of the Dukes Erik and Valdemar in 1317–1318, see Jón
Jóhannesson, Íslendinga saga II, pp. 305–307.

For example, William Wallace is said to have died in 1306, not in 1305, the visit of the

Mongols to Pope Clement V is dated in 1306 instead of 1305, and the alleged poisoning of
Emperor Henry VII in 1314 instead of 1313.

The Armenian Embassy to King Håkon V of Norway 53

These considerations of the Icelandic annals suggest that 1314 is the most

likely date for the arrival of the Armenian embassy to Norway. This is partly
based on the general accuracy of the notes made by the late medieval scribe in
the manuscript of Annales regii, and that the Flateyjarbók annals entered
some comparable notes a year too late. However, it is of course impossible to
exclude the possibility that the Armenians came to Norway in 1313 (and
possibly even in 1312) just from analyzing the annals themselves. A look at
the broader context is necessary.

Armenian Cilicia and the proposals to recover the Holy Land

The purpose of the Armenian embassy to Norway is not specified in the

sources. However, both Peter A. Munch and Paul Riant suggested that they
sought military support from the Norwegian king to defend Armenian Cilicia
against the Mamluks in Egypt. This seems possible, as we know of several
requests sent by the Kings of Armenian Cilicia to the papal curia and the
rulers in the West in the years after the fall of Acre. In addition, Pope Clement
V (1305–1314) sought to call Westerners to support the Cilician kingdom of
Armenia against its hostile neighbors. To understand the Armenian relations
towards Western rulers in the context of crusade, I will first focus on the
events of the papal curia at Poitiers from spring 1307 to late summer 1308,
when Armenian Cilicia in different ways was mentioned in the various
crusading proposals laid before Pope Clement V.

Several plans for the recovery of the Holy Land were presented and

discussed at the curia. Most of the rulers interested in a new crusade and with
interests in the Eastern Mediterranean, were represented by their ambassadors
for shorter or longer periods, such as Philip IV, Edward I, Charles II of Anjou,
James II of Aragon, Henry II of Cyprus and Philip of Taranto. There were
negotiations for a new crusading alliance between the papacy, France and
Angevin Naples. Philip of Taranto, son of Charles II of Anjou and from 1316
the father-in-law of King Oshin of Armenia, was given church subsidies for
an expedition to Morea.

The Grand Masters of the military orders, James of

Molay and Fulk of Villaret, attended the curia, as did envoys from Leo III of
Armenia and the Mongol Ilkhan Öljeitü. As will be shown below, the
chancellor of King Håkon V of Norway was also present in Poitiers during
much of this time.

Following the Mamluk conquest of the last crusader strongholds at the end

of the thirteenth century, the Armenian kingdom in Cilicia was pressured on
several fronts. About ten major Mamluk invasions in Armenian Cilicia
occurred between 1266 and 1305 and a heavy tribute was imposed on the

Norman Housley, “Pope Clement V and the Crusades of 1309–10,” Journal of Medieval

History 8 (1982), pp. 29–43 (pp. 30–31).

54 Bjørn Bandlien

kingdom.

The Armenian kings had accepted Mongol suzerainty since the

1240s, but even if the Armenians continued to set their hopes on Mongol
assistance against the Mamluks up to the early fourteenth century, their
relationship seemed increasingly uneven and precarious. One of the
Westerners who showed deep sympathy for the Armenians at the time was the
Venetian Marino Sanudo Torsello. He had travelled widely in the Eastern
Mediterranean, including a stay in Armenian Cilicia. In the first book of his
Liber Secretorum Fidelium Crucis, finished in 1321, but based on his
Conditiones Terrae Sanctae which he begun working on in 1306, he presented
the kingdom’s desperate situation in this way for his Western audience:

And it is proper to have respect with your most pious pity to the

kingdom of your faithful Armenians because it lies in the jaws of
four beasts. On one side below the ground it has a lion, namely the
Tartars to whom the King of Armenia pays a huge tribute. On
another side it has a panther, namely the Sultan who daily ravages
the Christians and the kingdom. On the third side there is a wolf,
namely the Turks who destroy the lordship and the kingdom. On the
fourth side it has a serpent, namely the corsairs of the Mediterranean
who daily gnaw the bones of the Christians of Armenia.

The Armenians had defended their kingdom with the help of the

Hospitallers during several Mamluk raids in years 1302 and 1304 and
defeated the Mamluks in 1305 under the leadership of King Hetʽum II (r.
1289–1293, 1294–1297, 1299–1301, [1301–1307]) and Leo III (r. 1303–
1307).

Although a truce was concluded between Armenia and the Mamluks

after this battle, they remained under permanent threat of a new Mamluk

Bayarsaikhan Dashdondog, The Mongols and the Armenians (1220–1335). Brill’s Inner

Asian Library 24 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), p. 203.

Marino Sanudo Torsello, Liber secretorum fidelium cruces, in Gesta Dei per Francorum, 2

vols., ed. Jacques Bongars (Hannover, 1611), II, p. 35: Et habere dignetur respectum piissima
misericordia vestra ad regnum vestrorum Fidelium Armenorum, quod in dentibus quaruor
ferarum iacet. Ab vna parte infra terram habet leonem; scilicet Tartaros, quibus Rex
Armeniæ reddit magnum tributum. Ab alia parte habet Pardum: videlicet Soldanum, qui
quotidie dissipate Christianos & Regnum. A tertia parte habet Lupum: scilicet Turchos, qui
destruunt dominium & Regnum. A quarta parte habet serpentum: videlicet Cursarios maris
nostri, qui quotidie rodunt ossa ipsorum Christianorum de Armenia. The translation is from
The Book of Secrets of the Faithful of the Cross, trans. Peter Lock, Crusade Texts in
Translation 21 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), p. 65. Sanudo presented Liber Secretorum Fidelium
Crucis to Pope John XXII in 1321, see Lock’s introduction to his translation and C.J.
Tyerman, “Marino Sanudo Torsello and the Lost Crusade: Lobbying in the Fourteenth
Century,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., 32 (1982), pp. 57–73.

Angus Donal Stewart, The Armenian Kingdom and the Mamluks: War and Diplomacy

during the Reigns of Het’um II (1289–1307). The Medieval Mediterranean 34 (Leiden: Brill,
2001), pp. 153–171.

The Armenian Embassy to King Håkon V of Norway 55

invasion. Their appeal for the assistance to the Armenian kingdom found
listeners in the West, and not least at the papal curia.

From the early stages of his pontificate, Pope Clement V worked intensely

on planning a new crusade to the recovery of the Holy Land.

In the spring of

1306, an Armenian and Cypriot delegation met Clement V in Bordeaux and
asked for 300 knights and 500 foot-soldiers. However, when he responded to
King Leo III in July 1306, Clement V made clear that a general passage
against the Mamluks would be impossible at that moment. Instead, he
promised that it was to be preceded by “another form of aid, convenient and
specific,” and appealed to Genoa and Duke Arthur II of Brittany, the grandson
of King Henry III of England, to supply and lead the expedition. However,
little was done to actually send this force to the Levant.

In June 1306 Clement V summoned the masters of the Hospitallers and

Templars, Fulk of Villaret and James of Molay, for consultation on how to
best proceed. In the summer of 1307 both of them met Clement V in Poitiers
and brought with them their respective proposal for a military strategy against
the Mamluks. Their suggestions differed in several respects, especially
concerning the size of the army. James of Molay asked for a large-scale
military intervention with at least fifteen, or preferably thirty, thousand men,
while Fulk of Villaret wanted to use a smaller flotilla to guard the seas from
the Mamluks and to effectuate an embargo on Egypt.

On Pope Clement V’s crusade politics, see Housley, “Pope Clement V and the Crusades”;

Sophia Menache, Clement V (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 101–128;
Sophia Menache, “When Ideology met Reality: Clement V and the Crusades,” in La Papauté
et les croisades/The Papacy and the Crusades, ed. Michel Balard (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011),
pp. 105–116.

Sylvia Schein, Fideles crucis: The Papacy, the West, and the Recovery of the Holy Land

1274–1314 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 196; Housley, “Pope Clement V and
the Crusades,” p. 31, citing Regestum Clementis Papae V, no. 748.

James of Molay’s crusading proposal is edited in Jacques Paviot, Projets de croisades (v.

1290–v. 1330) (Paris: Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres, 2008), pp. 183–188, and
translated in Malcolm Barber and Keith Bate, The Templars (Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 2002), pp. 105–109. Fulk of Villaret’s first proposal is edited in Paviot,
Projets de croisades, pp. 189–198, and translated in Norman Housley, Documents on the later
Crusades, 1274–1580 (Houndmills: Macmillan, 1996), pp. 40–46. The second proposal made
by the Hospitallers is printed in Benjamin Z. Kedar and Sylvia Schein, “Un Projet de ‘passage
particulier’ proposé par l’ordre de l’Hôpital 1306–1307,” Bibliothèque de l’école des chartes
137 (1979), pp. 211–226 and in Paviot, Projets de croisades, pp. 221–233 (Paviot dates the
proposal 1307–1308). A third document, describing the conditions of Egypt, might have been
composed by the Hospitallers in 1307, see Robert Irwin, “How many Miles to Bablyon? The
Devise des chemins de Babilone Redated,” in The Military Orders, ed. Malcolm Barber
(Aldershot: Ashgate, 1994), pp. 57–63. See also the discussion of these proposals in Leopold,
How to Recover the Holy Land, pp. 27–29; Alain Demurger, “Les orders militaires et la
croisade au début du XIVe siècle: Quelques remarques sur les traits de croisade de Jacques de

56 Bjørn Bandlien

The third strategy was that of Hayton of Korykos. Hayton (or Hetʽum)

was an Armenian and closely related to the royal family in Armenian Cilicia,
being the cousin of King Leo II (d. 1289). Hayton had been involved in the
internal rivalry and confusion during the three reigns of Hetʽum II, resulting in
his exile and entry into the Premonstratensian Abbey of Bellapais in Northern
Cyprus. He went to Poitiers, staying there from late 1306 to at least February
1308, to obtain papal approval of the disputed kingship of Amaury, brother of
the exiled King Henry II, over Cyprus and promote a Latin alliance with the
Mongols against the Mamluks in support of Cyprus and Armenia. At the
request of Pope Clement V, Hayton dictated the story of the kingdom of
Armenia and the Mongols in August 1307, known as La Fleur des Histoires
de la terre d’Orient, of which the final part presented his plan. The scribe,
Nicholaus Falcon, shortly after translated the work into Latin.

A fourth proposal may also have been presented in Poitiers. Othon de

Grandson, a Savoyard nobleman and experienced envoy of King Edward I of
England, had left England in October 1307 for Paris and negotiated with
Philip IV the terms of Edward II’s proposed marriage to Isabella of France. At
some point during spring 1308, Othon appeared at the papal curia in Poitiers.

Othon had been in Acre when it was captured by the Mamluks in 1291, but
made his escape to Cyprus and later went to Armenian Cilicia. Hayton of
Korykos must have met Othon from the latter’s stay in Armenia in 1294,
where he witnessed the enthronement of King Hetʽum II at Sis. Hayton even
referred to “that wise and noble lord, Othon de Grandson” in his crusader

Molay et de Foulques de Villaret,” in Dei gesta per Francos: Etudes sur les croisades dédiées
à Jean Richard, Crusade Studies in Honour of Jean Richard, ed. Michel Balard, Benjamin Z.
Kedar and Jonathan Riley-Smith (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001), pp. 117–128. Alan Forey, “The
Military Orders in the Crusading Proposals of the Late-Thirteenth and Early-Fourteenth
Centuries,” Traditio 36 (1980) pp. 317–345, discusses the role of the Military Orders in other
proposals.

David D. Bundy, “Hetʿum’s La flor des estoires de la terre d’orient: A Study in Medieval

Armenian Historiography and Propaganda,” Revue des études arméniennes 20 (1986–87), pp.
223–235; Claude Mutafian, “Héthoum de Korykos historien arménien: Un prince cosmopolite
à l’aube du XIVe siècle,” Cahiers de recherches médiévales et humanistes 1 (1996), pp. 157–
176; Glenn Burger, “Cilician Armenian Métissage and Hetoum’s La Fleur des histoires de la
terre d’Orient,” in The Postcolonial Middle Ages, ed. Jeremy J. Cohen (Basingstoke:
Macmillan, 2000), pp. 67–83; Angus Stewart, “The Armenian Kingdom and the Near East:
Het‘um of Korykos and the Flor des estoires de la terre d’orient,” in Egypt and Syria in the
Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras, VII, ed. Urbain Vermeulen, Kristof D’hulster and Jo Van
Steenbergen (Leuven: Peeters, 2013), pp. 525–548.

The wedding negotiations were completed in December 1307, Charles L. Kingsford, “Sir

Othon de Grandison 1238?–1328,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 3 (1909), pp.
125–195 (at pp. 159–161); Esther Rowland Clifford, A Knight of Great Renown: The Life and
Times of Othon de Grandson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), pp. 222–230.

The Armenian Embassy to King Håkon V of Norway 57

proposal of 1307.

Through his diplomatic activities, Othon seems to have

been well informed by the importance of the Norwegian kingdom. In May
1289 he was sent to Pope Nicholas IV (1288–1292) by Edward I to acquire
dispensation for the marriage between the prince Edward Caernarfon and
Margaret, daughter of King Eirik Magnusson of Norway.

It is thus possible

that Hayton had some knowledge of Norway through Othon even before his
stay in Poitiers. If there was little knowledge of Norway in Armenian Cilicia
before this time, Hayton could, after his return to his son-in-law King Oshin,
also provide first-hand information from the Norwegian chancellor (see below,
pp. 69-70).

Othon de Grandson has been linked to an anonymous treatise on how to

recover the Holy Land. This work exists in two versions, an early French copy,
the Via ad Terram Sanctam written 1289–1293, and a revised Latin translation,
Memoria Terre Sancte, completed before 1308.

This treatise shows intimate

knowledge with the East, not least Armenian Cilicia which was to provide the
initial base for new expeditions (provided the army was staying there after
September due to the summer heat). In particular the Memoria reveals
affinities to both Hayton’s and Fulk of Villaret’s proposals.

There has been

raised considerable doubt whether Othon was the author of these texts.

Still,

he had extensive knowledge of the Eastern Mediterranean and was on very
friendly terms with Hayton of Korykos, Fulk of Villaret and Clement V. This
suggests that Othon would have been a prominent figure in the discussions of
the crusader proposals presented to the pope, with his intimate knowledge of
the Holy Land, Cyprus and Armenian Cilicia, even if he was not the author of
the Via or the Memoria.

Kingsford, “Sir Othon de Grandison,” pp. 151–152; Clifford, A Knight of Great Renown,

pp. 128–129.

Diplomatarium Norvegicum, vol. 19, no. 349; Kingsford, “Sir Othon de Grandison,” pp.

151–152; Clifford, A Knight of Great Renown, pp. 103, 127–133.

Via ad Terram Sanctam, ed. Charles Kohler, in “Deux projets de croisade en Terre-Sainte

composés à la fin du XIIIe siècle et au début de XIVe,” Revue de l’Orient 10 (1903–1904),
pp. 406–457 (pp. 425–434, esp. pp. 428–429); Memoria terre sancte, in Kohler, “Deux
projets,” pp. 435–457 (esp. 445); Paviot, Projets de croisades, pp. 171–188 (Via); pp. 235–
279 (Memoria).

Kohler, “Deux projets de croisade,” discussed the similarities between Othon’s project and

Hayton’s Book IV. See also Antony Leopold, How to Recover the Holy Land: The Crusade
Proposals of the late Thirteenth and early Fourteenth Centuries (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000),
pp. 154, 162; Paviot, Projets de croisades, pp. 21–22. Memoria dismisses the idea of any
cooperation with the Mongols, unlike both Via and Hayton, see Leopold, How to Recover the
Holy Land, p. 18.

Leopold, How to Recover the Holy Land, p. 19; Paviot, Projets de croisades, p. 21.

See also Christopher Tyerman, England and the Crusades, 1095–1588 (Chicago: University

of Chicago Press, 1988), p. 238, who states that even though the evidence for Othon’s

58 Bjørn Bandlien

Hayton and the author of the common section of the Via and Memoria

were eager to make the crusaders cooperate with the Armenian Cilicia and use
it as their base. Marino Sanudo dismissed Armenia as a base, mainly for
climatic reasons, but still emphasized the importance of defending the
kingdom. Ramon Llull suggested first to submit Constantinople to the Roman
church and then to secure Armenia and proceed to conquer Antioch and
Syria.

In several other crusader proposals, however, we find a distinct

skepticism toward the Armenians. James of Molay, in particular, dismissed
the idea of using Armenia as a base, or even letting Armenian soldiers fight
with the crusaders. He accused the Armenians of being cowards and warned
that they would flee when they saw the enemy. Armenians did not want to
fight under the Franks because they suspected that the crusaders would take
the land away from them. Moreover, Armenian Cilicia itself was so unhealthy
that few crusaders would survive if they stayed there for some time. James of
Molay may have been influenced by his experience from the loss of the Isle of
Ruad in 1302, when the Armenians and Mongols arrived too late to rescue the
Templars from the Mamluks.

Leo II’s seizure of the border fortress of

Baghras from the Templars, his refusal to return it despite papal sanction, and
his confiscation of many Templar properties in or on the fringes of Cilicia,
must also have provoked the Master’s rancor and invective.

Later crusader theorists also showed concern for the religious sympathies

of the Armenians. In 1311, King Henry II of Cyprus repeated the claims that
the Armenians would flee from the battlefield and not provide shelter for the
crusaders, and that they would refuse to respect the planned embargo against
the Mamluks.

Henry II’s negative view of the Armenians must have been

influenced by the king’s confinement by King Oshin for several years on the
instigation of Henry’s brother Amaury.

authorship is circumstantial and inconclusive, the work most likely was composed by
someone with the same interests and experiences as Othon.

Ramon Llull, De acquisitione Terrae Sanctae (1309), ed. E. Kamar in Studia orientalia

christiana Collectanea 6 (1961), pp. 103–131, see also Housley, Documents on the later
Crusades, p. 47.

Alain Demurger, The Last Templar: The Tragedy of Jacques de Molay: Last Grand Master

of the Temple (London: Profile Books, 2004), p. 143. See also Leopold, How to Recover the
Holy Land, pp. 154–156.

Jonathan Riley-Smith, “The Templars and the Teutonic Knights in Cilician Armenia,” in

ed. T.S.R. Boase (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1978), pp. 92–117; A.W. Lawrence, “The
Castle of Baghras,” in The Cilician Kingdom of Armenia, ed. T.S.R. Boase (New York: St.
Martin’s Press, 1978), pp. 34–83; Robert W. Edwards, “Bagras and Armenian Cilicia: A
Reassessment,” Revue des études arméniennes 17 (1983), pp. 415–455.

The Concilium of King Henry II of Cyprus written for the Council of Vienne in 1311 is

edited in Paviot, Projets de croisades, pp. 281–292, see especially pp. 283–284, 287–288.

The Armenian Embassy to King Håkon V of Norway 59

A Dominican who travelled in Armenian Cilicia in the late reign of King

Oshin stated that when hard pressed by the Turks they would appeal to Rome
but, as he put it, “the leopard cannot change his spots nor the Ethiopian his
skin.”

The Armenians were notorious in pursuing every error known in the

East: “Among all the Orientals, the Armenians are the worst heretics, and both
the clergy and the people are involved in many errors.”

This might reflect

the widespread popular resistance in Cilicia to the theological and liturgical
alterations sanctioned by the synods of Sis (1307) and Adana (1316). Also, the
author added, the kings were unreliable and entangled in internal strife: “Their
king had nine children, and all, sons and daughters alike, have come to a
violent end, except one daughter and no one knows what her end will be. One
brother killed another with the sword; another poisoned his brother, another
strangled his brother in prison, so that they all murdered one another till only
the last was left and he was poisoned and died miserably.”

Following the imprisonment of the Templars in France in October 1307,

Pope Clement V opted for a strategy closer to the one proposed by Fulk of
Villaret, Grand Master of the Hospitallers. Still, he also showed deep
sympathy for the cause of the Armenians and was open to cooperation with

Directorium ad passagium faciendum, in Recueil des Historiens des Croisades, Documents

arméniens, 2 vols. (Paris, 1869–1906), vol. II, p. 488: Non enim potest mutare pardus
varietatem suam, nec Ethiops pelem suam. Lupus etiam, quantuncungque videatur domesticus
et appareat mansuetus et ovinia pelle desuper sit contectus, semper tame existit interius lupus
rapax. The Directorium was written by a Dominican friar who addressed it to King Philip VI
of France in 1332. This friar was possibly Raymond Stephen, who seemed to have travelled
through Cilicia in the company of William of Adam in 1318 and who later became appointed
archbishop of Ephesus; see the discussion (with extensive references to earlier views) by
Giles Constable in his introduction to William of Adam/Guillelmus Ade, How to defeat the
Saracens/Tractatus quomodo Sarraceni sunt expugnandi, ed. and trans. Giles Constable
(Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2012), pp. 5–8. The
alternative is that William of Adam himself wrote the Directorium. His Tractatus, which does
not mention Armenia, was probably written in France in 1316/17, after his return from
extensive travels in the East. In this treatise, the Byzantines could not be trusted. William of
Adam returned to the East in 1318 as archbishop of Soltaniyeh, the capital of the Ilkhans.

RHC, Arm. II, p. 487: Ipsi inter omnes Orientales sunt heretici pessimi et, tam clerus quam

populus, multis erroribus involuti.

RHC, Arm. II, pp. 489–90: Regis Armenie novem filii, VII scilicet mares et due feminie

extiterunt, quoroum unus, et utiumus, istius qui nnc ipsum regnum obtinet pater fuit. Quos
omnes, tam mares quam feminas, mors abstulit violenta, excepta una sola filia que nunc
restat, que tamen qualem finem faciet ignoratur. Unus enim ex predictis fratribusalium gladio
interemit, alius alium veneno extinzit, alius alium in carcere strangulavit, et sic omnes usque
ad ultimum, qui etiam venei pernic[i]em non evasit, fuerunt in proprio sanguine fratricide.
Translation from T.S.R. Boase, “The History of the Kingdom,” in The Cilician Kingdom of
Armenia, ed. T.S.R. Boase (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1978), pp. 1–33 (p. 30). King Leo
II (d. 1289) was the father of these quarrelsome sons.

60 Bjørn Bandlien

the Mongols, as Hayton of Korykos had suggested.

This was despite the

profound skepticism against the Mongols found in some of the crusading
proposals. Ramon Llull, who probably visited Armenian Cilicia in 1301 or
1302, had learned that the Mongols had converted to Islam and strongly
warned against cooperating with them. Even some of those who promoted
alliance with the Mongols recommended that crusaders should avoid close
contact with them because of their pride.

However, Pope Clement V

corresponded with the Mongols himself. The Ilkhan Öljeitü (1304–1316) sent
a letter dated 16 May 1305 to Philip IV, possibly also to Edward I of England,
reminding the French king of the old alliance that he proposed to maintain.

A second letter sent by Öljeitü in 1307 to Clement V, Philip IV and Edward I
was brought by Mamalaq, a Mongol, and Tommaso Ugi of Siena, appealing
for a joint venture against the Mamluks.

Some weeks later Pope Clement V

appointed John of Monte Corvino to the archbishopric of Khanbalik (Beijing)
with ecclesiastical authority over the whole Mongol Empire and sent several
suffragan bishops to aid him.

Mamalaq and Tommaso Ugi attended the papal curia at Poitiers from late

June to early August 1307, and then went on to England shortly after Edward
I had passed away. In a letter dated 16 October 1307, King Edward II
contended himself with joy at the peace established by the Mongol king from
the East to Palestine, and expressed his hope for harmony between Christian
princes.

In another letter of 30 November 1307, Edward II urged Ilkhan

Öljeitü to extirpate Islam, and commended to him the Dominican William,

The Templar of Tyre, probably writing his chronicle in Cyprus during the years 1315–1320,

revealed more sympathy for King Oshin than most other Templars or Fulk of Villaret did, see
The ‘Templar of Tyre’: Part III of the ‘Deeds of the Cypriots’, trans. Paul Crawford. Crusade
Texts in Translation 6 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), pp. 176–178.

Peter Jackson, The Mongols and the West, 1221–1410 (Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2005),

pp. 184–185, Housley, Documents on the later Crusades, p. 48. The author of the Memoria
also shared this anti-Mongol ideology.

Antoine Mostaert and Francis Woodman Cleaves, Les Lettres de 1289 et 1305 des ilkhan

Aryun et Öljeitü à Philippe le Bel (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1962), pp. 56–57.

Tommaso was the Ilkhan’s sword-bearer (ildüchi) under the name Tūmān, see Laurence

Lockhart, “The Relations between Edward I and Edward II of England and the Mongol Il-
Khans of Persia,” Iran 6 (1968), pp. 23–31.

Jean Richard, La Paupeté et les missions d’Orient au Moyen Age (XIIIe–XVe siècles)

(Rome: L’Ecole Française en Rome, 1977), pp. 145–148; Jackson, The Mongols and the
West, p. 258; Menache, Clement V, p. 126. It is interesting to note that Andrew of Perugia
states in his letter of 1326, as well as Peregrinus of Castello in his letter of 1318, that the
Church in Zayton (Quanzhou) was built with the assistance of a rich Armenian lady,
indicating close contact between the Franciscan missionaries and the local Armenian
communities in China, see Christopher Dawson, Mission to Asia. Medieval Academy
Reprints for Teaching 8 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980), pp. 233, 236.

Foedera, ed. T. Rymer, 4 vols. in 7 pts. (London, 1816–1869), vol. II, pt. I, p. 8.

The Armenian Embassy to King Håkon V of Norway 61

bishop of Lydda, and his venerable retinue.

On their return from England,

Mamalaq and Tommaso Ugi passed by Poitiers and received a response letter
from Clement V to Öljeitü dated 1 March 1308. In this letter, the pope
referred to the Ilkhan’s promise of providing 200,000 horses and 200,000
loads of grain to the crusaders in Armenian Cilicia, and 100,000 horsemen to
support the crusaders’ campaigns.

Three Armenians were probably travelling in the company of the Ilkhan’s

envoys to Western Europe in 1307 and 1308. In a letter dated 28 March 1307,
King Leo III appealed to King Edward I for assistance against the opponents
of the kingdom. Theodore, the cantor of the Abbey of Trazark (Drazark), and
the two knights Baudouin of Neghir and Leo brought this letter to England.

This was the fifth letter sent to Edward I by the Armenian kings Hetʽum II and
Leo III after the fall of Acre, indicating that the memory of the English
crusader prince was very much alive in Armenia.

The decision to use a cleric

from Trazark to lead the embassy to England might not be a coincidence,
since this monastery was a royal foundation and place of burial for the royal
families of Cilicia.

Baudouin of Neghir was the cousin of King Leo II, King

Hetʽum II’s father, became marshal before 1310 and married a granddaughter
of Smbat the Constable sometime before 1312. One of their sons was King
Constantine III of Armenia (1344–1362).

Baudouin’s connections to the élite

On William of Lydda, see Richard, La Paupeté et les missions d’Orient, pp. 113–114 and

143–144.

Schein, Fideles crucis, p. 214; John Andrew Boyle, “Il-Khans of Persia and the Princes of

Europe,” Central Asiatic Journal 20 (1976), pp. 25–40 (pp. 38–39).

Charles-Victor Langlois and Charles Kohler, “Lettres inédites concernant les croisades

(1275–1307),” Bibliothèque de l’école des chartes 52 (1891), pp. 46–63 (pp. 61–62).

Simon Lloyd, English Society and the Crusade, 1216–1307 (Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1988), pp. 27, 251–252, 255.

It has been suggested that Edward I on his part had been inspired by the advantages of

Cilician castle construction in the structure of the castles he built to control Wales, see Robert
S. Edwards, The Fortifications of Armenian Cilicia. Dumbarton Oaks Studies 23
(Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1987). However, the
directions of influences on castle-building is debated, see Ronnie Ellenblum, Crusader
Castles and Modern Histories (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

On Baudouin of Neghir, see Wipertus H. Rüdt-Collenberg, The Rupenids, Hethumides and

Lusignans: The Structure of the Armeno-Cilician Dynasties (Paris: Klincksieck, 1963), Tables
CA and III (H2); Claude Mutafian, L’Arménie du Levant (XI–XIVe siècle), 2 vols. (Paris: Les
belles lettres, 2012), vol. I, pp. 215–216, 355–356; vol. II, Table 36. Theodore of Trazark
might be identical with the scribe Tʽoros “the Philosopher” who was sent as an envoy to Great
Armenia by Hetʽum II in 1293 and who was one of the most notable scribes in Trazark, see
Mutafian, L’Arménie du Levant, I, p. 491; Sirarpie Der Nersessian, Miniature Painting in the
Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia from the Twelfth to the Fourteenth Century. Dumbarton Oaks
Studies 31 (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1993), p.
128. It is tempting to assume that the third member of the delegation was the son of Hayton of

62 Bjørn Bandlien

in the Armenian kingdom indicate the prestige and importance of the embassy.
Edward II commended William of Lydda and his retinue to King Leo III in a
letter dated 30 November 1307, as he had done to Öljeitü, but in a letter
written 3 March 1308 Edward excused himself since he could not assist the
Armenian king at this time, although he promised to send aid on a later
occasion.

If the three Armenians travelled in the company of Mamalaq and

Tommaso Ugi, King Leo III’s embassy most likely visited Pope Clement V in
Poitiers on their return to Armenia. During their stay here, they would have
been updated on the crusading debates at the curia. On 11 August 1308,
Clement V issued a series of bulls for an expedition to the Levant led by the
Hospitallers, which was to set sail in the spring of 1309. The emphasis was
less on reconquering the Holy Land, and more on defending Cyprus and
Armenia as well as enforcing an embargo on the Mamluks: “Our minds are
terrified by the gravest apprehension lest the fortitude of the noble kingdoms
of Cyprus and Armenia, which are oppressed by incursions of the enemies of
the cross, […] may fall down under the madness of their persecution; and […]
those faithful may be exposed to the possibility of a horrible death.”

As it

turned out, the first expedition after the meeting at Poitiers under the
leadership of Fulk of Villaret did not turn to Armenian Cilicia, but secured the
conquest and fortification of Rhodes. At the same time, in 1308, the new king
of Armenia, Oshin (1307–1320), sent a new letter to Clement V appealing for
aid. Clement V, in November the same year, asked Count Henry VII of
Luxembourg to assist the Armenian kingdom. Henry VII sent a letter to King
Oshin shortly after, probably in 1309, when he had become king of Germany,
promising to send men and ships for the help of his kingdom. Eventually, he
failed to take active measures to carry out his commitment.

Korykos. Leo of Korykos is mentioned in 1293 and died in 1325, but this identification is of
course highly speculative. Baudouin of Neghir might be identical to the ‘chevalier’ Baudouin
who, along with Gerald of Ayas, visited Clement V in Avignon in 1311 to discuss the
disputed lands in Cyprus claimed by Isabel, the sister of King Oshin and widow of Amaury of
Lusignan, see Wipertus H. Rudt de Collenberg, “Les Bullae et Litterae” adressées par les
Papes d’Avignon à l’Arménie Cilicienne, 1305–1375 (d’aprés les registres de l’Archivio
Segreto Vaticano),” in Armenian Studies/Études Arméniennes in memoriam Haïg Berbérian,
ed. Dickran Kouymjian (Lisbon: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 1986), pp. 697–725 (p.
719). According to Ghewond M. Alishan, Léon le Magnifique, premier roi de Sissouan ou de
l’Armenocilicie (Venice, 1888), pp. 372–373, a certain Tʽoros, who might be identical with
the envoy in England in 1307, was sent to the papal curia by King Oshin in 1311.

Foedera, vol. II, pt. I, p. 37.

Housley, “Pope Clement V and Crusade,” p. 31; translation from Menache, “When

Ideology met Reality,” p. 109.

Schein, Fideles crucis, p. 196.

The Armenian Embassy to King Håkon V of Norway 63

There were several challenges to the general crusade that was to follow the

particular expedition in 1309. First, the Pope had to postpone the general
council of Vienne planned for 1310 because of the complicated case against
the Templars. King Philip IV of France rivalled the Hospitallers for the
leadership of a new crusade, and not least, the embargo became difficult to
sustain. Moreover, there was a general skepticism against the influence and
power of the Hospitallers. James II of Aragon doubted the sincerity of the
passagium particulare and worried that the Hospitallers would use the army
to control islands surrounding Rhodes, perhaps even Sicily. The king wanted
to use the clerical tithe and the money from indulgences, and preferred that the
Hospitallers in Aragon should be used to support the campaign in Granada
instead.

The situation became more complicated in the Eastern Mediterranean as

tensions increased between Cyprus and Armenia. In Cyprus, Amaury of
Lusignan deposed his brother King Henry II in 1306 and put him in custody of
his brother-in-law, King Oshin of Armenia. Raymond Piis, papal legate sent
by Clement V, tried to negotiate in 1310, but King Oshin heard rumors that
the Hospitallers had murdered both Amaury and his wife, the sister of King
Oshin. Amaury had indeed been murdered, but his sister, Isabella, and her
children were alive and later returned to Armenia. Eventually, Oshin released
Henry II who was reinstated as a king of Cyprus.

This conflict led King

Oshin to mistrust the Hospitallers, and it was probably at this time he
sequestrated the Hospital’s estates in Armenia.

During his reign, however, King Oshin continued to seek the support of

the pope, partly by reforming the Armenian Church. The Council of Sis in
March 1307, initiated by King Hetʽum II and the Catholicos Grigor VII,

Housley, “Pope Clement V and the Crusades,” pp. 32–34.

On the relations between King Oshin and Amaury of Lusignan in the years 1307–1310 and

the exile of King Henry II of Cyprus and many of the royalist knights in Armenia, see Peter
W. Edbury, The Kingdom of Cyprus and the Crusades, 1191–1374 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1991), pp. 118–130; Charles Perrat, “Un diplomate gascon au XIVe siècle:
Raymond de Piis, nonce de Clément V en Orient,” Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire 44
(1927), pp. 35–90.

On the troubled relationships between King Oshin and the Hospitallers, see Anthony

Luttrell, “The Hospitallers’ Interventions in Cilician Armenia: 1291–1375,” in The Cilician
Kingdom of Armenia, ed. T.S.R. Boase (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1978), pp. 118–144
(pp. 124–126); Marie-Anna Chevalier, “Le rôle de la Papauté dans la politique arménienne
des Hospitaliers au XIVe siècle,” in La Papauté et les croisades / The Papacy and the
Crusades, ed. Michel Balard (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), pp. 229–251 (esp. pp. 229–234).
King Oshin also acquired a strained relationship with the Franciscans during this conflict, but
in 1311 he asked the pope to send six friars minor to him, see Claude Mutafian, “Franciscains
et Arméniens (XIIIe-XIVe siècle),” Studia Orientalia Christiana Collectanea 32 (1999), pp.
221–276 (pp. 255–258).

64 Bjørn Bandlien

decided to accommodate to Roman liturgy, such as separating the celebration
of the birth and baptism of Christ and adding water to the Eucharistic cup.
This happened shortly before King Oshin’s reign, but Oshin suppressed the
strong internal opposition among many Armenians and confirmed the
decisions from Sis at the Council of Adana in 1316.

In return, Clement V

and John XXII (1316–1334) gave Oshin and Armenian nobles marital
dispensations and absolutions.

In 1311 Clement V even granted King Oshin

the right to choose twelve men and twelve women of his subjects to be given
dispensation from marital regulations on consanguinity “ad utilitatem
regnorum.”

King Oshin continued to send ambassadors to the pope and Western rulers

during his reign, even after they failed to produce any effective response in
1307–1309. Crusading plans were discussed at the Council of Vienne in
1311–1312, and in 1313 both King Philip IV and Edward II took the cross.
Although the French king died the following year, his son Philip V (1316–
1322) had taken the cross as well. In the summer of 1317, an embassy from
King Oshin came to Paris and Avignon, led by Bishop James of Kapan (in
Greater Armenia), sparking a new interest in crusade planning.

Although a

collection of ships was sent in 1319 and the French kings continued to speak
of a crusade, their ambition was, to cite Christopher Tyerman, “impotent.”

Fr. Tournebize, Histoire politique et religieuse de l’Armenie: Depuis les origines des

Arméniens jusqu’a la mort de leur dernier roi (l’an 1393) (Paris: Libraire Alphonse Picard et
fils, 1910), pp. 309–311; David D. Bundy, “The Council of Sis, 1307,” in After Chalcedon:
Studies in Theology and Church History, ed. Carl Laga, Joseph A. Munitiz and Lucas Van
Rompay (Leuven: Peeters, 1985), pp. 47–56; Mutafian, L’Arménie du Levant, vol. I, pp. 570–
573.

Rudt de Collenberg, “Les Bullae et Litterae, pp. 701–709.

Wipertus H. Rudt de Collenberg, “Les dispenses matrimoniales accordées à l’Orient Latin

selon les Registres du Vatican d’Honorius III à Clément VII (1223–1385),” Mélanges de
l’École française de Rome. Moyen-Âge, Temps modernes 89 (1977), pp. 11–93 (pp. 41, 84–
85).

Christopher Tyerman, “Philip V of France, the Assemblies of 1319–20 and the Crusade,”

Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 57 (1984), pp. 15–34; Jean Richard, “Les
Arméniens à Avignon au XIVe siècle,” Revue des études arméniennes, n.s., 23 (1992), pp.
253–264 (p. 254). In 1319 King Oshin also sent his chancellor Sergius of Sis to Avignon, see
Richard, “Les Arméniens à Avignon,” p. 254.

Christopher Tyerman, “Philip VI and the Recovery of the Holy Land,” English Historical

Review (1985), pp. 25–52 (p. 26).

The Armenian Embassy to King Håkon V of Norway 65

The initiation of the Norwegian-Armenian relations

Paul Riant speculated that the contact between the Norwegians and

Armenians had been made at the Council of Vienne in 1311–1312.

At least

five Norwegians were present, Archbishop Eilif of Nidaros (1311–1332),
Bishop Helge of Oslo (1304–1322), Bishop Arne Sigurdsson of Bergen
(1304–1314), his brother Audfinn Sigurdsson, canon of the chapter of Bergen
(later Bishop of Bergen 1314–1330) and Hallvard Arnesson, canon of the
chapter of Nidaros and representing the diocese of Hamar.

Armenian envoys

visited the papal curia in these years, so a meeting between Armenians and the
Norwegians attending the council is not impossible, but there is no clear
evidence for this.

It is more likely that the relations between Norwegians and Armenians had

been established some years before, at Poitiers in 1307–1308. In the end of
June 1307, Åke, the chancellor of King Håkon V of Norway, was in England
waiting for passage over the Channel.

Probably he had been King Håkon V’s

ambassador to Edward I, just weeks before the English king died, and was
now heading for France. We have no details to Åke’s itinerary in France.
Most probably, he would have met King Philip IV during his stay. He might
have attended the marriage of Edward II to Isabelle of France in Boulogne 25
January 1308, or talked to Philip IV while the king visited Clement V in
Poitiers from late May to July 1308.

What we do know, is that Åke had

negotiations with Clement V for settling various matters concerning the
Norwegian kingdom. The most important one was to get papal privileges for
royal chapels, which was granted, along with other privileges, in February

Riant, Expéditions et pèlerinages des Scandinaves, p. 394, n. 4, thought Hayton of Korykos

was present at the Council of Vienne, but he had returned to Cyprus or Armenia at this time.
Hayton of Korykos appears in a list of participants at the Council of Adana in 1316 and
probably died shortly after, see J. Mathorez, “Les arméniens en France du XIIe au XVIIIe
siècle,” Revue historique 128 (1918), pp. 1–19 (p. 4); Mutafian, “Héthoum de Korykos,” p.
172.

Ewald Müller, Das Konzil der Vienne: Seine Quellen und seine Geschichte (Münster:

Aschendorffschen, 1934), pp. 663–670; Diplomatarium Norvegicum, vol. 1, no. 135;
Diplomatarium Norvegicum, vol. 7, no. 64; Diplomatarium Suecanum, no. 1849 (SDHK no.
2498). Hallvard Arnesson might be identical to Hallvard, bishop of Hamar (1320–1349).

Diplomatarium Norvegicum, vol. 19, no. 451. The letter is directed to Henry de Cobham,

Constable of Dover Castle and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. Edward I instructed Henry
to control that Åke did not bring any letter to France that could harm the king or kingdom.

This was at the time when 72 Templars, selected by Philip IV’s representatives, began their

confessions in Clement V’s presence; see the detailed study by Malcolm Barber, The Trial of
the Templars, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 105–129. For the
dates of Philip IV’s stay in Poitiers, see David Morrow Bryson, “Clement V and the Road to
Avignon, 1304–1309,” in On the Margins of Crusading: The Military Orders, the Papacy and
the Christian World, ed. Helen J. Nicholson. Crusades, Subsidia 4 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011),
pp. 61–73 (p. 69).

66 Bjørn Bandlien

1308.

Most likely, Åke stayed at the curia until late summer and was the one

who brought back to Norway the papal bulls issued on 11 August 1308 on the
protection of “the noble kingdoms of Cyprus and Armenia” along with bulls
on the interrogation and confiscation of the property of the Templars issued
the following day.

In September 1308, Åke stayed in Bruges where he

signed a trading agreement with Count Robert III of Flanders (1305–1322) on
behalf of King Håkon V.

Some weeks later, documents he issued show that

Åke had returned to Norway. This indicates that he was in France from the
beginning of July 1307 to at least mid-August 1308.

If Åke indeed stayed at the papal court in Poitiers most of this period, he

would have witnessed the discussions on crusading plans and the whole
process leading up to the call for a crusade in 1308. It is difficult to imagine
that the chancellor avoided the question of what the Norwegian kingdom
would do to assist the forthcoming expeditions. The privileges of Clement V
to King Håkon V for the royal chapels might have been related to a promise of
aid by the Norwegian king to the forthcoming crusade. The Venetian Marino
Sanudo grasped the importance of recruiting seamen skilled in warfare in his
crusading proposals to the pope. From his travels throughout Europe, Sanudo
had seen that such resources could be found in the north. He imagined that
warriors from Scandinavia and Northern Germany would be helpful in a
crusading expedition at sea.

Diplomatarium Norvegicum, vol. 1, nos. 113–115. The other privileges concern the royal

chapels’ right to distribute indulgences, the consecration of candidates for the chapels by the
bishops, and permission to consecrate up to sixty illegitimate clerics.

Diplomatarium Norvegicum, vol. 8, nos. 22–25; Diplomatarium Norvegicum, vol. 7, nos.

44–50.

Diplomatarium Norvegicum, vol. 19, no. 459. Robert III of Flanders had as a young man

participated in the second crusade of Louis IX.

On the life and career of Åke, see Sverre Bagge, Den norske kapellgeistlighet, 1150–1319

(Bergen: Universitetsforlaget, 1976), pp. 144–145; Knut Helle, Konge og gode menn i norsk
riksstyring ca. 1150–1319 (Bergen: Universitetsforlaget, 1972), pp. 594–595. A second
Norwegian might have been in Poitiers at this time. In 1308 Bishop Arne of Bergen asked his
brother Audfinn, probably a student in Orléans at the time, to visit the papal curia,
Diplomatarium Norvegicum, vol. 10, no.10, see also Arne Odd Johnsen, “Hvor studerte
biskopsbrødrene Arne og Audfinn?” Historisk tidsskrift 36 (1952), pp. 89–98 (p. 91).
However, the Bishop of Bergen was poorly informed concerning the results of Åke’s
negotiations with Clement V in the following years.

Marino Sanudo Torsello, Liber secretum, p. 72: Sunt autem in Holsati & in Sclauia, vbi

personaliter affui, notabiles multæ terræ, uixta flumina aut stagna multis pinguibus
habitatoribus affluentes: Amburg, scilicet, Lubec, Visinar, Rostoc, Xundis, Guspinal, Sectin:
de quibus trahi posset copia multa bonæ gentis: &non solum inde, se de Regnis Datiæ,
Suetiæ, & Norueiæ: cum in eisdem multæ sint habitations, tam in maris littore, quam in
Insulis constitutæ, quibus Marinariorum robustorum & animosorum suppetit multitude, quos
omnes non dubito fore vtiles ad negotia memorata. Translation from The Book of Secrets, pp.

The Armenian Embassy to King Håkon V of Norway 67

In France, Norway had a reputation of warriors at sea that may have

exceeded the realities. Louis IX had invited King Håkon IV (1217–1263),
Håkon V’s grandfather, to lead the crusading fleet during his first crusade.
Håkon IV had taken the cross, and in a short period, he was the pope’s
candidate for the imperial throne. Alfonso X of Castile also initiated an
alliance with Håkon IV, perhaps to have a supporter in northern Europe for his
own imperial ambitions, and possibly for assistance in a blockade at sea
against the Marinids in Morocco.

In 1295, King Eirik Magnusson, Håkon

V’s elder brother, had been part of a Franco-Scottish-Norwegian alliance.

Connected to this, there were negotiations for a marriage between Håkon, at
that time still a duke, and a female relative of Philip IV. Håkon instead
married Eufemia of Rügen in 1299, but continued to have friendly relations
with Philip IV. Later, Håkon V received a thorn from the Crown of Thorns in
Sainte-Chapelle and relics of the recently canonized St. Louis from Philip IV.
Håkon V built a chapel dedicated to St. Louis and placed the relic of the Holy
Thorn in his royal chapel in St. Mary’s Church in Oslo.

Reminders of the

Holy Land and the French connection to its defense were indeed very
prominent in Norway, and were displayed at the sites of royal power.

The reputation of Scandinavians being fierce warriors might also have

been present in the Levant, especially connected to their role in the Varangian
guard in Constantinople. Although the Varangian guard ceased to be

123–24: “There are, however, in Holsatia and Sclavia, where I have been myself, many rich
nobles with much land and many wealthy dwellings near rivers and marshes: namely
Hamburg, Lübeck, Wismar, Rostock, Stralsund, Greifswald and Stettin: from which can be
made a large gathering of good men: and not only from there but from the kingdoms of
Denmark, Sweden and Norway: since in these kingdoms many people are dwellers on the sea
shore or on islands, from which a large number of strong and able mariners can be supplied,
all of whom will be useful to the matter in hand.” Marino Sanudo’s journey to Northern
Germany can probably be dated to 1317. See also the notes on Northern Europe in Sanudo’s
letter to Cardinal Bertrand de Poyet dated 10 April 1330, printed in Friedrich Kunstmann,
“Studien über Marino Sanudo den Älteren, mit einem Anhange seiner ungedruckten Briefe,”
Abhandlungen der historischen Classe der Königlich Bayerische Akademie der
Wissenschaften 7 (1855), pp. 697–819 (pp. 767–768).

Bruce Gelsinger, “A Thirteenth-Century Norwegian-Castilian Alliance,” Medievalia et

Humanistica 10 (1981), pp. 55–80; Joseph F. O’Callaghan, The Gibraltar Crusade: Castile
and the Battle for the Strait (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), p. 17.

Arne Odd Johnsen, En lærebok for konger fra kretsen omkring Håkon V Magnusson (Oslo:

Den norske Videnskabsselskab, 1973); Narve Bjørgo, “800–1536: Makt og avmakt,” Norsk
utenrikspolitisk historie, vol. 1: Selvstendighet og union fra middelalderen til 1905 (Oslo:
Universitetsforlaget, 1995), pp. 17–132 (pp. 87–92).

Arne Odd Johnsen, “Filipp IV’s relikviegaver til Håkon V (1303–1304),” Historisk

tidsskrift 44 (1965), pp. 151–156; cf. Marianne Cecilia Gaposchkin, The Making of Saint
Louis: Kingship, Sanctity, and Crusade in the Later Middle Ages (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 2008), p. 77.

68 Bjørn Bandlien

dominated by Scandinavians from the twelfth century onwards, there are some
references to the Danes, Icelanders and Norwegians in the early thirteenth
century. Byzantine sources continue to mention the Varangian guard in the
early fourteenth century, both at the coronation of Andronikos III in 1316 and
as part of the bodyguard of his son John V when they were distinguished by
their battle-axes. However, it is uncertain whether Scandinavians were
members of the guard at this stage.

Thus, in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century, the Norwegian

king would still be seen a possible ally in the plans to recover the Holy Land.
King Oshin, whose ancestors during the crusader period had pursued closer
relations with the Latins through diplomacy and marriages, could have found
the Norwegians’ reputation of prowess interesting and appealing.

Although

the geographical distance between Cilicia and Norway made these kingdoms
far apart, they were closer in terms of dynastic relations. Through marriages,
Armenian kings became part of the royal and noble families in the West, also
to King Håkon V and his queen Eufemia. Queen Eufemia was related to
Adelheid (Irene) of Brunswick, who married Andronikos III Palaiologos in
1317. Adelheid died in 1324, leaving no heir, but Duke Henry II, her brother,
continued to send soldiers to Andronikos III’s army. Queen Eufemia of
Norway’s mother was Agnes, sister of Duke Albert I of Brunswick-Lüneburg,
the grandfather of Adelheid. The mother of Andronikos III was Rita of
Armenia, the sister of King Oshin. Another relationship existed through the
sister of Agnes and Duke Albert I, Elisabeth. She married William II of
Holland in 1252. William II’s sister was Adelaide of Holland who was the
mother of Florent of Hainault. Florent married Isabella of Villehardouin in
1289, and they became the Prince and Princess of Achaea. Florent died in
1298 and Isabella was deprived of her title as Princess of Achaea by Charles II
of Anjou in 1306. He conferred the principality to his son, Philip I of Taranto,
who in turn was the father of King Oshin’s wife Joan of Anjou.

See for example R.M. Dawkins, “The Later History of the Varangian Guard: Some Notes,”

Journal of Roman Studies 37 (1947), pp. 39–46; Sigfús Blöndal, The Varangians of
Byzantium: An Aspect of Byzantine Military History, trans., rev. and rewritten by Benedikt S.
Benedikz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), pp. 167–176; Andrea van Arkel-
de Leeuw and Krijnie Ciggaar, “St. Thorlac’s in Constantinople, built by a Flemish Emperor,”
Byzantion 49 (1979), pp. 428–446; Krijnie Ciggaar, “Denmark and Byzantium from 1184 to
1212: Queen Dagmar’s Cross, a Chrysobull of Alexius III and an ‘ultramarine’ Connection,”
Mediaeval Scandinavia 13 (2000), pp. 118–143.

On royal marital strategies in Armenian Cilicia before the time of King Oshin, see Natasha

Hodgson, “Conflict and Cohabitation: Marriage and Diplomacy between Latins and Cilican
Armenians, c. 1097–1253,” in The Crusades and the Near East, ed. Conor Kostick (London:
Routledge, 2011), pp. 83–106.

On Adelheid of Brunswick’s marriage to Andronikos III, see Angeliki E. Laiou,

Constantinople and the Latins: The Foreign Policy of Andronicus II 1282–1328 (Cambridge,

The Armenian Embassy to King Håkon V of Norway 69

A marital alliance between Armenia and Norway might seem far-fetched,

but the Armenian embassy to Norway arrived when King Oshin appears to
have been looking for a bride. He first married Isabel of Korykos, daughter of
Hayton of Korykos who was the cousin of Oshin’s father, King Leo II (1269–
84). Isabel died in 1310 and in 1314–1315, King Oshin negotiated for a
marriage to one of the daughters of James II of Aragon (1291–1327). This
marriage never came to be, so there is a slight possibility that King Oshin
might have looked further north for a marital alliance. However, if a proposal
for a marital alliance was part of the mission of the Armenian embassy, they
must have been disappointed since King Håkon V’s only daughter already had
been married off to the Swedish Duke Erik Magnusson in 1312. King Oshin
must have found a more local marriage alliance useful, and in 1316 he married
Joan of Anjou (c. 1297–1323), daughter of Philip of Taranto and Thamar of
Epiros.

There is another document indicating that Åke might have promised

Norwegian assistance to the recovery of the Holy Land. During his stay in
Poitiers, Åke seems to have been engaged in negotiations with Fulk of Villaret
concerning the forthcoming expedition to Rhodes, an expensive task that
eventually set the Order in huge debts. In the initial phases, Fulk of Villaret
seems to have tried to finance the expedition by striking deals with several
rulers, without the consent of the local priors.

A letter sent by Pope John

Mass.: Harvard UP, 1972), pp. 252–253, and on Rita of Armenia’s marriage to Michael IX in
1295, possibly due to Genoese influence, see Sandra Origone, “Marriage Connections
between Byzantium and the West in the Age of the Palaiologoi,” Mediterranean Historical
Review 10 (1995), pp. 226–241 (pp. 234–235).

Nicolae Iorga, L’Arménie Cilicienne: Conférences et récit historique (Paris: Gamber,

1930), p. 134. Although the marital alliance with Aragon failed, his new wife Joan’s sister,
Blanche, married Raymond Berengar, brother of Peter III of Aragon, while her brother,
Philip, married Violante of Aragon. A few years after his marriage to Joan, King Oshin gave
an arm of St. Thecla to James II of Aragon. This relic was later deposited at the Cathedral of
Terragona. K.J. Basmadjian, “Jacques II, roi d’Aragón et Oschin, roi de la Petite Arménie,
d’après un manuscrit des archives de la couronne d’Aragón (en français et en latin),” Revue
de l’Orient Latin, 11 (1908), pp. 1–6; Constantin Marinescu, “La Catalogne et l’Arménie au
temps de Jacques II, 1291–1327,” Mélanges de l’École Roumaine en France 1.2 (1923), pp.
5–107 (p. 35); Vicent Baydal Sala, “Santa Tecla San Jorge y Santa Bárbara: Los monarcas de
la Corona de Aragón a la búsqueda de reliquias en Oriente (siglos XIV–XV),” Anaquel de
Estudios Árabes 21 (2010), pp. 153–162 (pp. 157–58). This gift also contributed to the
popularity of the cult of St. Thecla in Portugal, see R. Gulbenkian, “Les relations entre
l’Arménie et le Portugal du moyen-âge au XVIe siècle,” Revue des études arméniennes 14
(1980), pp. 171–213 (pp. 187–88).

Fulk became increasingly unpopular among the knights in the Order and was deposed in

1317–1319, see Anthony Luttrell, “Notes on Foulques de Villaret, Master of the Hospital
1305–1319,” in Guillaume de Villaret Ier Recteur de Comtat Venaissin 1274 Grand Maître de
l’Ordre des Hospitaliers de Saint-Jean de Jérusalem, Chypre 1296 (Paris: Conseil

70 Bjørn Bandlien

XXII in 1320 to the young King Magnus Eriksson, the grandson and
successor of Håkon, suggests that this kind of agreement between Håkon V
and Fulk of Villaret had been established some years before.

This letter

claimed that Fulk of Villaret had acknowledged the right of Håkon V to
confiscate all the lands owned by the Hospitallers in Norway, in exchange for
the property the Norwegian king had in Denmark. This property in Denmark
was, however, of little use for the Hospitallers in Norway, since it was highly
disputed. It was the inheritance of the mother of King Håkon V, Queen
Ingeborg, the daughter of King Erik IV of Denmark. Ingeborg had married
Magnus Håkonsson, son of King Håkon IV, in 1261, without the consent of
her guardians in Denmark. Queen Ingeborg, and later her sons, King Eirik II
and Håkon V, claimed this Danish inheritance, but the matter continued to be
disputed for decades. In making a deal with the Grand Master of the
Hospitallers, Håkon V may have seen his chance to gain compensation for this
land. The prior of the province of Dacia strongly opposed this exchange, but
Håkon V confiscated the properties and incomes of the Hospitallers in
Norway and even expelled them from his kingdom. In his letter of 1320, Pope
John XXII encouraged King Magnus to return to the Hospitallers in Norway
what had been theirs.

The exact dating for the grant of Fulk of Villaret to Håkon V and the exile

of the Hospitallers from Norway is disputed and not possible to determine
with certainty from the scanty evidence. However, a shift in the king’s attitude
to the Hospitallers can be traced back to 1308. The only convent of the
Hospitallers in Norway, Værne, had at least from the 1270s (arguably even
decades before) been a hospital for the king’s retainers. In 1308, however,
Håkon V changed the privileges for Værne and ended the convent’s strong
relations to the court, as well as the incomes that must have followed from this
arrangement.

In the same year, King Håkon V allied with the Danish king

Erik Menved (1286–1319), who also sought to control the Hospitallers within
his kingdom. Furthermore, there is not recorded any donation whatsoever to
Værne in the period 1309–1319, indicating that their exile actually started

international de la langue française, 1985), pp. 73–90 (repr. in his The Hospitallers of Rhodes
and their Mediterranean World (Aldershot: Variorum, 1992), art. IV).

Diplomatarium Norvegicum, vol. 6, no. 102.

This was granted to the Hospitallers shortly after, see Christer Carlsson, Johanniterordens

kloster i Skandinavien 1291–1536: En studie av deras ekonomiska förhållanden utifrån
historiskt och arkeologiskt material (Odense: University of Southern Denmark, 2009), p. 61.

Diplomatarium Norvegicum, vol. 11, no 6; Reitzel-Nielsen, Johanniterordenens historie

med særligt henblik på de nordiske lande, 3 vols. (Copenhagen: Reitzel, 1984–1991), vol. II,
pp. 50–51; Carlsson, Johanniterordens kloster i Skandinavien, p. 57; Trond Svandal,
Johannitterordenen: En ridderorden ved verdens ytterste grense (Oslo: Middelalderforum,
2006), pp. 104–108.

The Armenian Embassy to King Håkon V of Norway 71

shortly after Åke returned to Norway, and in parallel to the preparations of the
Council of Vienne and the preparations for the expeditions to the Levant.

is at this time the relations between Håkon V and Clement V became more
strained. The Archbishop of Nidaros and the Bishop of Bergen had
complained about the extensive privileges given to the royal chapels, and even
boycotted them. In March 1311, Clement V to some extent supported the
archbishop and bishop in their case against King Håkon V.

It is tempting to

interpret these events as resulting from an agreement made by Åke and Fulk
of Villaret in Poitiers. However, while King Håkon V claimed the lands of the
Hospitallers in Norway, he never became a major supporter of the expeditions
to the Levant.

However, the cause of the crusade met with at least some support among

the Norwegian élite at this time. Hospitallers came to Norway to collect
crusading indulgences, and in the summer 1313 the knights Jacob of Monte
Leone and Obbert were active in Tønsberg and Oslo and received gifts for this
purpose from noblemen.

It is also in 1313 that we find a possible trace of

Armenians in England. The Franciscan William of Villeneuve, bishop “in the
realm of Persia,” arrived in England in the summer of 1313 as ambassador
from “the emperor of the Tartars” (presumably Öljeitü).

In a letter dated 22

Carlsson, Johanniterordens kloster i Skandinavien, pp. 70–71. The difficult conditions for

the Hospitallers are found elsewhere in Europe as well, see for example Carlsson,
Johanniterordens kloster i Skandinavien, pp. 64–80 on Scandinavia and Clarence Perkins,
“The Knights Hospitallers in England after the Fall of the Order of the Temple,” English
Historical Review 45 (1930), pp. 285–289.

Diplomatarium Norvegicum, vol. 4, nos. 91–92. In this decision, Clement V was supported

by the canonist Guido de Baysio. Present at the papal curia was both Eilífr, newly elected
Archbishop of Nidaros, and the knight Bertrand of Puojols who was the envoy of King Håkon
V. Bertrand of Poujols was often used as an envoy by the Norwegian and Swedish King
Magnus Eriksson during the 1320s. See Bagge, Den kongelige kapellgeistlighet, pp. 101–132,
on the negotiations in Avignon and the conflicts in Norway between King Håkon V, the
magister of the royal chapels, and the bishops of Bergen.

Such deception might have contributed in damaging the reputation of King Håkon V in

Europe, and could explain Dante’s negative image of him in Paradiso, Canto XIX, 139.

Riant, Expéditions et pèlerinages des Scandinaves, pp. 394–395; Thomas Hatt Olsen, Dacia

og Rhodos (Copenhagen: Dansk Videnskabs Forlag, 1962), pp. 17–18; Diplomatarium
Norvegicum, vol. 4, no. 112.

Roberto S. Lopez, Su e Giù per la storia di Genova (Genoa, 1975), p. 87, n. 11: “Episcopus

de partibus Persarum. Fratri Guillielmo de Villanova episcopo in partibus Persarum, venienti
ad Regem in nuncium Imperatoris Tartarorum et redeunti, de dono ipsius Regis in recessu suo
de eodem, per manus Oliverii de Burdigala, ibidem [apud Pissiacum] IIII die Iullii, sicut patet
per dictas particulas [Iohannis de Okhami], X Lb. II s. I d. obolum” (referring to Public
Record Office, Various Accounts, E/101/375/8, anno 1313); see also Jackson, Mongols and
the West, p. 172; Jacques Paviot: “England and the Mongols (c. 1260–1330),” Journal of the
Royal Asiatic Society, 3rd ser., 10 (2000), pp. 305–318 (p. 317).

72 Bjørn Bandlien

May 1313, King Edward II commended him to several Oriental sovereigns.

During Edward II and Queen Isabel’s stay at Poissy in France in the beginning
of July 1313, William was received by the English royal couple as well as by
Philip IV of France. He also received gifts from them.

William of Villeneuve

had been one of the six Franciscans Pope Clement V appointed as suffragans
to Archbishop John of Monte Corvino of Khanbalik (Beijing) in July 1307.
William had at that time, however, been replaced by Andreuccio of Assisi.
Instead, Clement V sent William to Öljeitü in 1308, probably accompanying
the Ilkhan’s envoys Mamalaq and Tommaso Ugi from Poitiers.

It is plausible to assume that Åke knew William of Villeneuve from his

stay in Poitiers in 1307–1308. William himself probably left England in the
company of King Edward and Queen Isabella for France 23 May 1313, and
most likely attended the Pentecost feast when the two kings took the cross. At
about this time, the English king also sent the Carmelite John Boukhil to the
Holy Land “for the salvation of the king and his subjects.” Whether Edward II
ever intended to join a crusade himself is a matter of some dispute, but he
certainly tried to invoke a sense of devotion to the East and the Holy Land.

The purpose of the embassy from Öljeitü to England in 1313 is not mentioned
in the letter, but it seems likely that it was connected to the Mongol campaigns
in Syria in 1312–1313, assisted by a small Armenian force. Achieving little,
the Ilkhan would probably encourage Western rulers to send military
assistance.

Although there is no mention of Armenians in the entourage of William of

Villeneuve, they might have been his travel companions. Such companionship

Foedera, vol. II, pt. I, pp. 216–217; Paviot, “England and the Mongols,” p. 317. Among the

rulers a letter of commendation were sent to were King David of Georgia (who had already
died at this time), the Emperor of Trebizond, and Emperor of Cathay.

J.S.R. Phillips, The Medieval Expansion of Europe, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 1998), p. 129.

On William of Villeneuve, see Richard, La Papauté, pp. 148–149.

Timothy Guard, Chivalry, Kingship and Crusade: The English Experience in the

Fourteenth Century (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2013), p. 31; Suzanne Lewis, “The Apocalypse of
Isabella of France: Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS Fr. 13096,” The Art Bulletin 72 (1990), pp. 224–260.
On the festivities in Paris in 1313, see Elizabeth A.R. Brown and Nancy Freeman Regalado,
“La grant feste: Philip the Fair’s Celebration of the Knighting of His Sons in Paris at
Pentecost of 1313,” in City and Spectacle in Medieval Europe, ed. Barbara A. Hanawalt and
Kathryn L. Reyerson (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994), pp. 56–86 (esp. p.
73 on crusade); Elizabeth A.R. Brown and Nancy Freeman Regalado, “Universitas et
communitas: The Parade of the Parisians at the Pentecost Feast of 1313,” in Moving Subjects:
Processional Performance in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, ed. Kathleen Ashley and
Wim Hüsken. Ludus 5 (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2001), pp. 117–154. Expectations for his
participation in crusades during his first years as king reign are reflected in several prophetic
poems, see V.J. Scattergood, “Adam Davy’s Dreams and Edward II,” Archiv für das Studium
der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen 206 (1970), pp. 253–260.

The Armenian Embassy to King Håkon V of Norway 73

and diplomatic cooperation seems to have been the case in 1307, when
Mamalaq and Tommaso Ugi arrived in France and England at the same time
as Baudouin of Neghir and his company. In 1289, the envoy of Ilkhan Arghun,
John de Monte Corvino, brought letters from King Hetʽum II.

In 1313,

Armenian envoys from King Oshin might have joined William of
Villeneuve’s embassy to Edward II and later sailed on a ship to Norway.

However, the relationship between Håkon V and Edward II was somewhat

strained in these years. Edward II complained in several letters during 1313
that Norwegian officials had confiscated the cargo of English merchants, other
Englishmen had died while imprisoned in Bergen, while Håkon V accused
English officials in Lynn of having witnessed falsely against Norwegian
merchants, leading to their arrest. The last letter concerning this conflict was
sent in the autumn of the same year, and no embassies, letters or trading ships
can be documented between England and Norway in 1314, probably due to
this conflict. It was only in 1315 that the merchant John of Walton sailed for
Norway to negotiate new terms for merchants on behalf of Edward II, and
brought falcons and hawks back to the English king.

As there are no English

ships documented as coming to Norway in 1314, 1313 would be a more likely
year for the embassy to cross the North Sea – if indeed the Armenians came
from England.

Another possibility is that the Armenians followed William of Villeneuve

and Edward II from England to Paris to attend the Pentecost celebrations
arranged by Philip IV in June 1313. From here, the Armenians might have
accompanied the Hospitallers led by Jacob of Monte Leone who arrived in
Oslo in July 1313. This is of course speculation, but it fits well into the
chronology suggested by the preserved sources. In this case, Icelandic annals
could be reminiscent of a forgotten embassy from King Oshin of Armenia to
not only King Håkon V of Norway, but also to Philip IV of France.

In 1289, John of Monte Corvino brought to Rome letters in which King Hetʽum II affirmed

his devotion to the Holy See, something that would be in the Ilkhan’s interest. At the same
time, Buscarello de Ghisolfi brought letters from Arghun to Pope Nicholas IV, Philip IV and
Edward I concerning a joint attack on the Mamluks. Bernard Hamilton, “The Armenian
Church and the Papacy at the Time of the Crusades,” Eastern Churches Review 10 (1978), pp.
61–87 (pp. 83–85).

Diplomatarium Norvegicum, vol. 19, no. 493.

The knowledge of the situation in Armenia in Norway seems to have been scant. As evident

in the Icelandic annals, the rumors in Europe about the Mongols’ conquest of the Holy Land
in 1299–1300 were known in the north. On these rumors, based on the campaigns of Ghazan
in 1299–1301 supported by Armenians, see Sylvia Schein, “Gesta Dei per Mongolos 1300:
The Genesis of a Non-Event,” English Historical Review 94 (1979), pp. 805–819; Peter
Armour, “The Twelve Ambassadors and Ugolino’s Jubilee Inscription: Dante’s Florence and
the Mongols in 1300,” Italian Studies 52 (1997), pp. 1–15. Ghazan had entered Damascus on
6 January 1300 and campaigned as far south as Gaza, but controlled Syria only for a few

74 Bjørn Bandlien

A possible Norwegian-Armenian trading alliance?

There is a possibility, mentioned neither by Munch nor Riant, that the

purpose for the Armenian embassy was to establish trading relations rather
than military support. Ayas was the main trading port of Armenian Cilicia and
Latin Europe’s main entrepôt in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Marco Polo

visited the city on his way to China and remarks in Le Devisement that it is
said of Ayas that “all the spicery, and the cloths of silk and gold, and other
valuable wares that come from the interior are brought to that city.”

The

valuables transported to this city from the caravan route running from
Baghdad across the upper valley of the Euphrates attracted merchants from
the Italian cities, especially Genoa and Venice.

After the fall of Acre, the

months. In the Annales vetustissimi, it is said that: “The King of the Tartars fought in
Armenia. The second battle was at the place called camp Damascus. The third in the land of
Egypt and had always victory and killed Soldan in the last one, and liberated the land of
Jerusalem.” (Islandske annaler, p. 52: Barðiz Tattara konungr i Armenia, aðra orrostu þar
sem heitir kampus Damasci, þriðio í Egipta landi ok hafði iamnan sigr ok drap Soldan i hinne
siðuztu ok friðaði Jorsala land.) The Annals of Flateyjar include the same phrase as Annales
vetustissimi, see Islandske annaler, p. 386. In the Annales regii the recovery of the Holy Land
is said to be a result of an alliance between the King of the Tartars and the King of Armenia
(Islandske annaler, pp. 145–46: Tartarakonungr ok konungr af Armenia vunnu Iorsalalannd
ok sigraðu soldan af Babilon.) The annals also report about the raids of the Soldan of Babilon
in Cyprus and Armenia in connection to the call of the crusade by Pope Clement V (Islandske
annaler, pp. 392, 488). Three annals tell that the king of the Tartars liberated the Holy Land,
and that his ambassadors were baptized in Rome in 1305 or 1306, see Islandske annaler, p.
148 (Konungsannáll), p. 201 (Skálholtsannáll) and p. 340 (Gottskálksannáll). This seems to
reflect a distorted knowledge of Öljeitü’s embassy to the West in 1305. Rumors were later
spread in the West about a great victory of the Tartars, Armenians, and Cypriots at the plain
of Damietta and that the king of the Tartars had imprisoned the sultans of Cairo and
Damascus, see Flores Historiarum, ed. Henry Richard Luard, Rolls Series 95, 3 vols (London
1890), vol. III, p. 335; see also Paviot, “England and the Mongols,” p. 317. This may have
been an echo of the raid into Syria by the Mongols, supported by a small contingent of
Armenians, taking Mosul in February 1312, but retreating shortly after. Such an account of
Mongol victories in 1312–1313 is not found in Scandinavian sources.

David Jacoby, “The Venetians in Byzantine and Lusignan Cyprus: Trade, Settlement and

Politics,” in La Serenissima and La Nobilissima: Venice in Cyprus and Cyprus in Venice, ed.
Angel Nicolaou-Konnari (Nicosia: Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation, 2009), pp. 59–100
(p. 67).

The Book of Ser Marco Polo, trans. Henry Yule (London, 1871), p. 41.

On the Genoese presence in Ayas, see Catherine Otten-Froux, “L’Aïas dans le dernier tiers

du XIIIe siècle d’après les notaires Génois,” Asian and African Studies 22 (1988), pp. 147–
171. On the Ilkhanid-Mamluk rivalry for the resources of Armenian Cilicia, and especially the
effect on the kingdom from the shifty Genoese trading politics in the Levant, see Virgil
Ciocîltan, Mongols and the Black Sea Trade in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. East
Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450–1450 20 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), pp. 68–
88. King Oshin established close relations to Venice, Ghewond Alishan, L’Armeno-Veneto:
Compendio storico e documenti delle relazioni degli Armeni coi Veneziani (Venezia, 1893),

The Armenian Embassy to King Håkon V of Norway 75

rulers of Armenian Cilicia are said to have “showered privileges on Western
merchants.”

On the initiative of James II of Aragon (1291–1327), Catalan

merchants were granted exemption from taxes and the establishment of a
trading house in 1293. Merchants from Messina also traded in Armenia.

January 1314, King Oshin accorded reduced customs duties at Ayas for
merchants from Montpellier.

In addition, Ayas was the most important

exporter of timber and iron to Acre until 1291. After the fall of Acre, Italian
merchants brought such commodities even to Egypt, despite attempts at an
embargo against the Mamluks.

100

Although the kings of Armenian Cilicia granted privileges to foreign trade

colonies in Cilicia, the crown did not play a significant role in establishing
Armenian trade relations abroad. However, King Oshin could have been
encouraged to establish trading relations with Norway by the changed political
circumstances of Armenian Cilicia in the years around 1313. There seems not
to have been a break in the relations between Armenians and the Mongols
during the early years of King Oshin’s and Öljeitü’s reign, even though
Öljeitü had, as his brother and predecessor Ghazan, converted to Islam. The
campaigns in Syria in 1312–1313 signaled a shift in the Mongol-Armenian
relationship. A sign of this is that King Oshin supported the Mongol army
with only a few men.

101

Öljeitü afterwards laid heavy taxation on the

Armenians, and became increasingly unpopular and distrusted. The
Armenians considered from this time on the Mongol Ilkhanate less a protector

esp. 48–52: e.g. in 1314 “Ochine achète par son ambassadeur à Venice 500 rames de navire.”
Alishan, Léon le Magnifique, p. 373, and in 1316: “Décret de la République de Venise pour
l’egalisation de la monnaie arménienne.” Ilkhan Öljeitü also favored the Venetians, see
Ciocîltan, Mongols and the Black Sea, pp. 129–130.

David Abulafia, “The Levant Trade of the Minor Cities in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth

Centuries: Strengths and Weaknesses,” Asian and African Studies 22 (1988), pp. 183–202 (p.
192).

Marinescu, “La Catalogne et l’Arménie”; David Abulafia, “The Merchants of Messina:

Levant Trade and Domestic Economy,” Papers of the British School at Rome 54 (1986), pp.
196–212 (p. 209).

La Trésor des Chartes d’Arménie ou Cartulaire de la Chancellerie royale des Roupéniens,

ed. Victor Langlois (Venise, 1863), pp. 178–179; Kathryn L. Reyerson, The Art of the Deal:
Intermediaries of Trade in Medieval Montpellier. The Medieval Mediterranean 37 (Leiden:
Brill, 2002), p. 40. These grants were confirmed by King Leo IV in 1321.

100

David Jacoby, “The Supply of War Materials to Egypt in the Crusader Period,” Jerusalem

Studies in Arabic and Islam 25 (2001), pp. 102–132 (esp. pp. 119–124).

101

Stewart, The Armenian Kingdom and the Mamluks, pp. 181–183; Angus Stewart, “The

Assassination of King Het‘um II: The Conversion of the Ilkhans and the Armenians,” Journal
of the Royal Asiatic Society, 3rd ser. 15 (2005), pp. 45–61. On the Ilkhanid-Mamluk rivalry
over Syria and authority over the Muslim world after the conversion of Ghazan to Islam in
1295, see Denise Aigle, “The Mongol Invasions of Bilād al-Shām by Ghāzan Khān and Ibn
Taymīyah’s Three ‘Anti-Mongol’ Fatwas,” Mamlūk Studies Review 11.2 (2007), pp. 89–120.

76 Bjørn Bandlien

than a threat and scourge.

102

Öljeitü’s successor, Abū Sa‘īd (1316–1335), was

at best indifferent to the Armenians and showed little interest to protect Cilicia
from the Mamluks. King Oshin approached the Mamluk sultan himself to
prevent further raids from them. In 1312, he seems to have offered his female
cousin to al-Nāṣir Muḥammad’s harem, and even to hint about the planned
campaign of the Mongols in Syria.

103

Sergio La Porta sums up the new

situation in this way:

In this period, the Armenian kingdom delicately balanced its

precarious position between the Mamluks and the Mongols in the
near impossible attempt to remain on good relations with both
empires. To this end, Awšin [Oshin] appears to have attempted to
maintain as many open channels as possible: he negotiated with and
assisted the Mamluks, he contributed a nominal force to Öljeitü’s
Syrian campaign of 1312–13, and, as a third recourse, he continued
relations with the Latin church, reconfirming the decisions of the
Council of Sis of 1307 at the Council of Adana in 1316.

104

Under these circumstances, King Oshin would not necessarily be

interested in military support from the north. What was important for him was
to keep his Mongol and Mamluk neighbors pleased. The Armenian kingdom
during the reign of King Oshin was in desperate need of financial resources,
no less than military assistance. The Armenian kings had to pay regular tribute
to the Mamluks and higher taxes to the Mongol Ilkhans, besides trying to
finance the renovation of fortresses, military garrisons, and other building
activities.

105

King Oshin tried to appease the Mamluks and Mongols also by

sending gifts. One of the attractive gifts the Armenian king could offer to his
Muslim neighbors was, however, not to be found in the caravans arriving at
Ayas along the Silk Road, but in the Arctic north.

In Norway, the commodity of highest value was hunting falcons,

especially the white falcons from Greenland and Iceland, both tributary lands
under the Norwegian crown.

106

During the thirteenth century, the Norwegian

102

Stewart, The Armenian Kingdom and the Mamluks, pp. 182–183.

103

Dashdondog, The Mongols and the Armenians, pp. 203–208. Sergio La Porta, “The

Armenian Episcopacy in Mamluk Jerusalem in the Aftermath of the Council of Sis (1307),”
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland 17 (2009), pp. 99–114, see p.
107 on the Copt historian Mufaddal’s report on the Armenian embassy to Egypt in 1312.

104

La Porta, “The Armenian Episcopacy,” pp. 109–110.

105

On the building activities of King Oshin in Tarsus, see Victor Langlois, Voyage dans la

Cilicie et dans les montagnes du Taurus, exécuté pendant les années 1852–1853 (Paris:
Duprat, 1861), pp. 321–326.

106

For example, Frederick II in his De arte venandi cum avibus noted that Icelandic

gyrfalcons were the best hunting falcons, Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, The Art of Falconry,
trans. Casey E. Wood and F. Marjorie Fyfe (Stanford: Stanford UP, 1943), p. 111.

The Armenian Embassy to King Håkon V of Norway 77

kings had regularly used gyrfalcons as diplomatic gifts, as well as for exports.
Only the king and the archbishop could participate in this lucrative trade. For
the Norwegian kings, giving falcons to foreign rulers may have been a kind of
advertising for the quality of falcons from the north, making them attractive
and valuable.

It might have been for this end that King Håkon IV of Norway sent an

envoy, Lodin Lepp, with falcons to al-Mustanṣir of Tunis in 1262. The same
envoy later brought falcons to the ‘Soldan of Babylonia’ sometime during the
reign of King Magnus Håkonsson (1263–1280), the father of Håkon V.

107

Most likely, the purpose was to promote falcon export from Norway, since
this was in high demand at the time.

108

Ibn Sa‘īd al-Maghribī, a poet and

chronicler who lived in Tunis and Cairo at the end of the thirteenth century,
stated that such falcons from northern Europe were so prestigious that even
dead specimens were bought for a high price.

109

There are few direct sources

for falcon export from Scandinavia to the Eastern Mediterranean during the
reign of Håkon V. However, in 1347 King Magnus Eriksson of Norway and
Sweden requested license from Pope Clement VI to export falcons to the land
of ‘Soldan of Babilonia’. King Magnus explained that this trade was very

107

Árna saga biskups, in Biskupa sögur, 3, ed. Guðrún Ása Grímsdóttir, Íslenzk fornrit 17

(Reykjavík, 1998), pp. 1–212, ch. 57 (p. 81). This early fourteenth century Icelendic saga is
an important source of information on Western Scandinavian history in the late thirteenth
century. The saga was probably written by Árni Helgason, who probably had met Lodin Lepp
during his visit to Iceland in 1280–1281, when he was a priest at Skálholt. According to a
later addition in Annales regii, not confirmed elsewhere, Lodin Lepp returned from Tunis in
1263 in the company of envoys from al-Mustansir, see Islandske annaler, p. 135.

108

Riant, Expéditions et pèlerinages des Scandinaves, p. 376 speculated that the purpose was

a commercial treaty, a suggestion accepted by Louis de Mas Latrie, Relations et commerce de
l’Afrique septentrionale ou Maghreb avec les nations chrétiennes au Moyen Age (Paris,
1886), pp. 242–243. Genoese merchants were active in Egypt in this period, and the Mamluks
seem to have been eager to promote trade with Christian merchants. This is indicated by
Baybars’ treatise from 1271, in Peter M. Holt, Early Mamluk Diplomacy, 1260–1290:
Treatises of Baybars and Qalawun with Christian Rulers (Leiden: Brill, 1995), pp. 49–57; see
also Linda S. Northrup, From Slave to Sultan: The Career of Al-Mansur Qalawun and the
Consolidation of Mamluk rule in Egypt and Syria (678–689 A.H./1279–1290 A.D.) (Stuttgart:
Franz Steiner, 1998), pp. 281–296; Yvonne Friedman, Encounters between Enemies:
Captivity and Ransom in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Leiden: Brill, 2002), pp. 99–102;
Aziz Suryal Atiya, Egypt and Aragon: Embassies and Diplomatic Correspondence between
1300 and 1330 A.D. Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 23:7 (Leipzig:
Brockhaus, 1938). Douglas M. Dunlop, “Relations between Norway and the Maghrib in the
7th/13th Century,” Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society 11 (1979), pp. 41–44, adds
little to this, besides confirming that direct references to Norwegians staying in Tunis or
Egypt in Arabic sources are indeed few.

109

Harris Birkeland, Nordens historie i middelalderen etter arabiske kilder (Oslo: Det Norske

Videnskabs-Akademi, 1954), pp. 99–100.

78 Bjørn Bandlien

profitable, and it would finance his crusade against the Russians.

110

A few

years earlier, in 1345, two Swedes bringing falcons paid for passage on a ship
from Barcelona to Alexandria.

111

Raymund de Lamena, a nobleman from

Montpellier who was employed as an envoy by King Magnus Eriksson of
Norway and Sweden from the 1320s to the early 1340s, appears to have
brought falcons from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean at the time. It might
be that these were shipped to Egypt from Montpellier – in 1351, Stephen
Roserius of Montpellier was given license from Pope Clement VI to ship 25
gyrfalcons or falcons to Mamluk lands.

112

Abū al-Fidā’ (d. 1331), the

governor of Hama, referred in his memoirs to the ‘Island of Gyrfalcons’
beyond Ireland, presumably alluding to Iceland, and tells that he received a
large number of falcons and hawks from the sultan, al-Nāṣir Muḥammad (d.

110

Diplomatarium Norvegicum, vol. 7, no. 198. This was granted by Pope Clement VI for five

years if the traders did not bring prohibited goods to the enemies of Christendom, see
Diplomatarium Norvegicum, vol. 7, no. 202. As a part of the request for licence, King
Magnus Eriksson sent white falcons as a gift to the pope, Diplomatarium Norvegicum, vol. 6,
no. 184. King Magnus Eriksson was also granted permission to visit the holy places in
Palestine with a following of 100 men, Diplomatarium Norvegicum, vol. 7, no. 204. In 1347,
Philip VI received gyrfalcons as a gift from the Norwegian king, Diplomatarium Norvegicum,
vol. 19, no. 567; Les journaux du trésor de Philippe VI de Valois, ed. Jules Viard (Paris:
Imprimerie nationale, 1899), p. 109. On the papal embargo, see Jean Richard, “Le royaume de
Chypre et l’embargo sur le commerce avec l’Egypte (fin XIIIe–début XIVe siècle),”
Comptes-rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 128:1 (1984),
pp. 120–134; Sophia Menache, “Papal Attempts at a Commercial Boycott of the Muslims in
the Crusader Period,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 63 (2012), pp. 236–259. On the
routine of granting licenses for trade to Egypt at this time, see Mike Carr, “Crossing
Boundaries in the Mediterranean: Papal Trade Licenses from the Registra supplicationum of
Pope Clement VI (1342–52),” Journal of Medieval History 41 (2015), pp. 107–129; Nicholas
Coureas, “Controlled Contacts: The Papacy, the Latin Church of Cyprus and Mamluk Egypt,
1250–1350,” in Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras, IV, ed. U.
Vermeulen, J. Van Steenbergen. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 140 (Leuven: Peeters,
2005), pp. 395–408. See also Gisela Hofmann, “Falkenjagt und Falkenhandel in den
nordischen Ländern während des Mittelalters,” Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und
deutsche Literatur 88 (1957–58), pp. 115–149.

111

The ship was owned by the merchant and diplomat Petrus de Media Villa, see Birgitta Fritz

and Eva Odelman, “Svensk falkexport till Egypten på medeltiden: Studier kring en
affärshandling från 1345 i Barcelona,” Rättshistoriska studier 18 (1992), pp. 64–94. In this
connection, it is interesting to note that in Decamaron 2.9, a Catalan captain sails to
Alexandria with some peregrine falcons for the sultan.

112

Diplomatarium Norvegicum, vol. 8, nos. 135 and 140; Peter A. Munch, Pavelige Nuntiers

Regnskabs-og Dagböger, førte under Tiende-Opkrævningen i Norden 1282–1334
(Christiania: Brögger & Christie, 1864), p. 52; Stefan K. Stantchev, Spiritual Rationality:
Papal Embargo as Cultural Practice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), p. 151; Carr,
“Crossing Boundaries in the Mediterranean,” p. 112.

The Armenian Embassy to King Håkon V of Norway 79

1341).

113

The sultan is said to have spent large sums on falcons from distant

lands, and one document refers to his purchase of no less than 419 falcons,
about a fourth of these were shipped from a merchant in Venice.

114

The Ilkhans must have known about the prestigious hunting falcons from

the north as well as the Mamluk rulers did. Ramon Llull mentioned in his
prose novel Felix many men “with gyrfalcons, which they had brought from
one end of the world and were now taking to the Tartars to make money.”

115

The one end of the world would in this case probably mean the lands close to
the Arctic. In the late 1270s, Ilkhan Abaqa sent two Catalans and a Nestorian
Christian to Norway to purchase gyrfalcons. They never reached Norway, but
instead pretended to be Abaqa’s ambassadors at several courts in Europe.

116

few years later, falcons constituted part of the gifts brought to Abaqa from the
West in 1278.

117

According to several Icelandic annals, Mongols envoys came

to Norway in 1286. Although the purpose of this embassy is not mentioned in
the sources, their mission could have been the same as that of the Catalans and
Nestorian a few years before – to acquire precious hunting birds.

118

In his

113

The Memoirs of a Syrian Prince, Abu’l-Fidāʾ, Sultan of Ḥamāh (672–732/1273–1331),

trans. Peter M. Holt (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1983), p. 89.

114

Housni Alkhateeb Shehada, Mamluks and Animals: Veterinary Medicine in Medieval Islam

(Leiden: Brill, 2013), pp. 68–69. The average price for each falcon was 750 dirhems, more
than the price of a medium quality horse. Gyrfalcons from the North would have been more
expensive than this, partly because of the expenses of shipping them and caring for them over
long distances, see Thomas T. Allsen, The Royal Hunt in Eurasian History (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), pp. 248–250, 260–264.

115

Ramon Llull, Selected Works of Ramon Llull, ed. and trans. Anthony Bonner, 2 vols.

(Princeton: Princeton UP, 1983), II, p. 893.

116

Langlois and Kohler, “Lettres inédites,” p. 57. Their purpose might have been to obtain

gyrfalcons as gifts from European rulers and then pocket the money, see Peter Jackson,
“Marco Polo and his ‘Travels’,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 61
(1998), pp. 82–101 (p. 100).

117

Rudolf Hiestand and Hans Eberhard Mayer, “Ein Bischof von Odense bei den Tataren,”

Deutsches Archiv 58 (2002), pp. 219–27 (p. 224).

118

Islandske annaler, pp. 30, 50, 70, 142, 196, 337, 383, 484. The Mongol envoys are also

mentioned in Árna saga biskups, ch. 109 (p. 156). The Mongol envoys might have travelled to
Norway in the company of the papal collector Huguccio of Castiglione. Huguccio had been
appointed by Pope Honorius IV 1 November 1285 and arrived in Norway, accompanied by
merchants from Florence, at the end of August 1286 (Diplomatarium Norvegicum, vol. 1, nos.
75, 78). These Mongols in Norway might be linked to the embassy sent by Ilkhan Arghun to
Pope Honorius IV in 1285, led by a Christian who was an interpreter and astronomer in the
service of Qublai Khan, Isa Kelemechi, see Karl-Ernst Lupprian, Die Beziehungen der Päpste
zu islamischen und mongolischen Herrschern im 13. Jahrhundert anhand ihres Briefwechsels.
Studi e testi 291 (Città del Vaticano: Biblioteca apostolica vaticana, 1981), pp. 78, 244–46.
The letter from Arghun to Honorius IV mentions five names: Isa Kelemechi, the Mongols
Bogagoc and Mengilic, the Genoese banker Tomasso d’Anfossi, and the interpreter Ugueto,
see Luciano Petech, “Les marchands italiens dans l’empire mongol,” Journal Asiatique 250

80 Bjørn Bandlien

letter of 1289 to King Philip III of France, brought by Buscarello de Ghisolfi,
Arghun asked for gyrfalcons in addition to precious stones of all colors.

119

Buscarello then went to England, and in a letter dated 12 September 1290,
Edward I promised to send both falcons and jewels to Arghun. Some of these
might have been from Norway, since Edward I imported falcons on a regular
basis.

120

King Magnus Håkonsson sent three white and eight grey gyrfalcons

as a gift to Edward I in 1276, an unspecified number of falcons in 1279 and
two white and six grey, all trained, gyrfalcons in 1280.

121

When Edward I

finally dispatched an embassy to Arghun, led by Geoffrey of Langley, in June
1291, three falconers were among them. By then Arghun had died, but his
successor Geikhatu (1291–1295) gave a leopard in return for the luxurious
gifts from England.

122

Most striking is, however, the reference of the contemporary chronicler of

the life of Öljeitü, Abū al-Qāsim al-Qāshānī, to the Ilkhan’s intense passion
for Frankish gyrfalcons.

123

Such ‘Frankish’ falcons could very well refer to

hunting birds from Norway. In his work on the history of the Franks, the
vizier and court historian of Ghazan and Öljeitü, Rashīd al-Dīn, included a
passage on ‘Nūrwīgah’. He noted the short days during winter in this land,
making it impossible to read even during the few hours of daylight, and that

(1962), pp. 549–574 (updated version in his Selected Papers on Asia History. Serie Orientale
Roma 60 [Rome: Istituo italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1988], pp. 161–186);
Denise Aigle, “De la ‘non-négocation’ à l’alliance inaboutie réflexions sur la diplomatie entre
les Mongols et l’Occident Latin,” Oriente Moderno 88 (2008), pp. 395–436. Isa Kelemechi
seems to have returned to China soon after his visit to Rome, see Kim Ho Dong, “A Portrait
of a Christian Official in China under the Mongol Rule: Life and Career of ‘Isa Kelemechi
(1227–1308),” in Christianity and Mongolia: Past and Present, ed. Gaby Bamana
(Ulaanbaatar: Antoon Mostaert Tov, 2006), pp. 41–52 (p. 48). However, other members of the
embassy to Rome might have continued to Norway in the company of Huguccio and the
Florentine merchants.

119

Mostaert and Cleaves, Les Lettres de 1289 et 1305, p. 18.

120

Edward I sent envoys to Norway to buy falcons in 1276 (Diplomatarium Norvegicum, vol.

19, no. 291) and in 1278 (Diplomatarium Norvegicum, vol. 19, no. 296). In 1282, Edward I
sent a letter to Alfonso X of Castile accompanied with a gift of four grey gyrfalcons. He was
not able to send him any white gyrfalcons, since he recently had lost nine. He had, however,
sent envoys to Norway for acquiring white falcons (Diplomatarium Norvegicum, vol. 19, no.
308; Foedera, vol. I, pt. II, p. 620).

121

Diplomatarium Norvegicum, vol. 19, nos. 293, 297 and 302.

122

Cornelio Desimoni, “I Conti dell’ambasciata al Chan di Persia nel MCCXCII,” Atti della

Societá Ligure di Storia Patria 13.3 (1879), pp. 540–698 (esp. pp. 593–616); Lockhart, “The
Relations,” pp. 27–29; Jacques Paviot, “Le séjour de l’ambassade de Geoffroy de Langley à
Trébizonde et à Constantinople en 1292,” Médiévales 12 (1987), pp. 47–54 (p. 48).

123

See Allsen, The Royal Hunt, p. 249.

The Armenian Embassy to King Håkon V of Norway 81

the people living there, even the children, had white hair. Norway was also,
says Rashid al-Din, the land from where the white hunting falcons came.

124

The Armenian envoys who arrived in Norway would have been well

aware of the fact that gyrfalcons from Norway would have pleased both al-
Nāṣir Muḥammad and Öljeitü very much. As Sharon Kinoshita has pointed
out, the interest in falconry and the profits of the falcon trade were cultivated
at royal courts. This was part of a shared cultural practice and aristocratic
culture in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, connecting and communicating
over regional and religious boundaries.

125

Perhaps one of the Armenians

arriving in Norway was a falconer who had the expertise of judging the
quality and training of the falcons and the skills needed for the difficult task of
bringing them back to the Levant.

Conclusion

The arrival of the Armenian embassy to Norway cannot be dated with

absolute certainty. It seems possible, however, that the Armenians were part
of the entourage of William of Villeneuve, the envoy of Ilkhan Öljeitü to the
West. As William of Villeneuve visited both Edward II and Philip IV in 1313,
the Armenians could have continued to Norway on their own later in the same
year or possibly in 1314.

The purpose of the embassy is difficult to determine. The falcon export

from Norway to the Mamluks and the Mongols may not have been large in
quantity, but the exotic prestige of the hunting birds from the north made the
prices high. King Oshin might have tried to win the favors of his troublesome
and demanding neighbors by securing a more regular trade in this luxurious
commodity.

There was not necessarily a contradiction between the initiation of trading

privileges on the one hand, and attracting the goodwill of the West for
crusading purposes on the other.

126

Armenians would be aware of the good

relations between the French and Norwegian kings, and also the good
reputation the Norwegians had as warriors and sailors. What might have been
of no less importance was the opportunity to remind the western rulers, such
as King Håkon V, of their precarious position. The knowledge of Armenia in
Western Europe during the fourteenth century was increasingly dominated by

124

Rashid al-Din, Die Frankengeschichte des Rašīd ad-Dīn, trans. Karl Jahn (Wien: Verlag

der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1977), p. 50.

125

Sharon Kinoshita, “‘Noi siamo mercatanti cipriani’: How To Do Things in the Medieval

Mediterranean,” in Philippe de Mézières and His Age: Piety and Politics in the Fourteenth
Century, ed. Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Kiril Petkov. The Medieval Mediterranean 91
(Leiden: Brill, 2012), pp. 41–60.

126

Abulafia, “The Levant Trade of the Minor Cities,” pp. 192–193.

82 Bjørn Bandlien

images provided by romances. The Armenian envoys might have consciously
played upon these impressions through their splendid gifts.

127

When the

Armenians came to Norway, however, the Norwegian king was deeply
involved in Scandinavian politics and had few resources to spare.

128

The

marvels and legends connected to the north might not have met the
expectations of the visiting Armenians. Whatever their impression of Norway,
there is not any evidence of diplomatic relations between the kingdoms after
1313/14 and before Leo V of Armenia surrendered to the Mamluks in 1375.

USKERUD AND

ESTFOLD

NIVERSITY

OLLEGE

127

Carolyn P. Collette and Vincent J. DiMarco, “The Matter of Armenia in the Age of

Chaucer,” Studies in the Age of Chaucer 23 (2001), pp. 317–358; Alexandr Osipian,
“Armenian Involvement in the Latin-Mongol Crusade: Uses of the Magi and Prester John in
Constable Smbat’s Letter and Hayton of Corycus’ ‘Flos historiarum terre orientis,’ 1248–
1307,” Medieval Encounters 20 (2014), pp. 66–100; on the similar development in the case of
Mongols, see Lillian Herlands Hornstein, “The Historical Background of The King of Tars,”
Speculum 16 (1941), pp. 404–414 (esp. pp. 413–414); Paviot, “England and the Mongols,”
pp. 317–318. In the learned literature of Norway and Iceland from the turn of the fourteenth
century, Armenia and Cilicia is mentioned in connection to history and hagiography. In the
indigenous Icelandic romances, some Armenians are depicted as courteous (as in Ectors saga
and Dínus saga drambláta) and some as monstrous (as in Sigurðar saga þögla). On Old
Norse geographical texts and images of peoples in the East, including notes on Armenia and
Armenians, see Rudolf Simek, Altnordische Kosmographie: Studien und Quellen zu Weltbild
und Weltbeschreibung in Norwegen und Island vom 12. bis zum 14. Jahrhundert. Reallexikon
der germanischen Altertumskunde, Ergänzungsbände 4 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1990) and Sverrir
Jakobsson, Við og veröldin: Heimsmynd Íslendinga 1100–1400 (Reykjavík: Háskólaútgáfan,
2005).

128

Bjørgo, “800–1536: Makt og avmakt,” pp. 92–95.

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