ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book describes Armenians made alliances with and/or fought against all the powers and factions in the region. It deals with the circumstances and tools of acquiring power, the social classes involved in these processes, the cultural environments within which they functioned, political alliances, geographic locations, patterns of interacting. Manipulating Islam as well as Christianity, and, above all, the peculiar perceptions of ethnicity and national loyalties. The book coincides with the beginnings of urbanization. Armenian-Turkish and Armenian-Islamic—during this period matched Armenian-Frankish realpolitik in Cilicia. The book presents what may be called a "dynastic triangle," or a "Second Age of Kingdoms" came about this time at the hands of "orthodox" Armenians but from outside the traditional nobility during the twelfth to fourteenth centuries. Seemingly contradictory details are a part of the same dynamic and rich texture of medieval as well as modern Armenian history.
