ABSTRACT
From 1220 to 1344, Greater Armenia was under Mongol control. Mongol scouting expeditions in pursuit of Muhammad Khwarazmshah and his son Jalal al-Din, witnessed the first face-to-face contact between the Armenians and Mongols. The Mongols issued the Armenians with a standard set of demands, made to all newly conquered peoples or lands. During and after the destructive Mongol conquest of Transcaucasia, some Georgio-Armenian princes, recognizing the authority of the Mongols, decided to support the Mongol regime and thus secure their rights and lands. The contacts between Armenian lords and the Mongols inoculated Greater Armenia from heavy Mongol repression. If the princes of Greater Armenia built personal relations with Mongol commanders and qa’ans, the king of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia followed a different paradigm.
