The Turco-Mongol Invasions and the Lords of Armenia in the 13 ...

Heedless to say, such unenlightened policies did indeed
create a new class of domestic enemies at a time when
the Il-Khanid state could hardly afford it.
and priests from taxation, but they collected from the
laymen and youths...And in the spring of. this year they
collected the tax, but in autumn the Khan died. Then
there came Ailalu, Sint'amur and Hasan?'amur with 1,300
men, and collected the tax a second time, but without
limit, and no one resisted them. The monks who were free,
whom they captured, they tortured with unbelievable torments
and collected limitless fines. The blessed congregation
[of Varaga] fell into their hands. They arrived, suddenly,
secretly, at night. Everyone fled, but those they seized
they tortured so, that we are unable to relate it.....Others
who had fled did not dare return to the monastery for
[the Mongols] kept coming, day and night troubling us.
Horrified by them, in fear and trembling we spent morning
and evening on the blessed mountain, in caves, and crevices
of rock. But they came every day and opened all the church
doors and small rooms and looted whatever they found...
And we bore many other sorrows, harasaments and trials from
all aides, in summer and winter a fugitive, and sleeping
out in the open on the blessed mountain...For a long time
we bore these and other troubles, and for the love of the
holy Cross, taking refuge in It, we did not leave this
holy congregation. [People from] the city and country
fled hither and thither, a silent meeting-place remained;
but we stayed firmly in place out of love for the holy
Cross" (14CC #178 p. 138).
Spuler writes: "On embracing Islam [the Mongols] became
of one faith with the numerous Turks of Iran, who bad
long been solidly Muslim; and when the two peoples thus
ceased to be kept apart by religion, they fused into a
new amalgam, whose everyday tongue was Turkish. At the
beginning of the 14th century, the various Turkish tribes
which, together with later arrivals, have formed the
backbone of the present Turkish-speaking element in the
population of. Pergia,. began to take definite shape. JThe
province of Azerbaijan, which as the center of Il-Khanid
power became the main focus of Turco-Mongol colonization,
has remained solidly Turkish-speaking ever since, the
Mongol speech having soon given way to the Turkish"
(Spuler, p. 36).
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