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

a way out:
...We came to the country of Sahensa(Sahniah)
once the most powerful Georgian prince, but now
tributary to the Tartars, who have destroyed all
its fortified places. His father, Zacharias by
name, had got this country of the Armenians, for
delivering then from the hands of the Saracens.
I took a meal with this Sahensa; and he showed
me great politeness, as did his wife and his son
called Zacharias, a very fine and prudent young
man, who asked me, whether if he should come to
you [the Pope], you would keep him with you; for
so heavily does he bear the domination of the
Tartars, that though he has abundance of all things,
he would prefer to wander in foreign lands to
bearing their domination. Moreover, they told me
that they were sons of the Roman Church; and if
the lord Pope would send them some assistance,
they would themselves subject all the neighboring
countries to the Church. 1.
The sources contain no references to emigration of
naxarare and their dependents en masse , of the sort
known from earlier times. Nor may much speciflo be
said about emigration in the 13th century generally,
beyond the fact that it occurred (and probably was
widespread), because of a lack of information. Some
13th century colophons written by clerics from
Greater Armenia merely mention the fact that the authors
themselves fled from the Mongols, sometimes adding the
name of an occasional lord who also left. Cllicia
seems to have been a favorite refuge for many Greater
*
Armenians, though colophons written in Armenian centers
WE pp. 271-72.
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