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

But this was not enough. Timor demanded religious
adhesion:
Next, Timur, noting that the lord of the
castle had so fine a son. it were, he said, indeed
a pity the youth should be kept mewed up at home,
and he, Timur, would receive him, carrying him
off in his train to become the companion of his
grandson. This prince, the grandson of Timur
is named Omar Mirza', and he was at that time
already established as governor ruling over the
whole of Western Persia, in which region Maku
is included. The young man whom Timur thus carried
off in his train is at this present moment living
with Omar Mirza, and has been raised to be a
commander in his army. But they have forced him
against his will to become a Moslem, having
bestowed on him the name of Siurgatmish, and he
now is captain of the guards of Omar Mirza.
Outwardly he professes himself a Moslem: but
not of free will, for at heart he is still a
Catholic. 1.
As a result of the unsettled, unsafe times, some
lords of completely impregnable fortresses, unable to
maintain themselves in any other way, turned to banditry.
Prime sources of loot were the increasingly rare
caravans passing over the bandit's lands, or even booty
captured from Tlmurids and Turkmans. Sometimes bandit
lords operated alone, sometimes in alliance with others,
Christian or Muslim. C'ovma Mecdp'eo'i speaks of one
such mixed group of Kurdish Muslim and Armenian Christian
brigands from Sasun and Xut' which looted a Timurid camp
1 Clav. p. 146.
234