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

The major Georgian soureea, the History of K'art:'li
(when apeaking of apecifically Armenian events) and the
few published Georgian inscriptions from Armenia tend
to focus on northern Armenia. Some information on western
and southern Armenia is found in the minor chronicles,
colophons, the nee-martyrdoms, inscriptions and in T'ovma
Hecop'ec'i'a History, however for the political and military
history of the Armenian highlands in the 13-14th centuries
the non-Armenian sources are crucial. Thus geographical
bias in favor of northeastern Armenia, resulting from
the nature of the Armenian literary histories is a problem
facing the investigator.
Second, it will be noticed that the 13th century
Armenian literary historians Kirakos, Vardan, and
Step'annos were all educated, polished churchmen. Their
interests were in the important events and lords of the
day, and rarely extended down to the lower ranks of society.
Such groups as the peasants, the artisans, and other
non-clerical non-noble city population, although occasion-
ally glimpsed in the colophons, chronicles and neo-martyrdoms,
"On the Rare XlVth Century Quadrilingual Inscription of
Asian's Son, Sargis" Te^ekagir #7 (1946) pp. 31-38 (in Arm.)].
The Georgian text of the History of K'art'li based on three
18th century manuscripts was published""in fuTT originally
by M. Brosset in 1849, accompanied by a French translation
CHistoire de la, Georgie. depuia l*antiquite jusou»au XIX
sieclej. The second publication,made by TvaaaIviTi~"in~T906
similarly was based on only several mas. [K art'lis C'xovreba.
E. T'aqalvili ,ed. (Tbilisi, 1906)].~PTnalIy~tn"e
critical edition in two volumes based on 11 mas. was
produced by S. QauxSisvili [KG, vols. I and II (Tbilisi,
1955, 19591. None of the mas. predate the 18th century].
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