The Bagratuni Kingdom and Disintegration

Abstract

The assassination of the caliph Zafar al-Mutawakkil in 861 and the ensuing internal turmoil in the Abbasid dynasty weakened Baghdad’s influence in Armenia. The Byzantine Empire, capitalizing on the Abbasid decline, intensified its expansionist policy. The military victories and territorial conquests of Emperor Basil I against the Muslim East enhanced Armenia’s relations with Constantinople. The absence of a direct threat from both empires set the stage for the establishment of a new Armenian kingdom by the Bagratuni dynasty. Ashot I was crowned King of Armenia (Malik al-Arman) in 885 with the blessings of Caliph al-Mu’tamid (r. 870–892), who, according to Hovhannes Draskhanakerttsi (catholicos from 897 to 925), sent “a royal crown . . . together with royal robes, gifts, honors, swift horses, weapons and ornaments.”1 Two years later, not prepared to lose influence in Bagratuni-Abbasid affairs, Emperor Basil I, founder of the Macedonian dynasty that ruled in Constantinople until 1057, also sent a crown to Ashot, indicating the significance Constantinople attached to the region.2 Ashot I’s rise to power inaugurated a new Armenian government under the Bagratuni dynasty, but the task of maintaining territorial and administrative unity across the land proved near impossible. Greater Armenia was divided into five major regions, four of which eventually emerged as minor kingdoms.