Summary
The Premonstratensian canon known as Hayton (or Het’um) dictated the Flor des Estoires de la Terre d’Orient to his scribe Nicolas Falcon, who first recorded it in French and then translated it into Latin in the year 1307. The text describes the geography of lands in the Latin East, provides a brief history of the Mongols, and recounts the recent history of events in the Latin kingdoms, with a view of Armenian politics strongly influenced by the author’s own experience. Hayton began his life as ruler of the city of Corycus in Armenia, but was exiled in the late thirteenth century after conspiring against an advisory, King Het’um. His exile took him to Cyprus, where he became a monk, after which time he ventured to the West to support the case of Amalric of Tyre against King Henry II. The case was heard before Pope Clement V at Poiters, and it was during this sojourn that he dictated the Flor des Estoires de la Terre d’Orient. He returned to the East and re-entered Armenian politics following the death of his rival, King Het’um II, in 1308.
Representative MSS
New York, New York Public Library, MA 62 (Vellum, s. xv, ill).
Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, fr. 2810 (Vellum, s. xv, ill, ff. 226-268).
Edition
Hayton, Frère. La Flor des estoires de la Terre d’Orient. In Recueil des historiens des croisades, Documents arméniens 1, 111-363. London, UK: Farnborough (Hants): Gregg International Publishers, 1969.
Secondary Literature
Bundi, D. D. “Het’um’s La Flor des Estoires de la Terre d’Orient: A Study in Medieval Armenian Historiography and Propaganda.” Revue des Etudes Armeniennes 20 (1986). 223-235.
Stewart, Angus Donal. The Armenian Kingdom and the Mamluks: War and Diplomacy During the Reigns of Hetʻum II (1289-1307). Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 2001. 21-22.