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He also informed Fredrik that the provisions which the German army needed were gathered and were in the city of Isauria. The army of Fredrik, under the leadership of Armenian guides, went through the passage over the Taurus Mountains and faced many difficulties due to the geography of the region. Finally the army reached the plains of Cilicia and the major part of the army camped beside of the city of Isauria. The Kaiser, together with his officers and the Armenian guides, camped on the shore of the Seleph River on June 10, 1190. After the meal, since he was troubled by the heat, he went to bathe in the river. His men advised against his decision and tried to stop the Kaiser, but without any success. Fredrik took off his cloths and began to bath when he suffered a haemostasis (stagnation of the blood) and disappeared in the waves. The Germans and the Armenians jumped into the water and after a while were able to drag out the lifeless body of the Kaiser. 59

When Levon II, together with the Armenian Catholicos, arrived in Isauria to meet Fredrik, he was met by a mourning and shocked German camp and was informed about the death of his great ally.

The son of Fredrik Barbarossa, Henry VI, showed his appreciation towards the ally of his father and fulfilled the promise of his father, naming Levon II king.

On June 6, 1199, Cardinal Conrad de Wittelsbach from Mayence, who was the successor of pope Celestin II and the representative of the Kaiser, in the church of the Holy Wisdom of the Christ in the city of Tars and in the presence of 15 bishops and 39 Armenian princes and a group of Latin noblemen, presented the royal crown to Levon II, Catholicos Grigor VI crowned Levon II as the new ruler and the heir to the Roman Empire in the east.



Henry VI's presentation of the royal crown to Levon II marked not only the fulfilment of his fathers's promise, but was part of the new Kaiser himself. Henry VI had inherited his father's dreams about the resurrection of the Roman Empire through the incorporation of the Byzantine Empire into the Western Empire, and wished to reassure himself of the assistance of New Armenia and Cyprus in this task and in this way attack Byzantine from the rear. 62

As soon as Byzantine heard of the coronation of Levon II, they sent a crown of their own which was decorated with gold and jewels together with a banner adorned with a lion (which came to be used as the coat of arms of New Armenia, while the royal dynasties in the old Armenia used the eagle on their coat of arms). Levon II accepted these gifts, but in order to show his superiority, he sent back valuable gifts to Byzantine. By doing this he intented to convince Byzantine that Levon II did not consider himself as a subject of the Roman Empire in the west, but its heir.

Levon II was now faced with the task of transforming his country into a genuine European state with his own forces and established authorities. He devoted all his energy to this task (we will return to his successes in more detail).

Levon II accepted the collections of the laws of Antiochia as the constitution of New Armenia 63, established courts of law, organized the country and his royal court in accordance with the European countries, accepted the feudal system of the western world, established friendly relationships with Italy and the other western European countries, encouraged industry, built schools, hospitals and special homes for orphaned children and continued this work by developing and expanding his contact with religious and military representatives of the crusaders.