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Index

Armenia

The Urartu Civilisation

Victory for Independence

Artashisian Dynasty on the Armenian Throne

Armenia caught between Rome and the Arsacids

The Acceptance of Christianity

Defending Christianity

Armenia Under the Bagratouni Dynasty

Cilicia - the New Armenia

Armenia Under Turanian Rule

The Renaissance or the Resurrection of Armenia

The Eastern Question

Russia in the Caucasus

The Armenian Question

Battle on Two Fronts

Tsarist Russia Against the Armenians

The Revolution of the Young Turks and the Armenian People on the Eve of World War I

The First World War

The Resurrection of Armenia

Armenia on the Road to Independence, 1918

- Armenia on the Road to Independence, 1918

Eastern Armenia

Western Armenia

"The Fateful Years" (1914-1917)

"Hopes and Emotions" (March-October, 1917)

The Bolshevik Revolution and Armenia

Transcaucasia Adrift (November, 1917

Dilemmas (March-April, 1918)

War and Independence (April-May, 1918)

The Republics of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia

The Suppliants (June-October, 1918)

In conclusion

Soviet Armenia

The Second Independent Republic of Armenia

Epilogue

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Levon II also provided New Armenia with an advanced three-tiered judicial system. He adapted the judicial system of Antiochia, which in its turn had adapted the laws of Jerusalem. These judicial systems, created by the crusaders in the Orient, were more highly developed than any other existing system in the western world.

Like the Latin crusader states, Levon II created a royal supreme court, which was the highest authority in the judicial system with the king, or his representative, as its leader. This supreme court, with headquarters in Sis, was the highest judicial organ in the country and tried cases regarding barons and grand nobilities who were brought before the court. Conflicts between the subjects of the king and foreigners were also adjudicated here. The next court was a copy of the bourgeois courts in the western world. Finally, the barons arbitrated over the people of the society, the priests of the monasteries over their subjects, and the foreign priests over their followers. Also there were the Genoese and the Venetian consulting judges.

It was only the royal supreme court which was allowed to sentence a person to death; the bourgeois princes were obliged to bring before this court all cases concerning the death penalty.

The western world did not exert an entirely positive influence over Armenia. For instance, Armenian spiritual leaders, having come into contact with the crusaders, began to lose their former simple and spartan customs which had arguably been one of the distinguishing features of the leaders of the Armenian Church.

As the historian Viktor Langlois concludes, the development of governmental organization by Levon II, which was sustained by his successors, combined elements from the system in the old Armenia (the old kingdoms on the Armenian plateau) and the western feudal system.

Levon II managed to bring the most advanced structures from the western world and weave them together with the old customs and practices of the Armenian people to create an efficient system of government. A challenging task for any statesman, his success confirmed his glory as a king.

Military Aspects

During this period, the military system in Armenia remained in accordance with the feudal system, although adaptation to the new western scholarship during the Middle Ages which Levon II implemented, actually reinforced the military strength of the country. The Armenian army, through sustaining its feudal characteristics, became more structured and coordinated which obeyed the higher authority of the king and the court, which at the same time was increasingly able to exercise its will over its subjects.

The Armenian army consisted mainly of the Armenian great nobility and their forces which defended the country in their respective regions and supplied the king with soldiers in case of greater wars.