From the beginning of the 15th century onwards, however, New Armenia's situation worsened, since the country was forced to stand alone against the attacks of the Egyptian sultans. The Egyptian sultans wanted to destroy the harbour city of Lajazzo in order to redirect the trade with the west to Egypt. As mentioned above, they attacked New Armenia at several occasions and managed, in the treaty of 1285, to force New Armenia to pay an annual tax of 1,000,000 drachmas. By the subsequent treaty of 1323, Armenia was bound to pay half the income from their customs and the salt production in Lajazzo and Portella to Egypt. In order to compensate the loss of these state incomes, the kings of New Armenia were forced to find other sources of income. Instead of altering the existing treaties according to which the western merchants paid less customs tax (at arrival and departure) or avoided it entirely, they introduced new taxes for entering Armenian harbours, road fees for domestic routes, customs fees for crossing rivers, and fees for centres of trade. 160
During the wars between the sultans of Egypt and New Armenia, Lajazzo was occupied on three different occasions and plundered, finally falling into Egyptian hands in 1347. Thirty years later, the compete destruction of the harbour took place, before the disappearance of New Armenia itself.
Social Aspects
The society of New Armenia was Divided into Five Classes:
At the level immediately beneath the king was the upper nobility which consisted of the office-holding barons. The majority of these belonged to the old Armenian nobility who had arrived to Cilicia with Prince Rouben and had participated in the conquest of the country. This class included the barons who owned duchies and important fortresses and were responsible for important tasks at the court, as well as bishops in offices who answered directly to the king.
Under the upper nobility was the second class of noblemen, horsemen and officers who served the king through the barons of the cities. In reality, this lower nobility claimed the same rights for ownership and arbitration as the upper nobility.
The next class in Armenia was the bourgeois, or the city dwellers. This society in NewArmenia was constituted of Italian and the Greeks, as well as Armenians.
Armenian peasants enjoyed a privileged situation. When the Armenians entered Cilicia, they colonised it, and therefore even Armenian peasants were conquerors. Therefore, although according to feudalism the peasants were owned by the nobility. Willebrand of Oldenburg writes that the Armenian peasants, in accordance with the image of a victorious people, did not became thralls, but were free men who had received lands, and in exchange were obliged to pay the landowner with some portion of the harvest. They were in the same situation as any colonizer in general. 162
Furthest down in the social hierarchy was the native Cilician population whom the Armenians had conquered. These peasants belonged to the landowners and constituted the thralls and the servants of the country.
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