Hayton of Corycus was a medieval Armenian

Armenians

Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....

 monk and historian (died after 1307). He is the author of a History of the Tartars (also known as La Flor des Estoires d'Orient), written in France, for which he is also known as "Hayton the Historian". His History was widely disseminated in the Late Middle Ages, to the extent that in terms of shaping western European views of the Orient Hayton's influence was comparable that of his contemporaries Marco Polo

Marco Polo

Marco Polo was a Venetian merchant traveler from the Venetian Republic whose travels are recorded in Il Milione, a book which did much to introduce Europeans to Central Asia and China. He learned about trading whilst his father and uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo, travelled through Asia and apparently...

 and Odoric of Pordenone

Odoric of Pordenone

Odoric of Pordenone was an Italian late-medieval traveler...

.

Biography

Hayton was an Armenian noble, ruler of the city of Corycus

Corycus

Corycus was an ancient city in Cilicia Trachaea, Anatolia, located at the mouth of the river called Şeytan deresi; the site is now occupied by the town of Kızkalesi , Mersin Province, Turkey.-The city:...

. He was the son of Ochine of Corycus, brother of king Hethum I. Hayton later conspired against his younger cousin, king Hethum II (grandson of Hethum I) in 1293, and was exiled by Hethum in 1294. Hayton then worked as a monk in Cyprus

Cyprus

Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...

, where he joined the order of the Premonstratensian

Premonstratensian

The Order of Canons Regular of Prémontré, also known as the Premonstratensians, the Norbertines, or in Britain and Ireland as the White Canons , are a Catholic religious order of canons regular founded at Prémontré near Laon in 1120 by Saint Norbert, who later became Archbishop of Magdeburg...

s at the Bellapais

Bellapais

Bellapais is a small village in the Turkish-controlled Northern Cyprus, about four miles from the town of Kyrenia. The village was the home for some years of Lawrence Durrell, who wrote about life in Cyprus in his book Bitter Lemons. He mentions passing the time drinking coffee under the Tree of...

 Abbey. Hayton apparently supported Amalric of Tyre in his usurpation of the throne of Cyprus against the unpopular king Henry II of Cyprus.

Hayton later traveled to Poitiers

Poitiers

Poitiers is a city on the Clain river in west central France. It is a commune and the capital of the Vienne department and of the Poitou-Charentes region. The centre is picturesque and its streets are interesting for predominant remains of historical architecture, especially from the Romanesque...

 in France where the Pope was in residence, becoming the prior of the Premonstratensian abbey there. Hayton pleaded in vain for Amalric of Tyre to be recognized as the proper ruler of Cyprus. He also advocated a crusade to re-capture the Holy Land

Holy Land

The Holy Land is a term which in Judaism refers to the Kingdom of Israel as defined in the Tanakh. For Jews, the Land's identifiction of being Holy is defined in Judaism by its differentiation from other lands by virtue of the practice of Judaism often possible only in the Land of Israel...

 in alliance with the Mongols.

After the assassination of Hethum II in 1307, Hayton returned to Cilician Armenia, where, leaving his monastic life behind, he became Constable

Sparapet

Sparapet was a hereditary military rank that originated in the 2nd century BC, under the reign of King Artashes I, and was used in the Kingdom of Armenia and the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia , was supreme commander of the armed forces. It was the equivalent of the Parthian Spahbod Sparapet was a...

, commander of the armed forces.

His son Oshin of Korikos

Oshin of Korikos

Oshin of Korikos served as regent of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia from 1320 to 1329. He was the son of the historian Hayton of Korikos. He became regent for Leo IV on the death of King Oshin in 1320, whom he was rumoured to have poisoned...

 became regent of the Kingdom of Cilician Armenia from 1320, presumably indicating that Hayton was no longer alive.

History of the Tartars

While in France, Hayton wrote a geography of Asia, one of the first of the Middle Ages, the History of the Tartars, also known as La Flor des Estoires d'Orient (Latin: Flos Historiarum Terre Orientis, "The flower of the stories of the Orient"). This work also provides an account of the rise of the Mongol Empire

Mongol Empire

The Mongol Empire , initially named as Greater Mongol State was a great empire during the 13th and 14th centuries...

, and of recent events in the Near East, especially relating to the history of the Armenian kingdom

Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia

The Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia , also known as the Cilician Armenia, Kingdom of Cilician Armenia or New Armenia, was an independent principality formed during the High Middle Ages by Armenian refugees fleeing the Seljuk invasion of Armenia...

 and its interaction with the Mongol Ilkhanate

Ilkhanate

The Ilkhanate, also spelled Il-khanate , was a Mongol khanate established in Azerbaijan and Persia in the 13th century, considered a part of the Mongol Empire...

, to which it had been tributary since 1236.

The work concludes with a plan for a new crusade, which Hayton proposed should be organised in alliance with the Ilkhan.
Hayton's promotion of this Ilkhanid alliance, and also his association with certain parties in the complex Armenian and Cypriot politics of the day, make this work rather tendentious.
Thus, Hayton is always keen to ascribe motives for Mongol actions that would endear them to his papal audience, as with his account of the Ilkhan Hülegü's rather destructive invasion of Syria (1259-60):

External links

• Flowers of the Histories of the East by Hayton of Corycus (English translation)