Hayton of Corycus
Hayton of Corycus, O.Praem (also Hethum, Het'um, and variants;[1] Armenian: Հեթում Պատմիչ, romanized: Hetʿowm Patmičʿ, lit.
Hayton is the author of La Flor des estoires de la terre d'Orient ("Flower of the Histories of the East";[2] Latin: Flos historiarum terre Orientis), a historiographical work about the history of Asia, especially about the Muslim conquests and the Mongol invasion, which he dictated at the request of Pope Clement V in 1307, while he was at Poitiers.
[5] Cypriot chronology suggests that Hayton was forced into exile in 1294 because he conspired against his younger cousin, King Hethum II.
After the assassination of Hethum II in 1307, Hayton returned to Cilician Armenia, where, leaving his monastic life behind, he became constable, commander of the armed forces.
While in France, Hayton compiled a geography of Asia, one of the first of the Middle Ages, La Flor des Estoires d'Orient (Latin: Flos Historiarum Terre Orientis, "The flower of the stories of the Orient").
He is also informed by western sources on the history of the Crusades, and most likely draws on the travelogues of Giovanni da Pian del Carpine and Marco Polo.
Book 1 describes the geography of Asia as divided into the kingdoms of Cathay (China), Tars (Uyghurs), Turkestan, Khwarazmia, Cumania, India, Persia, Media, Armenia, Georgia, Chaldea, Mesopotamia, the "Land of the Turks" (Seljuks) and Syria.
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.
[9] 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): The Khan wanted to go to Jerusalem in order to deliver the Holy Land from the Saracens and to remit it to the Christians.
Faulcon's Latin text appeared in Haguenau (1529), Basel (1532) and Helmstedt 1585, Jean le Long's French version in Paris (1529).
