Categories: HistoryPeople

How Guillaume de Lusignan Became King of Armenia

We present to your attention one French miniature. It is part of the famous French manuscript collection created in 1401–1405 and called “Le Roman de Mélusine.” It is now stored in Paris in the National Library of France.

The miniature depicts the founding of the Lusignan dynasty in Cilician Armenia in 1343 when Guy (Guillaume) de Lusignan acceded to the throne as King of Armenia Constantine II.

The miniature symbolically depicts the presentation of the crown of Cilician Armenia to Guy de Lusignan. It also bears the inscription “How Guillaume de Lusignan became King of Armenia.”

Constantine II (also Constantine III or IV, died April 17, 1344) was the king of Cilician Armenia in 1342-1344 from the Lusignan dynasty. He was the founder of the Armenian branch of the French noble Lusignan House which ruled the Cilician Kingdom until its fall in 1375.

Constantine was the son of the lord of Tyre Amalric from the Lusignan dynasty and the Armenian princess Isabella, daughter of the Cilician King Levon III from the Hethumid dynasty.

Ruben Shukhyan

Vigen Avetisyan

Recent Posts

Hannibal and Artaxias the Great: The Carthaginian General Who Helped Build the “Armenian Carthage”

Few episodes in ancient Armenian history capture the imagination quite like the tradition that Hannibal…

5 days ago

The Priestess of the Kingdom of Van: A 9th-Century BC Bronze Figurine in the British Museum

Five angles of one small bronze figure — and what emerges is not an abstract…

2 weeks ago

The Winged Sun and the Armenian Tiara: Royal Symbolism of the Orontid (Yervanduni) Kingdom of Commagene, 163 BC – 72 AD

Introduction Among the successor states that emerged from the fragmentation of the Achaemenid-derived Orontid (Armenian:…

2 weeks ago

A Bronze Age Vessel from Gardman: Solar Symbolism, the Sun-Cross, and the Sacred Landscape of Ancient Armenia

Article based on the explanations and interpretive observations of Angela Terian, with additional archaeological and…

2 weeks ago

Rewriting the Caucasus: A Documented Look at Azerbaijan’s Historical Revisionism Regarding Armenia

Lenin: Soviet nationalities policy, Azerbaijan SSR founded 1920, Stalin: Constitution and census fix the ethnonym…

3 weeks ago

A Painted Wall from Ancient Armenia: The New Erebuni Fresco and the Urartian-Armenian Continuity

An unprecedented find on Arin Berd hill On 23 July 2026, the French Embassy in…

3 weeks ago