Anecdota Oxoniensia. Semitic series.

ARl1MENIAN MvONA STERY AND CHURCHECS.

3

Egypt, in the month of Rabi' the Second, in the year 564 (A. D. I 68-9),
calamities well known to all men overtook the Armenians1, who were
then settled in Egypt. Their patriarch2, together with the Armenian
monks, was driven away from that monastery of which we have been
speaking; its door was blocked up, and those churches remained empty,
nor did any one venture to approach them.
~ Al-Bustan [or Al-Basatin] was next allotted as a fief to the Fakih
Al-Baha3 'All, the Damascene, who set apart for the Armenians the
church of John the Baptist, built over4 the church of the Pure Lady5, in
the Harah Zawilah6; and here the patriarch dwelt during the year 564
(A.D. 1168-9).
seems to consider them as two names of the same nation. Perhaps there is some
confusion between jl'1 jill, which would be correct, and 1\ jiJ1.
1 There were a large number of Armenians in Egypt during the eleventh and
twelfth centuries. See Renaudot, Hist. Pair. p. 460 ff. Yakfit, who died
A. H. 596 = A. D. 1200, speaks of the Armenians among the mixed nationalities of
which, as he says, the population of Egypt was in his time composed. See his Geogr.
Wor/erbuch ed. Wuistenfeld, iv. p. oo1. Under the later Fatimides, high offices
were frequently held by Armenians in Egypt, of whom the most distinguished
were Badr al-Jamali, the vizier of Al-Mustansir; his son, Al-Afdal, vizier to
Al-Amir; and Taj ad-Daulah Bahram, the vizier of Al-Hafiz.
2 The first patriarch or catholicus of the Armenians in Egypt was Gregory,
who, towards the end of the eleventh century, was consecrated at Alexandria
by his uncle the catholicus, Gregory II. See Renaudot, Hi's. Pair. p. 461;
and, for references to Armenian writers, Dr. Argak Ter-Mikelian, Die armenische
Kirche in zhren Bezzehungen zur byzaniinzschen, Leipsic, I892, p. 84.
3 Afterwards chief professor in the college called Manazil al-'Izz at Fustat,
and preacher in the same city; died A.H. 584=A.D. 1188. See Ibn Shaddad,
quoted by Ibn Khallikan, Bzogr. Dict. trans. De Slane, iv. p. 42 1.
4 In Egypt churches are frequently built one over another, forming two stories.
6 A church of Al-'Adhra (the Virgin) is still standing in the Harah Zuwailah,
and is almost beyond question to be identified with the church mentioned in
the text; it bears marks of great antiquity. See Butler, Coptic Churches, vol. i.
p. 273. (A. J. B.)
6 The quarter of Cairo called.fdrah Zawilah, and now Zuwailah, was founded
b2