Mkhitar Gosh

Statue of Mkhitar Gosh in Armenia, holding his famous book Datastanagirk (Book of Law), which is the first Armenian legal text[1] to cover secular and ecclesiastical matters, begun in 1184. Gosh's code formed the basis for all later Armenian law codes, both that of Smbat in Cilican Armenia and those adaptations used in the diaspora farther afield.

Mkhitar Gosh (Armenian: Մխիթար Գոշ, romanized: Mkhit’ar Gosh 1130–1213) was an Armenian scholar,[2][3][4] writer, public figure, thinker, and priest. He was one of the representatives of the Armenian Renaissance.[5]

  1. ^ Robert W. Thomson. The Lawcode (Datastanagirk') of Mxit'ar Goš. — Rodopi, 2000. — p. 20: "In any event, his motivation stemmed from the fact that the Armenians of his time did not have a written legal code, and therefore those who wished to settle any legal question had to have recourse to outsiders."
  2. ^ Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium / Editor in chief Alexander P. Kazhdan. — Oxford University Press, 1991. — vol. 1. — p. 181.
  3. ^ Robert W. Thomson. The Lawcode (Datastanagirk') of Mxit'ar Goš. — Rodopi, 2000
  4. ^ Antony Eastmond. Tamta's World. — Cambridge University Press, 2017. — P. 126 "At the same time Mkhitar Gosh (d. 1213), the great Armenian jurist, poet, and theologian, worked for the Mkhargrdzelis from the monasteries of Getik and then Goshavank, both of which were sited well away from any large settlements."
  5. ^ Encyclopedia Americana. — Americana Corporation, 1965. — vol. 2. — p. 270: "The Armenian Renaissance reached its height in this period, with the works of the Vardapet Hovhannes (John) Sarkawag (d. 1129), ... Hetum, author of Narratives of the Tatars and Chronological Tables; Hovhan Erzenkatsi (John of Erzincan), moralist, theologian, poet, and grammarian; Nerses Lambro- natsi (Nerses of Lambron, 1153-1198), theologian, moralist, and orator ; Mekhitar Gosh (d. 1213), who compiled the Armenian Code"