The users of Armeno-Kipchak

Much information concerning the everyday life of the Lvov Armenians and the institutions they ran comes from the Manuscript of Abramowicz (see: The minutes of the Armenian ecclesiastical court of Lvov ...). The manuscript is an important source of knowledge, for example about the ecclesiastical court of the Lvov Armenians, which was established in the the 15th century. The court consisted mainly of secular members, but they debated under the leadership of a bishop. It dealt with both secular and criminal cases, like divorces, last wills, donations or penalties imposed for breaking the laws written in the Armenian statutes from 1519. Among others, they prohibited males to wear female clothes, and the other way round (Tryjarski 2010: 11Tryjarski 2010: 11 / komentarz/comment/r /
Tryjarski, Edward 2010. Zapisy sądu duchownego Ormian miasta Lwowa za lata 1625-1630 w języku ormiańsko-kipczackim. Kraków: Polska Akademia Umiejętności.

). One can also find entries about murde of a bishop, a marriage fight or a seduction of a girl by a deacon (Tryjarski 2010: 15Tryjarski 2010: 15 / komentarz/comment/r /
Tryjarski, Edward 2010. Zapisy sądu duchownego Ormian miasta Lwowa za lata 1625-1630 w języku ormiańsko-kipczackim. Kraków: Polska Akademia Umiejętności.

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Furthermore, the Manuscript of Abramowicz provides significant information about the topography of Lvov in the 18th century. The script includes many variations of geographical names. It can be assumed that their spelling was not standardized, or that it was, but to a lesser degree than in the case of other words (Tryjarski 2010: 17-18Tryjarski 2010: 17-18 / komentarz/comment/r /
Tryjarski, Edward 2010. Zapisy sądu duchownego Ormian miasta Lwowa za lata 1625-1630 w języku ormiańsko-kipczackim. Kraków: Polska Akademia Umiejętności.

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The 17th century Armenians were a group that was varied with regards to their social and financial status. It consisted of the elders and divided clergy on the one hand (the manuscript includes documents from the time when there was a dispute with the Catholic Church about the union; it resulted in establishing the Armenian Catholic Church) and the common and poor people on the other (Tryjarski 2010: 16Tryjarski 2010: 16 / komentarz/comment/r /
Tryjarski, Edward 2010. Zapisy sądu duchownego Ormian miasta Lwowa za lata 1625-1630 w języku ormiańsko-kipczackim. Kraków: Polska Akademia Umiejętności.

). It cannot be denied that Armenians as a people were an important part of the upper class of Ukrainian towns. They are described in historical chronicles as merchants who dominated the trade with the East in the 16th and 17th centuries.
In unspecified by Garkavc documents, Armenians from Lvov and Kamieniec called themselves хыпчах ‘Kipczacs’ and ермені ‘Armenians’ (Garkavec 1979: 6Garkavec 1979: 6 / komentarz/comment/r /
Garkavec, A. N. 1979. Konvergencija armjano-kypchatskogo jazyka k slavjanskim v XVI-XVII vv. Kiev: Naukova Dumka.

). In the Kamieniec chronicle, written by Armenians in the 16th and 17th century, they call themselves (in the Latin alphabet transcription) bizim Nemicz tajfa ‘our Polish nation’. An interesting transfer of meaning can be observed: the word Nemicz derives from a word for a German person but here it refers to Polish people. tajfa is a word from Arabic (tā’ifa), denoting a religious group (Pisowicz 2009: 12Pisowicz 2009: 12 / komentarz/comment/r /
Pisowicz, Andrzej 2009. "Czy polscy Ormianie mówili po tatarsku?", Życie Tatarskie 98-100: 10-12.

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