After the purchase of Cyprus by titular Frankish King of Jerusalem Guy de Lusignan in 1192, in his attempt to establish a western-type feudal kingdom, the latter sent emissaries to Europe, Cilicia and the Levant, resulting in a massive immigration of Armenians and other peoples from Western Europe, Cilicia and the Levant (mainly Franks, Latins and Maronites, as well as Copts, Ethiopians, Georgians, Jacobites, Jews, Melkites, Nestorians and others). To these numerous bourgeois, noblemen, knights and warriors, fiefs, manors, lands, offices and various privileges were bounteously granted. Because of their proximity, their commercial ties and a series of royal and nobility marriages, the Kingdom of Cyprus and the Kingdom of Cilicia became inextricably linked. In the subsequent centuries, thousands of Cilician Armenians sought refuge in Cyprus fleeing the Muslim attacks: the Fall of Antioch (1268), the Fall of Acre (1291), the attack of the Saracens (1322), the Mameluke attacks (1335 and 1346) and the Ottoman occupation of Cilicia (1403 and 1421). Cyprus became now the easternmost bulwark of Christianity; in 1441 the authorities of Famagusta invited Armenians from Cilicia to settle there.
