The decline of Ottoman Turkey and Safavid Persia was not lost on the Armenians, who were also aware of the growing might of the powers of Europe. James (Hagop) IV, a native of New Julfa, elected katholikos at Ejmiatsin in 1655, brought with him a firsthand knowledge of Persian decline and of the increasing power and technological superiority of the West. Toward the very end of his reign, he convoked a secret meeting of meliks and high clergy at the Holy See, where he offered them a plan to liberate Armenia under the protection of the Christian powers of the West. This was the beginning of the Armenian national awakening that was to develop so remarkably in the three decades ahead.

This period of Armenian history between 1678 and 1828 may well be called the "Age of the Meliks," for just as the activities of the Mekhitarist Congregations represent virtually the sole higher cultural life of the Armenians in this period, so the activities of the meliks in Karabagh and Siunik represent the only political life the Armenians possessed, the movement for the national liberation of the Armenian people beginning precisely among these few remnants of the Armenian nobility that still existed there. We have already encountered the five melikdoms of Karabagh (Khamsayi Melik'ut'iunnere, from Arab. Khams 'five' and malik 'king' but here meaning 'ruler' or 'dynast') in connection with the program of Jahan-Shah, the lord of the Black Sheep Turkomans, who appears to have reestablished the local dynasts in Karabagh after their dispossession by Timur and to have granted them the hereditary rights and privileges they were to maintain under Persian rule until the coming of the Russians some 350 years later. Originally, there appear to have been six of these melik houses in Karabagh and in the adjacent district of Geghm along the southern shore of Lake Sevan, all of royal descent:

1. The house of Hasan-Jalalian, meliks of Khach'en. This was the senior line of the Vakht'ankian house, itself the senior line of the house of Siunik '-Khach'en, descended from Jalal-Daula-Hasan (c. 1214-1261), from whom it took its name, and through him from the Aranshahikid kings of Albania, the Mihranid princes of Gardman, and the princes and kings of Siunik'. With their lands located in the north central part of Karabagh, centered at the castles of Akana and Haterk', the Hasan-Jalalids monopolized the katholikosate of Albania from at least the fourteenth century and treated the katholikosal seat, the great monastery of Gandzasar, as their ancestral abbey, repository of wealth, and family mausoleum.

2. The house of Avanian, meliks of Dizak. Descended, it would appear, from Vasak-Smbat, a son of Hasan I the Great, grandfather of Hasan-Jalal-Daula, and so a collateral, second branch of the house of Siunik'-Khach'en, this line received as its share of the family domains the district of K't'ish, the later Dizak, that is, the southern third of Khach'en/Karabagh, the old principality of K't'ish-Baghk', which had passes to Jalal-Daula-Hasan when he married the granddaughter of the last king of (K't'ish-) Baghk' in the thirteenth century. The seat of the Avanids was at the village of T'ogh, and in their domains lay the great Albanian monastery and pilgrimage center of Amaras, reputed burial place of St. Grigoris, grandson of St. Gregory the Illuminator and apostle to the Albanians. It seems likely that the meliks of Somkhit'I in Georgia were a branch of the Avanids, and it is possible-but not certain-that the Aghamalians, meliks of Erevan, were a branch as well.

3. The house of Melik-Beglarian, meliks of Giulistan. This house represents the third line of the dynasty of Siunik'-Khach'en, being descended from Kara Grigor 'Gregory the Great' (a younger son of Hasan I the Great, grandfather of Jalal-Daula-Hasan) and his wife Susan-Dop', sister of Sargis II, Prince Mkhargrdzeli. Their descendants, known as the Dop'eank' received Giulistan in the far north of Karabagh as their share of the family domains, together with the great castle of that name, although we do not know when these allocations were actually made.

4. The house of Shahanshah or Ulubek'ian, meliks of Gegham. In the fifteenth century, the Vakht'ankian house, the senior line of Siunik'-Khach'en, itself broke into two branches: the Shahanshahids and the Jehanshahids. From the Shahanshahids, who received as their share of the family domains the northernmost districts of Gegham and Gardman, were descended the Ulubekid meliks of Gegham, who survived as the Meliks Geghamian, an important family of Erevan in the nineteenth century.

5. The house of Jhanshah, meliks of Tsar. From Jehanshah, brother of Shahanshah, were descended the Jhanshahid meliks of Tsar, located on the uppermost valley of the Terter River, centered at the large village of Tsar in the earlier district of Vaykunik'. Here lay the castle of Handaberd and the hot springs now called Isti-su that had once served as the "royal baths" of the Albanian kings.

6. The house of Israelian, meliks of Jraberd. The house of Israelian was the only one of the five in Karabagh that was not native to the region. The Israelids were, however, of ultimate Siunid origin, being a branch of the melik house of Tsaghadzor, who were themselves descended from the Proshids of Vayots-dzor, a branch of the princes of Khach'en. Melik Haykaz came to Karabah in 1687, where the Hasan-Jalalids gave him the old fortress of Ch' raberd 'water castle' at the confluence of the Terter and the T'rghin Rivers, together with the district around it. In addition to these original melik families, two other lines emerged later on. Melik Shahnazar of Gegham, having won favor with Shah 'Abbas I (1588-1629) during the latter's sojourn in Gegham following a campaign in Georgia, was rewarded by the grant of two additional lands: Varanda and Gardman, north of Giulistan. Melik Shahnazar appointed two of his brothers to rule these territories, each of whom founded his own line:

7. The house of Shahnazarian, meliks of Varanda. With their seat at the village of Avetaranots', the meliks of Varanda ruled the south central part of Karabagh, Shah 'Abbas apparently having detached this district from the lands either of the meliks of Khach'en or of those who held Dizak.

8. The house of Shahnazarian, meliks of Gardman. Their lands lay in the valley of the Shamkhor River and were centered at the village of Oskanapat, from which the melikdom occasionally took its name. The house of Mirzaian, meliks of Getabek, also located in Gardman, may have been a branch of this family.