The settlements of Abımıstık, Boybeypınarı, Köprübaşı, Levzin and Yeşilova are attached to the town.[3] Abımıstık and Levzin are populated by Kurds of the Reşwan tribe.[5][6]
In the ninth and tenth century, the town of Kaysun was part of the Abbasid province of Al-Jazira.[7] The region was conquered by the Byzantines in the late tenth century and then fell to Armenians after the Seljuk invasions.
The principality of Kogh Vasil was centered on Kaysun who restored its fortification and build a palace in the town in the late 11th century.[8] Under his rule, the town became the center of a local Armenian renovatio and Matthew of Edessa, who moved to Kaysun some time after 1116, promoted the town as a successor to the cultural and military glory of Ani.[9]
Vasil intended to connect to ancient Armenian glory, and as such became a patron of the only surviving Armenian institution, that of the Armenian church. As such he was able to convince first the Armenian CatholicosGregory II and then Gregory's nephew and deputy Parsegh of Cilicia, who became the confessor of Vasil, to take up residence in Kaysun.[10] Outside the town was the monastery of Karmir Vank (the Red Monastery) where Gregory III was consecrated as Catholicos in 1114/14 and the later Catholicos Nerses IV the Gracious educated.[11][12] The artist who painted the three domes of the White Monastery in Egypt in 1124, Theodore, is identified as a native of Kaysun.[13] The town was severely damaged in the earthquake of 1114.[14]
After an Armenian plot to hand over Edessa to Mawdud ibn Ahmad, the ruler of Mosul, failed, Baldwin II annexed Raban and Kaysun to the county of Edessa.[15] The Catholicosate was moved thereafter to Covk.[16] Some time after that, the chronicler Matthew of Edessa settled in the town [17] and by 1120, it was given as fief to Geoffrey of Marash.[18] After him it fell to Baldwin of Marash in the 1130s who in turn appointed an Armenian called Vahram as governor of the town.[19]
In 1131, the DanishmendEmir Gazi besieged the place in which Joscelin I, Count of Edessa, had installed the Jacobite Patriarch of Antioch. Though Joscelin was dying at that time, he was carried on a litter ahead of his army to relieve the castle. Upon hearing news of Joscelin's approach, Emir Ghazi abandoned the siege.[20] The Syriac Patriarch stayed in Kaysun for around 5 years.[8] In 1136 the surrounding lands were ravaged first by Zengi's lieutenant Sawar and then the Danishmendid emir Muhammad Ghazi.[21]
In 1150 Kaysun was captured by Mesud I who had allied with Nur ad-Din.[22] The town was under control of Nur ad-Din in 1172 when the church unification talks between the Syriac Orthodox ChristiansTheodoros bar Wahbun and the Jacobite bishop of Keysun, John, took place with the Byzantine theologian Theodoros.[23]
Hewsen, Robert H. (2008). "Armenia Maritima: The Historical Geography of Cilicia". In Hovannisian, Richard G. (ed.). Armenian Cilicia. Costa Mesa. pp. 27–65.
Runciman, Steven (1962). A History of the Crusades, Volume II: The Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Frankish East, 1100-1187. Cambridge University Press. ISBN0-521-06162-8.
