Oshin of Lampron was an Armenian nakharar

Nakharar

Nakharar was a hereditary title of the highest order given to houses of the ancient and medieval Armenian nobility.-Nakharar system:Medieval Armenia was divided into large estates, which were the property of an enlarged noble family and were ruled by a member of it, to whom the title of Nahapet...

, formerly lord of a fortress near modern day Ganja

Ganja, Azerbaijan

Ganja is Azerbaijan's second-largest city with a population of around 313,300. It was named Yelizavetpol in the Russian Empire period. The city regained its original name—Ganja—from 1920–1935 during the first part of its incorporation into the Soviet Union. However, its name was changed again and...

, who migrated in the early 1070s to Cilicia

Cilicia

In antiquity, Cilicia was the south coastal region of Asia Minor, south of the central Anatolian plateau. It existed as a political entity from Hittite times into the Byzantine empire...

 and founded the House of Lampron that ruled the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia

Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia

The Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia , also known as the Cilician Armenia, Kingdom of Cilician Armenia or New Armenia, was an independent principality formed during the High Middle Ages by Armenian refugees fleeing the Seljuk invasion of Armenia...

 in the 12th century.

According to Cyril Toumanoff

Cyril Toumanoff

Cyril Leo Heraclius, Prince Toumanoff was an United States-based historian and genealogist who mostly specialized in the history and genealogies of medieval Georgia, Armenia, the Byzantine Empire, and Iran...

, Oshin was a member of the Pahlavuni

Pahlavuni

Pahlavuni was an Armenian noble family that rose to prominence in the late 10th century during the last years of the Bagratuni monarchy.-Origins:...

 clan.
Disappointed with the inability of the Byzantines to protect him against the advance of the Seljuk Turks, Oshin fled west from his fortress near Gandzak to Cilicia in 1072. The 12th century chronicler Samuel of Ani wrote about Oshin's departure from his ancestral lands: "...with his brother Halgam, with his wife and other nobles. Carrying his wealth and the finger of the holy apostle Peter, he entered Cilicia and captured from the Muslims the fortress of Lampron, at the foot of the Taurus Mountains toward Tarsus." His kinsman, Abulgharib Artsruni, governed Taurus

Taurus Mountains

Taurus Mountains are a mountain complex in southern Turkey, dividing the Mediterranean coastal region of southern Turkey from the central Anatolian Plateau. The system extends along a curve from Lake Eğirdir in the west to the upper reaches of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers in the east...

 and Mopsuestia

Mopsuestia

Mopsuestia , later Mamistra, is the ancient city of Cilicia Campestris on the Pyramus river located approximately 20 km east of ancient Antiochia in Cilicia .The founding of this city is attributed in legend to the soothsayer, Mopsus, who lived before the Trojan war, although...

 in the name of the Emperor Alexius I Comnenus. He ceded to Oshin two forts in western Cilicia, Lampron

Lampron

Lampron - is a castle near the town of Çamlıyayla in Mersin Province, Turkey. While part of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia in the Middle Ages, the castle was known as Lampron and was the ancestral home of the Armenian Hethumid princes...

 and Barbaron at Tarsus

Tarsus (city)

Tarsus is a historic city in south-central Turkey, 20 km inland from the Mediterranean Sea. It is part of the Adana-Mersin Metropolitan Area, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in Turkey with a population of 2.75 million...

 near the Cilician Gates

Cilician Gates

The Cilician Gates or Gülek Pass is a pass through the Taurus Mountains connecting the low plains of Cilicia to the Anatolian Plateau, by way of the narrow gorge of the Gökoluk River. Its highest elevation is about 1000m....

. While Samuel of Ani implies that Oshin seized Lampron from Muslims, other Armenian writers closer to the Hethumids suggest that Oshin was merely a faithful chieftain of Abulgharib who later ceded the castle of Lampron to him. Matthew of Edessa

Matthew of Edessa

Matthew of Edessa was an Armenian historian in the 12th century from the city of Edessa . Matthew was the superior abbot of Karmir Vank' , near the town of Kessoun, east of Marash , the former seat of Baldwin of Boulogne...

 and Sempad the Constable

Sempad the Constable

Sempad the Constable was a noble in Cilician Armenia, an older brother of King Hetoum I. He was an important figure in Cilicia, acting as a diplomat, judge, and military officer, holding the title of Constable or Sparapet, supreme commander of the Armenian armed forces...

 mention Oshin only in passing. The Emperor had no objection to seeing the Armenians becoming a buffer between him and the invading Seljuks; and confirmed Oshin, together with two other Armenian leaders who had established themselves in the Taurus, Ruben and Gogh Vasil, in their positions by bestowing on them the imperial title of sebastos

Sebastos

Sebastos was an honorific used by the ancient Greeks to render the Roman imperial title of Augustus. From the late 11th century on, during the Komnenian period, it and variants derived from it formed the basis of a new system of court titles for the Byzantine Empire. The female form of the title...

.

Oshin has been identified by historians such as Steven Runciman

Steven Runciman

The Hon. Sir James Cochran Stevenson Runciman CH — known as Steven Runciman — was a British historian known for his work on the Middle Ages...

 with general Aspietes whose exploits were told by Anna Comnena in her Alexiad

Alexiad

The Alexiad is a medieval biographical text written around the year 1148 by the Byzantine historian Anna Comnena, daughter of Emperor Alexius I....

 as well as with Ursinus mentioned by Ralph of Caen (in Gesta Tancredi

Gesta Tancredi

Gesta Tancredi in expeditione Hierosolymitana , usually called simply Gesta Tancredi, is a prosimetric history written in laconic Latin prose and episodes of verse by a certain Ralph of Caen...

) and Albert of Aix

Albert of Aix

Albert of Aix-la-Chapelle or Albert of Aachen , historian of the First Crusade, was born during the later part of the 11th century, and afterwards became canon and custos of the church of Aachen....

. Historian Joseph Laurent argued that Ursinus, Aspietes and Oshin were all different people in his article Arméniens de Cilicie: Aspiétès, Oschin, Ursinus from the journal Revue des Études Arméniennes

Revue des Études Arméniennes

Revue des Études Arméniennes is a prominent French language academic journal dedicated to the study of Armenian history, art history, philology, linguistics, literature. The journal was founded by two French scholars who specialized in Armenian studies in Paris in 1920, Frédéric Macler and Antoine...

; however, Christopher Macevitt found the links between Ursinus and Oshin persuasive and compelling. In September of 1097 when Baldwin of Boulogne took Tarsus from Tancred

Tancred, Prince of Galilee

Tancred was a Norman leader of the First Crusade who later became Prince of Galilee and regent of the Principality of Antioch...

 who had recently captured the city, Oshin/Ursinus sent ambassadors to Tancred advising him to attack Mamistra. Oshin was thus in a position to support either Baldwin or Tancred. Once the Crusaders moved on to Antioch

Siege of Antioch

The Siege of Antioch took place during the First Crusade in 1097 and 1098. The first siege, by the crusaders against the Muslim city, lasted from October 21, 1097, to June 2, 1098. The second siege, against the crusaders who had occupied it, lasted from June 7 to June 28, 1098.-Background:Antioch...

, Oshin provided them with provisions, eager to have them leave Cilicia.