Many of the thirteenth and fourteenth century miniatures now in existence originated in Bardsr Haik, a province in the Northwest of old Armenia. A number of important routes running through Bardsr Haik ensured the rapid growth of trade and crafts and of the arts and culture.

The manuscripts of Bardsr Haik were always lavishly decorated with vegetal motifs including pointed crescent-shaped leaves and swirling leaves with palmettos. Similar motifs are to be found in the art of the eastern part of Asia Minor, which dates back to heathen times. But while the more ancient of the known miniatures were characterised by a fairly realistic treatment of these motifs, the later examples gradually became more and more stylised until they reached a conventional form typical of the medieval art of Transcaucasia and the Middle East.

Beautiful examples of such ornamentation, which served as the basis for several main types of the marginal miniatures, or marginals, can be found in the largest of old Armenian manuscripts - The Homilies of Mush, produced in 1202 at the Avaghvank monastery near the town of Yerzinka.