David X

David X (Georgian: დავით X) (c. 1470s or 1480s –1526) was the second king (mepe) of the Kingdom of Kartli from 1505 to 1525. Associated with the throne as a child, he became king on the death of his father and from then on had to endure invasions from the Kingdom of Imereti and Kingdom of Kakheti. A reformer, he succeeded in subduing the army and destroying the power of the nobles by abolishing the semi-independent principalities that were ruining the unity of the country, before uniting eastern Georgia under a single sceptre. David X is also known to have survived another invasion by Persia, and is thus considered to be the first in a series of eleven kings who fought against their Safavid neighbours over the next two centuries.

David X
King of Kartli
Reign	1505–1525
Predecessor	Constantine II
Successor	George IX
Born	c. 1470s or 1480s
Died	1526
Spouse	Nestan-Darejan or Miraingul Baratashvili Tamar Jaqeli
Issue	Luarsab I of Kartli
Dynasty	Bagrationi
Father	Constantine II of Georgia
Mother	Tamar
Religion	Georgian Orthodox Church

Accession

David was the eldest son of King Constantine II of Georgia and Queen Tamar. In 1488, during the war against the Turkomans, he was associated with his brothers on his father’s throne.^[1] Two years later, in 1490, the Darbazi (royal council) formally proclaimed the end of the Kingdom of Georgia,^[2] which had in practice been divided since the 13th century.^{[note 1]} David’s father retained control only of Kartli (central Georgia),^[3] with Tbilisi as its capital. Constantine II died on 27 April 1505, leaving to the new king, David X, a kingdom that was still in the process of consolidation.^[4]

From the outset, the reign of David X was marked by internal struggles among the Georgian lordships and kingdoms of the 16th century.^{[note 2]} As early as 1509, King Alexander II of Imereti invaded western Kartli and even occupied Gori.^[5] At the same time, he succeeded in taking control of the entire north-western part of the kingdom without encountering significant resistance. However, by November, the Ottoman general Selim Pasha invaded Imereti in turn. In 1510, Alexander II abandoned his recent conquests, allowing David X to recover the lost territories.^[5]

These difficulties did not end there. In 1511, King George II of Kakheti, who had earlier had his father, the pacifist Alexander I,^{[note 3]} assassinated, also launched an attack on Kartli.^[5] David X was forced to withdraw to the fortress of Ateni (south of Gori). Lacking sufficient forces to advance further, George II confined himself to plundering the surrounding regions.^[5] Meanwhile, several nobles opposed to royal authority joined the Kakhetian king, prompting David to conclude that administrative and military reform was necessary.

To this end, he divided the kingdom into four regions, each governed by a military commander.^[6] These units were known as sadroshos (სადროშო):^{[note 4]}

• The first Sadrosho, the metsinave, "avant-garde", included Kvemo Kartli and was under the hereditary command of the Princes Baratashvili.
• The second, the memarjvene, "right flank", included Shida Kartli (corresponding to the territories occupied by Imereti in 1509) and was hereditarily commanded by the Princes Amilakhvari.
• The third sadrocho, the memartskhene, "left flank", comprised Samukhranbatono and the duchies of Aragvi and Ksani, and was under the hereditary command of the Princes Mukhranbatoni.
• mepis, "royal", included parts of Kartli along the right bank of the Mtkvari river from Tbilisi to Tashiskari and the estates of the Catholicos. The banner was under the command of a royally-appointed officer, frequently from the princely family of Tsitsishvili.^[7]

Modern historians consider the very concept of this administrative-military division of Kartli to have been sound.^[6][5] Nevertheless, the subdivision disappeared after David’s death. The governors gradually turned their offices into hereditary possessions, and even the royal domains eventually became the lands of the Princes of Mukhrani, descendants of Bagrat I.^[5] Despite this outcome, in the following decades similar reforms were adopted both in Kakheti^[8] and in Imereti.

War against Kakheti

The war was far from over. Soon afterward, the governor of the Kartli–Kakheti border region, Prince Bagrat, launched an offensive against King George II of Kakheti. Within a short time, he succeeded in building a fortress known as the Fort of the Mtkvari at the confluence of the Ksani and Mtkvari rivers.^[9] George II once again entered Kartli and laid siege to the new fortress, but after three months he was forced to withdraw to his own domains following his defeat.^[9]

Later that same year, the king of Kakheti intervened once more in Kartli, devastating the region of Mukhrani and burning and plundering the villages around the town. The invader apparently did not yet realize that the Kingdom of Kartli had been reorganized and therefore relied on the expected treachery of certain nobles. However, no noble was willing or able to betray David X, and a reinforced army led by Prince Bagrat defeated George II at Dzali in 1513.^[9] George I was imprisoned at Mukhrani, where he died the same year, probably assassinated on Bagrat’s orders.

A new situation then emerged. At his death, the king of Kakheti left as his only heir a young son, Levan, aged eight. David X sought to exploit George II’s defeat and entered Kakheti with his army. He occupied and annexed the region but failed to capture Prince Levan, who, together with his mother Queen Helen, was protected by powerful nobles. David did not abandon his goal of unifying eastern Georgia and, while war raged between Persia and the Ottoman Empire on the periphery of the Caucasus, he continued his efforts to subjugate Kakheti.^[10]

In August 1514,^{[note 5]} David X laid siege to the fortress of Maghrani, where Prince Levan and his mother had taken refuge. Fearing defeat, he sent the prince of Saamilakhoro and religious representatives into the fortress to negotiate peace. The negotiations failed, and David was defeated by the Kakhetians.^[10] He was later forced to retreat to Kartli, where he was attacked by the Ottomans, fresh from their victory over the Persians at Chaldiran. David managed to repel them temporarily, but in 1518 Levan convened a council of nobles and proclaimed himself King of Kakheti at Magharo.^[10]

Two years later, in 1520, David returned to Kakheti with a larger army in an attempt to defeat the self-proclaimed king, but he was defeated at Kiziki, in the south of the country.^[11] He was compelled to recognize the independence of the region and abandoned his project of unifying Georgia. Instead, he settled for concluding a military alliance against foreign enemies with his former rival.^[11]

Safavid threat

As Kartli began to organize itself as a separate kingdom following the division of Georgia, another state emerged on the southern frontier of South Caucasus. In 1502, the young Iranian prince Ismail proclaimed himself shah of Persia at Tabriz, in Azerbaijan. Seven years later, he completed the conquest of Iran and thus founded the Safavid Empire, which would become the principal external enemy of eastern Georgia until its disappearance in the 18th century. The new empire soon developed into a major Middle Eastern power and grew strong enough to challenge its Ottoman neighbor. The two empires notably clashed at the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514, where the Safavids were defeated; however, they did not abandon their expansionist ambitions.

In Kartli, David X was still at war with neighboring Kakheti when Turkmen tribes settled in the southern part of the kingdom in 1516.^[10] The king, who had just concluded a military alliance treaty with Safavid Persia, was forced to accept their presence in order to avoid provoking Persian anger, in addition to agreeing to an annual tribute of 300 loads of silk.^[11] This decision met with strong opposition from the Georgian political elite, owing to the cultural and religious differences between Georgians and Turkmens. As a result, Tabriz came to suspect that Kartli was secretly plotting against the Safavids.^[12] To address this situation, Ismail, at the head of a large army of Qizilbash, occupied Kvemo Kartli to protect the Turkmen settlers. He annexed a large part of the region and established himself in the fortress of Aghdjakala, before attempting to negotiate with David X.^[13]

Tbilisi, however, refused to accept the annexation of a substantial portion of its territory, and war was formally declared. David allied himself with King Levan of Kakheti, Prince Qvarqvare III Jaqeli of Samtskhe, and North Caucasian tribes to defend his kingdom against the impending invasion; he also ordered the fortification of the country’s principal cities.^[12] Georgian forces initiated the first movements of the campaign and encountered the enemy army in 1520 at Teleti, where a major battle took place. During the fighting, the heir apparent Luarsab distinguished himself through his bravery. Nevertheless, the Georgians were defeated by the Persian troops, and David X was forced to retreat to his capital to organize its defense.^[13] Shah Ismail pursued the defeated army and also succeeded in capturing Tbilisi^[14] after a short siege, facilitated by the treachery of certain defenders of the city. After several days of devastation, only the Muslim quarter was spared from destruction,^[15] while the process of Turkmen colonization of Kvemo Kartli intensified.

End of reign and death

After this new conquest, Ismail I returned to his domains, leaving his troops in place under the command of General Div Sultan Rumlu.^[9] David X, who had withdrawn to southern Kartli in order to attack the Turkmens and Persians while the shah was in Tbilisi, took advantage of Ismail’s departure to return in force to his capital, which had been abandoned to the violence of the Muslim soldiers.^[13] Meanwhile, the shah died in Tabriz on 23 May 1524, leaving as his successor only his ten-year-old son, Tahmasp I. A civil war soon broke out among the Qizilbash over the regency, and Rumlu subsequently left Georgia to claim authority in Persia, which he held until 1527 21.

Once again, the King of Kartli mobilized all his forces to put an end to the Iranian occupation of the southern part of the kingdom. He succeeded in recapturing Aghdjakala, where he massacred all the Qizilbash together with the Turkmen colonists who accompanied them.^[15] Iran, plunged into civil war, was unable to dispatch new troops, and Kartli was thus liberated. However, David X was thereafter overcome by remorse for the massacre of the invaders. Moreover, as the chronicler Vakhushti of Kartli relates, he was weary of wearing the crown and of ruling a kingdom that had been almost constantly at war since his accession. For these reasons, he abdicated in 1525^[16] and left the throne to his younger brother, George IX. The document written in the king’s own hand and formalizing his abdication has been preserved. It states:

“I, David Bagrationi, clothed by You [God] in the purple and the crown of kingship and now deemed worthy by You of the monastic state, by the will of God King of the Georgians and now the monk Damian, renounce the kingship of the Georgians in order to enter monastic life and serve You.”^[17]

The former king died one year later, in 1526.^[4]

Family

David, as crown prince, first married Nestan-Darejan or Miraingul Baratashvili, daughter of Prince David Baratashvili (fl. 1488–1512), but the union was denounced by David's father, Constantine II.^[18]

David married secondly to Princess Tamar Jaqeli (died in 1554), daughter of Kvarkvare II Jaqeli, Atabag of Samtskhe. She might have been the mother of all of David's children, including his eldest son and successor Luarsab I. Prince Vakhushti reports that the mother of Luarsab was captured by Shah Tahmasp I at Ateni and carried off to Iran, where she committed suicide by poisoning in 1556. According to Cyril Toumanoff, Nestan-Darejan/Miraingul was the mother of David's three sons, Luarsab, Adarnase, and Ramaz, and it was she who committed suicide in 1556. He considers Tamar to have been the third name of this queen, such polyonymy not being infrequent in Georgia at that time.^[19]

David had eight children:

1. Luarsab I, King of Kartli
2. Adarnase (fl. 1512–1558)
3. Prince Ramaz of Kartli
4. Demetre (Dimitri) (fl. 1516–1540)
5. Bezhan, died of leprosy
6. Anonymous daughter (fl. 1519–1560), wife of Baindur, Duke of Aragvi
7. Anonymous daughter (fl. 1532–1534), wife of Prince Javakh Chiladze
8. Anonymous daughter

Culture and Religion under David X

Since the fall of the neighboring and vassal Empire of Trebizond in 1461, Christian Georgia found itself politically as well as religiously isolated. Nevertheless, Byzantine art—which had also spread to Russia and Eastern Europe following the fall of Constantinople in 1453^[20]—continued to influence Georgian culture, as it had since the medieval period. This influence persisted in Georgia for several decades. The reign of David X represents the final phase of this tradition; from the 1530s–1540s, Kartli and Kakheti increasingly came under the influence of Safavid art.

During this period, at the beginning of the 16th century, King David acted as a patron of the Church, as had his predecessors. The last Byzantine–Georgian cloisonné enamel icons were produced at this time.^[21] The Patriarchate of Mtskheta continued to be recognized as the principal religious authority throughout Georgia and even received formal recognition in this role from the Catholicate of Abkhazia.^[22] As monarch, David X appointed four heads of the Georgian Church during his reign: John VIII in 1505, Dionos around 1510, Dorotheos II in 1511, and Basil VI in 1517.^[23] At the same time, several cities—including Tskhinvali, Gori, Surami, Mukhrani, and Ali—began to experience economic growth,^[24] while Nikozi regained its status as the principal religious seat in the north of the country.^[25]

By contrast, the former centers of higher education disappeared during this period. It was not until the spread of Western-style schools established by Catholic missionaries in the second half of the 16th century that formal education began to revive. Architecture and painting continued to develop, but at a comparatively lower level of quality; the only major example of construction from this period is probably the Ananuri complex.^[26]

Notes

1. After a golden age lasting nearly a century (1089–1223), the Mongols invaded Georgia. From that point on, invaders followed one after another (Tamerlane, the Turcomans, etc.) and the Kingdom of Georgia gradually divided, mainly due to the power of the nobles.
2. Following the division of Georgia, the Georgian monarchs (Karthli, Kakheti, Imereti) had to face the internal threat posed by the nobility. Several princes and lords subsequently succeeded in becoming de facto independent from their suzerain and sometimes allied themselves with the Ottomans or the Safavids to assert their power.
3. Nodar Asatiani describes King Alexander I of Kakheti as a pacifist because, after agreeing to pay tribute to the regional Muslim powers, he wished to maintain good relations with Kartli.
4. Sadrosho comes from the word drosha (დროშა), which means ‘banner’. Indeed, the banner of the kingdom was entrusted to the governors of the regions.
5. The event occurs at the same time as the Battle of Chaldiran.