Principality of Iberia

Principality of Iberia
ქართლის საერისმთავრო
*kartlis saerismtavro*
Principality of Iberia ქართლის საერისმთავრო ; kartlis saerismtavro
c. 588–888
	Flag
Status	Principality
Capital	Tbilisi; (c. 588–736); Uplistsikhe; (c. 736–813); Artanuji; (c. 813–888);
Common languages	Iberia in 888–923
Historical era	Iberian kingship
Preceded by	Succeeded by
	Sasanian Iberia
Kingdom of the Iberians
Principality of Kakheti
Emirate of Tbilisi

Principality of Iberia or Principality of Kartli (

Sassanid suppression of the local royal Chosroid dynasty, around 580; it lasted until 888, when the kingship was restored by a member of the Bagrationi dynasty. Its borders fluctuated greatly as the presiding princes of Iberia confronted the Persians, Byzantines, Khazars, Arabs, and neighboring Caucasian

rulers throughout this period.

The time of the principate was climacteric in the history of Georgia; the principality saw the final formation of the Georgian Christian church, the first flourishing of a literary tradition in the native language, the rise of the Georgian Bagratid family, and the beginning of cultural and political unification of various feudal enclaves, which would be united to form the Kingdom of Georgia by the early 11th century.

History

When the king of a great unified Iberia,

curopalates. The Byzantine-Sassanid treaty of 591 confirmed this new rearrangement but left Iberia divided into Roman- and Sassanid-dominated parts at the town of Tbilisi.^[1]

Thus, the establishment of the principate marked the ascendancy of the dynastic aristocracy in Iberia and was a compromise solution amid the Byzantine-Sassanid rivalry for the control of the Caucasus. The presiding princes of Iberia, as the leading local political authority, were to be confirmed and sanctioned by the court of

Great King and from the Emperor confirming them in their duchies".^[1]

Through offering their protection to the Iberian principate, the Byzantine emperors pushed to limit Sassanid and then Islamic influence in the Caucasus, but the princes of Iberia were not always consistent in their pro-Byzantine line, and, as a matter of political expediency, sometimes recognized the suzerainty of the rival regional powers.^[3]

Guaram's successor, the second presiding prince

Muslim emir was installed in the 730s. The dynasts of Iberia sat at Uplistsikhe whence they exercised only a limited authority over local Georgian lords who, entrenched in their mountain castles, maintained a degree of freedom from the Arabs.^[5] The Guaramids were briefly succeeded by the Nersianids between c. 748 and 779/80, and had vanished once and for all by 786. This year witnessed a bloody crackdown upon the rebellious Georgian nobles organized by Khuzayma ibn Khazim, an Arab viceroy (wali) of the Caucasus.^[6]

The extinction of the Guaramids and near-extinction of the Chosroids allowed their energetic cousins of the Bagratid family, in the person of

Adarnase I, of the Bagratids, who had emerged as a winner in protracted dynastic strife, succeeded in restoring the Georgian royal authority by assuming the title of the King of the Georgians.^[7]

Presiding princes of Iberia

Princes	Reign	Dynasty
1. Guaram I	588 – c. 590	Guaramids
2. Stephen I	590–627	Guaramids
3. Adarnase I	627–637/642	Chosroids
4. Stephen II	637/642 – c. 650	Chosroids
5. Adarnase II	650–684	Chosroids
6. Guaram II	684 – c. 693	Guaramids
8. Guaram III	693 – c. 748	Guaramids
9. Adarnase III	748 – c. 760	Nersianids
10. Nerse	760–772, 775–779/780	Nersianids
11. Stephen III	779/780–786	Guaramids
12. Ashot I	813–830	Bagrationi
13. Bagrat I	842/843–876	Bagrationi
14. David I	876–881	Bagrationi
15. Gurgen I	881–888	Bagrationi

Gallery

Church architecture in the principality

Ateni Sioni Church, early 600s
Jvari monastery
, 586-605
Tsromi church, 626–634

Notes

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Suny, p. 25.
^ Toumanoff, p. 388.
^ Rapp, Stephen H., "Sumbat Davitis-dze and the Vocabulary of Political Authority in the Era of Georgian Unification", Journal of the American Oriental Society, 120.4 (October–December 2000), pp. 570–576.
^ Suny, p. 26.
^ Suny, p. 29.
^ Suny, p. 28.
^ Suny, pp. 29–30.

References

ISBN 0-253-20915-3
.

Toumanoff, Cyril (1963), Studies in Christian Caucasian History. Georgetown University Press
.

[Suny,_p._25-1] Suny, p. 25.

[2] Toumanoff, p. 388.

[3] Rapp, Stephen H., "Sumbat Davitis-dze and the Vocabulary of Political Authority in the Era of Georgian Unification", Journal of the American Oriental Society, 120.4 (October–December 2000), pp. 570–576.

[4] Suny, p. 26.

[5] Suny, p. 29.

[6] Suny, p. 28.

[7] Suny, pp. 29–30.

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