SUMBAT [DAVIT.sup.⊂]IS-DZE AND THE VOCABULARY OF POLITICAL AUTHORITY IN THE ERA OF GEORGIAN UNIFICATION.

• Author: RAPP, STEPHEN H.

In the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, the medieval Georgian kingdom was one of the preeminent powers of the Christian East. A "Georgianized" branch of the Perso-Armenian Bagratid dynasty had overseen Georgia's transformation from a series of disparate principalities and noble estates (some of which were under the hegemony of external forces) to a unified polity. This essay investigates one aspect of the Bagratid unification: the evolving terminology used by the eleventh-century Georgian historian Sumbat [David.sup.[subset]]is-dze that reflects the accumulation of political authority.

THE PROCESS BY WHICH MEDIEVAL Georgia in the Caucasus was unified is poorly documented by extant sources. [1] Surviving evidence speaks largely of the political unification of the various Georgian districts in the eleventh century, at first through Bagrat III's simultaneous rule over [K.sup.[subset]][art.sup.[subset]]li, [Ap.sup.[subset]][xazet.sup.[subset]]i, and the neo[K.sup.[subset]][art.sup.[subset]]velian enterprise in the southwestern domains and then through the systematic conquests of his successors. [2] But the literal gathering of lands is only one dimension of a considerably larger puzzle. Was there, for example, a conscious program to institute a standardized form of the Georgian language throughout central Caucasia, and if so, who directed it? Moreover, what was the precise role of the Georgian Church in the push for unification? These two questions are not unrelated because the medieval Church was the purveyor and guardian of culture and language. The Church's participation should not be negle cted for another reason: ecclesiastical jurisdiction was extended to some regions prior to the establishment of political hegemony. Central to any examination must be a consideration of how the eastern kingdom of [K.sup.[subset]][art.sup.[subset]]li, the Iberia of Classical and Byzantine writers, came to form the nucleus around which an all-Georgian realm was constructed. The fact that the [K.sup.[subset]][art.sup.[subset]]velian dialect seems to have been the only one of the Georgian languages possessing a script has exaggerated the importance of [K.sup.[subset]][art.sup.[subset]]li at the expense of its neighbors--among them, [Kaxet.sup.[subset]]i, [Heret.sup.[subset]]i, Tao/[Tayk.sup.[subset]], [Klarjet.sup.[subset]]i, [Shavshet.sup.[subset]]i, [Javaxet.sup.[subset]]i, [Suanet.sup.[subset]]i, and [Ap.sup.[subset]][xazet.sup.[subset]]i. In fact, nearly all pre-modern "Georgian" historiography, at least that which has come down to us, is written from the [K.sup.[subset]][art.sup.[subset]]velian perspective a nd expresses [K.sup.[subset]][art.sup.[subset]]velian concerns. [3]

Only when these questions and others like them have been tackled will a more comprehensive image of the dynamic processes leading to Georgian unification emerge. In an effort to broaden the scope of inquiry, this essay concentrates upon one particular but previously neglected facet of unification: the inflation of medieval Georgian terminology describing local political authority, a phenomenon attesting not only to the Bagratid accumulation of power but also to the interconnectedness of eastern Georgia and the Byzantine commonwealth. This investigation is restricted to the eleventh-century history of Sumbat [Davit.sup.[subset]]is-dze, [4] the only contemporaneous source specially devoted to the origins, development, and consolidation of Bagratid hegemony over the diverse Georgian lands.

Despite its brevity, [Davit.sup.[subset]]is-dze's Life and Tale of the Bagratids is a tremendously important work. Composed perhaps as early as Ca. 1030, [5] it survives only in select manuscripts of the medieval Georgian historical corpus titled [K.sup.[subset]][art.sup.[subset]]lis [c.sup.[subset]]xovreba, literally "The Life of [K.sup.[subset]][art.sup.[subset]]li. [6] [Davit.sup.[subset]]is-dze does not acknowledge his sources, although it has been established that he had multiple lists of princes at his disposal. [7] The only surviving lists definitely exploited by the author--either directly or secondhand--are two of the Royal Lists incorporated into the independent corpus [Mok.sup.[subset]][c.sup.[subset]]evay [k.sup.[subset]][art.sup.[subset]]lisay, literally "The Conversion of [K.sup.[subset]][art.sup.[subset]]li," which derives from the tenth century. [8]

Little about the author is known except for his name, yet even this is remarkable because earlier Georgian historians did not customarily identify themselves in their works. Sumbat's own praenomen is the Georgian rendition of the popular Armenian Bagratid name Smbat, while his cognomen, literally "the son of [Davit.sup.[subset]] (David)," may indicate that he was a scion of the Bagratid house, i.e., he was the "son," or descendant, of King David. [Davit.sup.[subset]]is-dze's brief narrative is best known precisely for its articulation of the Georgian Bagratids' claim to be the direct biological descendants of the Hebrew King-Prophet David, through whom they professed to be uniquely suited to rule. However, the author also documents, rather obliquely, the migration of the Bagratids to Georgian domains, an event that occurred shortly after 772. For the most part, [Davit.sup.[subset]]is-dze does not comment about the socic-cultural, religious, linguistic, and economic problems associated with the drive for unit y. Instead, he emphasizes that the Bagratids assembled a greater Georgian realm and that their kings were the most legitimate monarchs in Caucasia. [9]

When the Bagratids settled permanently in the southwestern Georgian territories in the late eighth century, [K.sup.[subset]][art.sup.[subset]]velian royal authority already had been in abeyance for over two hundred years. [10] At the instigation of the [K.sup.[subset]][art.sup.[subset]]velian aristocracy, sometime in the sixth century, the Persian Great King dismantled the monarchy, thus duplicating the demise of Armenian kingship in 428. Persian troops were garrisoned in the chief [K.sup.[subset]][art.sup.[subset]]velian cities of [Tp.sup.[subset]]ilisi (modern [T.sup.[subset]]bilisi) and [Mc.sup.[subset]][xet.sup.[subset]]a already in the 520s. [11] If the testimony of the Georgian historian Ps.-Juansher [12] is to be trusted, it would seem that weakened [K.sup.[subset]][art.sup.[subset]]velian kings endured for a few more decades. On this basis of this important evidence, C. Toumanoff concluded that the monarchy was not finally dissolved until ca. 580, though it had been crippled decades before. [13]

So as to limit Persian and then Islamic meddlings along their shared frontier (of which Caucasia was part), the Byzantine emperors appointed "presiding princes" beginning ca. 588. These presiding princes were of limited capabilities, however, and as a matter of political expediency they sometimes recognized the suzerainty of neighboring Islamic rulers. Yet, on the whole, connections with Byzantium were becoming more frequent. With the encouragement of Constantinople the [K.sup.[subset]][art.sup.[subset]]velian Bagratid Ashot I "the Great" seized the principate in 813. Seventy-five years later, in 888, local royal authority was resuscitated by his kinsman Adarnase II.

The Bagratids' expansionistic agenda broadened incrementally and in 1008 Bagrat III succeeded in joining for the first time the thrones of [K.sup.[[subset]][art.sup.[subset]]li and [Ap.sup.[subset]][xazet.sup.[subset]]i (the core regions of eastern and western Georgia, respectively) as well as the pivotal southwestern Armeno[K.sup.[subset]][art.sup.[subset]]velian borderlands. Triumph over the Seljuq invaders, who were one part of the same wave of Turks who captured the Byzantine emperor at Manzikert in 1071, emboldened the Georgian monarchs even more, and they began to envisage themselves as equals of the Byzantine basileis (sing. basileus, [LANGUAGE IS NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] "emperor") within the purview of greater Caucasia. The consolidation of Georgia and especially with the final--and hugely symbolic--liberation of the former royal capital of [T.sup.[subset]]ilisi from the Muslims in 1122 compelled King [Davit.sup.[subset]] II (r. 1089-1125) to discard Byzantine honors once and for all, thus removin g any implication that the Georgian monarchs were subordinate to the emperor. [14]

In the course of his account of Georgia's political integration, Sumbat [Davit.sup.[subset]]is-dze employs a carefully selected vocabulary to describe the accumulation of power by the Bagratid dynasty. As a consequence of the relatively late manuscripts at our disposal, it must be borne in mind that we simply do not know whether this terminology accurately reflects the early Bagratid period or whether it was contrived by [Davit.sup.[subset]]is-dze himself so as to emphasize growing Bagratid superiority. In either case, the terms investigated here are plausible for the period and none of them constitute obvious anachronisms.

Genealogical treatises are notorious for their incorporation of legendary and even patently false information, especially for the generations of remote antiquity. [15] Memories about the...