Kingdom of Georgia საქართველოს სამეფო Sakartvelos samepo | |
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1008–1490 | |
Flags of Georgia of the 14th–15th centuries according to Dulcert, the Pizzigano brothers and others[3]
Coat of arms of "All-Georgian Kingdom" according to Prince Vakhushti's Atlas (c. 1745)Coat of arms of the "Kingdom of Georgia under Khan" according to Grünenberg Wappenbuch (1480)[1][2]
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![]() Kingdom of Georgia in c. 1220, at the peak of its territorial expansion, superimposed on modern borders. | |
![]() Administrative division of the Kingdom of Georgia in the 13th century | |
Capital | |
Common languages | Middle Georgian Greek[4] Laz Armenian[5] Arabic (lingua franca/numismatics/chancery)[6][7] Persian (numismatics)[8] |
Religion | Eastern Orthodoxy (Georgian Patriarchate) |
Government | Feudal monarchy |
King | |
• 1008–1014 (first) | Bagrat III |
• 1446–1465 (last) | George VIII |
Legislature | Council of State |
Historical era | High Middle Ages to Late Middle Ages |
c. 1008 | |
1122–1226 | |
1245–1247 | |
• East and West division | 1247–1329 |
• Reunification | 1329 |
1463 1490[a] | |
Currency | Various Byzantine and Sassanian coins were minted until the 12th century. |
1the full title of the Georgian monarchs after 1124 was "King of Kings, Autocrat of all the East and the West, Sword of the Messiah, King of Abkhazia, King of Iberia, King of Kakheti and Hereti, King of Armenia, Possessor of Shirvan." |
Part of a series on the |
History of Georgia |
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The Kingdom of Georgia (Georgian: საქართველოს სამეფო, Sakartvelos samepo), also known as the Georgian Empire,[9] was a medieval Eurasian monarchy that was founded in c. 1008 AD. It reached its Golden Age of political and economic strength during the reign of King David IV and Queen Tamar the Great from the 11th to 13th centuries. Georgia became one of the pre-eminent nations of the Christian East, and its pan-Caucasian empire[10] and network of tributaries stretched from Eastern Europe to Anatolia and northern frontiers of Iran, while Georgia also maintained religious possessions abroad, such as the Monastery of the Cross in Jerusalem and the Monastery of Iviron in Greece. It is the principal historical precursor of present-day Georgia.
Lasting for several centuries, the kingdom fell to the Mongol invasions in the 13th century, but managed to re-assert sovereignty by the 1340s. The following decades were marked by the Black Death, as well as numerous invasions under the leadership of Timur, who devastated the country's economy, population, and urban centers. The Kingdom's geopolitical situation further worsened after the conquest of the Byzantine Empire and the Empire of Trebizond by the Ottoman Turks. As a result of these processes, by the end of the 15th century Georgia turned into a fractured entity. This whole series of events also led to the final collapse of the kingdom into anarchy by 1466 and the mutual recognition of its constituent kingdoms of Kartli, Kakheti, and Imereti as independent states between 1490 and 1493—each led by a rival branch of the Bagrationi dynasty, and into five semi-independent principalities—Odishi, Guria, Abkhazia, Svaneti, and Samtskhe.
(...) he courageously fought off countless enemies as he reinforced Georgian unity and assembled a pan-Caucasian empire, hence his sobriquet Aġmašenebeli (the builder) (...) The height of the pan-Caucasian rule of the Georgian Bagratids and of the transregional Georgian monastic network is habitually described as Georgia's Golden Age. (...) Internal and external tensions mounted, and the pan-Caucasian empire of the Georgian Bagratids shrank under T'amar's children Giorgi IV Laša (r. 1213–23 C.E.) and Rusudan (r. 1223–45 C.E.).
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