David IV, also known as David IV the Builder (Georgian: დავით IV აღმაშენებელი, romanized: davit IV aghmashenebeli) (1073–1125), of the Bagrationi dynasty, was the 5th king (mepe) of the Kingdom of Georgia from 1089 until his death in 1125.
Popularly considered to be the greatest and most successful Georgian ruler in history and an original architect of the Georgian Golden Age, he succeeded in driving the Seljuk Turks out of the country, winning the Battle of Didgori in 1121. His reforms of the army and administration enabled him to reunite the country and bring most of the lands of the Caucasus under Georgia's control. A friend of the Church and a notable promoter of Christian culture, he was canonized by the Georgian Orthodox Church.
Sobriquet and regnal ordinal
The epithet aghmashenebeli (აღმაშენებელი), which is translated as "the Builder" (in the sense of "built completely"), "the Rebuilder", or "the Restorer",[4][5] first appears as the sobriquet of David in the charter issued in the name of "King of Kings Bagrat" in 1452 and becomes firmly affixed to him in the works of the 17th- and 18th-century historians such as Parsadan Gorgijanidze, Beri Egnatashvili and Prince Vakhushti.[6] Epigraphic data also provide evidence for the early use of David's other epithet, "the Great" (დიდი, didi).
Retrospectively, David the Builder has been variously referred to as David II, III, and IV, reflecting substantial variation in the ordinals assigned to the Georgian Bagratids, especially in the early period of their history, as the numbering of successive rulers moves between the many branches of the family.[8][9] Scholars in Georgia favor David IV,[8] his namesake predecessors being: David I Kouropalates (died 881), David II Magistros (died 937), and David III Kuropalates (died 1001), all members of the principal line of the Bagrationi dynasty.
Family background and early life
The year of David's birth can be calculated from the date of his accession to the throne recorded in the Life of King of Kings David (ცხორებაჲ მეფეთ-მეფისა დავითისი), written c. 1123–1126,[11][12] as k'oronikon (Paschal cycle) 309, that is, 1089, when he was 16 years old. Thus, he would have been born in k'oronikon 293 or 294, that is, c. 1073. According to the same source, he died in k'oronikon 345, when he would have been in his 52nd or 53rd year. Professor Cyril Toumanoff gives 1070 and 24 January 1125 as the dates for David.[13]
According to the Life of King of Kings David (ცხორებაჲ მეფეთ-მეფისა დავითისი), written c. 1123–1126, David was the only son of King George II of Georgia (r. 1072–1089).[14] The contemporaneous Armenian chronicler Matthew of Edessa mentions David's brother Totorme.[15] The latter, according to the modern historian Robert W. Thomson, was his sister.[14] The name of David's mother, Elene, is recorded in a margin note in the Gospel of Matthew from the Tskarostavi monastery; she is otherwise unattested.[16] David bore the name of the biblical king-prophet, whose 78th descendant he was claimed to be.[14]
Through his father, David had ancestors among the most prominent dynasties of the Caucasus. David's grandfather was King Bagrat IV of Georgia and his grandmother was an Alan princess Borena. Besides he had in-law relations with the Byzantine Empire. David's paternal aunt Marta-Maria was a consort of the successive Byzantine Emperors Michael VII Doukas and Nikephoros III Botaneiates.[17]
David's father, George II, was confronted by a major threat to the kingdom of Georgia. The country was invaded by the Seljuk Turks, which were part of the same wave which had overrun Anatolia, defeating the Byzantine Empire and taking captive the emperor Romanos IV Diogenes at the battle of Manzikert in 1071.[18] In what the medieval Georgian chronicle refers to as didi turkoba, "the Great Turkish Invasion", several provinces of Georgia became depopulated and George was forced to sue for peace, becoming a tributary of the sultan Malik-Shah I in 1083 when David was 10. The great noble houses of Georgia, capitalizing on the vacillating character of the king, sought to assert more autonomy for themselves; Tbilisi, the ancient capital of Kartli, remained in the hands of its Muslim rulers, and a local dynasty, for a time suppressed by George's energetic father Bagrat IV, maintained its precarious independence in the eastern region of Kakheti under the Seljuq suzerainty.[19]
Accession to the throne
David grew up in times of war and desolation, due to the ravages of the Seljuks and his father's numerous defeats against these invaders. Faced with such a situation, significant opposition arose against King George II and led to a change of power for the benefit of young David; George of Chqondidi would have been one of these opponents.[20]
The Life of King of Kings David does not recount the details of the transfer of power between George II and his son. Nodar Asatiani describes the event as a “palace revolution” involving several dignitaries in 1089.[20] Other historians speak rather of pressure on the Georgian king with a view to his abdication instead of a coup d'état.[21] The contemporary chronicler of David IV limits himself to mentioning the change of power as a coronation of the young prince by his father,[22] which pushes certain historians like Cyril Toumanoff to suggest a co-reign between George II and David IV, at least until 1112,[23] while frescoes found in the Ateni Sioni Church represent him in monk's clothing, which would mean that his abdication was forced.[24] The historical tradition founded by Prince Vakhushti in the 18th century and followed by Marie-Félicité Brosset in the 19th states that David succeeded George upon his death, a number of surviving documents suggest that George died around 1112, and that although he retained the royal title until his death,[25][26][22] he played no significant political role, real power having passed on to David.[26] Moreover, David himself had been a co-ruler with his father sometime before his becoming a king-regant in 1089; a document of 1085 mentions David as "king and sebastos", the latter being a Byzantine title.[25]
The arrival to power of David IV was welcomed by several factions of the country as a liberating sign of the Kingdom of Georgia, suffering politically, economically, culturally and even religiously.[27]
Revival of the Georgian State
Having become King at the age of 16, the young David IV found himself at the head of a kingdom having lost a large part of its initial territories of 1010. The Kingdom of Georgia, extending at the beginning of the 11th century from Shirvan to the eastern coast of the Black Sea, is now limited to Abkhazia and Kartli. The seasonal devastation caused by Turkish raids since the 1080s constituted an economic danger for the country, which was forced to recognize itself as a vassal of Seljuk Empire and pay tribute to the invaders. Internally, the foundations of the Georgian state, based on orthodoxy and central royal power, are being undermined, bringing a supposedly unified kingdom to the brink of destruction. Several historians compare the task of the young sovereign to that of David III of Tao and Ivane Marushisdze, the princes who unified the Georgian realm.