David IV Agmashenebeli (also known as David IV the Builder) (1073 – 1125). King of Georgia in 1089–1125, popularly considered as the greatest Georgian king. Born into the family of King Giorgi II in Kutaisi, David was raised during one of the darkest chapters of Georgian history. Starting around 1080, Georgia faced the so-called Great Turkish Onslaught (didi turkoba) when the Seljuk tribes began massive migrations to the southern Caucasus.
King Giorgi II was unable to cope with the problem, and in a bloodless coup in 1089, he was forced to resign in favor of his son, David. From 1089–1100, King David gradually organized small detachments of his loyal troops to harass and destroy isolated enemy troops. He also began the resettlement of devastated regions and helped to revive major cities. Encouraged by his success and the beginning of the Crusades in Palestine, he ceased payment of the annual contribution to the Seljuks and put an end to their seasonal migration to Georgia. In 1101, King David captured the fortress of Zedazeni, a strategic point in his struggle for Kakheti and Hereti, and within the next three years he liberated most of eastern Georgia.
In 1103, King David convened the Rius-Urbnisi Church Council that reformed the Georgian Orthodox Church, which had a period of ascendancy in the 11th century and came into possession of vast land holdings, turning it into “a state within a state” and clashing with the royal authority. The Ruisi-Urbnisi Council limited the church’s authority, expelled rebellious clergy, and expanded the royal administration. The office of the powerful Archbishop of Chqondidi was merged with that of Mtsignobartukhutsesi, chief adviser to the king on all state issues.
The new office attempted to introduce direct royal authority over the church, supervised the new court system (saajo kari), and directed the police apparatus (mstovrebi) that spread royal authority throughout the kingdom. The king facilitated the construction of Georgian monasteries and churches in Georgia, Greece, Bulgaria, and Palestine. His most beloved project was the establishment of the Gelati Monastery and Academy in 1106, where he often personally performed manual labor during the construction. Gelati soon became a major educational and cultural center.
In 1105, in response to the Georgian success, the Seljuks mobilized a large coalition against King David but were routed at Ertsukhi. Over thenext 15 years, King David enjoyed a series of brilliant victories as he continued his expansion throughout southern Transcaucasia, capturing the key fortresses of Samshvilde, Dzerna, Rustavi, Kaladzori, Lore, Aragani, and others. The Seljuk invasions between 1110 and 1116 were defeated. From 1118–1120, King David launched a major military reform. Although the crown had the mona spa royal troops of some 5,000 men, it was dependent on the troops supplied by feudal lords, who often defied the king. To address this issue, King David came up with a brilliant, though risky, solution.
Married to the daughter of the leader of the powerful Cuman-Qipcaqs residing in the northern Caucasus, David invited a Cuman-Qipcaq tribe, which was engaged in a bitter war with the rising Russian principalities, to resettle in Georgia in 1118. David’s decision had long-lasting consequences. Georgia was lacking in manpower as a consequence of the devastation wrought by the Seljuk incursions. Royal authority was beset by a troublesome nobility jealous of its privileges and apprehensive of an increasingly strong central government. Thus, the Qipcaqs would provide the crown with a force that would be loyal to it alone, free of any connections with other vested interests in Georgia. Certainly, the decision to resettle and use a large foreign army was a daring move, which could have had disastrous effects on Georgia. But the gamble worked.
Between 1118 and 1119, King David moved some 40,000 Qipcaq families (approximately 200,000 people) from the northern Caucasus steppes to central and eastern Georgia and, to accelerate their assimilation into the Georgian population, they were dispersed over a number of places while retaining their clan structure. They were outfitted by the crown and were granted lands to settle. In turn, the Qipcaqs provided one soldier per family, allowing King David to establish a 40,000-man standing army in addition to his royal troops. According to the Georgian royal annals, Kartlis Tskhovreba, King David’s policy proved to be very successful as the Qipcaqs soon converted to Christianity and adopted the Georgian way of life. The new army provided the crown with much of the necessary force to fight both external threats and internal discontent of the powerful lords.
The royal biographer of King David informs us that the Qipcaqs were immediately put to use as the Georgians “began to raid Persia, Shirwan and Great Armenia” and invariably returned home from these campaigns “laden with booty.” The year 1120 saw King David’s campaigns in the east as he twice invaded and defeated Shirwan, then captured the fortresses of Kabala, Kurdevani, Lizani, and Khishtalanti. In November, he marched southwest to support King Baldwin II and his Crusaders in the Holy Land and defeated the Muslim armies at Ashornia and Sevgelmeja. In 1121, while the king was isolated by heavy snow in western Georgia, the Seljuks invaded eastern Georgian provinces. In a remarkable feat of leadership, King David rallied his forces and the local population to clear the snow-covered road across the Surami (Likhi) Mountains and defeated the Seljuks. The Georgian king soon asserted his authority over almost the entire southern Caucasia, except for Tbilisi, and some regions of the North Caucasus. He established contact with the Crusaders in the Holy Land, and there is evidence that the two factions tried to coordinate their actions against the Muslims.
Muslim powers became increasingly concerned about the rapid rise of a Christian state in southern Caucasia and considered it a greater threat than the Crusaders in the Holy Land, whom they contained on the coast. In 1121, Sultan Mahmud b. Muhammad (1118–1131) declared a holy war on Georgia and rallied a large coalition of Muslim states led by the Artuqid Najm al-din El-gazi and Togrul b. Muhammad. The size of the Muslim army is still a matter of debate with numbers ranging from a fantastic 600,000 men (Walter the Chancellor’s Bella Antiochena, Matthew of Edessa) to 400,000 (Smbat Sparapet’s Chronicle) to modern Georgian estimates of 100,000–250,000 men. Although both of these numbers seem exaggerated, all sources agree that the Muslim powers gathered an army that was many times larger than the Georgian force of 56,000 men. However, on 12 August 1121, King David routed the enemy army on the fields of Didgori, achieving what is often considered the greatest military success in Georgian history. The victory at Didgori signaled the emergence of Georgia as a great military power and shifted the balance in favor of Georgian cultural and political supremacy in eastern Asia Minor.
Following his success, King David captured Tbilisi, the last Muslim enclave remaining from the Arab occupation, in 1122 and moved the Georgian capital here. A well-educated man, he preached tolerance and acceptance of other religions, abrogated taxes and services for the Muslims and Jews, and protected the Sufis and Muslim scholars.
In 1123–1124, King David’s armies were victorious in the neighboring territories of Armenia, Shirwan, and northern Caucasus, greatly expanding Georgia’s sphere of influence. By the time of King David’s death on 24 January 1125, Georgia had become one of the most powerful states in all of the Near East. King David’s successful campaigns inspired the people, gave them confidence in their own strength, and led the country to a revival in agriculture and industry and the flourishing of cities. Upon his death, King David was, as he had ordered, buried under the stone of the main gatehouse of the Gelati Monastery so that anyone coming to his beloved Gelati Academy stepped on his tomb first, a humble gesture for a great man. He had three children, a son Demetre, who succeeded him and continued his father’s victorious reign; and two daughters, Tamar, who was married to the Shirwan Shah Akhsitan (Aghsartan in Georgian), and Kata, married to Alexios, the son of the Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros IV. Besides his political and military skills, King David earned fame as a writer, composing Galobani sinanulisani (Hymns of Repentence, c. 1120), a powerful work of emotional free-verse psalms, which reveal the king’s humility and zeal.
Alexander Mikaberidze