Zakare Mkhargrdzeli

Who he is

Name

Zakare (Zakaria) Mkhargrdzeli (Zakarian)

Title

Amirspasalar (commander-in-chief) and mandaturtukhutsesi (chief of the court ushers: palace guard, protocol and order)

Since

Amirspasalar from about 1191 (after Gamrekel Toreli); mandaturtukhutsesi from about 1195 (Wikipedia's office dates)

Born

Not pinned

Family

Elder son of Sargis Mkhargrdzeli, who went over to George III in the Orbeli revolt of 1177, and of Saakdukht Artsruni; brother of Ivane. His son Shahanshah succeeds him in 1212; Shahanshah's birth year is not pinned. Wife not named in the sources read.

Confidence

high

The family was Armenian (Kirakos and Vardan say of Kurdish ancestry; Tamar's historians give them a Persian royal pedigree). Zakare keeps the Armenian faith.

Overlord

Tamar

What it holds

• Lori (Lori Berd), the fortress-town above the Dzoraget gorge, and the district of Tashir
• The family monasteries of Haghpat and Sanahin and the Debed valley
• The Shirak plain (taken 1191) and Ani, taken from the last Shaddadid lord in 1199 (Vardan, 640 and 648 AE); formal grant of Ani 1201
• Amberd on Mount Aragats, taken in 1196 (Vardan, 645 AE; 1197 in Wikipedia), with the Aragats slopes
• Rustavi on the Kura, a crown town given him as a personal holding for service (sakargavo); the date of the grant is not pinned
• The cadet lines of his kin at Gag (and later Shamkor) and at Tmogvi in Javakheti, formed at the end of the 12th century (Georgian Wikipedia); Kirakos lists Gag among the castles the brothers took from the Muslims, without a year

How it was acquired

Lori by royal grant to his father Sargis after it was taken from the Kipchak amirspasalar Kubasar (dismissed 1184); Wikipedia's Kiurikian article dates Mkhargrdzeli control of the old Kiurikid lands to 1185. Vardan says Tamar gave Lori to the brothers. Shirak (1191), Amberd (1196 or 1197) and Ani (1199) by conquest at the head of the royal army; Rustavi by royal grant.

Allies and rivals

Allies: Tamar, David Soslan, his brother Ivane, the Armenian church and nobility. Rivals: the Akhaltsikheli brothers (an enmity recorded later, in 1225), the emir of Kars, the Eldiguzid governors of Dvin and Ganja.

How things stand that morning

Holds Lori, Amberd, Rustavi and, by conquest of 1199, Ani. Commands the army. No campaign is recorded for the winter of 1199-1200.

Wealth

Ani's trade and crafts, the Shirak plain's grain, the Lori and Tashir valleys, Rustavi's market on the Kura, war spoils.

Military

The royal army as amirspasalar; his own Armenian and Georgian retinue; the castles of Lori and Amberd and the walls of Ani.

Threats

• A Muslim counter-attack on Ani from Kars, Erzurum or Dvin
• Friction between his Armenian troops and the Georgian clergy

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

In 1200

1. 1200 (not pinned)Building at Ani: Wikipedia's Zakarid Armenia article attributes to Zakare a church at Ani and an inscription dated 1200.Depends on: Ani held Stopped by: The loss of Ani

Later, on the likely course

1. 1201Formal grant of Ani by Tamar.Depends on: Ani held Stopped by: Loss of Ani or of the queen's favour
2. 1202-03 (later course)Gives up the office of mandaturtukhutsesi to Shalva Akhaltsikheli; takes Dvin with Ivane (1203).
3. 1212 (later course)Dies; buried at Sanahin.Depends on: Natural death

Places of note

• Lori Berd: Fortress-town, the Mkhargrdzeli seat
• Haghpat monastery: Family monastery
• Sanahin monastery: Family monastery and burial place
• Amberd: Castle on Mount Aragats, taken 1197

Where the sources disagree

• Ani: taken 'around 1199' and granted in 1201 (Wikipedia); Iranica says the city was in Mkhargrdzeli hands 'by 1200'; Vardan Areweltsi gives 648 AE (about 31 January 1199 to 30 January 1200).
• Wikipedia's Zakare article dates the taking of Dvin to 1193; most accounts give 1203. Dvin is not drawn as his.
• Wikipedia's Zakarid Armenia article says Sargis Mkhargrdzeli was made governor of Ani in 1161; Iranica and the Shaddadid article give Ani in 1161 and 1174 to Ivane Orbeli.

Evidence: Offices and conquests are well attested though dated loosely; the limits of his lands in 1200 are drawn from the later division between his line (the west, with Ani) and Ivane's (the east).

On the map: The split between Zakare's and Ivane's lands follows the later division (Zakare west and north, Ivane east); in 1200 the brothers acted together and much was held in common.

Primary sources for Georgia

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• The Chronicle of Michael the Syrian (Michael the Great), Michael the Syrian, patriarch of Antioch 1166 to 1199 (about 1180 to 1195). The Jacobite patriarch's world chronicle, in parallel columns of church, secular and miscellaneous events, ending four years before 1200 and shortly before his own death on 7 November 1199, which left the Syrian Orthodox church with a disputed succession in 1200. Read online
• The History of Derbent and Shirvan, as preserved in Munejjim-bashi's Jami al-duwal, Anonymous (an 11th-century author of Derbent, excerpted by Munejjim-bashi, died 1702) (about 1075; preserved in an Ottoman compilation of the 1670s). The only local history of the Shirvanshahs and the emirs of Derbent, surviving as extracts in a 17th-century Ottoman compilation.
• The Complete History, Izz al-Din Ibn al-Athir (about 1200 to 1231, at Mosul). The widest Muslim narrative for the years 596 to 597 AH (1199 to 1201): al-Adil's entry into Cairo and his taking of the sultanate from his nephew al-Mansur Muhammad early in 1200, the quarrels of the Ayyubid princes at Damascus, Aleppo and Hama, the Nile failure and the great famine of Egypt, Mosul under Nur al-Din Arslan Shah and the Jazira under Gokbori and the Artuqids, Baghdad under the caliph al-Nasir, the Khwarazmshah Tekish's death in 1200 and Muhammad's accession, the Ghurid wars in Khurasan, the Eldiguzids and Georgia, the Almohads in the west, and the Seljuks of Rum in passing. Read online
• History of the Armenians, Kirakos Gandzaketsi (1241 to 1265). Written at Getik and Gandzak in the Zakarid lands of Georgian Armenia. Read online
• The Georgian Chronicles: the Histories and Eulogies of the Sovereigns, and the Life of Queen Tamar, Anonymous, attributed to the chancellor Theodore of Chqondidi and to Basili, master of the court (about 1210 to 1225). Two court histories of Queen Tamar written within a generation. Read online
• The Historical Compilation of Vardan Areveltsi, Vardan Areveltsi (about 1267 to 1271). A short universal history that for the 12th and 13th centuries follows Samuel of Ani, Michael the Syrian (which Vardan helped translate into Armenian in 1248) and Kirakos. Read online
• The History of the Seljuks of Rum, Ibn Bibi (Nasir al-Din Husayn ibn Muhammad) (about 1281 to 1285, at Konya). The main Seljuk narrative for Rum begins with Kilij Arslan II's partition of the sultanate among his sons and his death (1192), Kaykhusraw I's first reign at Konya, his deposition in 1196 to 1197 by Rukn al-Din Sulayman II, Kaykhusraw's wanderings to Cilician Armenia, Aleppo and Constantinople, Sulayman's reduction of his brothers' towns (Tokat, Malatya, Amasya, and Ankara by 1204) and his Erzurum and Georgian campaigns. Read online