Tbilisi

Who holds it

Name

Tamar, through the governor of the capital (the amir of Tbilisi)

Title

Lord of the city

Since

Royal city since David IV took it in 1122

Confidence

high

Lord in 1200

The queen. The city is ruled for her by a royal governor styled amir of Tbilisi (Abulasan held the post at the start of the reign; the holder on 1 January 1200 is not pinned).

How things stand that morning

Royal capital, at peace inside, secure.

Charter

No town charter. David IV and Demetrius I gave the Muslims privileges after the conquest (as told by Arab writers: the Muslims kept their mosques and judge, paid less tax than Christians, and Demetrius I attended Friday prayers in the mosque, according to the Arab visitor Ibn al-Azraq, who came to his court in the 1150s). Whether those privileges stand unchanged in 1200 is not pinned.

Council

Before 1122 the city's elders, a merchant oligarchy, often ruled it. Under the crown the royal governor rules; the elders and merchants survive as a body of notables without a recorded council in 1200.

Communities

Georgians; Armenians (numerous merchants and craftsmen); Muslims (Persian, Arab and Turkish) with their mosques and judge; Jews; Kipchak soldiers; foreign merchants from Persia and the Black Sea. No Italian colony is recorded.

Fairs and markets

Daily markets in the bazaar by the river; no dated fair recorded.

Militia

The townsmen took part in the city's defence in earlier sieges; no muster recorded for 1199-1200.

Walls and castle

The citadel on the Sololaki ridge (the Kala, later Narikala) and the city walls running down to the Kura; Metekhi, the royal palace quarter on the left bank; the fort of Isani; a bridge over the Kura.

Trade and crafts

Caravan trade from Tabriz, Ganja and Shirvan (silk, cloth, spices) to the Black Sea by Kutaisi and by Akhaltsikhe and Artanuji to Trebizond; horses and slaves from the north; metalwork, cloth, leather and pottery; the royal mint (copper coins with Georgian and Arabic legends).

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.

1. 1200 (k'oronikon 420)Copper coins of Tamar and David dated 420 are struck, presumably at the Tbilisi mint.

Where the sources disagree

• Wikipedia's History of Tbilisi gives the city 100,000 people by the end of the 12th century without a primary source; the figure is not used on the map.

Evidence: The conquest and the city's place are certain; its government and communities in 1200 are described from general accounts.

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