Two Embassies of Bagrat IV to Constantinople: Dating, Causes, and Aftermath

Abstract

This article is devoted to a new consideration of the issue of the number and dating of the embassies of king Bagrat IV of Georgia (1027–1072) to Constantinople during the reign of the Byzantine emperor Constantine IX Monomachos (1042–1055). Contrary to I. A. Javakhishvili’s point of view, generally accepted in historiography about the existence of the only embassy of Bagrat IV to Byzantium in 1054–1057, the author promotes the hypothesis about the existence of two embassies, in 1047 and 1050–1052/1053 respectively. This hypothesis is proved, in addition to the source analysis of the Georgian text of the Chronicle of Kartli, by referring to Byzantine and Armenian narrative sources, as well as by using information from the recently explored manuscript Q-1376 from the Georgian National Centre of Manuscripts. A comparison of data from sources allows the author to link the reason for the two embassies of the Georgian king to Byzantium with the escalation of the internal Georgian conflict between Bagrat IV and Liparit IV Baghuashi, Duke of Kldekari after the Battle of Sasireti in 1046. Also, the article highlights several new features in it, in particular, the conditions of truces between the two sides, the date of Liparit’s liberation from the Seljuk captivity, as well as the possible participation in the conflict of Leonti Mroveli, a famous Georgian historian of the eleventh century. Also, the article examines the consequences of the two trips of Bagrat IV to Constantinople for the Byzantine foreign policy on its eastern borders and, more particularly, clarifies the dating and circumstances of the military campaign of raiktor Nikephoros against the Shaddadid emir of Dvin Abu’l-Aswar in 1049, as well as the role of Georgian noblemen in this campaign.

Keywords

• баграт iv
• византийская империя
• грузинское царство
• «картлис цховреба»
• константин ix мономах
• липарит багваши
• шеддадиды