David VII

David VII Ulu (*  1215 ; †  1270 ) was king of Georgia ( Tbilisi ) from around 1246/47 to 1270 . He was the illegitimate son of King Giorgi IV Lasha . His nickname Ulu was given to him by the Mongols and means "large" / "powerful".

Life

When David's father, Giorgi IV. Lascha, died in 1223 at the age of less than 30, David was still a minor. According to Giorgi's decree, David's aunt Rusudan should act as regent until he came of age . But after becoming the mother of two children ( David and Tamar), she did not consider relinquishing the throne to her nephew David. On the contrary, she tried to secure the successor to her son of the same name. Thus David had become an uncomfortable person to be removed. When Rusudan's daughter Tamar was sent to the court of the Sultan of the Rum Seljuks , Kai Chosrau II (1236-1246), her future husband, around 1236/37 , David had to accompany her. To make him completely harmless, he was slandered by his aunt at the Sultan. She accused him of adulterous relationships with Tamar, the sultan's wife who was David's cousin. The Sultan then sentenced David to death by drowning. He was thrown into the sea but rescued by sailors who handed him over to the Sultan again. He was then thrown into a pit, where he remained for almost seven years under unworthy circumstances.

Since Queen Rusudan resided in Kutaisi inaccessible to the Mongols and her son David (Narin) stayed at the court of the Great Khan in Karakorum , people in Georgia remembered that David, the son of Giorgis IV. Was still alive. With the consent of the Mongolian Noyone (military governor) in Georgia, Vahram Gageli, Sargis T'mogveli and the Mongol commander Anguran-Noyon traveled to the court of the Sultan of Konya and obtained David's release. He was brought to Tbilisi, where he was crowned king as David VII (1244). For his confirmation he also had to travel to Karakoram, where he arrived no later than the spring of 1246. This year, after five years of reign, the widow Ögädais Güyük was elected 3rd Great Khan of the Mongols. This confirmed both Davids as kings of Georgia, who returned to their homeland in 1247 at the latest. While David VII Ulu was allowed to call himself King of Kings, David Narin had to be content with the title of King. Fortunately for the kingdom, the two kings got on extremely well, and the friendship they had formed in Karakoram lasted for the next 20 years with astonishing continuity. Both kings resided in Tbilisi. Official documents bore the signatures of both and the dual power was also reflected in the coinage.

• 1247 copper money with the name David Ulus
• 1252 copper money with the name David Narins
• 1252 silver money with the name David Ulus

After a conspiracy of the princes broke out in 1246, which had already been nipped in the bud, they made another attempt in 1249 together with David Ulu to shake off the yoke of the oppressors. But the Mongols found out about it and arrested the conspirators and the king. After paying a large ransom and providing many horses, the king and his followers were released. In the same year the campaigns of the Mongols against the assassins began , which only ended in 1256 with the storming of the main fortress of Alamut in northern Iran. Georgian troop contingents under David Ulu were instrumental in this. In 1251 Möngke was elected 4th Great Khan of the Mongols and issued the following orders:

• Kublai Khan , his younger brother, was supposed to conquer southern China, which only succeeded in 1279.
• Another brother Hulegü received the order to subdue the Near East, whereby he was expressly granted supremacy over the Caucasus .

Hülegü's advance began in 1253. Georgia had to provide significant troop contingents. After the conquest of Baghdad , the capital of the Abbasid - caliphate (750-1258), the conquest of Syria took place. Mosul , whose ruler Badr ad-Din Lulu (1233–1259) voluntarily submitted, Aleppo and Damascus fell one after the other . The Great Khan Möngke died in September 1259 and there was a double election of Ariq-Buga (1260/65), who was supported by the Golden Horde and Kublai Khan, who was supported by Hülegü, his younger brother and ruler of the Ilchane Empire. Since both parties stuck to their candidate, armed conflicts could not be avoided. The fighting between the different Mongol factions was also fought in the Caucasus and thus in Georgia. Both Georgian kings had to take part in all campaigns. Hülegü valued the simple David Ulu more than the cunning David Narin. His distrust of David Narin grew so bad that he tried to arrest him in Barda . However, he managed to evade arrest, and after an adventurous escape he was able to make his way to Kutaisi. There he was crowned King of Imeretia by the princes of Abkhazia , Svaneti and Mingrelia .

While David Narin was able to maintain his independence in Imereti, David Ulu remained dependent on the Mongols. Only the princes of Armenia and Samtzches were subject to him. After the conquest of Baghdad in 1258, he asked Il-Khan to be released to Tbilisi, which he was granted. Meanwhile a new tax collector, Hajji Asis, was up to mischief there, who did not shrink from humiliating the king and constantly exceeded his powers. When David was still receiving orders to take part in the Il-Khan's Syrian campaign, he decided to rebel in the early summer of 1260. But he did not succeed in getting all the princes to his side whom he had given the option to join him. Only the princes of southwest Georgia, like Sargis Jakeli, stood by him. He offered David 8,000 men to support him. David spent the entire summer of 1260 in his residence Dzichis-Dzuar. Hulegü was only able to react after the unsuccessful Syrian campaign, during which the Mongols suffered a catastrophic defeat against the Mamluks at the battle of ʿAin Dschālūt . In December 1260, the Mongol vanguard was defeated, but when the two main armies clashed, David suffered a complete defeat. Georgian and Armenian troops fought on the Mongolian side. The Mongols then devastated Samtzche, but could not take Sargi's residence. They did not retreat to Kartli until 1261. In the course of the clashes, David's wife Goncha and his son Giorgi were murdered by the Mongols.

David and Sargis Jakeli went to Imereti, where they were kindly received by David Narin, but disputes soon broke out between the supporters of both kings when an attempt was made to crown David Ulu as king of Imereti. But both Davids came to an amicable agreement. The Bagratid treasure was shared and David Narin was recognized as the sole king of Imereti. When clashes broke out between the Golden Horde and the Il-Chan Empire in 1261 because of the double election of the Mongolian Great Khan, Hülegü needed a loyal ally again. Therefore, David was able to return to his kingdom and was allowed to satisfy his injured honor by executing the tax collector Haji-Asis. However, he had to send his about two-year-old son Dimitri as a hostage to the court of the Il-Khan. The war between the Golden Horde and the Il-Chan Empire dragged on with varying success for both sides until 1266. David took part in these campaigns. After the death of Il-Chans Hülegü in 1265, the 4th Khan of the Golden Horde Berke (1257-1266), brother Batus (1227-1256), succeeded in decisively defeating Il-Chan's troops. However, after his death in 1266, his army returned to Sarai without a fight. The war was over.

From 1267 to 1268 there was still a war between the Chagatai -Ulu and the Il-Chan Empire, which was fought on the territory of Shirvan . Most recently the Il-Chane were victorious here too. At the end of his reign, David was still feuding with his most loyal ally, Sargis Dschakeli, who then placed himself directly under the Mongols and made Samtzsche independent in 1266. The ancestral home of the Bagratids was thus separated from the Georgian state association and there were now three Georgian states.

Web links

Commons : David VII.  - Collection of Images

predecessor	Office	successor
David VI.	King of Georgia 1246–1270	Dimitri II