Amanelisdze ( ka, ამანელისძე) were a noble family in
medieval Georgia
The nation of Georgia ( ka, საქართველო ''sakartvelo'') was first unified as a kingdom under the Bagrationi dynasty by the King Bagrat III of Georgia in the early 11th century, arising from a number of predecessor states of ...
with a surge in prominence in the 12th and 13th centuries.
The 13th-century anonymous
Georgian chronicle ''The Histories and Eulogies of the Sovereigns'' mentions the Amanelisdze, together with the
Vardanisdze The House of Vardanisdze ( ka, ვარდანისძე) was an aristocratic family in medieval Georgia, listed among the Great Nobles ('' didebuli'') of the realm.
The family is presumed to have branched off from another eminent Georgian fe ...
and Saghiridze, as participants of the sword-girdling ceremony of
Queen Tamar
Tamar the Great ( ka, თამარ მეფე, tr, lit. "King Tamar") ( 1160 – 18 January 1213) reigned as the Queen of Georgia from 1184 to 1213, presiding over the apex of the Georgian Golden Age. A member of the Bagrationi dynasty ...
upon her coronation in 1184. During Tamar's reign, the family, with the title of ''
eristavi
''Eristavi'' (; literally, "head of the nation") was a Georgian feudal office, roughly equivalent to the Byzantine ''strategos'' and normally translated into English as "prince" or less commonly as "duke". In the Georgian aristocratic hierarchy, i ...
'' ("duke"), held sway over the fief of
Argueti
Argveti (), also Margveti (), is a historic district in Imereti, western Georgia.
Overview
The area lay on the historic Iberian-Lazican frontier, i.e., between what are now eastern and western parts of Georgia. From the 3rd century BC to the 6t ...
in western Georgia, which purportedly passed on to them from the
Kakhaberidze The Kakhaberidze, archaically Kakhaberisdze (pl. -''ebi'') ( ka, კახაბერი ე ბი}, literally "the sons of Kakhaber") was a noble family in medieval Georgia which held sway over the highland northwestern Georgian province of ...
. Upon the latter family's return to ascendancy, the Amanelisdze went in decline and disappeared from records.
According to the 20th-century Georgian historian
Ivane Javakhishvili
Ivane Alexandres dze Javakhishvili ( ka, ივანე ჯავახიშვილი; 23 April 1876 – 18 November 1940) was a Georgian historian and linguist whose voluminous works heavily influenced the modern scholarship of the history ...
, Queen Tamar's grandson King
David VI (
r. 1245–1293) was married, as his first wife, to a member of the Amanelisdze family, Tamar, who mothered three sons of David, all of them subsequently reigning monarchs. Tamar's background is not mentioned in the Georgian chronicles, but she is known from the surviving contemporary charters, one of which identifies her as "the daughter of Emenelasdze", a corrupted form of Amanelisdze, as posited by Javakhishvili. The anonymous author of ''The Histories and Eulogies of the Sovereigns'' makes reference only to David's one consort, a
Palaeologian princess from
Constantinople
la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه
, alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...
.
References
{{Georgia-noble-stub
Noble families of Georgia (country)