Document of donation by the eristavi Vameq Shaburisdze to Bodorna church

The Shaburidze ( ka, შაბურიძე) were a

Georgian Georgian may refer to: Common meanings * Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country) ** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group ** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians **Georgian scripts, three scrip ...

noble family, which claimed descent from the

Sassanid dynasty The Sasanian dynasty was the house that founded the Sasanian Empire, ruling this empire from 224 to 651 AD in Persia (modern-day Iran). It began with Ardashir I, who named the dynasty as ''Sasanian'' in honour of his grandfather (or father), Sasa ...

of ancient

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

and to which belonged the

Duchy of Aragvi The Duchy of Aragvi ( ka, არაგვის საერისთავო) was an important fiefdom in medieval and early modern Georgia, strategically located in the upper Aragvi valley, in the foothills of the eastern Greater Caucasus cres ...

from the 13th century to the 15th. According to traditional accounts, the family descended from a high-ranking captive

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

prince, possibly of the

Shaddadid The Shaddadids were a Kurdish Sunni Muslim dynasty. who ruled in various parts of Armenia and Arran from 951 to 1199 AD. They were established in Dvin. Through their long tenure in Armenia, they often intermarried with the Bagratuni royal famil ...

house, brought in Georgia by King

George III George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Br ...

in the 1060s. The family, in the person of Mihai Shaburisdze, is first mentioned in a document of 1380. The Shaburidze were enfeoffed by the Georgian crown with a duchy in the upper

Aragvi The Aragvi ( ka, არაგვი) and its basin are in Georgia on the southern slopes of the Caucasus Mountains. The river is long, and its basin covers an area of . The ground strata are mostly sandstone, slate, and limestone. The Zhinval ...

valley in northeast Georgia, and grew influential enough to produce dynastic marriages with the

Royal House of Georgia The Bagrationi dynasty (; ) is a royal dynasty which reigned in Georgia from the Middle Ages until the early 19th century, being among the oldest extant Christian ruling dynasties in the world. In modern usage, the name of the dynasty is someti ...

. Thus, an unnamed noblewoman of the Shaburidze clan became the queen consort of

Vakhtang III of Georgia Vakhtang III ( ka, ვახტანგ III; 1276–1308), of the dynasty of Bagrationi, was the king of Georgia from 1302 to 1308. He ruled during the Mongol dominance of Georgia. A son of Demetrius II of Georgia by his Trapezuntine wife, Vak ...

(r. 1301-1307), while a daughter of

George VIII of Georgia George VIII (Georgian: გიორგი VIII, ''Giorgi VIII''; 1417–1476) was the last king of the united Georgia, though his kingdom was already splintered and embroiled in a civil war, from 1446 to 1465. Defeated by his rivals, he was lef ...

, previously betrothed to Constantine XI Palaeologus, the last

Byzantine emperor This is a list of the Byzantine emperors from the foundation of Constantinople in 330 AD, which marks the conventional start of the Eastern Roman Empire, to its fall to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 AD. Only the emperors who were recognized as le ...

, who perished in the

fall of Constantinople The Fall of Constantinople, also known as the Conquest of Constantinople, was the capture of the capital of the Byzantine Empire by the Ottoman Empire. The city fell on 29 May 1453 as part of the culmination of a 53-day siege which had begun o ...

, subsequently married Giorgi Shaburidze, son of Vameq, Duke of Aragvi, as is revealed by the latter's charter of 1465. By the late 15th century, however, the family had twice lost their duchy, the last time permanently and to the House of Tumanidze, for in his charter of June 28, 1474, granted to the church of the Nativity of Our Lady at Bodorna, Vameq Shaburidze refers to himself as "duke in name only."

Toumanoff, Cyril Cyril Leo Toumanoff (russian: Кирилл Львович Туманов; 13 October 1913 – 4 February 1997) was a Russian-born Georgian historian and genealogist who mostly specialized in the history and genealogies of medieval Georgia, Armenia, ...

(1949–51). The Fifteenth-Century Bagratids and the Institution of Collegial Sovereignty in Georgia. ''Traditio'' 7: 201-2. Their descendants appear as the

Baron Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than a lord or knig ...

(''

Aznauri ''Aznauri'' ( ka, აზნაური, ; pl. ''aznaurni'', აზნაურნი, or ''aznaurebi'', აზნაურები) was a class of Georgian nobility. The word derives from Middle Persian ''āznāvar'', which, in turn, corresponds ...

'') Shaburishvili (შაბურიშვილი), and Shaburov (russian: Шабуров), a branch established in the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

in the 18th century.

References

{{Reflist Noble families of Georgia (country) Georgian-language surnames