Georgian

Georgia (country)

Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...

 feudalism

Feudalism

Feudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.Although derived from the...

, or patronqmoba ( from patroni, "lord

Lord

Lord is a title with various meanings. It can denote a prince or a feudal superior . The title today is mostly used in connection with the peerage of the United Kingdom or its predecessor countries, although some users of the title do not themselves hold peerages, and use it 'by courtesy'...

", and qmoba, "slavery

Slavery

Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...

", "serfdom

Serfdom

Serfdom is the status of peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to Manorialism. It was a condition of bondage or modified slavery which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe and lasted to the mid-19th century...

"), as the system of personal dependence or vassal

Vassal

A vassal or feudatory is a person who has entered into a mutual obligation to a lord or monarch in the context of the feudal system in medieval Europe. The obligations often included military support and mutual protection, in exchange for certain privileges, usually including the grant of land held...

age in ancient and medieval Georgia is referred to, arose from a tribal-dynastic organization of society upon which was imposed, by royal authority, an official hierarchy of regional governors, local officials and subordinates. It is thought to have its roots into the ancient Georgian, or Iberian

Caucasian Iberia

Iberia , also known as Iveria , was a name given by the ancient Greeks and Romans to the ancient Georgian kingdom of Kartli , corresponding roughly to the eastern and southern parts of the present day Georgia...

, society of Hellenistic period

Hellenistic period

The Hellenistic period or Hellenistic era describes the time which followed the conquests of Alexander the Great. It was so named by the historian J. G. Droysen. During this time, Greek cultural influence and power was at its zenith in Europe and Asia...

.

Early period

In the medieval period, Georgian feudalism went through three distinct phases. In the first period, taken to have lasted from the 8th to the 11th centuries, Georgian society was organized as a network of personal ties, tying the king with the nobles of various classes. By the early 9th century, Georgia had already developed a system in which homage

Homage (medieval)

Homage in the Middle Ages was the ceremony in which a feudal tenant or vassal pledged reverence and submission to his feudal lord, receiving in exchange the symbolic title to his new position . It was a symbolic acknowledgment to the lord that the vassal was, literally, his man . The oath known as...

 was exchanged for benefice

Benefice

A benefice is a reward received in exchange for services rendered and as a retainer for future services. The term is now almost obsolete.-Church of England:...

s.

High point

The second period began in the 11th century and was a high point of Georgian feudalism. This system was characterized by officially decreed relationship between personal ties and the possession of a territory whereby some lands were given for life (sakargavi), other in relationship between personal ties and the occupation of a territory (mamuli). The latter gradually replaced the former and land gradually changed from conditional to hereditary tenure, a process completed only at the end of the 15th century. Yet, a hereditary transmission of a holding remained dependent on the vassal's relationship with his lord.

This was also the Age of Chivalry

Chivalry

Chivalry is a term related to the medieval institution of knighthood which has an aristocratic military origin of individual training and service to others. Chivalry was also the term used to refer to a group of mounted men-at-arms as well as to martial valour...

 immortalized in the medieval Georgian epics, most significantly in Shota Rustaveli

Shota Rustaveli

Shota Rustaveli was a Georgian poet of the 12th century, and one of the greatest contributors to Georgian literature. He is author of "The Knight in the Panther's Skin" , the Georgian national epic poem....

's The Knight in the Panther's Skin

The Knight in the Panther's Skin

The Knight in the Panther's Skin is an epic poem, consisting of over 1600 shairi quatrains, was written in the 12th century by the Georgian epic-poet Shota Rustaveli, who was a Prince and Treasurer at the royal court of Queen Tamar of Georgia. The Knight in the Panther's Skin is often seen as...

. The aristocratic élite of this period was divided into two major classes: an upper noble whose dynastic dignity and feudal quality was expressed in the terms tavadi

Tavadi

Tavadi , "prince", lit. "head/chief" [man], from tavi, "head", with the prefix of agent -di) was a feudal title in Georgia first applied in the Late Middle Ages usually translated in English as prince...

 and didebuli, respectively; both of these terms were synonymous, from the 11th to the 14th centuries, with eristavi

Eristavi

Eristavi was a Georgian feudal office, roughly equivalent to the Byzantine strategos and normally translated into English as "duke". In the Georgian aristocratic hierarchy, it was the title of the third rank of prince and governor of a large province...

, and all three terms referred to one of the upper nobles, "a prince

Prince

Prince is a general term for a ruler, monarch or member of a monarch's or former monarch's family, and is a hereditary title in the nobility of some European states. The feminine equivalent is a princess...

". Lesser nobles, the aznauri

Aznauri

Aznauri was a class of Georgian nobility; the term that was first applied to all nobles, but in the later Middle Ages narrowed to designate the petty nobles....

, were either "nobles of race" (mamaseulni or natesavit aznaurni) or "of patent" (aghzeebulni aznaurni) who acquired their status in specific charters issued by the king or a lord. The power of the feudal nobles over the peasantry also increased and the cultivators began to loss a degree of personal freedom they had formerly enjoyed. According to one contemporary law, a lord could search out and return a runaway peasant for up to thirty years after his flight. Thus, in this period, the Georgian patronqmoba essentially acquired the form of typical serfdom.

Downfall

The Mongol domination

Mongol invasions of Georgia

The Mongol invasions reached the kingdom of Georgia and the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia in 1234, forcing Georgia into submission by 1238....

 in the 13th century dealt a blow not only to Georgia’s prosperity and regional hegemony, but shuttered its social system. After a brief revival of the 14th century, a long twilight ensued. A gradual process of disintegration of the Georgian feudal system set in the 15th century, and became more prominent in the 16th and 17th. The vassal relations were frequently found to be in question and their legitimacy ceased to constitute the basis of declined royal authority. Now, the rivalry between the royal crown and its vassals changed into a struggle between a weak state and increasingly independent princes. By the 18th century, the Georgian feudal élite had established a new system known as tavadoba, the rule of the princes, in which vassal hierarchy no longer had any substantial force. By virtue of their power and the royal weakness, princes and nobles were able to break with their sovereign and became sovereigns in their own provinces. The dependent nobility, the aznauri, split into three groups: vassals of the king, vassals of the tavadi, and vassals of the catholicoi; they stood between the peasantry and the great nobility. The aznauri were tied more effectively to their overlords than the great princes were to their king.

Feudal hierarchy

This hierarchical division of Georgian feudal society was later codified by King Vakhtang VI

Vakhtang VI of Kartli

Vakhtang VI , also known as Vakhtang the Scholar and Vakhtang the Lawgiver, was a Wāli of Kartli, eastern Georgia, as a nominal vassal to the Persian shah from 1716 to 1724. Traditionally, he has been still styled as king of Kartli...

 (r.

Reign

A reign is the term used to describe the period of a person's or dynasty's occupation of the office of monarch of a nation or of a people . In most hereditary monarchies and some elective monarchies A reign is the term used to describe the period of a person's or dynasty's occupation of the office...

 1716–24) in an official table of "weregild

Weregild

Weregild was a value placed on every human being and every piece of property in the Salic Code...

" or blood money rates, which had the force of law.

At the time of the Russian annexation

Georgia within the Russian Empire

Between 1801 and 1918 the country of Georgia was part of the Russian Empire. For centuries, the Muslim Ottoman and Persian empires had fought over various fragmented Georgian kingdoms and principalities but by the 18th century, a third imperial power, Russia, had emerged in the region. Since Russia...

, Georgian society was rigidly hierarchical. A comparatively large proportion, 5% of the population, belonged to the nobility. The highest circles of society were the members of the royal Bagrationi family. Immediately below them came the princes, the tavadi. In Kingdom of Kartli (Iberia)the most prestigious princes were the heads of the five "most noble" clans – the Orbeliani, Amilakhvari

Amilakhvari

The Amilkhvari was a noble house of Georgia which rose to prominence in the fifteenth century and held a large fiefdom in central Georgia until the Imperial Russian annexation of the country in 1801. They were hereditary marshals of Georgia from c. 1433, from which the family takes its name...

, Tsitsishvili

Tsitsishvili

The Tsitsishvili is a Georgian noble family, with several notable members from the 15th century through the 20th.The Tsitsishvili family was a continuation of the medieval house of Panaskerteli, known in the province of Upper Kartli from the 12th century, who derived their name from the castle of...

, and the two Eristavi

Eristavi

Eristavi was a Georgian feudal office, roughly equivalent to the Byzantine strategos and normally translated into English as "duke". In the Georgian aristocratic hierarchy, it was the title of the third rank of prince and governor of a large province...

 clans – and the senior Armenian

Armenians in Georgia

Armenians in Georgia are ethnic Armenians living within the country of Georgia. Armenians are the second largest ethnic minority in Georgia at about 5.7% of the population. The Armenian community is mostly concentrated in the capital Tbilisi and the Samtskhe-Javakheti region, which borders Armenia...

 melik

Melik

Мelik , from malik ) was a hereditary Armenian noble title, in various Eastern Armenian principalities known as melikdoms encompassing modern Yerevan, Kars, Nakhchivan, Sevan, Lori, Artsakh, Tabriz and Syunik starting from the Late Middle Ages until the end of the nineteenth century...

. Members of these clans outranked other noble clans. Below the princes were the tahtis aznauri or Barons, dependent on the king and mcire aznauri or vassal gentry, people of status but dependent on the princes, tahtis aznauri and the Church. Royal vassals, like the mouravi

Mouravi

Mouravi was an administrative and military officer in early modern Georgia, normally translated into English as seneschal, bailiff, or sometimes as constable. Mouravi was an appointed royal official who had a jurisdiction over particular town or district. In towns, mouravi was assisted by a police...

, outranked the vassals of the church, who in turn outranked the vassals of nobles. Many aznauri were quite poor and lived no better than peasants, but their status carried certain privileges and exemptions from obligations. Before the Russian annexation, the Georgian princes not only enjoyed nearly unlimited power over their estates and the enserfed peasantry but exercised police and judicial power. The highest official appointed by the king to govern the towns and countryside, the mouravi, was almost always a noble from the upper ranks and often held the position as a hereditary privilege.

After the Russian annexation of Georgia, the former basis of Georgian society, patronqmoba or lord-vassal relationship, was replaced by the principle of batonqmoba (ბატონყმობა, from batoni

Batoni (title)

Batoni is a Georgian word for "lord", or "master". It is derived from patroni , the earlier term of similar meaning, and appears in common usage in the 15th century....

, "master", and qmoba), which may best be rendered as "proprietor-serf relationship". The code of Vakhtang survived under the Russian rule into the 1840s, when the feudal system in Georgia was finally organized along the lines of Russian serfdom

Russian serfdom

The origins of serfdom in Russia are traced to Kievan Rus in the 11th century. Legal documents of the epoch, such as Russkaya Pravda, distinguished several degrees of feudal dependency of peasants, the term for an unfree peasant in the Russian Empire, krepostnoi krestyanin , is translated as serf.-...

.

Glossary

• Azati – former serf freed by lord
• Aznauri – Georgian noble
• Aznauroba – nobility
• Batoni – suzerain; seigneur; owner
• Begara – duty, service; for peasants, labor obligation (corvée
  Corvée
  Corvée is unfree labour, often unpaid, that is required of people of lower social standing and imposed on them by the state or a superior . The corvée was the earliest and most widespread form of taxation, which can be traced back to the beginning of civilization...
  
  )
• Bogano – landless peasant
• Deoba – the right of Georgian peasants to petition the king for redness of grievances
• Ghala – an obligation paid by peasants to lords, usually to 10 to 25 percent of the grain harvest
• Glakhaki – the poor, destitute peasants
• Glekhi – peasant
• Khizani – poor peasant forced from the lands of his lord and obligated to rent land indefinitely from another lord
• Kulukhi – obligation of Georgian peasant to his lord equal to 25 percent of the grape harvest or wine output
• Mamuli – land granted in hereditary tenure
• Mojalabe – a near-slave who lived in the home of his lord and had no land of his own
• Msakhuri – domestic servant; a bodyguard; a serf often raised to vassal gentry
• Mtsire Aznauri - Chevalier, petty noble
• Mtavari - Georgian Duke
• Patroni – lord; master; owner
• Qma – serf;
• Sakhaso – in medieval Georgia, lands held directly by the king; later, lands held in common by an entire noble clan under the rule of the tavadi
• Satavado – landed estate; private property of tavadi
• Tahtis Aznauri - Baron
• Tavadi – high noble, prince
• Tavadoba – in late Georgian feudalism, the rule of princes marked by weak royal power