Georgiani, ანუ ქართველები ლათინურ წყაროებში

Abstract

The present paper discusses the question of when Georgians were referred as Georgiani in medieval Latin sources. It is established that in the Basel roll known as the Breue commemoratorium de illis casis Dei, compiled in c. 808 in the Holy Land by a member of the mission sent by Charlemagne, the Georgians are not referred to as such. The term first appears in the letter from Ansell, in the chronicle of Orderic Vitalis, and in the charter of the Hospitallers. In his first letter sent from the Holy Land to the Paris, Ansell mentions David the Builder as David, rex Georgianorum, Georgian nunnery as congregationem sanctimonialum Georgianorum, and in the second letter – Georgian Patriarch as patriarcha Georgianorum, and the King of the Georgians as rex Georgianorum. The first letter of Ansell was written in 1120, and the second must have been sent in 1121. Orderic Vitalis mentions David IV the Builder in Book XI of his Historia Ecclesiastica as Dauid Georgiensis regis. Books XI-XIII of the Historia Ecclesiastica were written in 1136-41, mainly in 1136-37. Thus, this evidence belongs to the 30s of the 12th century. In another 12th century document, in the donation to the Order of Hospitallers in the Holy Land, the term Georgian is used: Here we find “brothers Joseph and John, the sons of Saba the Georgian” (Josephum et Johannem fratres germanos, filios Saba Georgii). The document that actually includes two documents in itself – one is the donation of Joseph and John to the Hospitallers, and the other is the deed of Baldwin II handed to Saba. Baldwin’s charter must have been issued in the first years of Baldwin’s reign, before his captivity. It is most likely that this happened when Baldwin ascended the throne, on April 14, 1118, when “all the nobles of the kingdom were called together in the palace of King Solomon, and he granted each his fief, receiving fealty and an oath of allegiance from them, and sending each back home with honour.” It must have been at this time that Saba the Georgian received the charter under the royal seal concerning his property. It turns out that in medieval Latin sources the term Georgians first appears in Ansell’s letter of 1120 and in the deed issued by Baldwin II to Saba in 1118-31 (even more so in 1118). The date of the latter is obviously relatively hypothetical, however, until new circumstances emerge, it remains one of the earliest, if not the earliest, evidence of Georgian-Latin contacts.