The Dating and Significance of the Orbeli Rebellion: A Reassessment

Abstract

This paper reassesses the chronicle evidence around the dating and significance of the Orbeli rebellion in the late 12^th century, an event in which the prominent Orbeli family tried and failed to press Prince Demna’s claim to the Georgian throne against his uncle Giorgi III. The chronicles typically agree on a dating of 1177 for the rebellion, but this does not match some of the surrounding evidence including the ages and death dates of some participants attested in the Georgian and Armenian source material. By reviewing this evidence, this paper suggests an alternative viable date of 1174 as a serious alternative possibility for the rebellion.

The paper also discusses the importance of the dating for how we understand the rebellion and its causes. The date affects whether it is more likely that it was started by the coming of age of Demna or if it was a reaction to Giorgi III planning for Tamar’s succession. How we should interpret the views and factional allegiance of members of the Georgian nobility around the rebellion is then derived in part from this understanding of the cause they believed they were fighting for. If Demna was more important to the rebel cause then it may be more likely that ideologies around patrilineal succession contributed to the rebellion, and may also suggest a more immediate role for the Orbelis’ failure to become rulers of Ani in the early 1170s. Conversely, if it was a perceived threat of Tamar’s succession, more likely with the conventional and later date, then this implies a stronger role for the politics of Tamar’s gender in determining the views of the rebels.

As one of the most visible and well documented breaks in elite Transcaucasian society in the twelfth century, the Orbeli rebellion is crucial for our understanding of the social connections and ideologies that lay at the heart of the Bagrationid polity. The consequence of the rebellion is usually seen as being a greater presence of highly loyal personal appointees in the late part of Giorgi III’s reign. The analysis in this paper suggests an alternative understanding, however, in which the importance of the social connections of appointees takes greater precedence. By combining this with the abovementioned detailed analysis of the dates of the events and the resulting possible understandings of why the rebellion took place, we can therefore obtain a new view of the possible readings of the Orbeli rebellion and of the social networks that lay at the heart of contested power in later twelfth century Georgia.