01 — Foundations

The dynasty and the throne into which St. Tamar was born: the Bagrationi house, her father George III, and the Golden Age begun by her great-grandfather St. David the Builder; and the unprecedented act by which she came to rule — a woman crowned king in her father’s own lifetime.

Tradition: Georgian Orthodox

This section sets the ground on which everything else in the collection stands. Tamar did not create the Georgian Golden Age; she inherited it — a united, ascendant kingdom rebuilt by David IV and consolidated by his successors — and brought it to its zenith. But she inherited it in a form no Georgian had before faced: as a woman placed on a throne that had never been held by one, crowned co-ruler by a father determined to secure her succession against a dynasty full of ambitious men.

Files in This Section

File	Description
the-bagrationi-inheritance.md	The Bagrationi dynasty; her father George III; the legacy of David the Builder’s Golden Age and the united kingdom Tamar inherited.
crowned-in-her-fathers-lifetime.md	Her coronation as co-ruler c. 1178; her accession to sole rule in 1184; the problem and the precedent of a woman on the Georgian throne.

See Also

• The Queen and the Nobles — how the throne she inherited had to be made her own
• St. David the Builder — the great-grandfather whose reforms she inherited