02 — The Consolidation of Power

How Tamar made a throne she had inherited genuinely her own: the early challenge from the great aristocracy and the churchmen and officials who stood with her, and the two marriages — the failed first union with the Rus’ prince Yuri Bogolyubsky and his expulsion, and the second to the Alan David Soslan, her true consort and general.

Tradition: Georgian Orthodox

Coronation was not sovereignty. When Tamar came to sole rule in 1184 she faced immediately what a woman’s accession had invited: aristocratic demands to constrain the crown, and the dynastic problem of a marriage that had to produce an heir and a war-leader without surrendering her own authority. This section treats the political consolidation of her early reign soberly, following the near-contemporary “Histories” but reading them as the panegyric they are, and applying the repository’s both-sides discipline (§3.5, §4) to the delicate matter of the two marriages.

Files in This Section

File	Description
the-queen-and-the-nobles.md	The early challenges from the aristocracy; the Qutlu Arslan affair and the councils; the churchmen and officials who backed her rule.
the-two-marriages.md	The failed first marriage to Yuri (George) Bogolyubsky, the Rus’ prince, and his expulsion and revolts; the second marriage to David Soslan, the Alan prince who became her consort and commander.

See Also

• Crowned in Her Father’s Lifetime — the coronation that this section shows had to be made real
• The Military Triumphs — the victories David Soslan would win as her general