08 — Sanctity and Kingship
The hardest and most honest section: the union in one person of holy queenship and hard statecraft — the wars, the punishment of plotters, the styling of a woman as “king” — held soberly beside her veneration as a saint; and the account of her death (1213), the mystery of her tomb, and her canonization and feast.
Tradition: Georgian Orthodox
Tamar is venerated as a saint, and she was a war-making sovereign who ruled a hard medieval state and expelled and defeated a husband who had been her consort. The repository methodology requires that such a life be presented without either whitewash or debunking — the sanctity and the statecraft together, in their real tension (METHODOLOGY §4). This section does that, and then turns to the end of her life: her repose, the unfindable grave, and the Church’s act of numbering her among the saints, with her feasts.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| a-holy-queen.md | The union of holy queenship and hard statecraft — the wars, the treatment of plotters and of her father’s brutality, the styling of a woman as “king” — held honestly beside her veneration. |
| repose-and-canonization.md | Her death in 1213; the mystery of her tomb; her canonization by the Georgian Orthodox Church and her feasts (1 May and the Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women). |
See Also
- Methodology — the source-critical basis for the honest both-sides
- Assessment — the saint-versus-national-symbol reckoning