Live auction - bby_468009 - GEORGIA - RUSUDAN Dirham

GEORGIA - RUSUDAN

(1223-1245)

Rousudan is the daughter of Tamar of Georgia and her second husband, King David. She belongs to the Bragation dynasty. She succeeded in 1223 to her brother King George IV. In the fall of 1225, Georgia was attacked by the king of Khwarezm, who fled before the Mongols. The Georgians were crushed at the battle of Garni in 1225. The capital Tiflis was taken in 1226. The Christian population who refused to convert to Islam was massacred and the churches destroyed. In 1235, Georgia suffered the Mongol invasion, which had already seized Iran. The queen must flee. Meanwhile, Rousoudan seeks help from the Western courts and from Pope Gregory IX, then from his son-in-law the Sultan of Roum. The queen was forced to ask for peace, which was granted to her in 1242 with a status of vassal of the Mongols, against the payment of an annual tribute of 50,000 hyperpères (Byzantine gold coins). The queen must further send her son and heir David to Karakorum to receive his investiture from the Mongol Khan as heir to the throne. Very tried, the queen dies in 1245.