Bagrat IV of Georgia

Bagrat IV reigned from 1027 to 1072 and held the young Georgian kingdom together through a minority, a long baronial war, Byzantine intrigue, and the first Seljuk invasions. Born in 1018, the son of George I and the Armenian princess Mariam of Vaspurakan, he was surrendered at three as a hostage to Basil II under the treaty of 1022 and spent three years in Constantinople. His father died in August 1027, and the boy king ruled under the regency of his mother, who shared power with Liparit of Kldekari and Ivane Abazasdze. Mariam's embassy to Constantinople in 1031 or 1032 won peace, the rank of kouropalates for her son, and a bride, Helena Argyre, niece of Romanos III. Helena died at Kutaisi in 1033 without children, and Bagrat then married Borena of Alania, sister of the Alan king.

The dominating figure of his middle years was Liparit IV of Kldekari, first the crown's defender and then its most dangerous enemy. After Bagrat made peace with the emir of Tbilisi about 1040 without consulting him, Liparit turned to Byzantium and to Bagrat's half-brother Demetrius, son of Alda of Alania, whom he championed as a rival king until Demetrius died in 1042. Liparit crushed Bagrat at Sasireti, won nearly half the kingdom, and about 1050 drove the king to Constantinople, where Bagrat and his mother remained three years while Liparit crowned the boy George and ruled as regent. Only in 1060 did Liparit's own followers hand him over; Bagrat forced him into a monastery.

The Seljuks arrived in the same decade. Alp Arslan ravaged the south in 1064, and Bagrat sought terms by giving a niece in marriage to the sultan. In 1068 Alp Arslan returned and occupied Kartli and Argveti, but after he left Bagrat recovered Kartli, defeated the Shaddadid emir Fadl, and reinstated the emir of Tbilisi as his vassal. His greatest diplomatic prize was the marriage of his daughter Martha to the Byzantine co-emperor Michael VII Doukas; as Maria of Alania she would be empress twice over.

Bagrat died on 24 November 1072 and was buried at Chqondidi. By Borena he left his successor George II, the empress Martha, and a daughter Mariam; through them the Bagrationi were bound to Alania and Constantinople.