David V of Georgia

David V reigned over Georgia for only a few months in 1154 and 1155, having seized the throne from his father Demetrius I, and his sudden death left a disputed succession that troubled the dynasty for a generation. He was the eldest son of Demetrius I and a grandson of David IV the Builder; his birth is conventionally placed in 1113. In the 1140s Demetrius set him aside as heir in favor of his younger son George. The Georgian chronicle does not say why; modern historians have guessed at a personal quarrel or at the influence of the Abuletisdze family and the disputed city of Ani, but the sources give no clear answer.

The disinheritance drew to David the nobles who had earlier supported his uncle Vakhtang against Demetrius. A first attempt to unseat the king failed around 1150. In 1154, or early 1155 by another reckoning, David succeeded: Demetrius was forced into a monastery, where he took the name Damian, and David was crowned as David V. About six months later he was dead. The Armenian historian Vardan Areveltsi charged that he was poisoned by Sumbat and Ivane Orbeli, who had bargained with Prince George, or with Demetrius, or with both, for the office of amirspasalar; the Georgian sources record only that he died, and Stepanos Orbelian, himself of the Orbeli house, denied the family's guilt while confirming that George had sworn to rule only until David's son came of age.

By law David's infant son Demna should have succeeded him. Instead Demetrius returned from the monastery and crowned George co-king before dying in 1156, and George III kept the throne. Demna grew up as the focus of aristocratic discontent; in 1177 Ivane Orbeli and his allies raised him against his uncle, and after their defeat he was blinded and castrated and died in captivity. David V's brief reign thus ended one branch of the Bagrationi line and confirmed the royal succession in George III and his daughter Tamar.