City Life of Kartli from the 17th Century According to Capuchin Fathers Reports

Abstract

At the request of the kings of Kartli, the Holy See sent a mission of the Capuchin Order to Georgia in the 17^th Century. After the conquest of Georgia by the Russian Empire, the Capuchins continued their independent activities, though their disobedience against restrictions imposed by the tsar and their use of the Georgian language, despite such a ban, angered the tsar. The Capuchin mission on Georgian territory continued its service until 1844 when it was forcibly expelled from the Caucasus. Neither the Tsarist nor Soviet regimes thought the Capuchin fathers would be allowed to return to Georgia. But it was in the conditions of independent Georgia that the Apostolic Administrator of the Latin Catholics of the South Caucasus, Bishop Giuseppe Pazoto, restored the Capuchin mission given its impressive history and immeasurable contributions in Georgia. Over the centuries representatives of the Capuchin mission sent reports to Rome, and today these serve as an invaluable source for the study of Georgia’s history and ethnography, and most especially of urban life. For years scholars have been studying the Capuchin accounts preserved in the Vatican archives. This article presents a general overview of the first decades of the mission in eastern Georgia based on the chronicle of letters sent to Rome by the Capuchin Fathers. These reports describe the urban life of Kartli, specifically Tbilisi and Gori, with accuracy and emotion. The lives of ordinary people of the era, which is quite rare in the historiography, is presented with considerable documentary accuracy. It is through these Catholic missionary’s documents, together with Jean Chardin’s description of his travels in Georgia, which form a layered account of Georgian urban life in the Late Middle Ages.