Pkhovi

Pkhovi (Georgian: ფხოვი), also known as Pkhoet'i (ფხოეთი), is a medieval term for the mountainous district in northeast Georgia comprising the latter-day provinces of Pshavi and Khevsureti along the upper reaches of the Aragvi, and in three alpine valleys just north of the main crest of the Greater Caucasus (today's Dusheti district, Mtskheta-Mtianeti region). Its inhabitants – the Pkhovians (ფხო[ვ]ელნი, Pkho[v]elni) – were a tribe of Georgian highlanders known for their warlike character and frequent disobedience to the royal authority.

The toponym Pkhovi, which may derive from a Georgian root meaning "brave, valiant", is first attested in a passage from the seventh-century chronicle The Conversion of Kartli which refers to the defiance of local highlanders to Christianizing efforts of the king Mirian III, and St. Nino, a 4th-century apostle of eastern Georgia (Kartli/Iberia). These pressures are reported to have forced several Pkhovian families to move southeast to Tusheti.

Although the population of this region was nominally under the direct rule of the Georgian crown, they had never been completely integrated into the feudal system of medieval Georgia, and remained relatively little affected by implantation of aristocratic landowners as well as foreign intrusions. However, as Professor Kevin Tuite of Université de Montréal has recently suggested,

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