The Battle of Chikhori was fought between the armies of King George VIII of Georgia

George VIII of Georgia

George VIII was a king of Georgia, though already fragmentised and dragged into a fierce civil war, from 1446 to 1465...

 and the rebellious nobles led by a royal kinsman Bagrat

Bagrat VI of Georgia

Bagrat VI , a representative of the Imeretian branch of the Bagrationi royal house, was a king of Imereti from 1463, and a king of Georgia from 1465 until his death.-Life:...

 in 1463. It took place near the fortress Chikhori in the district of Argveti

Argveti

Argveti , also Argwet’i or Margweti , is a historic district in Imereti, western Georgia.The area lay on the historic Iberian-Lazican frontier, i.e., between what are now eastern and western parts of Georgia...

 in western Georgia

Georgia (country)

Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...

, and ended in the king's decisive defeat.

The battle was the culmination of a fierce and extended internal struggle for hegemony in Georgia that began after the brief reign of Vakhtang IV

Vakhtang IV of Georgia

Vakhtang IV , of the Bagrationi dynasty, was King of Georgia from 1442 until his death.Vakhtang was the eldest son of Alexander I of Georgia by his first wife Dulandukht. He was raised to the co-kingship by his father in 1433...

 (1442-1446), and would eventually end with fission of the kingdom. The rebellion against Vakhtang’s brother and successor George VIII, whose legitimacy was disputed, was fomented in western and southern provinces of the Kingdom of Georgia

Kingdom of Georgia

The Kingdom of Georgia was a medieval monarchy established in AD 978 by Bagrat III.It flourished during the 11th and 12th centuries, the so-called "golden age" of the history of Georgia. It fell to the Mongol invasions of the 13th century, but managed to re-assert sovereignty by 1327...

. The western Georgian dukes

Eristavi

Eristavi was a Georgian feudal office, roughly equivalent to the Byzantine strategos and normally translated into English as "duke". In the Georgian aristocratic hierarchy, it was the title of the third rank of prince and governor of a large province...

 rallied behind George’s relative Bagrat in a powerful coalition and met the royal army on the battlefield at Chikhori. George was defeated, and Bagrat was crowned king of Imereti

Kingdom of Imereti

The Kingdom of Imereti was established in 1455 by a member of the house of Bagration when the Kingdom of Georgia was dissolved into rival kingdoms. Before that time, Imereti was considered a separate kingdom within the Kingdom of Georgia, to which a cadet branch of the Bagration royal family held...

 at Kutaisi

Kutaisi

Kutaisi is Georgia's second largest city and the capital of the western region of Imereti. It is 221 km to the west of Tbilisi.-Geography:...

. But in return for their aid, the new monarch was obliged to create a principality for each of his four major allies. Henceforth, the Gelovani

Gelovani

House of Gelovani - is a Georgian princely family from the lower part of the mountainous province of Svaneti, formerly - rulers of Svaneti.The family can be traced back to...

 family in Svaneti

Principality of Svaneti

The Principality of Svaneti was a small principality in the Greater Caucasus mountains that emerged following the breakup of the Kingdom of Georgia in the late 15th century...

, the Sharvashidze in Abkhazia

Principality of Abkhazia

The Principality of Abkhazia emerged as a separate feudal entity in the 15th-16th centuries, amid the civil wars in the Kingdom of Georgia that concluded with the dissolution of the unified Georgian monarchy...

, the Dadiani

Dadiani

Dadiani was a Georgian family of nobles, dukes and princes, and a ruling dynasty of the western Georgian province of Samegrelo.- The House of Dadiani :...

 in Mingrelia

Principality of Mingrelia

The Principality of Mingrelia was a historical state in Georgia ruled by the Dadiani dynasty. Established as an independent Principality in 1557 by Levan I Dadiani as a hereditary mtavari , it remained independent until it became subject to Imperial Russia in 1803...

, and the Vardanidze

House of Vardanisdze

The House of Vardanisdze was an aristocratic family in medieval Georgia, listed among the Great Nobles of the realm.The family is presumed to have branched off from another eminent Georgian feudal clan of the Marushisdze, a hypothesis supported by the abundance of the name Marushiani in the...

-Gurieli

Gurieli

Gurieli was a Georgian noble family and a ruling dynasty of the southwestern Georgian province of Guria which was autonomous and later for a few centuries independent, as well as a few ducal rulers of the dynasty rose in the 17th-18th centuries to be kings of the whole western Caucasus in place...

 in Guria

Principality of Guria

The Principality of Guria was a historical state in Georgia. Centered on modern-day Guria, a southwestern region in Georgia, it was located between the Black Sea and Lesser Caucasus, and was ruled by a succession of twenty-two princes of the House of Gurieli from the 1460s to 1829. The...

ruled as semi-independent princes.