The North Caucasian Kingdom of Alania, 850–1240

Introduces the most powerful polity in the medieval North Caucasus and its connections with the wider world.

John Latham-Sprinkle (Author)

9781009373487, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 21 August 2025

348 pages, 10 b/w illus. 7 maps 5 tables
23.5 x 16 x 2.3 cm, 0.64 kg

The kingdom of Alania was the most powerful polity in the medieval North Caucasus. It contained strategic mountain passes across the Caucasus mountains, as well as urban centres larger than any in contemporary Rus'. Its kings retained power from the mid-ninth to the late eleventh centuries, intermarried with the ruling families of Georgia and Byzantium, and led armies that terrorised the South Caucasus. In this, the first book to explore the subject in the English language, Latham-Sprinkle sheds light on how the kings of Alania came to embody 'the power of the foreign' – the status which accrued to individuals who could access the material and spiritual products of distant lands – thus rendering the development of a state structure unnecessary. Challenging existing narratives that centre elites and the state, Latham-Sprinkle provides an important contribution to the historiography of medieval state formation, Christianisation, and transregional connection. This title is part of the Flip it Open programme and may also be available open access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.

List of illustrations
List of maps
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
Note on the text
Introduction: framing Alania
1. Forming the kingdom of Alania, c.800–880
2. Appropriating Christianity in Alania, c.800–932
3. The 'Power of the Foreign' and the political economy of the central north Caucasus in the tenth century
4. The Christian kingdom of Alania, c.960–1090
5. The Byzantine and Georgian courts and the kingdom of Alania, c.970–1090
6. The fall of the kingdom of Alania and the transformation of the North Caucasus, c.1090–1240
Conclusion
Appendix
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: European history [HBJD]