History of Batumi - Medieval Batumi

Medieval Batumi

The medieval history of Batumi, or Batomi as Georgians called it down to the early 20th century, is unremarkable and the town is scarcely mentioned in the contemporary sources. However, it reemerges in both Georgian and European accounts in the 15th century. The Venetian diplomats, Giosafat Barbaro and Ambrogio Contarini, call Batumi Vati or Vathi. Barbaro reports it being one of the two ports of the lord "Bendian" (the other being Sebastopolis, i.e., modern-day Sukhumi), while Contarini describes it as a maritime town centered on a fortress. The "Bendian" of Barbaro is apparently a corruption of Bediani, the title of the Dadiani princes who governed several western Georgian provinces under the increasingly nominal authority of the kings of Georgia.

A curious incident occurred in 1444 when the Burgundian flotilla, after a failed crusade against the Ottoman Empire, penetrated the Black Sea and engaged in piracy along its eastern coastline until the Burgundians under the knight Geoffroy de Thoisy were ambushed during their landing raid at Vati/Batumi. De Thoisy was taken captive and released through the mediation of the emperor John IV of Trebizond.