The Military Lands and the Imperial Estates in the Middle Byzantine Empire

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The Military Lands and the Imperial Estates in the Middle Byzantine Empire Author(s): WARREN T. TREADGOLD Source: Harvard Ukrainian Studies, Vol. 7, Okeanos: Essays presented to Ihor Ševčenko on his

Sixtieth Birthday by his Colleagues and Students (1983), pp. 619-631Published by: Harvard Ukrainian Research InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41036121Accessed: 09-12-2015 05:10 UTC

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The Military Lands and the Imperial Estates in the Middle Byzantine Empire

WARREN T. TREADGOLD

This essay treats two subjects, of which one has received a great deal of attention from many Byzantinists and the other has received little attention from anyone but Ihor Sevcenko. As he once dedicated an article on the middle Byzantine imperial estates to the memory of his teacher, Henri Grégoire, so I am pleased to dedicate a study touching on the same topic to him as my own teacher. 1

Today the traditional view of Theodore Uspensky, Ernest Stein, and George Ostrogorsky that the Byzantine system of themes dated from the reign of Heraclius (610-41) is under attack. No one doubts that the armies of the later Anatolic, Armeniac, Thracesian, and Opsician themes existed under Heraclius, because it is agreed that they were the old mobile armies of Oriens, Armenia, and Thrace and the armies in the emperor's presence, transferred from their original stations and given Greek forms of their Latin names. The dispute is over the features that the traditional view attributed to Heraclius's "new system" of the themes. In Ostrogorsky's words, "They were not merely administrative areas, but represented the districts settled by the troops. Inalienable grants of land (called in later sources aipaiicoiiKà Kifjuaxa) were made to the soldiers on condition of hereditary military service."2 Several

1 Ihor Sevcenko, "Inscription Commemorating Sisinnios, 'Curator' of Tzurulon (A.D. 813)," Byzantion 35 (1965): 567-74. The present article has grown out of my book on The Byzantine State Finances in the Eighth and Ninth Centuries, East European Monographs: Byzantine Series II (New York, 1982). 2 George Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State, rev. ed. (New Brunswick, N.J., 1969), pp. 95-98, especially p. 97 and fn. 1, with references to other works that agree and disagree with this thesis. For other surveys of the problem, see Walter E. Kaegi, "Some Reconsiderations on the Themes (Seventh-Ninth Centuries)," Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinischen Gesellschaft 16 (1967): 39-53, who is inclined to question the traditional view, and A.N. Stratos, Byzantium in the Seventh Century, I: 602-634 (Amsterdam, 1968), pp. 265-82, who is inclined to adopt it.



620 WARREN T. TREADGOLD

scholars have denied that the themes replaced the older, smaller provinces for administrative purposes as early as Heraclius's reign ; others have brought forward evidence suggesting that in most respects such was the case.3 The idea that military land grants were assigned to the troops under Heraclius has been criticized more and defended less.4

The critics of the traditional view of the military lands have pointed out that no explicit and indisputable attestation of them appears before a novel of Constantine VII datable to between 945 and 959. The main part of this novel begins :

We therefore decree the following, which unwritten custom provided previously : that soldiers not be allowed to sell the lands on which their obligations to serve (axpaxeiai) depend, but that immovable property of four pounds [of gold] in value be retained for each obligation to serve of the cavalrymen (among whom we declare should also be numbered those marines enrolled in the army of the Aegean Sea, Samos, and the Cibyrrhaeots, because they too provide their own equipment, and by rowing themselves they perform onerous services). For those marines serving for pay in the Imperial Fleet and for other marines up to now it was provided by custom that immovable property of two pounds [of gold in value] should be retained for each obligation to serve, which also seems to us to be sufficient.5

The novel further provides that a soldier could give or bequeath such lands to others, but then the obligation to serve passed to the new owner or, if the property was divided, was shared proportionately by the new

3 The critics include A. Pertusi, "La formation des thèmes byzantines," Berichte zum XL International Byzantinisten-Kongress, vol. 1 (Munich, 1958), and J. Karayannopoulos, Die Entstehung der byzantinischen Themenordnung (Munich, 1959). The recent defenders are M. Hendy, "On the Administrative Basis of the Byzantine Coinage, c. 400-c. 900, and the Reforms of Heraclius," University of Birmingham Historical Journal 12 (1970): 125-54, and N. Oikonomidès, "Les premières mentions des thèmes dans la chronique de Théophane," Zbornik Radova Vizantinoloskog Instituía 16 (1975): 1-8. 4 Here the critics include P. Lemerle, "Esquisse pour une histoire agraire de Byzance: Les sources et les problèmes," I in Revue historique 219 (1958) : 32-74, II in 219 : 254-84, and III in 220 (1958): 43-94, Karayannopoulos (cited fn. 3), and J. Haldon, Recruitment and Conscription in the Byzantine Army, c. 550-950: A Study on the Origins of the Stratiotika Ktemata (Vienna, 1979). After Ostrogorsky himself, the most recent defender of an early date for the military lands has been R.-J. Lilie, Die byzantinische Reaktion auf die Ausbreitung der Araber (Munich, 1976), pp. 311-14. 5 ©earciÇouev xoívuv aùxò Ôf| toOto, õrcep r' aovfiOeia àypáípox; Jtpqniv èKÚpcoae, ut| èÇeïvai xoîç axpaxuòxaiç xà èÇ áv aí axpateîai Otiti pexoövxai Kxrjuaxa ôiarccoXeïv, auvxTipeiôai Ôè eiç éicáaxr|v axpaxeíav, úircécov uèv òkívtixov Kxfjaiv ô' Xixpcóv oruapÇw oíç àpiOueïaôai KeXeúouev Kai xoùç èni xòv axóXov àTcoxexayuévouç tcA.coÎ|aoi)ç xou xe Aíyaíoi) neXáyovq Kai xfjç Láuou Kai xöv Kißuppaicoicov • aùxóaxoA.oi yap Kai ooxoi Kai aùxepéxai ßapeiac uexiâai xàç ÚTCTipeaíaç. Toïç Ôè xà paaiXiKà nXanua etcì póyaiç ÚTCTipexouuévoiç Kai xoiç tanrcoîç tuXcoÍuoiç tjÔti vöv èKpáxn.aev èk auvriOeíaç Ôúo À.ixpã>v eiç éKáaxTiv axpaxeíav òkívtixov ôiaaíbÇeaOai Kxfjaiv, õ Kai t^uív àpKoóvxcoç ëxeiv ÔOKeï. J. and P. Zepos, Jus Graecoromanum, vol. I (Athens, 1931), pp. 222-23.



MILITARY LANDS AND IMPERIAL ESTATES 621

owners. If the soldier had property that exceeded the minimum value, whether he could sell it depended on how much of it was officially registered as military land. If all of it was registered, he could not sell any of it. If only part of it was registered, he could sell the unregistered land as long as he retained the minimum amount. If none of it was registered, the minimum amount was to be registered at once and the remainder could be sold. If a man had only a fractional obligation to serve or to provide a soldier, the minimum property he could not sell was proportionately less. Further provisions established that men held military land on condition of military service - or alternatively on condition of supplying or joining in supplying a fully equipped soldier to take their place.6

As far as it goes, this novel is clear enough. The traditional view is that the novel describes a system introduced under Heraclius as a matter of custom, but made a matter of detailed legal provisions only in the mid- tenth century, when the growing power of the aristocracy led some soldiers to sell off their military lands to aristocrats who would not provide soldiers.7 The novel is compatible with that view, but does not prove it. By contrast, Paul Lemerle and others have questioned whether this system of military lands even as a matter of custom went back further than the ninth century, and whether even in the tenth century all soldiers had such lands.8 The military lands do not seem to be explicitly attested earlier, though incidental references in saints' lives apparently presuppose something like them as early as the late eighth century, and the sources for the seventh and early eighth centuries are so scanty that an argument from silence carries little weight.9 As for whether all soldiers had lands in the tenth century, the novel's repeated words "for each obligation to serve" (eiç 8Káaxr|v crcpcrceíav) seem to imply that each of the sorts of soldiers specified did have military lands, but the infantry, certainly a sizable number, are not among those specified. The omission could mean that the infantry had no such lands, but in that case what means of support the infantry did have would be a question.

Although the best way to resolve the controversy would be to discover clear evidence of how the army was supported in the seventh and eighth centuries, no one has yet discovered evidence of this sort or given reason

6 Zepos (cited fn. 5), I: 223-26. More detailed treatment of this novel will be found in Lemerle (cited fn. 4), II: 44-50, and Haldon (cited fn. 4), pp. 41-43. 7 See Ostrogorsky (cited fn. 2), pp. 272-76. 8 Lemerle (cited fn. 4), III : 43-70. 9 For earlier evidence for a similar system, see Haldon (cited fn. 4), pp. 41-65.




to believe that any will be discovered in the future. As with many problems concerning the seventh and eighth centuries, the problem of the military lands can now only be usefully approached by determining what the situation was before and after those centuries, and using our meager knowledge of events in the interim to conjecture what happened in between.

In the sixth century, ordinary imperial soldiers received ample cash allowances that had gradually replaced issues in kind of food, uniforms, arms, mounts, and fodder. A rough but reasonable estimate has put these allowances at 30 nomismata a year.10 Since another rough but reasonable estimate has put the cost of basic sustenance for a Byzantine family at 17 nomismata a year, sixth-century soldiers were presumably well able to support their households and provide their equipment out of their cash pay.11 Though some had private sources of income as well, except among the border troops (limitanei) these were if anything discouraged by the state because they tended to distract the men from their duties, and certainly were not under state protection.12 By the ninth century, on the other hand, ordinary soldiers received cash pay of one nomisma for each year of service up to their twelfth year, and twelve nomismata a year thereafter, paid at intervals ranging from one to six years.13 Some but not all of the soldiers of the themes received rations in kind while on campaign, though not at other times.14 Since all the soldiers were still supposed to supply their own equipment and the basic cost of living seems to have remained at about the level of 1 7 nomismata per family a year, middle Byzantine soldiers must have had some source of support other than their pay.

How, then, did they live? That all of them did manage to keep body and soul together somehow requires no demonstration, but many did

10 E. Stein, Studien zur Geschichte des byzantinischen Reiches (Stuttgart, 1919), p. 155. This figure is based on the amount of the aurum tironicum, the gold payment required to compensate the state for maintaining a soldier, which was 25 to 30 nomismata; see A. H. M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire, 284-602 (Norman, Oklahoma, 1964), p. 432. 1 1 Ostrogorsky, "Löhne und Preise in Byzanz," Byzantinische Zeitschrift 32 (1932): 299, speaks of a living wage of 10-15 folles a day, or about 17-26 nomismata a year (with 180 folles to the nomisma in early Byzantine times and no work on Sundays or holidays). Cf. Jones (cited fn. 10), p. 447, who puts the cost of a soldier's rations at 4 to 5 1/2 nomismata a year (not including equipment, clothing, or lodging for him, or anything for his family). 12 See Jones (cited fn. 10), pp. 678-79. 13 See Treadgold (cited fn. 1), pp. 19-21, where I base my discussion on Ibn Khurdãdhbih, trans. M.J. de Goeje, Bibliotheca Geographorum Arabicorum, VI (Leyden, 1889), pp. 84-85. 14 See Haldon (cited fn. 4), p. 45 and fn. 73.




much better than that. In his Táctica, Leo VI (886-912) tells a strategus intending to go on campaign, "You shall select soldiers from the entire theme under your command who are . . . rich, so that they, when engaged in their own military service on an expedition (that is, in the assemblage of the army), have at their own homes others working their land (yecopyoCviaç) and able to supply completely the military equipment of a soldier . . . .'n 5 Leo's words imply that some of the soldiers on the rolls of a theme were not this well off (since otherwise strategi would have needed no warning to choose others) but show that a number of them were. The only source of income Leo takes into account is land, which for the better-off soldiers was worked by "others" - whether relatives, tenants, hired hands, or slaves. The tenth-century Anonymous Vàri warns that all the soldiers of a theme should be mustered and drilled frequently, because otherwise, "selling their military equipment and their best horses, they will buy oxen and other equipment for farming" - thus assuming that they had land on which to use oxen and farm tools.16

Though it has been suggested that the soldiers might have had income from some other source than land, to my knowledge no evidence of a middle Byzantine thematic soldier with another sort of income has yet been brought forward. The army was large : 120,000 men of whom all but 24,000 were in the themes, according to an apparently reliable Arab report of the mid-ninth century.17 Since from every indication the economy of the empire was based on agriculture to an overwhelming extent, no other means is likely to have been available to provide for so many soldiers. In comparison manufacturing and trade were negligible, especially outside Constantinople, where the thematic troops were stationed. Besides, the state could scarcely have allowed a soldier to practice any occupation that made him impossible to locate on short notice for mustering, a consideration that seems to exclude herdsmen and traveling merchants. Some soldiers could conceivably have been fishermen, millers, ferrymen, blacksmiths, or innkeepers, but such

15 'Ek^é^tj 8è axpaxic&xaç arcò rcavxòç xoC òrco aè Bé^atoç, ... eòrcópouç, ©axe aòxoòç, èv xâ> èÇrceSíxq), fíyouv èv xfj ai)vaycoyf| xoö (poaaáxou elç xf|v iôíav axpaxeíav à- axokounévouç, ëxew èv xoíç iôíoiç oikoiç éxépouç xoòç yecopyouvxaç, Kaì xà rcpòç àrcapxia|iòv èÇórcXiaiv xoö axpaxubxou xopr|y£Ïv ôuva|iévoi)Ç ... Leo VI, Táctica, IV. 1, ed. in Patrologia Graeca 107, 697D-700A. 16 ... xf^v yap rcoXeniKTiv rcavorcXíav Kai xoòç àpíaxouç ïrcrcouç àrceurcokoõvxeç ßoac èÇœvouvxai Kai xàkXa xà rcpòç yecopyiav èrcixf]ôeia ... Incerti Scriptoris Saeculi IX Liber de Re Militari, ed. R. Vàri (Leipzig, 1901), eh. 28, p. 48. 17 See Treadgold (cited fn. 1), pp. 16-18 and 107-108. The total is given by Ibn Khurdãdhbih (cited fn. 13), p. 84.




soldiers must have been exceedingly rare, and probably would have had farmland as well. Some, in the infantry at least, might have been tenants or farmhands, but only if the state could have been sure that they would not be evicted or dismissed, and thus left unable to support themselves and impossible to locate for mustering.

As has been seen, for the mid-tenth century Constantine VII specifies that every cavalryman, or marine of the three naval themes, had land valued at a minimum of four pounds of gold (288 nomismata) and other marines had land valued at a minimum of two pounds of gold (144 nomismata). At the price of three-quarters of a nomisma per modius of first-class arable that Ostrogorsky established as an average, the minimum holding for a cavalryman or thematic marine would have been equivalent to 384 modii and that for any other marine to 192 modii. Documents from Mt. Athos indicate that 30 modii could be an adequate holding for a family.18 Therefore cavalrymen and marines, with at least six to twelve times this much land, must all have been well off enough to have others at home to do their farmwork for them - indeed, their holdings would have been too large for them to cultivate by themselves. They were, in the words of Leo VI's Táctica, "rich" (eurcopoi). Indeed, the Écloga of Leo HI assumes a legal definition of a "rich" man (euTcopoç) as one with property worth at least two pounds of gold, precisely the minimum set by Constantine VII for marines outside the naval themes.19

The poorer soldiers must have been among the infantry, who apparently outnumbered the cavalry by some three to one in the tenth century.20 Even if an infantryman needed to work his own land, he could still serve in the garrison of a fort in time of invasion and go on campaigns between the times of sowing and harvesting. Such soldiers did not need the expensive equipment of a cavalryman or marine. They would have been those, evidently the majority, who received rations in kind from the government while on campaign, and did not have to supply their own. For them, the necessary minimum of land would have been only what they needed to support their families and to provide the modest arms and armor of an infantry soldier. They would therefore probably have needed somewhat more than 30 modii, perhaps about 50

18 See Treadgold (cited fn. '}rpp. 55-57 and especially fn. 222. 19 This definition follows from the penalty for seduction, which is one pound of gold if the seducer is "rich" and half his fortune if the seducer is poorer; Zepos (cited fn. 5), II : 57. 20 In the ninth and late eighth century the ratio was apparently four to one; Treadgold (cited fn. 1), pp. 29-30 and 79-81.




modii, worth about half a pound of gold (36 nomismata). But if they did have such lands, why did Constantine VH's novel not mention at least this minimum for the lands of the infantry?

The answer is probably that by the time ofthat novel the infantry were already protected by a novel of Romanus I (920-44). Romanus's law begins with measures to protect the lands of all smallholders, which if sold in violation of certain legal requirements were to be returned without compensation to the purchaser subject to a limitation of ten years. In its last section, the novel explicitly declares that "all the military lands" (rcávia xà axpaxicoxiKa Kxf'[iaxa) that had been purchased within the last thirty years had to be restored without compensation, "unless, perhaps, even after the alienation an amount remains to the soldier that is sufficient for the support of the new obligation to serve of the man doing the military service."21

On inconclusive grounds Lemerle has questioned the dating of this last provision to 922, as the heading of the law states, while Ostrogorsky has defended the date.22 But even if the true date is somewhat later the text does seem to be the work of Romanus I, and so no later than 944.

Apparently it is concerned with preventing the "poor" soldiers among the infantry from selling the minimum amount of land that they needed to support themselves and to provide their modest equipment, thus becom- ing tenants or hired hands, whose income and place of residence would be uncertain. If a "rich" soldier sold off land in excess of this minimum, however, the state was not necessarily concerned. The later law of Constantine VII went further, and attempted to prevent the "rich" soldiers of the cavalry and marines from selling so much of their land that they would be forced to do their own farmwork and left unable to provide their own rations and heavy equipment. If they sold off land in excess of the minimum required to perform their duties, the state was concerned only if their land was registered as "military land." Though in the past the records of this land had evidently been incomplete, now guidelines were established for completing the registration, so that each cavalryman or thematic marine would have a minimum of four pounds' worth, and each other marine a minimum of two pounds' worth.

21 ... ei 'ir' dpa Kai uexà xr'v ¿ktcoìtigiv xoaoöxov xœ axpaxióxi] TtepiÀ-iuTiávexai, õaov xö axpaxeuouevcp npòç xf|v xfjç véaç axpaxeíaç aúaxaaiv èÇapiceí. Zepos (cited fn. 5), I : 198-204 (quotation on p. 204). Note that the "soldier" may supply another to "do the service." 22 Lemerle (cited fn. 4), 2: 265-66; Ostrogorsky (cited fn. 2), p. 273, fn. 1.




Granted this much, and that in the ninth and tenth centuries virtually all soldiers supported themselves primarily from land holdings, the exact nature of these "military lands" still remains somewhat obscure. From the time of Constantine VII's novel onwards, legislation assumed the principle that military lands were held in return for military service. If they were inherited or received as gifts, the obligation to provide a soldier went with them. If they were divided, the obligation to provide a soldier was divided proportionally among the new owners. If the lands were confiscated in a lawsuit or fell vacant, the state had a right to reassign them to someone who would also assume the obligation to provide a soldier that went with them.23 But, as Lemerle and others have pointed out, this legislation is not by itself sufficient proof that the military lands were held in return for service earlier than the tenth century, much less from the beginning - whenever that was.

The alternative is to assume that before the tenth century soldiers had a hereditary obligation to serve combined with independent income, evidently from land. As long as a soldier's place on the muster-rolls and his land were passed on together to his heir, the question of whether the two were legally connected is not a very important one in practice, and probably raises a point too subtle for our scanty contemporary evidence to resolve. But the question becomes significant for what it implies about the origin of the military lands. If they were originally private holdings, the soldiers may be considered as private landholders saddled with an hereditary legal obligation to serve or to provide a soldier. If the military lands were originally public, the soldiers may be considered as hereditary tenants on public land, doing military service or providing a soldier in lieu of paying rent. By the tenth century, the soldiers' legal position closely approximated that of hereditary tenants on public land. Whether this was true earlier largely depends on our answer to the question of where the military lands originally came from.

Any answer to this question should take into account that the area of the military lands would have been enormous. For the mid-ninth century, by assuming a minimum of 384 modii each for the cavalry and thematic marines and 50 modii each for the infantry, I have estimated the military lands at a minimum of some twelve million modii, perhaps a tenth of the cultivated area of the empire.24 Such an estimate is only a

24 Treadgold (cited fn. 1), pp. 62-63.

23 See the discussion in Haldon (cited fn. 4), pp. 41-65, on the situation in the tenth century (though, as will appear, I have reservations about his remarks on the earlier period).




guideline, but gives some idea of the amount of land involved. Obtaining this much land would not have been an easy task.

As for the time at which lands would have been needed to support the army, Heraclius is known to have been extremely short of cash during the Persian invasion, when he discontinued the grain dole at Constantinople (618) and borrowed an immense sum from the church (622), even melting down some of the decorations of St. Sophia.25 During the few years between his defeat of the Persians (628) and the onset of the Arab invasion (633), Heraclius seems to have been barely able to meet his army payroll, to judge from the justification one of his agents gave for cutting off the pay of some Arab auxiliaries in 631 : "The emperor can scarcely provide the soldiers with their pay - how much less these dogs?"26 After the Arab invasion, full payment of the imperial soldiers in cash must quickly have become impossible. It must then have been replaced as a method of supporting the soldiers either by some form of the system of military lands or by some other method which, cash being lacking, would also presumably have involved land. Which land?

Having men who already had land serve as soldiers would not have been a promising option. The previous lands of soldiers, mainly those of the limitanei who had long been settled on the frontier, would practically all have been lost when the frontier districts fell, first to the Persians and Avars, then to the Arabs and Slavs. Conscripting landowners in the remaining territories, paying them an inadequate wage, and asking them to support themselves would seem impractical and even dangerous, because they would have been inexperienced, unfit, and unwilling soldiers, liable to desert, mutiny, and revolt. Besides, the names of Byzantine army units, some of which are attested early, show their continuity with the divisions of the army of the sixth century. Not only did the themes themselves derive from the old mobile armies, but even in the tenth century their divisions retained such ancient designations as Theodosiaci and Víctores.21 The bulk of Heraclius's army surely con- sisted of soldiers withdrawn from their old posts in the East, Armenia, and Thrace. Heraclius had soldiers, though they were no doubt reduced in numbers. His problem was how to support them.

25 On the loan, see Theophanes, ed. de Boor, pp. 302-303; on the dole, see Chronicon Paschale, ed. Bonn, p. 711. 26 'O ôeaTcóxnç (lóyiç xoîç aipaticoxaiç ôíôcoai póyaç, Tióaco nâXXov (read neïov with Tafel and Anastasius Bibliothecarius) xoïç Kuai toútoiç; Theophanes, ed. de Boor, pp. 335-36. 27 See Constantine VII, De Ceremoniis, ed. Bonn, p. 663.




John Haldon has recently conjectured "a process by which regular soldiers were billeted more or less permanently (although this may never have been the original intention) throughout the region which they garrisoned, and by which they acquired their own properties and settled down."28 Large-scale billeting, a well-attested practice in early Byzantine times, would have been a logical recourse for Heraclius as long as he hoped to restore the empire's former military position. But after the Arab conquest of Syria Heraclius does not appear to have entertained any illusions that the losses were temporary, and neither, probably, did most other Byzantines.29 Permanent billeting of tens of thousands of soldiers would have amounted to a large and perhaps unsupportable tax on the unfortunate landowners chosen and would have been far from con- venient for the soldiers. It would have been a desperate and unpopular measure, of the sort that a government would take only if it had no other choice. Further, it is difficult to see how, even over two or three centuries, thousands of soldiers with no land to start with and very scanty pay could have acquired holdings worth four pounds of gold each. It is also hard to understand how their holding lands of that value came to be a custom, and how a large part of these lands came to be registered as "military lands." Though such considerations do not exclude Haldon's hypothesis, especially as a partial explanation, they give good reason to look for a more satisfactory one.

Others have suggested that the government settled the soldiers on vacant land in Asia Minor, which would thus have been confiscated from its former owners, absent or not, and assigned to the soldiers as military estates.30 Confiscation may well be part of the answer. The civil war with Phocas and the Persian invasions must have left Heraclius with a good deal of land whose owners had died, fled, or been expropriated for supporting Phocas. But Haldon rightly stresses that vacant land needs a good deal of work to bring it back into production, and, unless the former owners had left tenants behind, soldiers on active duty would have been hard put to derive any income from such grants.31 That enough land to support every soldier who needed support could have been obtained in this way seems highly improbable. Of course, the government could have confiscated large amounts of occupied land

28 Haldon (cited fn. 4), pp. 74-79. 29 See A.N. Stratos, Byzantium in the Seventh Century, II: 634-41 (Amsterdam, 1972), pp. 73-74. 30 See Lilie (cited fn. 4), pp. 312-13. 31 Haldon (cited fn. 4), p. 74.




arbitrarily and assigned it to the soldiers. But such a measure would again have been a desperate one, of the sort that a government would adopt only if it had no better choice.

If Heraclius had decided to give his soldiers land grants, however, he would not have needed to look for vacant land or to resort to confiscation. He already possessed a substantial portion of the empire's land which was in production, manned by tenants, farmhands, or slaves, and distributed widely over the empire's provinces, including those of Asia Minor. The land was in the imperial estates. The surviving figures for their extent are very scattered, but show that the estates were large. In the fifth century, imperial estates accounted for 18.5 percent of the area of the province of Africa Proconsularis, 15 percent of that of Byzacena, and 16 percent of the city of Cyrrhus in Syria. In the sixth century, imperial estates took up over half the land of the province of Cappadocia I, which was, of course, a region that was not permanently lost to the Arabs.32 These overall figures are preserved by chance; other attestations show that imperial estates were spread all over the empire, and Asia Minor was no exception.

To be sure, the imperial estates were leased to various entrepreneurs, sometimes for five years, sometimes heritably in perpetuity, and these renters would have been unhappy at being evicted en masse. But eviction from imperial estates before the lease was up was not uncommon, and was often legal if the state received a higher bid for the rent.33 The soldiers assigned such lands could then have done their military service in lieu of rent, receiving the land rent-free under a kind of perpetual, hereditary lease instead of whatever wages they no longer received. If imperial land was not available in some places where soldiers were needed, private landholders could have been forced to accept imperial lands elsewhere in exchange for their own holdings, leaving their land to be assigned to soldiers.

Just as the state had kept records of its imperial estates, so it would have kept records of the new military lands. But in the seventh and eighth centuries the imperial bureaucracy must have functioned less efficiently than usual.34 The muster-rolls, of course, were vital to the empire's defense, and had to be kept fairly accurately. The cadasters of taxable land were also important to assure collection of the annual land taxes.

32 Jones (cited fn. 10), pp. 415-16. 33 Jones (cited fn. 10), pp. 416-19. 34 See Treadgold, "The Revival of Byzantine Learning and the Revival of the Byzantine State," American Historical Review 84 (1979): 1259-66.




But if the state knew from the muster-rolls who had an hereditary military obligation and from the cadasters where his land was, it could locate and punish him if he did not serve as he was ordered and bring the specified equipment, so that an exact record of how much of his land was "military land" and how much had been acquired later as private property would seldom have been necessary. If over the years the ledgers came to be incomplete, "custom" (which would virtually have meant "common law") would still have dictated that soldiers were not to sell land they needed to perform their duties. By the tenth century, however, population pressure was apparently causing soldiers to sell off their land, and up-to-date ledgers and specific legislation began to be needed. For these, Constantine VII provided in his novel in a reasonably equitable manner. Quite possibly the minimum of four pounds' worth of land for a cavalryman was approximately the amount of the original grant to a cavalryman in the seventh century.

Though the foregoing hypothesis involves considerable speculation, one fact tends to corroborate it. By the ninth century, the once sprawling imperial estates had shrunk drastically. As late as the sixth century, they are frequently mentioned in the sources and particularly in legal texts, and were supervised by a large department headed by a senior official, the comes rei privatae.35 By the ninth century, on the other hand, the imperial estates are seldom mentioned in the sources and are supervised by the Great Curator, who ranked thirty-sixth among thirty-nine high officials and was concerned with palaces and hospices as well as estates, which were administered by his subordinate curators of the estates.36 The imperial estates specifically attested between the seventh century and the mid-ninth were in the immediate vicinity of Constantinople, around the nearby city of Tzurulum, around Cromna in Paphlagonia, around Athens, and on Chios.37

35 Jones (cited fn. 10), pp. 412-17. See also M. Kaplan, Les propriétés de la couronne et de l'église dans l'empire byzantin (Ve -VIe siècles) (Paris, 1976). 36 N. Oikonomidès, Les listes de préséance byzantines des IVe et Xe siècles (Paris, 1972), p. 318 and (for the rank) p. 304. 37 For the estates very near Constantinople, see Ibn al-Faqih in E. W. Brooks, "Arabic Lists of the Byzantine Themes," Journal of Hellenic Studies. 21 (1901): 73; for Tzurulum and Chios, see Sevcenko (cited fn. 1), pp. 568-72 (note the later additions from the tenth century on); for Cromna and Athens (?), see G. Zacos and A. Veglery, Byzantine Lead Seals, vol. 1 (Basel, 1972), nos. 2421 and 3014. Nicephorus I (802-11) confiscated some church lands, but quickly set about disposing of them by forced sale; Theophanes, ed. de Boor, pp. 486-87.




About 867 Basil I acquired from the Patriarch Ignatius the lands of the Mangana with their palaces, which were also located in the immediate vicinity of Constantinople and were used exclusively to supply food for imperial banquets. Acquisition of this private holding of one man caused such a great proportional increase in imperial land that Basil put it under an independent Curator of the Mangana, ranking just after the Great Curator and having his own subordinate curators of palaces and estates of the Mangana.38 Even under Leo VI, the private holdings of the widow Danelis in the Peloponnesus were, according to Constantine VII, scarcely smaller than the imperial estates.39 Though Constantine may have exaggerated somewhat, the imperial estates in the ninth century plainly had nothing like the importance of those in the sixth.

By itself, the effect of the dislocations of the seventh and eighth centuries should have been to increase the percentage of imperial land by allowing the crown to confiscate the holdings of those who died without heirs, fled, were captured, or rebelled.40 If the proportion of imperial land instead decreased greatly, as seems to be the case, the state must have given large amounts of its land away. It certainly did not give the land away because it did not need the rents. But what it needed more than rents was an army, supported by whatever means could be found. Confiscation and billeting may have been tried, but the imperial estates are not likely to have remained untouched for long.

The conjecture that Heraclius, or perhaps one of his immediate successors, cancelled the leases of most of the imperial estates and distributed them among his troops explains both the disappearance of most of the imperial estates and the appearance of the military lands. This conjecture is compatible with the traditional view of the origins of the themes, which despite the attacks that have been leveled against it is still the only coherent reconstruction of what happened in Byzantium in the early seventh century.

Hillsdale College

38 J.B. Bury, The Imperial Administrative System in the Ninth Century (London, 1911), pp. 101-102, corrected by Oikonomides (cited fn. 36), p. 318, who by noting that the Palace of Eleutherius was not originally under the Curator of the Mangana clears up the obscurity mentioned by Bury. 39 Theophanes Continuatus, ed. Bonn, pp. 320-21. 40 Cf. Jones (cited fn. 10), pp. 420-24.



The Military Lands and the Imperial Estates in the Middle Byzantine Empire

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