wealthy and having attained high ranks in service, had seized the village in which he lived and transformed it into his own estate, changing even its name, he ordered that all the magnificent buildings, which belonged to Philocales, should be completely destroyed and razed to the ground; the land was returned to the poor. By the orders of the Emperor, Philocales himself was again reduced to the state of a simple peasant.93 There is no doubt that the families of Phocas, Sclerus, and Maleinus, and such individuals as Philocales, did not constitute all of the large landowning class of Asia Minor.

The famous Novel of the year 996 abolished the forty years' prescription which protected the rights of the powerful who had illegally seized peasant estates and who tried "to extend this term either by means of gifts, or by means of power, in order to acquire final ownership of that which they had acquired from the poor by wicked means."'94 The estates acquired by the powerful from village communities previous to the issue of Romanus' first law were to remain in the hands of the powerful only if the latter could prove their rights of ownership either by written evidence or by a sufficient number of witnesses. The Novel stated that the demands of the treasury cannot consider any prescription, hence the state "may claim its rights by going back to the time of Caesar Augustus."95

The problem of military fiefs also compelled the Macedonian rulers to issue several novels.

In addition to the Novel of 996, Basil II issued—or, to be more precise, restored-a decree concerning the tax called allelengyon, meaning mutual warrant (åλλŋλéyyvov). As far back as the early part of the ninth century (in so far as we can interpret the brief statement on this point in one of the sources) 96 Emperor Nicephorus I issued orders which devolved the responsibility for the full payment of taxes of the poor upon their richer neighbors. These orders should, perhaps, be connected with the measure of Emperor Anastasius concerning the surcharge, extra charge (epibole; adjectio sterilium), which was exacted with the greatest harshness in the 98 Jus graeco-romanum, III, 310; Vasilievsky, Materials, p. 217 (in Russian). Jus graeco-romanum, III, 308; Vasilievsky, pp. 215–16.

05 Jus graeco-romanum, III, 315 (par. 4); Vasilievsky, p. 220.

96 Theophanis, Chr. (ed. De Boor, p. 486); see Bury, III, 214.

time of Justinian the Great. The orders of Nicephorus I aroused so much hatred toward the Emperor that his successors were apparently compelled to forsake this tax. When the need of money for the upkeep of the Bulgarian war became very great and the desire to deal the powerful a heavy blow had grown very strong in Basil II, he revived the law which made the wealthy landowners responsible for the taxes of the poor, if the latter were unable to pay them. If this measure, so strongly defended by Basil II, had remained in force for a long time, it might have gone far to ruin the powerful owners of both ecclesiastical and temporal estates. But the allelengyon was enforced only for a brief period of time. In the first half of the eleventh century Romanus III Argyrus, who acquired the throne through his marriage to Zoë, the daughter of Constantine VIII, urged by his interest in the welfare of the powerful and by his desire to find a way for reconciliation with the higher clergy and landed nobility, repealed the hated allelengyon.

On the whole, the decrees of the Macedonian emperors of the tenth century, though limiting to some extent the encroachments of the powerful, accomplished very few definite results in the desired direction. In the eleventh century the famous novels were gradually forgotten and abandoned. The same century witnessed a material change in the internal policy of the Byzantine emperors, who began to favor and openly protect large landownership, hastening the wide development of serfdom. Still, we must not think that the free peasant commune and the free small landowners disappeared entirely from the Empire. These institutions continued to exist and will have to be dealt with in later periods.

Provincial administration in the time of the Macedonian dynasty. The provincial administration of the Empire in the ninth century and in the time of the Macedonian dynasty continued to develop along the path of theme organization, discussed in an earlier chapter. This development expressed itself, on the one hand, in the further breaking up of the older themes, and, consequently, in the increase in the number of themes, and, on the other hand, in elevating to the position of themes districts which previously bore some other name, such as clisurae, of which we shall speak later.

Both exarchates, which are considered by historians as the true

precursors of themes, had become alienated from the Empire: the Carthagenian or African exarchate was conquered by the Arabs in the middle of the seventh century, while the Ravenna exarchate was occupied in the first half of the eighth century by the Longobards, who were soon forced to cede the conquered territories of this exarchate to the Frankish king, Pippin the Brief. He, in his turn, handed them over to the pope in the year 754, thereby laying the foundations for the famous medieval papal state. In the seventh century the Byzantine Empire had, in addition to the exarchates, five military governments which did not yet bear the name of themes. At the beginning of the ninth century we can account for ten themes: five Asiatic, four European, and one maritime. On the basis of data found in the works of the Arabian geographer of the ninth century, Ibn-Khurdadhbah, and in other sources, historians claim that there were twenty-five military districts in the ninth century, but that not all of these were themes. Among them were included two clisurarchiae (see below), one ducatus, and two archontatus. The ceremonial treatise of precedence at court, written by the court marshal (atriclines), Philotheus, in 899 and usually included as part of the so-called book on Ceremonies of the Byzantine Court of the time of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, lists twentyfive themes. In his work Concerning Themes (tenth century), Constantine Porphyrogenitus gives a list of twenty-nine themes: seventeen Asiatic, including the four sea themes, and twelve European, including the Sicilian theme, part of which formed the theme of Calabria in the tenth century after the Arabian conquest of Sicily proper. The twelve European themes included also the theme of Cherson (Korsun) in the Crimea, founded probably as far back as the ninth century, and frequently referred to as "the Klimata" or "Gothic Klimata." In the eleventh century the number of themes rose to thirty-eight. Each was governed, as we know, by a military governor, strategus.

Because of the frequent changes in the number of themes, and also in view of the lack of sources on the historical development of 97 Bury, The Imperial Administrative System in the Ninth Century, with a revised text of the Kleterologion of Philotheos (London, 1911), pp. 146-47 (British Academy Supplemental Papers, I).

the theme organization, our knowledge of this important side of Byzantine life is still very limited and inexact.

Something should be said of the clisurae and the clisurarchs mentioned before. The name clisura, which even today means a "mountain pass" in Greek, was applied in the Byzantine period to a "frontier fortress" with limited neighboring territory, or, more generally, to "a small province" ruled by a clisurarch, whose authority was not as great as that of the strategus, and did not, in all probability, combine both military and civil responsibilities. Some of the clisurae, as, for instance, those of Seleucia, Sebastea in Asia Minor, and a few others, eventually rose in importance by being transformed into themes.

The strategi who stood at the head of the themes had a large body of subordinates. It is interesting to note that at least in the time of Leo VI the Wise the strategi of the Eastern themes, including the sea themes, were receiving definite maintenance from the government treasury, while the strategi of the Western themes were supported by the revenues of their respective districts, and not by the treasury.

The theme organization had reached the highest stage of its development in the time of the Macedonian dynasty. After this period the system began to decline gradually, partly because of the conquests of the Seljuq Turks in Asia Minor, and partly because of the changes which took place in Byzantine life during the period of Crusades.

The time of troubles in the eleventh century (1056-81). The emperors of the time of troubles. As early as 1025, after the death of Basil II Bulgaroctonus, the Empire entered upon a period of troubles, frequent changes of accidental rulers, and the beginning of a general decline. Empress Zoë, as we saw, succeeded in raising each of her three husbands to the throne. In the year 1056, with the death of Empress Theodora, Zoë's sister, the Macedonian dynasty was definitely extinguished. A period of troubles set in and lasted for twenty-five years (1056-81). It ended only with the accession of Alexius Comnenus, the founder of the famous dynasty of the Comneni.

This period, characterized externally by frequent changes on

A

the throne, which was occupied for the most part by incapable emperors, was a very significant period in the history of the Byzantine Empire; for during these twenty-five years it developed those conditions in the Byzantine Empire which later called forth the Crusade movements in the West.

During this period the external enemies of the Byzantine Em/ pire exerted pressure on all sides: the Normans were active in the west, the Patzinaks and Uzes in the north, and the Seljuq Turks in the east. In the end the territory of the Byzantine Empire was considerably reduced.

Another distinguishing feature of this period was the struggle waged by the military element and the large landowning nobility (especially that of Asia Minor) against the central bureaucratic government. This struggle between the provinces and the capital ended, after a number of fluctuations, in the victory of the army and the landowners, which was a victory of the provinces over the capital. Alexius Comnenus was at the head of the victorious side. All the Emperors of the period of troubles of the eleventh century were Greeks by origin.

In the year 1056 the aged Empress Theodora was compelled by the court party to select as her successor the aged patrician, Michael Stratioticus. Theodora died soon after her choice had been made, and Michael VI Stratioticus, the candidate of the court party, remained on the throne for about a year (1056-57). Against him formed an opposition headed by the army of Asia Minor, which proclaimed as emperor their general, Isaac Comnenus, a representative of a large landowning family famous for his struggle with the Turks. This was the first victory of the military party over the central government during the period of troubles. Michael Stratioticus was forced to abdicate and spend the remainder of his days as a private individual.

This victory of the military party was short lived. Isaac Comnenus ruled only from 1057 to 1059, and then renounced the throne and took holy orders. The reasons for his abdication are still not very clear. It may be that Isaac Comnenus was a victim of skilful plotting on the part of those who were dissatisfied with his independent active rule. It is known that he considered the interests of