Rethinking the Role of the State: The Transformation of Byzantium, 11th–14th Centuries

Incredibly, historians of Byzantium have not taken seriously the impact of the state in shaping society, especially during the period under consideration. Over the past eighty years, most studies of Byzantine society, economy, and ideology have either ignored the state or given it only a secondary, defensive role. This is partly because administrative and legal history have been left to “the specialists” and partly because of the widespread belief that after the 11th century the central government grew weaker and lost control over society. My forthcoming book challenges both the methodological error of ignoring the state and the historical misconception of the weak emperor. It argues that the state is not only central for understanding social change but was actually responsible for the wholesale transformation of society in this period—a transformation that remains only partly understood. It was the state that created the vast new subordinate category of the “peasants”, encompassing almost the entire rural population. This was achieved through the official terminology that labelled them as paroikoi, through the way it taxed them and, most importantly, by treating the peasants as transferable property. Likewise, it was the state that created the new superior category of the “lords”, —the holders of official positions who received the peasants’ tribute as payment. These lords were less secure in their position and more dependent on the emperor than the middle Byzantine aristocracy hat came before them.