Pronoia System

The Pronoia system in the Byzantine Empire was a system where basically the Emperor granted land (income streams) to individuals and institutions. The Pronoiars were allowed to collect taxes from the people inheriting the land, but were allowed to keep a small part of the taxes to themselves. However, the Emperor was still the legal owner of the land.

What disadvantages and advantages did system have, particularly after 1170?

Thanks.
 
I can see things falling apart when significant amounts of land is lost and/or when there is internal pressure for the Emperor to go out and acquire more land to distribute out to his favourites etc.
 
Advantages: It apparently is an easy way to acquire a reasonable army.
Disadvantages: Every acre given away is money not going to the treasury.

That's what comes to mind offhand.

It's basically feudalism (in the aspect of "give land for military service") lite.
 
Advantages: It apparently is an easy way to acquire a reasonable army.
Disadvantages: Every acre given away is money not going to the treasury.

That's what comes to mind offhand.

It's basically feudalism (in the aspect of "give land for military service") lite.

Feudalism Lite? Isn't it basically feudalism in the full?
 
It's basically feudalism (in the aspect of "give land for military service") lite.

Except that the pronoiarios didn't actually own the land, they were merely being gifted a monopoly on the income produced by any resources, commerce, etc., from said plot of land. And the Emperor could undo such grants at any time, so the threat of revocation provided coercive power. It seems as long as the Emperor had the political capital to spend even the threat of losing such a valuable source of revenue would be a powerful tool in ensuring loyalty from the nobility.

It's certainly like feudalism, but I'd say there's fairly significant differences.
 
Except that the pronoiarios didn't actually own the land, they were merely being gifted a monopoly on the income produced by any resources, commerce, etc., from said plot of land. And the Emperor could undo such grants at any time, so the threat of revocation provided coercive power. It seems as long as the Emperor had the political capital to spend even the threat of losing such a valuable source of revenue would be a powerful tool in ensuring loyalty from the nobility.

It's certainly like feudalism, but I'd say there's fairly significant differences.

I agree, thus calling it "lite" - stripped to the bare minimum to count.

It's a theoretically temporary (not sure how often grants were revoked except for gross disloyalty sorts of reasons) and not hereditary grant of the income of the land in exchange for military service - none of the aspects that make feudalism and central power antithetical, except for drawing revenue away from the state.

I'd add: Because the Pronoiar only has the income, not the ownership, he has no legal authority - very different than how a fief grants one the right to govern as well as profit.
 
The Pronoia system in the Byzantine Empire was a system where basically the Emperor granted land (income streams) to individuals and institutions. The Pronoiars were allowed to collect taxes from the people inheriting the land, but were allowed to keep a small part of the taxes to themselves. However, the Emperor was still the legal owner of the land.
you mean feudalism?
 
I agree, thus calling it "lite" - stripped to the bare minimum to count.

It's a theoretically temporary (not sure how often grants were revoked except for gross disloyalty sorts of reasons) and not hereditary grant of the income of the land in exchange for military service - none of the aspects that make feudalism and central power antithetical, except for drawing revenue away from the state.

I'd add: Because the Pronoiar only has the income, not the ownership, he has no legal authority - very different than how a fief grants one the right to govern as well as profit.

Also the Emperor could/did grant pronoia to various individuals/institutions, not just for military reasons. So a university, for example, could be granted the right to all taxes on revenue generated from the city it's in. That's a fairly significant divergence from feudalism. I'd say it was a development running parallel to feudalism, that shared some features with it, but was different enough to be considered a different species of the same genus.
 
Also the Emperor could/did grant pronoia to various individuals/institutions, not just for military reasons. So a university, for example, could be granted the right to all taxes on revenue generated from the city it's in. That's a fairly significant divergence from feudalism. I'd say it was a development running parallel to feudalism, that shared some features with it, but was different enough to be considered a different species of the same genus.

Seems about right to me (underlined).
 
Sounds like it would have the disadvantages of tax farming. Any time you have folks with their hand in a revenue stream you want safeguards against them diverting much to their pocket, and relative ease in removing them.
 
Sounds like it would have the disadvantages of tax farming. Any time you have folks with their hand in a revenue stream you want safeguards against them diverting much to their pocket, and relative ease in removing them.

But, if the have all of the revenue stream, does it really matter? After all, it's not like they can skim off troops or military equipment the way they can skim off tax revenue.
 
Sounds like it would have the disadvantages of tax farming. Any time you have folks with their hand in a revenue stream you want safeguards against them diverting much to their pocket, and relative ease in removing them.

Well, tax farming, you get to keep what's left over after collecting taxes. Here, you just get the taxes.
 
Sounds like it would have the disadvantages of tax farming. Any time you have folks with their hand in a revenue stream you want safeguards against them diverting much to their pocket, and relative ease in removing them.

Except that's the entite point of the pronoia - the Emperor rewards his subjects with the entire revenue stream of a plot of land.

There are several downsides here, but tax farming isn't one of them.
 
Except that's the entite point of the pronoia - the Emperor rewards his subjects with the entire revenue stream of a plot of land.

There are several downsides here, but tax farming isn't one of them.

So the Pronoiar gets all the taxes from the land he has been granted?
 
So the Pronoiar gets all the taxes from the land he has been granted?

http://www.ime.gr/chronos/10/en/o/oa/oa3a.html

" It refers to the ceding of income belonging to the state, that is to the granting to an individual of the right to receive directly from a citizen whatever dues he would normally be obliged to pay to the state.
. . .

As regards the nature of the pronoia, it usually consisted of the concession of the income from cultivated lands together with the paroikoi established on the land in question, and it included not only the taxes but part of the income of the land as well. However, various fiscal rights of the state, unrelated to land, such as for instance customs dues, water rights and fishing rights, were also given as pronoiai. "

So it depends. I'd say as a generalization it means the land taxes but not other revenues.

http://www.ime.gr/chronos/10/en/o/oa/oa3b.html

Possession: (nome, katoche) the right of an individual to receive income from the cultivation of land without being its owner.
 
As a side note, a very similar system called timar existed in the Ottoman Empire till around mid nineteenth century IIRC. And the iqta' system used in many parts of Muslim Asia from late ninth century onwards also had a lot in common with this, basically assigning the income from a given land to a given individual, family or institution as a theoretically revokable government grant either as a reward or in exchange of service (usually military). I suppose the Ottomans developed timar from sort of a merger of iqta' and pronoia.
The fact a quite similar set of systems was in wide use over a significant chunk of Eurasia, regardless of local religion, for more or less a millennium hints at some very apparent advantage of such a thing.
To be honest, however, to my knowledge there is basically a very apparent downside in the form of political instability.
 
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