What if the Byzantine Empire never developed the semi-feudal Pronoia system? And how would you prevent the system from becoming an institution?
WI/AHC: No Pronoia
- Thread starter Mort the Reaper
- Start date
the entire point of the pronoia is that the Emperor rewards his subjects with the entire revenue strea of land.
its an evolution of the "themata system" and alexios wishes to kick the "now ussless roman aristoracy "
its not till Alexios' grandson Manuel continued to grant land to the aristocrats, but also extended pronoiai to aristocratic officers in the army, in place of giving them a regular salary. Pronoiai developed into essentially a license to tax the citizens who lived within the boundaries of the grant (the paroikoi)
So it gave the advatage that It was an easy way to acquire a reasonable army.
the Disadvantages that Every acre of land given away is money not going to the treasury.
the best way to not having implemented is surivival of the theme sytem.
its an evolution of the "themata system" and alexios wishes to kick the "now ussless roman aristoracy "
its not till Alexios' grandson Manuel continued to grant land to the aristocrats, but also extended pronoiai to aristocratic officers in the army, in place of giving them a regular salary. Pronoiai developed into essentially a license to tax the citizens who lived within the boundaries of the grant (the paroikoi)
So it gave the advatage that It was an easy way to acquire a reasonable army.
the Disadvantages that Every acre of land given away is money not going to the treasury.
the best way to not having implemented is surivival of the theme sytem.
It was meant to be a cost-saving solution for a cash-strapped empire. When Alexios I took the throne, the treasury was bankrupt, and the army was in shambles. He needed quick and easy cash to fix the revenue streams. This system worked because the Romans aristocrats all basically worked together realizing that they're infighting led them to be ejected out of Anatolia, land which was Roman since before the Empire was a thing. Plus Anatolia was also depopulated thanks to the migrations and the nobles buying up all the land and forcing the peasant farmers off of it.
Manuel was after all dealing with a huge problem in terms of his many wars costing the Empire lots of money. He also needed to make concessions to the aristocrats to try and secure the succession for his young son. Perhaps if he had a male issue earlier, then he would have been more confident about his position, and when he finally died the state was left in the hands of a well trained emperor.
To avoid the degradation of the theme system you have to go all the way back to the reign of Constantine VII. By the time of Basil II where the Empire was at its second height since Justinian and the Classical Era, the theme system was seen as outdated. The Emperor relied on a central standing army with theme commanders choosing to instead pay money instead of fielding less trained peasants that could be used to work the fields. It was during the Reign of Constantine VIIth that the power of the military aristrocracy started growing with them starting to by up lands in Anatolia.
Yeah pretty much alexios did not implement a great sytem but it's not like had many options