We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 January 2025
How the Byzantines conceived of taxation, confiscation and the administration of public resources reflects the way they imagined the constitution of their polity and, in particular, the positions of the emperor and the people within it. In less abstract terms, these ideas also help explain imperial choices that shaped the society and the economy. The question of the emperor's relation to public wealth has usually been treated in the context of examining the ruler's position within the polity, notably by Hans-Georg Beck, Paul Magdalino and Anthony Kaldellis. This scholarship and the present chapter show that there existed among the Byzantines, including the emperor and his panegyrists, a consensus that the public resources, ta dēmosia or ta koina, while under the ruler's control, were not his property but, as their name indicated, that of all the people. The emperor was expected to administrate this wealth in the interests of the commonwealth (to koinon). Numerous texts can be invoked in support of this schema. One of the clearest statements is provided by a definition of the term basileia in the tenth-century Souda lexicon:
The empire (basileia) belongs to the things held in common (ta koina) but the fiscal resources (ta dēmosia) are not the possession of the emperor (basileia). Therefore, the forcible and violent collection of taxes should be hated as tyrannical immorality while the reasoned and benevolent tax demands should be honoured as guardianship.
Although this definition reproduces notions from earlier periods, its inclusion in the Souda lexicon demonstrates that an interest in these ideas existed in the Middle Ages and suggests they were widely accepted. These shared concepts authorised all people to have an opinion regarding the management of the dēmosia and to criticise the emperor's fiscal policies. Indeed, there are a great number of statements regarding these matters in texts from the centuries discussed here, in particular historical works, speeches for the emperor, laws and official documents, and private letters. Using this material, this chapter attempts to identify the principal Byzantine ideas concerning taxation, confiscation and the use of public resources, topics that, overall, remain little studied.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
