The Economic History of Byzantium - Dumbarton Oaks

1006 NICOLAS OIKONOMIDES
That was the situation to the time of Basil II. He attempted to increase the assets of
the state, introducing a new policy that was to remain in force until the end of the
Byzantine Empire. The state now tended to retain and work directly any productive
land that happened to come into its possession, whether as a klasma or in some other
way. In other words, until the tenth century the state sought to pass land on to its
subjects in order to collect the tax on it, whereas after that time it retained the land
and attempted to exploit it directly by leasing it to paroikoi. Under the new method,
there was undoubtedly an increase in the assets of the state, but the composition of
society in rural areas changed substantially as the number of dependent villagers ( paroikoi)
rose. In other words, there was a tendency for the economic benefits of the state
to be maximized to the detriment of the social structure of the provinces, as the state
turned to implementation of the same policy as that which the dynatoi, the large landowners,
were also applying. 84
In practical terms, it is impossible to draw a clear dividing line between the land
assets of the state and those of the crown. There is a general impression that the crown’s
property consisted largely of properly organized estates, whereas the state tended to
own scattered pieces of land, often within village communities. There are, however,
numerous exceptions to this general distinction, whose roots usually lie in the history
of the land. The principal characteristic was that the state demanded the payment at
least of tax on the land that belonged to it, while the crown’senterprises collected rent
(and, of course, did not pay tax to the state). In 1044, for instance, the klasma of Eucheia
was the object of a dispute between the state and the kouratorikion of Mangana,
with the former demanding the payment of tax and the latter of a pakton. When the
estate was granted to Nea Mone on Chios, the pakton of the kouratorikion was abolished,
since the land was now owned by the monastery, which, however, continued to pay tax
to the state. 85
Exploitation of the scattered pieces of land that came into the possession of the state
always took the form of leasing, usually with the collection by state officials of a pakton
from such neighbors as might be interested. In the case ofestates, however, such as
the episkepsis of Alopekai in 1073, the land was worked partly directly, by slaves and
animals belonging to the estate, and partly by leasing to villagers who owned smallholdings
in the area and who thus became the paroikoi of the estate. This system (that
of paktosis) seems to have prevailed, ultimately, because it was more profitable in that
it required less investment and offered no risks. However things may have been, the
management of these episkepseis was also open to entrepreneurs, who were entitled to
lease them but often ran into difficulty with the local aristocracy. 86 The crown estates
yielded revenue in cash and in kind.
Over and above the land traditionally owned by the crown, kouratoreiai and episkepseis
84 Cf. Lefort, “Rural Economy,” 281ff, 287ff.
85 Zepos, Jus, 1:616, 617.
86 M. Kaplan, Les hommes et la terre à Byzance du VIe au XIe siècle: Propriété et exploitation du sol (Paris,
1992), 323.