Category: Glossary of Byzantine Terms

Fatimids: Shiite dynasty based in Cairo from the later tenth century; their dominions included no...

The name of several officials, the most important being the eparch of the City, the civil governo...

Khazars: Turkic-speaking people who were the major power in the Black Sea steppes, with centres o...

Confraternity: A group of laymen, clerics, and monks linked to monasteries and formed to honor pa...

Circus factions: associations that staged circus games; fervent supporters’ associations of one o...

Stratiotes: A soldier; by derivation from the 10th century a holder of “military” land, subject t...

Uzes:A branch of the Oghuz confederation of Turkic-speaking peoples; ousted the Pechenegs from th...

Kommerkiarioi: Fiscal officials responsible for state-supervised commerce and the taxes thereon. ...

Diadem: originally a head-band, then imperial Roman symbol of majesty from the fourth century on;...

Aktemon: A peasant with no property, no oxen or plough.

Thema: A “theme,” from the early 9th century the technical term for the district across which sol...

Danishmend: Turkoman dynasty that ruled over Cappadocia, Sebasteia and Melitene from late elevent...

Davidic of or pertaining to David, king of Israel, or to his family

Iconoclasm: Rejection of the honoring of sacred images as a form of idolatry. Condemned as a here...

Dioiketes: Fiscal administrator responsible for the land-tax, usually in a single diocese, from t...

Monothelitism: (from monos and thelein ‘to will’) doctrine recognising the existence of one ‘will...

Normans: people from north-west France, originally of Scandinavian origin; in the eleventh centur...

A Germanic people living in the northern Balkans and Pannonia, who migrated to Italy in the later...

Caesaropapism: system whereby the monarch exercised unfettered control over the church in his dom...