Discussion Pages

Exarchate: territorial and administrative unit commanded by an exarch; in modern usage, often the...

despot (despot ¯ es) ‘lord, master’: High imperial title in the Palaiologan period, generally res...

Vlachs: Romance-language-speaking pastoral inhabitants of eastern and south-eastern Europe, desce...

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

tribunus (s.), tribuni (pl.): term for indigenous local rulers in southern Italy, which fell out ...

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

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

A type of annuity administered by monasteries which provided (elderly) laity with a regular allot...

Zealots: strongly iconophile monks in the late eighth to tenth century; midfourteenth century gro...

Oikonomos: The financial officer of a large church monastery, responsible for the management of i...

Ecumenical councils: (from oikoumenikos, ‘worldwide’) conferences of the bishops of the whole chu...

Caesar: Title given to a junior emperor or – from the eleventh century onwards – to imperial rela...

Hexagram: Silver coin introduced by Heraclius, lit. “six grams,” 12 to a nomisma. Although issued...

Codex Justinianus: Codification of Roman law produced at the beginning of the reign of Justinian ...

Praetorian Prefecture: The largest administrative unit of the empire from the time of Constantine...

Psychika: Gifts made to monasteries in exchange for the monks’ commemoration of the donors and/or...

Augustus (m.), Augusta (f.) senior emperor within a group of coemperors, or within a single famil...

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

Ducat: Two types of coin from the duchy of Venice: (1) the thirteenthand early fourteenth-century...

Turkmen (Turkoman, Turcoman): Turkish nomadic tribesmen from Central Asia who streamed into Anato...