Byzantine Empire II

  General Description   The phase of the Byzantine Empire from 867-1072 CE is commonly known as the Macedonian Dynasty (867-1056 CE), which the dates approximate. The Byzantine culture of the period was a military and aristocratic one with palaces serving "not only as imperial residences but also as administrative centres. They were placed prominently in the centre of cities and surpassed all other public buildings in scale and ostentation." ^[1]
In the previous period the Byzantines responded to the Arab conquests with the creation of themes, whose local commander governors could raise taxes, that enabled the Byzantine elites and their thematic armies to respond more rapidly to external threats with the result of less centralized control. In this era the powers of the themes were drawn back: the number of officials within the thematic administrations increased and by the end of the period the strategos, military governor, was replaced by a krites (judge). ^[2] In the early eleventh century Basil II brought in a professional army directed from Constantinople called the tagmata, which lead to the disappearance of the thematic armies. ^[3]
The professional Byzantine civil service and palace staff was "relatively small, and mostly composed of humble clerks or custodians", although there were some very rich bureaucrats and dignitaries. ^[4] In the 10th CE the most important official was the Grand Chamberlain, who worked in the Great Palace, and was especially influential during periods of regency or when the Emperor was on military campaign. ^[5]
A significant codification of Byzantine law occurred in this period when Leo VI (886-912 CE) in six volumes and sixty books (variously called the Exavivlos or the Vasilika (Basilika)) presented in the Greek language "virtually all the laws in the Justinian Corpus, arranged here (as it had not been before) in a systematic manner." ^[6] A resurgence of literature began, in the early ninth CE, after the Iconoclasm had motivated copying and reading of religious literature. Intellectuals began to receive government positions under "iconoclast emperors". Emperor Theophilus founded Magnaura Palace school, "the empire’s first known public school since the reign of Heraclius." ^[7]
The peak of Byzantine military power and international prestige was under Emperor Basil II who conquered the Bulgarian Empire and continued Byzantine expansion into Syria and Armenia. ^[8]

[1]: (Bakirtzis 2008, 374) E Jeffreys. J Haldon. R Cormack. eds. 2008. The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies. Oxford University Press. Oxford.

[2]: (Cheynet 2008, 522) E Jeffreys. J Haldon. R Cormack. eds. 2008. The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies. Oxford University Press. Oxford.

[3]: (Cheynet 2008, 521) E Jeffreys. J Haldon. R Cormack. eds. 2008. The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies. Oxford University Press. Oxford.

[4]: (Treadgold 1997, 552) Warren Treadgold. 1997. A History of the Byzantine State and Society. Stanford University Press. Stanford.

[5]: (Treadgold 1997, 550) Warren Treadgold. 1997. A History of the Byzantine State and Society. Stanford University Press. Stanford.

[6]: (Gregory 2010, 253-254) Timothy E Gregory. 2010. A History of Byzantium. Second Edition. Wiley-Blackwell. Chichester.

[7]: (Treadgold 1997, 559-561) Warren Treadgold. 1997. A History of the Byzantine State and Society. Stanford University Press. Stanford.

[8]: (Preiser-Kapeller 2015) Johannes Preiser-Kapeller. Institute for Medieval Research, Division of Byzantine Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences