Officers: prévôtés, bailiwicks, seneschals · The Byzantine Empire (the Empire of the Romans) · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Thracian governors

By 1200 the old themes of Thrace and Macedonia have broken up into small fiscal districts named after their towns, each under a governor appointed from the capital who commanded the garrisons and saw to the taxes, which were often farmed out.

The chrysobull for Venice of November 1198 lists in Thrace the province of Thrace and Macedonia, the estate district of Choirobakchoi, Selymbria, Tzouroulos with Theodoropolis, Mesene, Arkadiopolis with Bulgarophygon, the province of the Chersonese (Gallipoli), the province of Adrianople and Didymoteichon, the province of Brachialion and the province of Philippopolis. The partition treaty of 1204 adds the units of the Black Sea and Marmara coasts (Medeia, Agathopolis, Bizye, Herakleia, Rhaidestos and Panion, Ganos, Myriophyton and Peristasis, Apros, Vrysis, Pamphylon, Kypsela, Bera, Ainos, Trajanopolis and Makri, Rousion) and the Chersonese towns. Holders of pronoia, the monasteries and the great families held villages inside these districts.

No governor's name survives for any Thracian district on 1 January 1200 except Branas's for the Tzouroulos district in April 1199; the governors of Mosynopolis and the Boleron faced Ivanko's revolt that winter. Philippopolis, with the Rhodopes, is drawn by bul; the land west of the Nestos by mac.

Who he is

Name
not pinned for 1 January 1200 (the one named governor of 1199, Theodore Branas, is Theodore Branas)
Title
Governors (doux or praitor) and tax officers (praktor) of the districts (provinces, episkepseis) of Thrace
Since
appointed by the emperor, often for short terms
Born
-
Family
-
Confidence
low

District names from the Venetian chrysobull of 1198 and the Partitio of 1204 (which reflects the registers of about 1203); governors from Choniates.

Overlord

The emperor, through the logothete of the sekreta and the treasury bureaux.

What it holds

  • Adrianople and Didymoteichon (province; 1198)
  • Mosynopolis and the Boleron with Xantheia and Peritheorion (in revolt or wavering that winter)
  • The lower Hebros: Kypsela, Ainos, Bera, Trajanopolis, Makri and Rousion (Partitio)
  • The Chersonese: Gallipoli, Madytos and the Hexamilion (province; 1198)
  • Brachialion and the Ganos coast: Ganos, Myriophyton, Peristasis, with Apros inland (1198 and Partitio)
  • The Marmara coast: Herakleia, Rhaidestos and Panion (Partitio)
  • Selymbria (1198)
  • Arkadiopolis and Bulgarophygon, with Vrysis and Chariopolis (1198 and Partitio)
  • Bizye with Medeia and Agathopolis on the Black Sea (Partitio, the emperor's own share in 1204)
  • The Black Sea ports of the Gulf of Burgas: Sozopolis, Anchialos, Mesembria and Develtos
  • Varna, beyond the Haemus

How it was acquired

Imperial appointment.

Allies and rivals

They answer to the emperor; their enemies are Ivanko, Kaloyan's Vlachs and Cumans, and, at sea, corsairs.

How things stand that morning

The districts nearer the capital and the coasts are firmly held. The Boleron plain is in revolt or wavering after Ivanko's capture of Kamytzes late in 1199 (Choniates: the towns and forts from Mosynopolis to Xantheia, toward Pangaion and as far as Abdera rose against the Romans); the northern districts (Adrianople, Bizye, Arkadiopolis, Vrysis, the Gulf of Burgas) face Cuman and Vlach raids across the Haemus, the last dated in April 1199.

Wealth

The land tax and the dues of the Thracian plain, grain, wine, livestock, salt at Anchialos, the tolls of the coast towns.

Military

Town garrisons and district levies; Latin mercenaries at Varna by 1201; troops from Bizye fought the Cuman raiders of April 1199.

Threats

  • Ivanko's revolt in the Boleron
  • Cuman and Vlach raids
  • Kaloyan's siege of Konstanteia and Varna (March 1201)

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

  1. spring to summer 1200The emperor's campaign and Ivanko's seizure bring the Boleron towns back under imperial governors; John Spyridonakes is later made governor of Smolena.Depends on: Ivanko's capture. Stopped by: Ivanko holding out with Bulgarian help.
  2. 1 September 1200 to 31 August 1201Vlachs and Cumans ravage the best lands of Thrace up toward the capital.Depends on: the Bulgarian war continuing. Stopped by: a peace with Kaloyan.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: The district names are solid (1198, 1204); their bounds and their governors on 1 January 1200 are not.

On the map: Each district is drawn from its towns; the lines between them are estimates. The capital's own suburbs are Constantinople, Choirobakchoi is Alexios III, and the Tzouroulos district is Theodore Branas.

Primary sources for Byzantium

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

  • Chronicle of Alberic of Trois-Fontaines, Alberic of Trois-Fontaines (about 1227 to 1241, at the Cistercian abbey of Trois-Fontaines in Champagne). The widest net of any Latin chronicle for 1200, compiled from dozens of sources, many now lost. Read online
  • History of Niketas Choniates, Niketas Choniates (about 1185 to 1217, in stages, with a final revision in exile at Nicaea after 1204). The central narrative for the Byzantine Empire under Alexios III Angelos: the Bulgarian and Vlach war under Kaloyan, the breakaway of Ivanko in the Rhodopes and his capture by treachery in 1200, Dobromir Chrysos at Prosek and Strumica and the emperor's campaign and settlement with him, the Cuman raids into Thrace, John Komnenos the Fat's one-day revolt at Constantinople on 31 July 1200, the loosening of imperial control in the provinces and the rise of Leo Sgouros, and the court's fiscal abuses. Read online
  • The Capture of Constantinople, Gunther of Pairis (about 1205 to 1210). Written at the Cistercian abbey of Pairis in Alsace from the account of its abbot Martin, who preached the crusade at Basel in 1200 (Gunther gives the sermon) and led a contingent from the Upper Rhine. Read online
  • The Conquest of Constantinople, Robert de Clari, knight of Picardy (about 1205 to 1216). A rank-and-file crusader's account that begins with the preaching of the crusade and the taking of the cross in 1199 to 1200 by the counts of Flanders, Blois and Champagne and by the Picard lords, among them Peter of Amiens, Robert's own lord, then the negotiations with Venice. Read online
  • The Palace Revolution of John Komnenos (31 July 1200), Nicholas Mesarites (1200 or soon after). An eyewitness narrative of the one-day coup of John Komnenos the Fat at Constantinople on 31 July 1200: the crowning of the usurper in Hagia Sophia, the mob's plunder of the Great Palace, the stand of the palace clergy and the guard at the church of the Virgin of the Pharos, where Mesarites was skeuophylax, and the recovery of the palace by Alexios III's men that night. Read online
  • History of the doges of Venice (about 1229, with a continuation). The earliest surviving Venetian narrative close to the events. Read online
  • The Conquest of Constantinople (Villehardouin), Geoffrey of Villehardouin (about 1207 to 1213). Opens with the preaching of Fulk of Neuilly and the tournament at Ecry (28 November 1199) where Theobald III of Champagne and Louis of Blois took the cross, then the taking of the cross by Baldwin of Flanders, Hugh of Saint-Pol, Geoffrey of Perche and others through early 1200, the assemblies at Soissons and Compiegne in 1200, and the six envoys sent to Venice in the winter of 1200 to 1201. Read online
  • The History of the Seljuks of Rum, Ibn Bibi (Nasir al-Din Husayn ibn Muhammad) (about 1281 to 1285, at Konya). The main Seljuk narrative for Rum begins with Kilij Arslan II's partition of the sultanate among his sons and his death (1192), Kaykhusraw I's first reign at Konya, his deposition in 1196 to 1197 by Rukn al-Din Sulayman II, Kaykhusraw's wanderings to Cilician Armenia, Aleppo and Constantinople, Sulayman's reduction of his brothers' towns (Tokat, Malatya, Amasya, and Ankara by 1204) and his Erzurum and Georgian campaigns. Read online

7 more in the sources library for The Balkans and Byzantium.

Sources and studies

  1. Niketas Choniates, History (Historia), trans. H. J. Magoulias, O City of Byzantium: Annals of Niketas Choniates (Detroit 1984), the reign of Alexios III, book pages 249-296 (full text read through the archive.org search of the scan)
  2. Tafel and Thomas, Urkunden I (1856): the chrysobull of Alexios III for Venice, November 1198, with its list of provinces
  3. Wikipedia: Partitio terrarum imperii Romaniae

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.