Summary
Georgios Chr. Charizanis,
Settlements of people in Thrace during the Byzantine centuries
The purpose of this paper is to present the settlements of people (foreigners or citizens of the Byzantine empire) that have taken place during the byzantine centuries in the area of Thrace.
By the term Thrace, we mean during the early byzantine period, except for the province of Thrace, the extended region of dioecesis Thraciae, the borders of which were from the Aegean sea to the Danube river. Later from the 2nd half of the 7th c., the thema of Thrace was organised (680-687) from the south of the Haemus mountains (nowadays Stara Planina) to Constantinople. As a matter of fact, the thema of Thrace was split and other themata were formed.
The mission of the Byzantine empire was the preservation and the maintenance of the borders inherited from the Roman imperium. Furthermore, a stable policy of settlements of people in its regions followed with specific goals: the demographic density of population, the agricultural and economic policy of cultivation of deserted lands and the collection of taxes, the state security and defense, the internal social order and the religious peace.
During the centuries, people that were hostile to Byzantium made from time to time invasions, plundered or conquered its regions. They sometimes settled permanently in its lands, either taking advantage of the weakness or the tolerance of the Byzantine state, or after an agreement (foedus) with the Byzantine emperor. People having settled in the extended region of Thrace were the Goths (4th c.), the Huns (5th c.), the Slavs (7th c.), the Bulgarians (last quarter of the 7th c.), who established their own state (681), the Petchenegs or Patzinacs (in the middle of the 11th c.) and finally the Ottoman Turks (after the middle of the 14th c.).
Except for the settlement of foreigners, obligatory settlements of people, who were citizens of the Byzantine empire or came from its boundary regions, were made in Thrace from time to time for various reasons by decisions of the central government. Such people were the Isaurians (end of the 5th c.), the hereticals monophysites Syrians and Armenians, from the east borders of the Byzantine empire (8th and beginning of 9th c.), the Manichaeans (Paulicians), also from the east provinces of the Byzantine empire, who settled in the region of Philippopolis (nowadays Plovdiv) (2nd half of the 10th c.), as well as Bulgarians from the state of czar Samuel or other populations from Macedonia and Thessaly, who were settled in the region of Voleron, nowadays the Greek Western Thrace (1st quarter of the 11th c.).
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