On The Bureaucracy Of Early Byzantine Empire

The monarchy has remained as the core of the Byzantine Empire from330years-1453years. A huge bureaucracy was necessarily formed to strengthen the autocraticmonarchy and served as a tool to manage the internal affairs so as to protect thecountry survive. The formation of the bureaucracy was a long process.The ByzantineEmpire learned from the reform spirit of Diocletian in late Roman Empire， andimplemented a lot of measures and reforms since the government of Constantine theGreat which laid the foundation of the centralized system and the bureaucracy. Afterconstant improvement from4th to7th centuries, the imperial bureaucracy wasestablished and perfected.This paper contains four parts, the first part discusses the formation of theByzantine Empire bureaucracy based on its political institution, including thefoundation, the establishment of autocratic imperial and the tax control of the empireand his officials which had provided powerful political base and strong economic base.Secondly,it elaborates the early Byzantine bureaucratic system.On the one hand, theByzantine Empire’s system of government in the early stage according to the setting ofcentral and local government,and power fight both of them. On the other hand, itintroduces the special points of the Byzantine Empire bureaucracy in respect ofreligious which is that the Christianity had become the instrument of central power andthe church had been a part of the national organization.The third part,it introduced thebureaucratic management system in four aspects, namely the rank and privileges ofofficers, officials selection system, Clerical regime and laws，and supervisory system.The fourth part,it summarizes the characteristics of early Byzantine bureaucracy, andanalyzes the influence of the early Byzantine bureaucracy, one the on hand, how didthis bureaucracy strengthen the central power and helps to control,stabilize thegovernment;On the other hand,it caused huge administrative expenses and officialcorruption problems.Although there were many weakness and contradictory problems in the earlyByzantine bureaucracy, it had strongly promoted the Roman-Byzantine transformation and help Byzantine empire left a brilliant legacy behind. Therefore, on the view ofmacroscopic, the early Byzantine bureaucratic system is significant.