One of the foremost educational centres of the Greek-Orthodox of Asia Minor, an intellectual beacon whose radiance surpassed its strict geographical confines. Some of the most eminent scholars of the time, promoters of the intellectual movement of the Modern Greek Enlightenment, taught there.

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The Aeolian Colonisation spans an extensive period of time, from the end of the 12th to the late 9th c. BC. It included Aeolian peoples from Thessaly and certain areas of mainland Greece, as well as Achaeans from the Peloponnese. One of the first destinations was the island of Lesbos and subsequently the coasts of Asia Minor. The region of Aeolis also included the island of Tenedos as well as the coast of Asia Minor from the bay of Elaea in the north to the gulf of Smyrna in the south. The...

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The term akritai designates the inhabitants along the frontiers. In military treatises of the 10th and 11th century, «akritai» was a name for the army units responsible for guarding the frontier of the Byzantine Empire in Asia Minor; they could either belong to the regular army or be drawn from the civilian people along the border, and they were supported by the Byzantine administration, either financially or through the cession of arable land. The action of these «akritai» significantly...

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L’aristocratie micrasiatique de l’époque médiévale s’est forgée au cours des siècles de combats contre les Arabes. Les grandes lignées trouvent leur origine chez un officier de talent qui s’est illustré dans les combats. Elle a monopolisé jusqu’au XIe siècle les plus hauts postes de l’armée, ce qui explique son enrichissement lors de l’expansion byzantine et les ambitions impériales de ses chefs. L’échec des rébellions et l’invasion turque ont ôté la base foncière de cette aristocratie. Sous...

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