Jean de Cappadoce

Jean de Cappadoce (v. 490 - 548) was one of the principal Ministers for the Byzantine Emperor Justinien I {{er}}. Its reforms, led 531 to 541, go in the direction of the reinforcement of the imperial absolutism and the centralization of the Empire.

Born with Césarée from Cappadoce, it begins as scriniaire in the services from the Magister militum where it could show an advised adviser of Justinien in financial matters. It became then numérarius , chief of finances of the Magister militum then Préfet of the court of the East in 531.

Jean de Cappadoce was his power with his extraordinary capacity to solve the practical problems, in particular in the financial circle. Its distractions, coarse, consisted in spending the interminable hours to table; he also showed of ease and insolence towards his neighbors.

First prefecture (530-532)

Fight against the Administration

Supported by the Emperor, his government is marked by the fight against the abuses the civils servant, whose suffers the Byzantine Empire:

in 530, it into force gives the law prohibiting the civils servant from acquiring buildings in the provinces where they are in function, prohibition which is however relativized for the civils servant subordinates;

it also proscribes the donations with the governors and the former governors;

it also orders restrictions against the magistrates, in order to prevent the extortions, in particular by the reduction of the amount of the sportules that the justiciable ones must pour with all the stages of the legal procedure.

All these measurements attract the hatred of the civils servant to him, who estimate themselves tyrannized and injured; their complaints remaining dead letter, they proceed then to a passive resistance, opposing the inertia to the decrees of the Emperor.

Confronted with political enemies, it obtains from Justinien an ordinance according to which no minister can, in-outside him and Basileus, to translate Curiales or imperial civils servant into justice.

Financial policy

Another aspect of its policy relates to the reduction of the national expenditure: it reforms the administration of the Stations, with the detriment of the great landowners, as well as the army.

The military reform is characterized by two major elements:

it proceeds to the reform of the coemptio , mode of requisition whose laid out the imperial government to ensure the provisioning of the troops: the great landowners from now on are held to provide provisions to the army with proportion of the tax of which they are indebted, and when the government requires it. The historian Procope de Césarée, very critical with regard to Jean de Cappadoce, then writes in his Anekdota that “it results from it that all the owners of fields are bled with white… they are constrained to less pay their annual steps than ten times”;

it obliges the limitanei , country soldiers installed at the borders of the Empire, to give up their balances, under penalty of seeing itself confiscating their grounds.

Its method consists in evaluating the real needs on the basis of what exists, without trusting with the states of old manpower. Its operations managers are all the more dedicated as it receive it twelfth of the savings made on the national budget.

It also takes intended measures to increase the tax output, preserving the farming community however: increase in the customs duties, creation of tolls, increase in the rights of export, creation of the aerikon , tax which remains until the end of the Empire. This last tax, already provided for by a regulation of 478 but ever applied, aims at sanctioning the prohibition made with constructions comprise projecting members (balconies, terraces) too encroaching on the public highway; police chiefs, called logothètes , are sent in the cities and often make demolish the buildings which are not in rule.

Loan with very to ensure the output of the tax, it does not hesitate to make torture the most powerful debtors of the tax department but day before so that no injustice is made: one of its agents, Jean Maxilloplumacius, is thus punished to have ruined several cities of the Hellespont.

In January 532, the Sédition Nika obliges Justinien to dislocate Jean de Cappadoce of his functions and to replace it by Phocas.

Second prefecture (531-541)

In November 531, Jean is restored in his old functions and this second prefecture is marked by great administrative reforms. These reforms imply, as a whole, a hostility subjacent against the leading classes:

on April 15th 535, it makes publish by Justinien “novelle against the venality of the loads”, prohibiting to the magistrates and to the governors to buy their loads. He also issues that the amount of the taxes which must be versed with the administrations charged to carry out the nominations will be fixed by the Emperor. He also removes the load of vicar, interposed between the prefect of the Court and the governors of provinces and redefines the obligations of the governors;

it defends the peasants owners against the encroachment of the great landowners while prohibiting the latter from acquiring new grounds in the rural communes.

In 538, it attacks the Monophysites of Egypt and makes close their churches and, in 541, extends the law against the heretics to them in their prohibiting to exert any public office like transmitting their goods by succession. It profits, at this same time, to reform the administration and the diocese Egyptians and puts an end about it to the administrative unit of this area, reinforcing the authority of the patriarch.

The number of laws enacted or restored under the government of Jean de Cappadoce make the size of the legal building of Justinien: these laws give the indication of an organized State, of which focntionnement is regulated by laws complex and composed carefully; but it must also fight so that they are applied and so that the authority of the Emperor is respected.

In 537, Justinien however reproaches him for not having pushed back without hesitation the claims of the heretics, probably giving faith to the charges of paganism carried against him. He answers the Emperor then: “We are surprised of what your wisdom listened to their reasons and which you would not have hastened to punish them”.

In 540 - 541, it accomplishes a long voyage in the East, where it is acclaimed by the popular masses, which thank it for measurements that it took against the powerful ones, which presents it like a dangerous rival for Justinien.

Fall

Jean de Cappadoce is hated by the empress Théodora, whom it mistakes. This one obtains, in May 541, its reference by calling upon the participation of Jean in a plot intended to reverse Justinien: it is then relieved of its ministry, is stripped its goods and constrained to yield its palate to Bélisaire.

It is then exiled with Cyzique; in 542, it is (wrongfully?) shown assassination of the bishop local and exiled in Egypt where he dies, in 548.

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