The lower aristocracy

he second group of aristocrats consisted of small landowners or citizens who possessed a small freehold and who might sometimes hold some minor office in the provinces. However, a characteristic of this second group was the great difference in the economic and political power of its members, a fact that has often led researchers to question their status as members of the aristocracy.

The lower aristocracy was characterised by the possession of precarious and limited political and economic power. Moreover, during the 13th and 14th centuries, the great landowners and the monasteries exerted immense pressure on them, using financial blackmail in their effort to appropriate for themselves the property of this group. There are also indications that a considerable number of small holders, in Asia Minor especially, who were also classed among this second group, were soldiers. Their inclusion in the aristocracy, a classification which continues to be questioned, ended around the middle of the 14th century, when Asia Minor was definitively lost for the Byzantine Empire and the property of these soldiers was lost with it.