When institutions, usually monasteries, received grants they were effectively in perpetuity since the institutions were ongoing. Grants were for a set period, usually lifetime, and revokable at will by the Emperor.

and the various rights to a specific piece of geography could be granted to separate individuals. These rights were most commonly taxes or incomes from cultivated lands, but they could also be other income streams such as water and fishing rights, customs collection, etc. Beginning in the 11th century and continuing until the empire's conquest in the 15th century, the system differed in significant ways from European feudalism of the same period.Ī pronoia was a grant that temporarily transferred imperial fiscal rights to an individual or institution.

The pronoia (plural pronoiai Greek: πρόνοια, meaning 'care' or 'forethought,' from πρό, 'before,' and νόος, 'mind') was a system of granting dedicated streams of state income to individuals and institutions in the late Byzantine Empire.

Pronoia meaning