ABSTRACT
The evidence of church inscriptions and donor portraits regarding patronage of Middle Byzantine religious foundations in Greece points to two distinctive periods. During the Macedonian and the Doukas dynasties (867–1081) the patrons who supported the imperial ideology and policy of re-establishing Orthodoxy were ecclesiastical, military and administrative officials representing the emperor and/or the patriarch. During the reigns of the Komnenoi and the Angeloi (1081–1204), there is a shift in patronage from officials representing central authority to the local aristocratic class. The last part of the chapter focuses on a regional example, the Middle Byzantine Mani, which offers rich inscriptional evidence regarding local patronage.
