Vasilief, A History of the Byzantine Empire

The Empire of Nicaea (1204-1261)

Byzantine feudalism 

Page 5

For a considerable time, as far as the fragmentary and obscure evidence shows, apparently no specific term was generally accepted in Byzantium to designate imperial grants, except possibly the term kharistikion; this word has not yet been studied from this particular aspect, so its use may be given only as an hypothesis, although a very plausible one. A special term to designate imperial grants made its appearance in Byzantine sources in the eleventh century; it was a term which was formerly used as an alternative for kharistikion, but which later began to be employed specifically in the sense of imperial grant. This term was pronoia.

Some scholars have incorrectly derived this word from the German word Frohne (socage, compulsory service); since they discovered it in Serbian documents before they learned it from Byzantine sources, they even believed that the Serbians borrowed it when they were still neighbors of the Goths. It goes without saying that pronoia is a Greek word meaning forethought, care in the Christian sense, providence. Of course the word pronoia after receiving the special meaning of imperial grant did not lose its original sense, so that in a later period which cannot be exactly dated, Byzantine documents contain both meanings; similarly in the west the feudal term beneficium failed to overcome the original use of this word as favor, benefit. The man who asked for and received a monastery as a grant (kharistikion) pledged himself to take care of it, i.e. in Greek to take pronoia of it. Therefore the man who received such a grant was sometimes called not only kharistikarios but also pronoetes, i.e. provider. In the course of time the granted estate itself began to be called pronoia.

According to Th. Uspensky, in Byzantium the term pronoia means a grant to the office-holding class of populated lands or other revenue-yielding property as a reward for service done and on condition of discharging a certain service from the grant. Military service was especially meant. The pronoia was not an hereditary property held unconditionally; the possessor of a pronoia could neither sell, bequeath, nor give away the granted land. In other words, the pronoia is identified with those military lands which go back to the period of the pagan Roman Empire. The pronoia was granted either by the emperors themselves or in their name by their ministers.

As early as the tenth century, there is evidence of the word pronoia used in the sense of a land grant on condition of military service. Complete certainty on the special meaning of pronoia from documents begins only with the second half of the eleventh century. This circumstance in no way proves that this meaning of pronoia could not have existed earlier. Further publication of earlier documents and a study of the published sources from this specific angle may establish the special meaning of pronoia for the period previous to the eleventh century. In the epoch of the Comneni the system of granting pronoias was already a common thing.

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Reference address : https://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/vasilief/feudalism.asp?pg=5