Un confesseur de mauvaise foi Notes sur les exactions financières de l’empereur Léon III en Italie du Sud

This paper discusses the (in)famous passage of ­Theophanes’ Chronographia dedicated to the fiscal policy of Emperor Leo III in Southern Italy, focusing on the vexata quaestio of the global or partial increase of the taxes demanded from Sicily and Calabria. Having examined both the chronology of the measures and previous theories that have been put forward to explain this passage, highlighting their limitations and/or incompatibility with what we know of the Byzantine tax system, the author proposes a new hypothesis, stressing the administrative ­consequences of Leo ­III’s simultaneous monetary reform. The alleged increase of the tax burden was nothing more than the result of paperwork, as the same taxes were simply labelled in a new currency of lesser value, hence leading to a nominal increase in the dues.