Wealthy Byzantine landowners who can afford the best quality weapons and armour.
Contact with western European knights forced the Empire to equip their cavalry with heavier armour and stronger horses. To implement such a reform, the Emperor gave nobles larger tracts of land to farm (pronoiae), like those that the Scholarii had received. This system started to resemble the western European concept of feudalism. Pronoiars had the right to recruit armed squires with the obligation to join the Imperial armies in a time of danger. Some Pronoiars owned huge amounts of land and could afford large private armies, which sometimes fought against the Empire itself.