Emperor Leo III has undertaken a set of civil reforms, including the abolition of the system of prepaying taxes, which had weighed heavily upon the wealthier proprietors, the elevation of the serfs into a class of free tenants, and the remodeling of family, maritime law and criminal law, notably substituting mutilation for the death penalty in many cases.
The new measures, which are embodied in a new code called the Ecloga (Selection), published in 726, meet with some opposition on the part of the nobles and higher clergy.
The Emperor also undertakes some reorganization of the theme structure by creating new themata in the Aegean region.
After an apparently successful attempt to enforce the baptism of all Jews and Montanists in the Roman Empire (722), Leo begins in 726 to issue a series of edicts against the worship of images.
The origins and nature of the policy of Iconoclasm, the most singular religious development in Leo’s reign, are obscure and controversial.
Leo is deeply religious and seems to have become genuinely convinced of the sacrilegious character of religious pictures and relics as objects of veneration in worship services.
It is uncertain whether any boyhood experiences in northern Syria, including contact with Muslims, has influenced his Iconoclastic views, as his critics often charge.
The Iconoclastic opinions of certain bishops in western Asia Minor does, however, have some effect upon him.
Thus, he begins to speak out publicly in 726 against the use of sacred pictures, and orders the destruction of the image of Christ at the Chalke palace in Constantinople.
This prohibition of a custom that has been in use for centuries seems to have been inspired by a genuine desire to improve public morality, and receives the support of the official aristocracy and a section of the clergy.
A majority of the theologians and all the monks oppose these measures with uncompromising hostility, and in the western parts of the Empire the people refuse to obey the edict.
