The Great "Restoration" of Husraw I

The author, in the light of the long historiographical debate that characterizes this subject, analyzes the famous economic and fiscal reform carried out by Husraw I. The reforms, which were necessary after the violent suppression of the Mazdakite movement, contributed to modify the rural landscape of the Sasanian empire with the instauration of a new taxation system, based on yearly average rates set on different kind of crops: wheat, barley, rice, grapes, trefoil and date palms or olive trees according to their number. The king also ordered to count the heads of those being liable for the poll tax, except for people from noble families, warriors, secretaries and Zoroastrian priests; the poll tax was not assessed on those below twenty or above fifty years of age. In order to prevent any abuse or injustice perpetrated by tax collectors, accurate fiscal registrations and close inspections in the villages were periodically done, through a complex mechanism of cross-checks. This tax reform actually brought much money in the royal treasuries. But since sources concerning such reforms are almost pertinent to the later Arab tradition, which absorbed the official Sasanian propaganda, one could reasonably doubt about their real truthfulness.