make reforms and restore the effectiveness of the army. The task he faced was truly herculean, as the politically weak emperors of the previous thirty years had fostered corruption and inefficiency, handing out titles and their attendant state salaries (rogai) in exchange for support. The devaluation of the coinage under Constantine IX had been a first reaction to the brewing crisis, but Isaac was the first emperor in this period who certainly faced a budget deficit. To fund his cherished army, Isaac was therefore obliged to begin strict economies: he reduced or abolished the rogai of those who had been awarded titles, enforced a stricter and more efficient collection of taxes, reclaimed misappropriated imperial estates, and cancelled grants of such lands and tax exemptions made under Constantine IX and Michael VI, particularly those that had been granted to monasteries and churches, using a law of Nikephoros II Phokas. Even though salaries of officials, especially members of the Senate, were cut, Isaac's efforts were enthusiastically received even among some senior members of the civil bureaucracy, judging by the comments of Psellos and Michael Attaleiates. Downfall of Keroularios The only point of criticism raised by Psellos is his haste and severity, judging that by a more gradual and judicious, step by step approach, he would have reaped greater success with far less opposition. Thus his appropriation of Church lands provoked the reaction of Michael Keroularios, with whom Isaac's relations had been steadily deteriorating. The Patriarch's role in Isaac's accession and his extensive new powers over the Church quickly went to his head. He is said to have admonished and berated the emperor, even going as far as threatening to destroy him "like an oven he had made". He is also alleged to have worn imperial purple boots, a privilege restricted to the emperor, and which may indicate, according to Kaldellis, that Keroularios was influenced by Papal theories and conceived of the secular and clerical powers as co-equal, a traditional Byzantine approach known as a symphonia. Finally, on 8 November 1058, while Keroularios was visiting a church outside the city walls, and hence was away from his supporters in the urban mob, Isaac sent the Varangian Guard to arrest him and take him to Prokonnesos, where he was placed under house arrest. Isaac applied considerable pressure on Keroularios to resign, but the latter steadfastly refused. In the end, the emperor decided to convene