were essentially regular soldiers paid directly from the state treasury, but having foreign origins or ancestry. Another unit was the tourkopouloi ("sons of Turks"), which, as its name implies, was composed of Byzantinised Turks and mercenaries recruited from the Seljuk Sultanate. A third was the skythikon recruited from the Turkic Pechenegs, Cumans and Uzes of the Pontic Steppes. In order to increase the size of his army, Alexios I even recruited 3,000 Paulicians from Philippopolis and formed them into the "Tagma of the Manichaeans", while 7,000 Turks were also hired. Foreign mercenaries and the soldiers provided by imperial vassals (such as the Serbs and Antiochenes), serving under their own leaders, were another feature of the Byzantine army of the time. These troops would usually be placed under a Byzantine general as part of his command, to be brigaded with other troops of a similar fighting capability, or combined to create field forces of mixed type. However, if the foreign contingent were particularly large and its leader a powerful and prominent figure then it might remain separate; Baldwin of Antioch commanded a major division, composed of Westerners (Antiochenes, Hungarians and other 'Latins'), of the Byzantine army at the Battle of Myriokephalon. The Byzantines usually took care to mix ethnic groups within the formations making up a field army in order to minimize the risk of all the soldiers of a particular nationality changing sides or decamping to the rear during battle. During the early part of the 12th century, the Serbs were required to send 300 cavalry whenever the Byzantine emperor was campaigning in Anatolia. This number was increased after Manuel I defeated the Serb rebellion in 1150 to 2,000 Serbs for European campaigns and 500 Serbs for Anatolian campaigns. Towards the end of the Komnenian period Alan soldiers, undoubtedly cavalry, became an important element in Byzantine armies. It is notable that there was no major incident of mutiny or treachery involving foreign troops between 1081 and 1185. Armed followers of the aristocracy Though fief-holding as such did not exist in the Byzantine state, the concept of lordship pervaded society, with not only the provincial magnates but also state functionaries having authority over private citizens. The semi-feudal forces raised by the dynatoi or provincial magnates were a useful addition to the Byzantine army, and during the middle years of the reign of Alexios I probably made up the greater proportion of