Cappadocia, in central Turkey, is an unforgettable region. A land best known for its striking volcanic landscape pocked with underground cities and richly ornamented churches, Byzantine Cappadocia has long been considered a sparsely inhabited holy land of solitaries and monasteries. This is the first history of a vital area that elucidates key aspects of economy, faith and society along the frontier of the thousand-year Byzantine Empire. Drawing on extensive textual and archaeological evidence, this book reveals images of a dynamic landscape and a Christian society at whose apex lay a fluid body of aristocratic elites. The land over which they lorded was far more populous, diverse and economically vibrant than has been supposed and supported a caste of wealthy, intensely competitive landowners. The relics of settlements and beautifully decorated churches that they left behind obscure the frequent violence of frontier life, in which the landed aristocrats battled with one another, the Muslim Arabs, and even the emperor for power.