Bishops collaborated with Muslim rulers by enforcing taxation on their own flocks

Evidence

Ostegesis, he says, extorts as much money as possible out of his flock so that he can live a life of drinking and debauchery in the caliph’s court. He ruthlessly draws up censuses of Christians in order to provide the emir with accurate tax rolls. He deals with recalcitrant taxpayers by flogging them, naked, through the streets. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 546

Categorization

• QUESTION: How routinely did subject-church hierarchies serve as tax-collection arms of conquerors across medieval Islamic, Ottoman, and colonial contexts? The instrumentality of religious hierarchy for imperial taxation is a comparative question worth chasing.