Although correct legal title was necessary for the foundation of monastic houses and their subsequent endowment with lands and mobilisation of lay supporters, it could not, by itself guarantee them either prosperity or political independence. It is in these two respects that the greatest and most interesting variations may be seen in the landed power of the monasteries at this period. The evidence for the true state of houses and their land-holdings is patchy and varied, but a useful starting point for a retrospective survey of monastic affairs in the tenth century is a consideration of the imperial novels issued wholly or partly on the subject from the mid-century onwards: those of Nikephoros Phokas (964) and Basil II (996). It is now clear that a third, in the past attributed to John Tzimiskes or Basil II, was, in fact, an eleventh-century fabrication. Nikephoros' novel has the distinction of being the only imperial document of the period which deals exclusively with monastic affairs in general and with land-holding in particular. It marks a watershed between the often critical attitude of the emperors of the tenth century towards the growth of monastic estates and the lavish patronage of them by the emperors of the eleventh.

The theme of Nikephoros' novel is that of the incompatibility of wealth and the monastic life.