Khosrow I
Administrative reforms

The hallmark of Khosrow's bureaucratic reform was the creation of a new social class. Before, the Sasanian Empire consisted of only three social classes, magi, nobles and peasants/commoners. Khosrow added a fourth class to this hierarchy between the nobles and the peasants, called the dehqans. The dehqans were small land owning citizens of the Sasanian Empire and were considered lower nobility.

Khosrow promoted honest government officials based on trust and honesty, rather than corrupt nobles and magi. The small landowning deghans were favored over the high nobles because they tended to be more trustworthy and owed their loyalty to the Shah for their position in the bureaucracy. The rise of deghans became the backbone of the empire because they now held the majority of land and positions in local and provincial administration.

The reduction of power of the great families improved the empire. This was because previously, each great family ruled a large chunk of land and had their own king. The name Shahanshah, meaning King of Kings, derived from the fact that there were many feudal kings in Sasanian Iran with the Shahanshah as the ruler of them all. Their fall meant their power was redirected to the central government and all taxes now went to the central government rather than to the local nobility.
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