Vestiaritai

The '''''' (, ; , , ) were a corps of imperial bodyguards and fiscal officials in the Byzantine Empire, attested from the 11th to the 15th centuries.

==History and functions== The appear in the mid-11th century, with the first known , John Iberitzes, attested in 1049. As their name indicates, they had a connection to the imperial wardrobe and treasury, the , probably initially raised as a guard detachment for it. From circa 1080 on, they were formally distinguished into two groups: the "inner" or "household" ( or ), attached to the emperor's private treasury (the or ) under a , and the "outer" () under a , who were probably under the public or state treasury (). Gradually, they replaced various other groups of armed guards that the Byzantine emperors had employed inside Constantinople itself, such as the or the , and became the exclusive corps of the emperor's confidential agents. As the princess and historian Anna Komnene writes, they were the courtiers "closest" to the emperor. With the military crisis of the 1070s, they were also formed into a regular palace guard regiment, serving alongside the Varangian Guard in the Komnenian-era army.