The highest court titles, despot (δεσποτης), sevastokrator (σεβαστοκρατωρ), and Kaisar (καισαρ), had very important roles in the Late Byzantune Empire. The holders of these titles, normally members of the imperial family, had considerable influences not only on the political scene, but also on the provincal administration as they were the highest position of its apparatus. On the administrative role of the title holders, many scholars have explained that it had the same character as the Western appanage, and that the administration did not depend on his their titles, but simply on that they were a member of the imperial family; their administration was basically private, since it had no foundation in the Byzantine theory of government. I make my examination, therefore, in comparison with that Byzantine administrative apparatus and office of the governor considering its continuity.
There are many cases which one and the same person had both the office of governor (κεψαλη) and the court title. In such cases, the administrator more often signed himself, or was mentioned by others, as the latter rather than the former in documentary sources. This custom indicates that that person tried to raise his authority by using the court title which indicated his higher social status. It was probably an omission of formality as well because there was no need to refer oneself as the lower class of the kephali. And the absence of that reference after the second half of the fourteenth century indicates that this formal omission became more prevalent.
Substantially, there is no difference in the administratorship before and after 1349, when the Emperor Ioannis VI Kandakouzinos (1347-54) appointed his relatives as the administrator of imperial territory. The administration of the despots was definitely different from that of the co-Emperor Matthaios Kandakouzinos (1353-57), whose authority involved real autonomy. Though their authority was rapidly enlarged, it was not established as private (except for the case of Thessaloniki in the first half of fifteenth century) or autonomous. They lacked their own diplomacy and the rights to inheritance. Especially in the Morea, from Manouil Kandakouzinos (1349-80), the first, to Dimitrios Palaiologos (1449-60), the last, all the despotai were apparently the imperial governers rather than the private landlords. Although the tendency of feudalization continuously developed in the imperial territory, these administrators did not originate from that tendency.

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