In his "Untersuchungen zur spätbyzantinischen Verfassungs- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte", the German scholar Ernst Stein proposed that in the early 14th century, the "megas logothetēs" also exercised the functions of the former Eparch of Constantinople in overseeing the administration of the imperial capital, until Andronikos III Palaiologos (), seeking to secure his throne after winning the civil war of 1321–1328, assigned them to the . Stein's assumption relies on reading the "mesastikion" in the passage of Pseudo-Kodinos as a compound denoting the "Mese" boulevard (which Stein considered as the centre of the capital's administration) and the rest of the city, rather than relating it with the office of "mesazōn"; Stein's interpretation has been disproved by scholars such as Hans-Georg Beck and Léon-Pierre Raybaud.