The Paramonai were an obscure Byzantine

Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

 guard regiment of the Palaiologan period.

The name derives from the Greek verb παραμένω meaning "to stand near something". Unlike other major guard units in the Palaiologan army

Palaiologan army

The Palaiologan army refers to the military forces of the Byzantine Empire from the late thirteenth century to its final collapse in the mid fifteenth century, under the House of the Palaiologoi. The army was a direct continuation of the forces of the Nicaean army, which itself was a fractured...

 like the Varangian Guard

Varangian Guard

The Varangian Guard was an elite unit of the Byzantine Army in 10th to the 14th centuries, whose members served as personal bodyguards of the Byzantine Emperors....

, the regiment of the Paramonai was a native Byzantine

Byzantine Greeks

Byzantine Greeks or Byzantines is a conventional term used by modern historians to refer to the medieval Greek or Hellenised citizens of the Byzantine Empire, centered mainly in Constantinople, the southern Balkans, the Greek islands, Asia Minor , Cyprus and the large urban centres of the Near East...

 formation, although little else is known about it. Its existence is safely attested in the literary sources only for the period from 1272 until 1315. They are still mentioned by the mid-14th century writer Pseudo-Kodinos, however, who records that the regiment had two divisions, one on foot and the other on horse, each commanded by an allagator

Allagion

The allagion was a Byzantine military term designating a military unit. It first appeared in the mid-to-late 10th century, and by the 13th century had become the most frequent term used for the Byzantine army's standing regiments, persisting until the late 14th century.-Origin of the term:The term...

, and that all the soldiers were armed with swords

Sword

A sword is a bladed weapon used primarily for cutting or thrusting. The precise definition of the term varies with the historical epoch or the geographical region under consideration...

. The veracity of Kodinos's account is impossible to ascertain.