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Reasons why rural landowners in LRE were able to protect coloni


prr

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I have always heard that farm workers fled to rural landowners from, say, 200s AD onward, in an effort to avoid tax collectors. Even Salvian (book 5) wrote about this phenomenon. Salvian even said that these rural landowners forced the peasants to sign over any land that they owned.

 

My question is--since I've also read that taxes had to be paid on land, if they were in arrears, when it was bought or sold--how could the rural landowners have avoided the exactions that plagued everyone else? Did they use legal methods (and if so, what) or was this simply a matter of brute force? Or is there some other factor I'm overlooking?

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Up to a certain point a larger exploitation brings economies of scale. It also meant that they could go to a monetary exchange level, which might well have become difficult or impossible for small farmers who'd have used exchanges in nature rather than commerce by cash. Since what interested the state the most was cash those small farmers were hit harder by tax collectors. Thus the move to the protector who became responsible for the cash taxes.

 

Also the large landowners were also the local autorities and could illegaly influe on the tax collector (bribes, etc.)

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OK, so it looks like a few different factors--illegal (bribery), as well as economies of scale, ability to pay in gold...

 

Well that gives some perspective on it.

 

Are there any classic passages that document this going on? Or is it just a matter of looking at legislation, as documenting that they must have been doing it (or else why pass a law against it)?

 

 

Up to a certain point a larger exploitation brings economies of scale. It also meant that they could go to a monetary exchange level, which might well have become difficult or impossible for small farmers who'd have used exchanges in nature rather than commerce by cash. Since what interested the state the most was cash those small farmers were hit harder by tax collectors. Thus the move to the protector who became responsible for the cash taxes.

 

Also the large landowners were also the local autorities and could illegaly influe on the tax collector (bribes, etc.)

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OK the 428 book is on request via library loan. Looks pretty interesting, from a preview on amazon (or was that google books?). Thanks for the reference.

 

I have no precise sources on had, but you may want to look at Giusto Traiana's book "428 : an ordinary day at the end of the Roman Empire". I don't know of Jean Noel Robert's book "La vie

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English is pretty much the only language I can read at length. I just got Rostovsteff's (sp?) book on social/economic conditions in the Roman empire, and I'm sure somewhere that would be of some help as well. I'll have to look through the index/TOC.

 

 

Also of interest, and probably much more thant Robert's book, is "La terre dans le monde romain : anthropologie, droit, g

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  • 2 weeks later...

So it appears that this protection was both legal and extra-legal institution. Occasionally it was a matter of bribing people who were powerful enough to ward off the tax collectors; other times it would involve selling one's land to someone who was more wealthy and powerful.

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