Land Grant in Late Antiquity: a pattern for Modern Colonial Regulations?

AutorSimona Tarozzi
Páginas51-67
LAND GRANT IN LATE ANTIQUITY:
A PATTERN FOR MODERN COLONIAL REGULATIONS?
Simona Tarozzi
1. Introduction
Although modern colonialism is actually a contingent phenomenon whose
causes are determined by different factors and there is no doubt that the cir-
cumstances which arose the new colonialism in the 19th were not the same
of the roman colonate, it is undoubted that the modern colonialism reects
some roman concepts and in part resumes the meaning of the terms ‘colo-
nus as a tenant farmer and sharecropper, who paid back landowners with a
portion of their crops, in exchange for use of their farmlands. In the litera-
ture of the ending of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, the ‘colonus
was contracted to work for a xed time and sometimes on imperial lands. He
could have never obtained the ownership of the cultivated lot. According to
Savigny,1 the colonate could have three origins: a man could become a colo-
nus by birth, by contract or by spending a long number of years as a tenant on
the same land. He also added punishment as another possibility. One three
sources of colonate appearance seen by Fustel de Coulange2 was that free col-
onists (coloni) who contracted to work for ve years were reduced by debt
and overdue rent to serfs bound to the land and its owner. Saumagne,3 in his
study dated 1937, considered that two types of coloni existed at the time of
the Principate: coloni and inquilini. This idea was primarily based on the in-
scription from Henchir Metich in North Africa, that shows that both, a) coloni
who had villae dominicae and who were in fundo and b) those who were ul-
tra fundo, inquilini in Saumagne’s opinion worked on lands belonging to the
emperor. Both terms were retained in the later Roman empire: the colonus
of the earlier period became the adscripticius or tributarius after Diocletian.4
1 Savigny 1850, p. 1 ff.
2 Fustel de Coulanges 1885, p. 35 ff.
3 Saumagne, 1937, p. 487 ff.
4 The problem of the late Roman colonate has been debated since the seventeenth
century, but this topic does not interest my paper’s object. In a few words, the question is
when, how and why the colonus of the Principate, a voluntary tenant of land, free to move
when his lease expired, became the colonus of the later empire, a serf tied to the land by
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SIMONA TAROZZI
52
Saumagne designated the rst as colonus, while the former inquilinus took on
the meaning originally held by the colonus and is also given the designation
colonus.
The use of symbols and terms which refer to the Roman empire and other
ancient societies is typical for modern empires. For its territorial expansion
and its approximately twelve centuries of existence, the Roman empire was a
great model from whom it was possible to draw inspiration.
The Chilean experience is especially interesting because Andres Bello,
mainly responsible for the Chilean Civil Code, promulgated in 1855, was sent
to London in 1810 (with Simón Bolívar) on a political mission for the Vene-
zuelan revolutionary junta and he elected to stay there for 19 years, acting as
secretary to the legations of Chile and Colombia and spending his free time in
study, teaching, and journalism.
The Chilean Civil Code is of clear neoclassic inspiration and had the same
inuence throughout South America as that of Code Napoléon had in Europe.
Each institution is introduced through an axiom and articles or sections cite
examples or consequences of the axiom with a didactic purpose. The indis-
putable main source of the Civil Code is the Siete Partidas of King Alfonso
X, perhaps the pinnacle of Spanish ius commune and regarding the law of
obligations and the law of things, another main source of inspiration for the
Chilean Code has been the Napoleonic Code. But, for example, in relating the
acquisition of property, the code makes a clear distinction between the title
hereditary bond. The position of a colonus in the early third century is clearly dened by
the lawyers cited in the Digest. He held a lease, normally for ve years, which by the tacit
consent of both parties became on expiry an annual tenancy. A colonus might, if he were,
as he often was, in arrears with his rent, nd practical difculty in leaving; for in such
circumstances his landlord would have no hesitation in distraining on his stock. The rst
clear evidence that coloni - or at any rate some coloni - were tied to their farms and to their
landlords is a law of Constantine (CTh. 5.17.1, 332 A.D.) in which any person with whom a
colonus belonging to some other person is found shall not only restore him to his place of
origin but be liable for his poll tax for the period. It will furthermore be proper that coloni
themselves who plan ight should be put in irons like slave, so that they may be compelled
by a servile penalty to perform the duties appropriate to them as free men. The rst explicit
reference to the hereditary character of the bond is in a Emperor Valens’law of 365 A.D.
(CTh. 5.19.1, which orders that slaves and coloni and their son and grandsons who had
deserted imperial estates to join the army or the civil service should be recalled. Worth
mentioning works on colonate of A.J.B Sirks, most recent are: Sirks 2008, p. 120-143;
Sirks 2012, p. 133 – 143; Sirks 2017 p. 235-243.

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