Land and Loyalty: The Politics of Land in the Later Roman World (4th-6th c.)

Land was a key component in the economic and political fabric of the later Roman world. It was a source of wealth, prestige, and social control. Land was the defining element of elite life as well as the basis of state power, generating revenue through direct exploitation, leases, and taxes. Scholars have traditionally paid great attention to the economic, social, and political significance of land-ownership in the final centuries of Antiquity. And yet, the broader social and political role played by this crucial asset in the relationship between rulers, their elites, and local societies remains largely unexplored. Land was controlled to a large degree by emperors and kings, who distributed it through grants of property and other rights to different social groups, redefining social and economic hierarchies. Imperial and municipal elites as well as barbarian aristocrats and church leaders competed for access to this important economic resource or, in moments of crisis, feared losing it through confiscations. Land was, as a result, a defining element in power relations.
Our collaborative project presents a new vision of the late Roman period, analysing the role played by land grants in the re-configuration of Mediterranean societies between AD 300 and 600. By combining the areas of expertise of the two principal investigators, it will analyse the use of this key asset through two complementary perspectives: it will examine the politics of land grants, the agents involved, the legal forms assumed, and the political contexts in which this practice took place; at the same time, it will chart the impact of land grants on local societies, investigating how these initiatives redefined social hierarchies and landscapes of property. Emperors and kings used land as a form of asserting their authority and constructing their legitimacy, granting property rights, tenancy, or exemptions in response to pressure from members of new and old elites. In doing this, different agents gained access to this valuable resource, acquiring social prominence, consolidating political networks, and expanding their property portfolios. Land was a powerful element in the consolidation (or contestation) of political power, at the same time that it transformed centuries-old social structures.
The project will produce an online database collecting all the evidence and instances of land grants, making this rich body of legal, literary, and documentary evidence readily available to the public. This will serve as the base for a comprehensive reassessment of the wider implications of land for late antique society in a collective volume exploring fiscal regimes, legal frameworks, and processses of state building. The politics of land, its role in the working of government, and its transformative impact on local societies will be examined in a monograph that will show for the first time the comprehensive nature of this practice and its role in the making of the late antique world.