Constructing Communities in the Late Roman Countryside

Abstract

This book is the first comprehensive treatment of the 'small politics' of rural communities in the Late Roman world. It places the diverse fates of those communities within a generalized model for exploring rural social systems. Fundamentally, social interactions in rural contexts in the period revolved around the desire of individual households to insure themselves against catastrophic subsistence failure and the need of the communities in which they lived to manage the attendant social tensions, inequalities and conflicts. A focus upon the politics of reputation in those communities provides a striking contrast to the picture painted by the legislation and the writings of Rome's literate elite: when viewed from the point of view of the peasantry, issues such as the Christianization of the countryside, the emergence of new types of patronage relations, and the effects of the new system of taxation upon rural social structures take on a different aspect.

The wartime and post‐war reception of Caesarius of Arles

“…Cam Grey's analysis of rural communities in the late Roman world both depends on and helps to explain Caesarius's portrait of peasant life in sixth-century Arles, and is particulary informative on the calculus of risk management, the workings of patronage, the management of reputations, the resolution of conflict and the logic of individual agency. 173 Writing from the perspective of a long-standing Russian interest in feudalism (of which he is judiciously critical), 174 Igor Filippov made widespread use of Caesarius's sermons, among other printed and archival sources, to study the formation of feudalism in Mediterranean France. 175 His well-documented surveys of the society of Arles at the time of Caesarius 176 and on legal ideas in Caesarius's sermons 177 make clear the value of Caesarius's testimony for a range of new questions and new approaches to old ones.…”

Modelos de rebelião rural e as revoltas rurais do Império Romano Tardio

“…Por outro lado, há uma grande produção intelectual de estudos sobre camponeses e economia rural no século XX (Bernstein & Byres, 2001), o que de certa forma explica por que o termo foi profusamente aplicado e problematizado no contexto historiográfico da Antiguidade (Finley, 1999;Ste. Croix, 1998;Garnsey, 1998;Osborne, 1987;Wickham, 2005;Grey, 2011). Talvez a maior justificativa para o emprego da noção de campesinato seja que esse conceito, quando utilizado como ferramenta heurística e devidamente problematizado, aponta para as dimensões gerais e particulares das condições sociais, da organização política e das elaborações culturais associadas às comunidades rurais cuja a família/household é a unidade produtiva e social mínima, permitindo ao pesquisador focar nas comunidades rurais e reservar para um segundo momento da análise as relações delas com grupos externos que as dominam e exploram (Wolf, 1970;Wickham, 2005).…”

“…Porém, dados os contornos da nova modalidade de estudos da economia rural na antiguidade que coloca no centro da análi-se a decisão dos households sobre o risco (Horden & Purcell, 2000;Leveau, 2007;Grey 2011), a perspectiva de Popkin seria a mais bem recebida para explicar os levantes dos bagaudas e dos circunceliões. Não houve nenhuma tentativa até aqui de aplicá-la.…”

Historicizing the Lived Experience of Violence: Bryen's Violence in Roman Egypt

“…And precisely where in the chronological unfolding of a dispute did legal petitions occur? We occasionally catch glimpses, for example, of individuals who seem to be fighting battles with one another on several different fronts concurrently, accessing the law while at the same time spreading rumors and gossip, enlisting magical means, calling on mutual acquaintances to mediate, and/or resorting to public confrontations (see Grey , 65–67). How common were these kinds of strategies, as against “simple” access of the legal machinery?…”