Encountering Romanitas: Characterising the Role of Agricultural Communities in Roman Britain

Abstract

There has been a hesitancy in academic discussion of Roman Britain to address the potential significance of the identity and agency of rural communities in shaping the provincial landscape. This article seeks to address the reasons for this before delineating some avenues by which we might better investigate this issue. Through two case studies the importance of kinship, agricultural peers and occupational identity (being farmers) are recognised as potential drivers for the course of rural life in Roman Britain. In so doing the extent to which 'being Roman' was really a central concern of many agricultural communities is questioned.Keywords: Romanitas; being Roman; Roman Britain; agency; identity; rural; landscape; kinship T his article explores the role of rural identity and agency and the extent to which these can be applied to the writing of new narratives of agricultural social development in the first centuries of Roman rule in Britain. Arguably, emphasis in Roman archaeology has been placed on the impact of urban and military impositions and related population responses, rather than a consideration of the diversity of the rural landscapes encountered and their role in shaping provincial identities. Thus the first section includes a short critique of some current approaches to Roman-period rural landscapes and communities, and highlights the continuing absence of attention to agency in literature and perspectives considering the mass of the rural populace in the Western Roman Empire. The second part seeks to delineate routes by which we might investigate issues of local agency, and the importance of kinship or peer group in reinforcing the identity of rural communities and how they can contribute to our picture of the emerging character of rural landscapes in the provinces. Two contrasting case studies will help demonstrate the validity of this approach and its potential contribution to wider debates about cultural change in the Roman Empire. The importance of the approach outlined here lies in its willingness to recognise and engage with the diversity apparent in the archaeological evidence from agricultural landscapes and in its opening of new avenues for debate regarding how and why the Western provinces developed in the ways they did.

Community and the Creation of Provincial Identities: A Re-interpretation of the Romano-British Aisled Building at North Warnborough

“…The complex at North Warnborough can be viewed as an example of high-status, rural communal space, serving a group of people bound by their dependence on each other in an area of poor crop yield. The evidence for spinning and weaving, in the form of loom weights, spindle whorls and shuttles, may support sheep farming as one of the primary sources of income and the building may represent the prestige of owning land and livestock (Taylor 2013Taylor, J. 2013 characterising the role of agricultural communities in Roman Britain, Britannia 44, 171-490), although the relationship between the phasing and objects makes it impossible to link wool processing with funds for the original construction.…”

Roman Urbanism: A View from the Countryside

“…Nonetheless, they go some way to illustrating how a greater awareness of the interests and agency of much of the rural populace as well as the diverse identity and interests of urban dwellers might have influenced the character and development of urbanism in Roman Britain. The implications of these choices are not just of passing interest; a lack of engagement in the economic and social life of Roman towns by a significant minority or even majority of the rural population of a region could have profound implications on the relative social and economic isolation of urban communities from their own rural hinterlands and contributed to different distinctive local understandings of what it meant to be Roman (Taylor in press). Exploring the wider context of urban and other foci in this way allows us to begin to address how the diversity of agricultural communities' traditions and their responses to ideas of urban culture might have helped reinforce a town's developing authority or instead contribute to the creation and maintenance of other competing foci for social, economic and religious life that are suggested by the somewhat dispersed and ‘rural’ character of the small towns of the province alluded to by Woolf.…”

Making Space for Past Futures: Rural Landscape Temporalities in Roman Britain

“…Whether considering the practical and metaphorical associations of different spaces within a roundhouse, and their orientation within enclosures, or these enclosures themselves and the trackways which connected them, there seem to be recurrent patterns. These link seasonal activities and repeated routines of movement to associations with light and dark, life and death, and growth and decay, which seem all-pervasive (Chadwick 2004;Giles & Parker Pearson 1999;McCarthy 2013;Taylor 2013;M. Williams 2003).…”