10-14-2015, 01:30 AM
Records on land ownership is pretty much non-existent in the Empire except for Egypt where the arid climate preserved many of the papyri documents.
The Praetorian Praefects, who were responsible for collection of taxes, relied heavily on land tax to meet the empire's financial needs. The land was assessed by its geographical location, by its use, and by its productivity.
Rents from imperial lands was another major income, but, it seems, there were many peasant freeholders in the empire.
Land owners in the empire included soldiers and the clergy, but most privately held land was held by absentee landlords who employed managers to make the land profitable.
Land ownership was the most secure way of investment, so professionals, merchants and craftsmen, to provide for their old age, bought land. How they did that, and what was their hold on the deed, Jones did not explain.
Soldiers too were granted land, though I do not know if, by the Later Roman Empire, it was authority to hold and farm imperial holdings as though they were their own without deeds, or if the land went to them with title.
Almost all land belonged to state. However, people were given long-term (almost perpetual) leases if they could bring uncultivated land back into productivity.
Often land was leased to farmers until Diocletian made changes in Egypt changing the reality of ownership or lease so that there was almost no difference.
As far as ownership in provinces, Melinia, a wealthy woman owned property in Britain, Spain, Numidia and Mauretania. She traveled the western empire selling off her property when she converted to Christianity.
This does not answer the technical aspects of your questions, and for those answers, I don't know where to turn.
I, by the way, am an author, not a professor of history. I recommend you keep trolling until you snag an answer from them, as you did from Mr. Taylor.
The Praetorian Praefects, who were responsible for collection of taxes, relied heavily on land tax to meet the empire's financial needs. The land was assessed by its geographical location, by its use, and by its productivity.
Rents from imperial lands was another major income, but, it seems, there were many peasant freeholders in the empire.
Land owners in the empire included soldiers and the clergy, but most privately held land was held by absentee landlords who employed managers to make the land profitable.
Land ownership was the most secure way of investment, so professionals, merchants and craftsmen, to provide for their old age, bought land. How they did that, and what was their hold on the deed, Jones did not explain.
Soldiers too were granted land, though I do not know if, by the Later Roman Empire, it was authority to hold and farm imperial holdings as though they were their own without deeds, or if the land went to them with title.
Almost all land belonged to state. However, people were given long-term (almost perpetual) leases if they could bring uncultivated land back into productivity.
Often land was leased to farmers until Diocletian made changes in Egypt changing the reality of ownership or lease so that there was almost no difference.
As far as ownership in provinces, Melinia, a wealthy woman owned property in Britain, Spain, Numidia and Mauretania. She traveled the western empire selling off her property when she converted to Christianity.
This does not answer the technical aspects of your questions, and for those answers, I don't know where to turn.
I, by the way, am an author, not a professor of history. I recommend you keep trolling until you snag an answer from them, as you did from Mr. Taylor.
AKA Tom Chelmowski
Historiae Eruditere (if that is proper Latin)
Historiae Eruditere (if that is proper Latin)
