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

土地是后期罗马世界经济和政治结构的关键组成部分。它是财富、声望和社会控制的源泉。土地是精英生活的决定性因素，也是国家权力的基础，通过直接开采、租赁和税收产生收入。传统上，学者们非常关注古代最后几个世纪土地所有权的经济、社会和政治意义。然而，这一重要资产在统治者、其精英和地方社会之间的关系中所发挥的更广泛的社会和政治作用在很大程度上仍未得到探索。土地在很大程度上由皇帝和国王控制，他们通过赠款财产和其他权利授予不同的社会群体来分配土地，重新定义了社会和经济等级。帝国和市政精英以及野蛮贵族和教会领袖都在争夺这一重要的经济资源，或者在危机时刻担心通过掠夺失去它。因此，土地是权力关系中的一个决定性因素。我们的合作项目提出了罗马晚期的新视野，分析了公元300年至600年之间的地中海社会的重新配置中土地赠款所发挥的作用。通过结合两位主要调查员的专业领域，它将通过两个互补的视角分析这一关键资产的使用：它将研究土地赠款的政治，所涉及的代理人，假定的法律的形式，以及这种做法发生的政治背景;与此同时，它将描绘土地赠款对当地社会的影响，调查这些举措如何重新界定社会等级和财产景观。皇帝和国王利用土地作为维护其权威和构建其合法性的一种形式，授予财产权、租赁权或豁免权，以应对来自新老精英成员的压力。通过这样做，不同的代理人获得了这一宝贵的资源，获得了社会地位，巩固了政治网络，并扩大了他们的财产投资组合。土地是巩固（或巩固）政治权力的一个强有力的因素，同时它也改变了数百年的社会结构。该项目将建立一个在线数据库，收集所有土地赠款的证据和实例，使这一丰富的法律的、文学的和文件证据随时向公众提供。这将作为全面重新评估土地对晚期古董社会的更广泛影响的基础，在集体卷中探索财政制度，法律的框架和国家建设的过程。土地的政治，它在政府工作中的作用，以及它对当地社会的变革性影响将在一本专著中进行研究，该专著将首次展示这种做法的综合性质及其在古代世界后期的作用。

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, analyzing 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 analyze 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 processes 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.