Abstract
Resumo A Alta Idade Média foi um período marcado por sucessivas crises alimentares. De acordo com um levantamento nas histórias, anais, crônicas, hagiografias etc., feito no início do século XX pelo historiador alemão Fritz Curschmann, há 68 menções a crises alimentares entre os anos 700 e 1100. No entanto, esses textos dizem mais sobre as reações à fome do que sobre as circunstâncias ou causas das mesmas. O objetivo deste artigo é analisar comparativamente as ações dos agentes públicos em face de situações de crise alimentar, tanto na Gália quanto na Itália, entre o final do século V e o final do século VI. Para tanto, utilizar-se-ão cartas de Cassiodoro († c.585) e de Sidônio Apolinário († 486), bem como as Histórias de Gregório de Tours († 594) e um poema de Venâncio Fortunato († c.609). A análise desses textos permite que se coloque em xeque a ideia da crise da autoridade pública com o advento dos reinos bárbaros.
Highlights
In the second half of the 530s, Cassiodorus, Praetorian prefect of Italy at that moment, had to confront a severe food shortage in the Peninsula
The first letter was sent to the inhabitants of Istria, requesting them to send wheat, wine, and olive oil to Ravenna, which should have been taken from the surplus from the previous crop in the province (Cassiodorus, 1894, XII, 22)
The letters show that public agents had the record of the harvests’ results in each province at their disposal, and that they took measures to ensure the transportation of foodstuff to the provinces to which they were assigned, to store the harvests upon prediction of an upcoming shortage, to forgive the taxes of the provinces worst affected by famine, and to open the granaries to the malnourished population
Summary
Sed tempore Sidoni episcopi magna Burgundiam famis oppressit. Cumque populi per diversas regiones dispergerentur, nec esset ullus qui pauperibus alemoniam largeretur, Ecdicius quidam ex senatoribus, huius propinquos, magnam tunc rem in Deo confisus fecisse perhibitur. The significance of the exceptionality is not quantitative, but qualitative: Gregory and Sidonius presented Ecdicius’ and Patient’s deeds as derived from a catalog of virtues that both authors unequivocally establish In both accounts, the stress lies not in the function they performed — senator and bishop, respectively. The behavior of men of power in the face of famine would show that, in Gaul, the idea of public service had been replaced by personal initiative founded on the imperative of charity This argument sounds even more convincing because it is not until as late as 779 that we can find texts from the Frankish royal power detailing measures against the famine (we refer to the Capitulare Episcoporum). Illud autem deberi tibi quodam, ut jurisconsulti dicunt, a praecipui titulo, nec tuus poterit ire pudor inficias; quod post Gothicam depopulationem, post segetes incendio absumptas, peculiari sumptu, inopiae communi per desolatas Gallias gratuita frumenta misisti; cum tabescentibus fame populis nimium contulisses, si commercio fuisset species ista, non munere. The 5th Canon of the Council of Tours, in 567, proclaimed that each civitas should provide sufficient food to the poor and the homeless according to its resources; village priests, as well as the cities’ inhabitants,, should feed the poor so that they did not drift to other cities (Gaudemet, 1989, p.354). This mea-
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