VI. The colonate in the west of Europe after ca. 500 AD

Abstract

Summary The colonate as it was established under Diocletian depended on the credit an estate owner provided to a farmer. The latter had to provide at any moment services instead of interest and consequently had to reside in or near the estate. If the credit was used for the poll tax and the credit agreement was inserted into the census of the estate, the colonate in its public law form was created. It involved also a change in the status of the colonus. The subservience to the estate owner made his status into one of a subjected status which passed on to the offspring. In the east abolition of the poll tax implied the lifting of the colonate. In the west, in provinces of the former West-Roman Empire, we see in the sixth century a colonate which is hereditary but which has to all appearances no connection with the poll tax, if that still existed. It seems that a group of law texts which only deal with the descent of coloni was interpreted as standing on their own, not connected with taxation. In this way, it is submitted, the colonate shed its fiscal component and became a category of mere personal law.