Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

464 16. state, lordship and community in the west
survival of a world where it was chiefly important to be a free landowner,
but also the kinds of processes which might lead to its destruction. 85
(b) Freedmen
A second feature of the social structures of the post-Roman west is the
prominence and redefinition of a class of freedmen (liberti). Such a category
had long existed within Roman society, but, in the post-Roman period,
it evolved a new form. This was characterized by a permanent inherited
dependence of freed persons and their offspring towards the manumitter
and his or her descendants. The offspring of Roman freedmen, by contrast,
acquired total freedom. In Gaul, the new type of freedmen had become an
important social grouping by the end of the seventh century at the latest.
In the early-eighth-century will of Abbo of Provence, they form the most
numerous category of persons mentioned. In Spain, the church seems to
have made considerable use of this new style of manumission in the early
seventh century, with lay lords following suit later. From Italy there is less
evidence, but the mid-seventh-century edict of Rothari again includes a
series of provisions concerning this class. 86
What prompted the evolution of a class of new, permanently dependent
liberti? For Visigothic Spain, it has been argued that they were generated in
an attempt to square the demands of Christian ethics with an existing
pattern of material, especially landed, wealth. Emerging Christian morality
declared the freeing of slaves to be a good thing, particularly for saintly
bishops. This tended to dissipate church assets, however, since people were
as important as land in agricultural production. Permanently dependent
liberti thus offered Christian gentlemen – ecclesiastical or lay – the opportunity
to make their manumissions while, at the same time, preserving the
tied labour force which was central to their wealth. 87 There is an obvious
plausibility to this picture.
I suspect, however, that the new liberti may also have something to do
with the militarization of society in the post-Roman world. According to
Visigothic law codes, all liberti were required to fight with their lords when
the army was mobilized. This prescription applied to only a percentage –
5 per cent, raised to 10 per cent by king Wamba – of full slaves. A similar
distinction operated in the Merovingian kingdom, where liberti seem to
have been classed among the arms-bearing groups of society and expected
to fight, again under the aegis of their lord. 88 The popularity of freedmen
85 Davies (1988) esp. chs. 3–7. Whether this peasant society represents unbroken continuity from
the late Roman world is unclear.
86 Will of Abbo: Geary (1985) 91–9. Spain: Claude (1980). Rothari’s Edict passim on aldii, esp. 76–102.
87 Claude (1980).
88 Visigothic Code 9.2.8–9. Salic Law 26.1; although Laws of the Ripuarian Franks 60–1 distinguishes
church freedman from other liberti.
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