Residents of the Severus Dynasty: Tax Pressures and Living Conditions**.
During the Northern Dynasties, the living conditions of the people deteriorated and the pressure of taxation increased, and during the Northern Dynasties, the control of the people by the chiefs was manifested in the development of tenant relations and the personal servitude of the landlords.
Increased personal attachment.
In the Roman Empire, the tenant relationship mainly existed in the estates of large landowners, and there were usually three different ways of operating: one was that the landlords themselves ran the estates;The second is that the landlord handed over the manor to the slaves to manage and supervised the slaves' labor in the manorThe third is that the landlord gives part or all of the land to the tenants for cultivation. Of the three types of business, the third is the most common.
In the early years of the Roman Empire, the tenant relationship developed rapidly. The main reason is that the amount of land owned by the landowner is too large, and it is impractical for the landowner to cultivate large tracts of land on his own.
At the same time, the decline in the number of slaves meant that estates that continued to be dominated by slaves faced a shortage of labor. As a result, these estates distributed the land to the peasants for cultivation and charged them a certain rent, eventually forming a tenant relationship.
At the same time, the number of tenants in the estate increased. As Kovalev noted in his article,"In the 1st century AD, agriculture in the provinces of the Roman Empire was characterized by a small proportion of slave labor"。At the same time, in Italy, Africa, Egypt, and other places where large estates ruled, wage labor was mainly used.
This suggests that tenancy as a mode of production replaced slavery in Rome during this period and continued to develop in the 3rd century AD.
The main reasons for the development of the tenant system by the Seville dynasty were as follows. First, in order to increase revenues from direct taxes, especially land taxes, the constant concentration of land in the hands of the head of state led to the concentration of land;Second, the Seville dynasty adopted a number of temporary tax increases, which put too much financial pressure on the people.
Due to the increase in taxes and the concentration of land, more and more peasants lost their land and gradually became tenant farmers of the estates of the head of state. In the 3rd century AD, basically only military peasants survived because their land was exempt from taxes. Most of the remaining small producers had no choice but to offer their land as tenants to neighboring landowners in order to survive.
Thus, during and after the reign of Seville, tenant farmers (both sharecroppers and tenant farmers) became inextricably linked to the land, and their numbers increased to more than half of the total number of peasants in the Roman Empire.
With the development of the tenant system, the state's dependence on the population was further strengthened, which was first reflected in the actual dependence on tenant farmers. Theoretically, there was an independent contractual relationship between the landlord and the tenant farmer, and they entered into leases with each other. The lease stipulates the form of the lease, the payment of ground rent, the amount of land to be leased, and the amount of ground rent.
In the early days of the Roman Empire, freelance tenant farmers typically signed five-year leases with landowners, and upon expiration of the leases, sharecroppers had the option to continue to renew their contracts with the landowners or change the owners of the leased land. During this period, sharecroppers had a lot of options. However, as the Führer's control over domestic land resources increased, so did the Führer's personal restrictions on tenant farmers.
This continued during the development of the Seville dynasty until the fall of the Roman Empire, and over time the tenant farmers gradually lost their personal freedom and agency;They were tied to the land, and seemed to become the heirs to the land, and eventually a large number of laborers were tied to the land.
Encourage the establishment of a tenant farmer system.
The strengthening of tenant relations and the combination of a large number of labour and land contributed to the establishment of agricultural sub-units. In the 2nd century BC, tenant farmers first appeared in Rome. Sharecropping is essentially a form of free-hand farming, with workers earning a living by renting land for a period of five years.
After the end of the lease period, they were free to renew the lease or rent the land from other owners, the right to personal freedom was relatively broad, and the dependence on the land was not fixed, but due to the relatively low level of social productivity, slave labor was the main mode of labor at that time, and the second economy of the peasants was only a supplementary form and did not dominate.
During the Roman Empire, with the steady development of social productive forces, the level of surplus labor continued to increase, and the degree of individualization of production tended to increase significantly, which provided the necessary conditions for the development of the decentralized peasant economy, and the peasant economy gradually developed.
In the first century AD, the peasant economy continued to develop, which is discussed in detail in Columella's On Agriculture. In On Agriculture, Corumella states:"The lord of the manor must take care of everything in the manor, especially the people in the manor. These people were divided into two categories: slaves and peasants. The lord of the estate must be lenient with the peasants and make every effort to coordinate the forces of all parties and help them solve their difficulties.
From the definition of the peasant in Kolumelli's "On Agriculture", it can be seen that although slaves and peasants were compared for the first time in this period, the status of peasants was higher than that of slaves, and the importance of peasants gradually increased.
Secondly, the peasants were more physically bound than in the previous period, and had to assume all other obligations related to the land, in addition to cultivating the land and paying rent. At the same time, the rights of the landlords over the peasants increased, and it was during this period that the peasants who were permanently with the land began to appear.
In the 2nd century AD, peasant labor became very important to agricultural production. At the beginning of the 3rd century, during the reign of the Seville dynasty, more and more bankrupt peasants began to join the ranks of the lower peasants, as the proliferation of large estates reinforced the exclusion of the small peasant economy and exacerbated the loss of their land.
At the same time, the deepening of slave emancipation in the late Roman Empire, although it gave slaves the right to personal freedom, meant that they did not own the means of production and could only make a living by renting land, so even the freed slaves joined the ranks of dependent farmers.
In addition, the border crisis of the Seville dynasty led the leaders of the states to adopt various methods to maintain stability on the border, one of which was to raze the border.
For example, in order to end the war with the Germans as soon as possible, Marcus Aurelius decided to sign a treaty with the Germanic peoples, trying to force them to act"Allies"Lived on the territory of the Roman Empire.
During the Seville dynasty, barbarians were also drafted into the army to fill the shortage of soldiers. As barbarian tribes continued to enter the Roman Empire, many barbarians began to rent land in order to survive.
Thus, during the period of the Seville dynasty, the number of peasants continued to increase, and gradually became an important group of the main labor force, and the peasant economy gradually developed from the supplement of the initial slave economy to the dominant form of the main economy.
An increase in the tax burden on residents of the provinces.
An examination of the tax policy of the Seville dynasty shows that, in addition to the edicts issued during the reign of Caracalla, which provided for higher rates of inheritance and slave taxes, and other means of increasing taxes mainly for the inhabitants of the province and the peasants, who made up the majority of the population, as well as other means of confiscation and taxation of the upper classes, the tax burden on the inhabitants of the provinces was increased throughout the dynasty. Under such a tax system, the tax pressure on residents from other provinces has increased.
No one was satisfied with the increase in taxes, which eventually exceeded the capacity of the inhabitants of the provinces, as evidenced by the fact that both taxes returned to their previous levels after the end of the Seville dynasty.
Second, during the Seville dynasty, the heavy distribution tasks fell to the wealthy classes, who forced the lower classes to engage in commercial activities, while the urban elite were less willing to take on public functions, distributions, and public donations because of the heavy distribution tasks. In Asia Minor, for example, the number of recorded donations declined dramatically from 220 AD onwards.
In the first and second centuries AD, the most common form of donation in Asia Minor was the gift of public buildings. In particular, the donation of an entire building was the most expensive form of public donation, but from the beginning of the 3rd century AD the number of donations began to decline dramatically. Donations can also take the form of money or land.
In Asia Minor, the number of such donations declined dramatically in the 3rd century AD. Local elites are increasingly reluctant to hold public office or use private wealth for the public good. The greater the pressure on the upper classes, the more unbearable the living conditions of the lower classes, and as a result, the majority of people, with the exception of a few, live in poverty, regardless of class.
Finally, the Seville dynasty tried to increase its fiscal revenue by opening up various sources of taxation. The most typical example is the introduction of the royal currency, which, according to the data collected, is a heavy burden for the moderately wealthy class, which, if repeated too often, means confiscation of most of their capital.
In addition, the head of state also increased fiscal revenues by confiscating the property of nobles and senators, in order to achieve the purpose of increasing revenues, stabilizing the army, and winning the hearts and minds of the army;At the same time, the head of state allowed the army to extort and plunder the inhabitants of the provinces, a phenomenon that was especially acute during the Seville period, when the inhabitants of the provinces staged a series of uprisings against the tax burden and the encroachment of the army.
In general, this conflict and the Führer's tolerance towards the soldiers of the army formed a vicious circle over time, leading to an increase in tax pressure on the inhabitants of the provinces, a deterioration in the living conditions of the inhabitants, an increase in insurrectionary movements, and finally an opportunity for the invasion of the barbarian powers.