Journal Article

The Local Community After the Empire: Peasants and the Economy in Late Roman North Africa and

Tedesco, Paolo

2025

Overview

Wickham's definitions of economic structures as tributary, feudal, and peasant modes of production offer an ideal framework to appreciate the divergent trajectories of early medieval peasantries in the transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages. In this arc of time, differences emerge in how peasants related to the state, landlords, and the market. Through an analysis of the early medieval rural communities from North Africa and Egypt, this article shows that different segments of the peasantry —rich, middle-class, and poor peasants— coexisted in every post-imperial society, just as divergent economic trajectories —market-oriented economy, mixed farming, and subsistence agriculture— were not specific to a certain area but were found coexisting even within a small group of cultivators. In these communities, peasant protagonism worked as an economic engine that led to two different outcomes. When peasants prioritised the subsistence of their household, the community remained cohesive and mutually supporting, notwithstanding the existing social differentiation between its members. Conversely, when peasants engaged in commercialized agriculture, it resulted in deep social polarization, with peasant farmers who became similar to landowners, and lesser peasants who were reduced to tenants.

• Publisher: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca
• Subject: Peasants