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Chapter 6 The "Techniques ofAccommodation" Revisited Barbariansand Romans and Its Critics Twenty-five years ago, I published a book called Barbarians and Romans: The Techniques ofAccommodation. It took up an old subject-the legal technicalities involved in settling Goths and Burgundians in the Roman provinces of Gaul, Italy, and Spain in the fifth and sixth centuries. I argued, contrary to earlier opinion, that the Roman tax machinery was central to these settlements and that tax proceeds rather than landed property were awarded to individual barbarians . Time has passed. The book has had a few adherents and many detractors . 1 I have had the opportunity to think over the subject, with and without the help of its critics. In particular, I have become convinced that military billeting, usually denoted in these discussions by the word hospitalitas, has nothing to do with barbarian settlement. I have also found it possible to improve every aspect of the fiscal interpretation of the settlements laid out in Barbarians and Romans and to eliminate its weaknesses. The goal of these pages is to report my second thoughts and to arrive at a revised conclusion. Serious study of these "techniques of accommodation" was inaugurated in 1844 by Ernst Theodor Gaupp, of whose achievement it has recently been said, "Few historical works of the Biedermeier period have retained their validity for so long." This is high praise.' Gaupp's fundamental work is a sobering reminder that, in historical studies, up-to-dateness can be irrelevant to the unraveling of a problem.' Though I sometimes disagree with Gaupp, he has my sincere respect. In order to deal with this subject, I had to build on him rather than on his would-be improvers. >(- >(- >(A simplified summary of Gaupp's argument and my revision may help to understand what follows. At various dates in the fifth century, Visigoths and Ostrogoths , as well as Burgundians, settled in Roman Gaul and Italy. The settlements 120 Chapter 6 apparently took place peacefully,without visibly disturbing the resident landowners and cultivators. This was no conquest and forcible peopling; the initial steps were taken under the auspices of Roman generals. Gaupp asked, How was this done? What was the legal basis for this lawful process? His answer was military billeting. Roman law provided that proprietors must take in traveling soldiers and allow them one-third oftheir house. On this precedent (generally called hospitalitas by modern authors), barbarian soldiers were assigned places, and landowners yielded to them one-third oftheir property. A partition ofland came about, and each Goth or Burgundian settled on the third of his "host's" property that fell to him. Thus far Gaupp. My revision began by observing that his reading of the Roman law of billeting was flawed; a measure allowing a soldier temporary occupancy of one-third of a house could not turn into an authorization for a barbarian to take enduring possession of one-third of someone's landed property . There had to be some other way to achieve a transfer of property to the newcomers. The method used, I argued, was to mobilize the tax resources of the affected territories. In each of them, the total tax assessments were conveyed from the Roman government to the barbarian king, and he divided this total, by a simple fraction (one-half or one-third), between himself and the rank and file. Out of the fraction of tax assessments assigned to the troops, separate allotments of approximately equal size were apportioned and distributed. Individual Goths or Burgundians each received a "share" of tax assessment; he had the assessment and the revenue arising from it, whereas the Roman proprietor retained ownership and cultivation of the assessed land. The barbarian's allotment authorized him to collect and pocket an annual (tax) payment from the assessed Roman landowner. ''An allotment ofyour own feeds you;' the Gothic king of Italy said to his troops. This was the new shape of military pay, direct from the producer to the consumer. I was not alone in attempting to improve Gaupp's scheme. Jean Durliat, of the University of Toulouse-Le Mirail, also did so in the context ofwide-ranging, visionary, and often admirable studies of late Roman and early medieval public finance. His plan, which agrees with mine in many respects, has been published in a long article (cited in n. 10). The differences between Durliat and me are (I suggest) that my arguments cling closely to specific evidence, whereas his operate within a powerful general interpretation...

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