Laeti and Gentiles: Military Germanic Settlements in Roman Gaul

Jean-Pierre Poly

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Chapter 14 Laeti and Gentiles: Military Germanic Settlements in Roman Gaul

In: The Civilian Legacy of the Roman Army

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Jean-Pierre Poly

Jean-Pierre Poly
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 383–412

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004698017_015

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Abstract

During the 4th century, Germanic communities were settled between Rhine and Ardenne and in all northern Gaul. They were praepositurae laetorum (et) gentilium, some dediticii, some foederati not much better off since ruled by a foedus iniquus. The part of all these settlements in the transformation of the Roman world has long been a vexata quaestio, and an underrated one. They were an essential structure in the late roman military organization, being used as reserves (reliquationes) for the recruitment of the peregrine auxilia palatina, the core of the field army. As such, they were a non-negligible part of the population and a main component of the dialectic acculturation between late romanity and tribal cultures, a process which led to the collapse of the first western empire and the start of the long and slow making of European nations, as institutions and as myths.

[Agosto 2023] After the studies of Dietrich Hoffmann about the Roman Army and of Alessandro Barbero about barbarian immigration, and notwithstanding the brillant views of Peter Brown, it is nowadays admitted that the IVth century was, as tells the title of a well-known publication, a ‘Transformation of the Roman World’. The present contribution describes the most efficient of its institutional tools, a military structure established in Gaul, Britain, Northern Italy and some danubian regions. This structure could be named the reserve-districts system: the settlement of ‘barbarian’ prisonners in praepositurae where the soldiers of the peregrine units (auxilia) were afterwards recruited and sent near or abroad, while only the families stayed in the reserve, pledges for the obedient and gallant bearing of the men. The spouses begot children from the soldiers (seniores) allowed a short leave. Some ancient emeriti drilled the youngs in future recruits (iuniores). A few servants did the domestic work. The soldiers’ families were given an annona fetched from the local granaries where their more or less Roman neighbours, local possessores and their tenants, payed the fiscal tributum. After the slaughter of the peregrine officers in Pavia in 408, the men went back to the reserves and the high command in Italy seems no more able to draw soldiers from them, excepted for the last battle of Aetius. The best part of the imperial army then turned into a territorial half-romanized soldiery, a significant part of the population in a deflated demography. This might well be the very beginning of the so-called Middle Ages.

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The Civilian Legacy of the Roman Army

Military Models in the Post-Roman World

Series: History of Warfare, Volume: 144

Cover The Civilian Legacy of the Roman Army

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004698017

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 16 Jun 2024

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Chapter 14 Laeti and Gentiles: Military Germanic Settlements in Roman Gaul

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The Civilian Legacy of the Roman Army

Military Models in the Post-Roman World

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