MARTÍN GONZÁLEZ, S. (2.013) - "Between Rome and barbarians: reoccupation of heights in the Late...

242 el espejismo del bárbaro. ciudadanos y extranjeros al final de la antigüedad

poblaciones «fugitivas» en busca de refugio o ambas iniciativas,

variando según el caso.

Palabras clave: reocupación, castros, romanización, desromani-

zación, tardoantigüedad.

I. Transition to the Vth century in the Hispaniae

We shall start our paper drawing a quick view for the whole Diocesis

Hispaniarum at the beginning of the Vth century of our Era,

especially around 409 A.D., year of the coming of the Suebi, Vandals and

Alans (and perhaps others) to Iberia and thus, of the end of the political

unity in the Diocesis Hispaniarum. Th is event comes in the context of

the usurpation of Constantinus III, a rebel commander who had rioted

at 407 A.D. with the Briton garrisons, and quickly crossed the English

Channel in order to hold Gaul, placing his capital in Arelate, and to

prepare his march over Italy. To secure his Southern fl ank, he sent his

son, the Caesar Constans, with his best general (the Briton Gerontius)

to conquest the Diocesis Hispaniarum. Th is was just defended by the

private aim of some young «loyalists» aristocrats, linked by blood to

the Th eodosian Imperial Family. We have already worried1 about this

interesting episode, quite followed by scholars2 certainly. But beyond

the factuality, all these events testify the existence of at least four main

1. S. Martín González: «Las migraciones bárbaras en Hispania en el siglo v», in R. Sanz

Serrano, F. J. Moreno Arrastio y J. R. Pérez-Accino Picatoste (eds.): Actas audiovisuales

del I Seminario Internacional «Tempus barbaricum, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid,

2012; id. «Los otros bárbaros: suevos, vándalos y alanos en las Hispanias», in vv. aa.: Homenaje

al Dr. Julio Mangas Manjarrés, Universidad de Oviedo–Universidad Complutense de Madrid,

Oviedo-Madrid, (forthcoming).

2. Vid. among others R. Sanz Serrano: Los godos. Una epopeya histórica de Escandinavia a

Toledo, La Esfera de los Libros, Madrid, 2,012, pp. 156-181; Id., «Aristocracias paganas en Hispania

tardía (siglos v-vii)», in D. Plácido, F. J. Moreno Arrastio y L. A. Ruiz Cabrero (coords.),

Necedad, sabiduría y verdad: el legado de Juan Cascajero. Anejos Gerión, vol. extra 2007, Madrid, pp.

443-480; Id. «Aproximación al estudio de los ejércitos privados en Hispania durante la Antigüedad

Tardía», in Gerión, 4, 1986, pp. 225-264; J. Arce Martínez: Bárbaros y romanos en Hispania (400-

507 A..D.), Marcial Pons Historia, Madrid, 2005, pp. 36 and following; id., España entre el mundo

antiguo y el mundo medieval, Taurus, Madrid, 1988, p. 95; M. V. Escribano Paño: «Usurpación y

defensa de las Hispanias: Dídimo y Veriniano (408)», in Gerión, 18, 2000, pp. 509-534.

243saúl martín gonzález | between rome and barbarians

historical actors in the post-409 Hispaniae. Th ese are the following ones:

fi rstly, the remains of the State and the Imperial administration, formed

by the aristocracy of the three «loyalists» Hispanic provinces,3 the

several expeditions of comitatenses4 (and even the one of the Emperor

Maiorianus)5 in later years; the local not «loyalists» powers (either

secular and ecclesiastical), who begin to search new thriving ways far

from Rome; the barbarian peoples, ruled by their own chiefdoms, who

after their settlement on Iberia tried to found new kingdoms (thus,

to become a state), although most of them will result ephemeral; and,

the last, the traces of a certain indigenism linked with the popular and

peasant societies, who, at least sometimes, seems to seek shelter in

ancestral ways. In this regard, maybe the celebrated Hispanic bagaudic

movements meant the best-known instance of this phenomenon and

one of its main information in written sources.6 At the end, all these

events have no other meaning than to testify the zenith in the collapse

of the Roman State on the Diocesis Hispaniarum, and the transit to new

structures of social and political organization. At 409 A.D., however, the

immaturity of these new structures will bring deep disturbances for the

diff erent Iberian societies almost all the Vth century along.

For the archaeological record, beforehand it is necessary to point

to the huge regional diversity within the Western Roman Empire, and

more precisely in the Diocesis Hispaniarum7. Inside this diversity, a

considerable number of the early Vth century contexts (in general those

placed inland or far from the Mediterranean shore), show the horizon

3. More exactly: Tarraconensis, the Baleares islands and the North African province of

Mauretania Tingitana.

4. Th e most celebrated one is the commanded by the dux utriusque militiae Asturius against

the bacaudae at 441 A.D.; about it: Arce Martínez, Bárbaros y romanos, pp. 160 and following)

5. He marched against Vandals at 460 A.D., with an important role of the Hispanic ports as

base of his fl eet (Arce Martínez, Bárbaros y romanos, pp. 207 and following).

6. We have to remember that the fi rst information on written sources about Hispanic bacaudae

actually refers to the same 409 A.D. About this coincidence, hardly explainable by mere random

chance, we shall concern on future works. About the Hispanic bacaudae, vid. among others Arce

Martínez, Bárbaros y romanos, pp. 159 and following; G. Bravo Castañeda: «Bagaudas. La

bagauda hispana: ¿rebelión política o confl icto social?», in R. Sanz Serrano, F. J. Moreno Arrastio

& J. R. Pérez-Accino Picatoste (Eds.) Actas audiovisuales del I Seminario Internacional «Tempus

barbaricum», Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid 2012; id. «Acta bagáudica I. Sobre

quienes eran los bagaudas y su posible identifi cación en los textos tardíos», en Gerión, 2, 1984, pp.

251-264; J. C. Sánchez León: Los bagaudas: rebeldes, demonios, mártires: revueltas campesinas en

la Galia e Hispania durante el Bajo Imperio, Universidad de Jaén, Jaén, 1996.

7. C. Wickham: Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and Mediterranean 400-800, Oxford

University Press, Oxford, 2005, p. 40.


defi ned by Ward-Perkins8 as the «end of complexity»9. Th is is a new

and thrilling scenario, and we can fi nd some of its guidelines in the

breakdown of the standardization in the handmade production, wares

included. Th is, added to the heavy blackout in the exchange circuits,10

would lead to a signifi cant trend of employment of local productions.

Th ereby, archaeological items bring less precise chronologies by far, in

comparison to those from classical phases.11 In addition, other factors

as the drastic breakdown of coinage and the return to traditional and

subsistence economy, force to take back to a material culture (and

perhaps even to certain social mores) similar to those known for the

Recent Prehistory and pre-Roman Iron Age. Th e ultima ratio behind

all these massive, complex and gradual transformations lies basically

in the complete collapse of the Roman State and its taxation.12 For the

habitats, we fi nd also deep transformations in the classical patterns

both in urban and rural contexts. Important phenomena of precarious

resettlement are documented widespread, usually transforming the

former luxury contexts in new pragmatic and useful spaces focused

on the direct survival,13 a palpable phenomenon in the metamorphosis

from the villae rusticae to villulae.14 Furthermore we behold also some

8. B. Ward-Perkins: Th e fall of Rome and the end of Civilization, Oxford University Press,

Oxford, 2005, pp. 155 and following.

9. Although we prefer, introducing a tiny but important nuance, the term «end of

standardization».

10. Of course it is necessary to nuance this sentence for each of the diff erent territories of

the former Western Empire. Th us, as guideline for the Diocesis Hispaniarum, an aceptable level

of comercial exchange is documented to, at least, the second half of Vth century: A. Chavarría

Arnau: «Poblamiento rural en el territorium de Tarraco durante la Antigüedad Tardía», in

Arqueología y territorio medieval, 8, 2001, p. 64. Fort the Iberian heartland, however, the massive

change comes implemented at the early Vth century. For a synthesis of the Late Roman Hispanic

trade, focused to the ware exchange with the Mediterranean world, vid. P. Reynolds: «Hispania

in the Late Antique Roman Mediterranean: ceramics and trade», in K. Bowes & M. Kulikowski:

Hispania in Late Antiquity. Current perspectives, Brill, Leiden-Boston, 2005, pp. 369-486.

11. N. Christie, «Landscapes of change in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages: themes,

directions and problems», in N. Christie (Ed.): Landscapes of change: rural evolutions in Late

Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, Ashgate Publishing Company, Padstow, 2004, pp. 5-7.

12. S. Martín González: «Huérfanos del Imperio: ejércitos privados y traidores ante el

ocaso del orden romano», in F. Echeverría Rey & M. Y. Montes Miralles (Eds.): Actas del

VI Encuentro de Jóvenes Investigadores, Departamento de Historia Antigua de la Universidad

Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, 2007, pp. 179-190; Wickham, Framing, pp. 62 and following.

13. Th us, it is not rare, in these phases, to register the amortization of mosaic pavements, thermal

areas, the melting of sculptural or architectonical marble decoration into lime kilns, among other traces.

14. S. Martín González: «From villa to villula: settlement and social organization in the

Late Antique Hispanic countryside», in D. Hernández de la Fuente (Ed.): New perspectives on

Late Antiquity, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2011, pp. 173-187.


interesting processes related with the return to the hilltop settlement

and the occupation of marginal areas. We shall deal with these topics

through the next pages.

We shall begin by the «return to the heights» or the reoccupation of

Iron Age castra and oppida, frequently named in the sources as castella.15

Th is is the phenomenon called incastellamento16 (in French perchement17

and in Spanish encaramamiento),18 managed with irregular interest and

results by the scholars through the last decades. An endless number of

theories have been formulated in order to explain it. Th e most traditional

one is the search of safety in an age of anxiety.19 Nevertheless, other causes

have been argued, as for instance the installation of military garrisons on

castra placed in limitaneae zones,20 a hypothesis maybe valid for certain

cases but not at all for the whole phenomenon; the answer to an agrarian

and ecological crisis, aggravated by plagues and epidemics;21 or the

escape of the imperial-episcopal-lord taxation,22 that is the continuation

of the sedition, desertion and fl ight phenomena by several individualities

and documented in the Later Roman written sources.23 Th ere was, in

15. Hyd., Chron. 81, 86, 229 & 235.

16. P. Toubert: Les structures du Latium médiéval: le Latium méridional et la Sabine du IX°

à la fi n du XII° siècle, French School in Rome, Rome, 1973. Toubert gave birth to this Italian term

in order to employ it on the plenty medieval territorial pattern, based in the castle as center of the

aristocratical estate, in Central Italy contexts. Nevertheless, and without forgetting this origin, we

are favorable to the extension and the application of this word also for the phenomenon of the Late

Antique resettlement on hillforts.

17. A. Bazzana; P. Guichard & J. M. Poisson: Habitats fortifi és et organisation de l’espace,

Maison de l’Orient, Paris, 1983, p. 167.

18. J. Torró i Abad & P. Ferrer Marset: «Asentamientos altomedievales en el Pic Negre

(Cocentaina, Alicante). Aportación al estudio del tránsito a la época islámica en el ámbito

montañoso en las comarcas meridionales del País Valenciano», vv. aa.: I Congreso de Arqueología

medieval española (Huesca, 1.985)», Diputación General de Aragón, Departamento de Cultura y

Educación, Zaragoza, 1986, pp. 129-147.

19. On this subject, vid. the excellent work of S. Gutiérrez Lloret: La cora de Tudmir: de la

antigüedad tardía al mundo islámico. Poblamiento y cultura material, Casa de Velázquez, Madrid,

1996, p. 275 and following.

20. L. A. García Moreno, Historia de España visigoda, Cátedra, Madrid 1989, p. 207.

21. Gutiérrez Lloret, La cora de Tudmir, p. 276.

22. M. Acién Almansa: «Poblamiento y fortifi cación en el Sur de Al-Andalus. La formación

de un país de husûn», in vv. aa.: III Congreso de Arqueología Medieval española (Oviedo, 1.989),

Vol. I, Asociación Española de Arqueología Medieval, Oviedo, 1989, pp. 135-150.

23. Martín González, Huérfanos del Imperio, pp. 185-188; Arce Martínez, Bárbaros y

romanos, pp. 151 and following; Wickham, Framing, pp. 481 and following.; R. Sanz Serrano:

«Las relaciones de dependencia como factor de Cristianización en la Península Ibérica: grupos de

edad y Cristianización», in M. M. Myro, J. M. Casillas, J. Alvar & D. Plácido (eds.): Las edades

de la dependencia, Ediciones Clásicas, Madrid, 2000, p. 399.


addition, a certain local remembrance in the village societies about

the places of the ancestors, transmitted by collective memory. Perhaps

through legends of tales?24 It is actually hard to know.

While Archaeology is mapping the Iberian incastellamento step by

step, we can see, as an initial premise, a primary division between the

North and the South of our Peninsula, derived by their diff erent historical

development.25 In this sense, in general the Mediterranean façade

and the Iberian South26 faced the Late Antiquity from a more urban

and more economically developed (in the sense of communications,

infrastructures, etc…) starting point than the Iberian heartland and the

Cantabrian (North-Atlantic) shore. Th ose are, with some exceptions,

territories opened to the Mare Nostrum, holders of a cultural background

ruled by a large cohabitation and acculturation due to the contact with

other peoples. In this picture, Romanization was just the last (altough

actually the deepest) episode of several colonization processes. In the

Late Antiquity, the indigenous and pre-Roman traces here, even if

they exist, are scarce and shallow: a bit more than a certain survival

of Neopunic language and culture, present in several territories of the

Western Late Antique Mediterranean Sea as it is said in the Augustine

works,27 and a phenomenon probably also present in the Iberian South;

indeed the recognition in sources of the ancient Tartessos in Gades still in

the IVth century,28 or the late presence of the painted Iberian traditional

ware in some sites as Cástulo,29 in the upper Guadalquivir, can show

traces of this reality. However, on the other hand, the Mediterranean

Iberia actually showed a heavy presence of strong local powers, directly

24. We know an interesting case, from other context in the Ancient World, related to the

shelter on a height by some village societies over abandoned ruins. It was the shelter in the remains

of the Nineveh ziggurat by peasant refugees coming from the sorrounding village communities,

when the Ten Th ousand crossed this region (Xenoph. Anabasis, III, 4).

25. Is not necessary to speak about the need for more concrete regional and close-scale studies

for every territory within them, but also not to forget the general picture anyway.

26. For the purposes of this paper, we understand it as all the territories located south of the

river Tagus.

27. S. Fernández Ardanaz: «Pervivencia del Mundo Púnico en el Mediterráneo Occidental

de los siglos iv y v d. C. Estudio fi lológico y crítico-histórico de los testimonios literarios», in

A. González Blanco (Ed.): Arte, sociedad, economía y religión durante el Bajo Imperio y la

Antigüedad Tardía (Homenaje al profesor J.M. Blázquez Martínez), Antigüedad y Crsitianismo,

VIII, Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Murcia, Murcia, 1991, pp. 137-167.

28. Avienus, O.M., 26.

29. B. Ceprián del Castillo & J. De la Torre Menduiña: «Actividad arqueológica en el

Cerro del Cortijo de los Guardas (Cástulo). Estudios de materiales siglos iv-v d.n.e.», in Arqueología

y territorio medieval, 17, 2010, p. 11.


ingrained into the territory. Th is feature is important, because they were

not necessarily associated to a Roman administration already mortally

wounded, neither to members of a senatorial aristocracy with an imperial

power,30 that is, a fading ordo in the West. Th ese local powers, instead,

emerged from a local aristocracy apparently heir from the former ordo

decurionum (or curialis) who ruled de facto regional and local realities.

After the fall of the Roman State, this aristocracy would be the only

source of both secular and religious power31 within its own spheres of

infl uence, shaping important autonomous territories in the South and

South-Eastern Iberia, as the independent Corduba or the Orospeda, a

rocky area between the Baetica and Carthaginensis provinces,32 in the

vth-vith centuries. Th ese realities shall remain politically independent

until their annexation manu militari to the Visigoth Kingdom of Toletum

following the ideal of territorial unity developed by King Leovigild. In

this regard, we know through the Ioannis Biclarensis’ «Chronica»33 the

abasement of many aristocratical civitates atque castella placed within

these areas between 572 and 577 A.D., an important information about

the fortifi ed nature of these centres. From these places the Southern

local aristocracies managed the surrounding territories and exercised

their power. Th e fact that this same text tell us about a certain peasant

riot, defeated by the Gothic king too, seems to point to a deliverance or a

fl ight of the producing population who took advantage of the ravages of

war unleashed by Visigoths against their landlords. In fact, here lies the

probable existence of two diff erent Late Antique hillforts: the «citadel

type», seat of local powers referred supra, shaped by a certain kind of

fortifi ed villae rusticate in transit to the feudal castle and focused on the

aristocratical control over production and redistribution developed in

the surrounding areas. On the other hand, we can fi nd the «castrum type»

hillforts, formed by escaped fugitives from the social and economical

30. One of the main representatives of this ordo at the beginning of the Vth century is Melania

the Younger, who owned a large list of familiar properties along all the Empire, Hispaniae included.

Upon her fi gure, vid. S. Martín González: «Santas de diciembre: Eulalia de Mérida, Melania

la Joven y la transformación de las élites bajoimperiales», vv. aa.: XI Encuentro de Jóvenes In-

vestigadores del Departamento de Historia Antigua de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid,

forthcoming; J. M. Blázquez Martínez: Intelectuales, ascetas y demonios al fi nal de la Antigüe-

dad, Cátedra, Madrid, 1998, pp. 221 and following.

31. F. Bajo Álvarez: «El patronato de los obispos sobre ciudades durante los siglos iv y v en

Hispania», Memorias de Historia Antigua, 2, pp. 203-212.

32. Corresponding to the present Sierras de Alcaraz, Segura y Cazorla, in South-Eastern Spain.

33. J. Bicl. Chron. 572,2 & 577,2.


pressure exercised from the above-mentioned «citadels» over villages

and even urban communities. Let’s see some instances of both types on

the Hispanic soil.

Let’s begin with Cástulo (Linares, Southern Spain). It is a high

plateau,34 important due to its control of major agrarian and mining

resources and well communicated by the upper Guadalquivir, settled

since at least the Late Bronce Age, and with important Iberian Iron Age

and Roman phases. Actually, the survival of the Iberian painted ware is

attested through all the Roman age, with a relative scarcity of Roman

motifs.35 Anyway, a general continuity is attested for almost the whole

Vth century. Th us, this site continues with its role of being the

34. Its height is 300 meters upon the sea level.

35. Ceprián del Castillo & De la Torre Menduiña, Actividad arqueológica, p. 11.

Fig. 1. Political panorama in Iberia at ca.560 A.D. (by ourselves)


producer of a noticeable amount of TSHTM and TSHT pottery,36 being

documented even a certain amount of importations (TSB, TSGT, DSP,

SLG, and especially TSA),37 in addition to three numismatic fi ndings

coined in the second half of IVth century in Augusta Treverorum,

Lugdunum and Rome.38 Th is proves the inclusion (or at least, a contact)

of Cástulo in the commercial circuits of the Western Mediterranean. But

there is something even more interesting for the present subject: the fact

that even the major changes and even the partial abandonment of the

site, attested at the end of Vth century, are placed far from a catastrophist

vision, being related by archaeologists (wisely in our opinion) with the

processes for the implantation of the model of an Episcopal citadel,39

that replaced defi nitely the Classical civitas in this age.

Another interesting site within the Late Antique «citadel hillforts»

panorama in the Southern Iberia is the case of the Tolmo de Minateda

(Hellín, South-Eastern Spain). It is another high plateau site with an

ancestral settlement: at least from the Bronze Age, such as Cástulo. It is

36. In the campaign of 2,008, the Terra Sigillata Hispánica Tardía Meridional clearly ruled,

being attested in the 69% of pottery fi ndings; after it, another local ware, the Terra Sigillata

Hispanica Tardía, reached the 13%. On this regard: Ceprián del Castillo & De la Torre

Menduiña, Actividad arqueológica, pp. 14-15.

37. Th e Terra Sigillata Africana or African Red Slip ware (A.R.S.) reached an important 10%,

while all the rest of importations, combined, barely reached an 8% Vid. Ceprián del Castillo &

De la Torre Menduiña, Actividad arqueológica, pp. 15-16.

38. Th e fi rst one is a quarter of centennialis of Constantius II of the felicitas temporum

reparatio type, while the last two are reduced maiorinae of the reparatio reipublicae type, with the

effi gy of Emperor Gratianus. Vid. Ceprián del Castillo & De la Torre Menduiña, Actividad

arqueológica, 12 y 16.

39. Although Cástulo appears already as Episcopal seat in the Council of Elvira in the early IVth

century, being represented there by its bishop, called Secundinus. In this regard: J. Vives: Concilios

visigóticos e hispano-romanos, C.S.I.C., Barcelona-Madrid, p.1.

Fig. 2. View of the Tolmo de Minateda from the South-East, August 2,011

(photography by ourselves)


placed on a strategic point, rising upon a natural corridor that links the

South-Eastern Spanish Central Plateau with the coastal area, where it

ran the Via II of the Itinerary of Antoninus.40 Between the ivth and the

middle of the vith centuries, the site lived a gradual evolution from the

Classical civitas model, surrounded by many villae rusticae,41 to the rise

of an autonomous power, maybe included in the context of the Orospeda,

that became an Episcopal seat at the beginning of the VIIth century, that

is under Visigothic rule, named Eio.42 Perhaps one of the elements that

better depict the autonomous life of the Tolmo de Minateda, especially

interesting by its limitaneus condition, is the erection at the second half

of VIth or the beginning of VIIth century of a defensive stronghold in the

zone of «El Reguerón», the only one accessible to wheeled traffi c, and

constructed with reused stuff . Th e technique of this rampart, a certain

kind of modifi ed opus africanum, seems to point to Byzantine masons,

although most scholars are cautious on this reading.43 According to this

chronology and these traces, it is perhaps possible that Tolmo were an

autonomous centre within the Orospedan context? Is it possible that

Byzantines were involved in its construction, according to its condition

as a buff er state for the Imperial Spania? Anyway, the construction of

this site is located chronologically after the appearance of the Episcopal

seat, already in the VIIth century and thus as a part of the Regnum

Gothorum. From this moment onwards a classical pattern of Episcopal

city shall be implemented here, being equipped with the buildings for

the power (basilica, with ad sanctos burials included, baptistery and

40. Possibly the Tolmo may be identifi ed with the mansio of Eliocroca. Upon the Roman viae

on Hellín´s territory, vid. F. J. López Precioso: «Vías romanas y visigodas del Campo de Hellín»,

in A. González Blanco (Ed.): La cueva de la Canaleta, Antigüedad y Cristianismo, 10, Servicio

de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Murcia, Murcia, 1993, pp. 99-131.

41. It is the case, among others, of Zama, Arroyo de Isso, or Agra. In this regard vid. R. Sanz

Gamo: «La distribución de las villas romanas en la provincia de Albacete», in Studia E. Cuadrado,

Anales de Prehistoria y Arqueología de Murcia, 16-17, pp. 351-364.

42. Upon the adscription of the bishopric of Eio to the Tolmo de Minateda and its meaning in

the main picture of the Visigothic advance against the Bizantine Spania: S. Gutiérrez Lloret,

La cora de Tudmir…, pp. 248-250; L. Abad Casal; S. Gutiérrez Lloret; B. Gamo Parras & P.

Cánovas Guillén: «Una ciudad en el camino: pasado y futuro de El Tolmo de Minateda (Hellín,

Albacete)», in L. Olmo Enciso (Ed.): Recópolis, y la ciudad en época visigoda, Zona Arqueológica,

9, Museo Arqueológico Regional, Alcalá de Henares, 1998, pp. 323-325.

43. Abad Casal; Gutiérrez Lloret; Gamo Parras & Cánovas Guillén, Una ciudad en

el camino, pp. 325-329; L. Abad Casal & S. Gutiérrez Lloret: «Iyih, El Tolmo de Minateda,

Hellín, Albacete. Una civitas en el limes visigodo-bizantino», in A. González Blanco: La

tradición en la Antigüedad Tardía, Antigüedad y Cristianismo, 14, Servicio de Publicaciones de

la Universidad de Murcia, Murcia, 1997, pp. 594 and following.


palace). Th e vigour of the city reached the middle of the IXth century,44

being identifi ed not without problems with the Emiral Muslim Iyi(h).45

One interesting aspect of this site lies in its surrounding and

subordinate settlement. Its existence is attested almost continuously

from the Late Roman period, as we mention supra, to the end of the

Tolmo’s diachronic sequence, living its own internal processes. As in

many other points on Iberia, this place evolved in the Visigoth age

from a villae rusticate to a farming village model. Th ese villages are

set on low hillocks in order to dominate the surrounding fertile areas,

and sometimes they appear, of course, accompanied by associated

necropolis.46 From the former model, the villa of Zama it is the one who

maintains its settlement, obviously with diff erent features already, while

the thriving of these villages happened at the early VIIth century, that

is, with the Visigoth conquest and the integration of this region in that

Regnum. In sum, Tolmo de Minateda constitutes perhaps one of the

best examples of «aristocratic citadel», with eff ective control over its

environment, for the whole Spanish Mediterranean coast. Of course, the

several and varied fl uctuations and convulsions occurred between the fall

of the Western Roman Empire and the arrival of the Islam, including its

role of stronghold within a borderline area (a limes) between Byzantines

and Visigoths, will directly aff ect this site. It remains to determine its

relationship with the Orospeda and the possible confi guration of an

independent or autonomous local power.

Besides the «citadel model», on the other hand we fi nd the

reoccupation of a hilltop settlement of «castle type». Th is one would work

in order to shelter the (diverse and heterogeneous) fugitive populations

who, fl ying from the manorial estates and from the urban centers,47

sought to leave behind the social confl ict. Most of the evidences of

this phenomenon on written sources come from the North and North-

Western Iberia. However, in the South we have some traces to track it

44. Upon these last phases of the Tolmo de Minateda, vid. V. Cañavate Castejón; J. A.

Mellado Rivera & J. Sarabia Bautista: «Uso, residualidad y problemática del siglo viii en el

palacio visigodo del Tolmo de Minateda (Hellín, Albacete)», Arqueología y Territorio Medieval, 16,

2009, pp. 9-31.

45. Upon the possible identifi cation of the Tolmo de Minateda with Iyi(h), Gutiérrez Lloret, La

cora de Tudmir, pp. 243 and following.

46. Abad Casal; Gutiérrez Lloret; Gamo Parras & Cánovas Guillén, Una ciudad en

el camino, pp. 332-334.

47. Vid. supra footnote number 23.


too, with one interesting additional feature: they actually appear later

on the Muslim written sources, who call them hûsun (castles).48 Th ese

enclaves rely on their own escarpment as a defense, for artifi cial defenses

are not commonly attested, although Iron Age ruins could be employed

in some cases,49 as it seems to occur, in Muslim Emiral age already, in

the former Iberian Iron Age watchtower of Forat de Crevillente.50 In

fact, the most interesting point is the division on these sources between

the «shelter-hûsun» or ma´aqil, typical of this fugitive communities,

against the ummahât al-hûsun, property of the ashâb or Hispano-

Roman-Goth lineage landlords, with an eff ective territorial control.51

Th ese sites seems to thrive with the Islamic conquest, but in some cases

(as Monte del Zambo, Monastil or Cerro de Doña María, all in South-

Eastern Spain) their fi rst phases are already Late Roman.52 Presumably,

by their own nature, in these saltus or marginal areas the cereal-based

subsistence agriculture was implemented, and accompanied by an

escarpments-adapted animal cattle farming (mainly ovicaprids), and

surely completed by a strong use of the environment (wood, gathering,

pastures, small game hunting, etc…). All these features seem to appear

in Monte del Zambo.53

In parallel, besides this reoccupation of heights, an interesting

settlement on marginal areas is also attested: thus, woods, pile-dwellings

over swamps and lagoons, islands, caves, etc…. All of them are very

diff erent spaces, but with the common denominator of being outside

of the local powers sphere, thus escaping the early feudal dependency

relationships. Nevertheless, not every territory is geographically and

geologically worth: thus, certain elements as forests areas, certain kinds

of soils with subterranean waters (for caves), swamps, etc… are necessary

for this kind of settlement. In addition, these same geographical features

are a complicated obstacle for any archaeological research upon these

territories, causing a certain traditional archaeological «invisibility»

48. B. Franco Moreno: «Territorio y poblamiento en la Kûra de Mârida durante el emirato

omeya (siglos viii-x/ ii-iv)», in Espacio, tiempo y forma,U.N.E.D., serie III, Hª Medieval, 17, 2004,

pp. 167-184; Gutiérrez Lloret, La cora de Tudmir, p. 276.

49. Gutiérrez Lloret, S., La cora de Tudmir, pp. 276 -277.

50. A. González Prats: Estudio arqueológico del poblamiento antiguo de la Sierra de

Crevillente (Alicante), Universidad de Alicante, Alicante, 1983, p. 35.

51. M. Acién Almansa: Poblamiento y fortifi cación, p. 143; Gutiérrez Lloret, La cora de

Tudmir, p. 277.

52. Gutiérrez Lloret, La cora de Tudmir, p. 277 and pp. 312-314.

53. Ibídem, p. 314.


for these populations. However, some meritorious works have been

developed in recent years. For instance, this is the case of the swamps

of the Lower River Segura. Th is is a marginal environment, but it off ers

good pastures anyway and also varied possibilities in order to hunt,

fi shing and gathering. Th ere, a precarious settlement is attested for

the Muslim Emiral and early Califal phases (viiith-xith Centuries),

but started in pre-Islamic age, reaching maybe until the Later Roman

times.54 Th is refers to similar cases documented on Puglia55 and Sicily,56

and of course not forgetting the celebrated settlement in the Venetian

archipelago in the Vth century by the fugitives from Aquileia.57 On

the other hand, the revival of the troglodyte (or cave) habitat implies

another interesting phenomenon within the Late Antique settlement on

marginal areas. Although this topic deserves a further study, we must

note here the recurrence of this occupation in ages of crisis58 because

of its easy and constant temperature59 habitat. In the Late Antique

Mediterranean Sea, it is found in Malta at the IIIrd Century A.D.,60

and already in Hispanic contexts, in the Vandal-ruled Baleares.61 On

the other hand, it is worth to describe other settlements related with

ascetical movements, that is, with hermits, anchorites, recluses, etc...62

54. Ibídem, pp. 315 y ss.

55. J. M. Martin & Gh. Noyé: «Habitats et systems fortifi és en Capitanate. Première

confrontation des données textuelles et archéologiques», in Gh. Noyè (Ed.): Structures de l’habitat

et occupation du sol dans les pays méditerranéens. Les méthodes et l’apport de l’archéologie extensive,

École Française de Rome – Casa de Velázquez, Roma-Madrid, 1,988, p. 502.

56. P. Corrao: «Per una storia del bosco e dell´incolto in Sicilia fra XI e XIII secolo», in B.

Andreolli & M. Montanari (Eds.) : Il bosco nel Medioevo, Clueb, Bolonia, 1988, p. 349 and

following.

57. A. Frediani: Gli ultimi condottieri di Roma, Newton & Compton, Rome, 2001, pp. 206-208.

58. In Spain it has been relatively frequent the troglodyte habitat at historical age, by diff erent

factors. Th us, it has been used by bandits and common criminals, but also politically, by the

guerrilla against Napoleon or against Franco. In addition, sometimes it has been used as a shelter

against cold: thus in the so-called «Nevadona del Triple Ocho» («Th e Huge Blizzard of the Triple

Eight»), felt over the regions of Cantabria and Asturias (Northern Spain) at 1,888 A.D.

59. Around 14ºC.

60. A. Bonanno: «Malta in the Th ird Century», in A. King & M. Henig (Eds.): Th e Roman

West in the Th ird Century. Contributions from Archaeology and History, B.A.R. IS, 109, pp. 508-509.

We wish to thank Dr. David Álvarez Jiménez for this reference and the next one.

61. N. Villaverde Vega: «Datos literarios y arqueológicos sobre el dominio vándalo en

Tingitana y Baliares (siglos v-vi)», in J. López Quiroga; A.M. Martínez Tejera & J. Morín

de Pablos (Eds.) Mesa redonda hispano-francesa. Galia e Hispania en el contexto de la presencia

germánica (ss. V-VII), Balance y perspectivas, Univ. Autónoma de Madrid - M.A.R. de la Comunidad

de Madrid, 19-20 de diciembre 2005, BAR International Series 1534, Oxford, 2006, p. 80.

62. Upon this subject: Blázquez Martínez, Intelectuales, ascetas y demonios, pp. 211 and

following.


In this regard, perhaps the most celebrated case on Hispanic soil is the

fi gure of St. Millán (Aemilianus) of Suso, and there are attested large sets

of troglodyte habitat through all of the Upper Ebro region,63 although

the casuistry exceeds this ambit.64 Nevertheless, could we also think of

fugitive groups? On this interesting question we shall return in future

works.

We just referred to the Upper Ebro Valley, an area that, together with

the Northern Central Sub-plateau and the Northern Atlantic shore,

off er the main references upon indigenism and peasant autonomy in

written sources. For the Gallaecia territory it is compulsory to use

Bishop Hidatius’ «Chronica». Th us, we fi nd the inhabitants of these

latitudes sheltered inside «civitates et castella» already in 411 A.D.65

Th ese centers were armored and quite successfully resistant against

Suebi and Visigoths,66 including epic episodes as the resistance of the

Castrum Coviacense (current Valencia de Don Juan) against the Goths

of Th eodoric,67 or when a warband of Herul pirates was rejected by

the crowd.68 Beside this information, the bishop of Aquae Flaviae also

pointed to some traces upon the hillforts of the Bacaudae in the Upper

Ebro Valley.69 Th is does not mean, however, that we would assume

the romantic vision of Northern untamed and isonomic peoples, for

Hidatius´ work shows clearly also the local powers among them: these are

no others than bishops, among them the very Hydatius.70 Nevertheless,

the aristocratic power in the North, at least in some areas, actually was

63. U. Espinosa Ruiz: «Civitates y territoria en el Ebro Medio: continuidad y cambio durante

la Antigüedad Tardía», in U. Espinosa Ruiz & S. Castellanos (Eds.): Comunidades locales y

dinámicas de poder en el Norte de la Península Ibérica durante la Antigüedad Tardía, Universidad

de La Rioja, Logroño, 2006, pp. 81-83.

64. Th us, for instance, in this volume the archaeologist Emilio Gamo shows some cases of this

kind of settlement from the present province of Guadajalara.

65. Hyd. Chron. 41. Nowadays the trend is to identify the Hidatius’ communal and popular

concepts (v.g. «plebs aunonensis») with the inhabitants of the «castella tutiora» (P. C. Díaz

Martínez: El reino suevo (411-585), Akal, Madrid, 2011, p. 165 and following; R. Sanz Serrano,

Historia de los godos, pp. 210 and 391.

66. Hyd. Chron.81 (year 430 A.D.), 86, (431 A.D.), 229 (466 A.D.) y 235 (467 A.D.).

67. Ibídem, 179 (year 457).

68. Ibídem, 164 (year 456).

69. Th e toponymy of the main Bacaudic stronghold, Aracaelli, (Hyd. Chron. 120, year 443)

is clear in this respect. Upon the subject, vid. U. Espinosa Ruiz: «Civitates y territoria en el

Ebro Medio: continuidad y cambio durante la Antigüedad Tardía», in U. Espinosa Ruiz & S.

Castellanos: Comunidades locales y dinámicas de poder en el Norte de la Península Ibérica

durante la Antigüedad Tardía, Universidad de La Rioja, Logroño, 2006, pp. 68 and following.

70. Hyd. Chron. 86, 93, 194, 196.


of a lesser level than most of the South met. Here communal rights and

traditional village customs were recognized, even de iure, and reached

sometimes the XVth century.71 But is it related with a majority of attested

cases of reoccupation of heights?

In the Northern Central Sub-plateau and the Upper Ebro Valley

we fi nd a large list of castra (as Muelas del Pan, Monte Bernorio, Peña

Amaya, Vareia, Tritium, Contrebia Leukade, etc…) whose settlement

pattern in general begins with the Iron Age hillforts. In Late Antiquity

these underwent a precarious and hard to defi ne reoccupation, but that

can be ascribed grosso modo to the frontier placement72 of these lands,

between the Regnum Gothorum and the Northern Iberian peoples.73

Most of these were settled again in Middle Ages. Th is is the case, for

instance, of Monte Cildá (Olleros de Pisuerga, Palencia). Here we

fi nd an intermittent occupation from the Ist Century A.D., but in the

Later Roman phase (IVth-Vth) is attested the erection of the important

masonry walls. Th e place will still live a later reoccupation at the VIth

century. Th ese Late Antique phases have been interpreted according to

the establishing of a Visigoth stronghold against the Cantabrians.74

Perhaps a similar panorama, although there is still much archaeological

work to do on this site, exists in Soto de Bureba (Burgos), where a low

hillock placed in the North-Eastern area of the site (La Tripla) shows

superfi cial traces of certain Late Roman and Early Medieval pottery,

maybe related somehow with any surrounding villa rustica. However,

on this site a walled Romanic church was later erected, already in the

Middle Ages.75

71. It is the case, for instance, of the Ordenanzas de Venaqueros de Mondragón (Basque

Country) of 1,434 A.D.. Th ese laws recognize for the whole community the right to mining and

to metallurgy of a so strategic resource as iron. Upon the subject, vid. I. Corullón Paredes &

J. Escalona Monge: «Entre los usos comunitarios y la iniciativa señorial: la producción de hierro

en el Valle de Valdelaguna (Burgos) en la Edad Media», in J. Bolós (Ed.): Estudiar i gestionar el

paisatge històric medieval, Territori i societat a l´Edat Mitjana IV, 2007, pp. 39-80.

72. We do not want to miss this opportunity to remind that the frontier character of the

Northern Central Sub-plateau enclaves, along a large diachronical sequence, was fi rstly noted by A.

Barbero & M. Vigil: Sobre los orígenes sociales de la Reconquista, Ariel, Esplugues de Llobregat,

1974, pp. 19 and following.

73. U. Espinosa Ruiz, Civitates y territoria en el Ebro Medio, pp. 84 and following.

74. J. M. Iglesias Gil & A. Ruiz Gutiérrez: «Epigraf ía y muralla de Monte Cildá (Aguilar de

Campoo, Palencia): cuestiones en torno a la cronología», Actas y comunicaciones del Instituto

de Historia Antigua y Medieval, Vol. 3, 2,007, pp. 24-41.

75. R. Sanz Serrano; H. Parzinger & I. Ruiz Vélez: «La civitas de Vindeleia y el poblamiento

de La Bureba», in J. Mangas & M. A. Novillo (Eds.): El territorio de las ciudades romanas, Ed.

Sísifo, Madrid, 2008, p. 680.


Other archaeologically interesting zone in Northern Iberia is the

Páramo («moor») of León. Some excellent works76 show its diachronic

sequence from an Iron Age castra landscape (as Valencia de Don Juan,

Ardón, Algadefe, Villaornate, etc…), through the Roman Principate

pattern, based in civitates, garrisons and metallurgy. Already in the Later

Roman age, and with the presence of some surviving features, the Páramo

became an important aristocratic and military game reserve, serving

the numerous villae rusticae (Navatejera, La Milla del Río, Hospital

de Órbigo, Quintana del Marco, Requejo, Lebaniegas, San Millán,

Villaquejida, Cimanes, San Cristóbal, etc...). Nevertheless, from the early

Vth century a huge transformation is attested, featured grosso modo by

the reduction of aristocratical power and the subsequent ruralisation,

dispersion of settlement and encouragement of the peasant sphere.

In addition, familiar monasteries were founded (Marialba, monastery

of San Antolín in Cabreros del Río) and, from the VIth century, the

controversial Grubenhäuser77 begin to be attested, maybe marking the

arrival of foreign populations to this region. Everything seems to agree

with the Hidatian panorama, who showed the fi erce competition in this

region between a highly autonomous Hispano-Roman population and

the German groups. Th is peasant autonomy, if it once will be completely

confi rmed by the Academia, fi nally fi nished with the resettlement

processes and the aristocratical patterns brought by the Reconquista

(IXth-Xth century in this area). At that time, the model of the medieval

incastellamento began.78

Crossing the Cantabrian Mountains, in the current region of

Asturias, we fi nd a not always well-understood model, basically by being

directly related with the concept of Romanization and its degree on

76. J. A. Gutiérrez González: «Modelos de transformación del paisaje antiguo y confi gu-

ración de los nuevos espacios de ocupación en el Norte peninsular», in F. Pérez Losada (ed.):

Hidacio da Limia e o seu tempo: a Gallaecia sueva / A Limia na época medieval, Ayuntamiento de

Ginzo de Limia (Biblioteca Arqueohistórica Limiá, Serie Cursos e Congresos nº 5), Ginzo de Limia,

2011; id. «Las villae y la génesis del poblamiento medieval», en C. Fernández Ochoa; V. García-

Entero & F. Gil Sendino (eds.): Las villae tardorromanas en el Occidente del Imperio: arquitec-

tura y función, Ed. Trea, Gijón, 2008, pp. 215-238; id. «El Páramo leonés. Entre la Antigüedad y la

Alta Edad Media», in Studia histórica (Hª Medieval), 14, 1996, pp. 47-96.

77. On these sunken huts we have recently wrote: S. Martín González: «Las trazas

del cambio: reutilización y reocupación de estructuras rurales en el Valle del Duero al fi nal de

la Antigüedad», in vv. aa.: Actas del I Encuentro de Jóvenes Investigadores del Valle del Duero,

Asociación Zamora Protohistórica, forthcoming.

78. Gutiérrez González, Modelos de transformación, p. 15; id. El Páramo leonés, pp. 68 and

following.


these lands. In spite of the «triumphalist» and pro-Romanization vision

shown by the Asturian Archaeology in the last three decades, at the end

the villae rusticae here attested are relatively scarce and constrained

in a very specifi c geographical area.79 But, chiefl y, they result hard

to classify within the archetypical model of villa rustica, due to its

orographic features, its adaptations to it and its strong provincialism

(or indigenism). All this features take it closer to the hillfort more

than to the villae of the plain, as those in the Central plateau. Th is is

certainly an extremely interesting ambit, for the local elites (who mix

a certain degree of Romanization with the pre-Roman native tradition)

who occupied these «villae in height» will star in the Late Antiquity

the «origen de las aristocracias medievales» of the medieval Asturian

Kingdom.80 Th is does not mean the unadaptation of these powers to

each historical synchrony, as it showed by the erection of a castellum of

the VIIIth century close to the villa of Veranes, the so-called oppidum

Curiel.81 Nevertheless, the settlement on Veranes shall continue to the

XIIIth century, with the erection of the church of Santi Petri et Sanctae

Mariae82 upon the ruins of the former villa.83 Anyway, these local

powers’ sites seem to coexist with more communal, popular and village

instances. Perhaps one element in this sense may be the survival of some

castra through the whole Roman age (la Campa de Torres, Cimadevilla,

79. Th ey appear in the centre of the current Principado, either in the periphery of Gijón or

beside the way that unifi ed this seaport with Asturica Augusta, an important communications hub

near León. Upon the network of villae in Asturias, vid. Gutiérrez González Las villae y la

génesis, pp. 167-192; A. Orejas & M. Ruiz del Árbol: «Territorio y dominio en las villas romanas:

el fundus de Veranes», in C. Fernández Ochoa; V. García-Entero & F. Gil Sendino (Eds.): Las

villae tardorromanas en el Occidente del Imperio: arquitectura y función, Ed. Trea, Gijón, 2008, pp.

215-238; C. Fernández Ochoa & F. Gil Sendino: «La villa romana de Veranes (Gijón, Asturias)

y otras villas de la vertiente septentrional de la cordillera cantábrica», in C. Fernández Ochoa; V.

García-Entero & F. Gil Sendino (Eds.): «Las villae tardorromanas en el Occidente del Imperio:

arquitectura y función», Ed. Trea, Gijón, 2008, pp. 435-480; M. Fernández Mier: Génesis del

territorio en la Edad Media. Arqueología del Paisaje y evolución histórica en la montaña asturiana:

el Valle del río Pigüeña, Servicio de Publicaciones de la U. de Oviedo, Oviedo, 1999, pp. 50-55.

80. Gutiérrez González, Modelos de transformación, pp. 7-11.

81. Ibídem, pp. 10-11; id., Las villae y la génesis…, pp. 167-192; Orejas & Ruiz del Árbol,

Territorio y dominio, pp. 215-238.

82. Fernández Ochoa & Gil Sendino, La villa romana, p. 448; C. Fernández Ochoa et

alii: «Proyecto Veranes. Arqueología e Historia en torno a la Vía de la Plata en el Concejo de Gijón

(Asturias)», in CuPAUAM, 24, 1997, pp. 253-278.

83. About the churches erected on former villae rusticae, vid. R. Sanz Serrano & S. Martín

González: «De la villula a la ecclesia: arqueología de la transición entre el mundo tardoantiguo

y el medieval en la Iberia rural», in vv. aa.: Actas del I Congresso de Arqueologia de Transiçâo, 2-4

mayo 2.012, C.I.A.T., Universidade de Évora, forthcoming.


etc.), centres who controlled the surrounding agrarian and livestock

resources,84 and metallurgy practitioners until the VIth (and sometimes

even the Xth) century.85 In addition, in the Asturian mountains the Late

Antique reoccupation on Iron Age hillforts is also attested (Coaña,

Mohías, Boal, etc.), sometimes without any artifi cial fortifi cation, the

same that we saw for the South-Eastern Iberia,86 just relying on their

own orography.87 However, there is already a main character to watch:

the Church. While he pointed to the traces of indigenism in the porst-

Roman Northern Iberia, Hidatius also testifi ed about the existence of

local powers, especially of ecclesiastical nature,88 showing our need to

avoid certain easy and simple explanations. In this regard, an accurate

assessment about the role of the Church is needed, especially focused on

the network of bishoprics and parishes as the new pattern of territorial

control employed by the new Iberian Germanic States. Th us, perhaps we

might fi nd that the new political and military centers should be placed,

in rural contexts, on dominant hilltops, while the ecclesiastical ones

were to be erected over the ruins of the former villae rusticae.89 In fact,

many of the estates formerly ruled by them perhaps have been, through

diff erent formulas, inherited by Church, as the episode of Melania

the Younger, among others, testifi es.90 In this context, the action of the

Regnum Suevorum results highly noticeable. We know it mainly by

the Parrochiale Suevum,91 a large list of bishoprics and parishes dated

in the 569 A.D. With this document at hand, the Suevic model appears

84. Fernández Mier, Génesis del territorio en la Edad Media, p. 293.

85. Ibídem, p. 183.

86. Vid. supra footnote n. 47.

87. Fernández Mier, Génesis del territorio en la Edad Media…, p. 292.

88. Hyd. Chron. 86, 93, 194 & 196.

89. Sanz Serrano & Martín González, De la villula …

90. Vid. supra footnote n. 30, bibliography included.

91. Th e Parrochiale Suevum established two main metropolis (Bracara Augusta and Lucus

Augusti), twelve bishoprics beneath them and an innumerable amount of little parishes at the

bottom of this pattern. Th is may be interpreted as an actual optimization of the own resources,

after the defeat in the Battle of the river Órbigo against the Goths, perhaps trying to establish

a good rapport with the Hispano-Roman population and their Church. In this regard, we must

remember the conversion of the Suevic Kingdom to Catholicism in the 580’s decade, under the

rule of King Chiarriaric and their heirs. On the Parrochiale Suevum, vid. J. Escalona Monge:

«Patrones de fragmentación territorial: el fi n del mundo romano en la meseta del Duero», in U.

Espinosa & S. Castellanos (Eds.): Comunidades locales y dinámicas de poder en el norte de la

Península Ibérica durante la Antigüedad Tardía, Universidad de La Rioja, Logroño, 2006, p. 192; a

map of the network of bishoprics is available on p.199.


to be much more eff ective than the Visigothic one,92 maybe making a

virtue of necessity.

We shall fi nish denying once again the pretended Hispanic specifi city.

Similar phenomena to those here referred can be attested widespread

through vast territories of the former Western Roman Empire. Th us, for

instance, in Italy we fi nd some accused tendencies to the incastellamento

in the North,93 while strong local powers appear on Campania and

the South, in addition to the occupation of marginal areas, perhaps

by runaway populations.94 But also in Gaul we can fi nd a certainly

similar panorama, attesting some «aristocratical citadels»95 and strong

local powers in the South, on the former Gallia Narbonensis. Th us,

Archaeology shows, at the end, a large list of evanescent phenomena.

Th ese come ultimately motivated by the complex construction processes

of the new states, heirs of the Roman world and, on a wider historical

perspective, as P. Dockés brilliantly established,96 by the long decadence

of the slave system.

92. Escalona Monge, Patrones, p. 192.

93. P. Arthur: «From vicus to village: Italian landscapes AD 400-1000», in N. Christie:

Landscapes of change. Rural evolutions in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, Ashgate,

Aldershot, 2004, pp. 103 and following.

94. Vid. supra footnotes n. 55-57.

95. As, for instance, the case of Larina by the Rhône: P. Périn: «Th e origin of the village in Early

Medieval Gaul», in N. Christie: Landscapes of change. Rural evolutions in Late Antiquity and the

Early Middle Ages, Ashgate, Aldershot, 2004, p. 264.

96. P. Dockés: La libèration medièvale, Flammarion, 1979, Paris. As he pointed in this work,

the long end of slave system arrived after three main phases, completed between the IIIrd and the

viiith-ixth centuries.

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