Rural wage Labour in Late Antique North Africa

Jerez Bertolín, Lluís (2024). Rural wage Labour in Late Antique North Africa. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

Casual rural wage labour in the Roman world is an underdeveloped topic, with the arguably first and last main work on the topic being published in 2013 using a methodology relying on comparison to modern times and without the aim to be a consistent model of how wage labour was procured and recruited in the countryside. In this thesis I have provided the first holistic model of rural unspecialised wage labour in the North African countryside between the 4th and 5th centuries, accounting for the characteristics of the workers that made up the labour pool, how they were organised when hired for labour-intensive tasks such as the harvest, and how disputes in affairs relating to the employment of casual wage labour were resolved. This model has been constructed primarily from primary sources, including literary texts, inscriptions, and material culture, both from North Africa and other areas of the Roman world, primarily Egypt.

The main finding of this thesis is that wage labour was primarily used for harvesting and was often hired through contractors who assembled gangs of workers. These contractors were part of the rural middle stratum that could afford to provide securities to landowners for the proper execution of the works but were also willing to devote their time and effort to coordinate harvest labour for profit. The workers they managed were in considerably lower socio-economic strata and very diverse in their profile. Although most of them would have been established locals coming from nearby, some minority presence of urban and transhumant populations could have been possible. The plurality of workers would have been young and male, but older and female workers also participated. Finally, disputes arising from the employment of labour would have likely gone through episcopal mediation, although the sectarian dispute between Catholics and Donatists might have threatened to disrupt this practice.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):