L’influsso della prassi dell’ ‘hospitalitas’ sui processi di insediamento dei barbari in Occidente nel V secolo

Abstract · ‘Hospitalitas’ practice influence on the settlement processes of the barbarians in the West in the 5th century · The hospitalitas / metatum of the later roman Empire was the obligation imposed on private individuals to make available temporarily, for short periods of time, portions of their urban property or rural buildings in order to lodge members of the imperial bureaucracy or soldiers and officers of the roman army on the move. The division of the property between host and guest was by shares of one third. Sources about stable and long-term settlements of barbarians during the Fifth Century AD show settlements characterized by the division of roman properties by shares of one third (tertiae). The historical analysis of these settlements suggests that, where there was negotiation between barbarian groups and the imperial authorities, or directly with roman landowners, the barbarians obtained percentages of property, including farmlands, that evoked the shares of temporary occupation legally granted by the hospitalitas/metatum. The settlement on third-party shares of land is documented only in the settlements of the Burgundians, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths. The parameters offered by the institution of hospitalitas made it possible to identify the original ownership of the allocated land. Thus the hospitalitas / metatum was distorted by its legal content and was partly reversed in its purpose but supported the regulated settlement of barbarian groups.