Crisis of the Third Century: Encyclopedia II - Crisis of the Third Century - Economic Impact

Crisis of the Third Century - Economic Impact

Internally the empire faced runaway hyperinflation caused by years of coinage devaluation. This had started earlier under the Severan emperors who enlarged the army by one quarter and doubled the base pay. As each of the short-lived emperors took power they needed ways to raise money quickly to pay the military's "acession bonus" and the easiest way to do so was by simply cutting the silver in coins with less valuable metals. This had the predictable effect of causing runaway inflation and by the time Diocletian came to power the old coinage of the Roman Empire had nearly collapsed. Some taxes were collected in kind and values were often notational in billion bronze coinage. Real values continued to be figured in gold coinage, but the almost solid silver coin, the denarius, used for 300 years was gone (1 pound of gold = 40 gold aurei = 1000 denarii = 4000 sestertii). The currency had almost no value and trade was by barter. Every aspect of the Roman way of life was affected.

One of the most profound and lasting effects of the Crisis of the Third Century was the disruption of Rome's extensive internal trade network. Ever since the Pax Romana, Imperial Rome's economy depended in large part on trade between the Mediterranean ports and over Rome’s extensive road system. Merchants could travel from one end of the Empire to the other in relative safety, moving agricultural goods produced in the provinces, and manufactured goods produced by the great cities of the East. Large estates produced cash crops for export, and used the resulting revenues to import food and manufactured goods. This resulted in a great deal of interdependence between the Empire’s inhabitants. The historian Henry Moss describes the situation as it stood before the Crisis:

With the Crisis of the Third Century, however, this vast trade network broke down. The widespread civil unrest made it no longer safe for merchants to travel as they once had, and the financial crisis that struck made exchange very difficult. This produced profound changes that, in many ways, would echo the character of the coming Middle Ages. Large landowners, no longer able to successfully export their crops over long distances, began producing food for subsistence and local barter. Rather than import manufactured goods, they began to manufacture many goods locally, often on their own estates, thus beginning the self-sufficient "house economy" that would become commonplace in later centuries, reaching its final form in Manorialism. The common free people of the cities, meanwhile, began to move out to the countryside in search of food and protection. Made desperate by economic necessity, many of these former city dwellers, as well as many small farmers, were forced to give up basic rights in order to receive protection from large land holders. The former became a half-free class of citizens known as coloni. They were tied to the land and, thanks to later Imperial reforms, their positions were made hereditary. This provided an early model for serfdom, which would form the basis of mediaeval feudal society.

Even the cities themselves began to change in character. The large, open cities of antiquity slowly gave way to the smaller, walled cities that were common in the Middle Ages. It would be a mistake, however, to assume that all these changes took place during the third century. These were changes that took place slowly over long periods of time, and were punctuated with many temporary reversals. However, in spite of extensive reforms by later Emperors, the Roman trade network was never able to fully recover. The decrease in commerce between the provinces put them on a path towards increased insularity. Large landowners, who had become more self-sufficient, became less mindful of Rome’s central authority and downright hostile towards its tax collectors. The measure of wealth at this time began to have less to do with wielding urban civil authority and more to do with controlling of large agricultural estates. The common people were losing economic and political power to the nobility, and the middle classes were waning. Thus, with the Crisis of the Third Century, we see the beginnings of the long evolutionary process that would transform the ancient world into the medieval world.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Economic Impact", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki