A ''latifundium'' (
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
: ''latus'', "spacious" and ''fundus'', "farm, estate") is a very extensive parcel of privately owned land. The latifundia of
Roman history were great
landed estates specializing in agriculture destined for export: grain, olive oil, or wine. They were characteristic of
Magna Graecia and
Sicily
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,
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...
,
Northwest Africa
The Maghreb (; ar, الْمَغْرِب, al-Maghrib, lit=the west), also known as the Arab Maghreb ( ar, المغرب العربي) and Northwest Africa, is the western part of North Africa and the Arab world. The region includes Algeria, ...
and
Hispania Baetica
Hispania Baetica, often abbreviated Baetica, was one of three Roman provinces in Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula). Baetica was bordered to the west by Lusitania, and to the northeast by Hispania Tarraconensis. Baetica remained one of the basic di ...
. The ''latifundia'' were the closest approximation to industrialized agriculture in Antiquity, and their economics depended upon
slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
.
During the
modern colonial period, the European monarchies often rewarded services with extensive land grants in their empires. The forced recruitment of local labourers allowed by colonial law made these land grants particularly lucrative for their owners. These grants, ''
fazenda
A ''fazenda'' () is a plantation found throughout Brazil during the colonial period (16th - 18th centuries). They were concentrated primarily in the northeastern region, where sugar was produced in the ''engenhos'', expanding during the 19th ...
s'' (in
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
) or ''
haciendas'' (in
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
), were also borrowed as
loanword
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because t ...
s, Portuguese ''latifúndios'' and Spanish ''latifundios'' or simply ''fundos''.
Agrarian reform Agrarian reform can refer either, narrowly, to government-initiated or government-backed redistribution of agricultural land (see land reform) or, broadly, to an overall redirection of the agrarian system of the country, which often includes land ...
s aimed at ending the dominance of the ''latifundia'' system are still a popular goal of several national governments around the world.
Ancient Rome
The basis of the ''latifundia'' in Spain and Sicily was the ''
ager publicus
The ''ager publicus'' (; "public land") is the Latin name for the public land of Ancient Rome. It was usually acquired via the means of expropriation from enemies of Rome.
History
In the earliest periods of Roman expansion in central Italy, th ...
'' that fell to the dispensation of the state through Rome's policy of war in the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD. As much as a third of the arable land of a new province was taken for ''agri publici'' and then divided up with at least the fiction of a competitive auction for lease holdings rather than outright ownership. Later in the Empire, as leases were inherited, ownership of the former common lands became established by tradition, and the leases became taxable.
The first ''latifundia'' were accumulated from the spoils of war, confiscated from conquered peoples beginning in the early 2nd century BC. The prototypical ''latifundia'' were the Roman estates in
Magna Graecia (the south of Italy) and in
Sicily
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, which distressed
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ' ...
(died AD 79) as he travelled, seeing only slaves working the land, not the sturdy Roman farmers who had been the backbone of the Republic's army. ''Latifundia'' expanded with conquest, to the Roman provinces of
Mauretania (modern
Maghreb
The Maghreb (; ar, الْمَغْرِب, al-Maghrib, lit=the west), also known as the Arab Maghreb ( ar, المغرب العربي) and Northwest Africa, is the western part of North Africa and the Arab world. The region includes Algeria, ...
) and in
Hispania Baetica
Hispania Baetica, often abbreviated Baetica, was one of three Roman provinces in Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula). Baetica was bordered to the west by Lusitania, and to the northeast by Hispania Tarraconensis. Baetica remained one of the basic di ...
(modern
Andalusia
Andalusia (, ; es, Andalucía ) is the southernmost autonomous community in Peninsular Spain. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomous community in the country. It is officially recognised as a "historical nationality". The t ...
).
Large
villa rustica
Villa rustica () was the term used by the ancient Romans to denote a farmhouse or villa set in the countryside and with an agricultural section, which applies to the vast majority of Roman villas. In some cases they were at the centre of a large ...
holdings in
Campania
(man), it, Campana (woman)
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, around Rome, in
Cisalpine Gaul (the modern
Po Valley) and in
Gallia Narbonensis were the base for a self-sufficient economy, similar to the ''haciendas'' of Latin America. They produced oil, wine or
garum
Garum is a fermented fish sauce that was used as a condiment in the cuisines of Phoenicia, ancient Greece, Rome, Carthage and later Byzantium. Liquamen is a similar preparation, and at times they were synonymous. Although garum enjoyed its gre ...
for export. The practice of establishing agricultural ''
coloniae'' as a way to compensate Roman soldiers created smaller landholdings, which would then be acquired by large landowners in times of economic distress. Thus the direction, over time, was towards the consolidation of landholdings into larger units.
''Latifundia'' could be devoted to
livestock
Livestock are the domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to provide labor and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The term is sometimes used to refer solely to animal ...
(
sheep
Sheep or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are domesticated, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus '' Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to domesticated ...
and
cattle
Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus ''Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult ma ...
) or to the cultivation of olive oil, grain, and wine. However, in Italy, they did not produce grain. Rome had to import grain (in the Republican period, from Sicily and North Africa; in the Imperial era, from Egypt). Ownership of land, organized in the ''latifundia'', defined the
Roman Senator
The Roman Senate ( la, Senātus Rōmānus) was a governing and advisory assembly in ancient Rome. It was one of the most enduring institutions in Roman history, being established in the first days of the city of Rome (traditionally founded in ...
ial class. It was the only acceptable source of wealth for senators, though Romans of the elite class would set up their freedmen as merchant traders, and participate as silent partners in businesses from which ''senatores'' were disqualified.
The ''latifundia'' quickly started economic consolidation as larger estates achieved greater
economies of scale
In microeconomics, economies of scale are the cost advantages that enterprises obtain due to their scale of operation, and are typically measured by the amount of output produced per unit of time. A decrease in cost per unit of output enables ...
and senators did not pay land taxes. Owners re-invested their profits by purchasing smaller neighbouring farms, since smaller farms had lower productivity and could not compete, in an ancient precursor of
agribusiness. By the 2nd century AD, ''latifundia'' had replaced many small and medium-sized farms in some areas of the Roman Empire. As small farms were bought up by the wealthy with their vast supply of slaves, the newly landless peasantry moved to the city of Rome, where they became dependent on state subsidies. Overall, the ''latifundia'' increased productivity. Free peasants did not completely disappear: many became tenants on estates that were worked in two ways: partly directly controlled by the owner and worked by slaves and partly leased to tenants. It was one of the greatest levels of worker productivity before the 19th century. Such consolidation was not universally approved of, as it consolidated more and more land into fewer and fewer hands, mainly Senators and the
Roman emperor. Efforts to reverse the trend by
agrarian laws were generally unsuccessful. Pliny the Elder argued that the ''latifundia'' had ruined Italy and would ruin the Roman provinces as well. He reported that at one point just six owners possessed half of the
province of Africa
Africa Proconsularis was a Roman province on the northern African coast that was established in 146 BC following the defeat of Carthage in the Third Punic War. It roughly comprised the territory of present-day Tunisia, the northeast of Algeria, ...
, which may be a piece of rhetorical exaggeration as the North African cities were filled with flourishing landowners who filled the town councils.
Pliny the Elder was very much against the profit-oriented estates described in the writings of
Columella
Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella (; Arabic: , 4 – ) was a prominent writer on agriculture in the Roman Empire.
His ' in twelve volumes has been completely preserved and forms an important source on Roman agriculture, together with the wo ...
. His writings can be seen as a part of the 'conservative' reaction to the profit-oriented new attitudes of the upper classes of the Early Empire (Martin 1971
).
Ancient Greece
The landscape of the Greek mainland does not lend itself to large estates. Olive oil and wine for trade were typically produced by many small groves and vineyards, concentrated in fewer hands at the presses and shipping ports. The grasslands of
Thessaly
Thessaly ( el, Θεσσαλία, translit=Thessalía, ; ancient Thessalian: , ) is a traditional geographic and modern administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, The ...
and
Macedon
Macedonia (; grc-gre, Μακεδονία), also called Macedon (), was an Classical antiquity, ancient monarchy, kingdom on the periphery of Archaic Greece, Archaic and Classical Greece, and later the dominant state of Hellenistic Greece. Th ...
were pasture for grazing horses. Meat was not a staple in Mediterranean diets.
During the
Hellenistic period
In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...
, ''latifundia'' were typical of the export-oriented agriculture of coastal
Syria and the
Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt.
Europe
In the collapse of the
Western Roman Empire
The Western Roman Empire comprised the western provinces of the Roman Empire at any time during which they were administered by a separate independent Imperial court; in particular, this term is used in historiography to describe the period ...
, the largely
self-sufficient villa-system of the ''latifundia'' remained among the few political-cultural centres of a fragmented Europe. These ''latifundia'' had been of great importance economically, until the long-distance shipping of wine and oil, grain and ''
garum
Garum is a fermented fish sauce that was used as a condiment in the cuisines of Phoenicia, ancient Greece, Rome, Carthage and later Byzantium. Liquamen is a similar preparation, and at times they were synonymous. Although garum enjoyed its gre ...
'' disintegrated, but extensive lands controlled in a single pair of hands still constituted ''power'': it can be argued that the ''latifundia'' formed part of the economic basis of the European social, however there is no evidence of this. The gift of a ''villa'', or of a series of them, owned by a powerful patron was at the basis of all the great monasteries and abbeys founded in Western Europe until the time of
Charlemagne
Charlemagne ( , ) or Charles the Great ( la, Carolus Magnus; german: Karl der Große; 2 April 747 – 28 January 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the first ...
, when the land-gifts, significantly, tended to be of forest instead.
Italy
In the 6th century,
Cassiodorus
Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator (c. 485 – c. 585), commonly known as Cassiodorus (), was a Roman statesman, renowned scholar of antiquity, and writer serving in the administration of Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. ''Senator'' ...
was able to apply his own ''latifundia'' to support his short-lived ''Vivarium'' in the heel of Italy. Shortly thereafter,
Monte Cassino
Monte Cassino (today usually spelled Montecassino) is a rocky hill about southeast of Rome, in the Latin Valley, Italy, west of Cassino and at an elevation of . Site of the Roman town of Casinum, it is widely known for its abbey, the first ho ...
was founded in a former Imperial villa.
In
Sicily
(man) it, Siciliana (woman)
, population_note =
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, latifundia dominated the island from medieval times. They were abolished by sweeping land reform mandating smaller farms in 1950–1962, funded from the ''
Cassa per il Mezzogiorno'', the Italian government's development fund for southern Italy (1950–1984).
[John Paul Russo, "The Sicilian Latifundia," '']Italian Americana
''Italian Americana'' is a biannual peer-reviewed academic journal covering studies on the Italian-American experience. It publishes history, fiction, memoirs, poetry, and reviews. The editor-in-chief is Carla A. Simonini ( Loyola University Chic ...
,'' March 1999, Vol. 17 Issue 1, pp. 40–57
Spain
In the
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula (),
**
* Aragonese and Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica''
**
**
* french: Péninsule Ibérique
* mwl, Península Eibérica
* eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in southwestern Europe, def ...
, the
Castilian ''
Reconquista
The ' (Spanish, Portuguese and Galician for "reconquest") is a historiographical construction describing the 781-year period in the history of the Iberian Peninsula between the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in 711 and the fall of the Nasrid ...
'' of Muslim territories provided the Christian kingdom with sudden extensions of land, which the kings ceded as rewards to nobility, mercenaries and
military orders to exploit as latifundia, which had been first established as the commercial olive oil and grain ''latifundia'' of Roman
Hispania Baetica
Hispania Baetica, often abbreviated Baetica, was one of three Roman provinces in Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula). Baetica was bordered to the west by Lusitania, and to the northeast by Hispania Tarraconensis. Baetica remained one of the basic di ...
. The gifts finished the traditional small private ownership of land, eliminating a social class that had also been typical of the
al-Andalus
Al-Andalus translit. ; an, al-Andalus; ast, al-Ándalus; eu, al-Andalus; ber, ⴰⵏⴷⴰⵍⵓⵙ, label= Berber, translit=Andalus; ca, al-Àndalus; gl, al-Andalus; oc, Al Andalús; pt, al-Ândalus; es, al-Ándalus () was the M ...
period.
In the Iberian peninsula, the possessions of the Church did not pass to private ownership until the