Post by Admin on Dec 8, 2019 18:54:21 GMT
Promulgation of Laws and Issues of Coinage Not Affected by Plague
Few quantitative proxies have been used as evidence for plague given the low data resolution of late antique datasets. Fig. 2 and SI Appendix, Fig. S1 reveal how 2 measures cited as evidence for plague—the number of laws promulgated per year, and the ratio between the values of gold and bronze coins—appear unaffected by plague. Once legislation is examined at an annual resolution, rather than a chronological division into the pre/postplague reign of Justinian (527 to 565), it becomes clear that the quantity of legislation decreased before the first outbreak of plague in 541 (Fig. 2). Previously, the legal evidence was used at low data resolution (7). Moreover, the issuing of legislation dropped before the plague since Justinian had just completed a massive codification project: The Corpus Iuris Civilis (i.e., the Code of Justinian) from 529 to 534 (34). In the immediate aftermath of this codification project, Justinian issued a series of new laws (“novels” in Fig. 2) to resolve problems and issue corrections beginning in 534, hence the “burst” of legislative activity before the plague. The number of laws promulgated, therefore, fell before the plague, since the codification project and its corrections were now complete, and the commission organized to resolve legal problems was disbanded (35). Both immediately before the plague outbreak and afterward there would have been fewer pressing reasons to issue more laws (contra ref. 36).
Fig. 2.
Legislation (novels) promulgation per year (34, 79, 80). The first outbreak of plague in 541 is marked on this and the other figures below as a vertical dashed line.
Similarly, the gold to bronze ratio plummeted before the JP and increased sharply a few years after the decrease attributed to plague (SI Appendix, Fig. S1). Moreover, the connection between the plague and any broader fiscal concerns, including the fiduciary issuing of coinage, are deeply unclear (37).
As the figures show, a high-resolution analysis that considers the broader chronological context fails to identify the influence of the JP. Moreover, as the ensuing discussion notes, ignoring the broader context of legal and economic history in the years before, during, and after the plague outbreak confuses the causality involved.
Papyri Demonstrate Strong Continued Administration and Economic Vitality
A quantitative assessment of papyrological evidence to understand local governance and economic growth has not featured in JP debates. Due to environmental conditions, papyri survive in large numbers only in Egypt, where plague entered the Mediterranean. If plague devastated the Egyptian population, as is often stressed, we should expect some discussion of it, or at least adaptation to these changes, in the best-surviving documentary evidence from the period. This, however, is not the case. A survey of the 505 papyri precisely dated to individual years from 520 to 570 reveals neither an observable reduction nor a marked increase (due to more need for documentation based on more deaths) in the total numbers of surviving papyri. There is no evidence corresponding to population decline, land abandonment, or tax revenue reductions that could be attributed to the plague in the second half of the 6th century or even to the initial outbreak of 541 in Egypt (Fig. 3). Moreover, the authors know of no papyrus document that definitely refers to the plague among the tens of thousands of surviving papyri from the period in which plague allegedly ravaged the Mediterranean (37, 38).
Fig. 3.
Known papyri per year, annual resolution (http://papyri.info/).
The same effect is visible in the subset of papyri from the archive of the wealthy Egyptian Apion family, the best documented economic entity in the Roman Empire between the 5th and 7th centuries. This high-resolution papyri dataset reveals no economic stress on the family’s estates, which show a substantial increase in revenue (about 30%) between the 540s and 580s, suggesting that plague had no discernible economic effects. Previous work that described JP-driven trends in shifts in Egyptian land tenure rests on a faulty reading of the source material (23; critique in ref. 7). Similarly, the mid-6th century saw an increase in the number of surviving dated papyri, which do not contain references to the plague (Fig. 4).
Few quantitative proxies have been used as evidence for plague given the low data resolution of late antique datasets. Fig. 2 and SI Appendix, Fig. S1 reveal how 2 measures cited as evidence for plague—the number of laws promulgated per year, and the ratio between the values of gold and bronze coins—appear unaffected by plague. Once legislation is examined at an annual resolution, rather than a chronological division into the pre/postplague reign of Justinian (527 to 565), it becomes clear that the quantity of legislation decreased before the first outbreak of plague in 541 (Fig. 2). Previously, the legal evidence was used at low data resolution (7). Moreover, the issuing of legislation dropped before the plague since Justinian had just completed a massive codification project: The Corpus Iuris Civilis (i.e., the Code of Justinian) from 529 to 534 (34). In the immediate aftermath of this codification project, Justinian issued a series of new laws (“novels” in Fig. 2) to resolve problems and issue corrections beginning in 534, hence the “burst” of legislative activity before the plague. The number of laws promulgated, therefore, fell before the plague, since the codification project and its corrections were now complete, and the commission organized to resolve legal problems was disbanded (35). Both immediately before the plague outbreak and afterward there would have been fewer pressing reasons to issue more laws (contra ref. 36).
Fig. 2.
Legislation (novels) promulgation per year (34, 79, 80). The first outbreak of plague in 541 is marked on this and the other figures below as a vertical dashed line.
Similarly, the gold to bronze ratio plummeted before the JP and increased sharply a few years after the decrease attributed to plague (SI Appendix, Fig. S1). Moreover, the connection between the plague and any broader fiscal concerns, including the fiduciary issuing of coinage, are deeply unclear (37).
As the figures show, a high-resolution analysis that considers the broader chronological context fails to identify the influence of the JP. Moreover, as the ensuing discussion notes, ignoring the broader context of legal and economic history in the years before, during, and after the plague outbreak confuses the causality involved.
Papyri Demonstrate Strong Continued Administration and Economic Vitality
A quantitative assessment of papyrological evidence to understand local governance and economic growth has not featured in JP debates. Due to environmental conditions, papyri survive in large numbers only in Egypt, where plague entered the Mediterranean. If plague devastated the Egyptian population, as is often stressed, we should expect some discussion of it, or at least adaptation to these changes, in the best-surviving documentary evidence from the period. This, however, is not the case. A survey of the 505 papyri precisely dated to individual years from 520 to 570 reveals neither an observable reduction nor a marked increase (due to more need for documentation based on more deaths) in the total numbers of surviving papyri. There is no evidence corresponding to population decline, land abandonment, or tax revenue reductions that could be attributed to the plague in the second half of the 6th century or even to the initial outbreak of 541 in Egypt (Fig. 3). Moreover, the authors know of no papyrus document that definitely refers to the plague among the tens of thousands of surviving papyri from the period in which plague allegedly ravaged the Mediterranean (37, 38).
Fig. 3.
Known papyri per year, annual resolution (http://papyri.info/).
The same effect is visible in the subset of papyri from the archive of the wealthy Egyptian Apion family, the best documented economic entity in the Roman Empire between the 5th and 7th centuries. This high-resolution papyri dataset reveals no economic stress on the family’s estates, which show a substantial increase in revenue (about 30%) between the 540s and 580s, suggesting that plague had no discernible economic effects. Previous work that described JP-driven trends in shifts in Egyptian land tenure rests on a faulty reading of the source material (23; critique in ref. 7). Similarly, the mid-6th century saw an increase in the number of surviving dated papyri, which do not contain references to the plague (Fig. 4).