Monetary loan Contracting

Research Abstract

Monetary Loan Contracts and Mortgage of Agriculture Land in Roman Oxyrhynchus “ Summary ” According to the importance of Egypt to the Roman emperors, they established a special economic system and symbolic currency valid for circulation only inside Egypt, which they rendered as it were a personal property. Furthermore, They endeavored to form a middle class, playing a significant role in municipal administration, as a part of the Romanization Policy. As regards the state of Egyptian economy, Landowners were the bulk of the middle class, most of whom tried to increase the area of their Agriculture land, or owing to accidental poverty –resorted to contracting monetary loans offering their land. The monetary loan contracts were stipulated mostly in the favor of the creditor. While registration of the contracts was an obligatory legal procedure reserve the debtor’s right to recover his land win the debt paid in full and in time. Despite the clear and obvious stipulations in these contracts there resulted, several cases of legal disputation between creditors and debtors. The both of the economic crises in Roman Egypt and the spread of monetary loans with interests, collaborated to destroy the middle class, upon which the emperors relied for filling the vacant honorary posts in the municipalities. Moreover that the small land holdings were converted to large estates whose their lords became their feudal masters, with their own militias, local judges and enjoying the right of minting there local money, in their districts “feudal currency”. Finally, those feudal masters obtained the fealty of their followers. At the very same time these local lords tried to satisfy the emperors of Constantinopolis, while in turn the masters kept on paying taxes to the emperors. HusseinYoussef Beni Suef University

Research Keywords

Roman Egypt