Social Mobility and Social Change

The Roman conquest of western and northern Europe had far-reaching consequences for the societies and individuals in those regions. In Chapter 8 we have looked at physical mobility, as witnessed in the epitaphs, and how, for various reasons, people migrated outside the confines of their towns, villages, and territories, some of them moving great distances from one place to another. The funerary inscriptions, although they are just one source of information, also give insight into social mobility and the restructuring of individual lives within Roman society. In this regard, the epitaphs alluding to one’s standing in society or suggesting improvement of a personal situation through promotion, inheritance, marriage, or manumission are especially valuable. Equally insightful are those inscriptions naming professions, careers, and public honours. Of particular interest here are the slaves (servi) and freed slaves (liberti) who, in many cases, managed to achieve upward mobility, even if they had to operate within the confines of relatively constricting social and legal structures.

Ancient history · CONQUEST · Genealogy · Inheritance (genetic algorithm) · Political science · Promotion (chess) · Restructuring · Social change · Social mobility · Social status · Sociology · History · Law · Medieval and Early Modern Justice · Medieval Literature and History