what was a roman colonus
Colonus (person) A colonus was a tenant farmer from the late Roman Empire and Early Middle Ages. Known plurally as coloni or colonate, these farmers were sharecroppers, who paid back landowners with a portion of their crops, in exchange for use of their farmlands. The coloni's tenant-landlord relationship eventually degraded into one of debt and dependence. As a result, the colonus became a new type of land tenancy, in which the occupants were placed in a state between freedom and slavery.