ABSTRACT
In aristocratic empires, aristocrats may or may not be big landowners. While the legal property relationships vary from one aristocratic empire to another, the power relationship between peasants and aristocrats is remarkably uniform. "The pure concept of private property as an absolute right to use and abuse, as it was defined in Roman law, is rarely if ever encountered" in aristocratic empires. Aristocrats may own some land outright or as grants from the ruler in return for military service, and the ruler may own land for the upkeep of his establishment, and the peasants, too, may own land on which they pay tribute. The relationship of exploitation that results from the coercive political and military authority of the aristocrat, that is, from his control of the peasants, that matters to us here. The landlord often intervened to help the peasant escape crushing tax exactions and to rescue the peasant's sons from military conscription.
