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In the late Roman Empire and the Early Middle Ages a colonus (plural: coloni) was a tenant farmer. Known collectively as the colonate, these farmers operated as sharecroppers, paying landowners with a portion of their crops in exchange for use of their farmlands.
The tenant-landlord relationship eventually degraded into one of debt and dependence. As a result, the colonus system became a new type of land tenancy, placing the occupants in a state between freedom and slavery. The colonus system can be considered a predecessor of European feudal serfdom.[1][2]