Defining rim within the 18th century Ethiopian System of Land Ownership, Administration and Taxation

Abstract

The commonest object of land transaction in records of the 18^th century was called rim. True to the etymology of its denomination, this type of land was carved from a larger estate (g^wəlt) granted to a church, and then distributed to clerics. By carefully examining hundreds of historical records of the period, rim will be redefined within the normative system in which it occurred. The reading of contractual writings against the law, its commentaries, regulations and historical narratives show that rim derived its regime from the provisions prescribed for the estate from which it was apportioned. The lot that each cleric received was composed with parcels of equal quality and was established as a living, a compensation for services or tributes owed to the church. The double requirement that g^wəlt holders should be masters of their domains and be given profitable land allowed rim owners certain liberties. They had dominion over the initial inhabitants of the land whose diverse status was revised. They became judges and administrators of a land on which exactions for the church overlapped with their claims; the taxation rules borrowed from the general fiscal tradition that prevailed in lay domains. They could also liquidate their asset by pledging it for a loan, selling only to redeem it later by exercising the faculty of recovery conferred by legal acts or custom. Several flexible doctrinal interpretations of inalienability supported the established practice of rim exchange.