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The strong economic growth of Hispania and its integration into the Roman Empire afforded the wealthy Hispano-Roman clans the privilege of obtaining Roman citizenship. Three centuries later, in 212, the Edict of Caracalla granted citizenship to all inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula.
In the rural areas, a rich, ancestral palace of a noble man was called a [https://www.villaromanalaolmeda.com/recursos/documental villa]; the same name was indistinctively given to a nobleman's agricultural exploitation of his land and his peasants' small villages, which included their bakeries, blacksmith's, carpenter's, mills and ponds. The aristocratic land owners retreated to these villas during the crises of the 2<sup>nd</sup> and 3<sup>rd</sup> centuries, periods which brought economic insecurity and in effect, misery. Rural life guaranteed a level of subsistence that the cities could no longer provide.
Facing the crisis of the 3<sup>rd</sup> century, Diocletian (284-305) carried out an administrative, military and economic restructuring of the Roman Empire. The three provinces of Hispania were divided into five regions: ''Tarraconensis, Cartaginensis, Baetica, Lusitania'' and ''Gallaecia''. However, economic reform brought poverty. Slaves, who were very costly, were emancipated and inevitably became peasants, servants, manual labourers, and even, personal bodyguards for the lords and their possessions. The development of this system of multiple autonomous regions with a central governing power (which also protected life against hunger or thieves), forebode the manorial system of feudalism.
