Since the sixteenth century, scholars have sought to understand why a historically free segment of the Roman world, the colonus, was apparently tied to the land by laws of the Theodosian Code. While many scholars have called this the birth of medieval serfdom and coined the term colonate, this conclusion cannot be supported by linguistic analysis of the terms Latin etymon colonatus, and derives from deterministic historiography. Furthermore, many pertinent laws are suspect because they originate from the Codes fifth and most incomplete book, which many supplement invalidly with laws from the Justinian Code. A passage from Letter 20*, one of Augustines new letters, provides compelling evidence for the continued mobility of coloni in Fussala, a fifth century North African town. By integrating Augustines new evidence with linguistic, historical and legal arguments, this thesis reinvigorates the long-debated topic of the late Roman colonus.