What is "peregrinus"

Peregrinus was the term used during the early Roman empire, from 30 BC to 212 AD, to denote a free provincial subject of the Empire who was not a Roman citizen. Peregrini constituted the vast majority of the Empire's inhabitants in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. In 212 AD, all free inhabitants of the Empire were granted citizenship by the constitutio Antoniniana, abolishing the status of peregrinus.

The Latin peregrinus "foreigner, one from abroad" is a derivation from the adverb peregre "from abroad", composed of per- "abroad" and agri, the locative of ager "field, country". During the Roman Republic, the term peregrinus simply denoted any person who did not hold Roman citizenship, full or partial, whether that person was under Roman rule or not. Technically, this remained the case during the Imperial era. But in practice the term became limited to subjects of the Empire, with inhabitants of regions outside the Empire's borders denoted barbari ( barbarians).