Brigandage

Brigandage is the life and practice of

The English word brigant (also brigaunt) was introduced as early as 1400, via Old French brigand from Italian brigante "trooper, skirmisher, foot soldier". The Italian word is from a verb brigare "to brawl, fight" (whence also brigade).^[3]

For a bandito or bando a man declared

Laws of war

Towards the end of wars, irreconcilables may refuse to accept the loss of their cause, and may continue

The Calabrians who fought for Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies, and the Spanish irregular levies, which maintained the national resistance against the French from 1808 to 1814, were called brigands by their enemies.^[3] "It is you who are the thieves",^[3] was the defense of the Calabrian who was tried as a brigand by a French court-martial during the reign of Joachim Murat in Naples.^[3]

In the

The conditions which favor the development of brigandage may be summed up as bad administration^[a] and to a lesser degree, terrain that permits easy escape from the incumbents.^[b]

The

The forests of England gave cover to the outlaws, who were flatteringly portrayed in the ballads of Robin Hood. The dense Maquis shrubland and hills of Corsica gave the Corsican brigand many advantages, just as the bush of Australia concealed the bushranger.^[8]

The Apennines, the mountains of Calabria, the Sierras of Spain, were the homes of the Italian banditi, and the Spanish bandoleros (member of a gang) and salteadores (raiders). The great haunts of brigands in Europe have been central and southern Italy and parts of Spain.^[8]

Historical examples

England

England was ruled by William III, when "a fraternity of plunderers, thirty in number according to the lowest estimate, squatted near Waltham Cross under the shades of Epping Forest, and built themselves huts, from which they sallied forth with sword and pistol to bid passengers stand".^[8] The Gubbings (so called in contempt from the trimmings and refuse of fish) infested Devonshire for a generation from their headquarters near Brent Tor, on the edge of Dartmoor.^[8]

France

In France there were the Écorcheurs, or Skinners, in the 15th century, and the Chauffeurs around the time of the revolution. The first were large bands of discharged mercenary soldiers who pillaged the country. The second were ruffians who forced their victims to pay ransom by holding their feet in fires.^[8]

In the years preceding the French Revolution, the royal government was defied by the troops of smugglers and brigands known as faux saulniers, unauthorized salt-sellers, and gangs of poachers haunted the king's preserves round Paris. The salt monopoly and the excessive preservation of the game were so oppressive that the peasantry were provoked to violent resistance and to brigandage. The offenders enjoyed a large measure of public sympathy, and were warned or concealed by the population, even when they were not actively supported.^[8]

In 1870 an English party, consisting of Lord and Lady Muncaster, Mr Vyner, Mr Lloyd, Mr Herbert, and Count de Boyl, was captured at Oropos, near Marathon, and a ransom of £25,000 was demanded. Lord and Lady Muncaster were set at liberty to seek for the ransom, but the Greek government sent troops in pursuit of the brigands, and the other prisoners were then murdered.^[8]

In the Balkan peninsula, under Turkish rule, brigandage continued to exist in connection with Christian revolt against the Turks.^[8]

India

The dacoits or brigands of India were of the same stamp as their European colleagues. The Pindaris were more than brigands, and the Thugs were a religious sect.^[9]

Italy

Until the middle of the 19th century Italy was divided into small states; therefore, the brigand who was closely pursued in one could flee to another. Thus it was that Marco Sciarra of the

Marco Sciarra was the follower and imitator of Benedetto Mangone, who was documented to have stopped a party of travellers which included Torquato Tasso. Sciarrae allowed them to pass unharmed out of his reverence for poets and poetry. Mangone was finally taken and beaten to death with hammers at Naples. He and his like are the heroes of much popular verse, written in ottava rima beginning with the traditional epic invocation to the muse. A fine example is The most beautiful history of the life and death of Pietro Mancino, chief of Banditi,^[9] which begins:

:"Io canto li ricatti, e il fiero ardire

Del gran Pietro Mancino fuoruscito

(Pietro Mancino that great outlawed man

I sing, and all his rage.)^[9]

In the

In the Campagna in 1866, two English travellers, William John Charles Möens and the Rev. John Cruger Murray Aynsley, were captured and held for ransom; Aynsley was released shortly thereafter.^[11] Möens found that the manuténgoli of the brigands among the peasants charged famine prices for food, and extortionate prices for clothes and cartridges.^[9]

Mexico

The Mexican brigand Juan Cortina made incursions into Texas before the American Civil War. In Mexico the "Rurales" ended brigandage.^[8]

Slovenia

In Slovenia the brigands (called Rokovnjači) were active especially in the mountainous Upper Carniola region in the 18th and 19th century. They were suppressed by the army in 1853.

Spain

In Spain brigandage was common in and south of the

• Banditry in Chile
• Outlaw
• Cangaço
• Social bandit
• Thuggee
• Piracy
• Shifta
• Ghazi (warrior), Bedouin military expeditions in pre-Islamic times
• Free company
• Hajduk

Notes

1. ^ Oxford English Dictionary second edition, 1989. "Brigandage" The first recorded usage of the word was by "[Clive] Holland Livy XXXVIII. xlv. 1011e, A privat brigandage and robberie."
2. ^ Oxford English Dictionary second edition, 1989. "Brigand.2" first recorded usage of the word was by "H. LUTTRELL in Ellis Orig. Lett. II. 27 I. 85 Ther ys no steryng of none evyl doers, saf byonde the rivere of Sayne..of certains brigaunts."
3. ^ ^{a b c d e} Hannay 1911, p. 563.
4. ^ Rickards 2000, p. 39.
5. ^ Axinn 2008, p. 89.
6. ^ Elsea 2005, CRS-17, CRS-29.
7. ^ Lieber, Lieber & Shelly 1983, p. 95.
8. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l} Hannay 1911, p. 564.
9. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h} Hannay 1911, p. 565.
10. ^ Hobsbawm 1985, p. 25.
11. ^ Lee 1912, p. 627.

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Brigands.

• Axinn, Sidney (2008). A Moral Military. Temple University Press.
  ISBN 978-1-59213-958-3
  .
• Elsea, Jennifer (13 January 2005) [11 April 2002]. Treatment of "Battlefield Detainees" in the War on Terrorism (PDF). American Law Division CRS Report for Congress, Order Code RL31367.
• Hobsbawm, Eric (1985). Bandits. Penguin. p. 25.
• Lee, Sidney, ed. (1912). "Möens, William John Charles" . Dictionary of National Biography (2nd supplement). Vol. 2. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 627–628.
• Lieber, Francis; Lieber, Hartigan; Shelly, Richard (1983). Lieber's Code and the Law of War. Transaction Publishers.
  ISBN 978-0-913750-25-4
  .
• Rickards, Maurice (2000). Bando: Encyclopedia of Ephemera: A Guide to the Fragmentary Documents of Everyday Life for the Collector, Curator and Historian. Routledge. p. 39.
  ISBN 0-415-92648-3
  .

Attribution

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Hannay, David (1911). "Brigandage". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 4 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 563–566. The article cites:
  • Mr McFarlane's Lives and Exploits of Banditti and Robbers (London, 1837).
  • Eugenio de la Iglesia, Resena Historica de la Guardia Civil (Madrid, 1898).
  • W.J.C. Moens, English Travellers and Italian Brigands (London, 1866).
  • S. Soteropoulos (trans. by the Rev. J. O. Bagdon) The Brigands of the Morea (London, 1868).