Medieval Corsica
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The history of
Eastern Imperial suzerainty
Barbarians and Byzantines
In the early decades of the fifth century, effective Roman authority all but vanished from Corsica. The island became disputed between the Ostrogoths, Roman foederati who were settled in the lands along the Riviera, and the Vandals, who had established a kingdom in Tunisia. Both groups were sometimes allies, sometimes enemies of the Romans and both followed a pattern of taking over Roman legal forms and structures and maintaining nominal deference to the empire while de facto creating autonomous kingdoms within its former borders.
In 469, Gaiseric, the Vandal king, finally completed the subjugation of the isle.[1] For the next 65 years the Vandals maintained their domination, the valuable Corsican forests supplying the wood for their pirate fleets.
After the Vandal state in Africa crumbled in the early sixth century under the onslaught of the Roman general
After the
Western Imperial suzerainty
Saracens and Franks
The first Muslim raid on Corsica took place in 713. After this, Byzantine authority, nominal under Lombard rule, waned further and in 774, after conquering the Lombard
In 806, however, the first of a series of
Boniface' son
During his conflicts with
Political turmoil
Following Otto II's reestablishment of imperial authority over Corsica, a period of political turmoil began, although the island remained subject to the
The Terra was modelled along republican lines and was composed of autonomous communes. Each commune, or parish, elected a council of "fathers of the commune" who were in charge of the administration of justice under the direction of the podestà. Each podestà of an enfranchised district (or state) in turn elected a member to the supreme council, or magistracy, which was as it were the legislature of the Terra. The supreme council was called the Twelve because that was the number of enfranchised communes. Finally, as a check on their power and that of the podestà, the fathers of each commune elected a caporale charged with looking out for the interests of the poor and defenceless.
In 1012, in a final effort to subdue the wild barons of the south and the northern cape, the Terra called in William, Margrave of Massa.[8] By 1020 he had succeeded in driving the count of Cinarca out of the island and enforcing peace, or at least reduced violence, on the southern barons. He allied with the communes and was able to hand Corsica on to his son, but his legacy was not one of unity and central government.[8]
Papal fief
Towards the end of the eleventh century, the
Pisa replaced the papal legates who were governing the island with judges (judices) of their own appointment. Valuable chiefly as a source of timber for the Pisan fleet, but also as an important transit point for the slave trade, Corsica flourished under Pisan sovereignty, but crises soon arose.
The period of Pisan ascendancy in the final quarter of the eleventh century and first of the twelfth has become the mythical pax pisana ("Pisan peace") of Corsican memory.[7] In the second half of the twelfth century, the war between the two ecclesiastic–economic rivals escalated and in 1195 Genoa captured Bonifacio. It has been said that "Pisa lost" the war for supremacy in Sardinia and Corsica in that year.[10] The next twenty years were occupied by unrelenting Pisan efforts to recapture it. In 1217, Pope Honorius III granted the archbishop of Genoa special rights in Bonifacio. The Genoese also granted the inhabitants civic rights and limited self-government, in order to attract colonists. They adopted a similar policy at their own foundation of Calvi in 1278.[7]
Regnum Corsicae
Genoese supremacy
During the 13th century, the feud between Pisa and Genoa introduced the struggle between Guelph and Ghibelline to Corsica also. In the course of the feud, the Terra di Comune invited Isnard Malaspina, a distant relative of William of Massa, to put a stop to the turmoil. A Count of Cinarca was reinstated and the war between Malaspina, Cinarca, Pisa, and Genoa dragged on with no side gaining the mastery until 1298, when Pope Boniface VIII formally bestowed the regnum Corsicae, Kingdom of Corsica, on James II of Aragon along with the regnum Sardiniae, Kingdom of Sardinia.[11]
In 1325, James finally set out to conquer his dual island kingdom. Sardinia was attacked and the Pisans were destroyed. Unable to sustain themselves at sea, their fortunes in Corsica fell off abruptly. No comparable campaign, however, was launched at Corsica by the king. In 1347, after years of more political turmoil, a diet of caporali and barons offered the Genoese republic the sovereignty of the isle. By the agreement with Genoa, regular tribute was to be paid, but the Corsicans were allowed to retain their own laws and customs, to be governed by their own bodies, the Twelve in the north and a new council of Six in the south, and be represented at Genoa by an orator. It was, however, an inauspicious year. The Black Death arrived in Genoa in October and when it hit Corsica in the next months it decimated it, killing off perhaps two thirds of the population.
Aragonese interference
The feudal baronage of the south and the hereditary caporali of the north alike resisted the authority of the Genoese governors and Peter IV of Aragon took the opportunity to reassert his claims. In 1372, Arrigo della Rocca with Aragonese troops conquered the island, but the barons of Cape Corso appealed for aid to Genoa. Distracted Genoa charted a company of five members, known as the Maona, to govern the island (1378).[12] The Maona partnered with Arrigo, but in 1380 four of the governors of the Maona resigned and this left the lone remaining governor, Leonello Lomellino, as sole governor. He built Bastia on the northern coast to safeguard Genoese interests and when Arrigo died in 1401, he became the sole ruler of Corsica.
Meanwhile, Genoa itself had fallen into the hands of the French, and in 1407 Leonello Lomellino returned as governor with the title of Count of Corsica bestowed on him by Charles VI of France. But Vincentello d'Istria, who had gained distinction in the service of the Crown of Aragon, had captured Cinarca, rallied around him all the communes of the Terra and proclaimed himself Count of Corsica at Biguglia, even seizing Bastia. Lomellino was unable to make headway against him and, by 1410, all Corsica, with the exception of Bonifacio and Calvi, was lost to Genoa, now once more independent of France. A feud between Vincentello and the Bishop of Mariana, however, led to the loss of his authority in the Terra di Comune and he was compelled to go to Spain in search of assistance. In his absence the Genoese reconquered the island.
At this stage, the
In 1421, Alfonso V of Aragon landed with a large fleet to take possession of his "kingdom." He took Calvi, but Bonifacio held out, and his stern imposition of taxes incited general revolt. Forced to lift the siege of Bonifacio and confirm its privileges, Alfonso left Corsica little better off than it was before he came. Bonifacio remained a de facto independent republic under Genoese protection and Vincentello was ultimately unable to put down the general insurrection before the Genoese captured him at Bastia in 1435. He was subsequently executed as a "rebel" himself.
In 1441, the Genoese scored a pivotal victory over the Aragonese. Using advanced artillery, the
Rule of the Bank
In the years that followed, the leaders of the Terra offered the government of the island to the
Within three years, the Corsicans were in revolt again. They sought the support of
Sources
- Jordan, William Chester. Europe in the High Middle Ages. London: Viking, 2003
- Tabacco, Giovanni. The Struggle for Power in Medieval Italy: Structures and Political Rule. (Cambridge Medieval Textbooks.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
- Tangheroni, Marco. "Sardinia and Corsica from the Mid-Twelfth to the Early Fourteenth Century". In David Abulafia (ed.), The New Cambridge Medieval History, Volume 5: c.1198–c.1300, pp. 447–57. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Notes
- ^ Tabacco (1989), 52.
- ^ Tabacco (1989), 74.
- ^ Tabacco (1989), 91.
- ^ Annali d'Italia: Dall'anno 601 dell'era volare fino all'anno 840, by Lodovico Antonio Muratori, Giuseppe Catalani, Monaco (1742); page 466.
- ^ a b Jordan (2003), 33.
- ^ Tabacco (1989), 181.
- ^ a b c d e Tangheroni (1999), 451–53.
- ^ a b c Tabacco.
- ^ Tabacco (1989), 33 and 168.
- ^ Tabacco (1989), 169.
- ^ Tabacco (1989), 263.
- ^ Tabacco (1989), 319.