CHAPTER V.

FEUDALISM IN CORSICA--THE LEGISLATOR SAMBUCUCCIO.

For a long period the history of the Corsicans presents nothing but a bloody picture of the tyranny of the barons over the lower orders, and the quarrels of these nobles with each other. The coasts became desolate, the old cities of Aleria and Mariana were gradually forsaken; the inhabitants of the maritime districts fled from the Saracens higher up into the hills, where they built villages, strengthened by nature and art so as to resist the corsairs and the barons. In few countries can the feudal nobility have been so fierce and cruel as in Corsica. In the midst of a half barbarous and quite poor population, Nature around them savage as themselves, unchecked by any counterpoise of social morality or activity, unbridled by the Church, cut off from the world and civilizing intercourse--let the reader imagine these nobles lording it in their rocky fastnesses, and, giving the rein to their restless and unsettled natures in sensuality and violence. In other countries all that was humanizing, submissive to law, positive and not destructive in tendency, collected itself in the cities, organized itself into guilds and corporate bodies, and uniting in a civic league, made head against the aristocracy. But it was extremely difficult to accomplish anything like this in Corsica, where trade and manufactures were unknown, where there were neither cities nor a commercial middle-class. All the more note-worthy is the phenomenon, that a nation of rude peasants should, in a manner reminding us of patriarchal times, have succeeded in forming itself into a democracy of a marked and distinctive character.

The barons of the country, engaged in continual wars with the oppressed population of the villages, and fighting with each other for sole supremacy, had submitted at the beginning of the eleventh century to one of their own number, the lord of Cinarca, who aimed at making himself tyrant of the whole island. Scanty as our materials for drawing a conclusion are, we must infer from what we know, that the Corsicans of the interior had hitherto maintained a desperate resistance to the barons. In danger of being crushed by Cinarca, the people assembled to a general council. It is the first Parliament of the Corsican Commons of which we hear in their history, and it was held in Morosaglia. On this occasion they chose a brave and able man to be their leader, Sambucuccio of Alando, with whom begins the long series of Corsican patriots, who have earned renown by their love of country and heroic courage.

Sambucuccio gained a victory over Cinarca, and compelled him to retire within his own domains. As a means of securing and extending the advantage thus gained, he organized a confederacy, as was done in Switzerland under similar circumstances, though somewhat later. All the country between Aleria, Calvi, and Brando, formed itself into a free commonwealth, taking the title of Terra del Commune, which it has retained till very recently. The constitution of this commonwealth, simple and entirely democratic in its character, was based upon the natural divisions of the country. These arise from its mountain-system, which separates the island into a series of valleys. As a general rule, the collective hamlets in a valley form a parish, called at the present day, as in the earliest times, by the Italian name, _pieve_ (plebs). Each _pieve_, therefore, included a certain number of little communities (paese); and each of these, in its popular assembly, elected a presiding magistrate, or _podestà_, with two or more Fathers of the Community (_padri del commune_), probably, as was customary in later times, holding office for a single year. The Fathers of the Community were to be worthy of the name; they were to exercise a fatherly care over the welfare of their respective districts; they were to maintain peace, and shield the defenceless. In a special assembly of their own they chose an official, with the title _caporale_, who seems to have been invested with the functions of a tribune of the Commons, and was expressly intended to defend the rights of the people in every possible way. The podestàs, again, in their assembly, had the right of choosing the _Dodici_ or Council of Twelve--the highest legislative body in the confederacy.

However imperfect and confused in point of date our information on the subject of Sambucuccio and his enactments may be, still we gather from it the certainty that the Corsicans, even at that early period, were able by their own unaided energies to construct for themselves a democratic commonwealth. The seeds thus planted could never afterwards be eradicated, but continued to develop themselves under all the storms that assailed them, ennobling the rude vigour of a spirited and warlike people, encouraging through every period an unexampled patriotism, and a heroic love of freedom, and making it possible that, at a time when the great nations in the van of European culture lay prostrate under despotic forms of government, Corsica should have produced the democratic constitution of Pasquale Paoli, which originated before North America freed herself, and when the French Revolution had not begun. Corsica had no slaves, no serfs; every Corsican was free. He shared in the political life of his country through the self-government of his commune, and the popular assemblies--and this, in conjunction with the sense of justice, and the love of country, is the necessary condition of political liberty in general. The Corsicans, as Diodorus mentions to their honour, were not deficient in the sense of justice; but conflicting interests within their island, and the foreign tyrannies to which, from their position and small numbers, they were constantly exposed, prevented them from ever arriving at prosperity as a State.