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.