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Extensive Definition
Brigandage refers to the life and practice of
brigands: highway
robbery and plunder.
Origin of the word
The brigand is supposed to derive his name from the Old French brigan, which is a form of the Italian brigante, an irregular or partisan soldier. There can be no doubt as to the origin of the word bandit, which has the same meaning. In Italy, which is not unjustly considered the home of the most accomplished European brigands, a bandito was a man declared outlaw by proclamation, or bando, called in Scotland "a decree of horning" because it was delivered by a blast of a horn at the town cross. The brigand, therefore, is the outlaw who conducts warfare after the manner of an irregular or partisan soldier by skirmishes and surprises, who makes the war support itself by plunder, by extorting blackmail, by capturing prisoners and holding them to ransom, who enforces his demands by violence, and kills the prisoners who cannot pay.Resistance
see also Brigandage in the Two Sicilies In certain conditions the brigand has not been a mere malefactor. "It is you who are the thieves", was the defence of the Calabrian who was tried as a brigand by a French court-martial during the reign of Joachim Murat in Naples.Brigandage may be, and not infrequently has been,
the last resource of a people subject to invasion. 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.
In the Balkan
peninsula, under Turkish rule, the
brigands (called klephts
by the Greeks and hayduks
or haydutzi by the Slavs) had some claim
to believe themselves the representatives of their people against
oppressors. The only approach to an attempt to maintain order was
the Right to bear
arms|permission given to part of the population to carry arms
in order to repress the klephts. They were hence called armatoli.
As a matter of fact the armatole were rather the allies than the
enemies of the klephts.
Causes
The conditions which favour the development of brigandage may be easily summed up. They are first bad administration, and then, in a less degree, the possession of convenient hiding-places.The Scottish
Marches supplied a theatre for the gentlemen
reivers. Later after the
War of the Three Kingdoms policing the Scottish moss-troopers
tide up many English soldiers of the occupying New Model
Army. Their contemporaries in Ireland were known as tories.
Rapparees
were Irish guerrillas of a later generation who fought for James II
after the Revolution
of 1688 and on his defeat degenerated into brigands.
The Apennines,
the mountains of Calabria, the
Sierras
of Spain,
were the homes of the Italian banditos and the Spanish bandoleros
(memer of a gang) and salteadores (raiders). The forests of
England
gave cover to the outlaws, whose very much flattered portrait is to
be found in the ballads of Robin Hood.
The maquis,
i.e. the bush of Corsica, and its
hills, have helped the Corsican brigand, as the bush of Australia covered
the bushranger.
The great haunts of brigands in Europe have been
central and southern Italy and parts of Spain, except those which
fell into the hands of the Turks.
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".
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.
In relatively unsettled parts of the United
States there has been a considerable amount of a certain kind
of brigandage. In early days the travel routes to the far West were
infested by highwaymen, who nonetheless
seldom united into bands. Such outlaws, when captured, were often
dealt with in an extra-legal manner, e.g. by "vigilance
committees".
In France there were the Ecorcheurs, or
Skinners,in the 15th century, and the Chauffeurs of the
revolutionary epoch. 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. 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.
Greece
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.In the Balkan peninsula, under Turkish rule,
brigandage continued to exist in connexion with Christian revolt
against the Turk.
Italy
Until the middle of the 19th century Italy was divided into small states, so that the brigand who was closely pursued in one could flee to another. Thus it was that Marco Sciarra of the Abruzzi, when hard pressed by the Spanish viceroy of Naples - just before and after 1600 - could cross the border of the papal states and return on a favourable opportunity. When pope and viceroy combined against him he took service with Venice, from whence he could communicate with his friends at home, and pay them occasional visits. On one such visit he was led into a trap and slain. Marco Sciarra was the follower and imitator of Benedetto Mangone, of whom it is recorded that having stopped a party of travellers which included Torquato Tasso, he 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, and 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 Banditti. It begins:- "Io canto li ricatti, e it fiero ardire
- Del gran Pietro Mancino fuoruscito
- (Pietro Mancino that great outlawed man
- I sing, and all his rage.)
- Del gran Pietro Mancino fuoruscito
In Naples, every
successive revolutionary disturbance saw a recrudescence of
brigandage down to the unification of 1860-1861. The source of the
trouble was the support the brigands (like the famoous
Nicola Napolitano (brigand)) received from various kinds of
manutengoli (maintainers) - great men, corrupt officials, political
parties, and the peasants who were terrorized, or who profited by
selling the brigands food and clothes.
In Sicily, in 1866 two
English travellers, Mr E. J. C. Moens and the Rev. J. C. Murray
Aynesley, were captured and held to ransom. Mr Moens found that the
manutengoli of the brigands among the peasants charged famine
prices for food, and extortionate prices for clothes and
cartridges.
In Calabria, Giuseppe
Musolino (also known as brigante Musolino) was an elusive
fugitive, always managing to escape traps. Musolino stirred the
imagination of many people in Italy and in short order he became a
legend. He became the subject of many Calabrian folk tales and
popular songs.
Spain
In Spain brigandage was common in and south of the Sierra Morena. It reached its greatest heights in Catalonia, where it began in the strife of the peasants against the feudal exactions of the landlords. It had its traditional hero, Roque Guinart, who figures in the second part of Don Quixote. The revolt against the house of Austria in 1640, and the War of the Succession (1700-1714), gave a great stimulus to Catalan brigandage. A country gentleman named Pedro Veciana, hereditary balio (military and civil lieutenant) of the archbishop of Tarragona in the town of Valls, armed his farm-servants, and resisted the attacks of the brigands. With the help of neighbouring country gentlemen he formed a strong band, known as the Mozos (Boys) of Veciana. The brigands combined to get rid of him by making an attack on the town of Valls, but were repulsed with great loss. The government of Philip V then commissioned Veciana to raise a special corps of police, the Escuadra de Cataluna, which still exists. For five generations the colonel of the escuadra was always a Veciana. Since the organization of Guardia Civil by the Duke of Ahumada, about 1844, brigandage has been well kept down. At the close of the Carlist War in 1874 a few bands infested Catalonia.The Sierra Morena, and the Serrania de Ronda,
have produced the bandits whose achievements form the subject of
popular ballads, such as Francisco Esteban El Guapo (Francis
Stephen, the Buck or Dandy), Don Juan de Serralonga, Pedranza,
&c. Jose Maria, called El Tempranillo (The Early Bird), was a
liberal in the rising against Ferdinand
VII, 1820-1823, then a smuggler, then a bandolero. He was
finally bought off by the government, and took a commission to
suppress the other brigands. Jose Maria was at last shot by one of
them, whom he was endeavouring to arrest.
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.Literature
The literature of brigandage, apart from pure romances, or official reports of trials, is extensiveliterature:- 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).