 History of Calabria - Part 2
Byzantines, Saracens, & Normans
500 A.D. - 1190 A.D.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, the Italian peninsula was invaded and ruled by the Ostrogoths (eastern Goths) and later by Germanic Lombards in the north.
In the south, however, by the 6th century B.C., a new group of Greeks had come into power-the Byzantines.
The Byzantines thrived in Calabria and towns such as Stilo and Rossano achieved great wealth and status; still today, these two villages still retain much of their Byzantine heritage seen best in their churches–Stilo’s La Cattolica and Rossano’s San Marco Evangelista.
The Byzantines are credited with giving Calabria her name from the term “kalos-bruo” meaning “fertile earth.”
Around 800 A.D., Saracens began invading the shores of Calabria, attempting to wrest control of the area from the Byzantines. This group of Arabs had already been successful in Sicily and knew that Calabria was another key spot.
The people of Calabria retreated into the mountains for safety. Although the Arabs never really got a stronghold on the whole of Calabria, they did control some villages while enhancing trade relations with the eastern world.
It is during this time and thanks to the invading Arabs that many staples of today’s Calabrian cuisine came into fashion: citrus fruits, eggplants, and hot peppers to name a few. Exotic spices such as cloves and nutmeg were also introduced.
While the Byzantines and Saracens fought, along came Norman Robert Guiscard in the middle of the 11th century conquering all.
Around 1130, Pope Innocent II gave Guiscard’s nephew, Roger II, the Kingdom of Sicily and all of the Norman-controlled areas of southern Italy-Campania (including Naples), Abruzzo, Molise, Puglia, Basilicata, and Calabria.
Southern Italy had never been united as one, and so the Normans installed the feudal system of land ownership to establish order-wealthy Norman overlords owned the land while using Calabrian peasants for all the work. This system lasted well into Italy’s unification in the late 1800s and even beyond in the most remote areas.
Many Calabrian villages were founded during Norman rule.
Swabian, Aragonese & Spanish Rule
1190 A.D. - 1700 A.D.
Frederick II of Swabia came into power in 1194 and is credited with creating one of the most civilized nations in the world that was also a great melting pot of cultures, philosophy, and customs-the so-called “Kingdom of the Sun.”
Southern Italians, however, were not pleased with the heavy taxation and military burdens that now encumbered them and the start of an internal rage with the powers-that-be began, or at least was expanded.
Upon Frederick II’s death in 1250, a struggle for power ensued with Charles d’Anjou, creator of the Angevin dynasty, emerging as an iron-fisted leader in 1266 with a grant of the crown from Pope Clement IV.
Although Charles lost Sicily in 1282, he retained control of the other southern Italian holdings (including Calabria), which came to be known as the “Kingdom of Naples.”
The Angevin dynasty ruled the Kingdom of Naples until 1442, when it fell to Alfonso V of Aragon, who became ruler of the now-named “Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.”
When the Angevin claim passed to the French crown, the Italian Wars began in 1495. The treaties of Blois gave Naples and Sicily to Spain, and so began one of the most harsh, brutal periods of Calabrian history.
The area suffered greatly under Spanish rule with heavy taxation, underutilized farming land because of feuding landowners, famines, and disease. While the north of Italy was experiencing the great Italian Renaissance, Calabria was sheltered in the fields.
Although the Renaissance didn’t make the journey south, the Spanish Inquisition did. In 1560, the village of Guardia Piemontese (CS) was the site of a massacre of Protestants who had fled from the Alps, known as Waldensians. The event is commemorated in the Piazza della Strage (Square of the Slaughter) and by the name of the 14th century Porta del Sangue (Gate of Blood), through which the blood of rebels reportedly flowed to the valley below.
Philosopher Tommaso Campanella of Stilo (RC) also led a famous uprising against Spanish treatment, but was captured and imprisoned.
Austrians, Bourbons, French, & Bourbons Again
1700 A.D. - 1860 A.D.
In the early 1700s, the Austrian Hapsburgs came into control, but their rule was short-lived as in 1735, they ceded the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies to the Bourbons.
In 1759, Ferninand IV of Naples became king and ruled with heavy military occupation and repression-controlling political uprisings by killing many of the Calabrian dissenters.
At the end of the 18th century, the French invaded Italy and in 1802, Napoleon Bonaparte became President of the Italian Republic. A few years later, he declared himself king and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies independent with his brother Joseph as its king.
When Joseph left to assume the Spanish throne in 1808, Napoleon gave the Kingdom of Naples to his brother-in-law Joachim Murat. Murat instituted the French Civil Code and went to work on public infrastructure-reforms that were undone when the Bourbons returned with the help of the British in 1815.
Murat was out, and when he tried to reclaim his throne, he was captured in Pizzo (VV), held prisoner in the grand castle, and shot in the courtyard.
During the rule of the Bourbons, Calabrians became increasingly disgruntled and staged several insurrections, which were met with responses of executions or life imprisonment. They began to band together to form secret societies with laws enforced by brigands and bandits-the loose precursor to organized crime.
As some groups became more organized, though, they joined a larger movement that called for “Italy, one free, independent republican nation,” espoused by Giuseppe Mazzini and Nicholas Giuseppe Garibaldi-who would forever change the history of Italy.
Risorgimento, Emigration, & World Wars
1860 A.D. -Present
In 1860, in a movement called “Il Risorgimento,” or the revival, Garibaldi and his band of “Red Shirts” conquered Sicily and then the rest of southern Italy with the goal of unifying Italy under the Sardinian House of Savoy.
In 1861, the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed under King Vittorio Emanuele II and the first elections of Italy’s parliament took place in Turin, its first capital. The capital was moved to Florence in 1865 and then to Rome in 1870.
Vittorio Emanuele II died in 1878 and Umberto I rose to the throne. Meanwhile, life for southern Italians remained much the same as it always had-lots of hard work and little to show for it. The feudal system was still largely practiced in the south, making it difficult for farmers to have their own land.
Leaving their homeland and starting somewhere else seemed to be the only choice for many southern Italians. Around 1892, a mass emigration from Italy began.
By 1924, five million Italians had left the country reducing its population by a third-about 80% of these emigrants were from the Mezzogiorno, the southern provinces. They went to the United States, Canada, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, and elsewhere in Europe.
In 1900, Umberto I was assassinated and Vittorio Emanuele II became king. Fifteen years later, Italy entered World War I on the side of the Allies, but the unsettled post-war atmosphere helped the rise of the fascism. Benito Mussolini was elected to Parliament in 1921 and then was appointed Prime Minister of Italy by Vittorio Emanuele II in 1925. Three years later, the fascist leader called “Il Duce” dissolved Parliament and created a dictatorship with him at the helm.
During the time of fascism, the poor continued to struggle, and Mussolini’s alignment with Hitler and Germany and the country’s entry into World War II against France and Great Britain in 1940 didn’t help matters. A series of rebellions by the people ensued and Italy surrendered to the Allies in 1943. Mussolini was captured and killed in 1945.
In a historic vote in 1946, Italians voted to abolish the monarchy, exile the royal family of Savoy because of its support for fascism, and establish a republic. With the adoption of a constitution in 1948, Italy became the parliamentary republic that it is today.
The economic conditions of the south continued to lag behind those of its northern counterpart, and so another wave of Italians left in search of work elsewhere. In the 1960s, the entire Italian economy improved, including in the south primarily with help from funds of the Cassa per il Mezzogiorno.
Although Calabria still struggles for economic and social respect, there is a peculiar feeling that this unique region is coming into her own these days with dramatic increases in exports and in tourism.
With a combination of courage, determination, the ever-present love for the family, the Calabresi have withstood thousands of years of oppression, struggle, and hardship-and they show no signs of stopping now.
Nope, I didn't write all this - Many thanks to Michelle in Catanzaro - I've "borrowed" it from her blog  |
25-03-2008, 19:16
The Savoy are not a Sardinian house or dynasty: the capital of the then "Kingdom of the States of Piedmont and Sardinia" was Turin, in Piemonte. But the dynasty had originated as the Dukes of the Savoy region in the South-east of France, with capital at Chambery.
Linear Mode
Similar Threads 
