Feuding, Conflict and Banditry in Nineteenth-Century Corsica

A study of vendetta and banditry, applying insights from the field of social anthropology.

Stephen Wilson (Author)

9780521522649, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 30 October 2003

576 pages
22.9 x 15.1 x 3.6 cm, 0.888 kg

Corsica is associated in many people's minds with vendetta and banditry, but these phenomena have not been studied systematically. Using accounts by visitors and officials and particularly judicial records, this book provides such a study for the nineteenth century. Accounts of specific feuds lasting over many generations are given, including that which inspired Mérimée's Colomba, and the whole phenomenon is set in its proper context of competition for scarce material resources and power in a traditional agro-pastoral society. Attitudes to death and the dead are examined, and reveal a divergence between local practice and belief and official Christianity, and the persistence of the notion that the spirit of the slain requires to be placated with blood. A general theme is the impact upon an isolated traditional society, and its system of sanctions, of incorporation into a modern state with courts and police.

List of illustrations
Acknowledgements
1. Corsica in the nineteenth century
2. The history and incidence of feuds
3. Conflict and its causes: conflicts of material interest
4. Conflict and its causes: conflicts of honour
5. Conflict and its causes: intrafamilial conflict
6. Conflict and its causes: inter-community conflict
7. Obligation and organization in the feud
8. Immunity and disruption
9. Concilation and peacemaking
10. Feuding and the courts
11. Patronage and political conflict
12. Banditry
13. Death and the dead
14. Conclusion
Appendices
List of abbreviations
Notes
Sources and bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], European history [HBJD]