Molisian society from the late 1700s to the early decades of the last century had a structure almost similar to that of other regions in Southern Italy: property was in the hands of the barons of the municipalities and ecclesiastical entities, while very little belonged to the peasants (a very fragmented land wealth and certainly not the best).
Additionally, there was an ongoing struggle between the barons and the major figures of the municipalities to unlawfully seize communal lands and transform them into private or burgensatic properties. Hence the interest in occupying the positions of municipal administrators, which were the nerve centers of a society that was transforming due to new situations occurring elsewhere, but which had not insignificant repercussions in Molise as well.
Thus began interminable disputes between the municipality and the usurpers, brought before the royal courts with a series of legal quibbles that expensively fueled the incomes of lawyers, never quickly resolving the various controversies. This was also a source of disorder, suppressed grudges, and personal resentments that affected social relations, further discrediting an already degraded justice system.
If today Molise is still a predominantly agricultural region, one can imagine what its economy must have been like two centuries ago: cereal cultivation predominated, with olive, vine, and fruit tree cultivation in very few areas; sheep farming was fairly significant, though mostly to supply Naples for the royal court, nobility, and wealthy bourgeoisie.
The tenants cultivated the vast estates of the barons and clergy, paying exorbitant rents in kind, fixed or relative to the harvests, frequently moving from one municipality to another in search of less exploited lands or more understanding landlords. Their misery was partly alleviated by what they derived from lands subject to civic uses.
Alongside the extremely poor peasants, forced to work other people's land intermittently, there were also other groups, albeit small in number, of relatively well-off peasants who lived in the village and began to form the first nucleus of a landed bourgeoisie. They owned small, well-cultivated, and fairly fertile plots, on which they worked with their families and, during sowing and harvesting periods, they were helped by laborers, whom they paid miserably.
There were small merchants or usurers who had invested their money in land; there were those involved in the administration or guarding of the barons' lands; there were shepherds who had become owners of large flocks and hired other shepherds to lead the sheep to the Tavoliere delle Puglie pastures.
Thus, these categories included the municipal administrators. While they fought against the barons to free themselves from feudal burdens, at the same time they sought to expand their property by usurping communal lands, thus opposing the extremely poor peasants who were deprived of the civic uses of these lands.
Therefore, it seemed that the enemy to be defeated was not always the baron. Often, the barons and bourgeoisie joined forces against the tenants, small landowners against laborers claiming civic uses, the landed bourgeoisie against ecclesiastical property.
Moreover, the absolute lack of roads and tolls made internal trade almost impossible, while industry was immobilized at a craft and even more so at a domestic level.
At the end of the 1700s, Giuseppe Maria Galanti wrote: "The county of Molise is one of the most fertile provinces of the Kingdom and the most important for the needs of the capital." Considering the state in which, for example, the inhabitants of the fief of San Gennaro di Palma, a few miles from Naples, lived: only the baron's ministers lived in houses, while the rest, 200,000 people, "lived under roots and haystacks or in caves like animals."
There was such misery in Molise as well, but not comparable to that which prevailed elsewhere if we are to believe (and there is no reason to doubt it) what Galanti himself wrote: "until 1770 this province was full of thieves, beggars, and idlers; today there are no poor people, or very few: everyone works their own fields, if not their own lands, and the idle owners increasingly lack hired laborers."
However, there were still intolerable situations, also because the legislation of the time differed from place to place, having retained a mix of Roman, Lombard, Norman, Angevin, Swabian, Aragonese, Spanish, Canon, German laws, as well as local customs.
We must not forget that the fiefs constantly changed owners, who adapted the legacy of various laws transmitted by their ancestors to them. And the one who bore the greatest burden was always the peasant, who, besides paying feudal tithes, had to pay ecclesiastical tithes, which were meant to support the mendicant monks, the doctor, and the governors.
His struggle for existence was relentless: he would even forego bread to meet the fiscal burdens he was subjected to. Consider that the origin of focaccia is somewhat linked to a curious circumstance. At the mill, the peasant had to pay a tax for milling and another for baking bread in the feudal oven. To avoid these two levies, he preferred to bake focaccia at home, under the ashes, as it was the only concession the feudal lord made.
If he decided to go from Campobasso to sell grain in Naples (which often happened due to the good production in Molise) via the road through Morcone, in the space of 50 miles, he had to pay eight tolls, without any hope of passing unnoticed through any of them, because the tax collectors or contractors had established rigorous controls that were hard to evade.
It is true that all these facts today evoke amazement and almost incredulity in us, but we must consider that the population of the time accepted them without rebellion, believing, in their great ignorance, that it was "a law" not to be questioned. The toll, for example, was justified because the sense of possession was so deeply ingrained in even the most naive mentality that "mine" and "yours" were untouchable tenets.
When, therefore, in cultured circles, discussions began about the abolition of feudal jurisdiction, which was so closely linked to land ownership, among other things, the idea was conceived of returning the usurped lands or those whose legitimate possession could not be proven to the state and thus to the sovereign, to be used and distributed to the landless peasants.
In this case, "mine" and "yours" did not alter in meaning, as the king, the supreme regulator and owner, had applied the sacrosanct principle of justice.
Undoubtedly, with the advent of the Kingdom of Charles III in 1734, the situation in Molise improved, as the king allowed the formation of a new state structure, no longer dependent on Spain, but absolutely autonomous.
The king thus asserted direct control over the entire country, making it clear to the barons that their privileges were only temporarily delegated by him, the sole and supreme authority. This stance of the king earned him the people's favor, as it finally limited, if not completely curbed, the power of the barons, who had long plagued the poor inhabitants of the feudal jurisdiction.
While it is true that the State's activities remained primarily fiscal, everyone had to pay taxes, including the barons, even though the methods of taxation were questionable and blatant forms of injustice and privilege persisted. The monarchy's ongoing struggle against the barons, ecclesiastical revenues, and mortmain was neither easy nor quick, but by the late 1700s, the situation had significantly improved for the poorer classes compared to fifty years earlier.
At that time, the barons effectively controlled the commons, tolls, and the most secure revenues of the municipalities, obtained through privileges, intrigue, disguised contracts, and above all, sheer force. In municipal administration, they managed to control everything through unscrupulous administrators tied to the barons by a dense network of interests, ready to assume any role to achieve the baron's desires.
The government did encourage the municipalities' occasional lawsuits against the barons to curb abuses and reclaim usurped rights, but the obstacles were so numerous and significant that they often discouraged such initiatives, resulting in cases that never reached a conclusion. Minister Zurlo noted, "Cases between barons and municipalities were discussed in the Sacred Royal Council, but the municipality could not initiate proceedings without prior authorization from the Chamber of the Sommaria. Thus, a preliminary dispute had to be conducted in the Chamber, where the baron would find particular citizens to raise objections, delay, and consume most of the funds meant for the main dispute. Even if authorization was obtained, the baron, under the cover of the same citizens (for it was impossible not to have adherents), would try to undermine the administrators who dared to oppose him. All this prolonged disputes for many years, and meanwhile, the changing of mayors brought changes in ideas, leaving the matter undecided."
The lawyers, however, were the real protagonists, and their litigious spirit was effectively described by Galanti at the end of the 1700s: "All classes of the State armed themselves for litigation, and all talents developed means to eternalize decisions and render the laws ineffective. The ownership of our lands was enveloped in an endless number of ties, trusts, dowries, servitudes, and mortgages. Thus, the jurisprudence of the court became akin to scholasticism, and the lawyers became such sophists that their profession seemed to oppose the law to whatever the particular passions wanted."
Another enemy of the Bourbon monarchy was the clergy, which around the mid-1700s consisted of about 75,000 people enjoying fiscal and judicial privileges, provided with significant revenues, much of which ended up outside the State as the Roman Curia invested Neapolitan ecclesiastical benefices in foreign prelates or those residing outside the Kingdom of Naples. The ecclesiastical influence was limited in the political and economic fields even during the Austrian vice-royalty (1707-1734) and even more so under the reign of Charles III (1734-1759).
In fact, around 1740, the fiscal immunity of ecclesiastical properties was finally eliminated, subjecting them to taxes, restricting the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical court, limiting the right of asylum, abolishing the Inquisition, suppressing some monasteries, expelling Jesuits, and confiscating their properties. These reforms were significant as they eased the burden on taxpayers. However, Molise, composed mostly of poor municipalities, did not reap substantial benefits as they lacked income from renting lands or other sources, having to meet the king's imposed burdens solely with the taxpayers' efforts (mostly very poor people).
Indeed, at the end of the 1700s, Biase Zurlo, before becoming the Intendant of Molise, visited the region and reported to the king that in Campobasso, where people lived "by gabella," a poor worker's large family paid up to 24 ducats annually on flour duty, the city's main revenue, while those who owned land and produced grain paid nothing at all.
Considering that municipal administration had become a monopoly of a few families engaged in embezzlement, usurpation of community assets for the benefit of their class (indebting the municipalities to the point of implausibility, knowing the Chamber of the Sommaria was unable to control), one can understand the material and moral conditions of the majority population.
Thus, the struggle against the ancient administrative system was fierce, accompanied by the fight for agrarian individualism, revolving around the issue of communal lands and civic uses. In this transforming society, where the class of small landowners had various origins and sought to increase their wealth by any means, the sense of the State was completely absent, and the king's figure still held a mythical role. Therefore, the struggle among the different classes was almost exclusively tied to the process of land privatization, opposing the barons, ecclesiastical entities, and the wealthy bourgeoisie, now well-entrenched in the rural economy.
Certainly, by the late 1700s, the baronage had undergone a radical transformation and made concessions to other social classes, including laborers. Consequently, it can be said that the days when a baron could impoverish and ruin a vassal at will, imprisoning or preventing the town's governor or judge from resolving the case, were far behind. Paolo Mattia Doria wrote, "With the right of pardon, he has someone killed at will and pardons the murderer, filling the land with ruffians and assassins. He abuses his power against the possessions and honor of the vassals. Commerce and marriage must obey his whims. Proving a baron's crime is impossible. And the same government, sometimes vigorous and occasionally violent with the weak baron, shows only indulgence to the powerful baron. From these abuses, it is evident that some barons are like sovereigns in their lands."
The exercise of jurisdiction undoubtedly provided immense advantages, not for the income derived from administering justice (which was almost negligible, considering the expenses incurred), but for the power it conferred and the position of privilege, arbitrariness, and, if you will, monopoly in managing the feudal economic activities. The true protagonists of this slow societal transformation were certainly the tenants, usurers, breeders, administrators of fiefs, governors of baronial lands, mayors of municipalities, and small to medium traders, all interested in eroding the system's foundations to accumulate a considerable fortune, taking a piece from the feudal lord, a small part from the communal lands, and a fraction from Church property.
The excluded were once again the landless, laborers, and the very poor, those who constituted the mass still lacking awareness of their real strength and unable to assess the merits and demerits of the French Revolution. Besides, very few in Molise knew the thoughts of the anti-feudal struggle's spokesperson, Filangieri, who clearly wrote, "Remove, first of all, the primogeniture, remove the fideicommissa. These are the causes of the exorbitant wealth of a few and the misery of the majority." He was joined decisively and authoritatively by Galanti and Delfico, who were well-regarded at court and thus protagonists in that social and political renewal movement, which culminated in the law of August 2, 1806, establishing the definitive abolition of feudalism.
The first article of the law proclaimed: "Feudalism, with all its attributes, is abolished. All baronial jurisdictions and any revenues attached thereto are reintegrated to the sovereignty, from which they will be inseparable." Therefore, the barons, deprived of jurisdiction, prohibitive rights, and some fiscal prerogatives, retained the free ownership of those fief lands enjoyed without contest; they lost a significant part of the fiefdom's commons assigned to the municipalities, perhaps allotted to the poorest citizens in compensation for lost civic uses.
The barons, while resigned to losing jurisdiction, of which they had once been "more jealous than the honor of their wives," became quite agitated when their lands and incomes were affected, attempting in every way to discredit Giuseppe Zurlo, esteemed by Joachim Murat, who appointed him the first Minister of Justice and then of the Interior. Minister Zurlo was indeed the true driver of all diversionary operations against feudalism, assisted in this immense task by David Winspeare, the Procurator General at the Feudal Commission.
To enforce the decrees, he had to fight not only against the barons but also against some ministers and other figures interested in maintaining the status quo. However, he succeeded in his grand endeavor to dismantle the baronage, even though its heirs, the "galantuomini" (the emerging large agrarian bourgeoisie), along with the lands, inherited part of the feudal spirit. But it was not Zurlo's fault, as the southern bourgeoisie was already strong enough to cunningly inherit, without dramatic struggles, the wealth of a class that had dominated history for many centuries, now rapidly disappearing.