At the time of the Barbarian invasions other inhabitants of the Pontecagnano and Sele plains had to join the former fugitives, especially after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the V century and the following, when they sought refuge in the safer internal areas or on the mountains, protected by warriors who, retreated into some castle, commanded the defense strategies. Picentia, which had been rebuilt for the third time, was ransacked again in the X century by the Saracens coming from Agropoli; and never rose again. The populations remained in the safest internal zones and fortified an ancient Roman castle called Castelvetrano, set on the look-out of the western access to the Pecientine valley, while in the oriental part they built the castles of Olevano and Montecorvino.
    In the middle of the valley they also erected the castleof Giffoni. Around these fortified places soon were organized the so called curtes dominicae that, after having regained serenity, had a renewed demographic and economic growth. Giffoni in fact results among the Deaneries assigned to the archbishop of Salerno in the Bull Licei Nobis (1168) by Pope Alexander III (1159 -1181). The demographic growth gave rise to the casales, small land nucleuses with houses and the buildings necessary for agriculture, allotted to one or more families. In the early Middle Ages these centers constituted into feuds that were later divided by Longobards in administrative districts called stewardships (gastaldati) and distributed according to the principal centers.
    Still in the Longobard period were set up the first counties that developed further during the Norman period, when the Comitatu jufunense was formed. Such Guaimar (1066 -1116), akin of Prince Guaimar V and relative of the other Prince of Salerno Gisulf who was dethroned by his brother-in-law Robert Guiscard, was entitled Count of Giffoni in 1088.

    He could have been that same Guaimar, lord of Giffoni, who in 1097 donated the Abbey of Cava a small harbor inVelia. The lands of Giffoni had already attracted the greediness of theNormansbefore. Indeed, at the time of Guiscard’s ascent in southernItaly, among the assets of Salerno Bishopric invaded by the Count of Principality with one of his soldiers, Guimond Mulsi – also appeared some farms sited in Giffoni. From the Norman period the counties consolidated replacing the stewardships and, with the introduction and spreading of the Frankish style feuds, the relationships between the central power and the vassals tightened.
    Astride the Norman-Swabian domination many Casales were merged, giving origin to the Universitas that put an end to the subversive feudal laws issued by the followers of Napoleon’s in 1806. This way, towards mid of the XIII century, theGiffoniCounty was divided into three Universitas: Valle and Piano, Sei Casali and Gauro.

    The Sex Casalium Universitas gathered six Casales (hamlets): Ausa, Belvedere, Bissido, Capitignano, Prepezzano and Sieti. The inhabitants of each hamlet were then ruled by laws issued – in harmony with the laws of the Kingdom, by a central power constituted by administrators elected by every Universitas and reunited in Regiment (town council) with their own Chancery (Town hall).

    This last was located in theterritoryofValleand Piano, along with the residence of the Lord and the jail. Towards the end of 500, as testified by an appraisal deed requested by Baroness Isabella Gonzaga for the sale of the feud, “the lands of Giffoni counted 2.300 families spread in the twenty-five hamlets situated in a plain and wide valley at the foot of the mountains that surround far and wide these Casales for about sixty miles”. There are three governments under a jurisdiction, that are: Curti and Curticelle with Torello, San Giovanni, Pezzarolo, Cataldo, Reali, Gaya, Granozzi, Vassi, Vignadonica, Calabrano, Jaconolupi, Poyo, Pasquali, Terravecchia, Galiano and Ornito; these 18 Casales have a Mayor and Elected persons. Prepezzano, Ausa, Bissido, Capitignano and Sieti have the other (Mayor) and Gauro the other (that is the Third Mayor)”

    During the centuries some of these hamlets disappeared, others expanded or merged among them, all going through the same vicissitudes, more or less happy, and passing from a lord to the other. In fact theterritoryofGiffonitied its fates to feudal lords belonging to various lineages.
    Former possession, as I have just written, of Count Guaimar of Giffoni, in the Swabian period it passed from the Filangieris to the Count of Andria; with the Angevins it passed to Giacomo of Brusson, deputy admiral of the kingdom and then from the D’Aquino family to King Ladislao of Durazzo, who donated the feud to his mother, Queen Margherita.
    Then, from hand to hand, it passed to the marquis of Pescara Don Innico of Avalos, to Matteo of Capua prince of Conca who obtained it from Isabella Gonzaga widow of Francesco Ferrante of Avalos in 1594, then to Siqueros D’Ebreu and finally to the Pamphili-Dona family who governed it until the mentioned suppression of feudality.

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