BRIGANDAGE (Fr., OF. brigand, a foot soldier, brigand, from It. briga, strife). The system of robbery practiced by armed men, or bands of armed men, on the highways, in the mountains, or in waste places. At the dawn of history violence was the natural stage, and since the beginning of civilization brigandage has prevailed wherever natural. po litical, and economic conditions have united to make peaceful pursuits difficult and unremunera tive, and plunder profitable. Given a country of mountains, desert, or marshes, a poverty-stricken peasantry oppressed by alien masters, a period of civil war and anarchy, and brigandage is sure to spring up. Countries like Arabia, where man has in great part remained in a state of nature, are still the homes of bands, or even clans and entire nations of robbers. To this day, undoubt edly, in the wastes of the Arabian Peninsula, representatives may be found of the classic Ish maelite marauder, whose inborn talent enabled him to cut a throat, steal a head of cattle. or dash off a ballad with equal grace and dexterity. ln ancient Greece. too, highway robbery flourished as a survival of prehistoric times. One of The seus's great labors was clearing the Corinthian Isthmus of the brigands that infested it. When Telemaehus in the Odyssey inquires of his guest, Mentor, whether he is a pirate or engaged in some other occupation. the deduction would be that, in heroic times, pillaging was considered a conservative profession. In distinction front his forefathers, the modern Greek bandit is the product of just such conditions as have been pro nounced favorable to the growth of outlawry. Greece before 18•7 presented the spectacle of a country impoverished by the anarchic rule of the Turk. The mountains and ravines of IleIlas became the home of the Greek Klephts, who were above the common level of brigands by the national spirit which at times animated them. Frequently they ceased to be bandits to become heroes. The names of Marco Bozzaris. Coloco tronis, and other leaders of the Klephts are well known in connection with the Greek War of Liberation.
Rome was founded by outlaws, and during the social and civil wars the Italian Peninsula was a stamping-ground for bands of renegade soldiers, runaway slaves, and gladiators, who were often bold enough to enter the suburbs and towns, plundering, tombs and deserted houses, kidnap ping and assassinating for pay. The spurs of the Apennines and the marshes of the Campagna af forded them safe retreats and admirable centres of operation. The splendid military roads of Rome were not safe from them.
Britain had her Ifereward (e.1(100) and her Robin Hood (c.1170), with his Merry Men of Sherwood, the last champions of Saxon England against the Norman. The clearing of the forests, the draining of the fens. the repression of the lawless barons by the Crown, made systematie brigandage impossible. Though it flourished in Scotland. in Wales, and on the border, the craft died out in England. Jack Sheppard (1702-24) and Dick Turpin (died 1739) are brilliant but solitary phenomena. France, likewise. was too firmly governed after IWO to suffer the existence of powerful robbers. though the country had been devastated by them during the Hundred Years' N1ar and the Civil wars. Still, France may boast of two great names in modern times: Cartouehe (1693-1721). who terrorized Paris for a long period, and Mandrin (1724-55), whose sphere of operations lay south of the Loire, and ehiefly in Languedoc. The robber barons of Germany are historie. They swarmed in the southwestern part of the country, on the Rhine. and in what is now Bavaria. Wilrttemberg, and Baden. The great cities of Southern Germany, Nuremberg. and Augsburg especially, suffered greatly from their depredations, and carried on feuds with them. ltlaximilian I. (died 1519) did much to crush out these predatory knights by putting them under the ban, and proclaiming a general peace for the Empire. They disappeared be fore the power of the consolidated principali ties after the Thirty Years' War. About the time of the French Revolution. Johann [flick ler, apprenticed to a hangman. ran away and set up for himself as brigand, in the Rhine Prov inces. •Sehinderhannes: as he was generally called. was absolutely fearless, and frequently captured bands of travelers single-handed, though he commanded more than a hundred men. He was executed at Metz, in 1S03. Spain has al ways been a land of outlaws. The system of imposing extravagant imposts on foreign and domestic trade, which has always been followed, made smuggling immensely profitable, and the country was consequently filled with bands of contrabandists, who plundered and murdered when they could not smuggle. From 1808 to 1876, moreover. Spain was at various times the scene of guerrilla warfare; the nation against Napoleon, Liberals against Absolutists, and Cris tinos against Carlists. In such stormy times freebooters naturally throve. The most famous of Spanish outlaws is probably Don Jose Marfa, best known, no doubt, as the hero of Prosper Merimee's Carmen.