It is another
matter, though by no means creditable, when ruined characters sheltered
themselves in the cowl in order to escape the arm of the law, like the
corsair whom Masuccio knew in a convent at Naples. What the real truth
was with regard to Pope John XXIII in this respect, is not known with
certainty.
The age of the famous brigand chief did not begin till later, in the
seventeenth century, when the political strife of Guelph and
Ghibelline, of Frenchman and Spaniard, no longer agitated the country.
The robber then took the place of the partisan.
In certain districts of Italy, where civilization had made little
progress, the country people were disposed to murder any stranger who
fell into their hands. This was especially the case in the more remote
parts of the Kingdom of Naples, where the barbarism dated probably from
the days of the Roman 'latifundia,' and when the stranger and the enemy
('hospes' and 'hostis') were in all good faith held to be one and the
same. These people were far from being irreligious. A herdsman once
appeared in great trouble at the confessional, avowing that, while
making cheese during Lent, a few drops of milk had found their way into
his mouth. The confessor, skilled in the customs of the country,
discovered in the course of his examination that the penitent and his
friends were in the practice of robbing and murdering travellers, but
that, through the force of habit, this usage gave rise to no twinges of
conscience within them.
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