Medieval Corsica

The history of Corsica in the medieval period begins with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and the invasions of various Germanic peoples in the fifth century AD, and ends with the complete subjection of the island to the authority of the Bank of San Giorgio in 1511.

In the early decades of the fifth century, effective Roman authority all but vanished from Corsica. The island became disputed between the Ostrogoths, Roman foederati who were settled in the lands along the Riviera, and the Vandals, who had established a kingdom in Tunisia. Both groups were sometimes allies, sometimes enemies of the Romans and both followed a pattern of taking over Roman legal forms and structures and maintaining nominal deference to the empire while de facto creating autonomous kingdoms within its former borders.

In 469, Gaiseric, the Vandal king, finally completed the subjugation of the isle. For the next 65 years the Vandals maintained their domination, the valuable Corsican forests supplying the wood for their pirate fleets.

After the Vandal state in Africa crumbled in the early sixth century under the onslaught of the Roman general Belisaurius, his lieutenant Cyril restored imperial rule of Corsica in 534, and the island was placed under the government of the newly organized Praetorian prefecture of Africa. However, the exarchate was not able to protect the island from the raiding by the Ostrogoths and the Lombards, who moved down into Italy from the north beginning in 568.

After the loss of the African mainland territories of the exarchate to the Umayyad dynasty in 709, the empire's power in the West deteriorated further. Saracen raiders began to prey on Corsica, leading Liutprand the Lombard to invade circa 725 to preempt Saracen designs.

The first Muslim raid on Corsica took place in 713. After this, Byzantine authority, nominal under Lombard rule, waned further and in 774, after conquering the Lombard Kingdom of Italy, the Frankish king Charlemagne proceeded to conquer Corsica for the Frankish hegemony, the Carolingian Empire, which he was establishing in western Europe.

In 806, however, the first of a series of Moorish incursions occurred from Spain. The Muslims were defeated several times by Charlemagne's lieutenants, among them his constable Burchard. Throughout 807, the Moors continually returned, and in 810 suffered a major defeat by an alliance of local powers and Charles the Younger. Nonetheless their assaults continued. In 828, the defense of Corsica was entrusted to Boniface II of Tuscany, who conducted a successful expedition against the Muslims and built the fortress that later was to bear his name (Bonifacio) in the south. For the next century, Corsica was a part of the March of Tuscany.

Boniface' son Adalbert I continued to push back against the Muslim invaders after 846; but, in spite of all efforts, they seem to have remained in possession of part of the island until about 930. The island was hit by a Fatimid raid in 935.