Il Lago di Castel San Vincenzo e l'antica Terra ... - Regione Molise

ENCASTELLATION
San Vincenzo al Volturno - 51
Upon returning after over thirty years, the abbey changed to an indirect
management of their lands in the Valley, divided in different areas and
subject to encastellation, rented out to families, obliged to found villages
and work the land, creating a number of settlements from which the villages
in the Volturno Valley and its surroundings originate.
Encastellation also occurred among large landowners, but while these rented
with a vassalic relationship, the monastery developed notarial contracts
with a duration of 29 years with rights and obligations undersigned
by both parts and time limits for medium and long-term agricultural transformations.
In some villages founded by San Vincenzo's monks, the
church is still surrounded by the renters' houses. In 945, on the calcareous
cliff that dominates the Abbey, the castrum Sannie was founded, correspondent
to today's Castellone. On a small hill in the actual territory of
Montaquila, in the locality Colle Castellano, between 962 and 965 AD, the
village of Olivella was founded, an open settlement, today abandoned.
Additionally, in 962 AD, close to the Mainarde mountains' first spurs,
there was another foundation in today's Cerasuolo Vecchio, part of the
town of Filignano. In 972 AD, twenty-two men come from Marsica, Valva
and Teano were asked to found the Castle of Vantra, today's Fornelli. In
982 AD four heads of the family were sent to found the castrum Scappeli,
today's Scapoli; in 844 AD, in the same territory, the Benedictines had
founded the San Pietro d'Itria monastery, today in ruins. In 985, upon the
ruins of the Roman settlement of Bactària, the abbots founded the village of
Vacchereccia or Baccaricia, in the territory of today's Rocchetta a Volturno.
The Benedictine colonization is demonstrated here by the presence of the
rupestrian church of Santa Maria delle Grotte, with valuable frescoes from
the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries. The following empheteutic contract,
dated 988 AD, refers to Colli Sancti Angeli, Colli a Volturno. In this territory
there was already a previous nucleus founded in 972 AD, named Sant'Angelo.
In 989 AD fifteen families, coming from Corniliano, near Teano,
and one family de loco nostro were called upon to build and inhabit the castle
in loco ubi dicitur ad Cerrum, today's Cerro al Volturno. Between 1011 and
1053 AD, in the eastern part of the area, other fortified villages were founded,
including Foruli, today's Forli del Sannio, Alfedena, Montenero, Malacclocaria
(an abandoned settlement), Rionero, Acquaviva, Spina (an
abandoned hamlet on the La Spina upland plain), Colle Stephanus, Licenoso
and Tenzenusu, the last found between Cerro and
Acquaviva. The last empheteutic contract, dated 1006
AD, refers to Castrum ad Sancta Maria, the area
which corresponds to today's Santa Maria Oliveto.
Even Castelnuovo al Volturno, part of the
town Rocchetta a Volturno, was born after San
Vincenzo al Volturno's subsequent foundations
which occurred around the 10th century.
Pizzone's origins can be found in the foundations,
due to the efforts of San Vincenzo's abbots,
which occurred after the 10th century.