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CORUNNA (Span. La Coruna; Fr. La Coro...

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Originally appearing in Volume V07, Page 210 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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CORUNNA (Span. La Coruna; Fr. La Corogne; Eng. formerly often The Groyne)  , the See also:capital of the See also:province described above; in 430 22' N., and 8° 22' W.; on the See also:bay of See also:Corunna, an inlet of the See also:Atlantic Ocean . Pop . (1900) 43,971 . The See also:principal See also:railways of See also:north-western See also:Spain converge on Corunna, and afford See also:direct communication with See also:Madrid and See also:Oporto . Corunna consists of an upper and a See also:lower See also:town, built respectively on the eastern See also:side of a small See also:peninsula, and on the See also:isthmus connecting the peninsula with the mainland . The upper town is the more See also:ancient, and is still surrounded by walls and bastions, and defended by a citadel; but it has been gradually outgrown by the lower, which, though at first a See also:mere fishing See also:village, as its name of Pescaderia implies, is now comparatively well built, and has many broad and See also:hand-some streets . There is little remarkable in the public buildings, although the churches of See also:Santiago and the Colegiata date respectively from the 12th and 13th centuries, and there are several convents, two hospitals, a See also:palace for the See also:captain-See also:general of See also:Galicia, a See also:theatre, a school of See also:navigation, an See also:arsenal and See also:barracks . The See also:harbour is on the See also:east . Though difficult to approach in stormy See also:weather, it is completely sheltered, and accommodates vessels See also:drawing 22 ft . It is defended by several forts, of which the most important are See also:San Diego, on the east, and San See also:Antonio, on the See also:west . These fortifications are of little See also:practical value on the landward side, as they are commanded by a See also:hill which over-looks the town . The so-called See also:Tower of See also:Hercules, on the north, has been increased by See also:modern additions to a height of nearly 400 ft., and is surmounted by a See also:fine revolving See also:light .

Many See also:

foreign steamers See also:call here, for emigrants or mails, on their way to See also:South See also:America . Upwards of 1200 See also:merchant See also:ships, mostly See also:British, entered the See also:port in 1905 . The exports are chiefly agricultural produce, See also:wine and See also:fish; the imports are See also:coal, colonial products, and manufactured goods . See also:Chief among the See also:industrial establishments is a See also:state See also:tobacco factory; the sardine and See also:herring See also:fisheries also employ alarge number of the inhabitants . Corunna, possibly at first a Phoenician See also:settlement, is usually identified with the ancient Ardobrica, a seaport mentioned by the 1st-See also:century historian, See also:Pomponius See also:Mela, as in the See also:country of the Artabri, from whom the name of See also:Portus Artabrorum was given to the bay on which the See also:city is situated . In the See also:middle ages, and probably at an earlier See also:period, it was called Caronium; and this name is much more probably the origin of the See also:present designation than the Latin Columna which is sometimes put forward . The harbour has always been of considerable importance, but it is only in comparatively modern times that it has made a figure in See also:history . In 1588 it gave shelter to the Invincible See also:Armada; in 1598 the town was captured and burned by the British under See also:Drake and See also:Norris . In 1747, and again in 18o5, the bay was the See also:scene of a See also:naval victory of the British over the See also:French; and on the 16th of See also:January 1809 a See also:battle took See also:place in the neighbourhood, which is celebrated in British military See also:annals (see See also:PENINSULAR See also:WAR) . The French under See also:Marshal See also:Soult attempted to prevent the embarcation of the See also:English under See also:Sir See also:John See also:Moore, but were successfully repulsed in spite of their See also:superior See also:numbers . Moore was mortally wounded and died shortly afterwards . He was hastily buried in the ramparts near the See also:sea; a See also:monument in the Jardin de San See also:Carlos raised by the British See also:government commemorates his See also:death .

The town joined the revolutionary See also:

movement of 182o, but in 1823 it was forced to capitulate by French troops . In 1836 it was captured by the Carlists . Corunna suffered heavily when Spain was deprived of See also:Cuba and See also:Porto Rico by the See also:Spanish-See also:American War of 1898, for it had hitherto had a thriving See also:trade with these colonies . CORV$E, in feudal See also:law, the See also:term used to designate the unpaid labour due from tenants, whether See also:free or unfree, to their See also:lord; hence any forced labour, especially that exacted by the state, the word being applied both to each particular service and to the See also:system generally . Though the corvee formed a characteristic feature of the feudal system, it was, as an institution, much older than See also:feudalism, and was already See also:developed in its See also:main features under the See also:Roman See also:Empire . Thus, under the Roman system, See also:personal services (operae) were due from certain classes of the See also:population not only to the state but to private proprietors . Apart from the obligations (operae officiales) imposed on freed-men as a See also:condition of their enfranchisement, which in the country usually took the See also:form of unpaid See also:work on the landlord's domain, the semi-servile coloni were See also:bound, besides paying See also:rent in See also:money or See also:kind, to do a certain number of days' unremunerated labour on that See also:part of the See also:estate reserved by the landed proprietor . The state also exacted personal labour (operae publicae), in lieu of taxes, from certain classes for such purposes as the upkeep of roads, See also:bridges and dykes; while the inhabitants of the various regions were responsible for the See also:maintenance of the posting system (cursus publicus), for which horses, carts or labour would be requisitioned . Under the Frankish See also:kings, who in their See also:administration followed the Roman tradition, this system was preserved . Thus for the repair of roads, or other public See also:works, within their See also:jurisdiction the See also:counts were empowered to requisition the labour of the inhabitants of the pagus, while the missi and other public functionaries on their travels were entitled to demand from the population en route entertainment and the means of transport for themselves and their belongings . It was, however, the economic revolution which between the 6th and loth centuries converted the Gallo-Roman estates into the feudal See also:model, and the See also:political conditions under which the officials of the Frankish empire developed into hereditary feudal nobles, that evolved the system of the corvee as it existed throughout the middle ages and, in some countries, survived far into the 19th century . The Roman estate had been cultivated by free farmers, by coloni, and by slave labour .

Phoenix-squares

Under Frankish See also:

rule the farmers became coloni or hospites, the slaves, See also:serfs . The estate was now habitually divided into the lord's domain (terra indominicata, dominicum) and a See also:series of allotments (mansi), parcels of See also:land distributed by See also:lot to the cultivators of the domain, who held them, partly by See also:payment of rent in money or kind, partly by personal service and labour on the domain, these obligations both as to their nature and amount being very rigorously defined and permanently fixed in the See also:case of each mansus and passing with the land to each new See also:tenant . They varied, of course, very greatly according to the See also:size of the holding and the needs of the particular estate, but they possessed certain See also:common characteristics which are everywhere found . See also:Luchaire (See also:Manuel, p . 346) divides all corvees into two broad categories, (1) corvees properly so called, (2) military services . The second of these, so far as the See also:obligation to serve in the See also:host (Hostis et equitatus) is concerned, was common to all classes of feudal society; though the obligation of villeins to keep See also:watch and See also:ward (gueta, warda) and to labour at the See also:building or strengthening of fortifications (muragium, munitio castri) are See also:special corvees . We are, however, mainly concerned with the first See also:category; which may again be subdivided209 into two main See also:groups, (1) personal service of men and See also:women (manoperae, manuum operae, Fr. manoeuvres, See also:manual labour), (2) See also:carriage (carroperae, carragia, carrata, &c., Fr. charrois), i.e. service rendered by means of carts, barrows or See also:draught animals . These again were divided into fixed services (operae rigae) and exceptional services, demanded when the others proved in-sufficient . To these latter was given in the 8th century the name of operae corrogatae (i.e. requisitioned works, from rogare, to See also:request . From this term (corrupted into corvatae, curvadae, corveiae, &c.) is derived the word corvee, which was gradually applied as a general term for all the various services . As to the nature of these corvees it must be noted that in the middle ages the feudal lords had replaced the centralized state for all administrative purposes, and the services due to them by their tenants and serfs, were partly in the nature of rent in the form of labour, partly those which under the Roman and Frankish monarchs had been exacted in lieu of taxes, and which the feudal lords continued to impose as sovereigns of their domains . To the former class belonged the service of personal labour in the See also:fields, of repairing buildings, See also:felling trees, threshing See also:corn, and the like, as well as the hauling of corn, wine or See also:wood; to the latter belonged that of labouring on the roads, of building and repairing bridges, castles and churches, and of carrying letters and despatches .

Corvees were further distinguished as real, i.e. attached to certain parcels of land, and personal, i.e. due from certain persons . In spite of the fact that the corvees were usually strictly defined by See also:

local See also:custom and by the contracts of tenancy, and that, in an See also:age when currency was rare, payment in personal labour was a convenience to the poor, the system was open to obvious abuses . With the growth of communal See also:life in the towns the townsmen See also:early managed to rid themselves of these burdensome obligations either by See also:purchase, or by exchanging the obligation of personal work for that of supplying carts, draught animals and the like . In the country, however, the system survived all but intact; and, so far as it was modified, was modified for the worse . Whatever safeguards the free cultivators may have possessed, the serfs were almost everywhere—especially in the loth and 11th centuries—actually as well as nominally in this respect at the See also:mercy of their lords (corveables a merci) , there being no limit to the amount of money or work that could be demanded of them . The system was oppressive even when the nobles to whom these services were paid gave something in return, namely, See also:protection to the See also:cultivator, his See also:family and his land; they became intolerable when the development of the modern state deprived the land-owners of their duties, but not of their rights . In the case of See also:France, in the 17th century the so-called corvee royale was added to the See also:burden of the peasants, i.e. the obligation to do unpaid labour on the public roads, an obligation made general in 1738; and this, together with the natural resentment of men at the fact that the land which their ancestors had bought was still subject to burdensome personal obligations in favour of See also:people whom they rarely saw and from whom they derived no benefit, was one of the most potent causes of the Revolution . By the Constituent See also:Assembly personal corvees were abolished altogether, while owners of land were allowed the choice of continuing real corvees or commuting them for money . The corvee as an incident of land See also:tenure has thus disappeared in France . The corvee royale of repairing the roads, however, abolished in 1789, was revived, under the name of prestation, under the Consulate, by the law of 4 See also:Thermidor an X., modified by subsequent legislation in 1824, 1836 and 1871 . Under these See also:laws the See also:duty of keeping the roads in repair is still vested in the local communities, and all able-bodied men are called upon either to give three days' work or its See also:equivalent in money to this purpose . It is precisely the same system as that in force under the Roman Empire, and if it differ from the corvee it is mainly in the fact that the burden is equitably distributed, and that the work done is of actual value to those who do it .

As regards other countries, the corvee was everywhere, sooner or later, abolished with the See also:

serfdom of which it was the principal incident (see SERFDOM) . Though so early as 1772 Maria See also:Theresa had endeavoured to mitigate its hardships in her dominions (in See also:Hungary unpaid labour was only to be demanded of the serfs on 52 days in the See also:year!) it survived longest in the See also:Austrian empire, being finally abolished by the revolution of 1848 . The duty of personal labour on the public roads is, however, still maintained in other countries besides France . This was formerly the case in See also:England also, where the occupiers of each See also:parish who, by the common law, had See also:access to the roads were responsible also for their upkeep . An See also:act of 555 imposed four days of forced labour for the repair of roads, and an act of See also:Elizabeth (5 Eliz. c . 13) raised the number of days to six, or the payment of a See also:composition instead . Ths system of turnpikes, dating from 1663, which gradually extended over the whole of England, lessened the burden of this system of See also:taxation, so far as main roads were concerned, but the greater number of the local roads were subject to repair by statutory labour until the Highways Act 1835, by which highways were put under the direction of a parish surveyor, and the necessary expenses met by a See also:rate levied on the occupiers of land . In See also:Scotland, statutory labour on highways was created by an act of 1719, and abolished in 1883 . In See also:Egypt, the corvee has been employed from See also:time immemorial, more especially for the purpose of cleaning out the See also:irrigation canals . In the days when only one See also:harvest a year was reaped, this forced labour was not a very See also:great burden, but the introduction of See also:cotton and the See also:sugar-See also:cane under Mehemet See also:Ali changed the conditions . These latter are crops which require watering at various seasons of the year, and very often the See also:fellah was called away for work in the canals at times when his own crops required the utmost See also:attention . Moreover, the inequality of the corvee added to the evil .

In some districts it was possible to purchase exemption, and the more wealthy paid no more for the See also:

privilege than the humblest fellah, consequently the corvee See also:fell with undue hardship on the poorer classes . Under the premiership of Riaz See also:Pasha the corvee was gradually abolished in Egypt between the years 1888 and 1891, and a small rate on the land substituted to provide the labour necessary for cleaning the canals . The corvee is now employed only to a limited extent to guard the See also:banks of the See also:Nile during See also:flood . See Du Cange, Glossarium inf. et med . See also:Lat. s.v . " Corvatae "; A Luchaire, Manuel See also:des institutions francaiscs (See also:Paris, 1892), pp . 346-349 ; La Grande Encyclopedie, s. v., with bibliography . For further works see the bibliography to the See also:article SERFDOM .

End of Article: CORUNNA (Span. La Coruna; Fr. La Corogne; Eng. formerly often The Groyne)
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