Roccabascerana

The name of Roccabascerana records a legal condition. In the Middle Ages the village was called Quascierana and later Rocca de Guasserana, and the word comes from the Germanic gwass, meaning vassal: the rock of the vassal. The village stands on a hill of the Apennine slopes that divide the Caudina valley from that of the Sabato, on the border between two provinces, and its history is that of a fief in transit rather than of a settled lordship.

The fief, indeed, changed hands like a bill of exchange. In 1269 Charles of Anjou granted it to a French soldier, Ruggiero di Burson, and two years later to his son Riccardo. It then passed to the Della Marra, from whom king Ferrante of Aragon took it in 1464 after the rebellion of Antonio della Marra; and from there it went to the Sperone in 1467, the Dentice in 1482, the Brancaccio in 1484, the Spinelli in 1486: five owners in twenty-two years. The Spinelli held it until 1560, then came the D'Aquino, the Capecelatro, and in 1712 the Della Leonessa, princes of Sepino, who governed it until the end of feudalism in 1806. The coat of arms carries a tower of two tiers, five merlons below and four above.