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At the same period, the feudalisation of the Kingdom of Sicily was intensified, through the enforcement of feudal bonds and relations among its subjects. The 1669 Etna eruption destroyed Catania . In 1693, 5% of the Kingdom's population was killed because of earthquakes .
Internal colonization and the foundation of new settlements by feudal aristocrats in Sicily was significant from 1590 to 1650, involving the redistribution of population away from the larger towns back to the countryside.
Enfeoffed (feudal) knights, described above, were a landholding class in the service of the king. Primogeniture determined which son succeeded his father, meaning that younger sons might inherit nothing, even though they were trained as esquires who aspired to become knights.
16th century: isolation and misgovernment continue. Nobility reinforces the feudal system forcing peasants off the land and leaving estates in the hands of Massari or Gabellotti, bailiffs charged with the collection of rent. Sicily is now essentially a source of funds for Spanish expansion.
The Sicilian Latifundia 41 Years later, in The Leopard and a memoir, Giuseppe di Lampedusa described the "measureless landscape of feudal Sicily": "desolate, without a breath of air, oppressed by a leaden sun"; "stony mountains and fields of mown grain, yellow as the manes of lions"; "crazed-looking villages washed in palest blue."
In Sicily, what is generally referred to as the manorial system was the part of the feudal system dealing specifically with the internal workings of feudal property - fiefs (or manors), baronies and counties. This included the relationship between the baron or lord and the people who lived on the land he owned.
In 1638, during the reign of Philip IV (Hapsburg) of Spain, the crown levied a "head tax" to be paid by the feudatories of Sicily's feudal towns and the citizens of its demesnial cities to defray the cost of the Hapsburgs' Thirty Year War.
