<p>It seems that the foundation of the castle is to be ascribed to the Lombard period, as an important document, the Codex Vaticanus 5001, more&ugrave; known as Chronicon Salernitanum.</p>
<p>The birth of the manor would thus be coeval with the establishment of the Lombard Gastaldate of Lucania (The gastalds were with the Lombards the administrators of the king’s curtis, placed under his immediate dependence, with extensive political and administrative powers within the territory entrusted to them. The entire Lombard state was divided into civitates; and civitas &egrave; a term that in broader meaning denotes an entire duchy or gastaldate. The appointment of gastalds depended on the king and their office was temporary. The principal among them, to signify their high dignity, took the title of counts.) by the Prince of Salerno, in the year 849.</p>
<p>The castle, it should be remembered, &egrave; placed along the via Popilia in an impregnable position and from which one could dominate the Noce Valley.</p>
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<p>p>The <strong>Castello Ruggero</strong> moreover, bound as a Monumental Good by the Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio della <a title="Basilicata" href="https://sworld.co.uk">Basilicata</a>, &egrave; was secured by the same in September 2017. To return to its history, the building was also a key player in the resistance to Napoleon and in particular to the assaults of French General Massena, who expugned and severely punished the town of Lauria, which rose up after the French occupation in 1806. Many of the inhabitants on August 8 and 9 of that year were barbarically slaughtered by Napoleonic soldiers: the event went down in history as the Massacre of Lauria. The castle came out of it hard, and the rest was done by the bombings of World War II, but even today the fortress, when you enter Laura, immediately jumps out at you, also because&rsquo;eacute; from it you have a breathtaking view of the entire Noce Valley.</p>
