Corsano was inhabited since ancient times; the Roman presence is evidenced by the discovery of coins and tombs in the area known as "Pesco". Some claim that the town was founded by the centurion Curzio who obtained these lands as a reward for his victorious war campaigns.
The origin of Corsano probably dates back to the Xth century AD at the time of the Byzantine colonization, when calogeri, soldiers and entire families who occupied these lands depopulated by the unceasing wars, plagues and famine got to the Salento region, from the Eastern Roman Empire.

The monks, who were used to practice the cult of sacred images, found refuge in natural caves and underground crypts built by them to escape the persecution of the thugs of the iconoclastic emperors. Once the danger had passed, they began to build churches and convents that contributed to the birth of houses around farms (Masserìe), "Grancie" industrious centers that initially developed manorial economy and, then, developed the production and trafficking with the organization of fairs and markets . The discovery of crypts and tombs of Byzantine origin and underground Basilian, supports the thesis that the town is of Byzantine origin.

According to some, the origin of Corsano is attributable to the inhabitants of the hamlets of Macorano and Vagliano, destroyed in the Xth century by the raids of the Saracens: they have founded Corsano as a safer place where to live because situated in a valley surrounded by plateaus and hidden from the sea.

In 1190 the norman king Tancredi gave Corsano to Fabiano Securo; Corsano was part of the County of Alessano in the Principality of Taranto (1088-1463). The place was supposed to be inhabited by a good group of farmers and shepherds, sufficient to represent a country house. This is evident from the fact that Corsano is mentioned among the taxed towns furthermore, a populous and productiveto place could not escape to the debt collectors. Fabiano Securo built walls and a castle.
In the XII century passed to Guglielmo da Corsano and in the next century to  Landolfo di Luca d'Aquino.

At the end of the fourteenth century it belonged to Lucrezia Bellante, to the De Frisis in 1514, to the  De Capua, Filomarino in 1596, to the Securo, the Cicala in 1613 and the Capece in 1636 until the abolition of feudalism in the nineteenth century (August 2, 1806).

Even in Corsano, as well as in every other country in the Kingdom of Naples , the feudal system oppressed the population with a thousand abuses  and to which little or nothing was left for civilian life and dignity.

Corsano in the Middle Ages did not count more than a hundred people, most devoted to agriculture. The village was certainly less important than the nearby Alessano, county capital town and Episcopalian.

Very little has left of this period, only the Basilian crypt and some coins but nothing of the castle and  the fortified buildings erected by Fabiano Securo.

[www.comune.corsano.le.it]