Introduction. The Giudicati Sardinia

1In the eleventh century the institutional structure of Sardinia – that we can assume had been called Archontate, from the Greek title of its rulers: the ἄρχοντας – became fragmented.¹ That institution was never explicitly mentioned in the sources – unlike its rulers – but it was probably the legal successor to the former Roman Provincia Sardiniae. The Archontate was later replaced at first by two polities which contemporary Western sources name Iudicati (Calari and Torres) which are attested in the first half of the eleventh century,² and, from 1073 onwards, by two more political bodies: the Iudicati of Arborea and Gallura. At the helm of these four polities there were as many rulers called iudices in Latin.³

2For more than a hundred years after this period, the four iudices attempted, in different ways, to establish themselves institutionally as reges ruling over their regna. That is, they tried to "translate" the titles of iudex and Iudicatus, into the common Latin language, so that there were no misunderstandings about their supposed legal status. However, these efforts were frustrated by the Apostolic See, which at that time was imposing its Reform agenda on the Church, and was claiming for itself the right to establish who was emperor or king in the Latin west.⁴

3The permanence of Sardinia in the Roman and Byzantine orbit, lato sensu, for more than a millennium (third c. BCE - eleventh c. CE) – which was interrupted only by about 80 years of a virtually irrelevant Vandal domain – has strongly moulded the island’s social structure that was almost devoid of feudal institutions until the eleventh century, when the presence of Genoa and Pisa in Sardinia began. That meant that this island’s society developed its own characteristics partially apart from those of surrounding polities of the western Euro-Mediterranean area.

4One of the most interesting sources to observe from inside late medieval Sardinian societies and their strong ties with the Roman-Byzantine world are the Condaghes. In fact, they are among the few Sardinian documents that offer glimpses of the island’s daily medieval life that do not come solely from public authors, such as the iudices and their officers, as they were also produced by abbots, bishops, and ordinary “citizens” of the Iudicati.⁵

5In relation to the theme of this book and what has just been highlighted on the peculiarity of Sardinian society, we would like to analyse some cards of the Condaghes because they show the complexity of relationships and interpersonal ties present in the Giudicati societies.⁶

6From the reading of these cards an island appears in which the masters owned only the work services of their servants, who could work for multiple masters. These servants seem to have been a kind of livestock, as in the Greek-Byzantine tradition.⁷

7In light of these characteristics, a great deal of personal and working bonds were created between the servants and their "masters": they were the judges, the oligarchs, the high and low ecclesiastical dignitaries, the monasteries and, last but not least, private “citizens”. Also, we perceive very well that servile work was the basis of the economic life of the whole island, being frequently the subject of exchanges, purchases, donations, and legal disputes between the “owners”.⁸ The most interesting element of such ties and relations is that they show the survival throughout the Middle Ages of many elements of a clear Byzantine matrix in a region in the centre of the western (and Latin) Mediterranean basin, which even recently has been defined as isolated and remote throughout the early Middle Ages.⁹

Some examples of voices from the Giudicati societies through the Condaghes

8The Condaghes normally contained records of sale/purchase of land, animals, servants and handmaids owned by different religious bodies, by Giudicati aristocrats, and even by the judges themselves between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. But not only: the Condaghes contain a significant number of written documents also belonging to private "citizens" of these Sardinian polities.

9It should be pointed out immediately that almost all of the surviving Condaghes were written in one of the four Sardinian Giudicati, that of Torres (or Logudoro): Condaghe di San Gavino (henceforth CSG),¹⁰ Condaghe di San Pietro di Silki (hereafter CSPS),¹¹ Condaghe di Barisone II di Torres (henceforth CBT), Condaghe di San Michele di Salvennor (hereafter CSMS), Condaghe di San Nicola di Trullas (henceforth CSNT). Only one of them refers to the Giudicato of Arborea: the Condaghe di Santa Maria di Bonarcado (henceforth CSMB).¹²

10To date, no condaghe has been found concerning the Giudicato of Calari, the direct heir of the earlier Archontate of Sardinia, nor that of Gallura.

11It should also be stressed that these sources have a different credibility since, some of them (CSG and CSMS) are late copies that were translated into languages other than the original. Finally, in their texts we can find evident traces of interpolation of events in line with their authors’ aims.

12Although it was a private instrument, the condaghe still had a recognised public function and was therefore subject to certain forms of control that regulate its life.¹³

13Given the great variety of information contained in the Condaghes and the limits of space, here we propose a selection of data that we consider significant for the discourse on the different ties that bind Sardinia to the Byzantine world.

Internal ties: hereditary law, dynastic memory and family ties in the Giudicato of Arborea

14A source of primary importance to observe the institutional ties within the world of the Giudicati is the Condaghe di Santa Maria di Bonarcado (CSMB). It is the only one related to the Giudicato of Arborea, whose very name evokes direct ties with the Byzantine world: Bonarcado derives from the Greek term Panàkhrantos, that means “immaculate”, “pure”.

15This source allows us to take a look inside this Giudicato and grasp the judges of Arborea‘s pride on their kingship based on the family ties with their ancestors. Card 144 recalls that on the occasion of the consecration of the "Clesia nova" (New Church) of the monastery (1146/1147), Judge Barisone I of Arborea stated openly that his power over the Giudicato was based on the hereditary law, without mentioning any external authority, such as the Apostolic See or the Holy Roman Empire: “Ego judice Barusone de Serra potestando Locu de Arborea faço custa carta (...) pro anima mea et de parentes meos daunde lu cognosco su regnu de Arborea (...)”.¹⁴

16It must be highlighted that the consecration ceremony was attended by Villano, Archbishop of Pisa and the Apostolic legate and Primate of Sardinia and Corsica and the other three Sardinian judges: Constantine-Salusius III of Calari, Gonnarius of Torres and Constantine III of Gallura.

17That statement, although it was a real political manifesto of Barisone’s institutional identity, was disavowed by the same judge who about twenty years later, in 1164, decided to forge a new political tie not with the Apostolic See – which was deaf to any request for recognition of a royal status made by Sardinian judges – but with Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa from whom he obtained the title of King of Sardinia.¹⁵

18CSMB Card 144 allows us to draw parallelisms with similar family ties among their ancestors highlighted some decades earlier by Judge Constantine-Salusius II of Calari in a document issued on 30 June 1089, by which he confirmed the donation of two churches to the monks of Saint-Victor of Marseille. In this highly stimulating text, the ruler mentioned three generations of heads of state. At first he and his father Orzoccus-Torchitorius I “Arzo rex et iudex kalaritanus” – the immediate predecessor – who, in a document issued in 1066 to the Abbey of Montecassino, entitled himself: Rex Sardiniae de Loco Callaro, thus asserting his theoretical authority over the whole island, as a descendant of the archon Sardanias which however de facto was exercised only in the Giudicato (Locus) of Calari). Later, Judge Constantine-Salusius II mentioned his future successor “Marianus rex et iudex filius suprascripti Constantini”.¹⁶ The repetition of this lineage highlighted the ruler’s willingness to reaffirm the power and kingship of his House over time and also the origin of this power. ¹⁷

19These are just two examples of the attempts made by Sardinian judges to affirm their institutional independence from polities outside the island. The invasiveness of these political bodies increased exponentially from the twelfth century onwards, until the stipulation in the thirteenth century of feudal bonds between the Sardinian rulers and the Apostolic See and the Italian Communes.

Women at the helm of a Giudicato: a possible origin of the ties between the Giudicato of Logudoro and the Apostolic See

20At least two Condaghes offer some very interesting data that can be further explored on a very intriguing issue: the role of women in the Giudicati society. Proceeding in an alleged chronological order, we can analyse the beginning of the CSG that reports events that can be supposedly ascribed to the eleventh century.

21They refer to the miracle of Judge Comita of Torres being healed from leprosy at the hands of the martyr Gavinus theoretically between the tenth and the eleventh centuries.¹⁸ In this regard, the CSG also contains very interesting data regarding the long period of the Sardinian ruler’s illness. The author describes a sort of regency of the Giudicato entirely in the hands of female personalities closely related to Comita: his mother and three sisters.

22The narrative source shows all of them issuing orders and managing several basic activities of the daily life of Torres. While Comita was lying in bed, devoured by a leprosy that did not even allow him to open his eyes, one of his sisters "donna Iorgia (...) una forte femina" ("Lady Iorgia (...) a strong woman") gathered animals, collected taxes and even built a fortress and a church. And, as if that wasn't enough, she started a war and defeated the judge of Gallura Ubaldo (Visconti) and led him prisoner to the castle of Ardara, the capital of the Giudicato of Torres.¹⁹ Immediately after the miraculous healing of the judge, his mother and the sisters summoned the Free Men of the two Giudicati of Torres and Arborea ruled by Comita to the village of Kerki or Porto Torres.²⁰

23In the second part of the narration of this brief condaghe, Judge Comita disappears entirely after being healed, although his death is not mentioned.²¹ So do his mother and sister Iorgia, who also had played a preponderant role until then. So, one of the main protagonists of the story became another of Comita’s three sisters: "sa bona donna Kaderina" (“the good lady Kaderina”). For instance, her role was absolutely essential in finding the martyrs’ bodies that the judge was looking for, as requested by the martyr Gavinus in exchange for Comita’s recovery. She was the one who suggested the use of the thurible to locate the holy relics, and they were found thanks to its smoke.²²

24After the construction of the new basilica of San Gavino was completed, we find again this sister playing a very active political role as she summoned the Free Men of the Giudicati of Torres and Arborea in the village of Kerki. On that occasion, because of the goodness of Comita, they elected his son the "donnigheddu" (little prince) Torcotorius as judge of both Giudicati ("Logos").

25"Sa bona donna Caderina" seems to act as iudicissa de facto, a sort of tutor of the young Judge Torcotorius, probably due to Comita’s death as well as the total absence of Torcotorius’ mother, who was never mentioned in this source. It was Caderina again who played the role of tutor to her nephew Torcotorius, after the Free Men decided to send an embassy to Rome, so that a cardinal could be sent to Torres for the consecration of the new basilica.

26Caderina reassured her nephew, who was worried about the large amount of money needed for the embassy to the Apostolic See, with an empirical and metaphorical demonstration that was intended to show the great wealth of the two Giudicati under Torcotorius’ authority: at the request of his aunt, the judge sent a “palafrenu” to the pond at the bridge of Torres to check for water. On his return to the court, after the judge had confirmation of the presence of water, "sa bona donna Caderina" said to her nephew that his kingdoms would not be short of money as long as there was water in the ponds of Torres and Oristano, the capitals of the two Giudicati. And it was this same woman who interacted with the Cardinal who arrived in the Giudicato, so that he might grant many indulgences to those who had attended the new Basilica.

27Other women of the Torres’ dynasty with a significant political role developed an active female policy of building/restoring churches and monasteries in the very first phase of the existence of that Giudicato, that is the second half of the eleventh century. One of them would be the wife of Judge Mariano I of Torres (ante 1073 – circa 1131) who, according to the Libellus Iudicum Turritanorum, would have built the church of San Pietro di Silki: “isa donna de sa mugere fetit a Santu Pedru de Sirqui”. ²³

28A second member of that dynasty – the mother of Judge Mariano I, who was defined as a wise woman (“savia femina”) in the Libellus – seems to have endowed with properties the monastery of Silki, although this information has reached us by means of a late annotation in a Card.²⁴ Moreover, the woman - according to the Libellus - played an important role in the election to the Torres throne of her son, as she was a person with common sense (“bonu sinnu”).²⁵

29The events and characters of the Judges of Torres' dynasty here described have for a long time posed many problems to historians, and reveal an exegetical weakness of the sources that can be found several times in Sardinian historiography. The main problem relating to the personalities above mentioned is that the description of their deeds shows problematic parallels with the figures of Judge Comita II of Torres (1198-1218) and his family. Coincidentally, this historical period is very close to that assumed for the first draft of the stories that merged in the Condaghe. The difficulty in reconciling the narrative data from the CSG, and those attested by other reliable sources has sometimes prevented scholars from considering that the author of the condaghe could have backdated Comita II and his family’s deeds by about two centuries, making them the alleged initiators of the judges of Torres’ dynasty.²⁶ The Sardinian historian who made these reflections, Giuseppe Meloni, seems not to exclude two possible elements: 1) the CSG’s author did not lose the historical memory of the beginnings of the Giudicato, nor did he replace or merge the figure of an alleged Comita [I] with that of Comita II; 2) the author invented a Comita I to whom he attributed many of the biographical elements of Comita II with some minor changes. The main concern of the author really seems to be backdating by almost two centuries the origin of the ties between the Roman Church and the judges of Torres, rather than respecting the real genealogy of those rulers.

30Although the Apostolic See had increased its political control over the Sardinian Giudicati since the time of Gregory VII, it was taken aback by the investiture of Barisone I of Arborea as King of Sardinia, granted by Emperor Frederick I in 1164, thanks to the political and financial support of the Commune of Genoa. This initiative was an immediate and serious threat for the Apostolic See. Some years later, in 1183, Pope Lucius III addressed the archbishop, the consuls and the people of Genoa, so that alone, or together with the Pisans, they would not attempt to achieve any form of domination over Sardinia, which belonged to the Church.²⁷

31It is therefore understandable that in this struggle with the Holy Roman Empire for the supremacy in Sardinia, instruments such as literary sources - the Libellus and the CSG, in this case - were also used to reaffirm the chronological precedence of the rights of the Apostolic See over the island.

32This political pressure from the papacy grew further to the point that in the first three decades of the thirteenth century it was able to impose its dominium on the giudici, who then claimed to hold their polities on behalf of the Apostolic See, and not by hereditary law or divine grace, and subjected themselves to paying a census. In 1224 Benedetta of Massa, iudicissa of Calari, did so,²⁸ and in 1236 Adelasia, iudicissa of Torres, together with her husband Ubaldo Visconti, judge of Gallura, recognised that the right and ownership of their two Giudicati belonged to the Roman Church, from whom they received them.²⁹ A year later, in 1237, Judge Peter II of Arborea and his wife, after acknowledging that the Roman Church was their "mater et domina", were invested with the Giudicato and undertook to pay the feudal census.30

33The presence of women in important positions within the Giudicati societies or even at the helm of them can be see also until the end of the fourteenth century, shortly before the disappearance of the Giudicato of Arborea. Here, however, we would like to focus on the figure of Benedetta, iudicissa of Calari, who was the political author of a discourse of dynastic memory with important Byzantine elements carried out in 1214. The ruler made some concessions to the church of San Giorgio di Suelli, about 50 km north of Santa Igia, the capital of the Giudicato of Calari.³¹ Into the document – drafted shortly after the death of her father, the iudex William of Massa – she inserted the episode of an alleged miracle worked by the Saint to “Torquitoris Kallaritanensis principis regionis”, who is deemed the initiator of the dynasty of Calari rulers in the early eleventh century. This could mean that this princeps could be the most direct heir of the previous archon of Sardinia, lord of the island not yet divided into four polities.

34The connection between San Giorgio and the princeps Torchitorius was the medium used by the iudicissa to link her father’s dynasty (the Marquises of Massa) to the “ancestors” – the original iudices of Calari, prestigious also because they were beneficiaries of a divine miracle in the person of their initiator.³²

35Given this state of affairs – whether this political “discourse” was a founding myth or a link to prestigious ancestors –, it was created/used to highlight that there was no dynastic interruption from Torquitoris Kallaritanensis principis regionis and the auctoritas of the iudicissa Benedetta in the thirteenth century.

36If this reference to the proto-Giudicati political world, of clear Byzantine origin, were not enough, it should be pointed out that the same iudicissa in 1214 described to Pope Honorius III the steps of her election to the Giudicato throne “more solito”, which were virtually identical to those for the election of the ancient praeses (or iudex) provinciae of the sixth century, even if more than half a millennium separates them.³³

Women in important positions in Giudicati Chanceries

37Card 132 of the Condaghe di Santa Maria di Bonarcado (CSMB) details the presence of women in important institutional positions within the Giudicato of Arborea’s society. These women had sufficient “power” to forge and handle important corroboration tools of the written documents.³⁴

38In the years 1131–1147, seven siblings who were servants of the above-mentioned monastery, as well as their parents before them, refused to continue to serve it stating that they were free people. 35

39After they had been sued before the Corona de judice (Court of the judge; in the Arborea sources of the fourteenth century it was called "Corona de Logu", i.e. the Court of the “State”), the siblings and their aunt Saina Tussia – who was “buiaria dessu regnu” – brought a letter sealed with the bullatoriu of Judge Comita” (“batuserunt carta bullata cun bullatoriu de judice Comita”). The document was thought to be a forgery by the judge himself, and as a consequence of this crime he decided that the “buiaria” would be executed immediately, and that the seven siblings were to be tortured and hanged.

40When the irons for the torture were already hot, and the gallows already built another woman came on stage with an important salvific role thanks to her parental ties with the supreme ruler of Arborea: Lady Anna, Judge Comita’s mother. She intervened and asked that, in honour of the Holy Virgin, they not be executed. The judge accepted the petition, and ordered them to return to serve the monastery forever.

41This Card of CSMB is extremely interesting for several elements contained therein: 1) the role of women within the Chancery or Scribania of the Giudicato of Arborea in the twelfth century; 2) the strong ties with the Byzantine world mentioned several times.

42Let's proceed in order.

43The first element to focus on is the title "buiaria dessu regnu" attributed to Saina Tussia. A philologist has suggested that this Sardinian term would derive from the Latin *BULLIARIA, from the verb BULLIO: "bulla seu sigillo firmare" (“sign with a bull or seal”).³⁶ An aid to complete our interpretation of this charge comes from a passage of the same Card that also answers to the second point cited before. Saina Tussia and her nieces and nephews sealed the falsified document by using the "bullatoriu de judice Comita".³⁷ The term "bullatoriu" seems almost the loan translation in Sardinian of the Greek word boullotirion, which indicated the pincer bearing the matrices of the two sides of seals that were imprinted with force on both sides of them.

44On the basis of all this, we can propose two interpretations of the term buiaria: and therefore of the role of Saina Tussia: 1) she was the safekeeper of the lead bullas with which the documents of the judges of Arborea were sealed, or 2) she was the safekeeper of the bullatoriu of the judge. Both hypothesis could explain her immediate death sentence by Comita, because she would have abused the trust she enjoyed.

45Another very interesting element of this Card, which could be linked to the Byzantine legacy, is the type of punishment imposed by Judge Comita on Saina Tussia’s nephews: the ruler decided that they should be tortured and then hanged. The Sardinian verb that indicates the torture is "iscodoglare". It has been linked by philologists to the terms "ókru, ógu" (eye), and it has been translated in different ways, "to blind, to dazzle", but perhaps also "to dislocate bones and articulations". The mention in the source of "ferros cagentes" (incandescent irons) would suggest a Byzantine torture aimed at blinding “by gouging out the eyes, sometimes using a hot poker (…)”.³⁸ This form of torture was usually reserved for those who usurped and undermined imperial and royal powers. In the case of Card 132, the seven siblings, by falsifying a document with the judge’s seal, could be considered to have attempted to damage Comita's power by using it to give validity to a false legal transaction.

46In this affair, therefore, in the Giudicato of Arborea’s law the judge and his auctoritas played the role that in the Empire belonged to the basileus and his authority. If so, it would be another interesting element in support of the important Byzantine cultural heritage in Sardinia in the central Middle Ages.

47Although the case of Card 132 is the most interesting of the CSMB, it is not the only example of women closely linked with seals within the Giudicato of Arborea. Another Card, in this case number 129, which can be dated between 1164 and 1171, almost thirty years later than the above mentioned, recalls that the Monastery of Bonarcado and Judge Peter I divided the sons of Iorgia d'Eregu, “angilla de siillu” (“maid of the seal”). Unfortunately, the Card does not contain more elements to understand what the tasks of this person were. It should be stressed that another functionary of the Chancery - Furadu Moiu “maiore de siillu” (“the Guardian of the Seal”) - participated in this document among other witnesses.³⁹

48These two Cards push us to make some reflections on the organisation chart of the Chancery of the Giudicato of Arborea over a period of at least four decades (1131–1171) but possibly longer.⁴⁰ We cannot say if these three charges coexisted simultaneously, but it is worth pointing out that there were women in Arborea who were connected to the safekeeping and use of the seals in various ways and at different levels.

49Another important consideration is that, at least for the Giudicato of Arborea, despite the almost total absence of surviving archives in the island, the existence of a well-structured Chancery of this Giudicato can be admitted even for such an ancient period, perhaps almost at the same time or only a few decades after the first official mention of it in a papal document of 1073.

50Finally, to further underline the relevance of these data examined so far, we want to highlight that to date there are no female figures with chancery roles similar to those of Saina and Iorgia in the following and much wider archival documentation on the Giudicato of Arborea until the first two decades of the fifteenth century.

Many private Condaghes, but also many forgeries

51As we pointed out before, the Condaghes also show a relevant presence of written documents among private "citizens" of the Sardinian Giudicati. These were persons who owned private Condaghes or cartas bullatas (documents sealed by the Judges) with precise legal purposes in deeply rural environments that certified their rights and property on goods and people.

52We believe that the mention of various written texts – also explicitly called Condaghes in the documents we are examining – is very important as it confirms that few Sardinian medieval documents have survived compared to those that actually circulated on the island.

53Even the very existence of this type of private document can help to overcome some "crystallised" institutional and social images of medieval Sardinia, which appear less and less plausible in the light of recent research.

54However, in parallel the Condaghes report that in addition to many authentic written documents, there were also many forgeries.

55On this interesting topic, two Condaghes come to our aid. The first one is CSMB, which in its Card 93 contains the recordatione (registration) of a kertu (a trial) between the prior of the monastery of Santa Maria di Bonarcado and Goantine de Sivi for the possession of Sufia de Urri, daughter of Bera de Urri, a maidservant of San Giorgio. This Card is very interesting also because it offers a cross-section of the Giudicato of Arborea’s judicial system, by showing two types of "courts" with different levels of authority.

56The Card reports that in the hearing they had in the Corona de Curadoria, Goantine had stated that Sufia was a free woman and not a servant.⁴¹ A declaration to which the prior replied that the woman was the daughter of a maidservant of the Church, and that she had been registered in the condaghe as such. The case was brought to the Corona de Logu in which the two parties concerned were forced to bring their Condaghes: that of the monastery and that of Goantine de Sivi's one. The members of the Corona de Logu claimed that Goantine had composed his own condaghe to deceive them, and they destroyed it.⁴²

57Another interesting case is the one contained in CSMB Card 178-179. It is still a kertu (or trial) for the possession of a servant between the prior Nicolau and Goantine de Sogos. Before the uncertainty of the situation, the judge and all members of the Corona imposed to de Sogos to adduce evidence of his statements, and he presented his father's condaghe whose witnesses were all dead. All the Free Men present in the Corona agreed that it was not a condaghe to be believed, and that it had been composed fraudulently. When they were questioned by Donnu Petru Murtinu, who held the Corona on behalf of the judge, about the destiny of the fake document, they replied: "Let the judge do what he wants of it; it seems right to us that it should be taken and thrown into the fire".⁴³

58A third interesting case of a forged document is contained in the Condaghe di San Nicola di Trullas (CSNT). It refers to the church of the same name erected at the behest of the powerful family of maiorales (oligarchs) de Athen (before 1113), and donated on 29 October 1113 to the monastery of San Salvatore di Camaldoli.⁴⁴

59The Card 179 contains the registration of a kertu (trial) between the monastery of San Nicola di Trullas and the village of Cheremule for the possession of a saltus:⁴⁵ the prior mentions Comita de Bosove, who sold him the saltus and claimed to have bought it from the Giudicato public property (“ave rennu”). The Corona de Curadore ordered him "to bring the condaghe: he brought it, and it seemed authentic to the Corona de Curadore".⁴⁶ Probably this did not appease the representatives of Cheremule, who claimed that the saltus was a "populare", that is to say, a portion of land for the collective use of the community.⁴⁷ Then the members of the Corona de Curadoria proposed to submit the condaghe to the judge: "We brought the condaghe to the judge, and it seemed authentic to him and to the whole Corona”. The saltus was definitively assigned to San Nicola.

Serfdom and countryside in Sardinia and the ties with the Byzantine world

60We have mentioned on several occasions the many connections between medieval Sardinia and the Byzantine world. Also with regard to the characteristics of serfdom on the island, some of them reveal their Eastern matrix.

61As we said earlier, the masters in Sardinia owned the work of their servants, and not their natural persons. Moreover, a servant may have owed work to multiple masters.⁴⁸ In one week there were four days dedicated to work.⁴⁹

62Servile work was a frequent object of exchange, purchase, and donation; it was certainly the basis of the economic structures of the whole island in the early and central Middle Ages.50

63If we combine these elements of Byzantine influence with many others from the rural world only mentioned here, we obtain the image of a strongly Byzantine island, especially in some geographical areas (the centre-north of the island), and in specific social strata that were believed to have been excluded from imperial influence. Previously, such influence had been thought to be mostly limited to some large towns and the southern part of Sardinia, which gravitated around the former capital of the Roman and Byzantine imperial province: Caralis.

64On the contrary, the very rural world in Sardinia is an extremely interesting and useful area for historians to highlight two elements: 1) the depth of the penetration of Greek-Byzantine culture and language in the island, and the close ties that the latter had especially with Sicily and Calabria, which in the early and central Middle Ages were also subject to the Roman Empire; and 2) the presence of historiographic hesitations even from scholars who also contributed greatly to the development of linguistic knowledge about medieval island idioms, when they were faced with the large number of terms in the Sardinian language that showed a clear derivation from medieval Greek.

65All these elements, which are only briefly outlined here, may make historians regret the absence of Condaghes or similar sources relating to the Giudicato of Calari, whose territory has preserved a large number of architectural, cultural and palaeographical assets of a clearly Byzantine origin.

Sardinian countryside and Eastern Roman world: an intense relationship?

66Although it is still a subject of debate among scholars, there are some historians who believe that the three typical settlement and production units of the Giudicati society - villa, domu and domestia - would replicate a similar Byzantine structure described in the tenth century by the Fiscal Treaty: chorion, agridion and the proasteion. However, this statement is not accepted by other scholars, who consider that two types of island settlement - domu and domestia - would replicate one of the models of Byzantine settlement: the proasteion. The subject is too complex to deal with here, and for this reason we refer to the most recent historiography.⁵¹

67Another sector of the island’s daily life, closely linked to the world of the countryside and rich in Byzantine influences is the Sardinian calendar: in the central and north-eastern part of the island, the month of July was called “mese de tríulas (o tríbulas)”. This word comes from the Latin TRIBULAE = threshing, which was the term originally widespread throughout Sardinia at the time of the united Roman Empire. On the other hand, the sources relating to the rest of the island indicated July as the "month of the farmyards", with different phonetic and graphic variations in the diverse areas: mese de "argiolas, aldzòlas, asrobas", from the Latin AREOLA = farmyard. The most relevant detail of this second variation of the name of July was that it seems a loan translation of the Greek popular voice "halonaris" (from "halonios" = threshing), instead of the learned term ioúlios, from the Latin iulius, which was used in official documents of the Empire.⁵²

68Equally significant is the widespread Sardinian term "kresúra / krisúra" ("closure of a farm or field with stones covered with branches or hedges of prickly pears"), in which we can recognise the medieval Greek "kleisoura" (phonetically klisúra) attested by Procopius. Even more interesting is that this term survives in several parallel forms in southern Italy with a meaning analogous to that of the Sardinian term, as in Lecce dialect: kjisúra, kisúra, kesúra, c'isúra.⁵³

69Another example that can be shown, given the importance that the cultivation of the grapes in Sardinia had, allows us to make a parallelism between the island and the Apulian region: in the CSPS (Card 437) we can read: "sa uinia sua tucta erema de valle" ("all his uncultivated vineyard of the valley"). According to the glottologist Paulis this expression seems to be the loan translation of the Greek-Byzantine term eremoampéli "uncultivated vineyard" that recurs in the acts of the eleventh century of San Nicola Donnoso (Calabria).⁵⁴

70As a further confirmation of the pronounced conservative character of Sardinian society throughout the Middle Ages, we want to highlight another survival of Byzantine traditions, again in the second half of the fourteenth century. The Carta de Logu of the Giudicato of Arborea (a kind of civil and criminal Code of the Sardinian polity) in chapter CXXVI recalled that "sas Festas de sas Venenias" (the Feasts of the Grape Harvests) were solemnly celebrated, with the suspension of judicial hearings between 8 September and 1 October, almost at the same time in which the Grape Harvest Feasts were held in Byzantium with the participation of the emperor and the patriarch.⁵⁵

The donations of Giuducati oligarchs (Maiorales)

71Another very interesting theme strictly related to the countryside on which the few surviving Condaghes shed some light is the existence of a class of Maiorales (oligarchs) particularly active in the Giudicato of Torres and, to a lesser extent, in that of Arborea. Since the beginning of the twelfth century especially in Torres some of these families – de Athen, de Thori and, on a smaller scale, also others – compete with the same dynasties of judges in showing their economic power, by making sumptuous donations to monasteries or churches in parallel with the rulers’ ones. For some scholars it seems to show a sort of alliance that temporarily binds, above divisions and rivalries, the Giudicato aristocracy and also the local hierarchies of the secular clergy, which are the emanation of it. This alliance seems to be some kind of response that ensures the survival within the Giudicato of the existing power structure, however unstable it may be, against explicit threats of external invasion of the island.⁵⁶

72These were donations of entire churches and lands, servants and animals to monastic orders that were part of a project of penetration and embeddedness of the Roman Church in Sardinia, which is attested increasingly by sources after the opening of the second half of the eleventh century.

73Let us see some significant examples of such concessions.

74Two donations made by members of the Torres oligarchy date back to 1113: one concerns a church, while the second refers to servants and animals donated to furnish a pre-existing church.

75The first short document is the donation of the Church of San Pietro di Simbranos located in the diocese of Ampurias made by Constantine de Carbia (or Carvia) and his wife Iorgia de Zori to the monastery of Saint Benedict of Montecassino.⁵⁷ The endowment was made with the consent of the judge of Torres and his wife Marcusa de Gunale, the archbishop Atto, the bishop Nicola and all the children of the ruling couple.

76Also in 1113, two documents preserve the memory of the donation of another church, that of San Nicola di Soliu, and its rich endowment. The authors of these two acts were Furatu de Gitil and his wife Susanna de Zori, both members of families belonging to the restricted oligarchy of the Giudicato of Torres.⁵⁸ Also in this case the two spouses acted with the consent of the judge and his wife the regina “Marcusa de Gunale”, of the Archbishop and the Bishop of Ampurias, and of their own children.

77In addition to about forty maidservants and menservants – entire portions of their work or single parts of it, according to the customs of medieval Sardinian serfdom – the two maiorales made a truly impressive donation to the church: vast estates and about 1700 heads of livestock: 40 mares, 20 tame horses, 100 cows, 200 pigs, 1200 sheep, 40 goats and 15 yokes. In addition to that, the two donors provided the church with books and sacred objects for its furniture.⁵⁹

78The third example of a donation made by representatives of the Sardinian aristocracy is related to the Monastery of San Nicola di Trullas (1117). It is an act carried out by donnu Petru de Athen, a member of a family whose economic power made it capable of competing with the judges of Torres themselves.⁶⁰ We know the initial act of the monastic history of San Nicola di Trullas: it is the document with which Petru de Athen and his family affiliated the Church to San Salvatore di Camaldoli in 1113.

79The invitation to the Camaldolese to take over the monastery seems to coincide with the beginning of the government of Judge Costantine I of Torres (whose precise date is unfortunately unknown),⁶¹ and was part of a strategy to create a sort of alliance that temporarily linked together the aristocracy of the Giudicato and the local secular clergy, aimed at elaborating a political response to the demands that, in an intimidating way, the Apostolic See had been advancing since the last quarter of the previous century, as we said before.

Conclusions

80In this text we have tried to underline two topics that we believe to be extremely relevant especially from a historiographical point of view: 1) the deep ties that linked Sardinia to the Byzantine world from multiple points of view during the Middle Ages, and 2) some voices, among the few from documentary sources produced in Sardinia, which could underline the interpersonal and professional links and the role itself of women in the Giudicati societies.

81With this in mind and for several reasons, we are continuing lines of research that we started many years ago.⁶² The first reason is that sometimes these ties have been underplayed by the same scholars that have “discovered” such interesting elements in favour of these connections. An example can be the glottologist who, after finding hundreds of instances of linguistic data to support a deep penetration of the Greek language in Sardinia - even in the ninth and the tenth centuries, when supposedly the institutional ties had been interrupted because of the Muslim expansion - came to make a statement that almost denied all his previous work: “the Byzantine influence, although certainly not very extensive and lasting, penetrated equally in Sardinian society a little more intimately than the current stereotype in linguistic and non-linguistic studies has made us believe so far.”⁶³ This statement shows that the weight of previous historiography was still excessive, as on much of the early medieval history of Sardinia. The second reason, strictly intertwined with the first, is the need to refute some interpretative hypotheses based on stereotypes of alleged isolation and remoteness of Sardinia during the early Middle Ages, which have been reiterated even in recent years (§1).

82On the contrary, even the brief considerations made about some Cards from the world of the Condaghes - and what we have said about the Feast of the Grape Harvests celebrated at the end of the fourteenth century - seem to show the survival of further ties in terms of daily life between the island and the Byzantine world lato sensu, until the Giudicato of Arborea, the last of the original four, ceased to be.

83With regard to the theme of the role of women in Giudicati societies, the few elements relating to the twelfth century that we have examined and which are linked to other data connected to important female figures in the thirteenth century which we have focused on, open up interesting scenarios for future research to write a history of Giudicati Sardinia from a female perspective, since even the few data we have proposed concern people belonging to different levels of island society. Apart from a few brief mentions of the Iudicissa Benedetta of Calari, we have deliberately not made any mention of two other important Sardinian female rulers: Adelasia, iudicissa of Torres – and Queen of Sardinia thanks to her marriage in October 1237 to Enzo, the natural son of Emperor Frederick II of Swabia, who appointed them King and Queen of Sardinia. (1236 – circa 1259) – and Leonor iudicissa of Arborea (1383–1392?). The bibliography on them is too large to deal with it here.

84All good reasons to continue to deepen and develop this attempt to read Sardinian history from these methodological perspectives.