94 Galoppini
fundamental economic activities of the giudicato, which were predominantly
agricultural and pastoral in nature.22
This judicial society had the typical characteristics of a manorial institution.
Nevertheless, the Sardinian curtes changed when they began to be frequented
by continental merchants, especially Genoese and Pisans. At that point, a kind
of open economy started to prevail, particularly within the donnicalie, where
vast properties were assigned to Pisans and Genoese, so that the merchants
could freely carry out their activities.23 The most visible results include an in-
crease in the territorial concessions and fiscal exemptions. Initially, merchants
from Pisa and Genoa were favored, because in the struggle against the Muslim
invasions it had been victories obtained by the Pisan and Genoese fleets that
restored Christian shipping to the western Mediterranean. More specifically,
Sardinia was liberated from an attempted occupation by the Mujāhid of Denia
(1015–1016), who invaded Sardinia with a furious hatred, as narrated in Liber
maiorichinus.24
The giudicati encountered many external influences: first there was com-
mercial traffic, and secondly there were many political designs of conquest
that became progressively stronger, aided by internal conflicts and frequent
local, internal wars. Barisone I of Arborea, who was married to the Catalan
noble Agalbursa de Bas, tried in vain to unify Sardinia under his reign. With
22 Italo Birocchi and Antonello Mattone, eds, La Carta de Logu d’Arborea nella storia del
diritto medievale e moderno (Roma, 2004). The Giudicessa promulgated the Carta de Logu
d’Arborea, taking two sets of laws enacted by the father: the Carta de Logu di Mariano
IV (1367 and 1374–1376) and the Codice Rurale (after 1347). See G. Todde, et al., Il mondo
della Carta de Logu (Cagliari, 1979); Laura Galoppini, “Produzione agricola, artigianato e
commercio nella ‘Carta’ di Eleonora,” in Birocchi and Mattone, La Carta de Logu d’Arborea
nella storia, pp. 262–283. A Carta de Logu was in force in the giudicato of Cagliari; see
Marco Tangheroni, “La Carta de Logu del Regno giudicale di Calari. Prima trascrizione,”
Medioevo. Saggi e Rassegne 19 (1994), pp. 29–37; Marco Tangheroni, “La ‘Carta de Logu’ del
Giudicato di Cagliari. Studio ed edizione di alcuni suoi capitoli,” in Birocchi and Mattone,
La Carta de Logu d’Arborea nella storia, pp. 204–236.
23 Marco Tangheroni, “L’economia e la società della Sardegna (XI–XIII secolo),” in Guidetti,
Storia dei Sardi e della Sardegna, vol. 1, pp. 157–191; Ennio Cortese, “Donnicalie. Una pa-
gina dei rapporti tra Pisa, Genova e la Sardegna nel sec. XII,” in Scritti in onore di Dante
Gaeta (Milan, 1984), pp. 489–520; Carla Ferrante and Antonello Mattone, “Le Comunità
rurali nella Sardegna medievale (secoli XI–XV),” Studi storici (2004), pp. 169–244; Silvio De
Santis, “Consuetudine e struttura fondiaria in Sardegna tra XII e XIV secolo,” in Birocchi
and Mattone, La Carta de Logu d’Arborea nella storia, pp. 239–261.
24 Carlo Calisse, ed., Liber Maiolichinus de gestis pisanorum illustribus: Poema della guerra
balearica secondo il Cod. pisano Roncioni aggiuntevi alcune notizie lasciate da M. Amari
(Rome, 1904), p. 41.