134 Zedda
organization of the island in the late eleventh century, when the giudicati were
finally constructed.
The chronological ambit within which the province of Arborea was created
is still actively debated among scholars, whose various claims rest primarily
on a probability based on deductive reasoning, with no solid support in docu-
mentation. If the creation of ecclesiastical provinces in Sardinia is correctly
based on the celebration of the synod held in Sardinia and presided over by the
papal legate at an uncertain date, as is attested by the letter of the Archbishop
William of Cagliari to Pope Gelasius II from 1118, the reasoning built upon this
documentary reference appears forced.46 Recently, a date of ca. 1070—during
the pontificate of Alexander II—has been assigned to the synod that defined
the new church parishes in Sardinia.47 This entails that there would have been
three provinces from the beginning and from Alexander II on, which disre-
gards the fact that, at the beginning of his pontificate Pope Gregory VII men-
tioned only the archbishoprics of Cagliari and Torres. According to this claim,
[n]othing prevents one from believing that at the moment in which
Gregory VII nominated the prelates of Cagliari and Torres, the province
of Arborea was already established.48Actually, the use of the term provincia in Gregory VII’s Registrum, Raphael
Morghen’s analysis of the Registrum, and a careful reading of the letter that
Pope Alexander sent to the giudice Orzocco Torchitorio in 1065 undermine the
plausibility of this hypothesis.49
46 Volpini, “Documenti nel Sancta Sanctorum,” pp. 232–233, nn. 48–49; Raimondo Turtas, “I
giudici sardi del secolo XI: da Giovanni Francesco Fara, a Dionigi Scano e alle Genealogie
Medioevali di Sardegna,” Studi Sardi 33 (2000), pp. 211–275. For a new interpretation of the
letter by Archbishop Guglielmo, see Corrado Zedda, “ ‘Amani judicis o a manu judicis?’ Il
ricordo di una regola procedurale non rispettata in una lettera dell’arcivescovo Guglielmo
di Cagliari (1118),” RiMe Rivista dell’Istituto di Storia dell’Europa Mediterranea 9 (2012),
pp. 5–42.
47 Massimiliano Vidili, Cronotassi documentata degli arcivescovi di Arborea dalla seconda
metà del secolo XI al concilio di Trento (Oristano and Rome, 2010).
48 Ibid., p. 26, n. 11.
49 It then becomes clear that when the historian Fara notes the shift in the seat of Arborea’s
political and episcopal power from Tharros to Oristano, he is reporting that this was de-
cided by the giudice Orzocco and the bishop, not an archbishop; see Giovanni Francesco
Fara, et al., Ioannis Francisci Farae opera (Sassari, 1992) vol. 1, p. 286. In no way does Fara
claim that there was already an archbishop in Arborea by 1070.