208 Turtas
considered to insufficiently guarantee both the liberty of the married couple and
the certainty that no impediments to the validity of the marriage would arise.
6.3 The Ecclesiastical Organization
The only information regarding ecclesiastical conditions comes from the
well-known “synods of Logudoro” and the Registro di Sorres from the mid-
1400s.86 According to the Registro, the clergy involved in the cura animarum
were divided into beneficiados or padronos, the real masters, on the one hand,
and presbiteros conductivos, servidores, cappellanos, curatos, i.e. the mere ex-
ecutants, on the other. However, in practice, communal life was but a distant
memory, because the canons were entitled to receive the parochial benefices
of the diocese. This situation persisted throughout the entire Spanish period
and was true for all the dioceses of the island.
There is no information regarding the cultural preparation of the clergy or
the three grammar schools that were supposed to provide it, according to the
aforementioned synod of Santa Giusta. In many parishes, instruction was lim-
ited exclusively to learning how to read to a small group of people, who had to
interact with the celebrant during the liturgy. However, this took place in Latin,
which was still foreign to lay people. Future priests were usually selected from
among this group.
Thus, it is not surprising that among the bishops there were still cases of
startling ignorance, as well. As a result, they were frequently chosen from
among the regular clergy: Dominicans, Minorites, Cistercians, Carmelites, and
Agostinians. Among the clergymen of Sardinian origin, one of the first known
to have earned an academic degree seems to have been Philip Mameli, canon
of Arborea, who earned the degree of doctore de decretu et lege (in canon and
civil law) sometime before the plague of 1348–1349. Aside from the few refer-
ences in the synods of Loguduoro, there is no corroboration of the pastoral
activities carried out by the Sardinian bishops in the following two centuries.
The bishops sent to Sardinia did not like to live there and the dioceses were
increasingly vacant in the Aragonese era. On the eve of his departure for the
island (1263), the Pisan archbishop Frederick Visconti said of his trip: “How will
we manage in that land of horror and solitude, where people go only to turn a
good profit?” And alluding to malaria, “Sardinia was sick, indeed the sickness
personified, because everyone who leaves the place soon falls ill.”87
86 Tola, Codex diplomaticus Sardiniae, vol. 2, pp. 54–57; Ruzzu, La chiesa turritana, pp. 143–
162; Turtas, Piras, and Dessi ̀, Il registro di San Pietro di Sorres.
87 Turtas, “La cura animarum in Sardegna tra la seconda metà del secolo XI e la seconda
metà del XIII,” p. 382.