234 Ortu
goods they managed to save while working in their spare time (two days per
week, since Sunday belonged to God). But emancipation through ransom was
only the first step toward personal liberty, since freed servi remained subject to
the lords of the manor through residual obligations.
Possibly the largest group of semi-freedmen consisted of collivertos, who
were bound by a limited amount of labor. The most advanced group appears
to have been that of the ispesionarios, who paid off all their labor hours with
monetary assets. Nonetheless, all of the emancipated servi still had to bear the
chain of formariage, seigniorial consent to their marriage.
1.6 Evidence of a Regnum Sardiniae
Despite the familial ties binding the giudici, the division of land was a very real
fact; competition nearly always prevailed over solidarity. In fact, the history of
the giudicati in Sardinia is a history of internecine wars and fratricide, even if
no account of the repercussions of the Mediterranean conflict between Genoa
and Pisa, which played out on the island, is taken into consideration. From the
late twelfth century on, there was not a single giudice who did not concoct a
plan to rule the island under one scepter.
Barisone d’Arborea was a Catalan related by marriage to the counts of
Barcelona and bound in a second marriage to Agalbursa di Bas. He inherited
expansionist ideas regarding the giudicato of Torres from his father, Comita III,
and, encouraged by Genoa, he aspired higher. In 1164, the Emperor Frederick I
Hohenstaufen, called Barbarossa, was in Italy to reaffirm his authority, which
had been threatened by the theocratic pretensions of the popes, as well as a
desire for autonomy among the communes of the Po Valley. In order to en-
large his support base and acquire money, he made extensive and bold use of
feudal investitures to princes, lords, and communes. Barisone did not let this
opportunity slip; he entered into highly mercenary negotiations with imperial
legates and, on 3 August 1164, had himself invested with the title rex Sardiniae
at the church of San Siro of Pavia. The agreed-upon price of dignity—4,000
marks—was much greater than his assets, and so, pressed by the emperor,
Barisone sought the help of Genoa. The commune did not dodge him, but
made him assent to a long list of territorial concessions, both commercial and
political. King by right, Barisone became a de facto hostage when the com-
mune detained him in Genoa as guarantor of his credit. Born under an unlucky
star, the first Regnum Sardiniae in history was also ephemeral. In fact, not even
a year later, on 12 April 1165, Barbarossa enfeoffed Sardinia to the commune of
Pisa, divesting the royal title already conferred upon Barisone.
A second attempt to unify the island under a single crown unfolded against
the backdrop of the giudicato of Torres. In 1238, the giudicessa Adelasia, widow