242 Ortu
ideology of royalty, a cautionary warning was doled out via the death penalty
for lèse majesté, which, at the opening of parliament, was handed out to Count
Gherardo Donoratico, who, despite being his “feudarius ligius at vassallus,” had
not demonstrated the fidelity that he should have in the struggle against the
giudice of Arborea.
In effect, the entire normative system set up by parliament in 1355, whereby
the costs of justice via vendetta and repression were redressed, was quashed
by the royal decree of five “constitutions,” which furnished the ruler of the is-
land with the instruments to suppress all dissent. The first constitution made
residency and military service obligatory for feudatories; the second assigned
severe penalties to those who did not divest themselves of armor; and the
third imposed a harsh military regime on the entire island. Only the fourth
and fifth constitutions had an organizational breadth that went partly beyond
the contingency of war, with more specific reference to cities and those hold-
ing estates.
However, the objective of “metre e posar” Sardinia “en bon estament” proved
unsuccessful, because the Sardinian revolt subsequently spread and gathered
steam. A second convocation of parliament by Alfonso the Magnanimous be-
came possible only in 1421, after Arborea’s resistance had been quelled. On
such occasion, the sovereign acknowledged the new demands of the life and
“style” of the Sardinian feudatories. According to their new rules on the exer-
cise of jurisdiction, which accommodated each of their claims to “esser princep
e rey en sa terra,” a set of guarantees and liberties that Eleonora’s Carta de Logu
had recognized 30 years earlier in Arborea were now extended to the entire
island, with the exception of the cities that benefited from other guarantees
and liberties.32
Nonetheless, the Magnanimous did not demonstrate the same care in en-
suring the smooth functioning of the royal administration, so much so that in
1446 the feudatories sought and obtained the right to gather together a military
unit (stamento) in order to denounce multiple abuses. This so-called “guerra
de Cerdeyna” was even provoked by two of the island’s highest officials: the
Viceroy Francesco d’Erill and the royal prosecutor, Giacomo de Besora, who
tried in vain to resist this assembly and were dismissed by the sovereign.33 Yet,
in the assembly of 1446 and the one that followed it in 1452, the feudatories
missed their principal objective, which was the sovereign’s formal endorsement
(Princeton, 1957); see also, Diego Quaglione, La giustizia nel Medioevo e nella prima etá
moderna (Bologna, 2004).
32 Boscolo, I Parlamenti, p. 121.
33 Ibid., 159.