Establishing Power And Law 245
principle of divided rule, recognizing rural communities through the ius adem-
privii, which included the rights of sowing, pasture, firewood, harvest, river fish,
and small-scale hunting, limited to a subsistence—never a speculative—level.
The head of a household complied with the use of land because of his resi-
dence in a village, and thus the peasant household came to find itself inscribed
directly in the rural community as the holder of the dominium utile, and in-
directly in the feud as the holder of the dominium directum.39 Proportionally
speaking, the community too placed checks and limits on the development of
individual fortunes. From this stemmed the egalitarianism that characterized
the economic and social profile of the Sardinian countryside throughout the
duration of feudalism (1324–1836).
2.4 The System of Royal Cities
Despite their predominantly seigniorial origins, urban life in Sardinian cities
witnessed a significant fermentation in the thirteenth and fourteenth centu-
ries. In fact, nearly all of them were located at the center of economic activity
in the Mediterranean: the production of silver and mintage in Villa di Chiesa,
salt in Cagliari, fish and coral carving in Alghero, and fertile agriculture in
Sassari and Bosa.
The Crown of Aragon quickly solidified this urban system through the
dominant role of the military garrisons stationed in Cagliari and Alghero,
thereby curbing the decrease in commercial exchange caused by the constant
state of warfare and the demographic crises. Ciro Manca has perspicaciously
pointed out that the monarchy of Aragon projected its own two mentalities
onto the island: the feudal and the mercantile.40 Superimposed on this du-
ality between city and country was the duality between internal and coast-
al regions. Inland areas were occupied or threatened by the Arborea, while
the coast was controlled by Catalan-Aragonese ships, and thus open to the
Mediterranean market, above all for the sale of salt. Salt exports from Cagliari
nevertheless tended to fluctuate, and declined rapidly throughout the four-
teenth to fifteenth centuries.41 The same significant data for the sale of grain
does not exist, but a study by Marco Tangheroni makes it clear that Catalans
39 Gian Giacomo Ortu, “Le aree storiche della Sardegna: costruzioni territoriali e civili,” in
Atlante delle culture costruttive della Sardegna, eds Gian Giacomo Ortu and Antonello
Sanna, 2 vols (Rome, 2009), vol. 1, pp. 37–40.
40 Ciro Manca, Aspetti dell’espansione economica catalano-aragonese nel Mediterraneo oc-
cidentale. Il commercio internazionale del sale (Milan, 1966), p. 286.
41 Ibid., p. 115.