138 Zedda
to the much later pontificate of Urban II. On the contrary, we know that Urban
II’s deliberate redrafting of the map of ecclesiastical territory was a linchpin in
his policy to entrench Gregorian reform in Western Christianity.54
Therefore, the claim that the subdivision of the provincia Sardiniae into
two new parishes was contrived by Alexander II and his close collaborators—
among whom was Hildebrand of Soana, Alexander’s successor—remains valid.
Nevertheless, for a series of reasons, among which was possibly the negligence
of Alexander and his predecessors,55 the onus of realizing this design was
later handled by Gregory VII56 in much the same way that he recorded
54 Horst Führmann, Papst Urban II. und der Stand der Regularkanoniker (Munich, 1984), em-
phasizes the need for reform in the ecclesiastical structure of the traditional diocese, sup-
porting the establishment of the movement of Regolari canons (the Bull of 1092 in favor
of the canonica of Rottenbuch, carefully examined by Führmann). See also, Giuseppe
Fornasari, Medioevo riformato del secolo XI: Pier Damiani e Gregorio VII (Naples, 1996), par-
ticularly the chapter, “Urbano II e la riforma della chiesa nel secolo XI.”
55 Caspar, Das Register Gregors VII, vol. I, epistola XXIX, pp. 46–47 (14 October 1073): “Verum,
quia negligentia antecessorum nostrorum charitas illa friguit quae antiquis temporibus
inter Romanam Ecclesiam et gentem vestram fuit, in tantum a nobis, plusquam gentes quae
sunt in fine mundi, vos estraneo fecistis quod Christiana religio inter vos ad maximum det-
rimentum devenit (It is true—that due to the negligence of our predecessors, that caritas
that had once been characteristic of the rapport between the Roman Church and your
people has weakened—today you have become more alien to the Christian religion
than are those other people who live at the edge of the world, because among you the
Christian religion has been greatly diminished)” (p. 55). This sort of “negligence” is not
a literary topos: Gregory used the term in rather pragmatic contexts, even in a rapid ex-
cursus among the letters of the Register. On Gregory’s modest literary competence, in
the narrow sense, which was nonetheless important in terms of his contribution to the
ars dictandi, see Stuart Robinson, Authority and Resistance in the Investiture Contest. The
Polemical Literature of the Late Eleventh Century (Manchester, 1978), p. 31. On the literal,
rather than literary use of the term “negligentia,” see Mauro Sanna, “Et si diaboli facente
malitia, gladio vel alio modo [...]: violenze su vescovi ed ecclesiastici nella Sardegna del
XIII secolo,” in Bischofsmord im Mittelalter: Murder of Bishops, eds Natalie Fryde and Dirk
Reitz (Göttingen, 2003), p. 323.
56 All of 1074 was taken up by the induction of two archbishops, who stabilized the number
and boundaries of their respective dioceses, as well as the nominations of new bishops,
in such a way that everything that was being organized was approved at the synod. This
was not an easy operation, inasmuch as it had to take into account the hostile rapport
among the various lords of the island. Indeed, the creation of new ecclesiastical boundar-
ies presupposed that the four quarrelsome giudici would literally yield to the Gregorian
project, based on the unification of the four giudicati into the two ecclesiastical provinces
of Torres and Cagliari.