170 Tasca
ventures, it is not improbable that the Jews had some kind of base or shops in
the giudicato capital city, just like their kinsmen from the Logudoro area.16
6 Internal Organization
Since they were considered the king’s personal property and part of the royal
treasury (servi nostre camere), Sardinian Jews were always under the supervi-
sion of officials who represented the king on Sardinian soil. Public order came
under the authority of the governor-general, while legal matters or anything
concerning the general administration of property or taxes were dealt with
first by the bailiff, and then by his deputy.17 However, the Jews had the great
advantage of being able to appeal directly to the king to obtain social and legal
benefits. Indeed, many exploited this possibility as a means of showing their
contempt when faced with the continual persecution of the town councilors,
who often used their local authority to make laws against them.
The political situation for the Sardinian Jews initially remained unaltered
following Alfonso’s death. The new king, Peter IV, immediately confirmed all
their privileges in all the island’s aljamas (1339) and repeatedly made decisions
in their favor.18 However, in 1369, he intervened with an important decision
that aimed to return order within Cagliari’s colony, and which he subsequent-
ly enforced in all the others. On 3 April 1369, after Peter IV learned that the
electoral system for choosing the aljama’s secretaries afforded greater rights to
the wealthy (manum majoris) to the detriment of the poorer members of the
community (manum mediocris et minoris), he ordered the officials of Cagliari’s
Castello to change their method of electing their new representatives. Under
the new regulation, the whole aljama council was to unite every 1 January to
elect 12 representatives—four for each of the three social classes—who would
then elect three secretaries, one from each class. These secretaries then had to
swear allegiance to the king’s governor according to Jewish rites. Furthermore,
outgoing secretaries could not be reelected within the next two years and, at
the end of his term, each secretary had to make a report of his doings to two
Jews nominated by the new secretaries of the aljama.19 In practice, this cre-
ated at the king’s motu proprio, “a two-step electoral system, where the
16 Cecilia Tasca, “Gli ebrei ad Oristano all’epoca di Eleonora,” in Società e Cultura nel giudi-
cato d’Arborea e nella Carta de Logu (Oristano, 1995), pp. 231–244.
17 Olla Repetto, “Vicende ebraiche,” pp. 302–303.
18 Tasca, Gli ebrei in Sardegna, doc. XXXV.
19 Ibid., doc. CCCLIV and pp. 145–146.