Jews In Sardinia 171
council unanimously elected a majority of twelve voters, who in turn elected
the secretaries.”20 The newly elected officials represented and ran the colony
for one year, entrusted with all the aljama’s administrative affairs.
Cagliari’s Jewish community differed from those of Alghero, Sassari, and
Oristano, whose populations of merchants and craftsmen formed a single so-
cial class. This distinction
had started back in 1335 due to the substantial immigration flow prompt-
ed by the exemptions conceded by the Aragonese sovereigns, which were
still being conceded as a means to quickly populate the part of the is-
land taken from the Pisans. The population of Cagliari’s community rap-
idly increased with the arrival of Jews from all walks of life from Castile,
Catalonia and Majorca.21While it is accepted that the measures of 1369 were motivated by contingent
circumstances, this was not the case for Martin the Humane’s subsequent in-
tervention in 1397. He adopted a definite government policy characterized by
a certain meddling in the colony’s internal affairs. He annulled any previous
measures and in cases where the council—no longer obligatorily made up of
12, but of three, four, or more Jews—could not reach an agreement in nominat-
ing the three secretaries, obliged them to leave the decision up to the majority
until maiores voces concordantes ceterorum electorum obtineant et habeant ro-
boris firmitatem (the greater voices, agreeing, prevail over the other members
and have the firmness of an oak).22
20 Olla Repetto, “Vicende ebraiche,” p. 318, and Cecilia Tasca, “Ferdinando I de Antequera e
il Regno di Sardegna. Primi riflessi di una nuova politica nei confronti degli ebrei,” in XIX
Congreso de Historia de la Corona de Aragón (Saragozza 26–30 giugno 2012) (2012a),
pp. 178–181.
21 “Si era distinta fin dal 1335 per un notevole afflusso di immigrati incentivati dalle esen-
zioni regie che i sovrani aragonesi avevano concesso e continuavano a concedere per
popolare velocemente la parte dell’isola sottratta ai pisani, la comunità cagliaritana si
era velocemente ingrandita con l’arrivo di ebrei castigliani, catalani e maiorchini di estra-
zione sociale diversa.”
In Mariuccia Krasner, “Aspetti politici e rapporti istituzionali comuni tra le comu-
nità ebraiche sarde e quelle siciliane nei secoli XIV e XV: la politica di Martino l’Umano
(1396–1410),” in L’analisi dei testi ebraici, metodi e problemi fra tradizione e innovazione. Atti
del XX Convegno internazionale AISG, Ravenna, 11–13 September 2006, ed. Mauro Perani,
Materia giudaica 12:1/2 (2007), p. 177.
22 Tasca, Gli ebrei in Sardegna, doc. DCCXXIII.