186 Turtas
the monastic and penitent saints of the Greek Menologium remained highly
venerated and had more churches dedicated to them than did the monastic
saints of the West. However, documents touching on the presence of Byzantium
in Sardinia are scarce and paint a convoluted picture.
Many of the outcomes of the Byzantine influence on Sardinian Christianity
remain hidden within the patrimony of popular traditions, which are now
being patiently brought to light.30 A report of a mission by four Jesuits in the
archdiocese of Oristano between 1600–1601 shows evidence that, in many vil-
lages the Eastern tradition of worshiping the bread blessed extra missam, as
if it were the holy eulogia, was still practiced. Said report also contains an ac-
count of the Virgin Mary teaching a Latin invocation to be frequently repeated,
which appears to be a residual of an eastern Athonite prayer: “Jesus Nazarenus
rex Judeorum natus ex Maria Virgine, miserere nobis.” 31
4 The Sardinian Church in the Early Medieval Period 32
While, between the end of the tenth century and the first decades of the
eleventh, the arconte of Sardinia expressed his autonomy from Byzantium in
elegant Greek epitaphs,33 in 1015–1016, the lord of Denia Mudjåhid came to
Sardinia from the coast of Valencia with the intention of taking possession of
30 Giulio Paulis, Lingua e cultura nella Sardegna bizantina: Testimonianze linguistiche
dell’influsso greco (Sassari, 1983), p. 157.
31 Raimondo Turtas, “Missioni popolari in Sardegna tra ’500 e ’600,” Rivista di Storia della
Chiesa in Italia 64 (1990), pp. 369–412.
32 Primary Sources: Kehr, Italia pontificia; Agostino Saba, Montecassino e la Sardegna medio-
evale. Note storiche e codice diplomatico sardo-cassinese (Montecassino, 1927); Hartmut
Hoffmann, ed., Chronica monasterii Casinensis: Die Chronik von Montecassino (Hanover,
1980); Pasquale Tola, ed., Codex diplomaticus Sardiniae. Historiae Patriae Monumenta,
2 vols (Turin, 1861–1868); Erich Ludwig Eduard Caspar, Das Register Gregors VII (Berlin,
1920–1923); Benjamin Guérard, ed., Cartulaire de l’abbaye de Saint-Victor de Marseille
(Paris, 1857); Heinrich Dormeier and Hartmut Hoffmann, Montecassino und die Laien
im 11. und 12. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart, 1979), pp. 256–259. Secondary Sources: Besta, La
Sardegna medioevale; Giuseppe Scalia, “Epigraphica Pisana. Testi latini sulla spedizione
contro le Baleari del 1113–1115 e su altre imprese anti-saracene del secolo XI,” Miscellanea
di studi ispanici 6 (1963), pp. 234–286; Raffaello Volpini, Documenti nel Sancta Sanctorum
del Laterano. I resti dell’ “Archivio” di Gelasio II, “Lateranum”, N.S., Anno LII (1986), n. 1,
pp. 215–264, republished in Heinrich Dormeier and Hartmut Hoffmann, eds (1979);
Raimondo Turtas, “Gregorio VII e la Sardegna,” Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia 46:2
(1992), pp. 375–397; Turtas, Storia della Chiesa in Sardegna, pp. 179–212.
33 Guillou, Recueil des inscriptions grecques, pp. 235–246.