The Sardinian Church 193
of the congregation in Sardinia. All that could be obtained from Montecassino
in 1065 was the dispatch of two monks, whom Barisone presented with the
well-known charter of donation, the first Sardinian scripta. No less surprising
is the fact that even at the welcome “emulation” of “another king of Sardinia
named Torchitorius,” who had made a conditional donation of six churches to
Montecassino in 1066, the Cassinese monks behaved so coldly that it would
take them over 50 years to appear in order to take possession of it. It is not easy
to determine the reason for this delay; maybe the Cassinese were disappoint-
ed that the donated church, described as “basilica Sante Marie Dei genitricis
Domini,” was a modest, late antique building that barely measured 40 m2. In
fact, the little church never appeared in subsequent papal documents among
the properties of the Cassinese, about whom nothing is recorded until 25 April
1112, when Constantine, the judge of Logudoro (1082–1127), and various maio-
rales of the realm made a series of important donations to them.49
5.1 Foundations of the Cassinese
The aforementioned donations to the Cassinese monks were so substan-
tial that in 1122 they rushed to obtain the confirmation of Callistus II for 15
churches, first among them Tergu (about 10 km from Castelsardo), which later
held a place of honor; its abbot was subsequently made the legatarius of the
abbot of Montecassino in Sardinia. The donations continued with the son of
Constantine, judge Gunnari (1127–1154). The last donation (Saint Nicholas of
Gurgo) might have been that of the judge Barisone of Arborea in 1182, on the
di Bonarcado (Sassari, 2002); Paolo Merci, ed., Il condaghe di San Nicola di Trullas (Sassari,
1992). Secondary Sources: Ginevra Zanetti, I Vallombrosani in Sardegna (Sassari, 1968);
Turtas, “L’arcivescovo di Pisa”; Cécile Caby, De l’érémitisme rural au monachisme urbain:
les camaldules en Italie à la fin du Moyen âge (Rome, 1999); in Letizia Pani Ermini, ed.,
Committenza, scelte insediative e organizzazione patrimoniale nel Medioevo: atti del conveg-
no di studio, Tergu, 15–17 settembre 2006 (Spoleto, 2007), see the contributions by Giovanna
Liscia (pp. 51–98), Giovanni Azzena and Alessandro Soddu (pp. 99–137), Daniela Rovina
and Domingo Dettori (pp. 139–165), Antonella Pandolfi et al. (pp. 167–206), Cristina Mura
(pp. 207–243), Pier Giorgio Spanu (pp. 245–279).
49 Hoffmann, Chronica monasterii Casinensis, p. 389; Saba, Montecassino e la Sardegna
medioevale, pp. 140–170, with an updated chronology in Mauro Sanna, “Osservazioni
cronotattiche e storiche su alcuni documenti relativi all’espansione cassinese nella dio-
cesi di Ampurias fino alla metà del XII secolo,” in Castelsardo: novecento anni di storia,
eds Antonello Mattone and Alessandro Soddu (Rome, 2007), pp. 215–234. Judge Mariane
(1065–1082) donated S. Mary of Plaiano to S. Maria in Pisa, and the nunnery outside of
Sassari (with its original condaghe, dated up to the early eleventh century) to the mon-
astery of Asca of Massa (see supra p. 192 n. 43); Giovanni Strinna, “L’abbazia di S. Maria
di Asca e la sua dipendenza sarda S. Pietro in Silki (Sassari),” Bollettino Storico Pisano 80
(2011), pp. 105–124.