200 Turtas
with the consent of the abbot or prior, cumbersait-se (became cumbersu)
abandoned the world to live alongside the monastery and sought “conversa-
tion” with the monks. In exchange, the conversos offered the monastery all or
part of their belongings and lived an almost monastic life.66 To such an end,
small living quarters—a sort of guesthouse—could be found along the edges
of the monastery, where these conversos lived. They were presumably called
conversìas and would over time come to be called cumbissìas. Still today, this
term is synonymous with muristene or munistere, which is evidently derived
from “monastery” and refers to the modest living quarters built alongside the
small country churches found throughout the Sardinian countryside and used
to accommodate pilgrims who came for religious holidays.67
5.7 The Archbishop of Pisa: Papal Legate and Primate
The creation of a papal legate in Sardinia was initially a product of the pope’s
wish to obtain religious control over the island. The first pope to do so was
Alexander II. Gregory VII and Urban II used the legate to introduce the
Gregorian reform to the island. To this end, the Pisan church was appeased
with Daimbert, who presided over the synod of Torres. Innocent II (1130–1144)
permanently joined the position of legate with that of archbishop of Pisa.
In 1135, Archbishop Ubertus (1132–1137) proclaimed himself “Romane sedis le-
gatus in perpetuum” (ambassador of the Roman see, forever). Three years later,
the same pope annexed the two sees of Gallura (Civita and Galtelli) to the ec-
clesiastical province of Pisa, while the archbishop became primate of the prov-
ince of Torres. However, even after 1177, when the archbishop of Pisa was also
declared primate of the provinces of Cagliari and Arborea, he was never fully
crowned primate of Sardinia. While this may have served to maintain control
over the 18 Sardinian bishoprics (in less than a century the Pisan prelate con-
vened at least three synods with the participation of all the bishops on the
island), it was also the vehicle for favoring the commercial and later political
66 Bonazzi, Il Condaghe di San Pietro di Silki, pp. 95, 105, 120–121; Merci, Il condaghe di San
Nicola di Trullas, p. 151; Virdis, Il Condaghe di Santa Maria di Bonarcado, p. 48: “Ego [...] ki
mi komberso ad Deus et ad sancta Maria de Bonarcadu in manos de priore [...] pro conversu
[...] Custacombersionefegi Dominiga de Palma”; Giampaolo Mele, “I condaghi: specchio
storico di devozione e delle tradizioni liturgiche nella Sardegna medievale,” in La civiltà
giudicale in Sardegna nei secoli XI–XIII: fonti e documenti scritti: atti del convegno nazio-
nale, Sassari, Aula Magna dell’Università, 16–17 marzo 2001; Usini, chiesa di Santa Croce,
18 marzo 2001 (Italy, 2002), pp. 143–174; Friedrich Kempf, “The ‘Vita Evangelica’ Movement
and the Appearence of New Orders,” in The Church in the Age of Feudalism, eds Friedrich
Kempf, Hans-Georg Beck, Eugen Ewig, and Josef Andreas Jungmann, trans. A. Biggs
(London, 1969), p. 454.
67 Turtas, Storia della Chiesa in Sardegna, pp. 243–245.