204 Turtas
5.9 The Church Patrimony
We know from the Liber censuum that each of the three archbishops was re-
quired to pay to the Apostolic Camera an annuity.75 Some dioceses, like Castra,
were so poor that in 1220 Onorio III ordered his legate to conduct an inquiry
into the situation, though nothing is known of his findings. Beginning in the
second half of the twelfth century, there are records of numerous requests
by various monastic congregations, especially by the Cassineses, Victorines,
Vallumbrosans, and Camaldoleses, for papal protection of their possessions.
They had to defend themselves not only against private citizens—the Genoese
and Pisans—but also from the bishops.
5.10 Franciscans and Dominicans in Sardinia
It should be noted that the first signs of the crisis of the monastic congrega-
tions coincided with the introduction of the new mendicant orders onto the
island: the Dominicans and the Franciscans. Their entry took place almost
without drawing attention: there were none of the solemn delegations sent
by the judges to the major abbeys of Latin Christianity, no grand donations
of land, animals, or slaves, and no imposing churches erected in the decades
following the arrival of the first members of the new orders. The mediator of
the arrivals was Pisa, which had also favored that of the Camaldoleses and the
Vallumbrosians. However, Pisa was also the first to seriously squeeze the patri-
monies of the monastic congregations.
The first information about the Frati minori (Friars Minor) of Saint Francis
of Assisi appeared on 1 March 1230, in Cagliari, where a representative of the
Opera of Saint Mary of Pisa recorded that “the church of Saint Mary de Portu
Gruttis had been entrusted to brother Luke and other Friar Minor who lived
there.” They had thus probably been in Cagliari for a while, but their presence
became official only in the granting of this church, which was done on behalf
of the aforementioned Opera and Pisan commune.76 Their first convent, lo-
cated next to the church, was active until 1275, when the Minorites transferred
it to the grand complex of Saint Francis of Stampace.
The Dominicans arrived in Cagliari later (1254) and took longer to grow,
though they were fully settled in the city by the time two friars were sent there
75 Paul Fabre and L. Duchesne, eds, Le liber censuum de l’église romaine (Paris, 1910),
pp. 234–237.
76 Giuseppina Cossu Pinna, “La carta pisana del 1. marzo 1230, primo documento della pre-
senza francescana in Sardegna, e la chiesa di Santa Maria ‘de portu gruttis’,” Biblioteca
francescana sarda 1 (1987), pp. 41–49.