230 Ortu
of a transitional phase between Byzantine rule and the independence of the
giudicati, marked by the union of military and civil jurisdiction, which was for-
merly granted to two distinct officials in the Byzantine era—the dux and the
praeses—in a single “archon.” The fusion of these two essential government
functions may have sprung from the need for unity in controlling the island’s
defense against Arab raids, which was no longer guaranteed by Greek ships.
However, it could also be explained through the concentration of power in a
single family, which, through the force of its own “spatial fixation,” was later to
split into four lines of descendants, each with a different territorial extension.7
In any case, at the dawn of their documented history, all four of the giudi-
cati seem to have stemmed from the unique lineage of Lacon Gunale. Albeit
incomplete and disputed, upon close observation their genealogies reveal a
dense network of intermarriage in the sequence of succession, in matrimonial
strategies, and in the appeal of certain names and appellations.8 The solidarity
among the ruling families was clearly apparent to contemporaries, as revealed
by Gregory VII’s address of a single letter to the four giudici. Frequent papal
censure of the giudicati for engaging in incestuous unions seems to have been
aimed at stigmatizing the practice of endogamy, rather than the excesses of a
licentious life.9
1.3 Lineage and Dynastic Constructions
Ruling dynasties stood atop a caste of donnos who dominated Sardinian society
between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. Their immediate surroundings
were occupied by influential individuals: lieros mannos or majorales—hold-
ers of the wealthiest farms and principal government offices. The eminence
of these majorales was directly related to their closeness to the giudici families
and the network of their matrimonial alliances hung over the entire land.
On the other hand, the genealogical articulation of the statutes of wealth
and power tended to exceed the limits of a single giudicato, especially in the
case of the cluster of the major family lines (the Thori, Serra, Athen, Carvia,
etc.), whose matrimonial strategies had the “princely” lineage of Lacon Gunale
eleventh century, after a brief interim under Islamic rule, has been upheld by Corrado Zedda
and Raimondo Pinna, “La nascita dei giudicati proposta per lo scioglimento di un enigma
storiografico,” in Archivio storico e giuridico sardo di Sassari n.s. 12 (2007), pp. 27–118; and
Zedda infra this volume.
7 Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, ed. and trans. Kurt H. Wolff (Illinois, 1950
[1908]).
8 Lindsay Leonard Brook, et al, Genealogie medioevali di Sardegna (Cagliari, 1984).
9 Gian Giacomo Ortu, La Sardegna dei giudici (Nuoro, 2005), pp. 50–51.