264 Murgia
sheep farming. Nevertheless, this was the price that the island had to pay for
the privileged class’s support for the politics of the Unión de armas, upheld by
Olivares, and meant to mobilize the human and financial resources of all the
realms of the Crown to support the military effort that would reaffirm Spanish
hegemony in Europe.23
In 1640, the monarchy found itself in an extremely grave situation, due to
the costs of the war. This situation was aggravated by a general insurrection
in Catalonia (opposing new taxes) the same year,24 which was followed, sev-
eral months later, by one in Portugal, and one in Naples in 1647. Philip IV ad-
dressed the privileged classes of Sardinia, inviting them to support a financial
stimulus equivalent to 80,000 scudi. This relief saved the island economically
and socially, though a series of scourges, not all natural, struck with particular
violence. In 1638, an influencia general paired with two conscriptions of tercios,
led to a drop in the population estimated at around 25 percent and a conse-
quential collapse in agricultural production. Excessive rain or drought, which
brought a plague of locusts that destroyed all vegetation in its wake, led to poor
crop yields. Against this biblical backdrop, a high rate of mortality led to the
collapse of livestock breeding in 1635–1636. The economic crisis that hit the
island also had repercussions for the feudal class, which, in order to rescue
the Crown, was forced to seek support from the communities under its juris-
diction, and ended up paying a political price that curtailed its fiscal power,
especially over local government. The initiative of wealthier representatives
of the agrarian and sheep-herding class allowed Sardinia to obtain an entire
series of agreements called the Capitoli di grazia. Analogous to the Capitoli
di corte, they were the result of an accord among parties, which introduced
profound fiscal reform, the acknowledgment of communal control over ter-
ritories intended for productive activities, and, above all, the institution of a
freely elected civic council devoid of any feudal intervention.25
The conclusion of the war decreed by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 sig-
naled the end of Spanish imperialism, which had dire political, social, eco-
nomic, and demographic consequences for all the kingdoms of the Crown.
Undoubtedly, throughout the long war, Sardinia paid a heavy toll in financial
23 John Huxtable Elliott, The Count-Duke of Olivares: The Statesman in an Age of Decline
(New Haven, 1986).
24 John Huxtable Elliott, The Revolt of Catalans. A Study in the Decline of Spain: 1598–1640
(Cambridge, 1963).
25 Giovanni Murgia, “Comunità e baroni nella Sardegna spagnola durante la Guerra dei
Trent’anni,” in Sardegna, Spagna e Mediterraneo. Dai re cattolici al secolo d’oro, eds Bruno
Anatra and Giovanni Murgia (Rome, 2004).