Contribution Of Archaeology To Medieval And Modern Sardinia 305
The kingdom’s strategic military motivations become even clearer in new
scenarios that arose at the onset of the early modern period.111 Involved in
Catalan trade well before the conquest, Sardinia played an aggressive role
in Catalan policies after the Aragonese invasion. David Abulafia recalls that
port records in Majorca from 1340 already abound with evidence of trade with
Sardinia.112 Notwithstanding its lively rapport with Catalan ports—particularly
in the case of Cagliari, prior to the 1354 conquest of Alghero—along the Ruta
de las Islas, many authors have pointed out the low visibility of this trade in the
fiscal records of Sardinian ports; since Catalan merchants were exempt from
customs duties, their conspicuous trade activities were not monitored by port
registers.113 The wars of resistance against Aragon’s definitive conquest of the
island must have created more than a few problems for the regular develop-
ment of trade; the port of Cagliari remained closed from 1353 to 1409 due to
the war between Arborea and the kingdom of Aragon,114 and Alghero assumed
a monopoly as a loading port during the war between the Crown and the gi-
udicato of Arborea.115 The crisis initiated by the Catalan-Genoese conflict in
the mid-fourteenth century led to a block on Genoese commerce in Cagliari,116
but most likely also in Alghero. Perhaps, it was only at the turn of the fourteenth
111 Antonello Mattone and Piero Sanna, “Per una storia economica e civile della città di
Alghero,” in Alghero, la Catalogna, il Mediterraneo. Storia di una città e di una minoranza
catalana in Italia (XIV–XX secolo), eds Antonello Mattone and Piero Sanna (Sassari, 1994),
p. 739.
112 Abulafia, “El commercio y el reino,” pp. 137–142.
113 Mercuriali, “La persistente vitalità,” p. 114; Marco Tangheroni, “Fonti e problemi della
storia del commercio mediterraneo nei secoli XI–XIV,” in Atti del Convegno “Ceramiche,
città e commerci nell’Italia tardo-medievale e nelle aree circonvicine,” Centro Universitario
Europeo per i Beni Culturali, Ravello, maggio 1993 (Mantova, 1993), p. 19; Tangheroni,
“Il ‘Regnum Sardiniae et Corsicae’,” pp. 62–63; Laura Galoppini, “I registri doganali del
porto di Cagliari (1351–1429),” in Quel mar che la terra inghirlanda. In ricordo di Marco
Tangheroni, eds Franco Cardini and Maria Luisa Ceccarelli Lemut (Pisa, 2007), vol. 2,
pp. 405–406.
114 Galoppini, “I registri doganali di Cagliari,” p. 402.
115 Alessandra Argiolas and Antonello Mattone, “Ordinamenti portuali e territorio costiero
di una comunità della Sardegna moderna: Terranova (Olbia) in Gallura nei secoli XV–
XVIII,” in Da Olbìa ad Olbia: 2500 anni di storia di una città mediterranea: atti del Convegno
internazionale di studi, 12–14 maggio 1994, Olbia, Italia, eds Giuseppe Meloni and Pinuccia
Franca Simbula (Sassari, 2004), vol. 2, pp. 179–180.
116 S. Petrucci, “Cagliari nel Trecento. Politica, istituzioni, economia e società. Dalla con-
quista aragonese alla guerra tra Arborea ed Aragona (1323–1365),” thesis, University of
Cagliari, 2005–2006, p. 959.