Contribution Of Archaeology To Medieval And Modern Sardinia 307
(infra Tasca). The very unit of measurement mentioned in the notarial acts of
Alghero refers to the “Montpellier cane,” further proof of a certain tie that was
neither occasional nor of short duration.123 If, in the modern era, the everyday
nature and continuity of these ties are gleaned from written sources,124 the
archaeological evidence from urban excavations in Alghero has also revealed
the longstanding French component of commerce between the Catalan cities
of Sardinia.125
For the decades of the mid-fifteenth century, the lacuna in customs records
can be integrated with the protocols drawn up by the Catalan notaries Villanova,
Garau, and Pere Bastat in Cagliari and Barcelona. What emerges from the lat-
ter is the intensity of commercial ties between Sardinia and Barcelona, which
had a keen interest in Sardinian wheat, skins, and cheese. Furthermore, the
clear superiority of trade between Barcelona and Alghero in the years 1453–
1457, over and above trade between both of those cities, Cagliari, and Bosa,
also emerges; trade with Cagliari would experience a resurgence only later.126
While it does give a general sense of trade, as it reflects the deeds drawn up
by various notaries, this data offers no absolute proof and must be assessed in
an integrated manner, with all due caution.127 The tax exemptions that Jewish
merchants128 enjoyed in Cagliari and Alghero after 1390 likewise seem to be
irrelevant to the assessment of the potential importance of written documen-
tation, in view of Jews’ role in managing entire sectors of commercial trade,
such as that of Sardinian pasta, a luxury good, of which Catalans seem to have
been especially fond.129
Alghero was already of strategic importance to the Catalan economic sys-
tem in the mid-fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and it became even more
123 M. Milanese, “Fouilles récentes dans la juharía médiévale d’Alghero en Sardigne,” in
L’archéologie du judaïsme en France et en Europe, dir. P. Salmona and L. Sigal (Paris, 2011),
pp. 153–160; A. Mattone and P. Sanna, “Per una storia economica e civile della città di
Alghero,” in Alghero la Catalogna il Mediterraneo, ed. A. Mattone and P. Sanna (Sassari,
1994), p. 737. On the Montpellier cane, see also Cadinu, note 92, in this volume.
124 In 1523, Jaime Pugol, a merchant from Perpiñan, was a witness in a notarization in
Alghero; A. Mattone and P. Sanna, Per una storia economica, p. 737.
125 M. Milanese and A.Carlini, “Ceramiche invetriate nella Sardegna nord-occidentale e
negli scavi di Alghero (fine XIII–XVI secolo): problemi e prospettive,” in Atti del XXXVIII
Convegno Internazionale della Ceramica (Savona, May 2005) (Florence, 2006), pp. 219–250.
126 C. Zedda, I rapporti commerciali, p. 157.
127 Ibid., p. 185.
128 S. Petrucci, Cagliari nel Trecento, p. 970.
129 L. Galoppini, L. Hordynsky-Caillat, and O. Redon, “Le commerce des pâtes alimentaires
dans les Aduanas Sardas,” in Médiévales 36 (1999), pp. 111–127.