4 Hobart
sometime-tyrants against locals. These interlopers would, in turn, be replaced
by the even stronger Spanish kingdoms of Aragon and Catalan, whose occupa-
tion of the island lasted until 1714 and was oppressive, to say the least.
Before introducing the contributors to this volume, a brief outline of
Sardinian history will help familiarize the reader with around one thousand
years in the life of the island. Woven into this introduction are topics that have
occupied scholars since World War Two. While this book does not attempt to
provide a comprehensive synthesis of Sardinian history, it will serve as a syn-
opsis of current scholarship for those interested in pursuing the field.
1 History
In the period immediately preceding the subject of this volume, the Vandals
had, in the wake of their sack of Rome in 455, colonized North Africa, Sicily,
Sardinia, and Corsica, among others. By 534, Justinian, as part of his attempt
to restore the Roman Empire, reclaimed Sardinia from Vandal control. This era
is characterized by migrations of non-Arian Christians to Sardinia from North
Africa.3
The Byzantine influence on early medieval Sardinia is addressed in this vol-
ume as that of a cultural and material presence. Sardinia’s significant distance
from the new eastern economic centers of the Roman Empire during the late
antique period, transformed the island, together with Corsica, into a western
frontier. The traces of Byzantine occupation that emerge from the fourth cen-
tury show a waning of the Eastern Empire in the Tyrrhenian Sea.4 What sur-
vives is rather fragmentary, but the evidence suggests that Byzantine culture
was not as pervasive or exclusive as traditional historiography would have it.5
Rather, it seems that locals, Vandals, and North African Christian arrivals were
living together on Sardinia in a more fluid and far more complex society.
3 Raimondo Turtas, Storia della Chiesa in Sardegna dalle origini al Duemila (Rome, 1999).
4 For a general introduction, see Alberto Boscolo, Studi sulla Sardegna bizantina e giudi-
cale (Cagliari, 1985); Lucio Casula, Antonio M. Corda, and Antonio Piras, eds, Orientis ra-
diata fulgore: la Sardegna nel contesto storico e culturale bizantino: atti del convegno di studi,
Cagliari, 30 novembre–1 dicembre 2007 (Cagliari, 2008).
5 Pier Giorgio Spanu, La Sardegna bizantina tra VI e VII secolo (Oristano, 1998); and his up-
date, including reports of recent excavations, Pier Giorgio Spanu, “La Sardegna nella prima
età bizantina: alcune note di aggiornamento,” in Forme e caratteri della presenza bizantina
nel Mediterraneo occidentale: la Sardegna (secoli VI–XI. Atti del convegno di Oristano (22–23
marzo 2003), ed. Paola Corrias (Cagliari, 2012); see also Paola Corrias and Salvatore Cosentino,
eds, Ai confini dell’Impero: storia, arte e archeologia della Sardegna bizantina (Cagliari, 2002).