8 Hobart
favorite among scholars and has stirred different reactions, as it touches core
emotional issues of Sardinian identity, autonomy, and isolationism.8
Beginning in the late tenth century, wealthy merchant families from Pisa and
Genoa gained increasing control over the Mediterranean coast and the Balearic
Islands, and over trade with North Africa, Sicily and Spain. Their dominance of
the region was so secure, that they were able to physically occupy new territo-
ries, such as Sardinia, where they stopped the Muslim lord of Denia (Alicante),
Mujahid’al Siglasi’s incursion between 1015 and 1016.9 The Pisans and Genoese
sought to establish commercial contacts with Sardinia. Letters exist that docu-
ment donations of land and the privileges to invest thereon. Together with the
construction of a rather large number of very beautiful churches, the record
attests to alliances among Sardinian and non-Sardinian families.
The legacy of the donations and the common interests of the Pisans and
Genoese reflects what was happening on the European continent, and in par-
ticular the Italian peninsula. Aristocratic families were expanding in regions
like Liguria and Tuscany by building castles and private churches in areas
where raw materials, such as metals, salt, and grains, were available. As such,
prosperous families sought new areas of conquest, away from their homeland
and competing families, and Sardinia became the new frontier.
By the second half of the eleventh century, continental merchants had al-
ready notably contributed to the growth of Sardinia’s economy. At the same
time, ecclesiastical documents show attempts to revitalize Christianity in
Sardinia. According to the traditional narrative, the first group of monks from
Montecassino arrived in 1065, followed soon after by other continental orders
8 Enrico Besta, “Nuovi studi su le origini, la storia e l’organizzazione dei Giudicati sardi,”
Archivio Storico Italiano 27 (1901), pp. 1–74; Francesco Cesare Casula, “Introduzione e Serie
cronologica dei re e giudici sardi,” in Genealogie medioevali di Sardegna (Cagliari, 1984),
pp. 15–67; Francesco Cesare Casula, La storia di Sardegna (Pisa-Sassari, 1992); Gian Giacomo
Ortu, La Sardegna dei giudici (Nuoro, 2005), and his chapter inside the same volume;
Giuseppe Meloni, ed., Il Condaghe di San Gavino. Un documento unico sulla nascita dei giudi-
cati (Cagliari, 2005); Giuseppe Meloni, “L’origine dei giudicati,” in Storia della Sardegna, eds
Manlio Brigaglia, Attilio Mastino, and Gian Giacomo Ortu (Rome, 2006), pp. 70–93; on the
emotional issue of the identity of the giudicati, see Luciano Gallinari, “Il Giudicato di Cagliari
tra XI e XIII secolo. Proposte di interpretazioni istituzionali,” RiMe: Rivista dell’Istituto di
Storia dell’Europa Mediterranea 5 (December 2010).
9 For a general introduction to Sardinia in a wider context, see David Abulafia, “Southern Italy,
Sicily and Sardinia in the Medieval Mediterranean Economy,” in Commerce and Conquest
in the Mediterranean, 1100– 1500 (Aldershot, 1993); Bruce Travis, “The Politics of Violence
and Trade: Denia and Pisa in the Eleventh Century,” Journal of Medieval History 32 (2006):
pp. 127–142.