Sardinia As A Crossroads In The Mediterranean 11
the pope. This conflict played out over the next 80 or so years, with the pro-
tagonists including Frederick’s son and grandson. Then the Aragonese entered
the picture.
King James II of Aragon (1264–1327) asserted power over the island as part
of his political expansion in the Mediterranean. The continental families and
the giudicati were by then competing and no longer able to form a united front
against the king.16 Exploiting this disunity, in 1324 and 1325, the Aragonese took
over the two largest centers—Cagliari from Pisa, and Sassari from Genoa—
together with their respective territorial interests on the island, except for the
guidicato of Arborea (Oristano). Arborea had originally invited the Aragonese
to stop Pisan and Genoese exploitation, but the Spanish turned from allies into
occupiers. The Aragonese for their part were nominally interested in Arborean
grain.17 But what was essentially a disagreement on land division, fueled by
Arborean infighting, prompted the Spanish to circumvent their local allies
and try to seize the rest of the island. This prompted a vehement reaction by
Arborea, which fiercely resisted the Aragonese from the 1350s until 1420.18
Once the Aragonese took over and settled the island, they blended their own
parliamentary forms with those of the giudicati. The persistence of Sardinian
laws and organizational structures during the Spanish occupation represented
a form of local autonomy, which may explain the ambivalent relationships
16 The Arborea judgeship, led by the judex Mariano, opposed the Aragonese and was able
to halt the conquest and reconquer practically the entire island, albeit briefly. Antonello
Mattone, “Mariano d’Arborea,” in Dizionario Biografico degli italiani, ed. Alberto M.
Ghisalberti, vol. 70, pp. 320–325 (Rome, 2008).
17 Marco Tangheroni, Aspetti del commercio dei cereali nei Paesi della Corona d’Aragona. La
Sardegna (Pisa, 1981); Paola Crasta, “Aspetti dell’economia del Giudicato d’Arborea nel XIV
secolo: Percorsi di ricerca a partire dal caso di Bosa,” in Per Marco Tangheroni. Studi su Pisa
e sul Mediterraneo medievale offerti dai suoi ultimi allievi, ed. Cecilia Iannella (Pisa, 2006),
73–98.
18 Regarding economic interest in salt and other goods in Sardinia, see Ciro Manca, Aspetti
dell’espansione economica catalano-aragonese nel Mediterraneo occidentale. Il commercio
internazionale del sale (Milan, 1966); Alberto Boscolo, Documenti sull’economia e sulla
Società in Sardegna alll’epoca di Alfonso il Benigno (Padua, 1973); Antonello Mattone and
Marco Tangheroni, eds, Gli Statuti Sassaresi. Economia, Società, Istituzioni a Sassari nel
Medioevo e nell’Età moderna (Cagliari, 1986); Bruno Anatra, “Economia sarda e commercio
mediterraneo nel basso medioevo e nell’età moderna,” in Storia dei Sardi e della Sardegna,
ed. Massimo Guidetti (Milan, 1988–1990), pp. 190–198; Marco Tangheroni, “La Sardegna
e Alghero nel sistema dell’economia catalana,” in Alghero, la Catalogna, il Mediterraneo.
Storia di una cittá e di una minoranza catalana in Italia (XIV–XX secolo), eds Antonello
Mattone and Piero Sanna (Sassari, 1994), pp. 179–190. Francesco Cesare Casula, La storia
di Sardegna (Pisa-Sassari, 1992), pp. 419–421.