THE WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN KINGDOMS 1200-1500seeking mastery of the western Mediterranean trade routes.
The Pisans, a much weaker force than the other two com-
mercial powers, proved a lesser problem to the Aragonese,
and were even granted extensive rights in southern Sardinia
once they had accepted the new order.
The price the native Sards paid for their own resistance
was as high as that paid in earlier conquests by the Muslims.
Indeed, the Sards were treated as if they were no better
than subdued infidels, partly because they had resisted their
true lord the king of Aragon; and partly, perhaps, because
the low standard of living on the island brought out in the
Catalans contempt for a primitive society that still seemed
a fossil of Carolingian Europe. The judges of Arborea were,
naturally, speedily disenchanted with their supposed allies.
In 1330-33, 166 substantial fiefs were distributed, as well
as many hundreds of smaller grants, generally in favour of
Catalans, Valencians and Majorcans. Although many of those
who came to settle were discouraged by the difficult condi-
tions on the island generated by continuing warfare and a
low standard of living, there was still a powerful trend towards
catalanisation, expressed in the repopulation of Sassari in
1329; not for the first time, native Sards were turned out of
what had been one of the few significant cities on the island,
to be replaced by Catalan Christians and indeed jews. Other
beneficiaries included the Majorcans; in return for the sup-
ply of several much needed galleys, King San<;: of Majorca
(1311-24) secured for his subjects a handsome trading priv-
ilege in Sardinia.:l~ The 'Kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica'
was never offered to a cadet dynasty. It was subsumed into
the Privilege of Union; Sardinia was simply too valuable to
hand to a younger son, and it was thus the first overseas
conquest to be permanently incorporated from the start in
the core territories of Aragon-Catalonia.
The brief reign of Alfonso IV of Aragon, from 1327 to
1336, saw some old wounds reopen as the king's second
wife laid plans for her sons by an earlier marriage to acquire
lands and power in Spain. It was Alfonso who had actually
led the Catalan-Aragonese army into Sardinia, and it was in
his reign that the difficulties in governing the island became
- Abulafia, Mediterranean Emporium, pp. 245-52 [with the text of the
Aragonese privilege].