The Middle Ages in Sardinia and the Giudicati

After the fall of the Roman empire Sardinia was under the occupation of the ... and later under the government of the ... In the 8^th-9^th centuries Sardinia became increasingly independent, because the Byzantines had been totally cut off from the Tyrrhenian Sea by the Muslim conquest of Sicily in 827.

From the mid-ll^th century the Giudicati ("held by judges") emerged as forms of Sardinian independent government. At the beginning of the judicial era Sardinia had some 330,000 inhabitants.

There were four Giudicati: ... Also in order to organize defence from Saracin attacks who had been harassing the population of the coastal towns since the 8^th century, they made commercial concessions to the Pisanes, and the Genoese, but that cost them their independence.

The first victim was the Giudicato of ... which became a Pisan possession. The Pisane established a fortress in Caralis (now the so called Castello) in 1216.

In 1288 Pisa acquired also the giudicato of Torres, while that of Gallura was divided in the late 1290s between the two families of Bas Serra from Arborea and the Doria from Genoa. Sassari declared itself a philo-Genoese free commune in the same period.

In the early 14^th century much of the eastern Sardinia, Caralis included, was under Pisan authority. The giudicato of ... survived until 1420.

The most remarkable Sardinian figure of the Middle Ages, Eleonora d'Arborea, was co-ruler of that reign in the late 14^th century: she laid the foundations for the laws that remained valid until 1827, the Carta de Logu.