Sardinian medieval kingdoms

The Judicates (judicadus, logus or rennus in Sardinian, judicati in Latin, regni or giudicati sardi in Italian), in English also referred to as Sardinian Kingdoms, Sardinian Judgedoms or Judicatures, were independent states that took power in Sardinia in the Middle Ages, between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries. They were sovereign states with summa potestas, each with a ruler called judge (judike in Sardinian), with the powers of a king.

After a relatively brief Vandal occupation (456–534), Sardinia was a province of the Byzantine Empire from 535 until the eighth century.

After 705, with the rapid Arab expansion, Saracen pirates from North Africa began to raid the island and encountered no effective opposition by the Byzantine army. In 815, Sardinian ambassadors requested military assistance from the Carolingian Emperor Louis the Pious.

In 807, 810–812, and 821–822 the Arabs of Spain and North Africa tried to invade the island but the Sardinians resisted several attacks. This defence was so effective that in a letter in 851 Pope Leo IV asked the Iudex Provinciae ('judge of the province') of Sardinia, based in Caralis, for aid in the defense of Rome. With the fall of the Exarchate of Africa, based in Carthage, at the end of the seventh century, and especially with the emergence of the Arab presence in Sicily (827), Sardinia remained disconnected from the core lands of the Byzantine Empire and had, out of necessity, become economically and militarily independent.

The almost total absence of historical sources does not allow certainty surrounding the date of the passage from Byzantine central authority to self-government in Sardinia. It is believed that at some point the Iudex Provinciae or Archon of Sardinia, residing in Caralis, had complete control of the island. He appointed, in the most strategic area for the defense of the coast, the lociservator (lieutenant), belonging to his family, the Lacon-Gunale, who became substantially autonomous from Caralis over time; this was probably the action that precipitated the birth of the kingdoms, or judgedoms.

The first incontrovertible source that cites the existence of four kingdoms is the epistle sent by Pope Gregory VII from Capua on October 14, 1073 to the Sardinian judges Orzocco of Cagliari, Orzocco d'Arborea, Marianus of Torres and Constantine of Gallura; however their autonomy was already clear in a later letter of Pope John VIII (872) in which he referred to them as principes Sardiniae ('princes of Sardinia').

The known medieval giudicati were:

Each of the four States had fortified borders to protect their political and commercial interests, as well their own laws, administration and emblems.