© ErN 26, Jeff Matthews entry
June 2009
| Eleanor’s Falcon, Kritarchs,
&
the Crown
of Aragon
|
 |
Among the least-known political entities
of medieval Europe — forget Livonia, Wallachia and Great
Moravia! — are the Crown
of Aragon and the Sardinian Judicatures (Giudicati
in Italian).
The Crown of Aragon was a sea-faring confederation united by allegiance to the King of Aragon; at its greatest expanse (in the 1400s), it included a large portion of eastern Spain, the Balearic islands, the islands of Corsica and Sardinia, the Kingdom of Naples (including Sicily) and part of Greece (map, right).
The Sardinian Judicatures (or
kritarchies) were four independent states that divided the
island of Sardinia among them between the 800s and the
1400s. (A kritarchy is rule by judges; it
is, for example, the word used to refer to the rule in
ancient Israel by Biblical judges such as Samson, Gideon
and the judge/prophetess, Deborah.) The origins of the Guidicati are not exactly clear except that
they were apparently residual Byzantine political
districts on Sardinia, units that then became independent
as Byzantine power faded from that area in the face of
Islamic expansion in the Mediterranean in the 800s. Nor is
it clear just how the Sardinian judge-rulers were chosen.
Depending on the period and judicature you are talking
about, at least some were chosen by a council of law and
even if a particular choice then developed into a
hereditary kritarchy, the judges still ruled at the
pleasure of a council. At no time could you say that the
judges were “kings,” at least not in the absolute sense of
"divine right," nor was the territory their personal
property as it was in the case of many European
monarchies.
These two strange
entities were linked when the Judicatures were eventually
conquered by the Crown of Aragon in the same wave of
Aragonese expansion that also took the Kingdom of Naples
in the mid-1400s. (The Crown of Aragon had made an early
move on Italy at the time of the Sicilian Vespers in 1282 when
it took over the island of Sicily from the Angevin French,
relegating the French to the mainland. The Aragonese then
followed onto the mainland where they took over the entire
Kingdom of Naples in 1442.)
[Also see Catalan Expansion in the
Mediterranean.]
One of the Sardinian
judicatures was Arborea, in the southwestern portion of
the island, with the capital at Oristano. The most
interesting judge-ruler in the history of Sardinia was Eleonora d’Arborea
(1347-1404) who ruled from 1383 until her death. She was one of the last and most
powerful of the Sardinian judges before most of the island
was gobbled up by the Aragonese. She is connected to
Naples in that her land was conquered and incorporated
into the Aragon kingdom of Naples and then, with the rest
of the island, into the Spanish vice-realm of Naples.
Statue of Eleonora in
Oristano
Eleanor was born in Catalonia; she
was the daughter of the judge/ruler of Arborea. Her
brother became the new hereditary judge in 1376 but was
killed in 1383, at which time Eleanor took over as regent
for her infant son. For the next four years she led
Arborea in battles with the Crown of Aragon, which claimed
the island. She was very successful for a time and retook
much of the entire island; she had aims at uniting all of
Sardinia.
After her death, the decline of the Judicature of Arborea was inexorable. A mere five years after Eleanor died, Arborea lost a major battle to the Aragonese at Sanluri (in southwestern Sardinia). Arborean rulers failed to organise a successful resistance and then simply sold the judicature to the Crown of Aragon in 1420. Subsequent resistance to the Crown of Aragon and its successor state, Spain (after the union of Aragon and Castille in 1469), was unsuccessful. The last Sardinian rebellion against the new rulers was at the Battle of Macomer (modern Magomadas), near the west coast in north-central Sardinia, in 1478. The rebellion failed and, thereafter, all of Sardinia was part of the new Spanish Empire.
Eleanor wrote a
constitution, the Carta de Logu (Charter
of Law), which came into force in April 1395.
Historians of jurisprudence consider the charter
significant in the history of constitutional law,
certainly more enlightened than the laws of other
countries at the time; it covered both civil and criminal
matters and was progressive in that the
penalty for most civil violations was simply a fine. As
well, the property rights of women were preserved.
Like an earlier ruler, Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, Eleanor, too, was interested in ornithology, and she legislated protection of a species of falcon. That bird, Falco eleonorae, was named after her.
Eleonora d’Arborea is remembered in Sardinia as the island “heroine,” who fought the good fight—but lost. She is mentioned in nostalgic verses in the Sardinian language when they talk about lost Sardinian independence. If the game of history had played out differently, she would have been the “mother of her nation.”
[See also Catalan Expansion
in the Mediterranean.]
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