Pisan–Genoese expeditions to Sardinia (1015–1016)
Encyclopedia
In 1015 and again in 1016 forces from the taifa of Denia
, in the east of Muslim Spain (al-Andalus)
, attacked Sardinia
and attempted to establish control over it. In both these years joint expeditions from the maritime republics of Pisa
and Genoa
repulsed the invaders and preserved Sardinia as a part of Christendom
. These Pisan–Genoese expeditions to Sardinia were approved and supported by the Papacy, making them precursors of the Crusades
, which began eighty years later. The victors, however, turned on each other and the Pisans obtained mastery over the island at the expense of their erstwhile allies. For this reason, the major Christian sources for the expedition primarily belong to Pisa, which celebrated its double victory over the Muslims and the Genoese with an inscription on the walls of its Duomo.
, Barcelona, Narbonne and Sardinia
promising safe conduct through those areas until then harassed by pirates based in Fraxinetum, the Balearic Islands
and the eastern ports of Spain, the so-called Sharq al-Andalus (including Denia and the famous pirate base of Pechina
). There is a recorded embassy from Sardinia to Córdoba
in the years immediately following, but from 943 to c. 1000 there are no recorded Muslim attacks on the Christian ports of the western Mediterranean.
The Carolingian
navy was present in both Pisa and Genoa in the early ninth century. The north Italian cities had sent ships to protect Sardinia from a Muslims fleet in 829, but it was probably a Muslim fleet operating out of Sardinia that raided Rome
in 841. The period of the late tenth and early eleventh centuries corresponded with a large growth in Pisa's population and in its geographical extent: its walls and fortifications doubled in scope and its suburbs grew. It entered into frequent territorial disputes with neighbouring Lucca
, often violent, and its need for imports grew commensurately. Genoa, with even less hinterland to support is citizens and its shipyards, was also pressured into looking for new markets.
The Annales pisani antiquissimi, the civic annals of Pisa compiled by Bernardus Marangonis, record only a few events from the tenth century, and all have to do with the waging of war. In 970 "the Pisans were in Calabria
", probably making war on its Muslim occupants in order to secure safe passage for their merchants through the Strait of Messina
that separated Muslim Sicily
from the peninsula. The Annales also record a Muslims naval attack on Pisa in 1004 and a Pisan victory over the Muslims off Reggio in 1005. The Muslim assault of 1004 may have originated in Spain, or it may have been a typical pirate raid. The Pisan attack was likely a response, and perhaps a serious attempt to put an end to Muslim piracy, for which Reggio served as a perennial base. In 1006 an embassy from the Byzantine emperor Basil II
to the court of the caliph Hishām II
released some Andalusian soldiers that had been captured off the coasts of Corsica
and Sardinia. Together with Sicily
, Corsica and Sardinia comprised the "route of the islands" which linked the north Italian towns to the markets of northern Africa and the eastern Mediterranean. Without control of the islands the expansion of Pisan and Genoese mercantile ventures would have been severely hampered. The rise of Pisan and Genoese trading in connexion with increased military activity, especial against the enemies of the Church, has a contemporary parallel on the other side of Italy in the then-burgeoning Republic of Venice
.
In 1011 the Pisan annals record that a "fleet from Spain" came to destroy the city, which suggests that the aggression was planned and organised and not merely a piratical raid. The most probably source of the fleet was the port of Denia, then ruled by Mujāhid al-‘Āmirī (Mogehid). According to the chronicle of Ibn ‘Idhārī, Mujāhid received Denia from the Córdoban hājib
Muhammad Ibn Abī ‘Āmir al-Manṣūr, who died in 1002. It is unclear from Ibn ‘Idhārī whether Mujāhid conquered the Balearics from his base at Denia, or whether he took control of Denia from a base in the Balearics. A Muslim enclave was perhaps established by Mujāhid's predecessor as ruler of the Balearics around 1000. Pope John VIII
, since Sardinia lay directly across the Tyrrhenian Sea
from Rome, urged the Christian lay powers to expel the Muslims from the island in 1004.
s) after 1009 in the declining caliphate. A freed slave, Mujāhid found it necessary to legitimise his position by appointing a puppet caliph, ‘Abd Allāh ibn ‘Ubayd Allāh ibn Walīd al-Mu‘iṭī, in 1013. He probably saw an opportunity to secure his authority by waging a holy war (jihād
), a device which had been used effectively by the man who appointed Mujāhid to rule Denia, al-Manṣūr. The conquest of Sardinia was thus undertaken in the name of al-Mu‘iṭī, and the Islamic historian Ibn al-Khatīb
praised Mujāhid before God for his piety in the event. One school of Islamic jurisprudence, represented in Mujāhid's day by al-Mawardī
, recognised "emir
s by conquest", those like Mujāhid who had a right to rule lands they conquered for Islam.
In 1015 Mujāhid came to Sardinia with 120 ships, a large number which confirms that the expedition was not designed for raiding. The twelfth-century Pisan Liber maiolichinus, a history of the 1113–1115 Balearic Islands expedition
, records that Mujāhid controlled all of the Sardinian coastal plain. In the Pisan histories of the time the expedition to Sardinia of 1015 is described tersely: "the Pisans and Genoese made war with Mujāhid in Sardinia, and defeated him by the grace of God" and "the Pisans and Genoese defended Sardinia." The annals covering the years 1005–16 are quoted in their entirety below. The dating of the expedition to 1015 is based on the Pisan calendar
, which also causes them to date Mujāhid's second expedition to 1017:
The account of the Liber maiolichinus is more detailed, although it excludes the Genoese, and so is probably referring to the 1015 expedition. It reports that even the Pisan nobles, in their eagerness, took turns rowing the galleys. It also compares them to starving lions rushing their prey. Mujāhid fled at the approach of the Italians, according to the Liber, which does not mention an actual engagement in 1015.
, on the coast between Genoa and Pisa, according to the eleventh-century German chronicler and bishop Thietmar of Merseburg
(Thitmarus), who mis-dates the event to 1015. Luni was reportedly taken by surprise, but the citizens and the bishop managed to flee. Both town and countryside were pillaged without resistance.
To solidify his conquest, Mujāhid immediately set about building cities using the local Sards for slave labour (he may have had some buried alive in the walls of his new city). The area he controlled, the plain between the central mountains and the sea, corresponded roughly to the Judicature of Cagliari (regnum Calaritanum in the Liber, III, 45), whose judge he had defeated and killed. The site of one Islamic fortification can be approximated, for a Greek charter of 1081 makes reference to a "castro de Mugete" (castle of Mujāhid) near Cagliari
, the chief city and port of the judicature. Archaeological research in the 1970s uncovered what may be Roman baths modified to fit Islamic tastes near Quartucciu
.
It is also possible that an Arab population had been present on the island for some time if it had indeed served as the staging area for the assault on Rome in 841. Medieval cartographers called the southeastern Sardinian coast from Arbatax
south Sarabus, a corruption of the Sard
for "the Arabs", and the very name "Arbatax" may derive from ārba‘a, meaning "four", a possible reference to the four Byzantine forts which lined that section of the coast. The liberus de paniliu, a designation for the "semi-free Christian children of Muslim slaves", appear in several eleventh-century donation charters from the region. Religious diversity, owing to a large endemic Arab population, may also explain the slowness with which monasticism of either the Western or Eastern variety encroached upon the area.
, a Cardinal from Sardinia, in the curia
of Pope Benedict VIII
—“a warlike pope, who has been compared to Julius II
... [b]ut his role in the conflict with [Mujāhid] ... elevates him to a higher plane”—was probably instrumental in obtaining papal approval and even active support of a military venture to Sardinia. Benedict even granted privileges to those who took part in the campaign and granted it a "vermilion banner". One fourteenth-century source records that a papal legate
was sent to preach it as a crusade, but this is probably anachronistic. Thietmar, a much closer source, describes the attack on Luni by the "enemies of Christ" and how Benedict responded by calling "all leaders (rectores) and protectors (defensores) of the Church" to kill them and chase them away. Mujāhid then sent a sack of chestnuts to the pope to illustrate the number of Muslim soldiers he would unleash on Christendom. Benedict sent back a sack of millet representing the number of Christian soldiers that would meet them. This story has been called into question, but that the papacy took a direct interest in Mujāhid's attacks on Christians lands cannot be doubted. Thietmar says that the pope sent a fleet, but this probably only means that he encouraged the maritimes republics to send fleets on behalf of all Christendom and not that the Christian fleet comprised "for the most part hired mercenaries", as was once suggested.
The combined forces of Pisa and Genoa, arriving in May, vastly outnumbered those of Mujāhid. The emir's troops were already restless because of a lack of sufficient booty, and so he tried to flee. His fleet was badly battered by a storm as it passed through a rocky cove, according to the Arabic sources, and the Pisans and Genoese picked off the remaining ships, capturing Mujāhid's mother and his heir. His mother seems to have been originally a European captured and sold into slavery, as she chose to remain with "her people" after her capture on Sardinia. His son and heir, ‘Alī, remained a hostage for a number of years. Those Muslims who survived the wreck of their ships were slaughtered onshore by the local populace.
, the Pisans were victorious. Pisa secured a papal privilege and strengthened their control over the island by installing monks from Saint-Victor de Marseille and expelling all those monks from rival Monte Cassino
whom they could capture. Her interest in curtailing Islamic piracy did not stop at Sardinia. In 1034 her fleet destroyed the pirate base of Bône
. The later eleventh-century campaigns of Pisa and Genoa, like the Mahdia campaign
of 1087, were performed "for the remission of [their] sins", according to Crusades scholar Jonathan Riley-Smith
. Pisa's last outpost on Sardinia was conquered by James II of Aragon
, who laid claim to the Kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica
, in 1325.
Mujāhid never attacked Sardinia again, despite a late medieval story about an invasion of 1021, in which "the Pisans on the island were hunted down". Historically, in 1017 pirates operating out of his taifa failed in a largescale assault on Narbonne
. Mujāhid also continued raiding the County of Barcelona and exacting tribute into the 1020s, when the count, Berenguer Ramon I
, called upon a Norman
adventurer, Roger I of Tosny
, to protect him. Following his father's death, ‘Alī continued his policy of raiding Christian territory. The Abbey of Lérins was attacked several times and its monks sold as slaves in the market of Denia. In 1056 Genoa adopted a statute requiring foreigners who were in the city during a time of Muslim aggression to aid the republic (in reconnaissance, for instance). These attacks on the coasts of northern Italy and southern France may have been launched from Corsica. The "evil men" which Pope Gregory VII
(1073–85) ordered Bishop Landulf of Pisa (1070–75) to remove from the island may have been Muslims.
Denia under Mujāhid's successors did not ignore Sardinia. In 1044 and again in 1056 an Andalusian Muslim scholar who had embarked at Denia was killed in action off Sardinia. Probably both academics were participating in jihād. There are likewise two Sard
saint's lives dating from the late eleventh century which depict Islamic persecution on the island. San Saturno di Cagliari, an adaption of a life of Saint Saturninus
, incorporates a prayer for deliverance from Muslim piracy. The local legend of Saint Gavin and his martyrdom during the Roman persecutions was transformed about this time into Sa vitta et sa morte et passione de Sanctu Gavinu Prothu et Januariu, an account of his persecutions by Muslims. It would take a century for peace to come to the sea lanes around Sardinia. In 1150 Pisa and the taifa of Valencia
, which included Denia, signed a treaty whereby the latter would not exact tribute from Pisan ships on their way to Sardinia.
Taifa of Dénia
The taifa of Dénia was a Muslim kingdom in medieval Spain, ruling over part of the Valencian coast and Ibiza. With Dénia as its capital, the taifa included the Balearic Islands and parts of the Spanish mainland.- History :...
, in the east of Muslim Spain (al-Andalus)
Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus was the Arabic name given to a nation and territorial region also commonly referred to as Moorish Iberia. The name describes parts of the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania governed by Muslims , at various times in the period between 711 and 1492, although the territorial boundaries...
, attacked Sardinia
Sardinia
Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . It is an autonomous region of Italy, and the nearest land masses are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia and the Spanish Balearic Islands.The name Sardinia is from the pre-Roman noun *sard[],...
and attempted to establish control over it. In both these years joint expeditions from the maritime republics of Pisa
Republic of Pisa
The Republic of Pisa was a de facto independent state centered on the Tuscan city of Pisa during the late tenth and eleventh centuries. It rose to become an economic powerhouse, a commercial center whose merchants dominated Mediterranean and Italian trade for a century before being surpassed and...
and Genoa
Republic of Genoa
The Most Serene Republic of Genoa |Ligurian]]: Repúbrica de Zêna) was an independent state from 1005 to 1797 in Liguria on the northwestern Italian coast, as well as Corsica from 1347 to 1768, and numerous other territories throughout the Mediterranean....
repulsed the invaders and preserved Sardinia as a part of Christendom
Christendom
Christendom, or the Christian world, has several meanings. In a cultural sense it refers to the worldwide community of Christians, adherents of Christianity...
. These Pisan–Genoese expeditions to Sardinia were approved and supported by the Papacy, making them precursors of the Crusades
Crusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars, blessed by the Pope and the Catholic Church with the main goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem...
, which began eighty years later. The victors, however, turned on each other and the Pisans obtained mastery over the island at the expense of their erstwhile allies. For this reason, the major Christian sources for the expedition primarily belong to Pisa, which celebrated its double victory over the Muslims and the Genoese with an inscription on the walls of its Duomo.
Background
Denia perhaps hosted a naval squadron under the Caliphs of Córdoba in the tenth century; its port was "very good and very old". According to al-Idrīsī, as quoted in al-Himyarī, its shipyards were important in outfitting its fleet, and these may have been where the fleet launched against Sardinia originated. In 940/1 the Caliphate signed treaties with AmalfiDuchy of Amalfi
The Duchy of Amalfi or the Republic of Amalfi was a de facto independent state centred on the Southern Italian city of Amalfi during the 10th and 11th centuries. The city and its territory were originally part of the larger ducatus Neapolitanus, governed by a patrician, but it extracted itself...
, Barcelona, Narbonne and Sardinia
History of Sardinia
Archaeological evidence of prehistoric human settlement on Sardinia island is present in the form of the nuraghe which dot the land. The recorded history of Sardinia begins with its contacts with the various people who sought to dominate western Mediterranean trade in Classical Antiquity: the...
promising safe conduct through those areas until then harassed by pirates based in Fraxinetum, the Balearic Islands
Balearic Islands
The Balearic Islands are an archipelago of Spain in the western Mediterranean Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula.The four largest islands are: Majorca, Minorca, Ibiza and Formentera. The archipelago forms an autonomous community and a province of Spain with Palma as the capital...
and the eastern ports of Spain, the so-called Sharq al-Andalus (including Denia and the famous pirate base of Pechina
Pechina
-External links: - Sistema de Información Multiterritorial de Andalucía - Diputación Provincial de Almería...
). There is a recorded embassy from Sardinia to Córdoba
Córdoba, Spain
-History:The first trace of human presence in the area are remains of a Neanderthal Man, dating to c. 32,000 BC. In the 8th century BC, during the ancient Tartessos period, a pre-urban settlement existed. The population gradually learned copper and silver metallurgy...
in the years immediately following, but from 943 to c. 1000 there are no recorded Muslim attacks on the Christian ports of the western Mediterranean.
The Carolingian
Carolingian Empire
Carolingian Empire is a historiographical term which has been used to refer to the realm of the Franks under the Carolingian dynasty in the Early Middle Ages. This dynasty is seen as the founders of France and Germany, and its beginning date is based on the crowning of Charlemagne, or Charles the...
navy was present in both Pisa and Genoa in the early ninth century. The north Italian cities had sent ships to protect Sardinia from a Muslims fleet in 829, but it was probably a Muslim fleet operating out of Sardinia that raided Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
in 841. The period of the late tenth and early eleventh centuries corresponded with a large growth in Pisa's population and in its geographical extent: its walls and fortifications doubled in scope and its suburbs grew. It entered into frequent territorial disputes with neighbouring Lucca
Lucca
Lucca is a city and comune in Tuscany, central Italy, situated on the river Serchio in a fertile plainnear the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Lucca...
, often violent, and its need for imports grew commensurately. Genoa, with even less hinterland to support is citizens and its shipyards, was also pressured into looking for new markets.
The Annales pisani antiquissimi, the civic annals of Pisa compiled by Bernardus Marangonis, record only a few events from the tenth century, and all have to do with the waging of war. In 970 "the Pisans were in Calabria
Calabria
Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro....
", probably making war on its Muslim occupants in order to secure safe passage for their merchants through the Strait of Messina
Strait of Messina
The Strait of Messina is the narrow passage between the eastern tip of Sicily and the southern tip of Calabria in the south of Italy. It connects the Tyrrhenian Sea with the Ionian Sea, within the central Mediterranean...
that separated Muslim Sicily
Emirate of Sicily
The Emirate of Sicily was an Islamic state on the island of Sicily , which existed from 965 to 1072.-First Arab invasions of Sicily:...
from the peninsula. The Annales also record a Muslims naval attack on Pisa in 1004 and a Pisan victory over the Muslims off Reggio in 1005. The Muslim assault of 1004 may have originated in Spain, or it may have been a typical pirate raid. The Pisan attack was likely a response, and perhaps a serious attempt to put an end to Muslim piracy, for which Reggio served as a perennial base. In 1006 an embassy from the Byzantine emperor Basil II
Basil II
Basil II , known in his time as Basil the Porphyrogenitus and Basil the Young to distinguish him from his ancestor Basil I the Macedonian, was a Byzantine emperor from the Macedonian dynasty who reigned from 10 January 976 to 15 December 1025.The first part of his long reign was dominated...
to the court of the caliph Hishām II
Hisham II
Hisham II was the third Caliph of Cordoba, of the Umayyad dynasty. He ruled 976–1009, and 1010–1013 in the Al-Andalus ....
released some Andalusian soldiers that had been captured off the coasts of Corsica
Medieval Corsica
The history of Corsica in the medieval period begins with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and the invasions of various Germanic peoples in the fifth century and ends with the complete subjection of the island to the authority of the Bank of San Giorgio in 1511.-Eastern Imperial...
and Sardinia. Together with Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
, Corsica and Sardinia comprised the "route of the islands" which linked the north Italian towns to the markets of northern Africa and the eastern Mediterranean. Without control of the islands the expansion of Pisan and Genoese mercantile ventures would have been severely hampered. The rise of Pisan and Genoese trading in connexion with increased military activity, especial against the enemies of the Church, has a contemporary parallel on the other side of Italy in the then-burgeoning Republic of Venice
Republic of Venice
The Republic of Venice or Venetian Republic was a state originating from the city of Venice in Northeastern Italy. It existed for over a millennium, from the late 7th century until 1797. It was formally known as the Most Serene Republic of Venice and is often referred to as La Serenissima, in...
.
Hajib
The term "hajib" is not to be confused with the word "hijab", which is a headscarf for Muslim women.A hajib was a government official in Al-Andalus and Egypt. They began as treasurers or Chamberlains but by 756, the position had evolved to be equivalent to a vizier or higher....
Muhammad Ibn Abī ‘Āmir al-Manṣūr, who died in 1002. It is unclear from Ibn ‘Idhārī whether Mujāhid conquered the Balearics from his base at Denia, or whether he took control of Denia from a base in the Balearics. A Muslim enclave was perhaps established by Mujāhid's predecessor as ruler of the Balearics around 1000. Pope John VIII
Pope John VIII
Pope John VIII was pope from December 13, 872 to December 16, 882. He is often considered one of the ablest pontiffs of the ninth century and the last bright spot on the papacy until Leo IX two centuries later....
, since Sardinia lay directly across the Tyrrhenian Sea
Tyrrhenian Sea
The Tyrrhenian Sea is part of the Mediterranean Sea off the western coast of Italy.-Geography:The sea is bounded by Corsica and Sardinia , Tuscany, Lazio, Campania, Basilicata and Calabria and Sicily ....
from Rome, urged the Christian lay powers to expel the Muslims from the island in 1004.
First expeditions (1015)
Mujāhid was probably motivated to conquer Sardinia in order to legitimise his power in Denia and the Balearics. A civil war (fitna) had broken out between various factions (taifaTaifa
In the history of the Iberian Peninsula, a taifa was an independent Muslim-ruled principality, usually an emirate or petty kingdom, though there was one oligarchy, of which a number formed in the Al-Andalus after the final collapse of the Umayyad Caliphate of Córdoba in 1031.-Rise:The origins of...
s) after 1009 in the declining caliphate. A freed slave, Mujāhid found it necessary to legitimise his position by appointing a puppet caliph, ‘Abd Allāh ibn ‘Ubayd Allāh ibn Walīd al-Mu‘iṭī, in 1013. He probably saw an opportunity to secure his authority by waging a holy war (jihād
Jihad
Jihad , an Islamic term, is a religious duty of Muslims. In Arabic, the word jihād translates as a noun meaning "struggle". Jihad appears 41 times in the Quran and frequently in the idiomatic expression "striving in the way of God ". A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid; the plural is...
), a device which had been used effectively by the man who appointed Mujāhid to rule Denia, al-Manṣūr. The conquest of Sardinia was thus undertaken in the name of al-Mu‘iṭī, and the Islamic historian Ibn al-Khatīb
Ibn al-Khatib
Lisan al-Din ibn al-Khatib was a poet, writer, historian, philosopher, physician and politician from Emirate of Granada. Some of his poems decorate the walls of the Alhambra in Granada.He was born at Loja, near Granada...
praised Mujāhid before God for his piety in the event. One school of Islamic jurisprudence, represented in Mujāhid's day by al-Mawardī
Al-Mawardi
Abu al-Hasan Ali Ibn Muhammad Ibn Habib al-Mawardi , known in Latin as Alboacen , was an Arab Muslim jurist of the Shafi'i school most remembered for his works on religion, government, the caliphate, and public and constitutional law during a time of political turmoil...
, recognised "emir
Emir
Emir , meaning "commander", "general", or "prince"; also transliterated as Amir, Aamir or Ameer) is a title of high office, used throughout the Muslim world...
s by conquest", those like Mujāhid who had a right to rule lands they conquered for Islam.
In 1015 Mujāhid came to Sardinia with 120 ships, a large number which confirms that the expedition was not designed for raiding. The twelfth-century Pisan Liber maiolichinus, a history of the 1113–1115 Balearic Islands expedition
1113–1115 Balearic Islands expedition
In 1114, an expedition to the Balearic Islands, then a Muslim taifa, was launched in the form of a Crusade. Founded on a treaty of 1113 between the Republic of Pisa and Ramon Berenguer III, Count of Barcelona, the expedition had the support of Pope Paschal II and the participation of many lords of...
, records that Mujāhid controlled all of the Sardinian coastal plain. In the Pisan histories of the time the expedition to Sardinia of 1015 is described tersely: "the Pisans and Genoese made war with Mujāhid in Sardinia, and defeated him by the grace of God" and "the Pisans and Genoese defended Sardinia." The annals covering the years 1005–16 are quoted in their entirety below. The dating of the expedition to 1015 is based on the Pisan calendar
Pisan calendar
The calendar in use in Pisa, the stile pisano or calculus Pisanus , from the High Middle Ages until at least 1406 began on 25 March in the year of Jesus' incarnation...
, which also causes them to date Mujāhid's second expedition to 1017:
| 1005 | Fuit capta Pisa a Saracenis. | Pisa was taken by the Saracens. |
| 1006 | Fecerunt Pisani bellum cum Saracenis ad Regium, et gratia Dei vicerunt illos in die Sancti Sixti. | The Pisans went to war against the Saracens of Reggio (Calabria) and, with the grace of God, they were victorious on Saint Sixtus’ day [6 August]. |
| 1012 | Stolus de Ispania venit Pisas, et destruxit eam. | From Spain an expedition reached Pisa and destroyed her. |
| 1016 [sic] | Fecerunt Pisani et Ianuenses bellum cum Mugieto in Sardineam, et gratia Dei vicerunt illum. | The Pisans and the Genoese made war against Musetto in Sardinia and, with the grace of God, they were victorious over him. |
The account of the Liber maiolichinus is more detailed, although it excludes the Genoese, and so is probably referring to the 1015 expedition. It reports that even the Pisan nobles, in their eagerness, took turns rowing the galleys. It also compares them to starving lions rushing their prey. Mujāhid fled at the approach of the Italians, according to the Liber, which does not mention an actual engagement in 1015.
Second Muslim expedition (1016)
Mujāhid returned to Sardinia in 1016 intending a more thorough conquest of the island. To this end he brought along a reported thousand horses from the Balearics. On these islands, which were renowned for their horses and mules, Mujāhid had reformed the tax system and put the stables at the service of the government in preparation for his expedition. He arrived off Sardinia with a large fleet and a landing force capable of a rapid conquest. The local Sardinian ruler, Salusio, the judge of Cagliari, was killed in the fighting and the organised resistance broke down. His troops may have met up with garrisons that had remained on the island after the failed expedition of 1015. He also established a beachhead at LuniLuni, Italy
Luni is a frazione of the comune of Ortonovo, province of La Spezia, in the easternmost end of the Liguria region of northern Italy...
, on the coast between Genoa and Pisa, according to the eleventh-century German chronicler and bishop Thietmar of Merseburg
Thietmar of Merseburg
Thietmar of Merseburg was a German chronicler who was also bishop of Merseburg.-Life:...
(Thitmarus), who mis-dates the event to 1015. Luni was reportedly taken by surprise, but the citizens and the bishop managed to flee. Both town and countryside were pillaged without resistance.
To solidify his conquest, Mujāhid immediately set about building cities using the local Sards for slave labour (he may have had some buried alive in the walls of his new city). The area he controlled, the plain between the central mountains and the sea, corresponded roughly to the Judicature of Cagliari (regnum Calaritanum in the Liber, III, 45), whose judge he had defeated and killed. The site of one Islamic fortification can be approximated, for a Greek charter of 1081 makes reference to a "castro de Mugete" (castle of Mujāhid) near Cagliari
Cagliari
Cagliari is the capital of the island of Sardinia, a region of Italy. Cagliari's Sardinian name Casteddu literally means castle. It has about 156,000 inhabitants, or about 480,000 including the outlying townships : Elmas, Assemini, Capoterra, Selargius, Sestu, Monserrato, Quartucciu, Quartu...
, the chief city and port of the judicature. Archaeological research in the 1970s uncovered what may be Roman baths modified to fit Islamic tastes near Quartucciu
Quartucciu
Quartucciu is a comune in the Province of Cagliari in the Italian region Sardinia, located about 8 km northeast of Cagliari.-History:Before the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Quartucciu was attacked by the Vandals...
.
It is also possible that an Arab population had been present on the island for some time if it had indeed served as the staging area for the assault on Rome in 841. Medieval cartographers called the southeastern Sardinian coast from Arbatax
Arbatax
Arbatax is the greatest hamlet of Tortolì, Sardinia, in Italy. With almost 5,000 inhabitants, it is also the third town in its province by population, after Lanusei municipality and Tortolì proper .- History :...
south Sarabus, a corruption of the Sard
Sardinian language
Sardinian is a Romance language spoken and written on most of the island of Sardinia . It is considered the most conservative of the Romance languages in terms of phonology and is noted for its Paleosardinian substratum....
for "the Arabs", and the very name "Arbatax" may derive from ārba‘a, meaning "four", a possible reference to the four Byzantine forts which lined that section of the coast. The liberus de paniliu, a designation for the "semi-free Christian children of Muslim slaves", appear in several eleventh-century donation charters from the region. Religious diversity, owing to a large endemic Arab population, may also explain the slowness with which monasticism of either the Western or Eastern variety encroached upon the area.
Second Christian expedition (1016)
The presence of Ilario CaoIlario Cao
Ilario Cao was a Sardinian ecclesiastic active in Rome during the first thirty years of the eleventh century, often retrospectively called a Cardinal. He was born in Cagliari. He urged Pope Benedict VIII to organise an expedition to free his native land from Muslim pirates, who were establishing...
, a Cardinal from Sardinia, in the curia
Roman Curia
The Roman Curia is the administrative apparatus of the Holy See and the central governing body of the entire Catholic Church, together with the Pope...
of Pope Benedict VIII
Pope Benedict VIII
Pope Benedict VIII , born Theophylactus, Pope from 1012 to 1024, of the noble family of the counts of Tusculum , descended from Theophylact, Count of Tusculum like his predecessor Pope Benedict VI .Benedict VIII was opposed by an antipope, Gregory...
—“a warlike pope, who has been compared to Julius II
Pope Julius II
Pope Julius II , nicknamed "The Fearsome Pope" and "The Warrior Pope" , born Giuliano della Rovere, was Pope from 1503 to 1513...
... [b]ut his role in the conflict with [Mujāhid] ... elevates him to a higher plane”—was probably instrumental in obtaining papal approval and even active support of a military venture to Sardinia. Benedict even granted privileges to those who took part in the campaign and granted it a "vermilion banner". One fourteenth-century source records that a papal legate
Papal legate
A papal legate – from the Latin, authentic Roman title Legatus – is a personal representative of the pope to foreign nations, or to some part of the Catholic Church. He is empowered on matters of Catholic Faith and for the settlement of ecclesiastical matters....
was sent to preach it as a crusade, but this is probably anachronistic. Thietmar, a much closer source, describes the attack on Luni by the "enemies of Christ" and how Benedict responded by calling "all leaders (rectores) and protectors (defensores) of the Church" to kill them and chase them away. Mujāhid then sent a sack of chestnuts to the pope to illustrate the number of Muslim soldiers he would unleash on Christendom. Benedict sent back a sack of millet representing the number of Christian soldiers that would meet them. This story has been called into question, but that the papacy took a direct interest in Mujāhid's attacks on Christians lands cannot be doubted. Thietmar says that the pope sent a fleet, but this probably only means that he encouraged the maritimes republics to send fleets on behalf of all Christendom and not that the Christian fleet comprised "for the most part hired mercenaries", as was once suggested.
The combined forces of Pisa and Genoa, arriving in May, vastly outnumbered those of Mujāhid. The emir's troops were already restless because of a lack of sufficient booty, and so he tried to flee. His fleet was badly battered by a storm as it passed through a rocky cove, according to the Arabic sources, and the Pisans and Genoese picked off the remaining ships, capturing Mujāhid's mother and his heir. His mother seems to have been originally a European captured and sold into slavery, as she chose to remain with "her people" after her capture on Sardinia. His son and heir, ‘Alī, remained a hostage for a number of years. Those Muslims who survived the wreck of their ships were slaughtered onshore by the local populace.
Aftermath
According to the Annales pisani, the Pisans and the Genoese fought for control of the island in the aftermath of their victory over Denia. In the first engagement, in Porto TorresPorto Torres
Porto Torres is a comune and city in northern Sardinia, in the Province of Sassari.It is situated on the north coast about 25 km east of the Gorditanian promontory , and on the spacious bay of the Gulf of Asinara.-History:...
, the Pisans were victorious. Pisa secured a papal privilege and strengthened their control over the island by installing monks from Saint-Victor de Marseille and expelling all those monks from rival Monte Cassino
Monte Cassino
Monte Cassino is a rocky hill about southeast of Rome, Italy, c. to the west of the town of Cassino and altitude. St. Benedict of Nursia established his first monastery, the source of the Benedictine Order, here around 529. It was the site of Battle of Monte Cassino in 1944...
whom they could capture. Her interest in curtailing Islamic piracy did not stop at Sardinia. In 1034 her fleet destroyed the pirate base of Bône
Bone
Bones are rigid organs that constitute part of the endoskeleton of vertebrates. They support, and protect the various organs of the body, produce red and white blood cells and store minerals. Bone tissue is a type of dense connective tissue...
. The later eleventh-century campaigns of Pisa and Genoa, like the Mahdia campaign
Mahdia campaign
The Mahdia campaign of 1087 was an attack on the North African town of Mahdia by armed ships from Genoa and Pisa in northern Italy. It had been prompted by the actions of its ruler Tamim as a pirate in waters off the Italian peninsula, along with his involvement in Sicily fighting the Norman...
of 1087, were performed "for the remission of [their] sins", according to Crusades scholar Jonathan Riley-Smith
Jonathan Riley-Smith
Jonathan Simon Christopher Riley-Smith, K.St.J., Ph.D. MA, Litt.D., FRHistS is an historian of the Crusades, and a former Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History...
. Pisa's last outpost on Sardinia was conquered by James II of Aragon
James II of Aragon
James II , called the Just was the King of Sicily from 1285 to 1296 and King of Aragon and Valencia and Count of Barcelona from 1291 to 1327. In 1297 he was granted the Kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica...
, who laid claim to the Kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica
Kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica
The Kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica was a constituent country of several States through six centuries...
, in 1325.
Mujāhid never attacked Sardinia again, despite a late medieval story about an invasion of 1021, in which "the Pisans on the island were hunted down". Historically, in 1017 pirates operating out of his taifa failed in a largescale assault on Narbonne
Narbonne
Narbonne is a commune in southern France in the Languedoc-Roussillon region. It lies from Paris in the Aude department, of which it is a sub-prefecture. Once a prosperous port, it is now located about from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea...
. Mujāhid also continued raiding the County of Barcelona and exacting tribute into the 1020s, when the count, Berenguer Ramon I
Berenguer Ramon I, Count of Barcelona
Berengar Raymond I the Crooked, also called the Hunchback was the count of Barcelona, Girona, and Ausona from 1018 to his death.He was the son of Raymond Borrell, count of Barcelona, Girona, and Ausona and his wife Ermesinde of Carcassonne...
, called upon a Norman
Normans
The Normans were the people who gave their name to Normandy, a region in northern France. They were descended from Norse Viking conquerors of the territory and the native population of Frankish and Gallo-Roman stock...
adventurer, Roger I of Tosny
Roger I of Tosny
Roger I of Tosny or Roger of Hispania was a Norman nobleman of the House of Tosny who took part in the Reconquista of Iberia. He was the son of Raoul I of Tosny....
, to protect him. Following his father's death, ‘Alī continued his policy of raiding Christian territory. The Abbey of Lérins was attacked several times and its monks sold as slaves in the market of Denia. In 1056 Genoa adopted a statute requiring foreigners who were in the city during a time of Muslim aggression to aid the republic (in reconnaissance, for instance). These attacks on the coasts of northern Italy and southern France may have been launched from Corsica. The "evil men" which Pope Gregory VII
Pope Gregory VII
Pope St. Gregory VII , born Hildebrand of Sovana , was Pope from April 22, 1073, until his death. One of the great reforming popes, he is perhaps best known for the part he played in the Investiture Controversy, his dispute with Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor affirming the primacy of the papal...
(1073–85) ordered Bishop Landulf of Pisa (1070–75) to remove from the island may have been Muslims.
Denia under Mujāhid's successors did not ignore Sardinia. In 1044 and again in 1056 an Andalusian Muslim scholar who had embarked at Denia was killed in action off Sardinia. Probably both academics were participating in jihād. There are likewise two Sard
Sardinian language
Sardinian is a Romance language spoken and written on most of the island of Sardinia . It is considered the most conservative of the Romance languages in terms of phonology and is noted for its Paleosardinian substratum....
saint's lives dating from the late eleventh century which depict Islamic persecution on the island. San Saturno di Cagliari, an adaption of a life of Saint Saturninus
Saturninus of Cagliari
Saint Saturninus of Cagliari is venerated as the patron saint of Cagliari. According to Christian tradition, Saturninus was a local martyr –that is, he was killed at Cagliari by order of governor Barbarus...
, incorporates a prayer for deliverance from Muslim piracy. The local legend of Saint Gavin and his martyrdom during the Roman persecutions was transformed about this time into Sa vitta et sa morte et passione de Sanctu Gavinu Prothu et Januariu, an account of his persecutions by Muslims. It would take a century for peace to come to the sea lanes around Sardinia. In 1150 Pisa and the taifa of Valencia
Taifa of Valencia
The Taifa of Valencia was a medieval taifa kingdom which existed, in and around Valencia, Spain during four distinct periods: from 1010 to 1065, from 1075 to 1099, from 1145 to 1147 and last from 1229 to 1238 when it was finally conquered by Aragon....
, which included Denia, signed a treaty whereby the latter would not exact tribute from Pisan ships on their way to Sardinia.