History of Sardinia
In the Early Middle Ages, through barbarian movements, the waning of the Byzantine Empire influence in the western Mediterranean and the Saracen raids, the island fell out of the sphere of influence of any higher government. This led to the birth of four kingdoms called "Judicates" (Latin: "Judicati"; Sardinian: "Judicados") in the 8th through 10th centuries. Falling under papal influence, Sardinia became the focus of the rivalry of Genoa and Pisa, the Judicates and the Crown of Aragon, which eventually subsumed the island as the Kingdom of Sardinia in 1324. The Kingdom was to last until 1718, when it was ceded to the Piedmontese House of Savoy; later, in 1861, it would thus become the Kingdom of Italy and finally in 1946 the Italian Republic.
History of Sardinia
From the mid-11th century the Judicates ("held by judges") appeared. The title of "Judex" (judge, "judike" in Sardinian) was an heir of that of the Byzantine governor after the creation of the Exarchate of Africa in 582 ("Prases" or "Judex Provinciae"). In the 8th and 9th centuries the four "partes" depending from Caralis grew increasingly independent, after that Byzantium was totally cut off from the Tyrrhenian Sea by the Muslim conquest of Sicily in 827. A letter from Pope Nicholas I in 864 mentions for the first time the Sardinian judges, and their autonomy is clear in a later letter by Pope John VIII, which defined them as "Princes". A letter by Mieszko I to Pope John XV proves that the Judicates were known even in Poland, and that they played a prestigious role in Medieval Europe.