during the 9th century the entire coast of liguria was threatened by repeated incursions of saracen raiders. the people were enslaved, driven off or killed. the danger to church property grew so severe that, c. 878, bishop sabatinus of genoa had the remains of s. romulus removed from his tomb in villa matutiana (san remo) and brought to genoa and placed in the crypt of the cathedral of san lorenzo in genoa. muslims from north africa thorougly sacked genoa in 934–935, and the site was probably abandoned for a few years. in 980, when the threat of the saracens had receded, bishop teodulfus, seeing that the devastated lands were recovering and that the "decima" tax was able to be collected again, donated the income of those lands to the maintenance of the canons of the cathedral ("nostrorum cardinalium clericorum mancipamus usui").