page_title: Sardinian medieval kingdoms
section_title: Historical causes of the advent of the kingdoms
hierarchical_section_title: Sardinian medieval kingdoms / Historical causes of the advent of the kingdoms
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: Stemma Giudicato di Torres (S. Gavino - P.Torres - SS)
context_page_description: The Judicates, 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 ninth and fifteenth centuries. They were sovereign states with summa potestas, each with a ruler called judge, with the powers of a king.
context_section_description: 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, 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 Holy Roman 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, in the eighth century, and especially with the emergence of the Arab presence in Sicily (827), Sardinia remained disconnected from Byzantium and had, out of necessity, become economically and militarily independent.
caption: Arms of the Kingdom of Torres
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