Sardinian

The Sardinians are the indigenous people of Sardinia, whose Bronze Age Nuragic civilization left more than eight thousand stone towers called nuraghes. Rome conquered the island in 238 BC, and after Vandal and Byzantine rule Saracen raids from the ninth century cut it off from Constantinople, allowing four kingdoms, the Judicates of Cagliari, Arborea, Gallura and Torres, to emerge under rulers titled judge.

Their monks and judges kept property registers called condaghes, among the earliest records of the Sardinian tongue. Pisan and Genoese merchants came to dominate the ports, while the Crown of Aragon conquered most of the island as the Kingdom of Sardinia in 1324.

Arborea alone held out under its own judges until 1420; Eleanor of Arborea issued the Carta de Logu, the law code that governed Sardinian life until 1827. Spanish rule lasted until the island passed to the House of Savoy in 1720.