West Europe (964 – 1107 CE): Cluniac Reform, Capetian Foundations, and the Rise of the Western Kingdoms

Geographic and Environmental Context

West Europe in this age extended from the Rhône Valley and the Provençal coast to the Atlantic shores of Normandy, Brittany, and Aquitaine, encompassing southern and western France, Monaco, Corsica, and the southern Jura uplands.
To the east, Lyon and the Rhône corridor linked Burgundy to the Mediterranean; to the west, the Loire and Seine valleys carried commerce to Paris and Rouen; and southward, the Garonne and Gironde funneled grain and wine to Bordeaux and the Bay of Biscay.
The Languedoc plain, Roussillon marches, and Provençal littoral connected with Barcelona and the Catalan sphere, while the Channel world united Normandy, Flanders, and England.

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Climate and Environmental Shifts

The Medieval Warm Period (c. 950–1250) brought stable warmth, mild winters, and longer growing seasons.

• In the Rhône and Languedoc, vineyards and olive groves expanded.

• In northern France, grain surpluses and viticulture along the Loire underpinned demographic growth.

• Marsh reclamation transformed Flanders, Saintonge, and Aunis, while embankments extended the productive coastline.

• Upland grazing in the Pyrenees and southern Jura supported transhumant economies that supplied wool and cheese to lowland markets.
  The rivers—Rhône, Loire, Seine, and Garonne—served as arteries for trade and pilgrimage, connecting the Mediterranean and Atlantic worlds.

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Societies and Political Developments

Mediterranean Realms: Provence, Languedoc, and the Catalan Frontier

The Kingdom of Arles/Burgundy, encompassing Provence and Lyon, remained under nominal imperial authority until absorbed into the Holy Roman Empire (1032).

• The Counts of Toulouse dominated Languedoc, while the Trencavel viscounts ruled Carcassonne and Béziers, balancing feudal autonomy with church reform.

• In Provence, the Counts of Barcelona extended their reach northward into Roussillon and along the lower Rhône.

• Lyon emerged as a major ecclesiastical and commercial hub, hosting councils and fairs that connected the Alpine world to the sea.

• Corsica oscillated between Pisan and Genoese control, its timber and harbors coveted by maritime republics; Monaco and Nice remained in the orbit of Provençal and Ligurian powers.

Atlantic Kingdoms: Capetians, Normans, and Aquitanians

The Capetian monarchy, founded by Hugh Capet (987), gradually consolidated the Île-de-France—a modest core between Paris, Orléans, and Étampes—but wielded symbolic authority across the realm.

• Normandy, forged under William the Conqueror (r. 1035–1087), became a military and administrative powerhouse; the 1066 conquest of England fused the Channel coasts into a single feudal world.

• Anjou, under Fulk III “Nerra” and successors, pioneered castle-building and disciplined lordship, influencing political structures from Maine to Touraine.

• Aquitaine, with its courts at Poitiers and Bordeaux, thrived as a cultural center under William IX and William X, uniting Occitan and northern traditions.

• Flanders rose as a comital and urban powerhouse, fostering early chartered towns and cloth production based on English wool.

Regional Integrations

Throughout the south, Catalan expansion into Roussillon and Provence, coupled with Byzantine decline in Italy, brought the western Mediterranean more firmly into Frankish and Latin systems.
To the north and west, Norman conquest and colonization bound England, Flanders, and northern France into the first coherent trans-Channel polity.
The monastic networks centered on Cluny and Moissac spread reform and uniformity from Burgundy to the Pyrenees, reshaping religious life and land tenure.

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Economy and Trade

West Europe’s economy fused agrarian surplus, riverine commerce, and Mediterranean–Atlantic exchange.

• Agriculture: cereals, vines, and olives in the south; grain and wine in the Loire and Seine valleys; transhumant flocks in mountain margins.

• Trade corridors:

  • Rhône–Saône–Lyon–Arles corridor carried goods between north and south.

  • Loire–Seine system linked Tours, Orléans, and Paris to northern ports.

  • Garonne–Gironde–Bordeaux exported wine and salt.

  • Via Domitia and Via Tolosana connected Languedoc to Catalonia and Italy.

• Ports and markets:

  • Marseille, Narbonne, Montpellier, and Aigues-Mortes flourished as maritime entrepôts to the Levant and North Africa.

  • Rouen, La Rochelle, and Bordeaux handled Atlantic trade; Nantes and Bayonne exported salt, wine, and fish.

  • Flanders imported wool and metals, exporting cloth to the Mediterranean via overland fairs and Rhine navigation.

• Coinage: royal, episcopal, and comital mints in Paris, Toulouse, and Bordeaux; deniers of Lyon and Marseille facilitated long-distance exchange.

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Belief and Symbolism

Faith and reform shaped the cultural unification of West Europe.

• The Cluniac Reform (founded 910) radiated from Burgundy, emphasizing monastic discipline, liturgical splendor, and independence from lay control; its influence reached Provence, Languedoc, and Aquitaine.

• Pilgrimage networks expanded:

  • The Via Tolosana through Arles and Toulouse, and the Via Turonensis through Tours and Poitiers, channeled pilgrims toward Santiago de Compostela, energizing inns, bridges, and shrines.

• Romanesque architecture—thick walls, barrel vaults, and sculpted portals—flourished in Languedoc, Provence, Anjou, and along the Loire.

• Cathedral and abbey schools revived learning at Chartres, Tours, and Lyon.

• In Flanders and Normandy, relic cults and parish foundations underscored civic identity, while southern abbeys such as Saint-Gilles and Moissac became centers of pilgrimage art.

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Adaptation and Resilience

• Political resilience: dynastic fragmentation was tempered by strong feudal bonds—homage networks stabilized local governance despite limited royal power.

• Economic adaptation: reclamation of marshes and rotation of crops underpinned population growth; ports and fairs ensured redundancy when routes shifted due to war or flood.

• Cultural cohesion: Latin liturgy and Cluniac monasticism bridged regional dialects and lordships, fostering a common spiritual economy.

• Urban renewal: river and maritime towns adopted communal charters, legalizing self-governance and collective defense.

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Long-Term Significance

By 1107 CE, West Europe had entered an age of revival that blended monastic piety, dynastic ambition, and mercantile expansion:

• The Capetian kings anchored royal legitimacy in the Seine–Loire heartland, laying foundations for later territorial monarchy.

• The Normans, now masters of the Channel and England, projected French feudal culture across the sea.

• Aquitaine and Languedoc matured as centers of Occitan literature and Romanesque art, underpinned by maritime wealth.

• Flanders and Provence, though distant, mirrored each other as hubs of urban industry and Mediterranean trade.

• Across both south and north, the pilgrimage roads and Cluniac abbeys created a unified spiritual geography linking Lyon, Tours, and Toulouse to Santiago and Rome.

West Europe thus emerged from the 11th century as a dynamic patchwork of reforming abbeys, thriving cities, and resilient lordships—a region poised for the twelfth-century flowering of chivalry, commerce, and crusade that would redefine Latin Christendom.

Mediterranean West Europe (964 – 1107 CE): Cluniac Reform, Trencavel Rule, and Maritime Provence

Geographic and Environmental Context

Geographic and Environmental Context

Mediterranean West Europe includes southern France (from the Rhône valley to the Pyrenees, including Languedoc, Provence, and Roussillon), Monaco, Corsica, Lyon, and the southern Jura.

• Anchors: the Rhône Valley (Lyon as an ecclesiastical and commercial hub), the southern Jura as alpine corridors, the Provençal littoral (Avignon, Marseille, Toulon, Nice, Monaco), the Languedoc plain (Carcassonne, Béziers, Narbonne, Montpellier), the Roussillon/Catalan marches (Perpignan), and Corsica contested between Pisa and Genoa.

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Climate and Environmental Shifts

 

• Warm, stable conditions continued. Vineyards in Rhône and Languedoc expanded; sheep grazed uplands.

• Rhône navigation improved; southern Jura pastures sustained dairying.

Societies and Political Developments

• Kingdom of Arles/Burgundy encompassed Provence and Lyon under loose imperial authority until incorporated into the Holy Roman Empire (1032).

• Counts of Toulouse dominated Languedoc; Trencavel viscounts ruled Carcassonne and Béziers.

• Provence: counts of Barcelona expanded into Roussillon and Provence.

• Lyon consolidated as an ecclesiastical–commercial hub; archbishopric influential in councils.

• Corsica shifted between Pisan and Genoese influence.

• Monaco/Nice littoral under competing Provençal and Ligurian control.

Economy and Trade

• Rhone corridor: Lyon fairs, river trade in grain, wine, salt, cloth.

• Ports (Marseille, Narbonne, Montpellier): expanded as Mediterranean entrepôts.

• Agriculture: olives, vines, and cereals in Languedoc; transhumant flocks in Jura and Pyrenees.

• Corsica: timber and pastoralism; strategic harbors.

Belief and Symbolism

• Cluniac reform radiated from Burgundy and Jura into Provence.

• Pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela energized Languedoc and Roussillon.

Long-Term Significance

By 1107, Mediterranean West Europe was a patchwork of counts, bishops, and communes—Rhône commerce, Cluniac reform, and Catalan expansion underwrote prosperity.

Mediterranean Southwest Europe (964 – 1107 CE): Taifa Spain, Norman Sicily, and the Italian Communes

Geographic and Environmental Context

Mediterranean Southwest Europe includes Portugal’s Algarve and Alentejo; Spain’s Extremadura, Andalusia, Murcia, Valencia, Castile/La Mancha, southeastern Castile and León, Madrid, southeastern Rioja, southeastern Navarra, Aragon, Catalonia, and the Balearic Islands; Andorra; all of Italy including Venice, Sicily, and Sardinia; and Malta.

• Anchors: the Andalusian taifas (Seville, Zaragoza, Valencia), the Ebro corridor and Catalan march, Lisbon/Algarve–Alentejo as frontier, the Castile/La Mancha–Madrid plateau edge, the Balearics under Muslim control, Venice and the Adriatic, Pisa/Genoa on the Ligurian coast, Apulia–Naples, and Sicily–Malta shifting to Norman hands, with Sardinia under Pisan–Genoese influence.

Climate and Environmental Shifts

• Warm, stable conditions continued; vine and olive belts from Andalusia to Tuscany prospered.

Societies and Political Developments

• Al-Andalus fragmented into taifas (after 1031); Seville, Valencia, Zaragoza competed until Almoravid intervention (1086).

• León–Castile, Aragon, Navarre, Catalonia advanced the Reconquista; Toledo fell to Alfonso VI (1085).

• Norman conquest of Sicily (1061–1091) created a tri-lingual kingdom (Latin–Greek–Arabic); Malta joined the Norman sphere.

• Italy: Venice, Genoa, Pisa matured as communes; Venice led Adriatic commerce and crusade logistics on the eve of 1096.

• Sardinia: Pisa and Genoa contested the judicati.

Economy and Trade

• Taifa luxury crafts (textiles, carved stucco), Valencian irrigation; Venetian, Genoese, Pisan fleets dominated Levant and western Med routes; Sicilian sugar/citrus expanded under Norman irrigation.

Subsistence and Technology

• Andalusi waterworks; Italian shipyards (lateen rigs, standardized hulls); urban notarial systems in Venice and Genoa.

Movement and Interaction Corridors

• Ebro–Tagus–Guadalquivir trunks; Pyrenean passes (Somport) linking Aragon–Catalonia to Andorra; Adriatic lanes radiating from Venice; Tyrrhenian circuits Sardinia–Sicily–Naples–Rome.

Belief and Symbolism

• Islamic, Mozarabic, and Latin cultures intertwined in Iberia; Norman Sicily’s royal chapel (Palatine prototypes) symbolized syncretism; crusading ethos rose in Italian ports.

Long-Term Significance

By 1107, Venice and sister communes dominated sea-lanes; Norman Sicily was a Mediterranean hinge; Iberian monarchies pressed south against taifas and Almoravids.

Southwest Europe (964 – 1107 CE): Taifa Courts, Norman Kings, and the Pilgrim Atlantic

Geographic and Environmental Context

Southwest Europe extended from the Atlantic coasts of Portugal and northern Spain to the Mediterranean heartlands of al-Andalus, Italy, and the islands of the western sea.
It encompassed the Andalusian taifas, the Castilian and Leonese uplands, the Ebro corridor and Catalan march, the Balearic Islands, Sicily, Sardinia, Malta, and the Italian peninsula from Venice to Apulia.
Mountain chains—the Cantabrian range, Sierra Morena, and Apennines—divided temperate valleys and coastal plains.
Key nodes included Seville, Toledo, Valencia, Lisbon, León, Santiago de Compostela, Venice, Pisa, Genoa, Palermo, and Naples, each connected by maritime and overland arteries binding the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Adriatic.

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Climate and Environmental Shifts

The Medieval Warm Period (c. 950–1250) sustained stable warmth and generous rainfall.

• Vineyards and olive groves thrived from Andalusia to Tuscany.

• Andalusian irrigation and Italian terraces increased yields, supporting large urban populations.

• In Atlantic Iberia, fertile valleys of the Minho, Douro, and Tagus produced wheat, vines, and chestnuts.

• Seasonal winds—the monsoon-like summer westerlies and Mediterranean sea breezes—facilitated shipping from the Straits of Gibraltar to the Levant.

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Societies and Political Developments

Al-Andalus and the Christian Frontier

After the collapse of the Umayyad Caliphate (1031), al-Andalus fragmented into taifa kingdoms—Seville, Zaragoza, Valencia, and Granada—each vying for tribute and prestige.
These cities flourished as centers of learning, architecture, and luxury production, until threatened by the northern Christian monarchies.
In 1086, the Almoravids, invited from North Africa, restored unity briefly, defeating Castile at Sagrajas.
To the north, León, Castile, Aragon, Navarre, and Catalonia advanced the Reconquista, seizing Toledo (1085) and pressing southward.
Lisbon, under the taifa of Badajoz, remained a major Muslim entrepôt linking the Atlantic and the caliphal interior.

The Leónese and Atlantic Heartlands

In the west, the Kingdom of León dominated the 10th–11th centuries.

• Under Ordoño III, Ferdinand I, and Alfonso VI, León extended from Galicia to the Tagus.

• Castile, born as a marcher county, evolved into a frontier kingdom famed for its castles and independent spirit.

• Galicia, integrated under León, revolved around Santiago de Compostela, where the pilgrimage cult of St. James transformed the region into a magnet for European devotion.

• In Portugal, the marches of Portucale and Coimbra revived after 1064, with Porto and Braga emerging as Atlantic trade ports.

Italy and the Central Mediterranean

While Iberia was a land of religious frontier, Italy was a sea of republics.

• In the north, Venice, Genoa, and Pisa matured into maritime communes, pioneering republican institutions, notarial law, and crusade logistics.

• In the south, Normans, led by Robert Guiscard and Roger I, conquered Sicily (1061–1091) and Malta, creating a tri-lingual kingdom blending Latin, Greek, and Arabic.

• Sardinia’s judicati balanced Pisan and Genoese influence, while Naples and Apulia formed the Norman–papal frontier.

• Venice, ruling the Adriatic, became the central broker between Byzantine, Levantine, and western markets.

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Economy and Trade

Southwest Europe’s prosperity rested on an intricate web of agriculture, craftsmanship, and maritime exchange.

• Andalusian taifas exported textiles, ceramics, sugar, citrus, and leather, while importing Christian slaves, timber, and metals.

• León and Castile traded grain, wine, wool, and hides through Burgos, Porto, and Santiago’s ports.

• Lisbon re-exported Andalusi goods northward to Aquitaine and Brittany.

• Venice, Genoa, and Pisa dominated shipping lanes to the Levant and Egypt, pioneering lateen-rigged galleysand merchant convoys.

• Sicilian plantations under the Normans expanded sugar and citrus exports.

• Italian banking and credit instruments emerged in urban markets by the century’s end.
  Together, these routes transformed the western Mediterranean and Atlantic into a continuous commercial zone.

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Subsistence and Technology

• Andalusian irrigation systems (qanāts, norias, and acequias) sustained dense farming and gardens.

• Romanesque architecture and Moorish stucco carving flourished side by side across Iberia.

• Italian shipyards standardized hulls and rigging; urban notaries codified contracts and loans.

• Water-mills and terraced vineyards multiplied in Galicia, León, and northern Portugal, improving rural productivity.

• Artisanal specialization in glass, metalwork, and ceramics distinguished Córdoba, Valencia, Venice, and Amalfi.

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Movement and Interaction Corridors

• Ebro–Tagus–Guadalquivir trunks tied the interior taifas to Mediterranean ports.

• Camino de Santiago, the great pilgrim road, linked Aquitaine and Navarre to Compostela, stimulating monasteries, inns, and markets.

• Pyrenean passes (Somport, Roncesvalles) joined Aragon and Catalonia to France and Andorra.

• Adriatic sea-lanes radiated from Venice; Tyrrhenian circuits connected Sardinia, Sicily, Naples, and Rome.

• Atlantic sea routes bound Porto, Braga, and Lisbon to Bordeaux, Bayonne, and Brittany, forming a “pilgrim sea” complementing the overland Camino.

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Belief and Symbolism

Religious diversity defined the region’s identity.

• Iberia blended Islamic, Mozarabic, and Latin traditions—mosques and Romanesque churches coexisted in frontier towns.

• Cluniac reform reached León, Castile, and Catalonia, renewing monastic discipline and pilgrimage infrastructure.

• Santiago de Compostela became Europe’s third great shrine, after Rome and Jerusalem, symbolizing Christendom’s advance into the western frontier.

• In Norman Sicily, Arabic artisans, Greek clerics, and Latin knights cooperated under royal patronage; the Palatine Chapel embodied this syncretic trilingual culture.

• Venetian crusading ideology merged faith and commerce, anticipating the maritime crusades of the 12th century.

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Adaptation and Resilience

• Frontier colonization repopulated Duero and Tagus valleys with mixed Mozarabic, Basque, and Frankish settlers.

• Pilgrimage economies stabilized infrastructure through shared spiritual and material investment.

• Norman administration in Sicily integrated Arabic fiscal systems and Greek bureaucracy with Latin law.

• Italian communes institutionalized civic cooperation, fortifying autonomy amid imperial–papal conflict.

• Maritime republics diversified routes, ensuring continuity of trade even through warfare or piracy.

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Long-Term Significance

By 1107 CE, Southwest Europe had become one of the most dynamic crossroads of the medieval world:

• Venice, Genoa, and Pisa commanded the seas, laying foundations for Europe’s commercial expansion.

• Norman Sicily stood as a Mediterranean hinge, fusing Christian, Muslim, and Byzantine traditions.

• Taifa Spain dazzled with artistry even as it faced Almoravid unification.

• León, Castile, and Portugal pushed southward in a Reconquista that paralleled pilgrimage prosperity and frontier growth.

• The Camino de Santiago and pilgrim Atlantic bound Christendom together in faith and movement, while Islamic, Christian, and Jewish exchanges enriched its culture.

This was an age of urban rebirth, seaborne power, and spiritual mobility—a world where ports, palaces, and pilgrim roads alike radiated the vitality of a newly interconnected Southwest Europe.

The Almoravid movement develops early in the eleventh century among the Sanhaja confederation, whose control of trans-Saharan trade routes is under pressure from the Zenata Berbers in the north and the state of Ghana in the south.

Yahya Ibn Ibrahim, a leader of the Godala tribe of the Sanhaja confederation, decides to raise the level of Islamic knowledge and practice among his people.

To accomplish this, on his return from the hajj (Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca) in 1048–1049, he brings with him Abdallah Ibn Yasin, a Moroccan scholar.

In the early years of the movement, the scholar is concerned only with imposing moral discipline and a strict adherence to Islamic principles among his followers.

Abd Allah ibn Yasin also becomes known as one of the marabouts, or holy persons (from al murabitun, "those who have made a religious retreat").

The Almoravid movement shifts from promoting religious reform to engaging in military conquest after 1054 and is led by Lamtuna leaders: first Yahya, then his brother Abu Bakr, then his cousin Yusuf ibn Tashfin.

With Marrakech as their capital, the Almoravids conquer Morocco, the Maghreb as far east as Algiers, and Spain up to the Ebro River by 1106.

The Hammadids will rule from 1011 to 1151, during which time Bejaïa becomes the most important port in North Africa.

This period is marked by constant conflict, political instability, and economic decline.

The Hammadids, by rejecting the Ismaili doctrine for Sunni orthodoxy and renouncing submission to the Fatimids, initiate chronic conflict with the Zirids.

Two great Berber confederations—the Sanhaja and the Zenata—engage in an epic struggle.

The fiercely brave, camelborne nomads of the western desert and steppe as well as the sedentary farmers of the Kabylie to the east swear allegiance to the Sanhaja.

Their traditional enemies, the Zenata, are tough, resourceful horsemen from the cold plateau of the northern interior of Morocco and the western Tell in Algeria.

In addition, raiders from Genoa, Pisa, and Norman Sicily attack ports and disrupt coastal trade.

Trans-Saharan trade shifts to Fatimid Egypt and to routes in the west leading to Spanish markets.

The countryside is being overtaxed by growing cities.

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.

"[T]he Pisans were in Calabria" in 970, 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.

An embassy from the emperor Basil II to the court of the caliph Hishām II in 1006 had released some Andalusian soldiers who had been captured off the coasts of Corsica and Sardinia.

Together with Sicily, Corsica and Sardinia comprise the "route of the islands”, which links 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 connecton with increased military activity, especially against the enemies of the Church, has a contemporary parallel on the other side of Italy in the burgeoning Republic of Venice.

The Pisan annals record that a "fleet from Spain" came in 1011 to destroy the city, which suggests that the aggression was planned and organized and not merely a piratical raid.

The most probable source of the fleet is the port of Denia, ruled by Mujāhid al-‘Āmirī (Mogehid).

According to the chronicle of Ibn ‘Idhārī, Mujāhid had 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 had perhaps been 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, had urged the Christian lay powers to expel the Muslims from the island in 1004.

The Republic of Genoa, established in the early eleventh century, consists of the city of Genoa and the surrounding areas.

As the commerce of the city increases, so does the territory of the Republic.

The entirety of Liguria is part of the Republic of Genoa by 1015.

The city of Pisa, at this time a very important commercial center, controls a significant Mediterranean merchant fleet and navy, having expanded its powers by the sack of Reggio di Calabria in the south of Italy in 1005.

Pisa is in continuous conflict with the Saracens for control of the Mediterranean.

Mujāhid al-‘Āmirī, ruler of the Muslim taifa of Denia, is probably motivated to conquer Sardinia in order to legitimize his power in Denia and the Balearics.

A civil war (fitna) had broken out between various factions (taifas) after 1009 in the declining caliphate.

A freed slave, Mujāhid had found it necessary to legitimize 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 is thus undertaken in the name of al-Mu‘iṭī, and the Islamic historian Ibn al-Khatīb praises Mujāhid before God for his piety in the event.

One school of Islamic jurisprudence, represented in Mujāhid's day by al-Mawardī, recognizes "emirs by conquest", those like Mujāhid who have a right to rule lands they conquer for Islam.In 1015, Mujāhid comes to Sardinia with one hundred and twenty ships, a large number that 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 tim,e 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 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 flees at the approach of the Italians, according to the Liber, which does not mention an actual engagement in 1015.