After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Sardinia was held first by the Vandals and then by the Byzantines. According to the letters of Pope Gregory I, a Romanized and Christianized culture (that of the "provinciales") co-existed with several Pagan cultures (those of the "Gens Barbaricina", i.e. "Barbarian People") mainly located in the island's interior. As the Byzantine control waned, the Judicates appeared. A small village known as Nugor appears on some medieval doeuments of XI-XIII centuries. In the two following centuries it grew to more than 1000 inhabitants. Nuoro remained a town of average importance under the Aragonese and Spanish domination of Sardinia, until famine and plague struck it in the late 17th century.