Ravenna
Its role in earlier medieval change and exchange
- Author(s)
- Volume editor Judith Herrin and Jinty Nelson
- Series
- IHR Conference Series Open access titles

Description
In the long-debated transition from late antiquity to the early middle ages, the city of Ravenna presents a story rich and strange. From the fourth century onwards it suffered decline in economic terms. Yet its geographical position, its status as an imperial capital, and above all its role as a connecting point between East and West, ensured that it remained an intermittent attraction for early medieval kings and emperors throughout the period from the late fifth to the eleventh century. Ravenna’s story is all the more interesting because it was complicated and unpredictable: discontinuous and continuous, sometimes obscure, sometimes including bursts of energetic activity. Throughout the early medieval centuries its flame sometimes flared, sometimes flickered, but never went out.
Table of contents
Introduction
1. A tale of two cities: Rome and Ravenna under Gothic rule
Peter Heather
2. Episcopal commemoration in late fifth-century Ravenna
Deborah M. Deliyannis
3. Production, promotion and reception: the visual culture of Ravenna between late antiquity and the middle ages
Maria Cristina Carile
4. Ravenna in the sixth century: the archaeology of change
Carola Jäggi
5. The circulation of marble in the Adriatic Sea at the time of Justinian
Yuri A. Marano
6. Social instability and economic decline of the Ostrogothic community in the aftermath of the imperial victory: the papyri evidence
Salvatore Cosentino
7. A striking evolution: the mint of Ravenna during the early middle ages
Vivien Prigent
8. Roman law in Ravenna
Simon Corcoran
9. The church of Ravenna, Constantinople and Rome in the seventh century
Veronica Ortenberg West-Harling
10. Nobility, aristocracy and status in early medieval Ravenna
Edward M. Schoolman
11. Charlemagne and Ravenna
Jinty Nelson
12. The early medieval naming-world of Ravenna, eastern Romagna and the Pentapolis
Wolfgang Haubrichs
13. San Severo and religious life in Ravenna during the ninth and tenth centuries
Andrea Augenti and Enrico Cirelli
14. Life and learning in earlier eleventh-century Ravenna: the evidence of Peter Damian’s letters
Michael Gledhill
15. Culture and society in Ottonian Ravenna: imperial renewal or new beginnings?
Tom Brown
Reviews
"A wonderful read!"