The Road to Ravenna: Judith Herrin (500)
Professor Judith Herrin, Author of Ravenna
In 500 AD most Italian cities were sliding into decline. Rome had been violently sacked twice in the previous century and Milan, sometime capital of the empire, had suffered a similar fate. In stark contrast, Ravenna, a coastal city to south of Venice, was on the rise - a flourishing centre that was home to Theoderic, the Ostrogothic king of Italy who was busy adorning his capital.
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Professor Judith Herrin has spent much of her career as an archaeologist and historian shedding light on the fascinating but often overlooked period referred to as ‘Late Antiquity’. In her view, the centuries between 400 and 700 should be seen as a beginning, rather than an ending, and her preferred term is ‘Early Christianity’.
Ravenna was the most important city in Italy in this period and Herrin’s interest was first awoken when her Mother took her there as a teenager to see the extraordinary mosaics that adorn its church walls.
Ravenna was a constant source of inspiration and eventually she decided to write a book about the city. Ravenna, Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe is the result of nine years of meticulous research and tells the story of the multitude of rulers, doctors, lawyers, craftsmen, cosmologists and theologians who lived and worked there, revealing the city’s crucial role as a meeting point between east and west.
Location of Ravenna in Italy (Wiki Commons)
In doing so, Herrin provides us with a new and invigorating understanding of how modern Europe was forged during this time against the backdrop of the failing Roman Empire, the Gothic and Lombard incursions, the rise of Islam and schisms within Christianity.
Variously reviewed as ‘a masterpiece’, ‘a masterwork’ and ‘masterful’, Herrin’s book restores Ravenna to its position as a major centre in the history of Europe. In this episode she takes us back to 500AD when the Eastern Roman Empire was ruled by Anastasius, who had been chosen for the role by Ariadne, widow of the previous emperor Zeno. Anastasius and Ariadne were married soon after and he set about energetically ruling with her at his side.
By this point the empire in the West was a shadow of its former self and Italy was being ruled by Theoderic, a Goth who had himself crowned king in 493 with full imperial pomp and ceremony. The old Roman elite lived on in Rome surrounded by crumbling ruins and an increasingly depleted population while Theoderic made his capital in Ravenna, employing hundreds of specialist craftsmen to build churches glorifying his Arian (as opposed to Catholic) Christian faith.
Theoderic’s success as a monarch lay in his determination to combine Roman, Gothic and Byzantine traditions and his tolerance towards people of different faiths and cultures whom he welcomed to his glittering seat of government in Ravenna.
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Click here to order Judith Herrin’s book from John Sandoe’s who, we are delighted to say, are supplying books for the podcast.
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Show notes
Scene One: Constantinople. The Emperor Anastasius rules over a large and expanding capital city. His early training as a bureaucrat stands him in good stead when it comes to managing and running the empire, leaving the fighting up to his generals.
Scene Two: Rome. Theoderic arrives in Rome, his first and only visit to the city. Whilst there, he meets local Roman nobles as their overlord and promulgates his law code and spends six months repairing the ancient imperial palace and an important theatre.
Scene Three: Ravenna: Theoderic returns to his capital city, now the most important centre of government in Italy from which he rules a much larger kingdom. His sets out on an impressive building program constructing a magnificent palace church, cathedral and baptistery, and eventually his own tomb, amongst other buildings, many of which survive today.
Memento: A leaf of the Gothic Bible, written in silver and gold ink on special purple dyed parchment
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Presenter: Violet Moller
Guest: Professor Judith Herrin
Production: Maria Nolan
Podcast partner: Colorgraph
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About Judith Herrin
Judith Herrin won the Heineken Prize for History (the 'Dutch Nobel Prize') in 2016 for her pioneering work on the early Medieval Mediterranean world, especially the role of Byzantium, the influence of Islam and the significance of women. She is the author of Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire, The Formation of Christendom, A Medieval Miscellany and Women in Purple. Herrin worked in Birmingham, Paris, Munich, Istanbul and Princeton before becoming Professor of Late Antique and Byzantine Studies at King's College London until 2008, where she is now the Constantine Leventis Visiting Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Classics. She has excavated in Greece, Cyprus and Turkey, and served for thirty years on the editorial board of Past and Present.
Featured images from Ravenna (c) Keiran Dodds
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Click here to order Ravenna by Colin Jones from our friends at John Sandoe’s Books.ake it stand out
This book was in our summer catalogue but we include it (exceptionally) in the present one too because it is outstanding. As in her ‘Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire’ (2007), she brings a complex, remote subject triumphantly to life. Reading this will change the way you think about Italy, the Mediterranean, the Dark Ages, and much else (including, undoubtedly, our own era). The book is well produced, with generous reproductions of the astonishing mosaics. (John Sandoe’s)
